lionsbane_EU

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Of course it does. Blimey I made a couple of new mobs and villians in 10 minutes flat. I've seen several engaging player made villians. And this is our spare time. And most definately not our profession. It's a piece of cake.

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No, what you did is make new costumes for old mobs using old costume pieces. I can bet you'd be among those whinging the developers were being cheap if they used existing costume pieces and packaged the mobs as "new".

Although if that would please you, then I apologise for over-eestimating your standards.

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I did?
I dont really understand what you're saying.

I decided what height they should be, what colouring, build, costumes and power sets, levels of powers and finally their names.
Sure I used the costume selections that were available to me but they sound like customised characters to me.
And I have seen a good few player generated chars that were better than mine. And, as they were created by the players themselves and never seen before, they were definately customised.

I'm the one who wants diversity and a few surprises after all. How could I complain if the devs were actually trying to get that kind of content out to us?

And if the devs did exactly the same thing, why would I complain?

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Sorry, but in the overall picture, this just highlights their shortcomings as far as i'm concerned.

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Yeah, we've been given dev tools. Big whoop.

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Some of them.

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That doesn't mean it's easy for them to add new features to it, create interesting and fresh mobs out of thin air or create new maps.

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Of course it does. Blimey I made a couple of new mobs and villians in 10 minutes flat. I've seen several engaging player made villians. And this is our spare time. And most definately not our profession. It's a piece of cake.

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The only element we're bringing to the game is writing. Everything else already exists inside CoX; so I don't know where the hell people are getting the idea that the MA is an indication new (as in genuinely new) content is simple.

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We're bringing in customised villians and heroes for a start. And if there were more tools we could do more. And so, by the way, could the devs.

Look at how many "arcs" they give us that are exactly the same as other arcs we've seen but with different maps, mobs, (malta instead of the council type villians) and an added glowie.

All they did was save one game and overlay it with the new maps and critters and save as and voila. That's about an hours work. They have never even bothered to mix it up by adding different types of enemies within existing groups.

I still fight the same sappers, gunslingers etc when i face the Malta for example. The same set of the same group I fought 5 years ago. What about you?

Hard? I mean, give me a break.

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No - Dev's Choice is exactly what it says on the can. It's an arc that one or more developers thought was great, or fun, or innovative, or... just something that made a dev go 'Wow! This should be recognised'.

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I don't understand this devs choice at all. They can't possibly play through even 1% of the player content. Even the highly starred content.
So how do they make their determinations?

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If it's so easy to do .. why hasn't it already happened?


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Am I missing the bit where this came out quickly? Because they've essentially been making a very big (And nifty) development tool and giving it to us as content.

Which is both sneaky and awesome at the same time.

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He's not saying that MA was easy to get out to us. He's saying that this demonstrates how easy it is to create missions/arcs/ new enemies to fight etc. He's asking the extremely valid question that if the dev tools are even more powerful, why have they never bothered to raise the bar in terms of mission content?

Because it's quite clear that it would be very simple to have done so.
Especially if they had ever added tools to their own MA systems. (boobytraps perhaps- that kind of thing.)

I see now more clearly than ever what they COULD have done but just have never bothered to do.

So for me personally, while I enjoy MA (although I have a prob from when I copied my arc from test to live) I have come away thinking that it's a real pity they ever thought it was necessary to give us this particular feature in the first place.

Sorry, but in the overall picture, this just highlights their shortcomings as far as i'm concerned.

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I suspect your despair will be short lived

Many people will throw together and publish a dogpile just to see how it works. They will then try their own arc and a few other equally poorly thought out arcs and quickly lose interest - especially when badges get awarded so they have "done what they needed to do."

They'll then go back to their normal game.

The creative types who actually have something to offer will persevere and hone their craft and the percentage of "good" arcs to the dogpile norm will increase until there's a pretty good quality to a "significant proportion" of the published MA arcs.

Of course this could just be wishful thinking and I might be wossnaming in the wind

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I have a feeling that MA will end up being a very popular item amongst a relatvely few players.
On the design side, even taking aside MAs limitations, it's going to be hard motivating yourself to make arcs you know almost noone (except maybe your close circle of friends) are likely to play.

On the playing side, well, because MA isn't "canon" I think that, like you say, the majority of players will revert to their normal game. Maybe occasionally they'll dip into MA for a bit of diversity.

