Consultant

One of several odd things about the decision to close CoH is that one quarter NCS is funding the growth of the game -- new content, new powers, new zones, etc. -- and also running a "secret project" at Paragon Studios which may have employed 40 of the 80 employees. The next quarter financial pressures force cuts. So NCS shuts it all down? Very odd.

If, as many report, CoH was profitable on approximately $10 million in gross revenue per year, and was also supporting 80 employees, then we could guess that the 80 employees cost something like (and this is rough) $8,000,000 per year, and that only left $2,000,000 for the cost of servers, engine license, overhead, etc.

If this was approximately correct, just firing the 40 people on the secret project would have restored quite a bit of profitability, with no large impact on sales or gross revenues. It would have put a stream of $4,000,000 in annual savings into the pot, pre-tax. By firing everyone, NCS must also have written off the investment in the secret project, which should have amounted to the sunk costs (likely capitalized) from the project. NCS also lost the possible $4,000,000 profit improvement. They take a hit to the balance sheet and lose revenue...why?


NCS' actions in closing the game make business sense in a couple of scenarios. One of them is the scenario in which NCS has such a severe cash crunch that the survival of the whole business is at stake -- but that seems unlikely at this point in time. Another scenario is that CoH was not profitable since the revs dropped in 2010, and NCS has been "carrying" it all this time, trying to get ready for a profitable re-launch centered around the "secret project."

If NCS just ran out money to complete the "secret project," then cutting the game makes sense, in a tough sort of way. Alternatively, if the secret project suddenly turned up some insuperable technical barrier, then again, the actions NCS took make sense from a business perspective.

So all of this makes me wonder...what was the "secret project" exactly? A new game engine? What engines do NCS' other games utilize? Or perhaps the secret project was to take an existing engine and adapt it to the current CoH game, in order to make improvements in graphics or server capacity?

Does anyone know what the secret project really was?

I've looked through the link to TSW several times...where is the 3-day trial option? All I see is full enrollment or a PC version plus 30 days of MMO.

Any direction would be helpful. I'm probably staring right at it and not seeing it somehow.

Does anyone know how much server capacity is required to run CoH? Let's say one "super-server" for the committed survivors of all of the current server communities. What are the parameters here? what kind of server capacity, exactly. Can this capacity be leased in the cloud?

Let's get specific about what is needed...

I don't mean to suggest that -res wins the battle with Tyrant. I DO mean to suggest that a minimum level of -res is necessary, but not sufficient by itself. And the minimum is very high. I've seen quite a few runs in which the players were excellent (mostly or all +3's), Ultimates were used, and deaths were low, but which just did not succeed. I was on many, many of these runs, usually playing a sonic/sonic defender because the -res power is the thing I thought would contribute the most to the success of the league.

This last run was very ably led by UberGuy, and that was critical. The idea of getting that many Corrs was smart and, most of all, it worked.

But I still think -res is a missing ingredient. It will be interesting to see if this proves to be true in future runs. With regard to -400% as a rough number, I am simply adding up the -res levels my character's powers deliver in a normal fight -- I don't know how much that is reduced in the tyrant fight.

But my sonic/sonic defender puts disruption field on a skilled tank (like Bionic Flea...someone who can jump, fight and survive), and then cycles sonic syphon, shout, and shriek as fast he can...usually I get a stack of 4-6 of these. Usually that's 100% to occasional peaks of 140% of nominal resistance debuff, but the number is fluctuating. "Over 100%" is a good assessment as an average...perhaps 105-115%. But it drops if I have to move too much to avoid the lights... Of course, I've tuned my defender to max recharge and accuracy. By contrast, my NA Corr (which actually got the badge), peaks on -res in the 40-44% range. Even thermal controllers (I have two) can't match a sonic for -res debuff.

As time goes on, we can see how this works out. Maybe -res is not the unappreciated factor that I think it is. We'll know from the next few sets of runs.

But the main point is -- now I have a starting point to see, since UberGuy led such a great Magi run!

