Slashman

I'm not sure you can compare Guild Wars to other MMOs in the same way. With no subs and no Item Mall, its revenues are based entirely on sale of the original box and subsequent expansions. If they stop coming...revenue drops.

Hard to say. I was never a big GW fan in the first place though.

This seems to be the trend for the major MMO titles that are launching nowadays. High initial sales, followed by major falloff because the end product isn't quite what people expected or were promised.

AoC and WAR have fallen into this trap and don't seem to be having much luck getting out of it. I guess that's what comes from trying to be a WoW killer.

In the case of CO, I dunno. You would think that with the 'experience gained from working on CoX' that the initial launch would blow people away. Maybe they are doing OK, though. I can't really say.

I see the argument that because a game is x number of years old, it has to have a significant population decline popping up all the time here in defense of CoXs numbers.

I will personally always hold to the belief that an MMO is not a 'normal' game. Many MMOs have declined in numbers over the years. This is fact. But there are a few that have either avoided or outright turned this trend around.

A lot of the older MMOs which were built on the premise of time sinks, repetitive tasks and forced teaming have indeed declined as people look for something new and better suited to their tastes. They never changed or truly looked to revamp their game on a continuous basis. Or they simply did it too late.

Some like SWG, just kept doing the wrong things.

I think what happened to COX is that we lost resources at a crucial time when we should and could have been doing more to retain and advance the game. It hurt. It wasn't just a matter of time eating away at our numbers.

I look at what CCP put into EVE. Constantly revamping the new user experience, huge investments in hardware, graphics upgrades, growing the galaxy. I don't think COX has had a comparable development push until the recent NCSoft reinvestment.

I agree. But as much as I dislike WoW, I can't fault Blizzard for their ability to pull in and continue to grow a game that's damn well big enough for anyone to be satisfied. And they aren't stopping. Same thing for CCP. And both those companies have made their share of mistakes as well.

*snicker*

Villains was in development for quite a while. It was announced soon after COH launched. Before Issue 3 I believe.

Even so...I think that it did a lot to keep people interested in the game who found that blueside didn't really have enough to offer them and who were looking for something new.

Now we can argue about how well it did at retaining the people it brought to the game and that perhaps having it as a standalone title was a bad idea.

I think that not pushing further development on redside hurt a lot more than it helped.

Actually, I just realized this myself. I LOLed.

The name Slashman actually comes from way back in the day when some friends and I used to get together and play games over LAN.

Back when Heretic 2 came out I somehow found that I could pretty much always manage to cut both arms off another player when we dueled using the bladestaff. Of course, eventually people stopped wanting to play with me because I was annoyingly good at the game so my fame was short lived...but the name stuck and I use it for all my online handles.

We moved on to Unreal Tournament and other games though.

I'll counter that by saying maybe their target could have eventually been met by addressing many of the problems that players had with Redside:

1) That it did not do enough to distinguish itself from blueside in terms of how you played a villain.

2) Streamlining the contact system and removing filler missions does not, and should not, equate to less overall content and lengthy story arcs. (What is there is well done...but it does get old the more you play through it with new toons).

3) Leading on from point 1, is that there should have been some kind of additional gameplay which let villains measure and shape the kind of villain they wanted to portray. Even if that meant developing a totally new system that heroes didn't get. Something along the lines of a personal villain lair where your villainous actions allowed you to expand and upgrade it(one per zone), demonstrating your influence as a force of chaos and evil at your given level.

Getting back to my point: By hacking off a large portion of the dev team, it hurt not just redside. It hurt heroes as well. It hurt the whole game.

As a result, we are much less farther along than we should be in terms of how this game was developed. Perhaps by now we would have had a proper secret identity system instead of lame Day Jobs...or perhaps many more new powersets. The team we did have, did a lot with little...but we missed a lot of development because the resources simply were not there to push the game further.

I'd like to think that NCSoft won't make the same mistake after this much of a reinvestment in the game. I mean, either way we'll get something new to play with. But I'd like it to be something that ultimately helps grow the game and community for the better.

That's about right. It's like how the player run banks over there have no direct connection to the devs at all. If you invest your money with a player-created institution in EVE you MAY get a decent return...but you may also get the shaft.

Keeps things lively. I can respect that type of environment.

Also...I didn't know BoB was dead. It shows how long I've been away from the game. Maybe I'll check things out again when they give another free week reactivation. Just out of curiosity.

It was definitely more than 3 months ago at the very least.

Well it turns out you were wrong...but let's not quibble. And I'm very happy with the direction the graphics upgrade is going myself.

Yeah...they have gone with the 'subtle yet solid' approach. I can get behind that.

As to the rest of your post, I'll agree that blind trust for any business corporation is unsmart.

I'll also say that while I will not jump on a DOOM-wagon, I will also not get out my pom-poms and cheer so loudly that I drown out any sensible criticism or concerns that people have over the coming expansion(all due respect to Golden Girl and her upbeat cheerfullness). Neither position is particularly desirable to me.

I'll stick to cautious optimism at this point.

Considering the size of Iceland...they'd HAVE to do that anyway. I don't think Iceland was ever their primary target market.

The alliance system is a big part of the game, yes. But CCP has admitted that a large percentage of their playerbase doesn't take part in alliance activities. This is supported by the new faction warfare system which allows PVP conflicts based around allegiance to NPC races rather than the low sec space conflicts which require a bigger commitment from a player to get into.

Also they state that the most well off players are mostly those who remain 'carebears' and shun the aggressive corporation gameplay and politics.

