Dollhouse

That's a fair point, re: Desdemona. Rolled my eyes at my first look at her hard enough to dislodge a contact lens.

I suppose my biggest objection* to the B&S female characters is the character model itself: the basic anatomical framework is just absurd, even more ridiculous than the proportions available in CoH. Well, that and the ridiculous walking animations and such... It's kind of a given that any game with an extensive costume selection is going to have "tart-o-rama" possibilities. It's kind of a given for the market.

*And "objection" is really too strong a word...to each their own. Besides, it gives me something to make snarky remarks about. Gotta have that.

Some of the combat looked interesting to me, too. I'd prefer a much more realistic martial arts game, but for something in the fantasy context, the over-the-top, arcade style stuff makes sense.

Seriously? That makes me wonder if we played the same game, frankly. Nothing in CoH even comes close to B&S's level of hypersexuality, as I see it. But this takes us back you your earlier comment about subjectivity. It's an "eye of the beholder" thing.

I should point out that I'm doing my best to assess Blade & Soul without letting my unhappiness with NCSoft color my perception. I'm probably failing in that to some degree. I think I'd still be somewhat aghast at how the female characters are in B&S if the whole CoH closure had never happened...but I'm fallible.

I was just making a bit of a joke (rather obviously, I thought), but please don't presume to tell me what I have and haven't looked into. I have in fact taken a look at the majority of Blade & Soul information available in the West, including dozens of videos, including character creation and gameplay. I "bothered" to look at plenty, thanks.

I stand by my characterizations of Blade & Soul (here and elsewhere). I particularly stand by my description of the female character models, some of the costume options, and animations as absurdly hypersexualized. Some of the female walking animations would embarrass a stripper. I suspect someone's already worked up a tutorial on how to configure the controls to play with one hand...

Hey to each their own...but let's not try to pretend this game is something it's not, m'kay?

As long as that cue is "never, ever make anything remotely like the shameless fanservice softcore of Blade & Soul, even with a Sharpie on the back of an envelope on your lunch hour," then I wholeheartedly agree.

And as you say, art is entirely subjective, so YMMV (and clearly, it does!).

It's interesting to me how difficult it seems to be for game designers to avoid the Holy trinity. And it's perhaps even more so that CoH managed to (mostly) do so, despite having "locked" AT types. Even The Secret World, with a very open character creation and progression system gives rise to the dread trinity (the more-difficult content tends to be done almost exclusively by 5-man teams consisting of 1 "tanker" deck, one "healer" deck and three characters set up for DPS). I think the Holy Trinity is less something built in to most games than it is something that naturally arises...because it's effective.

Mind you, one difference in TSW is that any character can play any role, at least once they're "matured" in terms of having large portions of the ability wheel covered and have leveled up a broad selection of skills. You can build and save multiple decks and switch from a DPS deck to a Healing deck (for example) with a couple of clicks. Not in combat...but at any time the character's not in combat mode. It's fun...

Or at the very least, these obsessive pinheads could quit threadjacking every discussion with their tiresome spew...

If the reviews on Glassdoor are any indication, you're probably more likely to be anti-NCSoft if you are an employee...

Yep...far, far fewer of them in Egypt and Transylvania (post-launch content...). Not sure I've seen any in the latter, in fact. Just poking my nose in there at this point, though...

Been enjoying TSW immensely, despite it performing very poorly on my three-yer-old machine.

Yeah, that was the thing with Fallen Earth: significant problems with the game just don't get fixed for months on end. It was a problem when the game was completely independent under Icarus (although not as bad), and it's worse under Gamers First (where the staff dedicated to the game is literally just a handful of people).

Just prior to selling to G1, the game was working well. The bug count was fairly low and the performance had gotten quite good. But after G1 bought the game, there was a need to migrate to G1's very different server architecture, and that migration wasn't done well at all. All the old perfomance issues (lag, rubberbanding, map geometry issues, and more) returned with a vengeance. At the time I unsubbed (played from Open Beta up to about a year or so into Live), the ongoing and unfixed performance issues had gotten to the point where they were ruining immersion and making playing the game a chore, not a joy.

And that's a damn shame. Second only to The Secret World, Fallen Earth was the most immersive MMO I've ever played. They just flat nailed the post-apocalypse vibe. In addition, the game had the best combat system I've ever played in an MMO, hands down. Just prior to the G1 change, when the game was at its performance peak, Icarus managed to grab what I consider the Holy Grail in MMO combat systems: a functional reticule (FPS/TPS) targeting system. Real targeting in an MMO, not tab-to-target and target lock...I was one happy Dollhouse, I'll tell ya. Now I've been forced back to traditional MMO combat systems...and I haz a sad.

