Doctor Vivian
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:I'm sorry if I have offended you in any way -- it was never my intention to offend anyone.Originally Posted by SenseiBlur
Honestly I wish you luck but your message is just not rubbing me the right way.
I've thought about it but I'm just at a loss as to how we can help, if not through this route.
Any suggestions as to better ways to help ensure CoX's survival would be happily received.
-- Vivian -
Quote:It's great that you did recruit people. I've been here for almost 6 years myself, and I also have recruited all the friends that I could.Originally Posted by Basilisk
Why should I put any more effort into this than the people who are being paid to? I've been around this game for near on 7 years now. I've had a good run. If NC's nonexistent marketing lets it fade into obscurity so it can die with a whimper, then so be it. I've done my part to support this game, both in recruitment and in subscriptions. I wish you the best of luck, but at this point, I'm too damn cynical to care.
But I'm not bitter about giving what I have, or doing what I have done over these past years. I would prefer to see the game remain alive, and continue to grow. That, in itself is the reward, the incentive. We need look for nothing greater.
While I think a grass-roots movement of poster-based promotion and actively passing-the-word to remind players to recruit friends could help reverse the downward trend that seems to be taking place in memberships, I'm open to any other better suggestions.
Even if you and I, long-time veterans of the game, have already reached out to our friends, that may not be true of new players of the game. It is with these new players that the recruiting would bear the greatest fruit.
-- Vivian -
I'm not talking about taking CoH mainstream, nor bringing in millions of new players.
I'm talking about bringing the active player base up to around 200-250k users.
Right now, with no exact numbers, signs are pointing to there being less than 100k users.
Having 200-250k users would guarantee that the game would survive and continue to be improved.
Having sub-100k users in a volatile currency market and in the wake of the cash outlay for GR is perilous.
We can sit here and pooh-pooh it, wring our hands and give up or we can try to help.
It's not in our natures -- being fans of the heroic as we all are -- to surrender, or sit idly by.
Who can I count on, to help print and distribute promotional flyers, if made available via PDF?
Raise your hands! If not here, then via PM. Let me know! I'll SPEND the money!
-- Vivian -
Quote:Crickets. Definitely crickets.Originally Posted by Doctor Vivian
Might this be of interest? I can get some posters designed fairly quickly.
-- Vivian -
Quote:Congrats and salutations to you, Zach, for doing it!Originally Posted by zachary_EU
I'm done that couple of times
Sadly they were only couple of months visitors but basically they liked the game. They just had other interests to do.
But it's only to be expected that not all of these people will "stick" and become long-time heroes and heroines.
In fact, I daresay it would be a minority. Player "churn" will always happen.
Which is why, perhaps we can't let up. We need to continue reaching out and promoting City of Heroes.
Perhaps -- even beyond our immediate circle of friends, into the realm of strangers.
I am thinking of having a B&W poster made, that can be distributed here as a PDF. Players could print copies out on their own laser printer at home and put them up -- in schools, laundromats, comic book stores, roleplaying shops and other bulletin boards. The poster would have little tear-off strips at the bottom with the URL of the free trial, so interested people could take one and visit at their leisure.
This kind of outreach is something that couldn't be accomplished through any normal marketing effort on the part of NCsoft, and would reach people across all walks of life.
Might this be of interest? I can get some posters designed fairly quickly.
-- Vivian -
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While I am a great admirer of wit and levity in general, I do hope that the worth of the original message is not lost to readers of this thread among the many posted witticisms that will inevitably trail in its wake.
Yet, the constant /bump of such posts has its own value as well, and is appreciated.
-- Vivian -
Dear Fellow Heroes and Heroines,
This is an open letter to all of you, written in the hope of not only bringing about most of the changes and features that we have wished for in CoX but also to help ensure the continued success and growth of our world.
