Issue 3: Release Announced, Tuseday the 14th.
By
9783_Dollar_Man,
Posted on: 2004-12-10 10:57 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Sorry to spoil the fun, guys, but that date is certainly not THE day. It all depends upon the bugs we squash and so forth. He asked "When's Issue 3 coming out?" and I said "Heck, a week? It all depends on the bugs." There's no set schedule, though next Tuesday would be nice.
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In that case can't you just put it out tomorrow and fix the bugs along the way? 
(Its not as if there isn't bugs already 
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They tried that once. I didn't work out so well.
Your forum reg date is the date that Issue 2 came out. Hmm, wonder if the buggy Issue that certain players begged to be released bugs and all inspired you to come to the forum to vent? If not, it's quite the coincidence.
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Yeah, we lost SG members because of Issue 2. Let's not do that again, please.
The mantra I hope is being chanted in Cryptic's offices, CoT-like:
"Fix the bugs, tweak the powers, then release. Fix the bugs, tweak the powers, then release. Fix the bugs, tweak the powers, then release."
I'd rather have an awesome, nearly-bugless release January 14th than a crapfest like Issue 2 released on December 14th.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
5th Element? uhhhh WTG on research!
@artphobia
To the best dev team ever: I enjoyed meeting you all at the Summits and best of luck in all your future endeavors.
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Sorry to spoil the fun, guys, but that date is certainly not THE day. It all depends upon the bugs we squash and so forth. He asked "When's Issue 3 coming out?" and I said "Heck, a week? It all depends on the bugs." There's no set schedule, though next Tuesday would be nice.
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GOOD! LOTR:RTK is out on DVD that day! 
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The fifth element.
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BORON!
the new villain group is Boron!
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The fifth element.
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BORON!
the new villain group is Boron!
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really statesman should just do game press releases every one will get the same information and every interview wont as the same questions
"Never attempt to balance mechanics through Role Playing."
Castle
nice to know
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nice to know
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Try reading the rest of the thread. In paticular the Dev post.
Seriously, someone should change the title of this thread...
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The fifth element.
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BORON!
the new villain group is Boron!
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Heh. In my circle of friends, no one can say "boom" (in-game or out) without it being answered by a chorus of "BIG badda boom!"
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Does the guy who wrote this article know NOTHING about the MMO market? From all that I know about this update it is not that much bigger than any other MMOs 3 months worth of updates, actually more like 4 months. Especially if Cryptic keeps with its habbit of heavily recycling, which it looks like they are.
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Although the author of the article obviously had multiple errors in the type, I would have to ask you the same question you just posed; do you know ANYTHING about MMORPGs?
Because I don't know what MMORPGs you've played, but just as a simple example, I played EQ for a year, paying $12.95 a month without a single free update of any merit. Period.
Unless you consider actually fixing code errors, balancing powers that were imbalanced from the outset, fixing zones that existed at release or the odd, ridiculously simplistic and extremely limited single-zone "event" an expansion.
An Anarchy Online subscription costs $14.95 per month. Notum Wars, an expansion, introduced... well, vehicles mostly. Another feature that was touted in beta but was absent from release.
AO hasn't had a notable update since release. They had a hard enough time with the client and their network starting out. Every update I saw were simply tweaks to existing systems that were broken from the get-go. The patch history can tell that tale.
A DAoC subscription costs $12.95 a month. Other than the addition of Darkness Falls, I saw nothing I would consider a notable update any kind before the Shrouded Isles expansion. Even Darkness Falls couldn't seriously be considered an expansion, because only a limited amount of the subscribers could enter it based on their control of keeps for access.
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90% of the "new" powers are essentially old powers that have been nurfed a bit and given to an AT that does not have them in their primary/secondary sets.
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Which is still a major update, since no other MMORPG that I have played made any effort to add complimentary power sets within the first seven months of release. Instead, they nerfed existing powersets or simply ignored the issues.
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New zone looks like it only has about 10% new stuff. all of the old zones look almost the same. All they ever add in these "massive" updates are the same old stuff coated in a thin layer of new art.
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Spoken like someone who hasn't actually travelled to every zone and/or area available. Because if you had honestly travelled the Shadow Shard, you'd know that at the very least the art is completely new and incorporates a villian class that didn't exist prior to the Rularuu invasion event which occurred after release.
