SteelRat

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  1. Whats all the more frustrating is that this happened to me a couple of years ago. Apparently the problem is of such a scale across the UK because of not only the rising price of copper, but also because scrap metal trading isn't licensed so any Tom Dick or Harry can do it. There are various security methods that have been tried but none of these have been terribly successful. As such there are calls to regulate the trade more stringently.
  2. It's not an ISP issue it's British Telecom. The outage has affected a large proportion of the village that I live in. And we are talking about 1km of cable (~2/3 of a MILE). My ire is not so much with the telephone company that owns the cable and is therefore responsible for the repairs, but the scumbags who stole it in the first place (although I will say I'm not happy about it taking THAT long to replace it - it does seem a little extreme).
  3. As if the news of the games demise was bad enough, I've been without an internet connection since last Friday. Current projected time for repair is 27th September.

    Reason for the outage? 1,000m of 1,000 pair cable has been stolen from my local exchange. Honestly there are times when I wish I really was a volcano powered bad mood. There would be mondo amounts of SMASH deployed!
  4. From my own personal experience at the time, I remember seeing the announcement of MA and thinking that it was just going to be abused as a power levellers delight and being equally amazed that despite the good intentions of it the devs really thought it would be used as it was intended by the majority; especially as at the time the numbers of low level toons begging for PL in Peregrine was on the increase.

    I don't have a problem with people playing the game that way, if that's what they want to do, but CoH is a game best enjoyed in teams. If you're on a relatively low population server and the majority of the population are doing stuff that doesn't interest you (i.e. running farming missions in AE), where does that leave you?

    The other thing worth mentioning is that if you do have a system where you can get to the level cap much more quickly than you would normally, its very much like having an infinite lives or invulnerability cheat in an offline game; you play through it to the end and because you've played it with very little challenge, it doesn't give you much incentive to want to play it again.

    Granted, I don't think MA was the SOLE reason for the sharp dip in sales in the period mentioned and I do agree that perhaps if it had been implemented better it'd have been more likely to have been used for it's intended purpose, but it's interesting to note that before the XP nerfs to MA you couldn't move for people. Afterwards, it was a more or less empty. To me that shows that a system like MA that allows for player creativity that doesn't give a levelling edge appeals to a relatively small number of the players.

    To offer a system like that in place of dev created content at a time when the game really needed it, probably wasn't the best move for a game that was already starting to show a steady decline.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Thunder Knight View Post
    Oh, wanted to note this too - they never said 8,000 Marvel characters would be playable, they said that they have Marvel's stable of approximately 8,000 characters to draw from. I'd be shocked if there's even 100 characters to choose from when all is said and done. (I'd be even more shocked if the two characters I mentioned earlier were among them)

    And, no, this isn't their idea of a WoW-killer. I don't think anyone seriously thinks any MMO is going to be a WoW-killer anymore. Instead, MH development is being headed by the same guy who created Diablo 1 and 2 (which is why the playstyle is similar), and is trying to move into that territory rather than competing with WoW.
    Aah OK, my bad - although it was second hand info that I didn't research any further. I have to admit that the amount of data required for 8,000 characters to any level of detail would make the game a HUGE download!
  6. My phone line is still on the blink (thanks to some pikey scum bags vandalising the exchange and stealing the copper > ) so I've been stuck with offline games at the moment.

    Had a brief revisit of the original Crysis, had another go with some old games like Dungeon Siege II and Star Wars KOTOR, but currently enjoying a replay of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 on Xbox 360. Playing on the side of Registration this time around.

    Hopefully my phone line should be back up tomorrow, so I can return to Paragon!
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by saviour123 View Post
    Could not agree more with this post... Much as I adore COH, and think we must do everything we can to save it, punishing Arenanet is a horrid idea. Now this is my take on things....

    Like everyone here, I was in two minds wether to buy Guild Wars 2 or not because of NCsoft. But after my initial anger was replaced with sadness, I started to try and think a little more clearly. This is what I am feeling now. Firstly by not Buying GW2 I would be really only be punishing myself, and cutting off my nose to spite my face. Put it this way, Arenanet had to stop selling the product after 2 days, because the servers could not cope with the demand, so realistlly my purchase would make no real difference to NCsoft.