After reviewing the NCsoft Stockholder Reports, and seeing the value of the Dollar's continued decline against the value of a strong Korean Won since 2009 (19%), combined with the threat of war looming larger and larger on the Korean peninsula, I am convinced that there is a grave danger in this ongoing reduction of revenue to NCsoft of CoX some day being sold off or even of the maintenance team losing more core Lead and Senior members like Back Alley Brawler.
Yet we can avert this. The power lies in our hands, the players. We can change the entire dynamic and outlook of City of Heroes -- not only how it is viewed by NCsoft but also by the rest of the gaming world.
The answer to the question "how" is simple. Each one of us needs only recruit a SINGLE friend, co-worker or family member to join the game.
It seems almost too simple, but if every person on CoX did this it would DOUBLE the playing population -- and consequently double its revenue for NCsoft, which will far more than overcome the drop in the KRW. Such an influx of new players would allow a larger budget for the maintenance team, enabling them to staff up and more rapidly bring new features and polish to the CoX experience.
If you can bring in MORE than one person -- that's excellent! But if nothing else, even just bringing in one would be great.
Don't let this thread die. And don't rely on others seeing it, lost as it is among a million others. YOU have seen it. Get out there and spread the word. Tell your friends online, your SuperGroup members, your Coalition partners.
Encourage everyone you know to reach out a hand to someone in the physical world, show them CoX and try to bring them in. And then practice what you preach -- bring in one or more friends of your own.
The chance for a bright future lays in our hands... let's work towards it!
-- Vivian -
I also agree wholeheartedly, but I'm not chiming in just to say /signed.
The Incarnate system is great in that it has revitalized the entire community.
Not just to play in general, but to play the normal game content... and a LOT of it!
Even the AE Babies have been drawn into it, and are steadily becoming normal players.
That being said, and at the risk of sidetracking the thread, Praetoria and all of the world-building time & money spent there seems less well thought out.
I mean, we already didn't have enough users to fill up both Blue and Redside. Why add a third, discrete world? Once people got their play of it, it's mostly going to stay empty. And while that portion of the CoX gaming population is off in Praetoria, they're not in CoH or CoV, making those games even less populous than they were before.
The incarnate system did what Praetoria apparently didn't -- it's gotten a whole ton of people back on and playing, every day, every night.
Personally I think all that money spent on building and marketing Praetoria would have been better spent on marketing CoX and getting in new players. Right now it seems CoX grows or shrinks on the basis of word-of-mouth more than it does any ongoing marketing effort. -
Hi, Everybody --
I first came to CoH almost six years ago. It was, and is, my first and only MMO.
Although I originally had alts across all servers, I settled down on Guardian.
Cured of my alt-itis, I now have around 17 Level 50s on Guardian.
(Though most of the time (like 99%+) I am on as Idun, the others are for TFs)
Idun is part of the Earthclan Elite SuperGroup, she is the Base Architect.
I don't play Redside or in Praetoria, there's just no appeal for me.
Playing a villain seems a bitter, lonely experience, and Praetoria just seems... empty.
-- Vivian -
Rikti Mothership Raid Update: 12-11-2010
Hi, Folks --
The Zone was FULL to capacity once again, and both raids went flawlessly.
Shards and Vanguard Merits flowed like water!
The next 2 Back-to-Back Raids are on 12-18-10, at 5 PM Pacific (8 PM Eastern)!
Announcements will be made to the usual Channels (Guardian, Level 50, etc), of course.
-- Vivian
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Hi Armeros --
That is a good question -- we don't run events on major Holidays.
I had been planning on making an announcement, as I did for Thanksgiving.
To be clear, there will be NO Raids on Christmas and New Year's Day.
We will be taking those two weeks OFF. There will be NO alternate Raid Days.
-- Vivian -
As you know, the Longbow defend the coasts and borders of Paragon City from all comers -- as well as providing transport for an occasional emergency visit to the Rogue Isles!
A friend shared this "30 ways to simulate being in the Navy when you're at home" with me and I couldn't help but think that the Longbow on their patrol vessels would sympathize!
