Clintonian

There are several 'outdoor' instanced missions set in Paragon City available to CoV players.

[ QUOTE ]
Honestly i dont want any new zones in Coh yet. I want the existing zones to rock so much that it makes your eyes bleed. I want multilevel story archs similar to striga/croatoa/the hollows to explain such things as:
-how DA became DA, and things of that nature.
-How eden became eden and things of that nature
-connect the hive to edens story, as there connected im sure.

[/ QUOTE ]
/sign

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hey now.

This is the new "civil" Friggin' Taser here.

I have yet to belittle or insult anyone in this thread!

/em passes out some Grape flavored Big League Chew to all

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, this is true and I'm getting dern tired of it! I am not wasting my precious playing time to read you behave yourself young man!

[/ QUOTE ]
Welcome to the ubernific massivity.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
All I want for CoH is villain costumes and newspaper missions. They just get those in, I'll be fine....

I reeeealllllllllllly hope they got brokers in. >_<

[/ QUOTE ]

How the heck would brokers fit into CoH?

[/ QUOTE ]
Like the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. fits into Captain America's or the Avengers' narrative, or like Oracle fits into various DC titles.

Brokers are just contacts that are a little more dynamic.

[ QUOTE ]
I love playing this game, but I often get strange reactions from people when I tell them I play MMO's. How do you guys justify/explain playing the game/use of the game?

[/ QUOTE ]
I mock their fantasy football league if they really push the point.

Your linkage burns my eyes.

It can be done this way: Odd Screenshot

[ QUOTE ]
The April fools joke was supposed to be a temporary power of Vaz vomit. That had a percentage chance of making other hero’s vomit.

[/ QUOTE ]
Only 2 1/2 months until April 1, 2006!


Tip of the hat to The_Last_Archon

Neener-neener.

[ QUOTE ]
from here.

"Guided by the Legacy Chain mystics, Statesman tracked the origin of these radiating ley lines to a quiet, unassuming city park. By the light of the full moon, Statesman approached the small park from which the unearthly power emanated. "Without warning, an ancient magic lashed Statesman with its luminescent tendrils, capturing him helpless with no Freedom Phalanx to back him up. Lured by an unknown hand, Statesman had unwittingly walked into a trap designed to drain his powerful energy!"

So now we know why States loves teaming and hates soloing so much: he sucks at it!

I mean, he didn't even have a Breakfree in his Insp tray? Noob!

[/ QUOTE ]
Funny.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Just an idea... maybe create a post that gets updated weekly, and put as a sticky on the Test Server forum, called "Soon..." which lists things like this that are in short or long term development?

[/ QUOTE ]

Good idea.. in theory.

In reality it would work out like this. The players see a change on the thread and one of two things is likely to occur.

1. Much [censored] and moaning done months and months before a change is even being considered truely being put in the game. We would hear complaining about nerfs when the devs are only "seeing what will happen" with no intention of putting it in the game.

2. "OMG! YOU PROMISED!" Something good shows up in the thread. Players rejoice, but months down the line it doesn't happen because of various technical issues and game limitations.. or just because it would be THAT hard to implement.

[/ QUOTE ]

People said the same thing when Turbine Entertainment did the same thing. There were people like yourself who foretold doom & gloom.

As it turned out, there was little of either. Turbine had several categories that they sorted things into and it was clearly stated that anything on there was subject to change and that as things moved into "next patch" status they became more reliable/likely to appear in-game. They still do this and it gives their palyerbase a roadmap of where things are heading and what's happening.

It works remarkably well. But then Cryptic will never know if it works for them until they try it. Given the lack of updates the "Known Issues" link gets, I'm not so certain it'll work here like it did for Turbine.

[/ QUOTE ]
But they DID try it. For much of 2004, we were given glimpses of what the next 6-12 months were like. Then, as Cryptic hired up to produce CoV, just about every ETA slipped to some degree as well as certain feature additions. Much gnashing of teeth ensued, much throwing about the word "lie" and "liar", and much more DOOM was predicted.

