Intrepic
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:Whoa... for a second there, I thought I was experiencing Déjà vu.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Surely there must be some way you can renew it?
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Thanks for the update. Trust me, I understand how brutal the "70+ hours a week until release" cycle can be. I can't even fathom the stamina needed in the MMO industry where the cycle appears to repeat endlessly.
To the developers, thank you all for your incredibly hard work. Our impatience is simply a testament to how much we love the awesome you create.
To the managers, thank you for attending 1000 meetings a day so your developers don't have to. I understand it must be painful, but if it wasn't for your sacrifice your developers wouldn't have time to create the awesome!
I wrote a thank you with some helpful suggestions to the executives as well but I decided to delete it lest I be banned from the game. It was something about how the result of underpayed and overworked is always a delayed release but it wasn't entirely coherent as I rambled quite a bit.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving. -
The devs received an early gift this year: an influx of new and returning players to their 60 month old title. Some would say that was more than a gift - some would call it a miracle.
The devs have, in return, given their customers the gift of silence. After all, nothing communicates to customers quite like no communication at all.
What the devs need to understand is that they are still in that "golden window" of opportunity with the recent influx of players that have been filling up the servers. You have them for the moment but you have not retained them yet, and there is a very real danger that when they depart they will drag some long time players with them.
Silence is not going to help retain these players, iterating faster will. Right now your focus needs to be on customer service (communication!) and iterating FASTER than your competition.
Iterating faster means that while new content goes out in ISSUES, game changes that improve quality of life for your players CAN GO OUT in weekly patches. It would give you the flexibility to announce today that "I19 is delayed until after the holiday, but here is inherent fitness while we work on it. Enjoy!".
It is called agile and in this case it is the difference between frustrating your player base and delighting them. -
It just seems counter intuitive to have a GAME ALTERING change for new players like inherent fitness and then not release it while you have new players actually checking out the game for the "Going Rogue" expansion.
Of course I'm guessing one of the major reasons for the change is new players who quit playing because standing around after combat watching a blue and green bar slowly refill doesn't feel all that heroic. I could be wrong.
Inherent fitness could be for all the veterans who still haven't figured out after 6 years how to use IOs to mitigate their endurance problems and are thinking about quitting ANY DAY because of it. In which case they should take their time with the release.
If they've toughed it out for 6 years a few more weeks shouldn't make any difference. -
A "go-no-go" from the developers would be nice.
Although if the development team is anything like the one I work on the programmers just stumbled home a few hours ago after a final heroic push to fix every outstanding bug.
Which means a program manager is grilling an intern right now as to the state of the release while futily trying to contact comatose technical leads. -
Thank you for the crystal clear explanation Werner. I didn't fully appreciate the difference between being almost to the soft cap and all-the-way to the soft cap.
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Quote:I often wish the overarching game philosophy of the early developers had been "players should feel SUPER", "players should have FUN" and "challenging is good, frustrating is bad." Early COH was frustrating, not challenging. Just consider:Originally Posted by Skyster
Hopefully it will help new toons feel more "super", (since this is a super hero game), and less like an 80 year old granmaw. I remember back in '04 when a lot of people found out you had to get to 14 just to fly, they just quit. Or were rooted every time you attack and therefore can't "run-n-gun". They went out and got clobbered by some Hellion slammers and said "screw this." It doesn't feel very super for a good chunk of the gameplay. If the devs can find a way for us to feel more super at low levels, without being OP, I say go for it. It might help new players want to stay.
-Huge zones... with no travel powers.
-A custom skill system... with few options to adjust your build if you make poor or uninformed choices (which all new players WILL do).
-Awesome powers... with no endurance to run them OR few super powers... with Stamina.
What would have been the cost to giving players an inherent travel power of their choice at a low level? Would a free TRAVEL power have destroyed game balance or simply allowed players to have more fun and feel more super?
What would have been the cost to allowing players to adjust their builds every few days at low levels or once every few weeks at high levels? Would allowing players to fix broken builds have destroyed game balance, or allowed frustrated players to enjoy the game?
Thankfully the inherent fitness change will address one of these issues. Ninja Run and smaller zones in Praetoria tells me the devs are aware of the travel issue, although City Traveler should have been a game wide change and not limited to 5 year vets.
Still, I believe the developers are on the right track. Better 6 years late than never. -
This change wasn't introduced as a veteran reward or some form of high level reward.
As such I believe this change isn't for veterans at all but instead is for the benefit of new players. The new character experience is dramatically different for veteran players who have the advantage of inf and knowledge to mitigate many of the frustrating problems that a new player will face during the starting levels.
'Going Rogue' seems to addresses several of the unpleasant issues new players used to face in COX. I believe inherent fitness at level 3 is also a step in this direction. If it helps new players stick with COX then I am for it 110%. -
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Just would like to point out that most if not all of the people that don't have a problem with the in-game freebie that NC is giving away to people that attend PAX are also people that are going or think they may go to PAX.
I just wanted to point that out.
