Godless

I hate to say it but I was right they are ending CoX at the end of the year. If everyone wasn't a bunch of stubborn babies CoX would still be here.

I live in America, that makes me an American with freedom of speech and the right to have my own opinion. Every post in this tread was my opinion of CoX. You might not agree with how I feel but you don't have to attack me for it. I allowed everyone that posted the freedom of not being verbally assaulted. I simply posted my opinion, but honestly it's your game play the way you want to and I'll play the way I want to. If shutting down servers is a no then we won't have long to play CoX. The only bad thing I said was calling everyone narrow minded for not seeing the inevitable. I think how Pinnacle was a year ago when I left and how it is now. How will it be a year from now if things don't change? Maybe 10 - 20 players on-line, do the math. And again I only play on the Villain side of Pinnacle. All my searches are from the Search Button not the /whoall. The only time I use the /whoall is in PvP zones when I am looking for a hero to kill. Like I said Saturday night Eastern Time I'm going to go server hoping, that used to be the peek time for Pinnacle.

Aett_Thorn said,
"You are the one refusing to see the other side in this argument. You've been shown how numerically you are wrong, been shown reasons for why you might be seeing what you're seeing, and been told that some people LIKE the lower-population servers. And yet somehow WE'RE the narrow-minded ones?!?! I'm sorry that you feel the way you do...truly. But merging the servers will NOT accomplish what you think it will. It will actually do just the opposite. This has been shown by many games who have done this in the past. It causes annoyance in the current population, and doesn't bring in new players, because merging servers indicates to new players that the game is dying. So it won't do what you want, and will annoy people. And you still think it is a good idea?"

-- You think shutting down servers will give new players the impression that CoX is dieing but they will get the same thought when they log-in and see there are only 2 or 3 players in each zone. I understand how everyone feels about changes but I also know paying for a V.I.P. doesn't guarantee me anything. If CoX starts to lose money everyone is gone regardless of who you are. They will shut the game down, with out any warning. That's why I called everyone narrow-minded they can't see the inevitable future if things don't change soon.

City of Heroes/Villains is advertised as a MMO - massively multiplayer online game, not a MSO - massively someplayer online game. If I was a new player logging onto CoV for the very first time today and only seeing 2 or 3 players in Mercy Island I would say, " I'm not going to play this game it's dead, I'm not going to waste my time checking out other servers because they are probably a inactive to." We have to think about the future of CoX, there are people that play just or the game, but there are a lot more that play for the social aspect of the game. Everyone that has responded is one including me, we call our servers home and take great offense when someone talks bad about our server. Every month a MMO game gets shuts down, when CoH/CoV starts losing money they will do the same, then we all will be screwed CoXless. In April CoH will be 8 years old and for the first time it is free to play. Why would a MMO with years of charging a monthly fee add a free to play? Because the Devs know the end is coming and they are trying make a buck to save the game. In my opinion shutting down 3 servers will save CoX. Unfortunately most of the vets are against changes, changes that I feel will save CoX. Whether I have to pay for it or it's free I am moving off of Pinnacle, my home from day one, for my own personal game enjoyment. Me and my son share my account, he was sitting beside me when I logged back on after a year and did the player search and saw 23 players on-line. I turned to my son and said "Where in the hell did everyone go?", he shrugged his shoulders. I gave my son his own server on Freedom to play on. I think they need to shut down 3 servers to save CoX, the end is near but most players are to narrow minded to see that.

Doctor Roswell said,
"Names. So if you merge servers, what happens if there's a player on both with the same name? Who gets it? The player who's already on that server?"
--The ones being moved get the name change. The names I like that I have come up with over the years of game play I made characters on the other servers to keep others from using the name. I never use them, they are all level 1 or 2, they are just to park my character names on other servers. I will delete them for the transfer. I seriously doubt that I am the only one that has done that.

Doctor Roswell said,
"Super groups. Do they just split up? Are they all forced to move to the same server, even if they don't agree on which one they want to move to? What happens to their prestige? Their base? Their name, if it's taken on the new server?"
--Yes they split up but they keep their prestige and base. I know for a fact that many SG/VG have groups with the same name on other servers but I think there needs to be a 1 time game wide SG/VG rename. As far as forcing players to move to the same, no they can go to what ever server they want to they isn't being shut down.

Doctor Roswell said,
"Which server? Do you just consolidate the two with the lowest populations, thus not giving anybody a choice where they move to? Do you give everyone a server transfer for all their characters and say, "be moved out by Friday or you're getting deleted"? If you do, you'll likely end up with most people jumping ship to a place like Freedom or Virtue, in no small part because they'll see the writing on the wall and not want to have to go through all this again six months later if the devs decide to shut down another "dead" (but not really) server. Which will really just give the high-population servers even higher populations, while the lower-populations ones will stay low, and then someone would be complaining about how they need to shut down Guardian or Champion or Triumph or whatever -- and this part is important -- "like they did with Pinnacle." See, it would create a precedent for shutting down low-population servers, which would create a mass exodus from those servers, which would just make future server shutdowns more likely. It's what called a "death spiral."
--You don't consolidate servers you shut down 3 of the least active servers and give everyone on those servers free character transfers and they pick what server they want to move to. Give them 6 months to do it, any characters that belong to inactive players are sent to a random sever but with the character transfer so if they become active again they can move to what ever server they want to. Send a mass e-mail to everyone to tell them.

