Stormbird

Not pre-COV. Pre-new Atlas. And it was only the beginning contact's arcs, putting you against different groups.

It doesn't cheapen it any more than the Incarnate system cheapens it.

As for the second - leave the bar filled, but have it start filling in with another color. Really, that's just a silly objection against it.

Sure. Give people different goals to work towards, because - get this - not everyone likes the same thing. Incredible, I know.
IF you're a VIP, and IF you like running trials (ooh, one completely screwed up makeover of a zone coming up...) and IF you happen to want to deal with the Incarnate-"Praetorian-Everywhere" nonsense. Which isn't the case... just like some people don't like playing the market as a "game," or like PVPing as an "end game." It's giving more options.

Not a 50 reward.
... if you qualify for the system.
VIP/long term premium/paid-for license only.

So of what you've named so far, only one is something that everyone would get.
Get your head out of VIP-land. Free players can't use purples, or any IOs, without (a) them being purchased or (b) purchasing a license. Premiums can't before some tier or other.

Giving them something else to do to KEEP playing those 50s lets them see what the other 50s are doing as well - an enticement, perhaps, to spend more money, as well.

Only counts if you're a VIP - and a VIP that's in any way interested in doing the whole Praetorians-everywhere, Well-<censored> thing.
Because they've done so much about farming in the past. *goes back to the demon farm mission.* They care if it's *exploitable.* Big difference.

You forgot these:
Option C: Tell a friend you're looking for it. They may help you do whatever to get it (PVP, farm, etc.) Or just give it to you.
Option D: Save A-merits. (Or, depending on item, use the AE to get tickets, try reward merits, etc.)
Option E: Just play the game.

Choice: Spend time, or spend INF.

I think they call it "Asia."

The way they count subs over there is... vastly different than the way they do here, as I recall. Something like over half of WOW is over there, Aion was over there for, what, a year before it came to NA? Lineage I and II are bigger over there, etc.

I'm not sure how (or even if) hybrid "subscription" models are going to be counted. It's a lot harder than counting pure subscription games, and just "income from the game" isn't a great way of doing it (did a few people buy a lot of points? Or is it a bunch of people buying a few?)

Congrats.

You do realize freedom of speech only means the government cannot keep you from criticizing it, protesting (peacefully,) etc, don't you? It has nothing whatsoever to do with what you can or cannot say on a privately owned forum (such as, oh, this one, owned by NCSoft, who can delete your post and ban you just because they feel like it, if they so choose,) nor does it make you immune from people presenting their own rebuttals - or mean everyone, or anyone for that matter, has to agree with you.

And nobody has said you can't have an opinion. They have shown you where there are major flaws in it, though.

Disagreement is not attacking. And you posted some things as if they were facts, not opinions, and those were refuted. "1+1=87 4/7ths" is not an opinion.

.... not unless you own the message board, which you do not
Nobody "verbally assaulted" you. And any such actions are not controlled by you, but by the NCSoft moderation staff.

If you feel you have been "Verbally assaulted," find the post or posts and press the little button with the exclamation point in it, and give the details. That will send the information to the moderators so they can look at the post.

You have yet to make your case for this. You post a few anecdotes, others go and look and point out that your perception does not match up with reality.

You also have yet to show the littlest bit of understanding of how badly combining servers would affect people in a game that (note this part) tends to heavily encourage alts. There are people with hundreds of characters. But YOU want to merge servers for your OWN wants, instead of just moving your characters.

And we've heard "COX is dying" for years. Note it's still here.
Not a huge difference, quite honestly. On the other hand, what's IN the game has changed a fair bit - people are working on Incarnate trials, for instance. The "end game" tends to encourage focusing on a few characters versus many. It's one of the issues I have with it.

Much like it is now.
And how many times has this been refuted just in this thread?
It used to be the time people would sneak a quick glance at Pinnacle?

Look, if you don't like it, feel free to move your characters. As a VIP, you get a free transfer each month, and can buy others if you want. Go somewhere that matches what you want.

Only still existing one I can think of is Aion. I'm sure others have shut down hardware that have the "one big server" setup. But again, Aion's heavily PVP, so they need that concentration of players.

It's kind of good in PVP-based games when the population starts to drop, but advancement in those requires having other players to fight. That's about the only reason I can see for doing so. And it's a reason that doesn't fit COH at all.

Are you sure about that? Are you REEEEEEEEAAAALLLLYYYYY sure?

Because that's not an arbitrary decision. As I recall prior discussions about that, it's a hard limit based on the type of value used for that figure. (Like how 32-bit Windows is far more limited in the amount of memory (even when not artificiallly restricted) than 64 bit is.)

Changing that would not necessarily be "simple."

That said, everything being sold at those prices has at least one other non-market way of being obtained. Your choice is to spend INF, or spend time. Be patient and use one of the other methods.

.... I know how this might come off, but - you're just flat out doing something wrong, or missing something. I can't think of a single character that actually had problems with him. Or saw more than two duplicates get created.

Get to 15 or 16, run one of the single-mission arcs (like the one with skulls vs clockwork.) You'v ejust been exposed to time travel and have your portal (at the finish.)