Anyone who pays attention would notice the changes to the primary release zones themselves; additions that have been put in preliminary to the release of a future update which is also free. For example, check the description of the Foggy badge.
Dark Age of Camelot released in October 2001; they finally delivered on guild/regular housing in their Foundations release, in 2003. I'll give it to them, though; at least it was free. As it should have been, since it was a promised feature all through the classic DAoC beta. It wasn't until just before the game went gold that beta testers realized there would be no guild housing.. heck, no housing at all. Finally, two years later, they deliver.
Here's what DAoC brought out in their first expansion pack, Shrouded Isles:
New graphical engine with spectacular new visual effects (the single largest reason to actually purchase this expansion)
Three new island continents, in which to explore and adventure (one per realm) (so really, one new continent... because you're only playing in one realm at a time)
One new player race per realm -- three total (again, really only one new player race, since you would have to play characters from all three realms to play each new type of player race)
Two new player classes per realm -- six total (see above)
All new ambient music soundtrack (ok, I guess)
Revamped user interface (Which could have been released as an update.)
The Shrouded Isles expansion cost $24.95 at release.
Notice that several of the items in their retail expansion look suprisingly similar to items we are getting in an update?
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Odd thing is he says most publishers would box this up and charge $15 for it. Well when you consider that we pay $5 more per month than some of the older MMOs and it is about 3 months worth of updates, then we ARE paying about $15 for it. So, I guess he is right. There IS one publisher who would charge for this update.
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Hoo boy, that is one long, blatant exaggeration. Most publishers do and have published retail "expansions" for the same content we are getting in updates. And we certainly aren't being charged $5 more for it.
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Obviously, Thursday is The Day.
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Oh, I hope not. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
[/Arthur Dent]
one more mistake....on my browser it comes up as the episode 3 interview. i thought CoH worked in Issues? when did this game become Star Wars?
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one more mistake....on my browser it comes up as the episode 3 interview. i thought CoH worked in Issues? when did this game become Star Wars?
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OOOH, I want the Lightsaber pool for my Blaster!!!!
'Lo, there do I see my father.
'Lo, there do I see my mother, and my sisters, and my brothers.
'Lo, there do I see the line of my people, back to the beginning.
'Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them.
In the halls of Valhalla, where the brave may live forever.
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Obviously, Thursday is The Day.
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Oh, I hope not. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
[/Arthur Dent]
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lol And then the Vogons destroy the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass.
They wont release issue three before the 19th. They love me more than that...
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one more mistake....on my browser it comes up as the episode 3 interview. i thought CoH worked in Issues? when did this game become Star Wars?
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OOOH, I want the Lightsaber pool for my Blaster!!!!
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freakin sweet.. but another lawsuit.. but still something to want
Take a dash of Illuminati, add a sprinkle of Mafia and just a touch of Omnipresnce and a healthy helping of mob violence...
Pinnacle @Valmith
MOVE.... ALONG....
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Does the guy who wrote this article know NOTHING about the MMO market? From all that I know about this update it is not that much bigger than any other MMOs 3 months worth of updates, actually more like 4 months. Especially if Cryptic keeps with its habbit of heavily recycling, which it looks like they are.
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Although the author of the article obviously had multiple errors in the type, I would have to ask you the same question you just posed; do you know ANYTHING about MMORPGs?
Because I don't know what MMORPGs you've played, but just as a simple example, I played EQ for a year, paying $12.95 a month without a single free update of any merit. Period.
Unless you consider actually fixing code errors, balancing powers that were imbalanced from the outset, fixing zones that existed at release or the odd, ridiculously simplistic and extremely limited single-zone "event" an expansion.
An Anarchy Online subscription costs $14.95 per month. Notum Wars, an expansion, introduced... well, vehicles mostly. Another feature that was touted in beta but was absent from release.
AO hasn't had a notable update since release. They had a hard enough time with the client and their network starting out. Every update I saw were simply tweaks to existing systems that were broken from the get-go. The patch history can tell that tale.
A DAoC subscription costs $12.95 a month. Other than the addition of Darkness Falls, I saw nothing I would consider a notable update any kind before the Shrouded Isles expansion. Even Darkness Falls couldn't seriously be considered an expansion, because only a limited amount of the subscribers could enter it based on their control of keeps for access.