This was an amazing run. Thank you, UberGuy! For those that did not participate, I think there were several keys to success:

1. Excellent leadership, and the team members were mostly all skilled players who could move out of the lights quickly but not lose much dps. There were very few deaths.
2. Everyone was using Ultimates, so we were mostly +4 rather than +3. Uber told us that a +4 delivers 30% of his damage onto Tyrant, while a +3 only delivers 15%. I think something similar applies to debuff.
3. All characters were +3, I think. Maybe a couple of +2's but not many.
4. We had 7-8 Corrs, so Scourge was high.
5. I noticed that we had approximately 400% -res (including one powerful sonic/sonic defender -- thank you Electroanagesia).
6. When we repeated the run with the same players, same skills, Ultimates, etc., but only 300% -res, we did not get close to success.

This is an approximate assessment of -res since I don't know how my teammates were playing their characters. but I've done many, many of these runs, and I think very high -res is the unappreciated "secret" of getting this badge, along with the other elements listed above.

On a slightly different note, I would wish to see a CoH2 with the same content as CoH, but with a few changes:

1. End enhancement diversification...let players push the limits and drive damage or resistance through the roof.

2. Eliminate caps on damage, defense, resistance, etc.

3. Raise inventory of recipes and salvage to 1,000.

4. Give each player a slider for the difficulty of enemies, and relate rewards to difficulty. Make this transparent, so you can see directly the precise effect on resistance, defense, hit points, etc for each enemy.

5. Give every character flight (with low endurance cost) at level 1. The game is beautiful -- let players enjoy it immediately.

6. Server transfers should be free and plentiful. Let players move anytime it makes the game more fun for them.

And then in a bigger sense, some more difficult changes:

PVP: I've played for 4 almost 4 years without ever trying PvP. It is currently too difficult to learn, and too unbalanced...there is no way for newbies to square off only against each other and learn the tricks on a level playing-field. There is no teaching/learning path for PvP. Similarly, I'd like to see a mixed PvP/PvE system in which experienced PvP masters get excellent rewards from teaching lowbies the ropes. I suspect we should also simply return to the original PvP rules...it seems we lost a lot of PvP players when the Devs changed to the current system.

PUGS: One key point of an MMO is that new players with no contacts and no friends in the game can easily find teams and make friends. This is one of the best features of the way COH is structured now, and one reason it has survived and prospered as long as it has. Changes in general should support this goal.

POWERS: I'd like a characters to be able to select a different framework -- up to 15 primary powers and no secondary powers, from the complete set of all powers in the game. Obviously, one would have to select a balance of powers from all levels, not 15 "final powers." but if you want a fire blaster with recovery aura, singularity, and radiation emission, more power to you. Powers might be less effective than their "pure" forms from the standard archetypes, but this would be enormous fun. CO and GW2 both have something like this now.

SERVERS: I play on three CoH servers, each with different character. I love the servers, but they are very limiting. What I'd like to see is a new mechanism in which many more players could be on the same server (or in the same cooperative zone, in the models mentioned earlier) at once. We need to be able to get 200 players (or more) into a zone (or a league) at once, even if it automatically shuts off all of the graphic effects (but not the powers).

SUPERGROUPS: The idea of SG's is great, but the 75-toon limit is not too helpful. 75 accounts would be a much more helpful limit, and the linkage between SGs and bases is not necessary in my view...SGs should be more social-engagement and team forming tools, and less about creating and paying for bases.

RULE CHANGES: I like the discussion in this thread that players should be able to form "shards" where they and their friends can play, isolated from the main game. Why not take that to the next level and let them change some of the rules as well? Want to play with AE enemies in Atlas Park at level 52, and a single team of 20? Knock yourself out.

After 3.5 years of playing, I've been waiting to voice these thoughts for too long. I'm glad I got the chance to put this out there now.

Does anyone have any "new news" about offers to buy or license the COH IP, or otherwise keep the game alive in some form?

I was hoping there would be more feedback from offers (such as Titan Network) and insights into what NCSoft is attempting to achieve.