    Even if it did, it would hurt Arenanet more than NC, and what have i got against Arenanet? ... nothing. Also having played GW2, it is a very very good game, and will be responsible for a move to Next Gen MMO's, as it does very much think outside the box, and bring huge amounts of polish and new ideas to the Genre, whish has got to be a good thing for the MMO industry.

    Finally, I agree that we do not want to come off bitter and twisted. If we can save COH, it will be because of the cool heads of people like the Titan Network and Golden Girl, not people shouting "go on hit him".....

    Bottom line, I am not prepared to sit on my own in a room with no fun game to play, just because of a principal. I NEED a game to replace COH IF it goes, the only MMO that is any good out there atm is Guild Wars 2.
    Bravo. First sensible attitude I've seen to GW2 in ages. I'm currently playing SW:TOR, (as well as COH, obviously) but can't see me playing it for long. Most of my old SG mates have been banging on about how great GW2 is and the more I read about it, the more I'm probably going to take the plunge if the worst happens at the end of November.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Electric-Knight View Post
    You know... some games just feel right while you play them. Then, if they have all those awesome options on top of it and allow me to make things look the way I'd like... and allow me to play the way I'd prefer... The whole thing comes together.
    You know this really sums up how I feel about CoH as well. It's not any particular thing that you can put your finger on, it just "works". I've not played DCUO, but despite the things it has that on paper should make it "better", that magical, intangible "something" that makes CoH so great just isn't there in CO.

    Coupled with that CoH is also a template for our imagination. As it's set in a comic universe, there are no boundaries that our characters have to conform to. No limits. We have the freedom to come up with literally anything and make it fit in the scope of the world we're playing in.

    What I really don't understand is why is CoH the ONLY game that really allows us to do that? How has someone else not thought that for an RPG it's a no brainer winning formula?
  9. Well there's the details of the "delicate negotiations" we were told about. Nothing to do with the possibility of selling on the IP or a possible channel for resuscitation, merely ways of tieing up the financial loose ends.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jack_NoMind View Post
    Well, I mean, it wasn't really a spelling mistake. You spelled the word correctly, it was just the wrong one.
    I'll remember that when I see someone say "your" instead of "you're" (which happens fairly often on these boards, and yet I rarely see anyone leap in to point out the error)
  11. [Retracted]

    Apologies. Thank you for pointing out my mistake. In all honesty had the shoe been on the other foot, I'd have probably done exactly the same thing.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Feycat View Post
    It's toe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line

    As in, don't step over this.
    Petty much?
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by LittleDavid View Post
    As I said in the post to which you responded, that was not specifically directed at you but rather in consideration of the kind of hecklers we've had in the major gaming sites.

    In other words, your attitude reminded me of those hecklers, even though you indicated you don't want to see City of Heroes go.
    My attitude being "actually, there's a very strong possibility after November 30th none of our efforts would have made any difference at all, and in fact NCSoft may even have provisioned for a strong reaction to it which is why they're not saying anything". And you think that's the the same as an anti-Save-Paragon heckler?



    Quote:
    "The polarised attitiude of people like me," huh? Welp, considering this is where the rest of your post gets incredibly haughty, maybe I should just rescind my statements that separated you from the hecklers. I mean, it didn't matter to you anyway--you still took issue as if I was directly calling you a heckler (which makes your statement that rabble such as me have a "polarised attitude" really funny!). And if you're going to take the whole "City of Children" tone with me, why should I bother differentiating you from them?
    Because that's not the attitude I'm having at all. My point is, that just because I'm offering a different point of view, or perhaps trying to keep feet on the ground instead of getting carried away with "Yay look at us and the difference we're making", then I'm pigeon holed as a naysayer or a heckler. Polarised because it's very easy to lose sight of the effect outside the walls of these forums or the game itself. To us, the difference we're making might seem huge - outside of the game, probably not so much.

