RoleplayerX
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Posts
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Joined
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I get logged out regularly as well, but it's even worse on my old computer. On that computer I get logged out as soon as it redirects me back to the forums from the logon screen. I've tried dumping the cache, all my cookies, etc. to no effect.
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Quote:Subscription is always preferable if the product and the market will support it. You need to consider the original investment those games - I have yet to see one with the with the same level of quality and amount of content as CoX (on the completely F2P games that is). There is absolutely no comparison between CoX and, say, Farmville.Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
That's the assumption that F2P is done to offset the "sinking ship" syndrome... which isn't 100% the case. For several years, many academics studying MMO trends have been pointing to the microtransaction models in Asia and their profitability, compared to subscription service models. Stateside, we saw social network "games" making fistfuls of money (from ads and microtransactions) for their "free" games full of micro transactions (and selling your information). Heck, even in console games- with their online stores selling anything from music tracks to expansions to skimpier costumes... I've read industry estimates that predict that in as little as two years, developers will see more revenue from downloadable content than they see from the new game sales through the boutique stores (especially considering the cut the boutique stores get... plus used game sales).
There's plenty of this evidence emerging -- pointing to the idea that the microtransaction model might not be the poor-cousin of the subscription model... it *might* just turn out to be the more profitable model over the long haul... and heck, might make the intellectual property you're using even more valuable by making it recognizable to a wider range of people. That means broadening the IP to other media will be more profitable, increasing your overall portfolio.
Granted, I *DO* think that the model would work best on a game built from the ground-up with it in mind, but don't sell the retrofits short just yet...
The other MMOs that I've seen go to "F2P" are really just giving an extended trial. Those games are still a subscription service, but they have made their free trial unlimited. Those free accounts, like CoX's current trial accounts, are extremely limited. The only difference is that they do not expire and they can purchase game features piecemeal if they choose.
As for downloadable content, of course they're seeing more money because it's easier for people to buy online and download than it is to go to a store and hope they have a copy of the game they want. It would surprise me if NCSoft wasn't already seeing much more income from downloads than from box sales. That, however, is not the same thing as going F2P.
What it really comes down to is potential profit and risk. No company is going to take the risk of going to a F2P model until and unless the potential profits out-weight the potential risks. CoX appears to be a stable and popular MMO (one of the best on the market IMO) and so it seems unlikely that NCSoft would risk their subscription income at this time. Perhaps the market will be different a year from now, but right now it just doesn't seem likely. -
Just to put in my two cents here, I just can't see CoX going to a F2P model. Let's face it, games go F2P to avoid cancellation. Oh, it has some definite high points that I would love to see in CoX but, overall, it's just not in the same league. I'm more than happy to pay for my subscription to CoX and pay for the occasional add-on pack (though I think the Party Pack was lacking).
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I don't know her, but my prayers will be with her as well.
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Quote:Yeah, when I saw people talking about December or January I felt confused as well. I'd swear I saw an interview with a Dev where s/he said it would be a November release. I remember it clearly because I had been expecting a December release at the earliest and was surprised and pleased to see it would be sooner.Originally Posted by Arnabas
Hmm. Frustrating. Looking quickly, I couldn't find it... I know it was on a trailer, which made me think perhaps I saw t on the Origin pack trailer and confused the two, but neither video that's up now shows the date.
It's just annoying because I know I saw it somewhere, but I can imagine that people will thik that I am rumour-mongering or something. I know I saw it.
I should have linked to it right away, but I figured everyone had already seen it as well, so there was no point.
It certainly won't be released the week of Thanksgiving and I expect it will be up on the training server for at least 1 week, so I expect November 9th or 16th. -
I've got a screencap of a mastermind in Atlas Park back in October 2006. He was the center of attention for quite awhile that day. LOL
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Quote:Not really - the completion of a big project is a pretty typical time to lay people off. If they beefed up the team to handle Going Rogue, then they probably have people they don't need now.Originally Posted by Dr_Mechano
Doesn't really bode well if true though, having just released an expansion and they're already having layoffs, though this might be the case of 'geared up for the expansion a little too much' and took on too many people, though it would be rare for someone so well established as BaB to be let go who knows all the ins and outs of the engine compared to a recent hire.
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There's a newsletter?
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Quote:*drool* LOVE those boots! And the belt and I would love to have the loin cloth!Originally Posted by Eskimo_Spy
Indeed it is along with these killer boots.