Doctor Roswell said,
"What about everyone else? I don't play on Pinnacle, but if the devs are just giving away free server transfers, I don't see why I should be penalized just for playing on a high-population server. Where's my free transfer? Or rather, where are my thirty-four free transfers, one for each character I have on Virtue? And my twelve for the characters I have on Exalted? And my six for Victory, and my three for Infinity?
Now, I don't really feel that way, but I promise you, there are people out there who would. And if even a tenth of the ones who'd threaten to quit paying in outrage over the "unfair treatment" they were getting actually did, you'd see a net drop in subscriptions, not a gain."
--No just the players that are losing there home. I think what everyone forgets even if there was 100 players on Pinnacle 24-7 they are scattered throughout the zones and in missions or SG/VG bases making the zones look like ghost towns. Shutting down 3 inactive servers will make it more then twice as likely to see other players. We'll never know how many people left COX because the servers are inactive. I'm sure a lot will come back for the server shut downs. This will benefit all players, the servers we move to will receive active veteran players with a much greater change to welcome and help the new players.

I should have clarified this in the original topic I only play on Villain side so I don't know the numbers on the Hero side. Also the 10 character transfers would be enough, I have 5 characters that I care about the rest of my villain characters are in the teen levels and I have no problem deleting them. I just assumed most players have 10-12 characters that they care about. Everyone that has responded are active players there is no way to see how many players left COX because of inactive servers. But I think the server merger would be a good idea. I have done missions in the past that I needed a team, which will be harder to do now, also if someone new has a question and doesn't know about the Global/Help Channels will be screwed. Everyone thinks closing server(s) would be bad and drove players away, you have think about new players starting this game for the first. If they log-in now they will see 4 - 5 players in Mercy, after the server merger and it will at least double, if not more. In my opinion someone would be more likely to stay if they saw more players running around. I have called Pinnacle home for many years and I understand how everyone feels about closing servers, in my opinion Pinnacle is dead. I am sure there are other servers out there that are in the same shape. I will be moving I can only afford 1 character transfer a month so it will be a slow process for me. On Saturday I will go server jumping to see if the others servers are suffering also.

I have been playing COV/COH on and off since 2006. Total in-game time a little over 2 years, I just came back from a 1 year break. Any break that I took it was for financial reasons which are much better now so I won't have to take any breaks. I'm not suggesting to make the game cheaper I think it is worth $14.99/month.
Here are my game suggestions :

1 - Mass e-mails to all the COV/COH players telling them about updates and changes, even the inactive ones. The only e-mail that I ever get is when I purchase something. Maybe something in the e-mail may spark interest for someone to return to the game.

2- You need to shut down some "dead" servers. All my main characters are on Pinnacle, when I left a year ago there was almost 100 players on-line at the peek. Now the peak I found was a little over 40 on-line. I am not on-line all day but about 6-7 hours broken up so I can't be sure how accurate this is just what I sew. Also I have not check the other severs so I can only speak of Pinnacle. If the Devs shut down some of the less active servers and make everyone go to a different server(s) that will help tremendously. It was very disheartening to log on for the first time after a year and see 3 players in Port Oaks and I was one of them. Send a mass e-mail to everyone telling them what server(s) you will be shutting down and give them enough free character transfers and renames to move all there characters to a different server. I think 10 transfers for everyone for every server that you will shut down will be enough. Give everyone 6 months to move everything, after that any characters that are still on the dead server(s) you move to a random server and give them enough character transfers to move so when they come back if they don't like the server you put them on they can move. I think they need to shut down at least 3 servers.
3 - The only thing that I haven't figured out are the SG/VG. If it can be done this is my idea for it, I think any SG/VG that has had no activity in 2 years should be disbanded, do that game wide to clean-up the servers, this needs to be permanent.. Let the SG/VG Overlords decide what server to send their group to. They will keep the base intact and the prestige the VG/SG has but all the members will be removed except the Overlord who will just have to re-invite all the members back. Give the SG/VG a 1 time rename option for the transfer to avoid conflict, do that game wide.

Think about the new players trying COV/COH for the first time and only seeing 2 or 3 players in a zone won't stay long. Or someone like me that remembers the hay days of Pinnacle when there was 15-20 players running around in every zone to see it now "dead". Think about the players that left because of inactivity on the servers that will comeback knowing they can move there characters to more active servers for free.

VG Name: Freaks and Geeks

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Peak Teaming Hours: We have active members 24/7 but 4 PM - 3 AM EST is more active. Over half of our 70+ members are active daily.

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