Leif_Roar

Okay, to the half of you who came into this thread with lips turned slightly up in a cynical smile, expecting me to talk about a sense of community or how efforts builds character and a man has to have something to strive towards and similar nebulous banalities: no, that's not where I'm going.

And to the other half of you who came into this thread with clenched fists, muttering "'fialed'? We don't understand the meaning of the word 'fialed.' 'Fialed' does not exist in our dictionary, which is why we have not spelled it correctly in these mutterings," here's the deal: I honestly think there's very little chance to prevent the servers from going dark come November 30th and the campaign from the fan-base to make NCSoft change its mind or find some other solution is a Hail Mary pass. However, the reason why they make Hail Mary passes in football is that sometimes they do go in, against the odds, so there's still a chance.

Now, onto the point I'm actually trying to make: the attempts at saving the game have other benefits that are valuable even if they fail. By talking up the game, by showing the strength of the fannish devotion to the game and the loyalty the fans have to game, by getting stories about the "noble CoH resistance fans" who refuses to lie down and die into the press (for a broad definition of "the press") -- by doing that, we're not just making one, final Hail Mary pass that may save the game. We're also increasing brand recognition and the value of the IP (or rather, in my opinion, we're showing people that the value of the IP is higher than they thought) and the greater the concepts and style of the game will be seen to be.

So, what good will this do if the game closes anyway? Possibly nothing, true, but the greater the value of the IP, the more likely someone will be interested in buying it and the more likely NCSoft will be in selling it. The more we can talk the game up, and show the strength of the fanbase, the more chance that we'll see some new City of Hero game some day -- maybe not a sequel, maybe not an MMORPG, but something. Maybe it won't be an official City of Heroes games at all, but a spiritual sequel, like GalCiv to Master of Orion.

Look to Hollywood, how they're desperate for anything with name recognition or an existing fanbase. True, much of what they make base on that is dreck, but some of it isn't. Look to Star Trek, which was resurrected, eventually, on the strength of its fanbase. (True, it had re-runs to keep the fanbase warm -- but on the other hand they didn't have the 'net and the modern geek scene.) Look to the game concepts and names resurrected on Kickstarter.

The point is: the more we can show people that there is a market for City of Heroes, that there's loyalty and hearts and minds (and, let's be brutally honest, wallets) ready, waiting and eager to be wooed and won -- the greater the chance that someone will try to do just that, and the sooner they're likely to do it.

Finally, give a thought to the developers out applying for new jobs. The more value we can put into the City of Hero game and brand, the better impression we can give of the game and the community the game fostered, the better that one, special entry on their CVs are going to look. When a HR drone or Head of Development browses through the CV of one of "our" devs and spots the three words "City of Heroes", would you want the thing they remember about that game be that it had caused a violent uprising and a mob with torches and pitchforks marching on NCSoft's headquarters, or that it has fiercely loyal fans that sends hero-shaped cookies to children hospitals?

An abandoned building in Kings Row. The plaster on the walls is cracked and stained with water damage. Old pictures on the wall: boxers and wrestlers posing for the camera, faded and grayed out by a dust and grime, some of them hanging crooked. Dirty yellow light filters in through the one window that's still got glass rather than plywood, leaving the door in shadows but not the old coat rack next to it. A midnight blue duster is hanging from the coat rack, perhaps the only thing in the room free from the layer of age and dust.

From somewhere deeper into the building comes the muted sounds of grunting and the rhythmic thuds of someone striking a sandbag. So. Not entirely abandoned after all, perhaps. The sounds halt and there is a few seconds silence, then an inarticulate growl and a very hard thud, followed almost immediately by the boom of a hundred pounds of sand and leather crashing to the ground. Again silence.

Footsteps, someone's hard breathing. A blocky figure appears, hard to discern in the shadows and gloom of the room. He stops by the door and an arm appears in the light; leather glove, blue shirt sleeve, a flash of red between the sleeve and the glove. It picks up the duster and pulls it into the shadows where the figure shrugs it on.

The figure pauses, perhaps with a hand on the doorknob, then turns back. The arm reappears, now holding an old, beat-up red fedora. Slowly, almost reverently, it hangs the hat on the coat rack.

The door opens, and for a moment the figure is in silhouette against the light outside. Bareheaded, misshapen skull, tufts of wiry hair, shoulders slumped in defeat or maybe deep sadness. The figure steps outside, the door closes. The snick of a lock. Faintly, receding footsteps, then nothing.