Both parts from the Lebeaux sister's costumes which are just made of awesome parts.
Oh what I would do for this costume.
One other thing, I like the new gladiator shoulder pad EXCEPT the texture. It doesn't go well with my sleek costumes. Please either bring back the old one or at least give us a sleek texture (or metallic even) for the new one. Also, I think someone else mentioned this but, shouldn't the gladiator pad be on the other shoulder for a right-handed fighter? (i.e. to protect the shoulder and neck above the gladiator's shield.)
Oh, and I totally agree and bringing back the old thigh high boots. -
Quote:Because everyone knows teenagers don't have nipples.Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
Not in a rated 'T' for Teen game.
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can't... type.... laughing... too... hard...
((great choice of music!)) -
The servers weren't down. My wife was logged in and playing on Virtue. I figured half a dozen tries to log in was enough and went to play something else.
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After a few tries I finally got past the login screen, but all the servers are grayed out.
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Quote:That is, I'm afraid, completely incorrect. Unfortunately, many people believe as you do. As a field tech with many, many years of experience I can tell you that is never pointless to communicate with your customers.Originally Posted by stever
Until they are finally sure they are ready to turn them back on, they will NOT have any useful, meaningful info they could give us.
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Yes, I am frustrated too.
But when all they can tell us is what we already know, that would be pointless.
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My standard policy, and the policy followed by all of our field techs as far as I know, is:
1. Let the customer know when you arrive on site. For our esteemed developers, this would simply be a post acknowledging the problem and letting us know they are working on it.
2. After looking at the problem, give an initial assessment. This doesn't have to be precise (and can't be unless you've already found the exact problem) but it gives the customer an idea of what to expect so they can plan their day accordingly.
3. If the problem takes more than a few minutes, give regular updates. Again, this may be nothing more than "we haven't found the problem yet," but it is necessary.
Basically, the rule is communicate, communicate, communicate! Communication is the key to any successful relationship, including technician to customer. This has been proven by scientific research and my own experience supports this conclusion. I have seen other technicians who believe as you do and they tend to have unhappy customers. Often I find out about them because their customer has come to me instead. -
A friend of mine got a similar malware and we found info to fix it on http://www.spywareinfo.org/
Note the .org - .com looks like a malware site. sheesh. -
Seeing the 5th Column on the streets is cool. I'm really curious now what the story is behind it. Did a few cells survive and now they're looking for payback from the Council or what?
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Quote:I never got to play Shadowrun, although it looked interesting. We just couldn't get enough people interested in it at one time. To be honest, I think I miss the 80s so far as pen & paper gaming goes. Sure, we have very pretty stuff these days, but you saw a lot more unique and imaginative stuff back then. Maybe it's just age jading me, but all the games out there now look too much alike.Originally Posted by BBhumeBB
The one most people are familiar with was Shadowrun (original game's design team and some supplemental material).
Unfortunately, my tips are out of date - involving being in the hobby 25 years ago or so, when there were more opportunities. -
Quote:That would be very cool. I'm looking forward to Going Rogue.Originally Posted by DarkGob
It also bears mentioning that Going Rogue will almost certainly move ahead the storyline, as well as (apparently) refresh the current Praetorian story content.
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Quote:*tackles BBhumeBB and forces him to give writing pointers*Originally Posted by BBhumeBB
If I could parlay it into a career move, I have been gaming longer than that and was a writer for half a dozen published titles as well :-)
As it happens, besides the CoX staff Catwhoorg listed, I know NCSoft in the UK has hired one of the best younger writers (as in younger than me, which doesn't take much) in the adventure gaming hobby that I know (Adrian can write rings around me, anyway), and I know he is an expert in CoX, so they have the resources in house already.
Big story changes are always an issue when you have over 100,000 players, some of us having seen the game for 5 years, some signed up yesterday. Balancign the vets hunger for new areas of storyline with the expectation of new players that they will be able to tackle classic challenges is inherent in this genre, versus the unified story advancement that a weekly dinner table campaign glories in.
Very true, but we're not talking about weekly changes, we're talking about stories evolving over months and years. It seems like that was happening up until about 2 years ago when the rikti invasion started and then it suddenly stopped.
I don't see that new players are a problem. They are going to be happy with whatever content is going on as long as it's good. If people want to go back and play out any "retired" story arcs, we have Ouroboros. Isn't that what Ouroboros is for?
... ... Now I'm going to be wondering if I've read any of your work. What genre do you write? Who is your favorite author? INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW!