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The promise of an exclusive has no bearing on my enjoyment of PAX. I paid for my three day pass for PAX months ago, completely unaware that there would be any such CoH goodies involved. What I'm really looking forward to is getting together and socializing with other CoX players. The reason we're being positive in this thread isn't because we're looking forward to lording shiny exclusives over the rest of the players who couldn't make it. Far from it. We're really just interested in enjoying our event.
Also for the record, I'm sure there will be exclusives at the October Bay Area event too. I'm not going to that one, will not get the exclusives, and I'm 100% ok with that too. I wish the people who are going a good time, and am not going to get petty or complain about little stuff.
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So to summarize, you are attending PAX, and you have no problem with the in-game item giveaway. -
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I may have agreed with you if the give away item was of some significance. I don't think it is. It's a nice little giveaway...it's not even a costume set where you can mix and match.
It's a gimmick for these shows. Way too much drama over something so minor. I had to almost gag when I saw the last giveaway item was just sold on ebay for $230. Some people need to get their priorities in order!
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The item being given away is of no significance to you, yet people are willing to pay $230 for it, which should tell you it is of significance to some portion of the COH subscriber base.
This isn't a bad thing - because it takes all of the COH subscribers together to pay the bills, generate a profit, and keep those updates rolling out.
The math is simple: the more players the game has, the larger the budget for updates and game improvements. Which means that the more badge collectors, costume enthusiasts, comic book collectors, superhero roleplayers, altaholics, and whatever other sub genres the game can attract, the better.
This isn't a zero sum game where costume enthusiasts getting a new outfit means the badge collectors or PvPers are losing out. When one segment of the population is thriving, we all win.
If giving the PPD hardsuit to PAX attendees will please 0.1% of the players and upset 15%, whereas giving it for free to PAX attendees and making it available (somehow) to everyone else will please 25% of the population and upset 0.1% of the players... well the math seems simple to me.
Edited my post to add this: All of my numbers are guesstimates. But my general point still stands. We all want the same thing - we all want COH to do well and continue to be successful. Which means we need every player to be having a good time - not just the players who are exactly like us. -
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If you don't spend the time, money or effort, why exactly do you deserve something that others DID? They're not FOR everyone, that's why they're "special".
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If COX had a premium monthly subscription service, and those players were receiving additional in-game perks, then your argument would have merit. Those players would be investing more money into COX and receiving more in return.
Instead, I would say the numbers break down like so: assuming COH still enjoys 150k monthly subscribers, they would represent monthly receipts of $2,250,000.
How many of those subscribers will be attending PAX? Would 200 be a fair estimate? Representing $3000 of monthly receipts.
How much revenue will NCsoft be generating from this event? $0?
If you were an investor of NCsoft, would you prefer they focus on the customers representing $3000 of monthly receipts, or the group representing $2,247,000 of monthly receipts?
Yes, I understand it is important for companies to have a strong showing at these types of events - mostly for bragging rights, as these events do not appear to result in a bump in game subscribers - but my point is these events should be handled in such a way that you make net gains with your customer base.
Here I would say things were adding up to a net loss, which is probably not the direction they want to be headed. -
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So, explain this to me then:
Why is okay to hand out things like exclusive bumper stickers, T-Shirts, and other items, but not in-game options like badges, costume options, or non-game affecting temp powers?
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Because NCsoft customers pay a monthly fee for access to COX badges, costumes, and temp-powers. If this was a T-Shirt of the Month club, then customers may be upset at being excluded from an available T-Shirt. -
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They're giving away something fun, and getting to give it away face to face. I'm sure that's actually fun for (some of) them. And it's fun for (most of) the people that get it, too.
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It's Fun. I get that. It sounds like a fun place to work at and it sounds like a fun group to do business with -especially if you can hang out and have a beer with them.
But when you have competitors about to enter your segment of the marketplace, most companies gear up to be more customer focused and receptive to the needs of their player base.
Because one of the hardest transitions a company can make is when they lose their monopoly on a segment of the marketplace. It is absolutely make or break time for any company, and this most recent decision seems straight out of 2005. -
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No matter what you create for folks who come out, you'll annoy the people who can't. I'd have thought you'd have learned that lesson from veteran rewards already.
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I understand the gripe about vet rewards, because it can alienate your newest subscribers, and that is NEVER a good idea.
But at least with vet rewards, there is a correlation between the reward and how long the player has been a COX customer. That makes sense to me, rewarding the customers who have been the most faithful to your brand (not to mention the players who have payed the most in subscription fees).
But this... this is the opposite of that.
It's the sort of thing they tell you NOT to do in Business 101, and everyone laughs because it seems so obvious. Wait a sec, you guys weren't bought out by Dunder Mifflin, were you? OH NOES, now all the developers are going to have to keep a straight face whenever the boss walks by! -
Thanks NCsoft. I always enjoy knowing when someone else is getting more bang for their subscription dollars than I am.
While we're at it, are there any more "perks" you care to announce that 99.9% of your paying customers will not have access to?
Perhaps a new special power pool for everyone whose middle name starts with a "P" and whose birthday falls on August 14th?
That way, whenever they see someone else with the power in-game, they can think to themselves "oh-yeah, he's cool like I am".
What, have you guys been reading "How to rid yourself of unwanted subscribers" again? -
Rock on, devs. Rock on.