    Quote:
    Hmm. I wonder what exactly gave you the impression that I viewed myself as having the clout to either save City of Heroes by myself, or to break NCSoft if they won't react to the Save Paragon City campaign. Because I certainly said nothing of the sort in my post, nor did I so much as imply that I thought that way.
    Again, you're just as guilty as taking all of this personally as you think I am. In the grander scheme of things, the "Wonderful Community of CoH" really doesn't have that much clout. Really. It doesn't. It's too small. You can beat the "We're Heroes" thing all you like. It's wonderful imagery, and is obviously poignant given the nature of the game, but I honestly think it's nothing more than a fantasy that people are clinging on to. Am I a bad guy for thinking that? For attempting to see the bigger picture to try and see if our efforts have a real chance of success?

    Everyone is bashing on about the petition having 20,000 signatures. I read an article a week or two ago that said SW:TOR was in decline because its player base had dropped below a MILLION subscribers. 20,000 might seem huge, but in relative terms its a drop in the ocean. That might seem harsh, or heckling, or naysaying, but really, isn't it just true?

    Quote:
    Not necessarily, but that delves into topics better left discussed elsewhere. That, and when you say things like this or "all the campaigns and shouting, jumping and name calling isn't going to change the bottom line," it's hard to take you seriously when you say you support Save Paragon City and want it to succeed. Putting aside angry, impatient folks like the OP here, is that really how you perceive all of the player base's efforts? The Unity Rally? The write-in campaigns? Showing our gratitude toward Paragon's former employees by treating them to a meal?
    Of course not. I was PART of that unity rally, in actual fact. Again, I'm not KNOCKING the efforts. Far from it, I'm just trying to get a bit of perspective, that's all. What's wrong with that? If I came across as haughty, it was only in response to the haughty response that I got for DARING to not think like a lemming and just blindly agree with everyone else.

    Quote:
    There's no need to "get used" to something when it's possible to take one's money to other services, products, and companies they find worth supporting. And frankly, with cloud computing? I've done just fine without it relying on it so far, and I will continue to avoid it ever since I saw how the Megaupload fiasco screwed over the people who used that service for legitimate reasons. But again, that's beyond the scope of this back-and-forth.
    There is EVERY need to get used to something when it's the only choice you are presented with. More and more companies are working towards a model that is based around making all of our "stuff" stored on line. Microsoft, for example are encouraging that business migrate to a hosted on line solution meaning that instead of paying for an Exchange server that processes and stores all of your emails locally, it's done via Office 365. You pay for a virtual server which they host on a monthly basis. More and more companies are moving towards that, because all they have to do is pay a monthly fee without any worries about maintenance or having to fork out for capital expenditure.

    Granted, its not the norm at the moment, but its the direction things are going. It won't be long before we no longer pay for a game and have a hard copy of it installed on our hard drives, we'll just have a thin client and license to play a game on a remote server. The kind of thing that we're complaining that NCSoft are doing NOW is going to rapidly become the norm as more and more services become hosted and not locally available.

    Quote:
    So. When you deride people who have sworn off paying for or playing any of NCSoft's products as short-sighted idiotic attempts to "stick it to the man," just who all are you implicating? Because this kind of thing oozes with that "City of Children" tone I talked about, and if it's a sweeping generalization of the motives of anyone who says they won't touch NCSoft titles after City of Heroes goes down, weeeeell then we have a problem.
    I think it's short sighted and idiotic because in the grand scheme of things it achieves nothing. There is another thread where it's reported GW2 has already sold 2 million copies. Do you honestly think in light of that news, NCSoft really give two stuffs about people childishly crossing their arms saying "NO. I'm not buying your stuff".

    If GW2 is a good game, the only people losing out are the people refusing to play it on that basis.

    Quote:
    Nah, no barrel jokes from me, I'm just basking in the glow your haughty aura. Gimme some more of dat so-called!
    *sigh*. I'm labelled haughty because I have my own mind. *shrug*.. sticks and stones.


    Quote:
    Whoa-hoah, and he plays the insignificance card again! Tell 'em what he's won, Angry_Citizen!

    First, anything in this universe can be made to look insignificant or not worthy of caring about just by pulling back on the scope. Playing the "there's more significant things so you're foolish for caring about this" card is a specious argument. These things are significant to us in the scope and span of our lives. Sure, it's a big deal to me that the MMO genre is needlessly transient compared to other video games. Telling me that the sun's eventually going to blow up and vaporize all those copies of Super Mario Bros. anyway is irrelevant to what I said.
    Nope. Wrong. Again, just perspective. Pull back on the scope and see the bigger picture. Sure it's important to us, I'm not denying that. What I AM saying though is that what's important to us, might not be as important to the people who make the kinds of decisions that will matter, irrespective of the amount of noise we make.

