Northwoods

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Skeleton crew? Guys, let's not jump to conclusion here. First, Cryptic Studios hasn't layed anyone off. A quick glance shows we're hiring! Second, NCSoft announced cutbacks, but the announcement didn't specify where people were taken off.

We started trending more towards 3/year within a few Issues...mostly because we started learning about the production & QA cycle.

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I don't know why this guy thinks he is, but he obviously doesn't read these boards very well because none of this rubbish is supported by all the other stuff I've read here. He's making it all up. Fanboy.

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Cuts at NCsoft? No cuts at Cryptic at all?

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If my ISP cuts staff, does that mean layoffs at Yahoo? The fortunes of one company are not tied to the other in such a fashion. It's entirely possible, for example, for NCsoft to cut staff and Cryptic to increase staffing. NCsoft creates/publishes more than just CoX. Cuts and consolidation could cover those areas. Cryptic does CoX but they've other games in the work as well, which may or may not be published by NCsoft. They're distinct companies, not even located in the same part of the world. What happens in one is not indicative of what happens in the other.

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2007 has three Issues planned for it, one near Q1/Q2, one for the summer, and one for the end of the year.

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OK, then. January 1st, June 21st and December 31st. We'll be waiting with complaints at the ready should any of these dates slip!

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Umm... near Q1/Q2 would be near the end of April/beginning of May, and the second one will more likely be in August not June. That's if you use every 4 months as a rule.

You may want to adjust your complaint calendar a bit.

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Hey, Q1 Starts January 1st. Summer starts June 21st. Posi said Q1 and Summer. So there.

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2007 has three Issues planned for it, one near Q1/Q2, one for the summer, and one for the end of the year.

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OK, then. January 1st, June 21st and December 31st. We'll be waiting with complaints at the ready should any of these dates slip!

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Not to start this debate, but NCSoft's own reports show no discernable loss when I5 or I6 went live. In fact, it lept up quite a bit in the first reports after I6 (also the release of CoV in that window). The loss that happened around the time of I5 fits the normal "churn" loss that most MMO's experience, and represents closer to 10%, not 40%.


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Ah, so it's like 70% of all statistics quoted on the boards, then: made up out of thin air?

edit: Dangit! Hexy beat me to the punchline.

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Roughly 40% of the playerbase left when the drastic changes of I5 and I6 went live.

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Just curious: what's your source for this statistic?

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I understand that programing can have there problems..and they did say (IF) everything goes right we will be playing I8 over Thanksgiving Holidays .. Well Things did not go the way they wanted it looks .. BUT they should at least keep us informed on when it may be ready instead of letting us wonder when after they told us a date.... I Think it is JUST PLAIN RUDE of them to not inform us what is going on... Guess there making so much money from us they really dont give a Hoot about there members .. If they keep this type of public relations up they will loose many members...Maybe that is what they need for them to WAKE UP!

C'mon Devs let us know something, when is I8 now expected to be out? Keep us informed once you give us a date like you did!

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You mean like I8 Testing Update?

If only the devs would tell us stuff like that. harumpf.

So, is I8 out yet, then?

Good stuff Chase, but I'm wary of the "offer suggestion," bit, in part because people get enamoured over their own ideas and take it personally when they're not accepted, and in part because the impacts of player suggestions are not always well thought out. In general, it's usually better to identify the specific problems we see, suggest things we'd like to see, and let the powers that be figure out how to fix it all. They, after all, are the only ones who know what may or may not work based on the internal structure of both the organization and the code.

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Whining is a point of view . It was cool that you took the time to write all that , but it was irrelevant .


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The post wasn't irrelevant anymore then yours is, there is a difference between constructively complaining about something that needs fixing/changed and just flat out complaining (not saying this thread is either or, just in general).

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At the risk of riding this runaway thread further into the bit bucket:

This is a prime example of "It's not what you say but how you say it," syndrome. It matters not if the first quote was making a valid point or not: the pooly chosen phrase, "it was irrelevant," closed any doors to reaching an understanding. It made the post personal.

When posts focus on the game, instead of on the players or devlopers, things really go much smoother. Always read twice before pushing that [Continue] button.