That isn't an altogether bad thing. Diversity is always good. But it seems to me that the only way MA will really become a longterm main feature is if they do enable some of the missions to be canon and expand what you can do with it entirely. Which, in itself would be odd cause we'de kind of end up doing the devs work for them.

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Wow!


EDIT: I mean - thank you! Suddenly I don't feel quuite as tired/hungry as I did just 1 minute ago.

Will it get unstickied when the 1st factual inaccuracy is spotted?

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I got to say, this is an amazing piece. So well done.
And yes its a big help.

I hope they find a way to expand the allowed size (or decrease the "cost" of placing cusomisable "heroes and vilians") and soon because, for me at least, It's that feature that is by far the most awesome part of MA.

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It's so bad, it's brilliant.

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Stand alone, they are hilarious.
But arent they supposed to tell us about MA?

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Slideshow adverts before the SuperHero films next summer 2010. If my local curry house can afford a selection of screens advertising their restaurant I'm pretty sure NCWest can. Get those free trial discs into cinema foyers for the Marvel superhero fest Summer 2010.

You can bet DC won't miss out on the opportunity, I bet you'll see full-on trailers of DCUO running before the films!.

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Yeah it'd be nice to see an ad for City of Heroes trailing in front of the next Marvel Movie.

"Be the hero inside of you"

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I'm posting a lot here...

And all this game needs is less than 1%.....

Please don't tell me there isn't an opportunity here cause I just don't believe it. Honest.

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Arrghh.. if so the marketing of COX is stupid beyond believe. WOW is being pushed to every gamer in the world. It is in shops.. on walls advertizing.. on television etc.

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But WoW brings in a £100 million pounds (ish) a MONTH! That's huge. Huge. So it can afford even more extensive marketing than it actually does.

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COX isn't even buyable in the shops at the moment. Almost all boxes where sold out ages ago.

Not that I state that COX would win a competition. But it has been dead in every marketing option around the world.

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This is something I dont understand at all. Statesman stated that the retention for this game is 90%. That is, pure and simple, a licence to print money. If you know your retention is gonna be 90% or even 75% then you really can go wild and spend spend spend to get the "punters" in.
The game should be, from a projections point of view, in a strong position. So, why they dont advertise, knowing they keep 75-90% of the player base for an extended period of time, I have no idea.

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Slideshow adverts before the SuperHero films next summer 2010. If my local curry house can afford a selection of screens advertising their restaurant I'm pretty sure NCWest can. Get those free trial discs into cinema foyers for the Marvel superhero fest Summer 2010.

You can bet DC won't miss out on the opportunity, I bet you'll see full-on trailers of DCUO running before the films!.

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Yeah it'd be nice to see an ad for City of Heroes trailing in front of the next Marvel Movie.

"Be the hero inside of you"

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And DC. Quite frankly any super hero movie will do the trick.

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Slideshow adverts before the SuperHero films next summer 2010. If my local curry house can afford a selection of screens advertising their restaurant I'm pretty sure NCWest can. Get those free trial discs into cinema foyers for the Marvel superhero fest Summer 2010.

You can bet DC won't miss out on the opportunity, I bet you'll see full-on trailers of DCUO running before the films!.

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Absolutely. On both counts.

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Hey guys guys this game is [censored] but I've not tried it okay!


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I haven't tried a P00 sandwich either, but something tells me I wouldn't like it.

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lOL.
I think you may be stretching a point here Mother.
The simple fact is, while it may not be to your taste, it has and holds 10 million ish subscribers.

And even though its a pretty aged game, those figures have been going up over the years not down.

It's one thing to say it doesn't appeal to you personally. But, to be truthful, I think it's churlish to make a general assessment and say its not a good game because clearly they are doing a rather big something right.

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I am more than happy to take the advice of millions of gamers who advise others WoW is a grindfest that takes up way too much of your time to do anything else. That (on top of the visual-look of the game) discounts it for me more than anything.

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I dont think the word grind applies to that game anywhere near as CoH. You can log on to a game like WoW and have different types of experiences (with the professions for example) every time you log on. So the grind may not seem as grindish as here when every time you log on you fight fight fight.

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You know, I think it was named "WoW" purely for ironic reasons, because it certainly fails to provoke anything even close to a "Wow!" reaction.

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You mean to you or the 10 million people that have accounts to it?

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http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...age=0&vc=1

DOOOM? Ok, any such system is a good thing. And that you only can transfer tickets earned for OTHERS playing your arc is clearly encouraging more people write more. On the other hand that can make usual fan dumb intrigues and popularity contests more vicious. And on the still other hand, hey, we have zone PvP, market PvP, and now MA PvP... Reads MsScribe's siikkrett diaries for tips and tricks... (not really.)