    Quote:
    Or to put it your way: It. Doesn't. Matter. If. Nothing. Lasts. Forever. That's. Not. The. Point.
    Ironically, that is exactly the point. Or at least it has a very real possibility that after all is said and done that's what we're all going to be left with.

    Quote:
    Second, caring about this game does not preclude someone from caring about issues of more importance. You are, after all, participating in the same community that has held its own charity drive for three years. I find it really silly that so many hecklers and naysayers are deriding people trying to save this game for being children who are wasting time on something "ultimately unimportant" when this game, and this community, has inspired things such as Real World Hero.
    Well I'm doubly glad I'm not a heckler or a naysayer then.

    Quote:
    being realistic, and then there's this. The more I read over your posts, the more you come off as a heckler in denial than someone who's supportive of the cause while keeping their expectations in check. You spend more of your time belittling people involved in the Save Paragon City efforts more than you do showing support for those same efforts.
    "Spend more of my time belittling people"? Seriously? You've obviously not read all my posts then. Or perhaps you've only chosen to read the posts that I've made which back up that remark?

    This is the thing that gets me about these boards. All the time you make encouraging noises, or recount positive things; in other words "tow the line" no one notices. The very MOMENT you say something that's just a bit contrary to that idea, you're pounced on and demonised.
  14. Quote:
    There's charts and articles saying oh there's gonna be huge growth in Mobile Platforms, and everyone wants the next Farmville, Angry Birds or, uhm - actually I don't really know!
    I don't have a smartphone/iPhone or an iPad. And I can live with out them for now = my cell phone works, so does my PC and not only is the "new is gonna wear off the "i-stuff" sooner or later.
    Plus, right now - none of them run games I'd want to play = Not Yet. And, if/when they do, I know they'll cost way more than I'm willing and/or able to spend.

    They'll also have to decide if that want to keep the "solid/legacy" Titles, or ditch those to go with Tired-overdone Tropes, AND hope/pray to have the next gold-rush "Casual", "Social", or "Browser" game. That costs next to nothing to make & hooks people like crack... Like arcades in the 80's with people dumping quarters/tokens in one after the other, only NOW they can just charge it to your smartphone = well over in Japan & Korea where they have a "captive market - people who literally lack the space for Desktop PC's, or the money to keep up with high-end "Enthusiast" (or mid-grade) PC's to play the latest (or recent) games on.

    And, I expect they're gonna have trouble with the various tablet/mobile/phone OS'es as the become more prominent. Heck, how long is it taking to get Flash working on them? Yeah - that won't be the last issue like that, & if they're emptying wallets by the minute or second, (I actually saw that in some sales figures = average profit per second!)
    And that level/degree of unashamed money grubbing is gonna cost them - when the hackers run out of quarters, and the bad press they already have from internet cafe's & trying to monitor all that and that the users aren't minors playing after whatever hours they made off-limits in their "curfews"...
    City of Heroes is the BEST Super Hero MMO in the US, and even if they decided they need to upgrade the engine a bit more or shift the population over to a "CoH 2.0", they're gonna be missing out on a Dedicated Market - we love our superheroes & the movies are gonna keep on coming out.
    There's a lot of truth in what you're saying here. Partly because of piracy and partly because that the PC platform is such a difficult one to develop on because every single machine out there is subtley different to the next one, PC games are going to become a niche market. Games for less varied platforms like phones, browsers and consoles are going to become more and more popular because they're more mainstream, more throwaway and fit with todays society.

    You're spot on about the "have a hook and will draw people like crack" in the environment of todays consumerism. If you make something that appeals to someone enough for them to think "Hey it's only a few bucks, what have I got to lose", if they only play it for a week then junk it, from a business point of view, everybody wins.

    I had a look on MMORPG.com this afternoon and it saddened me to see that every Super Hero "MMO" in development is browser based and looked like just another tacky, throw away bit of tat.

