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I think this is extremely hard to do across multiple titles involving multiple writers / editorial teams over numerous years on what often ends up being comics developed by committee. And often for fans who don't like change (Quesada being one of those) because they eventually want to see loser Peter Parker end up with Mary-Jane (but not actually have an adult relationship with her - marriage, kids, etc) because that is what they expect to happen. Or those who never wanted to see Hal Jordan's name sullied, so him redeeming himself and coming back is "right" to them.

Although some of the retcons mentioned were bad, Wolverine's occurred over years under a lot of different writers / artists / editorial teams over multiple titles - as a popular character, having the chance to stamp your name on the lore is understandable temptation that hasn't hurt the character's popularity at all.

I don't think there are any arguments that you are unique. ;-)

1) Speech bubbles generally show who says what. A portait of each character on your team could be displayed next to the name. Colour coding of the same names in chat (obviously not green and red!). There are ways.

2) There can be confirmations to check you are getting the right person - right lvl, right AT, right powersets, whatever. It could also default to prioritise friend lists, or the person you last spoke to with that charname.

I also typically invite people from their globalname now anyway or by rightclicking on chat names or through the LFT system, so individual character name invites where I have to type in the name isn't an issue for me. The same systems can apply whether there are non-unique character names or unique ones.

3) Right now, the only way to tell two people apart IS their global. Characters can change names and people can change characters rapidly - that lvl 50 Scrapper can change into a lvl 42 Controller in the space of 60 seconds, so you track the global name to keep tabs on the player. There are also variations on a theme that run very close - hello to all those people with Boudacea or Dark Angel variations - so that even unique names can end up looking fairly generic.

If everyone had one character slot, you'd have a stronger case. But given that the vast majority of players manages multiple characters anyway and some people play across servers it is harder to say that charnames are intrinsically tied to unique players. Only global names get that distinction.

What I described isn't that different from what we have now. I certainly don't memorise every character on a server in relation to who their global is, especially since players might have 8 or more characters to switch between. Shifting to a non-unique naming system means the focus goes to the globalname over the character name, which is where a lot of long-term players are now anyway (using Global Friends over Friends or Global Chat Channels over local chat).

There are arguments for and against unique naming. If an argument against is ugliness of the full <charname>@<globalname> address, there are ways around that particular format at the top, cosmetic level.

As for "a programmer would conveniently forget to code it": yes, I certainly hope that programmers ignore designers on decisions they feel are wrong and implement their own systems instead. Worked so well for taunt and RNG reward distribution, didn't it? The only person on that list who would have that kind of say would be designers or maybe producers - the vast majority of publishers aren't going to check through every design decision and wouldn't shelve an entire title because of a naming system.

The non-unique name system doesn't have to work on a visual <charname>@<globalname> system from the cosmetic level. It could still have the separate <charname> on one level and the @<globalname> system that we are currently familiar with in CoH/V. However, under the hood it would treat <charname>s as non-unique and <globalnames> as unique, meaning <charname> suddenly becomes more flexible. There are less issues in having unique globalnames since you only need one for multiple characters, making more potentially desirable globalnames available.

Obviously the issue then becomes about sending /tells to the correct player if you only used <charname>, which could be done in a number of ways (e.g. default to friends list first, default to last <charname> sent on this account, confirm correct target if conflicts exist, etc). That part requires a bit of thought, but it isn't insurmountable.

I'm not that bothered either way, but concerns about "ugly" naming conventions can certainly be worked around since they are just top-end cosmetics.

A cow with a speech impediment.

Also, all story arcs on this island just railroad players straight to the end.

No conspiracy at all. I was making the point that I'm sure both Cryptic and Paragon Studios are watching each other to see how various new systems work and one of them would be the naming system, and maybe even there was some interest in seeing how a system worked out that they'd probably talked about in design meetings at some point before the split. If it was something working out well in ChampO, it would possibly (italics for emphasis, lest it be taken I am 100% guaranteeing the next bit) be considered.

I know some people go into fits of rage whenever ChampO is mentioned, but please lighten up.

Here's the thing: I don't care whether or not unique naming stays or goes. I've been playing since the days of creating an entire character only to find I couldn't get the names I wanted, so I had to scrub the entire character and start again, so I know the score. If it stays the same, fine; if it changes, fine. My key point was that having non-unique names - in whatever format that works - lowers the barrier to entry for new players, which I see as a positive thing for CoH/V's growth.