Read it and weep, my Guardian buddies! Tears of laughter, that is!
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1. Lock all friends and family outside. Your only means of communication should be with letters that your neighbors have held for at least three weeks, discarding two of five.
2. Surround yourself with 200 people that you don't really know or like; people who smoke, snore like Mack trucks going uphill, and use foul language like a child uses sugar on cereal.
3. Unplug all radios and TVs to completely cut yourself off from the outside world. Have a neighbor bring you a newspaper from five years ago to keep you abreast of current events.
4. Monitor all home appliances hourly, recording all vital information (i.e.; plugged in, lights come on when doors open, etc.)
5. Do not flush the toilet for five days to simulate the smell of 40 people using the same commode.
6. Lock the bathroom twice a day for a four hour period.
7. Wear only military uniforms, even though nobody cares. Clean and press one dress uniform and wear it for 20 minutes.
8. Cut your hair weekly, making it shorter each time, until you look bald or look like you lost a fight with a demented sheep.
9. Work in 19-hour cycles, sleeping only four hours at a time, to ensure that your body does not know or even care if it is day or night.
10. Listen to your favorite CD 6 times a day for two weeks, then play music that causes acute nausea until you are glad to get back to your favorite CD.
11. Cut a twin mattress in half and enclose three sides of your bed. Add a roof that prevents you from sitting up (about 10 inches is a good distance) then place it on a platform that is four feet off the floor. Place a small dead animal under the bed to simulate the smell of your bunkmate's socks.
12. Set your alarm to go off at 10 minute intervals for the first hour of sleep to simulate the various times the watch standers and night crew bump around and wake you up. Place you bed on a rocking table to ensure you are tossed around the remaining three hours. Make use of a custom clock that randomly simulates fire alarms, police sirens, helicopter crash alarms, and a new-wave rock band.
13. Have week old fruit and vegetables delivered to your garage and wait two weeks before eating them.
14. Prepare all meals blindfolded using all the spices you can grope for, or none at all. Remove the blindfold and eat everything in three minutes.
15. Periodically, shut off all power at the main circuit breaker and run around shouting "fire! fire! fire!" and then restore power.
16. At least once a month, force the commode to overflow to simulate a black water system boo-boo.
17. Buy a gas mask and smear it with rancid animal fat. Scrub the face shield with steel wool until you can no longer see out of it. Wear this for two hours every fifth day especially when you are in the bathroom.
18. Study the owner's manual for all household appliances. Routinely take an appliance apart and put it back together.
19. Remove all plant, pictures and decorations. Paint everything gray, white, or the shade of hospital smocks.
20. Buy 50 cases of toilet paper and lock up all but two rolls. Ensure one of these two rolls is wet all the time.
21. Smash your forehead or shins with a hammer every two days to simulate collision injuries sustained on board Navy ships.
22. When making sandwiches, leave the bread out for five days, or until it is hard and stale.
23. Every 10 weeks, simulate a visit to another port. Go directly to the city slums wearing your best clothes. Find the worst looking place, and ask for the most expensive beer that they carry. Drink as many as you can in four hours. Take a cab home taking the longest possible route. Tip the cab driver after he charges you double because you dress funny and don't speak right.
24. Use fresh milk for only two days after each port visit.
25. Keep the bedroom thermostat at 2 deg C and use only a thin blanket for warmth.
26. Ensure that the water heater is connected to a device that provides water at a flow rate that varies from a fast drip to a weak trickle, with the temperature alternating rapidly from -2 to 95 deg C.
27. Use only spoons which hold a minimum of 1/2 cup at a time.
28. Repaint the interior of your home every month, whether it needs it or not.
29. Remind yourself every day: 'it's not just a job, it's an adventure'
30. Mix kerosene with your water supply to simulate the desalination plant on the ship picking up jet fuel in the intake -- if a lit match thrown into your coffee pot doesn't ignite it, add more kerosene. -
After due consideration, I have changed my mind, it will be Cardiac Radial Paragon.