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I'm wondering.. can you recreate your avatar villian as a boss? Armed with all his powers?

I always wanted my villian to fight my main hero. in fact, the poor guy has spent the last couple of years looking for him .
Poor sod doesnt realise he's in a game and they're both on the same account..

Think how happy he'll be if they can come face to face...

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Hi there. I'm the nice easy going one. And I wont give you any problems. That'll be those that disagree with me.

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Trust me, people think differently about you.

And it isnt just limited to the POSTERS of the forums, but also the readers of the forums.

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Have we met?

I believe it was essential for you to log in, press quote and then make that comment. Honestly.
I just cant figure out why.
And how can I trust someone i'll never even meet?
You could be a cross dressing kleptomanic for all I know.
I'm sure you're not ... are you?
To each their own and all but still...

And anyway, to know me is to love me...

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And yes, I am looking forward to hearing everything GR has to say about this decidedly very welcoming community, the good and the bad. For lurking on these boards a wee bit over the 4 years I've been playing CoH though, I can say it's provided a place for some really good people to interact and I intend to carry on this tradition!

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Hi there. I'm the nice easy going one. And I wont give you any problems. That'll be those that disagree with me.

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Thats a bit harsh Myopic , While open to the suggestion I may be worrying unnecessarily, I think we're due an explanation/apology thats all I'm saying. The lack of communication is terrible, and whats changed other than the news Avateas off to the states to represent us?, Issue 14 beta news?, anything else? - you convinced supports going to be ok with a skeleton staff?. Try reading back though the thread Myopic, Its not just rookie doom-mongers posting throughout - Its forum veterans as well who are angered by the lack of communication.

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Mother, they CANT come outright and spell out directly what's going ion until the redudancy process is complete. If they do they are opening themselves up for an almighty employment claim. Not least because the process is legislative.

Even letting Avateas take over is an almighty risk because if you make someone redundant, you are not allowed to fil that post for 3 months.

I'm very well versed in UK HR law but not in USA or international so maybe there is a loophole there somewhere.

But I think GR and others may well have a possible constructive dismissal claim simpl;y n the basis that someone is taking over their roles. As I say, I'm not 100% sure because of the UK / USA thing. But NC sure as heck wont want to predudice themselves any further.

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I happen to believe that plenty could be done to circumvent that happening regardless (within reason) just how good CO is. But they havent done it.



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Being in marketing, you clearly believe in selling people tripe.

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Can you please try , just try to avoid making insulting coments like this? I believe you can do it. Just believe to achieve. Or fake it to make it. You can do it.
Oh and Marketing isnt the only thing I consult on.

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From my point of view, if CO is a much better product, then it would be an altogether good thing for people to switch to the superior product.

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Not disputing that. Im simply commenting on MA, why its good but given the context of whats round the corner, a major disapointment to me. Anything else really is for another thread.

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That's a point for the CO thread but they seem to be listening and improving

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Certainly seems to be true. The graphics certainly seems much improved. But it is still very light on real content, bug ridden, and with appalling button mashing gameplay. All these things can be fixed, but the can't be fixed quickly.

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All will be revealed in due course I guess.

LB wrote:
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The idea for the arch nemesis came from non other than our own Positron.

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I'm pretty sure that the idea of an archenemy has been knocking around for many centuries. It's even existed in comics before computers were used to play games... It's a pretty quantum leap to put it into games about heroes/villains.


note - quantum as in a small, indivisible unit of leaping - i.e. archenemies are a pretty obvious idea to anyone thinking about designing a hero game!

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Dave! I'm suprised at you. you arent normally given to petty semantics.

Yes arch foes have been with us since year dot. But I'm pretty sure you knew I was referring to a super hero MMO context.

And I am unaware of any MMO anywhere that incoroporates that type of system.
And Ide be surprised if the AI to achieve any sophisticated "archfoe" gameplay was available until fairly recently.

Please tell me I didnt have to say.. "the first person in the MMO superhero arena to suggest and want an arch enemy system was our very own Positron."

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So, in other words, they are two completely unrelated things, with no connection to each other whatsoever?

Player created missions and an archenemy which appears randomly to confront you... yes, I see the similarity


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The idea for the arch nemesis came from non other than our own Positron. Years ago.
It seems to me that CO have taken quite a few things from CoH. Infact they even claim its the game they wish they could have made all those years ago.
Is it so terrible for CoH to grab a few ideas (Arch nemesis, interactive envirments, banks etc etc etc) from them?