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Were there people telling the devs suck in this particular thread?

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There was a bit and it was certainly starting to head down that road.

More frequent updates have their advantages, both in appeasing the customer base and even in development. Rapid prototype-rapid deploy has a lot of benefits not the least of which is better quality because you limit you changes and that makes devlopment and testing more efficient.

The side effect is that you end up with an evolutionalry system, instead of a revolutionary one. I really don't think the players will like that, to be honest. If you get new costume pieces now and again, a few new missions here and there, some art changes one month, maybe a new zone which open up slowly, people will not feel like they're getting anything. Looking at the changes over the course of a year you'd see a lot of changes and improvements, but they'd happen so gradually you'd not really feel like you were getting anything at all. The big bang deliveries make the impact, not the gradual imcremental impacts.

When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers. be careful what you pray for.

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Let me explain the difference between whining, and constructive criticism. Because honestly, you have to understand there's a world of difference between the two, and while the former is crap - the second is immensely useful. (For example, note the issues you've mentioned: How many of those had extremely good, well thought out posts? I can remember 2 seperate "RSF Is Borked" threads that were quite well informed for instance.)


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How many time has a well thought out post been followed up with:

"OMG! That suxxorz! U dont know what ur talking about!"

Nothing more. No counterpoint. No feedback. Just a knock down of a well crafted, maybe flawed but well considered, idea. Or, a follow up like: "Well I want this and if they devs don't do what I'm asking, this whole game will be absolutely worthless."

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The boards aren't here to make the same complaints over and over and over again, nor are they here for people to use to try and bash the devs.

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Nothing wrong with questioning Cryptic/NCsoft on things, but we need to stick to facts and not make it a personal thing. People don't like the update schedule? Fine. Point out that you don't like it. Maker the point as strenuously as you'd like. Then move on. Don't try and attribute fanciful causes as to why this is happening, and blame people for it. It's not about explanations, or blame; Those are internal matters. All you care about is results.

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The fact that they take away from Issues can be evidenced by Positron previously stating that they choose not to add any zone events in I7 because they chose to focus on beefing up these events instead.

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Apples and orangutans. The issue at hand involved events like the winter event, which are seasonal and temporary. The justification for your counter argument uses zone events like SC firebombings and Lusca, which are permanent game additions (i.e, content).

What you're saying, in essence, is that since Posi stated that they didn't add permanent event content, it proves that temporary events take time from the mainline development. One does not follow the other.

Don't discount the events as temporary content. They're far more than that. Events are a means to try out new material and game mechanics. The Valentine even wasn't just a fun thing, it was a way to work out hero/villain team up missions. The original Halloween was a prelude to Croatoa. The events don't take away from development, they're sneak peeks at what's ahead. They are not throw-away. We have fun, they get to try out new mechanics. It's win-win.

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Really? I didn't have that problem <;_;> What server are you on? I'm on Aundair... I don't play as much as some people, so its totally possible I've missed it.

... So why aren't people over their griping about bugs? <;_;> I still mostly seem the same "There' not enough to do!" whine...

People hurt my poor little brain <~.~>;

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I was on Khyber (aka Lagistan) before I quit in disgust. There are serious bug issues, like the repeating repeating crossbow bug (a bug that gets fixed and reintroduced seemingly every release), connection problems, etc. The boards over there are kind of strange, too. Any complains seem to get pounded back by the fanatics--a side effect of having a game based on a well known fantasy world, I guess; it's like if you complain about the game, you're insulting their homes or something.

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Don't get me wrong - for me, personally, a faster update schedule with smaller updates would be fine really; they do it in DDO and its been moving like clockwork. Really a good system.

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Huh?!? Clockwork?!? Well, yeah, regular releases with DDO, but every last one has been utter crap which can take upwards of a month afterwards to get working! Heck, afer one release I couldn't play at all for three weeks because the lag was so bad (and I'm talking lag worse than what we saw here in the arenas when they first hit the test server, if anyone remembers that mess--only this was on the LIVE system and we got no responses from development about what was happening or when it might be fixed!)