On a good night.

I've seen them go from call out in global to running in 10 minutes. And I've seen them try to form and take over half an hour - just to say "Looks like we don't have enough" and fall apart, thus wasting everyone's time. Some trials I just assume at this point I'll never see because of when I can play these days - there just aren't enough people interested, period.

I hate design that lets one person screw things up for everyone - at times deliberately. (Let too many prisoners escape. Taunt Marauder and run out the door. Go out and start nuking protesters.) Bad enough that it can be done accidentally - worse that it leaves big targets for anyone who'd care to grief an iTrial.

I can't stand the "Just pretend there's actually a story to follow here" - not that you really get time to investigate anything with 15-23 other people in a rush to get through it. Oh, to figure out why you're doing something you have to go somewhere with no relation whatsoever to the trial and talk to an NPC that, IIRC, you're never introduced to? Yeah. Great job there.

Yes, I hate the "Hey, you're overpowered for normal content now - and we have five more sets of powers to release!" bit. I think that could've been handled better, while still making the character more powerful outside of Incarnate content. (They did the level shifts right, IMO.) Say, the Pyronic judgement gets the initial blast in regular content, and the DOTs, extra damage, etc. in Incarnate content.

And the wait for more powers. I can't call it an excited wait, more like "Oh, god, what'll they do next."

Really, a lot of it's already been listed in the thread.

Last, the release timing of the trials. I know they put a fair bit of work into them... supposedly, but when there's nothing to do and no alternate way (unlike shards) to get components, it feels like being forced to farm until more trials come out. (And then - see point about waiting to get anything started.)

There's also the "cost" of modifying the way the pets are called, the way they're chosen in the UI, etc - the cost of bringing them to the player (unless it's randomized, like someone else mentioned - which I'd still like to disable, as it wouldn't fit names/themes for some of my MMs.)

I'm not arguing for or against, really.

Always good to check Big Lots, if one's available, too. (How I got mine.)

Why would that be?

Imagine, if you would... oh, a "World War MMO." We get a run through WWI. After a run of several years, we get peace - the MMO goes free for those that want to keep messing with it, but the sequel comes out. Many years have passed, there have been changes in the world due to the way the first one ended... now we have the second WWMMO.

Honestly, I think it'd work for COH, too.

*Spoiler warning for anyone who hasn't gone through that much of the game *






I mean, there are several storylines that are just coasting as "finished" right now, and another that is being worked on that, once it's done - don't you think the world would have a breather?

After all, superpowered beings seem to wax and wane in the COH world. Nemesis has tried uploading himself to the Rikti mental network - and failed. The Rikti have to sort out things at home - something our supers would likely not be welcome to - and those that stay on Earth and want peace would need time to integrate. Arachnos... well, that whole storyline just sort of stops when you hand Recluse his head. Not that it really had a continuing, evolving direction.

Once the Coming Storm is finished... then what? It'd be fairly sensible to have a breather in there. The world's shaken up, the political structure and alliances get reworked (in order for 2.0 to have a "worldwide" focus) and things pick up again a few decades afterward ("Ten minutes into the future.")

[quote=Uberguy]
What I should have said is that I have never, ever played a game I loved playing that had a sequel that I also loved playing.
[/qutoe]

See... I have.

Mechwarrior - starting with MWII, then MW3 - loved those. MW4 a little less, but I still have them.

The Command and Conquer series, while under Westwood's actual care, was great. C&C 1, 2 and 3 are a lot of fun, as are RA 1 and 2. Then they handed things over to a different studio, got something completely and totally unrelated, different mechanics, etc. and called it C&C4 (which stinks on ice) and RA3 (which doesnt' stink as badly, but isn't RA.) But again - totally different studio doing that.

Just for two (or three depending on how you count it) series off the top of my head.

As a new studio, yes.

But if you can point to "We paid off well enough to be bought and reinvested in," I think that helps. I'm not sure how much given the current economy, admittedly, but I'd imagine prior success gives you a bit more leeway.

You don't use AE?

Run mission.

Roll for common salvage. Stock up on what you need, dump what you don't.

Get your salvage, and get some cash, while getting XP (if under 50) and more cash. Don't even need to be a farmer to do it.



That said, this was a non-issue (RMTers, that is) until Freedom. F2P (even our "hybrid" model) attracts this sort of scum like flies to a honeywagon. You can thank them for a fair number of the restrictions in place already.

I don't disagree. Decent content will have me overlook quite a bit.

My actual issues with graphics right now in this game?
1. Characters. I *love* our character customization. I love that my character is MINE. Not just to not look like "Blaster #298744602," but it's easier for me to get into a character (with a fairly loose background - even the Kheldians have a fairly general background with a lot of room to work with) and RP them. I just don't get that attached to characters in other games.

Which, actually, I think is a strength of COH. While they... er, "borrowed" from Champions (PnP,) the wordl we play in is wholly their own. CO took (obviously) Champions - or at least the trappings of it, but not enough to satisfy fans of that IP. DCUO, quite obviously, is tied into the Dark Horse universe.... er, wait, that other one... Marvel? No... wait, I'll get it...