Nope...because it's not "just sitting there." It's being dissolved. That means that whatever value NCSoft assigns to it (and will stand up to tax auditing...more on that in a sec) will make its way onto their balance sheets as a capital loss. This, along with their Q2 losses, can offset the very significant capital gains that they'll see from the GW2 launch, etc.

That valuation? It will without question be higher than any realistic offer they may have received for the CoH IP (low seven figures range at best). Corporations get away with shenanigans like overvaluing non-tangible assets for capital loss purposes all the time. They've probably valued all the Paragon City assets they're dissolving somewhere in the $5-6 million range (speculation on my part, please understand...). Not a chance in hell they received an offer anywhere near that.

I suspect you're absolutely right. I doubt they expected to even receive any, at least any that were close to the market value of the IP (to say nothing of the inflated tax valuation). All the furor probably took them by surprise. They've never shown much to make one think they "get" the Western market.

But in the end, this is a cold-blooded bottom line decision...and for all that I hate it, I understand it. Half a million or (maybe) a million...or five million or so in tax offsets? No competent executive would fail to choose the latter.

It does...and if you complete 30 missions in that time, you get two more days added on.

Excellent post! I grabbed three months of CO when the NCSoft announcement came down (I was in the CO beta and played for six months after launch, too). I won't be re-subbing after that, as the game still doesn't "grab" me, but I also take issue with the claim that the combat system is poor. For me, it's easily the best part of the game. Dynamic, with nice graphics, good "flow," and a nice pace and feel to it. I use a "target center of screen" set-up, with a reticule, as that comes closest to the actual real-time reticule (FPS-style) targeting I prefer in games.

So far, it seems like my new home is The Secret World. I'm really enjoying it, even though my current machine really struggles with playing it. When I can build a new gaming box, that will probably seal the deal. Of course, I'd been following that game's development for years, as it's setting and such are basically the game of my dreams.

TSW is nothing short of brilliantly written. The atmosphere is incredibly immersive and the focus on story succeeds because of this - truly good writing makes a story focus work (should be obvious, but so many games have story lines that read like really bad fanfic). Cutscenes are miles beyond any other MMO I've seen. The game's a dream for roleplayers, basically.

I'm not a huge fan of TSW's combat system, but I also realize a big part of that dissatisfaction lies in the stuttering and glitching that results from the game being a bit much for my machine. I doubt I'll ever love it (tab targeting, indifferent animations, long-ish activation times for some abilities...), but a faster framerate will make it a lot better.

Lots more to say about TSW...but this post is already well into tl;dr territory!

Correct. If they're outside a certain radius around their spawn point (don't know exactly what that distance is), they won't proximity aggro on anyone but the person who got their aggro in the first place. The only non-deliberate way to aggro them would be to fire off an AoE during a fight with something else.

Related story: My team of three (all of us CoH refugees, as it happens) had someone train four Rift Martyrs on us out back of the Overlook Motel in Savage Coast a couple nights ago. Which we proceeded to curbstomp with our QL4 (pretty much appropriate to starting that zone) or so builds... The guy even commented in Say (Local), "You guys are good." That made me smile, so I didn't even report him! I think he was just bored...

"Aw, crud...I just got snagged by something sticking out from the wall..." *pause* "And now MY HAIR IS ON FIRE!!!"

Targeting really is a "to each their own" sort of thing, but I much, MUCH prefer reticule targeting (like in FPS/TPS games). It's uncommon in MMOs, and I've always been willing to tolerate targeting systems I don't like as much (tab- or click-to-target) in order to get all the thngs about MMOs I love. But there are a few MMOs that have dynamic reticule targeting (Fallen Earth, for example) or which allow a reasonable facsimile (CO, if you know how to set up the HUD that way).

I'm an "RPvP" player (yes, we exist!), and my reticule preference is strongest in PvP, but I prefer it for PvE, too.

Venge bait...

B2P ("buy to play")

It's a good model, and may well be the way forward, even for top-tier titles (if GW2 is any indication). GW1 has worked out well, with an up front cost and then only very large, campaign-level updates requiring purchase (other updates are free, and download from the patcher like a subscription game). The cash shop stuff is pretty much just utility and vanity items.

It's more politely than I'd have stated much the same thing ("Grow the ***** up!"). The OP's post was way, way out of line.

Even without the advocacy of illegal activity, it was still silly. "Revenge?" For making what they believe to be a necessary business decision? I think it was the wrong decision, but then again, I don't know the details. Given that CoX was at least somewhat profitable, I'd be fairly certain this decision was made more for tax offset purposes, not simple balance sheet calculations. That's how corporations work: cold, hard mathematics. They're not out to "get" us or anything like that. It's just a matter of bottom line.

Avoid NCSoft's products if you feel you can't count on them not to shutter a game you decide to commit to (that's what I'm doing). But "revenge?" Don't be an idiot.