That may have changed in recent times...but it was certainly the case when I was playing the game for a couple of years.

I thought BOB was the most well-known and infamous alliance group...

Of course not. I'm not arguing that it did or that any MMO ever really could...maybe apart from the WoW insanity.

I am saying that each expansion should be expected to strengthen and ultimately increase player population. With the scope of what is being hinted at for GR, I would think this would be expected. Of course it may also have been expected with COV...

Care to explain to me what it was that EVE did that caused it to go from under 19K subscribers 2 months after launch to close to 3 times our number now(if not more), and to continue to grow? We started out much larger and with significantly more backing and funding. CCP self published and self marketed their game and then made it a huge success. Was that an accident? Were they just 'lucky'?

I just want to point out something you once said to me, Sam, in an argument we had over this game getting a graphical update a few months back.

You argued that you were absolutely not for this game getting graphical upgrades because you didn't completely trust the big wigs at the top to not screw it up with the overuse of (the dreaded)bloom feature and other things that would make the game look horrible because you were comfortable with its graphics as is.

Still you trust them now to make other smart decisions. Especially relating to the direction that the game goes and to properly allocate development resources. That's a bit of a turnaround is it not?

What exactly do they do then? I'm actually honestly asking this. What is the thrust of a major expansion to an MMO if it isn't to help grow the game's population? Retention of the current playerbase only?

Really? I rather liked Spawn and some of the Punisher stuff. Can't quite call them 'fun' in the same way as other titles.

In any event, the point is that if the official dev stance is that people don't really die in COX, then it's very poorly supported by what is portrayed in the game.

I'd love to hear the rationale behind various villain groups killing people to shut them up about their plans and plots. This would include Vahzilok, Malta, Crey, The Council, The Family, The Tsoo, Arachnos and others. All those groups feature story arcs where they kill, or threaten to kill, people to hide their plans or cover up secrets.

If you can't permanently off a guy or scare him into thinking his life is truly in danger, how effective would you really be at being a truly evil super-criminal?

For the developers to turn around and say that no one dies in CoX is silly and laughable. Which is why I'm inclined to think that BABs was just messing with us when he made that statement. It seems obvious to me that the medical teleportation system is primarily for use by heroes.

Indeed it does. Even if Batman can't stomach killing the Joker, I find it hard to think that there isn't SOMEONE around who doesn't have that handicap. No family members of people he has slaughtered? No husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, brothers or sisters of victims who are willing and eager to stick a knife in his gut and 'laws' be damned?

In Batman: Arkham Asylum, he's slaughtered dozens of guards, cops, doctors and other staff and its obvious he's been doing this kind of thing for a long time. Why is he not dead?

That weapon is in the Opposing Forces expansion! It was always one of my favorites weapons.

Hmmm....I never finished that expansion actually.

A lot of those things are even more important to me, especially the expanded gameplay and mission types. So in a sense I can't really get too angry at the OP. Everyone's mileage varies.

Actually, what is the reason for our ranged sets to be so generally boring in terms of animations?

If Flares had an animation that made the toon stand up straight, sweep his hand down in front of him, leaving 4 balls of flame floating in the air which then would seek out their target like magic missiles, I'd probably use only that power for a good while!

A lot of our sets could use some prettying up! Heck...that's why I love Lightning Rod!

I'm totally with you here Sam. The fact that you're using guns to fight hulking, metallic robots of death in the first place should indicate that reality isn't what they're aiming for.

There is nothing wrong with flashy powersets. They get people's attention, they attract people who may otherwise think a game is boring. They scream 'LOOK AT ME BE AWESOME!'

I personally don't like some of the early dual blades animations, but I wouldn't change the later, flashy, unrealistic ones for the world. They just look cool. And for a superhero game...that's a GOOD thing!

Hell, I hope they go back and make katana and broadsword even flashier!

Well that's what I mean. I don't think we needed to level from 1 - 20 faster in the first place. That was born from a deeper problem of not having enough variety in content to keep new heroes/villains interested. Currently, if you play at +1 level you still outlevel things at a pretty ridiculous pace when you factor in patrol XP. Making all that content for a level range that you have purposely trivialized via accelerated XP gains is weird.

I'd say 20 - 40 would be where you would concentrate.

Right now, I think that my only potential complaint is the 1 - 20 level limit of Praetoria. That does mesh with the new player experience side of things...but we actually don't spend all that much time in the 1 - 20 level range(by the devs own design and XP changes over the years). So if it was up to maybe 35ish...it would make more sense.

There is still a lot we don't know yet though, so maybe content is being added to Blue and Red sides that fill things in. That's my hope anyway...time will tell.

Which really are just a gassier form of Dooooooooom!!!

Its not a Halloween event thing or even a Double XP thing. This has been going on for a while with me. Until I can confirm it with my ISP I'm going to give COX the benefit of the doubt...but with some others I know saying the same...I'm a bit torn.

Just wanted to feel out if anyone else has been having a similar experience. I played TF2 perfectly fine last night...but COX was laggy as heck.

Yeah...my computer isn't the issue. This isn't graphical lag. It's network related.

I'm going to call my ISP when I get home to have them check things...but the fact that my SG mates say they have experienced the same thing makes me wonder if there isn't something going on with the COX servers. I've had it occur on Infinity, Justice, Victory, Liberty and Guardian.

In combat it is very noticeable with power not animating and damage appearing before a power's animation has even started sometimes.