I'll agree that the 'Known Issues' list ought to be kept more current, but beyond that you've lost me.

I'll trust that when Cryptic hones a better production pipeline, they'll start letting players in on the map of the future. Personally, I prefer the current status quo until then. Expressions of ambiguous disappointment have proven to be more palatable than expressions of specific disappointment.

[ QUOTE ]
BTW can someone fill me in on the stealth nerf revoked bit? I've been away from the game for over a month (due to work and personal reasons) so I don't know if this is regarding some recent change that was revoked, or the way stealth has worked for the last few months suddenly changed.

[/ QUOTE ]
From the test server patch notes last week:

You are no longer allowed to interact with mission objectives while you are stealthed or untouchable.

The part about steathed is being jettisoned as it's heavy-handed and, more importantly I think, it opened up griefing possibilities. Check the Dev Digest for Statesman's recent posts. He's been chatty this week.

I don't think I carry the gravitas to be threatening enough to people to get /ignored. He was probably daunted by your ability to unleash a barrage of pertinent posts in quick succession.

He and I would spar for days in a row and now I can't even recall why. About whether CoH was the worst grind ever probably.

/mock tear

/insincere regret

[ QUOTE ]
NM: It was Revolution_Pr0/Backagain/Diva_Dauntless

[/ QUOTE ]
He was one of my faves. Miss him. He could be a clever monkey at times.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Toggle-dropping is a terrible kludge. I'm sorry if you like it.

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, they're working on that too.

[/ QUOTE ]
Kali was the first person to respond to that Statesman post yesterday, for goodness sake.

Good idea. Thanks for the link!

[ QUOTE ]
Really? Six months?

[/ QUOTE ]
I think it was more like 3 Issue updates a year, but I'm having a lazy day after finishing up a jury duty stint, so I'm not gonna dig around for the citation.

/sign brother.

Nevermind enjoying the ride - how about work, quality time with the person you rub naughty bits with, social obligations, that stack of unread books on the shelf, and all the stuff on the Tivo?

[ QUOTE ]
It doesnt take more than a month to hit 40 for most ppl,

[/ QUOTE ]
*sigh*

[ QUOTE ]
Hey that'll make it 3+ months since the last Update...I think that'll be the longest we've gone w/o an update.


[/ QUOTE ]
Both I4 and I5 were released after around 4 month intervals. I3's Live server release was over 3 months after I2's. The 'new Issue every 2-3 months' company goal went out he window a long time ago.

[ QUOTE ]
LIVE ONCE MORE

[/ QUOTE ]
mother [censored] er. I always get sucked in for a post or two before the stench of rotted meat hits my nostrils.

[ QUOTE ]
There should be no attack in the game other than Nukes, that should do more than 75% of a squishies health, period.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'd just like to note that a certain number of people out there are huge fans of declarative sentences that end with ", period." or "- period.".

It immediately convinces some to believe... the contrary view.

It inspires certain readers to read on... no further.

It makes some people seriously consider the poster's point... and seriously consider putting him/her on ignore.

Honestly, what declarative sentence couldn't be improved by putting two periods at the end? Hmm? I'm sure our blind friends who read the forums in braille agree.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In addition (and it may be a blow to the American ego), the North American market is essentially a test market for the Asian market where the real money is. CoH/CoV makes a bit of money right now, but ultimately the game is being groomed for Asian release where the economies of scale can be more profitable. It most likely doesn't matter if CoH/CoV ever gets close again to 200K with the North Atlantic subscriptions.

[/ QUOTE ]

In other words, they do NOT care about us. We are only beta testers for the Asian release.

Statesman, deny that if you dare.

I only wish I had realized this truth a year and a half ago. :/

[/ QUOTE ]
I can see how you could leap to that conclusion, since you were looking for a rationalization for your anxiety, but it's not well-supported. Draaaaa-ma.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately, I pointed to SirBruce's outdated chart instead of NCSoft's numbers. Frankly, SirBruce's is the one I go to - it lists the competition, so to speak. Or at least to a degree. As SirBruce will tell you, it's really difficult to get numbers out of publishers. NCSoft posts ours.