    CoH is THE best MMO there has ever been in terms of its depth, lore and customisation possibilities, but it's unfortunate that it represents what is becoming a bygone era. Just like the music and film business, it's a timeless classic that is being replaced with shallow, quick buck rubbish designed to make money rather than really entertain for any length of time.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Vauluur View Post
    Check the date. It's those numbers at the bottom right of your screen.

    You can talk all you want about how unimportant games are and how unlikely we are to save this one. The fact is we are making noise. What don't people understand about this? The point isn't necessarily to win. If we win that's great. The point is to fight. To not go quietly. To demonstrate to NCSoft and the rest of the industry that this is bull and we refuse to be treated this way.

    When November 30th comes along, you can say "I told you so" if you want. Nobody will care.

    The reason we don't listen to your viewpoints and whatever else you said (see how much I'm not listening) is because you are directly insulting what we are doing and insulting our personal feelings about the situation. To a great many people this game is more than just a game. There are people that play CoH that can't leave their home due to disability. People that have no family in RL and found one as a part of this community. People that met on CoH and got married. Blow smoke all you want about paying for 3 VIP accounts and introducing your girlfriend to the game and whatever else. If you can truly say that this is just a game then you don't understand.

    In the end, I recognize that the odds are against us. I always did. But doing something is better than doing nothing at all. What are you accomplishing by sitting there and telling us all how it isn't going to work? Does bringing others down make you feel better?
    Well done, you demonstrated to me that you didn't read any of what I wrote, apart from the bits you chose to take personal issue with.

    I'm not insulting the efforts made to save the game, I applaud them.

    I'm not insulting the people who poured their hearts and souls into the game, I have been equally touched by them, and to some degree or another have been affected by it the same way myself.

    Why are you on the offensive, claiming that just because I am suggesting people keep their feet on the ground about this that I'm some kind of twisted idiot who takes delight in other peoples misery? Why do you make snide little "We don't care about what you say" remarks in attempt to belittle my view point? If that isn't a classic case of denial, I don't know what is.

    Yes it's bull. Yes it's a travesty of fairness. Thing is chum, that's life. Crying about it doesn't change anything. The point is, you can justify this game as a support network for people that are disabled or socially inept, but the internet has plenty of other mediums designed for that purpose. This, despite what you want to believe to the contrary, is a computer game. A computer game that has its centre in a space controlled by the purse strings of a company whose only interest is how much money it makes them. If it doesn't make enough money for them, or they want to change the portfolio of which games they want to offer to people, then it gets pulled.

    It might be more than a game to the people that play it, unfortunately to the people that we buy it from, it's a product. Products have a life span. This ones life span is up (at least according to them). That's the simple fact of it. That will not change. Shouting and screaming about it, or directing your anger about the unfairness of it at someone who is merely pointing that situation to someone who cannot or will not accept it won't change it either.

    So what are you left with? Taking the positive from it, enjoying the memories of the time you had with it and moving on.

    TL;DR - I get it's more than a game to some. Point is, the people who make the decision don't, and even if they did still wouldn't care. Like it or not, "getting over it" is what we're going to have to do sooner or later.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by LittleDavid View Post
    Dear SteelRat,

    What I'm about to say is not specifically directed at you but rather in consideration of the kind of hecklers we've had in the major gaming sites ... but I really dislike your sort of cavalier attitude toward MMOs that get killed off. It's one thing to not expect our efforts to have any impact, but the people who say things like "get over it, the game's dead, they've made their decision, go play the latest hot new MMO" get on my nerves pretty bad.
    I take issue with being labelled as a "heckler". Here is precisely the kind of attitude that irks me about this so called "community". Sure everyone stands shoulder to shoulder until someone even thinks about coming up with an idea or point of view that dares to be contrary to the established norm. I spent a lot of time, and a lot of money on this game. I introduced my girlfriend to it and at one time was paying for THREE separate VIP accounts. It was listed as one of the reasons for the break up of my first marriage because I spent so much time playing it. I've shed tears over its closure and have been utterly awestruck by the attempts people have made to keep it afloat, and also the passion which people have poured in to it.

    So let's get things quite clear: I don't want this game to close any more than anyone else.

