SuperBBB

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If there really is a good reason for segregating your player base, then just tell us what the reason is. If it really is a good reason then many of us will accept it and will stop banging on about this topic. If it isn't a good reason then (obviously) we quite possibly won't.

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He already has told us:

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as a few people have pointed out, it's a business decision. While City of Heroes may be played online, the people and companies responsible for running it are based in the real world, and that means that we have to deal with the same restrictions, limitations and practical concerns as any other multinational company.

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I think the key phrases here are 'business', 'real world' and 'multinational company'. Pretty much all multinational companies are organised into regional divisions, which are run as seperate profit centres.

And let's not forget that it's not just NCsoft that's doing it this way - from what I read, WoW is going to work the same way...

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but to cause all this trouble for the existing customers seems to be a really bad idea.

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What trouble exactly?

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I have to add my voice to the chorus against the segregation plan. Its a bad idea from the very start and will weaken the game for no benefit.

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Has it occured to any of you complaining about there being seperate European and US versions of the game that NCsoft probably isn't doing this just for the fun of it? That if it were so simple to have a global edition of the game, that's how they'd do it? And that the fact they aren't doing it that way probably means that there are good reasons for having seperate versions? Or do you just assume that they're all idiots who haven't even thought about what they're doing?

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Though it's interesting that generally the bigger players in the market feel it's worth the effort to run a game with a diverse player base.

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Bigger players? Have you got any idea how big NCsoft is? Have you seen how many people play Lineage in Korea?

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All SOE games do this as well.

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Have you seen the quality of the translations in the 'localised' versions of EQ2?

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Lord of the rings and the matrix were released worldwide in every language simultaneously. there probably isn't much of a different in the number of translations needed tbh. If they can do it so can everyone else, they just choose not to. and it bites the big one.

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A movie script like that for the Matrix tends to run to around 20,000 words or so, of which maybe a half is dialogue and would need translating - around 10,000 words.

I really have no idea how many words there are in City of Heroes, but it's a whole lot more than that - and many of them (power descriptions and so on) are tricky to translate without changing the meaning.

Also, check your facts - The Matrix was released 31 March, 1999 in the US. It didn't get to the UK until 11 June, and Russia had to wait until 14 October. Hardly 'simultaneous'...

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Welcome Bridger! Ummm, there are a lot of good questions posted here. Any chance of a response, formal or otherwise?

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From Cuppa's original post:

"If you have questions about the European launch, feel free to start asking them, as Bridger will be following this thread over the weekend and will begin responding to questions Monday."

It is the weekend after all...

Geko - great post. If you and the rest of the team can keep up this excellent level of communication with us players, CoH has a very bright future, imho

Please, though, don't listen to the knee-jerk whines and complaints of those players who clearly have no grasp of even the most basic concepts of game balance and game design, no matter how loudly they may shout... And try to remember, when struggling through the complaints, that the majority of people who are happy with the game and any changes you make won't be posting - they'll be busy having fun playing...