Beleive me, I'd rather take a delay than have rubbish like that getting released.

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I think that the current CoX team is unable to meet this update schedule, unlike the Legacy CoH team, due to either innefficiency, sloppy programming, understaffing, buracracy, or a combination such negative traits which are part of the currect team of devs. Perhaps some of the devs leaving, such as Lord Recluse, Statesman, has had an impact.

The causes are speculation, the effects are not.

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I think it's chipmunks. I'm completely serious. Once they get into the office building and start nesting, they make a heck of a mess of things and cause all kinds of problems up tpo and including project delays.

Do I sound like I'm out of my mind? Yeah, that's what happens when you start attributing random causes to things you believe you're seeing--causes that have no basis in reality and which are nothing more than fantasy.

The only difference is some knucklehead is going to read the quoted and start spreading this "truth" as though it was truth instead of foundless speculation.

All we know is that I8 has not yet been released. Nothing more. We don't know why (and certainly not the whole story).

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Heck, ideally they should be set up so that each individual system is its own piece which can be enabled or disabled independent of the rest, with little extra work outside of what's already a part of the standard publishing function they have now.

They managed to put in two types of wings without enabling all the other types, and the Cathedral of Pain has been disabled since CoV's release, so there is SOME ability to break things into smaller pieces. They just need to take that further, so that if something (Vet Rewards, for instance) isn't ready, they can say, "Sorry guys, Vet Rewards have some issues. Good news, though, we're still releasing everything else from I8 now, with the rewards to follow!" (Like they've done with the Fly poses.)


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There are a lot of factors that would need to be considered. Not knowing how their internal structure works, we can only talk in hypotheticals, but for example:

It's easier to roll out in phases than it is to back out pieces. One reason for this is that once a code branch has been integrated, newer code gets written based on the integrated branch. While it's possible to back out a branch, it might entail a rollback of far more than you want, and there develops merge issues, and adds risk. And every time you change the base, you cause a new test cycle to be needed. It's a lot of cost and risk and without much gain from the company's perspective.

In a perfect environment, your architecture would be highly modular, very layered and client-server oriented. Modules would be small and primitive and have very tightly defined interface specs. Adding something new would mean adding a new service, or replacing and old one, not unlike adding a physics card or swapping out your GPU for a better one--all plug and play. It's possible to do development like this: many places do, though I've seen little evidence of it in the gaming industry. It takes a significant up-front investment on architecture and specification and rigorous adherence to standards, which developers tend to rebel against ("limits our creative freedom" is the common refrain), as well as a big leap of faith from the money people because very early on you might not see anything practical showing up; useful stuff to be sure, but stuff that doesn't wow investors. Even though, in the end, you wind up with a system that's easier to maintain, far less prone to bugs, and ultimately faster and cheaper to produce.

Naturally, of course, this is all sensible and logical so this approach isn't often taken and instead code is churned out like sausage from a meat grinder and systems just start evolving. The more evolution, especially poorly documented evolution, the you wind up with a system that's a nightmare to keep running or to extend, resulting in the obligatory rewrite (typically done in phases to ease the pain).

The big long and short of it is that the plug-and-play approach could give you the ability to turn things on and off easily. The more common meat grinder approach doesn't--once you make the sausage, you're stuck with sausage.

Vet rewards could be presumably disabled simply by disabling the trigger that grants the rewards, unless some of the changes they made for reward items have disturbed or broken existing systems, in which case just holding off on the rewards wouldn't work because the thing that's broken isn't the reward itself but the thing the reward is based upon. Ugly, complicated mess, which is why I'm content to wait for a bit yet.

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What if, when it looked like it was going to be late, and let's not kid ourselves, someone knew it wasn't going to be a quick fix. When it looked like September just wasn't going to happen at all, would it have been acceptable to you (lurkers, you guys answer too, ok) if Cryptic came out and said, "I8 will be released, but we can't get all of it done. We're releasing this part now (insert something, costumes, safeguard missions, whatever isn't totally fubared right now) and we'll release the rest when it's ready."