    The facts of the matter, despite the polarised attitude of people like you is that not very many people in the grand scheme of things still played it and still put money in to it. Less than 1% of the total revenue of NCSoft, and of that we regularly hear that less than 5% of THOSE people even visit and / or post on these forums. It doesn't matter how big, important or earth shattering you are, in terms of the real world, you're a small voice.

    I'm don't have a cavalier attitude to the games demise, I have a realistic one. It's dead and frankly unlikely to be saved. That's not a hard and fast fact, sure, but it's very real possibility. The longer you try and ignore that, the worse its going to be for you when it happens. That's why people say "get over it". All the campaigns and shouting, jumping and name calling isn't going to change the bottom line. Ultimately, "Getting over it" is going to be your only option come November 30th.

    Quote:
    Most MMOs are forever lost when the plug's pulled and the databases are wiped, unlike practically all other video games. With other games, when the company goes out of business, or their publisher gives them the axe, copies of their games aren't rendered useless (excepting cases with truly draconc DRM, but that's another story). People continue to cherish and play games that are 20, 30, heck, 40 years old and whose developing studios are long gone. The games can get republished on virtual consoles, or re-released some other way. They don't have an expiration date, they don't vanish leaving only memories and scarce movies, screenshots, or abandoned fansites.
    Such is the nature of a game that lives in a medium that an individual user has no direct control of. With the way cloud computing is going, get used to it, because that's the way the world is heading. You may not LIKE it, but again, there's not an awful lot you can do about it.

    Quote:
    Markovia had a point when he said that the closure of games like City of Heroes is like erasing a part of our cultural record. It's a lot like what Jason Scott said of the abrupt no-warning closure of AOL Hometown and what he also said when he founded the Archie Team to prevent more wanton destruction of culture, history, and content when a site decides to shut down its services. Shrugging one's shoulders and saying "nothing lasts forever" comes off to me as welcoming the transient nature companies like NCSoft impose on this genre. But there's plenty of MMOs of CoH's age or older which show it doesn't have to be this way.
    It doesn't have to be this way with games, granted, but unfortunately in this case it is. That's the simple fact of the matter. I don't welcome it any more than you do. I have no wish to play any of NCSofts new shineys either; not because of some idiotic and rather short sighted belief that I'm "sticking it to the man" by not doing so, but simply because I don't like the look of them very much.

    This so called shoulder shrugging as you call it is just me simply accepting what is (and I'm sure there will be some barrel related jibes that come from that). From a different point of view there are some philosophies that say "all things are transient and putting your faith in those things lasting forever will always lead away from true happiness". Things. Don't. Last. Forever. Sooner or later the things you love will be taken away from you. Most of those things are generally a damn sight more important than a computer game.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Xzero45 View Post
    Dear SyphonStrike,

    NCSoft does not read these forums.
    Dear City of Heroes community.

    NCSoft are not concerned about the opinions of 1% of their customer base.

    I honestly believe that they expected this when they pulled the plug and the simple reason they're not replying to or even acknowledging the efforts that are being made is simply because they know it makes far more sense just to sit it out. You can complain all you like, make all the pleas and efforts to change things that you like, it's not going to change a thing.

    I would dearly love to be wrong about this, but the longer it goes on without any response at all, the more likely I think this is the reality of the situation.

    I played CoH, I loved every moment of it, but nothing lasts for ever.
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Anti_Proton View Post
    Who you gonna play. Spiderman or the Kangaroo?
    Who's to say I can't play both?

    I'll probably think of a concept, see if it ties in with an existing Marvel character, and then see if that character is included in the game. Just because it's a Marvel game with Marvel characters doesn't automatically mean I'm going to play one of the popular or obvious ones. Additionally if I have a character concept in mind that's a nod to an established character, I have the opportunity to play that character instead of having to think of ways to make that character sufficiently different to the official one so as to avoid it being generic-ed or reported.
  19. Ive read rumours that 8,000 Marvel characters are going to be included as playable. Sounds good to me.
  20. You know what as much as my initial thought to this game was "Can't make my own characters? Meh" I'm still going to try it. Given the current options we have for scratching that super hero itch, this one may well be the best of a bad bunch.

    Additionally, whilst our own imaginations give us the scope to create unique characters, the scope of the existing Marvel Universe is such that there is almost certainly a concept that is covered to some degree by an existing Marvel character. So long as they give us plenty of different ones to choose from, other than what we've come to expect from previous Marvel licensed titles as a mere smattering (think the Ultimate Alliance games), then personally, I can't see a problem.