Having unique character names has advantages and disadvantages, as does non-unique names. Neither is inherently better as a system. Unique names on each server are a familiar MMO design choice, but that doesn't make it the best choice automatically. As it currently goes I know more people by their global name than their character names, so non-unique names on a server wouldn't have that much of an impact to me. In fact, I use global channels most of the time, which tie "names to a Global tag in the chat system" and isn't brain dead stupid at all, nor bad game design.

You might dislike the idea, but that doesn't make it bad game design.

Or is too hard to do.

Or hasn't been raised as a priority.

Or isn't expressly monitored - they might not track the number of times a player attempts and is rejected for a character name, for instance.

Or is something they are philosophically opposed to.

Or hadn't thought about much recently.

Or could be something they are watching the experience from ChampO on.

Theoretically the devs have access to lots of things about CoH/V, but it is only when players draw attention to certain issues that they spend time considering / checking things like drop rates or the taunt system or the RNG reward calculation. Then it goes from, "This probably isn't an issue" to "we need to change this".

I had written out a longer post but it was eaten by an annoying ISP bug, so here is the brief version:

1) Hero-Con attendees might be more interested in the game, but they don't have any inherently better suggestions than those that appear on the forums.

2) I've read a lot of suggestions and generally only see echoes of suggestions I've seen made since before launch. Being paying since about launch and have put my money where my mouth is every time I pony up my sub fees.

3) A lot of Hero-Con / forum posters are long-term CoH/V players who typically don't want to see the status quo changed. They like having a unique name on their server (and sometimes on every server).

4) The reason why unique names cause problems is that it advantages long-term players because they've had the most chances to obtain them. It disadvantages new players.

5) It is unfair to expect a new player on the first day of their trial to have an English dictionary, a thesaurus, several English / other language dictionaries, a working knowledge of both real and CoH/V history and extensive patience to play the word game that is finding a new available character name.

6) The system doesn't have to look like <charname>@<globalname> at all, but the function should be there. GoRo is expecting to bring in a whole heap of players and that is going to see a rise in the number of people running into problems finding the names they want. There are obviously trade-offs in the unique character names vs non-unique character names issue, but the barrier to new player entry should not be discounted.

Across all of September 2009. Aion was the highest box seller, followed by The Sims 3, followed by ChampO.

Aion indicates it sold 970k copies into Western markets in other NCsoft financial information - that's probably box sales (although the chart splits that into a standard edition and a Collector's Edition). Sales of the other best selling PC games by box sales haven't been released.

... really?

To my knowledge this is because ArenaNet has much pulled the majority of their resources off GW and onto GW2. Since GW works purely on a box sales model - no sub fees - (not sure if it even has any RMT components) that revenue are of a title that had its last major release in 2007.

Whether or not Guild Wars will be given much attention after Guild Wars 2 launches is a good question.

ChampO's box sales were pretty good - they where the third highest selling title for PCs in September 2009 - but retention probably hasn't been good. We'll have to wait for Q4 NCsoft results to get a better idea of that impact. Atari's next financial report might also provide some insights.

Emmert's pointed the finger at NCsoft a few times and no-one on NCsoft's side has issued a contrary response.

The reason I believe NCsoft probably had the lion's share in that decision is that at the time Tabula Rasa was absorbing money from every other NCsoft West project and they would likely have been paying the bulk of development funds - most video games publishers control the purse strings, which is how they retain their power.

Of course, there probably is at least a chapter in "What Cryptic Did to NCsoft" (and I understand that NCsoft North America felt a bit aggravated after covering the legal fees in the Marvel lawsuit, only for Cryptic to start work on a competing product as one example) about that saga that could be written, but it requires someone with inside knowledge to come forward. Thus far, the only person who has done that is Emmert.

CoV brought in only 60k new users, which was considered to be under target. Which in turn led to the reduction of CoH/V's team by 75%.

Arguably Star Wars Galaxy's expansions also didn't help the game to grow, leading to the point where NGE was forced in.

Expansions might make some people come back and take a second look, but they aren't guaranteed growth or even growth levels that hits ROI targets. And those who come back might not stay.

I don't think I have a post-I14 vendetta at all. I thought that I14 was badly handled in both design and PR terms, even thought it might have been the right thing to do, so I said so. If I really had a vendetta, I could be a lot more harsh. If I disliked the game that much, I don't think I'd be paying to play it.

The maintenance timing issue is better now, not resolved, with that comment coming before the devs changed the maintenance schedule. I think I'd made it after three or so nightly attempts of trying to play some new content during my peak evening hours only to be blocked by server maintenance - something that really did make me wonder why I was paying a sub fee for the game when I couldn't even play. Being blocked from playing by server maintenance isn't something the vast majority of CoH/V players have to deal with, but it is something that can really aggravate Oceanic players - and did, since several other long-term CoH/V players chimed in on how it was destroying their motivation to remain subscribed.