An abandoned building in Kings Row. The plaster on the walls is cracked and stained with water damage. Old pictures on the wall: boxers and wrestlers posing for the camera, faded and grayed out by a dust and grime, some of them hanging crooked. On an old coat rack hangs a battered, old hat, gathering dust.



(Although its almost two years since I last played City of Heroes, I'm really sad to see it go and I want to offer a heartfelt farewell to all of you, and in particular to those of the old Union crowd who knows what the above refers to. Seemed the best way to express my feelings.

Fare well, everybody, and remember to keep your hats on. Always.)

The obvious solution is to learn Swedish. The Phantom is a much more popular figure in Scandinavia than in the USA, with 1600 issues of the The Phantom comic book published since 1950 with more than 900 stories published (most of which are easily available in various form of reprints and collections).

They way I see it, Manticore isn't a hero despite killing villains, nor is he a hero because he kills villains. He's a hero in my eyes because he killed that sanctimonious twerp Statesman. (Unfortunately he got better.)

As for whether heroes in Paragon sometimes kill or not, well ... It's called "the Rikti war zone" and not "the Rikti petting zoo" for a reason.

As I haven't seen it mentioned here yet, here's the trailer for a recently released Norwegian "found footage" film. It is surprisingly good.

The Troll Hunter

With the benefit of perfect hindsight:

* Not bothered with hazard zones.

* Done a better sell-in of ED.

* Not spent time and effort on zonal PvP

* Not spent time and effort on base PvP

* Taken the time to created a decent developers' tool for making map layouts

* Not launched AE with it giving full XP rewards (what were they thinking?)

* Not launched AE without a commenting system in place

* Spent more time on improving the chat interface sooner

* Put more effort into following up the Hall of Fame / Developer's picks in the months after the launch

* Allowed bases to have a location and presence in the city

* Not implemented base rent at all (again, what were they thinking?)

We discussed this on the EU in this thread, back when Positron made the comment. Here's my initial argument from that thread:


Commenting on the following comment by Positron:

[ QUOTE ]
Right now, we'd rather add zones, since a revamp takes almost as much time.

[/ QUOTE ]

That it takes as much effort to revamp an existing zone as it takes to make a brand new one is no doubt true. It is also irrelevant and misses the point: a zone revamp gives a better result than a new zone does.

There are several reasons why this is so.

First of all, the game -- and particularly hero-side -- has too many zones as it is. The more zones there are, the more you spread the players out among them and the emptier the game appears.

Next, revamping an old zone will get rid of an eyesore. The old hazard zones are ugly, and they're also bland, boring and dull. Players are still sent into Boomtown and Dark Astoria by the mission system, and they still spend a lot of time in King's Row, the Hollows, Perez and Skyway. More importantly, people will judge the game's graphics as much on its ugliest zone as on its prettiest one.

Then, there is the fact that the existing zones have a presence and, for lack of a better term, "cultural baggage." People care about them; there's a sense of "here" to them: they're tied into the game world in a way that a new zone just can not match. And people like that. It makes the game feel more real. Ask a player which of Perez Park and Blood Bay feels more connected to the rest of the game, and I'll bet you dollars to dimes that 80% will answer Perez.

Further, revamping an existing zone brings with it a feeling of change and evolution that adding new zones lego-like to the rest of the game can't match. When zones change and develope it makes the city feel alive. It makes us feel that things are happening, that there is history. It help build the game's character. It strengthens the feel of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. It is good storytelling.

Finally, just ask yourself which were best received and turned out to be the more popular: the revamped Faultline and Rikti War Site, or new zones like Cimeroia, Recluse's Victory and Croatoa?

Another option would be a mechanism for "Secret War" / "Crisis on Infinite Earth" style crossovers.

Nobody around to team with? Sign your character up for a crossover, and have him temporarily transported to a "special shard" server where he can join with characters from all over the serverspace and run new missions and task forces in a self-contained reality.

Think of it as a bit like portal corp except the portals going to mini-servers instead of instances.

Now, granted, this wouldn't help with servers looking empty, but it would make it easier to find people to team with.

To take a cue from Doctor McNinja: Chainsaw Nunchucks

Having had a look at the Kinetic Melee video, I couldn't help thinking I've seen something like it before (Full[1] contact martial arts fight, where one guy takes a beating. He did rather have it coming, though.)

[1] Well... I suppose that depends how you count.

"Kinetic Melee"? Isn't all melee kinetic?

Ah, ye olde Pubbe Gagge. That old chestnut.