Quinch

Okay, just a random question - since the forums are going to be shut down sooner rather than later, how possible would it be for someone to code something together that essentially backs up all the current threads for posteriority?

The reason CoH was always such a niche game, I believe, is because it went almost completely unadvertised. We used to give Black Pebble and the marketing department a lot of flak, but in hindsight, one has to wonder just how much they had to work with in the first place. Hell, we all but celebrated every time CoH was namedropped in mass media.

Not too sound to negative, but if the thread titles for the past week are anything to judge by, we're losing momentum. You asked us to make noise, and we did. You said that there are negotiations with NCsoft about the fate of CoH, but that has been weeks ago and nothing since, and the radio silence is quickly taking its toll on the morale.

I guess what I'm asking for is to show us that what we did, what we're doing, and what we can do is making a difference. While no news may be good news, some news, no matter how vague, would do wonders for the morale.

Regular subscription, with caveats;

Is it a company with a track record of keeping their games alive for a long time? If yes, then I'd be willing to spring for a lifetime sub.

I would also be willing to pay more - $20 or $25 per month, if necessary, but also depending on how the new publisher handles the game development and/or support.

Hold on, aren't they the same thing? Beta, Training Room, Test...?

Not everyone lives on Virtue and Freedom either, and we filled those the first time around. Plugging and organizing the event on all servers would probably be necessary - but I'll leave that to TonyV if he thinks it's worth the effort.

Counterpoints:
S1: The efforts might not be visible in a positive light - while yes, a lot of us want to show our support of the game, it would be bad PR if we were to trample everyone else in the process
S2: Agreed with B2. The main reason Beta doesn't see much teaming is its overall lack of everyday activity.
S3: Didn't NCsoft launcher and the merging of server lists do away with that?
S4: It would by default create clones of your main characters on Beta server, which in turn would help cross-server friendship. Creating a clone on another live server after the fact would be a trivial matter.

Well, yes - the cons are mostly of practical nature. And that it's also the place where players can experience the upcoming improvements is also a pro - it's one thing to list the features, and another to see them for yourself.

Crossposted to Titan forums

Working on the following assumptions;

1. The first unity rally gathered a lot of people, and a lot of attention
2. The concentration of participants helped drive home the message that we are not willing to let CoH go quietly
3. Devs have stated that "keep making noise" is a beneficial factor in whatever negotiations they're undergoing with NCsoft, so repeated rallies, even if they don't bear the magnitude of the first one, can act as a show of persistence
4. On the flipside, the unity rally completely gridlocked two servers, and repeating the event might not sit well with those who would prefer to simply play the game while they can
5. There is, however, one server that could host the rally, at least in a limited capacity, without obstructing anyone's regular gameplay - the Beta server
6. Pro: It is, for the time being, accessible to everyone, whether they're vreem, preem or freem.
7. Pro: A large turnout would also help showcase the improvements that would have come with I24 if not for the sudden shuttering, thus helping illustrate that the game wasn't, in a development sense, dying.
8. Con: Inconvenience of installing the beta client
9. Con: Can the character transfer tool handle a large load?
10. Con: Beta might not be able to handle as many concurrent players as live servers.

Any thoughts?

Nothing public, to my knowledge. Which I consider encuoraging, given how quickly Sony quashed rumors on their end, so here's hoping the secrecy is warranted. I'm pretty sure we sent enough emails to Gaben to warrant some kind of response, even a "no, sorry".

What's the OP said. I stuck with CoH for sevenish years because it managed to push all the right buttons for me.

Teaming was easy, ridiculously so once the sidekick overhaul was implemented. A couple of broadcasts and we were rolling in three minutes or less - ten, on a really slow day. During peak hours, I often had to turn away people because we filled before I could fire off a "full now, thanks" message. Then again, with chat history, it was easy to invite them once a teammate dropped off. The whole teaming mechanic was beautiful in its simplicity, given that it allowed both variety and interchangeability at the same time. Well, mostly - a single-archetype team generally had more trouble than a mixed one, but the mix never had to be of a particular type.

Then there's the community, but that hardly needs mentioning.

Another often overlooked detail is how seamlessly the game adapts itself to you. It doesn't send you into missions far out of your league, and only sends you below that when you've outleveled the contact {that said, I would have liked the missions to exemplar you in that case. Handwave it as a flashback or something}. More teammates? More enemies! And you could scale it up or down if you wanted a more controlling hand in the difficulty.

Auction house optional. The fact that I don't have to work the market to get adequate "gear", instead of being able to buy it from NPCs with infinite supply.

Global channels. Help and LFG channels.

Not another ******* Tolkien ripoff. That's what got me interested enough to try it out in the first place.

Costume customization and bio space do wonders for not feeling like another shambling mound of arbitrarily assembled swords and armor.

Generally, the ability to log in anytime I want and just burn some aggro.

Short version, and I don't remember verbatim, but in the Q&A a week or so back, Zwillinger said they wouldn't because it would completely mess up the game economy. Which is kind of encouraging, I think - it implies there's still something left to lose.