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Aside from disabling the Vet reward triggers, I'm not sure if they could have split things up without creating even more work and risking more bugs. Without knowing how integrated or modular the features are, it's tough to see if it could be done piecemeal or if it was an all-or-nothing deal.

Even if it could be released in phases, that adds additional workload behind the scenes--a lot of additional workload. Which, in turn means resourses get tied up, and other things in the pipeline get delayed, and furture schedules get slipped or have to be seriously reworked. It's a godawful mess when you start mucking with content at the tail end of a development cycle, and you don't want to go down that road unless you have no other choice. Since a delay will not adversely affect sales, and will likely only marginally affect subscriptions, there's probably not much to be gained by phasing the release just to placate the concerned subscribers (which may be only a small, though vocal group, relative to the entire player base anyhow).

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I develop software for a living. I've worked on projects that must have a major release every year due to trade shows. They also need to have minor releases 2-3 times a year to fix bugs or add specific features targeted at a limited number of customers.


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Same here. The difference between what we do and this, though, is that if we miss a release date, we're screwed financially. This isn't a product that's sold independently, so the market impact is different.

The rest of your post is spot on.

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But there's nothing we can do about it, really, except to voice our concerns and hope the devs can deliver new updates in a more timely manner once I8 is out.


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Well, I've switched from auto-renewal to monthly billing myself. When I'm unhappy, I don't pay/play for a while. Aside from that, it's an indication that they need to earn my money month-to-month--it's not guaranteed income anymore.

The update schedule actually makes sense from an engineering viewpoint. The first few updates were basically getting the game finished, so you'd expect them to come out more quickly. Then comes the lead-in to CoV, where you get some new content, but probbaly a lot of under-the-hood work to make the games integrated. Those will come along more slowly as they're more complicated. Then the CoV release, and now we're bringing CoH up to the new standard of CoV--again, new content, but significant rework of old content too, which is costly in terms of time, thought not as flashy as new zones.

At this point, the two halves of CoX should be relatively in sync, and I'd suspect we could start seeing mini-releases at a much faster pace.

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Yeah, nitpicking about power colors seems so...nitpicky, but the first elec brute I created was all in blue and the red charged armor just...clashed. Really now. The poor guy looked like he had no sense of style whatsoever. He ran up to a bunch of snakes and they all pointed and laughed. It was humiliating.

I had no choice but to kill him off. Sad, true, but such is the penalty for flagrant fashion faux pas.

That red just doesn't go with a lot of costume choices.

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It's true. *sniffles* The poor baby brute of mine that's been waiting to become an elec/elec for months now is all in shades of blue and white...and looks horrid in the red. She was supposed to match the lightning, but now...to do that means I have to go "generic red & black villain #3107".

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Alas, I was forced into one of those already by the Red Wolf Spider Helmet. And I can't use the Blood Widow Helmet at all because nothing goes with it.

You might be able to get away with purple, depending on the shade. Maybe pink, but a pink brute running around would have to be one serious concept character; it wouldn't be suited for everyone.

Cool powersets or style: the choices we're forced to make.

;grief

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Nobody said anything about -speed Pink. But it'scalled *grounded

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So, a "grounded" brute acts as a capacator, storing up the energy damage instead of being injured by it, then discharging it harmlessly into the ground.

Fly and SJ covered.

So there.

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Electric armor is supposed to absorb damage which means it should get some sort of heal. All sets made to take damage get a heal in some way. Only defensive sets don't. I'd much rather have a heal than the knockback protection. I can just grab Leaping, big deal.

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You get endurance instead.

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actually yeah i am

it'd be nice to have a choice at least

some ppl could get black lightning, blue, red, yellow, etc

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like old school power rangers? you forgot pink.

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Yeah, nitpicking about power colors seems so...nitpicky, but the first elec brute I created was all in blue and the red charged armor just...clashed. Really now. The poor guy looked like he had no sense of style whatsoever. He ran up to a bunch of snakes and they all pointed and laughed. It was humiliating.

I had no choice but to kill him off. Sad, true, but such is the penalty for flagrant fashion faux pas.

That red just doesn't go with a lot of costume choices.