If I have any credibility at all, it's because I try to state a considered opinion backed up with available sources of information. In some cases, those opinions aren't the same as the majority on these boards and they aren't always complimentary or optimistic about CoH/V because otherwise I'd be a mindless fanboi, which is as equally toxic (in my opinion) as the relentless DOOOOOMsayer. I've been wrong in the past on some things and I might be wrong on this issue, but that's how I see it.

I'm really hopeful that GoRo is an exciting release that re-energises the CoX franchise, brings back tens of thousands of players and brings CoH/V back to the forefront of the MMO industry. But that hope is tempered by the reality of both how hard it will be in today's market, by how NCsoft Korea has treated NCsoft West for the past two years or so and by how the info released at Hero-Con didn't (in my opinion) offer any big hooks to pull in exited / new players (although it did offer quite a bit to retain the current base).

To a degree, I do get that some on these forums have circled the wagons against CoH/V criticism and that if I wanted approval I should join in the circle-stomping of ChampO. At some point I'll blog about that title, but my next trick is going to be looking at CoH/V's revenue and estimated subscription figures.

I refuse to be burnt on anything other than antique mahogany and vanilla-scented white oak logs.

Dungeon Runners was shut down despite a large amount of work to turn it browser compatible. Someone approved the resources being spent going in that direction prior to the switch being flipped.

Tabula Rasa also had an expansion in the planning stages and released things like mechs in the last two weeks of its life.

Auto Assault had four free content expansions before cancellation, the last one coming about 5 months before it closed.

NCsoft Korea has shut down several of its Korean titles previously, but information on them is sketchy (because I can't read Korean).

It's not exactly "major paid expansion, then close", but a lot of internal development can be promised and completed just before (or even while) the game is on the chopping block. Brad's point was that NCsoft has done this several times. GoRo isn't the first time post-CoV that CoH/V had a separate paid expansion planned either - we just know more about this one and it is more likely to actually appear.

MMOs require constant development, so they have content planned for a long time forward. Just because Paragon Studios has content planned for I18 and beyond isn't an inherent guarantee that said content will appear. It's planned that far forward for things like resource allocation, marketing and as justification on why development should keep continuing in the terms of millions of dollars a year.

Is CoH/V on track with its metrics? Revenue-wise, yes. The revenue target for CoH/V in 2009 is 25 000 M Won and the Q3 figures put it at about 19 000 M Won for the year. About 6 000 M Won is very doable in Q4 given historic data.

What might be telling is that Q3 2009 - which saw ChampO, Fallen Earth and Aion launch (and probably some other minor titles) - saw CoH/V achieve the lowest quarterly revenue figure since the start of 2008 and the end of a period of reasonable revenue growth (in Won, anyway). Whether it is a blip or the start of something isn't going to be clear for several months. Also, I do wonder how exchange rates (US$:KRWon) might have made CoH/V's revenue figures look better than they were, but I am going to recheck my figures before posting anything. (Also, I was wrong previously when I said Q4 would probably have no new content to buy - the Natural Booster pack is probably going to appear in Q4 to help boost revenue.)

What also isn't clear is the relationship of CoH/V revenue to profit. As pointed out above, NCsoft has increased personnel by a factor of around 4 since full acquisition of the IP. That has to eat into profitability figures and profitability is what key business decisions are often based around.

I don't secretly - or even openly - wish for the downfall of CoH/V, or believe that any one title is going to "kill" CoH/V. I've played CoH/V since beta and would love to be here for years to come. But what I think is obvious - although some disagree - is that Going Rogue has to dramatically increase the player numbers of CoH/V to avoid the title heading towards maintenance mode. I also think that among major MMO organisations, NCsoft has shown itself to be the least sentimental in dropping the axe. I appreciate that in a business, but dread it as a fan of the game.

Having lived through the post-CoV FREEM! 15 to what is supposedly a re-invigoration of developer resources, I'd rather development continue full speed that return to those staffing levels. As, I'm sure, do the devs (and I do wonder how the community would react to any of the well-known devs leaving, let alone a group of them at once.)

Side note: And yes, NCsoft responding to the post (even through Massively) is completely the wrong thing to have done from a PR point of view. It granted legitimacy to the post where it otherwise would have sunk without trace, regardless of NCsoft Europe's former CTO appreciating the analysis.

There is an old rumour that NCsoft NorthCal might be housing / developing the PS3 titles that NCsoft had planned, but I haven't seen an update on that for a long time.

I did look on the Paragon Studios site for any signs of a new title, but I couldn't see anything specific.