That said, I've been REALLY jealous of how newer games characters look. Not CO - that looks like Stretch Armstrong. I don't see our characters looking "plastic," but that fits THOSE characters perfectly, to me. (Yes, I played with it for a while after going free just to see if the look would "grow on me," as I was told. It didn't.) But from Aion and newer? Those are some nice looking characters. With things like faces that can change expressions. Skin that looks skin-ish. And fingers. I fully admit to jealousy there.

2. *Inconsistent* graphics. I thought I'd explained this but looking back apparently not very well. Going from Atlas or Praetoria into almost any other zone is visually - a bit jarring. I know it takes a lot of work, so I'm not in any way advocating the dev team make "Issue 23 - Ultra-look Upgrade everywhere!" But that shift *is* there.

I honestly don't know what you mean here. Are you talking about the number of powersets? Or that they'll be designed with ED like mechanics from the get go instead of what they were in issue 3?

Know I quoted this out of order. But I have to wonder - did you play Diablo I? II? WIll you play III? I know it's not as much of an investment in the characters - but with that kind of spacing between "eras" in the game, it wouldn't really make sense to have the same characters.

I do, to a point, agree - but on the other hand, I tend to develop "legacies" of characters anyway. I don't think it'd be as hard for me, personally, to start fresh in a new game.

But - like you said about yourself, that's me.


There are times the playerbase itself won't agree on why we do. But I don't disagree with this. I mean - the biggest example for me on this is the Incarnate System itself. Hey, they found a way to let us play past 50 without raising the level cap - Great! Then they locked costume pieces and basic emotes away behind it... er... um... And there was that "We didn't expect anyone to want a solo or small team path" admission. Huh? Yes, larger raids are great, people asked for them - but there are times one's not going on, or your schedule doesn't mesh with your server's raid schedule (official or unofficial.) Or you *just* miss the raid (sucking enough people that there are only 1-2 left,) and would prefer not to just stand around - but want to make some progress Incarnate-side (remember the "Casual-friendly" and "Bite-size gaming" descriptions?) How they missed that, I don't know.

... but is it because they're "super hero MMOs" or because of other issues? I think both of the others ended up shooting themselves in the foot, quite honestly.

Cryptic (a) hired Roper, JUST after the Hellgate: London debacle. When his name was tied to "being flagshipped" and he looked arrogant and out of touch. He had a rather vocal anti-fan base. You could have tied his name to a cure for cancer that also increases intelligence by 30 points and keeps you from getting overweight, and people would avoid it. And (b) was playing up that they'd also be console-playable... until they couldn't be, which really irritated and disappointed a lot of people (and what did it do to the game itself? I think that's part of what the issue is.) I seem to recall some other PR mess just after launch, too, but dont' really care enough about that game to make the effort to look. (Hey, I'm honest.)

DCUO - again, console (which is the touch of death for me in most games, to be really honest - very few seem to have that and work properly on a PC,) plus, at least when I messed with it, it seemed to be "Regular MMO with superhero trappings" - including the loot that utterly destroyed your look in a very few levels. Which is what lost it for me.

I'm not honestly sure if I agree or disagree with this. Not least because we've barely ever been advertised, and not a lot of muscle was put behind ti when we were. (No, I don't think an occasional article on "Let's pick a random MMO site this quarter" is an improvement.)

I don't disagree that a lot of what made COH so fun is stuff that other games would see as broken - or that they haven't figured out how (or tried to) adopt. Splitting look from loot? An enhancement system? Not paying for power upgrades? (As in, "You get FaceSlap 1 for 5 gold, Faceslap 2 is 30, by the time you get to faceslap 10 you're paying 5 million for training on just one power.") Getting decent movement early instead of jogging to level 20?

Yes, I think a lot of what makes COH COH is, or was, a "happy accident."

Unfortunately, that also goes for the negatives (see "Not even considering power customization, so we baked in the colors, now we have to hack this apart to fit that in where we can," for example, or the previously mentioned tailor reorganization changing looks.) Minus the "happy" part of the "happy accident."

I agree it would be hard to keep the personality (best word I can think of) for COH. I'd hope they'd be able to.

That said, I'm not really asking for the "body of a supermodel for my wife," as you put it. It's more like my wife has a bad heart, is diabetic, has a family history that makes her very high risk for cancer, and a childhood accident cost her a kidney, and if I could I'd love to have all those internal bits put right.

For COH to do this, it would be as much work as starting from scratch with a new game - more, even, if they tried to retrofit it into the existing game. So... why not do it before they find they've pushed the engine in COH 1 too far and can't do more?

Edit:
Heh, bit more action while I'm typing this up.

I... don't think I agree. COH itself didn't have huge numbers - but we had a decent, sustainable playerbase for a long time, which is what paid it off and got NCSoft to reinvest in the game. We'd have to avoid having some suit or beancounter with expectations of "payback in the first 6 months or else."

Of course, the MMO landscape itself is different now - but I think part of that IS from having people with the above mindset. And the economy. And the expectations of there being a "free" option... which, honestly, I'm not fond of seeing for a new (or new-ish) game.