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I meant a super hero affectionado.

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Who make up a relatively small proportion of the playerbase.

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Of this superhero game???? okaaay....

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if Warhammer, a non superhero game can do that what can a new (assume reasonably good) superhero game do?

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Very little. WAR is an excellent game. Reasonably good simply won't cut the mustard.

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Well we disagree there. But time will answer that one.

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meaning Of course CO could be excellent. In which case CoX is doomed whatever they do, and we end up with a better game to play.

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And this is my point. I happen to believe that plenty could be done to circumvent that happening regardless (within reason) just how good CO is. But they havent done it.

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More likely, it will bomb, based on what I'm hearing from beta, unless they take another 6 months minimum to get it right.

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That's a point for the CO thread but they seem to be listening and improving. You can get an awful lot done during a beta. As just one example CoH was classless when it went into beta.

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There's nothing wrong per se with the MA. On the face of it it's a great idea.
But the bottom line, to me, is making it the companies major thrust on the eve of its first direct competition coming out is a major mistake.

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It's not though, is it. Issue 15, the big story advancing issue, is the one that will come out on the eve of CO.

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And we (and the outside media) know less about that than we do about games that havent even exited (or started) closed Beta yet. Great.

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Not that CO is really the "first direct competition". You only have to look at the big drop in numbers when WAR was released to see that.

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Yeah I know what War did, and there's no question any succesful game is capable of taking a bite out of our playerbase. But that only compounds the problem.

It's not direct competition in the sense I meant though. Although I know what you mean.
I meant a super hero affectionado.
Till now, you want to play a superhero this is the only MMO
in town. Soon there will be direct competition.
if Warhammer, a non superhero game can do that what can a new (assume reasonably good) superhero game do?

I dont think this game has batoned down the hatches at all. It's just carried on as though it hasnt got a concern in the world.
I havent seen any urgency, any innovative new content, nothing. As I say MA, in that sense, doesnt impress me because it doesnt require any imagination or inspired thought.
It's just a case of figuring out how to pass over the relevent tech. As I said, I'm sure it will find fans but it's not exactly gonna have CO or DC shaking in their booties.
And by now something to that effect should either be out there or have been announced.

If i was on the board at Cryptic I would be delighted at the (non) response NC have laid out in anticipation of CO. I really would.

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. Even if tiny 0.1% of arcs would be any good, that's still dozens, maybe hundreds of good ones. Finding them might ber a problem though, look at any fanfiction site...

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Arent we able to give the missions a grade?

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All people will do is farm Behemoths anyway!!!

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There's nothing wrong per se with the MA. On the face of it it's a great idea.
But the bottom line, to me, is making it the companies major thrust on the eve of its first direct competition coming out is a major mistake.

It just seems to me that NC, have known for an awful long time that theyre about to be hit by a game that, on the face of it has far more ideas and diversity not to mention its brand new.
They should, in my opinion have raised their own game and, over the last 6 months launched pre emptive content to try and match the up coming competition.

My opinion is that the MA isnt it.
It will impress a number of players who will want to create missions. It will, temporarily i suspect, attract players who think its cool to play other players missions.
But, when all is said and done, its just minions, bosses and glowies. Same as.

I am curious as to whether we will get the same tools to create missions as the devs ?(if not how can we provide enthralling content?)
And if we do get tools to enable us to create missions that exceed the current type we are served, then what does it say about the professionals, paid to give us the best mission content they could over the last 5 years?

Back to my point, what I note is that MA doesnt require innovative thinking or imagination from the devs. It doesnt require them to think out of the box to look for new ways to entice players. It simply means they lend us their tech.

So to me, who accuses them of lacking in imagination to the extreme, this is the lazy mans way of appeasing the player base.

So, while I do applaud the MA in and of itself, I don't think its gonna be the be all and end all and I think Nc has missed the boat, in terms of grabbing extra player base in time for CO, big time.

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If they try to move players to the US without character transfer, then I don't think it will be just most of the EU players they will loose. I wouldn't be suprised if quite a few US players also quit in protest, possibly even a dev or two. Not to mention the numbe of people who would swear never to play another NCSoft game.

I think it's an unlikely scenario though.

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But why cant they simply manage the EU servers and player base from the USA?
This is the internet after all.

In what way does it matter where the staff are based?