Dark Quill

It appears to have been a VERY easy decision for them to close Paragon Studios since Paragon Studios had no idea it was coming. They don't seem to have given Paragon Studios any idea of what it would take to stay open BEFORE the closure, and they don't seem to have acted in good faith when trying to sell the studio or the game.

If City of Heroes is so special, then they would maintain the game, even in stasis. After all, it was making money, wasn't it? City of Heroes is not Exteel. Or Dungeon Runners. Or Tabula Rasa. Or any other game that was leaking cash. City of Heroes was built on over eight years of success and was still succeeding. THAT is the game and the studio they decided to close down. How incredibly ridiculous!

I'm unconvinced that NCSoft went into those negotiations with good faith. Or that they made a good faith effort to look for other buyers. It seems to me that they're still:
(1) Laying off American workers who were
(2) Making them money
and
(3) Refusing to allow a profitable game to continue to serve and entertain its global audience.

Shame on you, NCSoft.

When Tabula Rasa's closing was announced on Nov 21, 2008:
http://web.archive.org/web/200812201...bula_rasa_team

the reparations for paying subscribers was announced the same day (by our own Avatea):
http://web.archive.org/web/200812200...ur_subscribers

Almost four years ago. . . management policies could've changed since then. But in 2008, subscribers knew the same day what was going to happen.

A little closer to the current date, we see it took three weeks for Exteel:

When Exteel's closing was announced on July 27th, 2010:
http://web.archive.org/web/201008011...od_things.html
Things were a little bleaker, but there was still a promise of news about rewarding customers in the future. It was delivered on August 18th, 2010:
http://web.archive.org/web/201008211...y_rewards.html
Three weeks down the road.

We're only two weeks in. But we haven't even been told that we're going to be told anything. Zwill has just said he'll pass anything along that he gets, but that he hasn't gotten anything.

I would like to take the fact that we have no word as a sign that discussions are still underway. To announce perks for subscribers now could affect any business negotiations. After all, if the game might not close after all, one ought not promise things for when it does. (On the other hand, I rather think one ought not announce its closing in the first place. But hey.)

I'm figuring that this counts as continuing "to make noises so ncsoft cannot ignore players." So I'm in.

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[Admin] Alpha Wolf: Sorry guys but I don't have any new update. I know Paragon management is having discussion with ncsoft and investors. Continue get people to sign online petitions, post on game forums, and just continue to make noises so ncsoft cannot ignore players.
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If Paragon Studios was making money (no matter how little), then NCSoft could've sold it or spun it off. It is their apparent failure to even try that raises my ire.

Therefore NCSoft should know that the $15 that I spend monthly on games will never go to another NCSoft product due to this behavior. They are free to shut down their games at will. I am free to not buy and play games that will be shut down even if they're profitable.

My boycott of SOE post-SWG-NGE has lasted for many years. I expect this to last as well.

If they get enough people boycotting, then they will realize that their attempt to keep CoH out of someone else's hands to avoid competition will be fruitless.

To this end, I encourage people to be specific about exactly how much money of theirs won't be going to NCSoft. I know many people spend much more than my $15/month on CoH.

Count me in. Thanks for heading the charge, TonyV.

I currently find it fun to put all manner of procs into low-damage, low-recharge, low-endurance powers. It's part of the fun of making a build. I mean, what else am I going to put in those six slots that don't need more end reduction or recharge reduction or range enhancement? The other powers NEED more slots of that stuff, so I won't be wasting their slots on procs.

So I'd prefer you keep crafted IOs as they are instead of shifting to this newfangled PPM system which makes my brain hurt.

I don't really care what you do with SBEs because I don't have any. It befuddles me, however, that they were designed to work any differently than crafted enhancements. Boggles the mind. This is me. Boggled.

thanks for asking for our feedback!

Golly gee, Zwill. We paid $40 for CoV. We got 5 new archetypes with that (and a ton of content and costumes and bases). So that's $8/archetype. Inflate that up to $10/archetype and you get 800 points.

There ya go.

What you're charging now for controllers and MMs for Premium players isn't useful when the new AT would never be available for VIPs for free. Controllers and MMs both become available after X amount of paragon-points spent or with VIP status. So charging Premiums for access to those ATs is just kind of a 'premium' tax. We know you didn't spend more time to develop those ATs for the premiums. In fact, it probably TOOK development time to deny access to the ATs to premiums.

So a new non-free-to-VIPs AT is not comparable to access to Controllers and MMs for Prems.

It's most comparable to new powersets. And those are already 800 points. So there you go. 800 points.

I'm assuming, of course, that these are some sort of 'epic' AT and not a full-fledged normal AT that's going to have access to a lot of similar powers to other ATs. That's another kind of question.

This is certainly disappointing news. I'd much rather have a new powerset for double-xp weekend than. . . not.

I am now rethinking my plans to set aside the weekend for double-xp. Maybe it'll just be a normal weekend after all. While I have two staff-based characters I'm looking forward to playing, I'm not even excited about levelling my new dark-dark dom (who is lovely).