[/ QUOTE ]Why is it that NCSoft posts their games? Other than attempting to brag over Lineage II having been big, perhaps, I cannot imagine why such embarassing numbers would be so publically available.

[/ QUOTE ]
NCSoft posts their numbers as part of their securities filings with the Korean stock exchange. NCSoft is a publicly-traded company. I'm not sure why other games made by publicly-traded companies in the US and Europe don't have to follow suit.

I'm not sure why you consider the numbers to be embarassing. As I pointed out in my previous post, NCSoft is involved with a long-term strategy to create a diversified MMOG portfolio of niche games in addition to their flagship moneymaker, the Lineage series of games. The bar they set for success isn't EQ2's or Lineage's or WoW's. It was around 100K subscribers - the same one likely set for Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault coming out next year.

In addition (and it may be a blow to the American ego), the North American market is essentially a test market for the Asian market where the real money is. CoH/CoV makes a bit of money right now, but ultimately the game is being groomed for Asian release where the economies of scale can be more profitable. It most likely doesn't matter if CoH/CoV ever gets close again to 200K with the North Atlantic subscriptions.

[ QUOTE ]
EverQuest, which I detest, is severely outdated and only barely beats out an Etch-A-Sketch on graphics still has incredibly high subscription rates. Of course, that dev team learned to actually LISTEN to their players and not FORCE those players to play how they (the EQ devs) thought the game should be played.

[/ QUOTE ]
That's a little bit of an apples to oranges comparison. EQ is a game (like Ultima and even the Final Fantasy games) that is set in the #1 popular genre for MMOGs - sword & sorcery - and has an established playerbase from back when there was little competition. It also has the benefit of the Sony Station Pass to maintain it's numbers. That's the rub: there are sword & sorcery subscription MMOGs and then everything else. The only "everything else" game to make a big splash is The Sims. Even then, that's only really comparable to Guild Wars, because they are both fee-free games that rely on boxed expansion sales. CoH/CoV does pretty well for an "everything else" subscription MMOG.

It's never good to wield bumper sticker-length economics truisms as if it's threatening, Majestic. It isn't. You're writing 'Full House'-level neener-neeners with a predominately 'Sports Night'-appreciative audience in this forum.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
*sigh*

Let's see if I can lay this thing to rest.

At I5 - and now again with ED - some claim that the game is "dying" and that thousands of players are leaving. This isn't true. We're actually gaining customers. Not hundreds of thousands, but we're gaining nevertheless.

Then all of a sudden I read Armsman's post where he talks about our original launch subscription numbers - which isn't really the point. My entire response on this thread has been focused to I5 and ED reaction - so the more pertinent number to look at would be what our numbers were just previous to I5...not our numbers just after launch. Never did I make a claim that we have more subscribers now than we did last year. My point continues to be: ED and I5 haven't created a ghost town out of City of Heroes.

[/ QUOTE ]

*sigh*

Now remove that little variable in the equation called "City of Villains". Where would your subscription numbers be if ED had gone live without the launch of a hugely hyped expansion? Your mastery at the prestidigitation of facts is astounding. Had ED gone live sans CoV, then we would be looking at an entirely different scenario.

[/ QUOTE ]
And if only we could remove that variable of time moving inexorably forward, it would be April 28th, 2004, when Fire Tanks and AR/Dev Blasters were gods among men.

It can be interesting to look at data with certain variables taken out, but ultimately one has to look at all the pertinent data and all the variables. If there wasn't CoV, there would still be something else in a box on the shelves from Cryptic/NCSoft right now. It's part of the business plan for MMOGs to solidify their base after about a year. WoW is following suit, I believe. I don't know about EQ2.

Some variables are more optional than others. CoV, or some other boxed Expanshalone!, is not a very optional. If ED was planned from last March (of this, I have little doubt. The general idea of it coalesced in the HO adjustment threads from last Xmas.), then I4, I5, and ED all set set the stage for a revitalized combat math system just in time for the next retail offering from the company.