    The problem is just simply that we all have "CoH Lock". We want CoH. We can't have it, therefore any game that isn't it, simply won't do. I'd rather try a game out and judge it on its own merits first.
  21. Funny thing happened to me today that I thought I'd share.

    I'm a Network Engineer for a small computer company and I had to go to site this morning to install a Wireless Access Point. My contact on site was a dutch fella named Pleun that I'd never met before. When I met him I was greeted by a rather friendly man mountain. 6'7 tall, arms as big as my legs who gleefully shook my hand hard enough that I felt it was going to be ripped off at the shoulder and used to beat me to death.

    Anyway, after I'd completed the job I got him to sign the work off. One of the areas that customers need to sign is their position within the organisation. Pleun is the General Manager. He filled this portion in as "GM".

    Rather apt I thought.
  22. After all that, unless a miracle happens at British Telecom, I won't be able to make it either. Woke up this morning and no internet. Phone line completely dead. Logged a fault and their estimated fix time is 5pm on WEDNESDAY.

    Gutted
  23. In all seriousness I would dearly love a Cannonball Run type MMO. Kinda like a cross between Auto Assault and Interstate 76 using CR IP. Full customisation of your car, hard points for your weapons and armour and the ability to get salvage drops and craft your own? Genius. Someone, do it. Please.
  24. Gotta add my disappointment in MWO. I played all the old MechWarrior games from MW2:Mercs, although the last great MW game for me was MW3.

    MWO is really just Battlefield in Mechs. Sure, the graphics are fantastic and it sounds as if they've tried to add some depth to the chassis types so that everyone doesn't automatically strive for an Assault mech, but given the Battletech universe has so much lore and depth, Piranha could have done SO much more with PVE than they have. In other words, actually having some. In essence, if I want a free to play MechWarrior based PVP game with Crysis graphics, why wouldn't I just download Mechwarrior Legends?

    As for the gaming industry as a whole, I think the big problem is two-fold: firstly, there is a very strong move to appeal to a wider and more casual audience. Mobile phone games and web based games seem to be on the increase and if a company wants to make something that appeals to a more "dedicated" gamer, they'll develop it on a console platform.

    Secondly, no one seems to want to innovate any more. They're all bemoaning piracy and fickle fan bases and what have you but when was the last time anyone made a game that was genuinely innovative and not stuck in a tired and over used formula? MMO developers, for example, seem to be so dead set on making the next "Wow Killer" they appear to forget that if people want to play WoW, they will play WoW. To make people not play WoW they have to do something different.

    If a developer was bold enough to say "Right, what is it that every other MMO game does that bores the hell out of the players. What is it that is done to death. What do we need to include to make a game at least familiar, but not make players think, 'oh great, not this again'. It sounds as if ArenaNet have at least attempted that with GW2 from some of the reviews I've read, but for me, its the setting that puts me off.

    As for Indie games, of all the ones I've tried, (at least on the Xbox) none have really managed to grab me for very long.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow View Post
    I didn't say "troll." I said "flame." A troll is someone who's posting just to be disruptive and cause problems. Someone who flames is a person who's just being unfair and overly aggressive.

    I personally don't subscribe to the notion that just because something is true, you have to make a point to say it. Yes, the truth hurts. You know it hurts. So unless you're trying to hurt people showing support, why say it? Why not just stick to solidarity and accept that even if these people didn't do as much as they could have, they are still showing support?

    The thing is... We chide NCsoft for shutting down City of Heroes not because it wasn't profitable, but because it could have been more profitable, yet at the same time we turn people away because while they're showing support, they could have shown more support. Again - what's done is done. What do we do from here?
    Trolling / flaming whatever you want to call it I still dont think it applies here. This is obviously and quite rightly a very emotive subject for all of us and its therefore very easy to get carried away with the passion that we have for saving it. Just because someone else comes along that doesnt share that and points out sonething that is a perfectly valid point doesnt make them flamers or trolls. If anything by us angrily lambasting them for pointing out the obvious were far more guilty of what were accusing them for than they are!