I assume that when they announced Beast Mastery for March, then certainly Staff would be before Beast Mastery! It's been essentially done for quite a while. My mind is boggled that they keep holding Staff back. Are they trying to build hype? Or are they trying to frustrate us? Because what I'm feeling is frustration at this point, and bitterness. Hype can only be maintained so long.

It would be one thing if there were issues with Staff that they told us they were working on. But now it just feels cruel.

So the issue with new textures of tights is that it seems as though it'll be very difficult to get masks to match the texture of the tights. If I want a full face mask/ninja mask, or even a domino mask but I want to wear it with leathery tights, the mask will never look like it's made of the same material as the tights, right? They'd have to make a new copy of every head with every combination of mask pattern, and then let you color it.

Whereas right now, they've got one set of heads, and they let you slap some color on your head.

The obvious solution to this would be to make masks some sort of additional 3-d object, like horns. Horns can come in 'basic' or 'metal,' but are attached to the face. Masks could be the same way. The obvious problem with THAT is that as you deform the shape of the head, you'll also have to deform the shape of the mask in such a way that it continues to fit well. Is that do-able? I have no idea.

(I know another game who did it, but our models are VERY different from theirs, and given our general clipping issues when it comes to things like hats, I doubt it'd be easy to do with our system. I mean, look at what happened with the original day job 'shirts.' They had to be as puffy as jackets to keep from clipping. But the new shirt we're getting is much more form fitting, so maybe there's some room for improvement there.)


The middle-ground option would be to have 6-10 new faces/heads that grant textures and patterns in a few combinations:
Leather domino face.
leather cowl face.
metal domino face.
metal cowl face.
leather ninja mask.
metal ninja mask.

There wouldn't be much variation in mouths, but you don't get much variation in eyes as it is now with our tights-textured 'ninja mask.'

DQ

I love the idea that I'll get to hangout meaningfully in Dark Astoria forever instead of outlevelling it very early in my career.

I hate the idea that the fog won't be there. Loved the fog. I mean, you know, when I was in a hurry, it was pesky because I kept flying into buildings. But that was more than made up for by the fact that it was FOG! It was great. Low visibility. You never knew what lurked around every corner? Much, much spookier than First Ward.

I like First Ward, but it's nowhere nearly as spooky as Foggy Dark Astoria. The idea of an incarnate, Foggy Dark Astoria thrills me.

The idea of an incarnate, non-foggy Dark Astoria is just, bleh.

there's your feedback from the peanut gallery!

I've had flashing twice. Restarting the game always solves the problem for me. If it happens again, I'll send my info in.

hey, Zwillinger, I feel compelled to point out that we still don't know when the Server Transfer tokens are rewarded -- end of VIP month, beginning of VIP month, middle of VIP month...

I feel a bit silly when I have to tell people in the Help channel that the Devs don't know the answer to this question. Of course, I know you're not a Dev, you're an awesome CR dude, but if the Devs knew, surely they'd have told you by now. And surely there should be a FAQ somewhere that tells new users all this stuff, and that Support could use to tell people when they petition with questions. But I'm thinking there's not. This befuddles me.

Hey, Zwill, thanks for the info, but don't forget that we need clarification about the timing of the server transfer tokens as well!

Thanks for alerting us to the new stuff!

I look forward to a 50% off sale for Street Justice in the (far?) future.

I've got to wait
(1) for the points to accumulate
and
(2) for it to go on sale.

Then, and only then, can Street Justice and I sit down for a little chat.

What needs to be clarified is whether these things accumulate at the BEGINNING of the month on your billing date or at the END of the month on your billing date.

So, if I'm a Premium player. And I become a VIP for precisely 1 month starting October 10th, 2011.

Do I receive these things on October 10th or on November 10th?
(1) 400 paragon points
(2) 1 paragon reward token
(3) 1 free character transfer

They're both my billing date, but it's unclear to me which is the answer.

Obviously the preferred answer would be October 10th, since I'm *unlikely* to be able to make productive use of that 1 free character transfer after my month of VIPness is over.

And given that I subscribed on Day 1 of Freedom, and I received my character transfer tokens a week later when they handed them out, I'm guessing that the answer is October 10th for *at least* #3.

Re: Galaxy City

I certainly hope we can skip the new tutorial just like we can the old ones.

Re: Percentages of new players who will choose villains

I believe the OP is starting that no matter what percentage of players choose villains for their first character, it will surely be a non-trivial number. So if only 25% of Free Players choose villains first, one would still want to give those 25% of Free Players the best experience.

I rather enjoy the architectural atmosphere redside. I enjoy the shanty-town nature of Mercy Island. And pre-GR, I often preferred the villainous ATs. And WAY BACK before everyone could have all the COV costume bits, I made villains because they had more options available.

I do think that the Dev Team *is* trying to address some of the complaints about redside. I've long heard about people complaining about the 'Destined One' arc being all about you being a lackey for Arachnos. And now, with i21 and the Mercy Island revamp, the Devs claim to be moving away from that.

(That said, and off-topic, us all being lackeys for the Well of the Furies seems to be repeating the same mistake again. It would have been better for the Well to NOT have been sentient, but merely a shared source of power.)