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Quote:*BLUSH* My apologies to all of them. I don't mean to denigrate their skills in any way. I simply wish to see them put to more use!Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/War_Witch_(Developer)
War Witch (Writer/zones)
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Manticore_(Developer)
Manticore (Writer/consultant)
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Bruce_Harlick
Horatio (Story/Mission writer)
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Hero_1_(Developer)
Hero 1 (Writer/Bible)
So They have some writers already...
Oh, I don't disagree with you, to be sure. I'm not saying that they should change all the content constantly. But a few major storylines playing out as years go by would help keep the game fresh. Compare television programs like Babylon 5 to normal episodic programs where nothing ever changes. The fact that the story evolves and characters grow and change is part of what makes programs like those great.Quote:Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Static type content like this is inevitable in an MMO. I mean how many times has Frostfire been arrested ? But when you run the arc on a character, it is the very first time he is arrested in the game.
I recently rolled a Katana/regen scrapper. Why would she be locked out of say Rikti Swords if raids were pulled ? Or my characters who has fought off numerous attacks, why would it be fair to them to have a city block levelled ?
Is a dicotomy for sure, but one you can get your head aorund relatively easily. -
I see a lot of good suggestions here, but it seems to me there is one major one missing. You folks really, really need to hire a writer. I feel this so strongly I actually went to check your jobs page and considered applying if you were looking for one, and I don't need or even want another job! I'm not a professional writer (although I want to be), but I am a pen & paper GM with 26 years of experience. I love this game and hate to see the story lines so stagnant.
I honestly believe you would attract a lot of new players and attract old players back to CoH if you moved some story along. It doesn't take a ton of programming investment on your part, certainly no where near what it took to do power customization, but it would create a lot of new and interesting things for players to explore and have fun with.
Issue 16, by the way, seems to have been a great success! Good job! Now go hire a writer! What I would like to see from i17 is some new stories or old stories moving along. C'mon, how many years are the Rikti going to attack? So far they are the WORST invaders in the universe! After 2 years they haven't even knocked down 1 building in Talos! LOL
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Yeah, I had the same problem. Started up the game, it patched, then told me I couldn't log in because I had the wrong version. O.O Now it's patching again. No CoH this lunchtime I guess. LOL
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Is the base corruption bug fixed? It's still listed on the updater, but the in-game message about this bug seemed to say that the earlier problem was fixed now. I've been waiting for weeks to get back to work on my base.
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In 3 years of playing CoH I can't remember a single item added for base builders. (I'm not counting the invention workbench and vault since they are just functional items required as part of something else.) I big part of the reason I started playing CoH was the base building.
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I had similar issues to begin with - the new stacking is all about viewing angle. Tweak the angle at which you are looking down on things to stack them. I've reached the point where I was able to stack desks into a full wall, complete with door, without much problem. Just takes practice.
Item height - and having them appear above and below floor/ceiling level - is about "where the item drags onto screen." Again, an issue of camera angle. I've been able to stack several things below floor level purposefully by taking advantage of this - moving my view so that items drag in over open space between the rooms first so that it enters the room at the lowest possible floor level, leaving only the tallest features visible above the true floor.
To get an item to the level you want on the wall, make sure you aren't dragging it up or down the wall from a different wall zone, but rather from the tray directly onto the wall section where you'll want it. If that doesn't seem to work, work around the issue by placing the item at the desired height on a more accommodating wall nearby, then slide the item around the corner onto the desired wall - it should maintain or even lock at that height when it turns the corner onto the buggy wall.
I've had a few items appear to vanish into walls, but so far found them in others rooms beyond the wall every time. It's a pain, and has me running cleanup after every base editing session.
The one issue you listed that I haven't found workaround or a skill-based solution for is getting items flush on certain walls. In both my bases there is a specific wall against which I have difficulty placing items - in my case the north wall of my entry room, and the north wall of every room that aligns with it. Had to move my vault door to a different wall of my workshop because of that.
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I've tried just about every angle I can and I still can't get desks to stack anymore. Perhaps my eyes are too old and my hands too shaky but the fact is that we shouldn't have to fight with the base editor to get it to do what it's supposed to. I thought it was great when I heard that all desks would be "magic desks". I thought that would save a lot of time. But instead of spending a ton of time making magic desks I'm spending a bunch of time trying to find just the right viewing angle to stack them. Or just the right viewing angle to place something on the wall. Or trying to find the item that disappeared into a floor or wall.