The extra 12% END in Core isn't worth losing all the other bonuses offered by Radial.
-- Vivian -
HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
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The next time a girl tries to dance with you, take her up on the offer!
It really is insulting to just be stonily stared at like that.
And she had gotten so nicely dressed up and everything!
-- Vivian -
Quote:It is often difficult for those not involved in game development to understand the terrible constraints of time and budget which all games, be they mobile, handheld, console or PC, are produced under.Originally Posted by Slashman
Is this what they meant when they said they had the same level of commitment to the game, no matter who left? Because apparently that statement exempted the animation department.
When long-standing, senior core team members such as BAB or any "Lead" position are let go from a team (as opposed to leaving on their own for a better opportunity elsewhere), it almost always signifies that the budget is insufficient to maintain them any longer.
And as the maintenance budget on most MMOs is almost always a percentage of the incoming revenue, it is not too far of a stretch to imagine that user revenues and population had shrunk to the point that Staff cuts were required. While BAB's absence is particularly notable, it is likely that he was not the only person who was let go.
At the end of the day, the animation list that needs to be accomplished each Issue will be carried out by the team that is on hand, and if that consists of a single Junior Animator fresh out of art school, or an Intern, or an outsourcing company in Malaysia, you're going to inevitably see a drop in quality.
The only way that this will change (in my opinion) is if the CoX playing population was to increase. More money coming in will enable better support and ongoing upgrades.
While I don't expect NCsoft to reach out to us and ask us for such a thing, a grass-roots movement amongst the players to actively attempt to recruit 2-3 of their friends into the game would not be amiss.
Imagine this -- if each one of us only got ONE friend to join up and play, we would DOUBLE the population of CoX, DOUBLE the revenue being generated, and -- most likely -- DOUBLE the budget being provided to the support team.
That, dear friends, is a good thing indeed for us to reach for.
Let's actively try and make it happen, instead of bemoaning the current state of things (as is the usual wont of players in the forums -- it being human nature)! Each of us can, today, try and bring one person into the game.
Let's do it, and see what happens!
-- Vivian -
While re-spawning the GM with additional bomb runs can be fun, what is more interesting to me is that the Rikti Pylons re-spawn, and when they're all back up the Shields go back in place. If there were 2 teams in a full zone that periodically did Pylon sweeps and knocked out any Pylons that had regenerated, would the shield ever come back up? Or could the teams in the bowl simply continue killing Rikti with no end in sight, making the limit not a mere 800 merits, but many thousands in one sitting?
-- Vivian -
Quote:That is correct. To get to "Paragon" status you will need to have two Rares already made, as one of the crafting ingredients/prerequisites for the Ultra Rare Paragon Boost is those two Rares, which get consumed in the making of the Paragon Boost.Originally Posted by Rajani Isa
Crafting each higher level ability consumes one (or more! Ultra Rares seem to require 2 rares) of the lower level ones. So if you end up wanting to craft the other uncommon musculature boost, you would have to craft another common Musculature boost.
-- Vivian -
Quote:Er... that's actually her spittoon, as she's a great fan of chewing tobacco, you see.Originally Posted by Jophiel
A smart hero would just tell Azuria that you saw a Hellion stealing her rabbit-in-a-hat next door and then, while she's gone, dunk your head in that jug of Fury water she keeps in her room.
(Although somewhat ashamed of the fact, hence her "Fury Water" story, and pushing the jug further under her desk)
That smart hero would be in for quite an unpleasant surprise.
Ick.
-- Vivian -
HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOIRE!
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Idun was my first to Alpha, straight up to Tier 2 and 21 Shards beyond already.
Purity was my second to Alpha, only because I didn't want RMR Shards to go to waste.
Arista, a late third, just because Cardiac worked so very, very well for her.
I honestly doubt I will Alpha any other toons, even though I have many Level 50s.
When it unlocks, I will just bring Idun up to Cardiac Core Paragon and wait for Judgement.
-- Vivian -
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