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There is one small(compared to EQ or UO) but relativly succesful MMO which did regular Monthly Content updates. Sometimes they were Significant and other times they were quite small. They released a sequel to that game but it didn't do near so well, and the updates were not quite as good either.
(For those who are interested Turbine's Asheron's Call 1 (Up until Turbine bought complete rights to the game from Microsoft it was $9.95 a month, they raised it to $12.95) and 2. Turbine is the company working on the D&D online game and the Middle Earth: Online game.)
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Does the guy who wrote this article know NOTHING about the MMO market? From all that I know about this update it is not that much bigger than any other MMOs 3 months worth of updates, actually more like 4 months. Especially if Cryptic keeps with its habbit of heavily recycling, which it looks like they are.
[/ QUOTE ]
Although the author of the article obviously had multiple errors in the type, I would have to ask you the same question you just posed; do you know ANYTHING about MMORPGs?
Because I don't know what MMORPGs you've played, but just as a simple example, I played EQ for a year, paying $12.95 a month without a single free update of any merit. Period.
Unless you consider actually fixing code errors, balancing powers that were imbalanced from the outset, fixing zones that existed at release or the odd, ridiculously simplistic and extremely limited single-zone "event" an expansion.
An Anarchy Online subscription costs $14.95 per month. Notum Wars, an expansion, introduced... well, vehicles mostly. Another feature that was touted in beta but was absent from release.
AO hasn't had a notable update since release. They had a hard enough time with the client and their network starting out. Every update I saw were simply tweaks to existing systems that were broken from the get-go. The patch history can tell that tale.
A DAoC subscription costs $12.95 a month. Other than the addition of Darkness Falls, I saw nothing I would consider a notable update any kind before the Shrouded Isles expansion. Even Darkness Falls couldn't seriously be considered an expansion, because only a limited amount of the subscribers could enter it based on their control of keeps for access.
[/ QUOTE ]
There is one small(compared to EQ or UO) but relativly succesful MMO which did regular Monthly Content updates. Sometimes they were Significant and other times they were quite small. They released a sequel to that game but it didn't do near so well, and the updates were not quite as good either.
(For those who are interested Turbine's Asheron's Call 1 (Up until Turbine bought complete rights to the game from Microsoft it was $9.95 a month, they raised it to $12.95) and 2. Turbine is the company working on the D&D online game and the Middle Earth: Online game.)
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I've only actually played MMO's that give free updates/expansions. AC1 was my home for 4 years, it's amazing what releasing new quests/updates once a month can do for a games longevity (you should see just how *much* content AC1 has, adding an average 7-8 new quests/dungeons a month sure does add up...). I played SWG for a year or so with there every 2-3 month updates, CoH is the same (with updates at least - way more fun to play though).
I actually can't imagine paying monthly for a MMO that stays static.
So uhh.. it's today right? I'm checking rather frantically, but I'm beginning to think that maybe the interviewer was even more intellectually challenged than I'd thought?
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So uhh.. it's today right? I'm checking rather frantically, but I'm beginning to think that maybe the interviewer was even more intellectually challenged than I'd thought?
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You might want to read more than a couple posts on this thread. States said he was misquoted (as I misquote him again).
I just knew there'd be people getting upset thanks to that interview. Coises!
Yup, DaemonsBlade and Zavber, you have both mentioned the one MMORPG that actually defined what a third generation MMORPG should be: Asheron's Call. I purposely didn't mention it because in the realm of MMORPGs it broke the mold. The funniest part of that was it did it before 3/4 of the current crop of MMORPGs even existed!
- Free monthly updates which included new equipment, new quests, new monsters AND an evolving storyline.
- An enormous, contiguous land mass with no zoning dotted with dungeons, ruins and places to actually explore. You could run across the landscape and literally DISCOVER things that no other player had seen before.
- A dynamic world that changed EVERY MONTH. Everything from the addition of cities and landmasses to the destruction of beloved cities and outposts.
- An excellent crafting system, especially in the area of spells; spells actually required components and the components had to be combined in specific ways to learn a new spell.
- An incredibly detailed skill system.
- Combat that allowed you to literally fight HORDES of monsters; you felt like a hero.
The few detractors I saw during my odd year and a half or so in Asheron's Call:
- Combat, while dynamic, could be repetitive; especially if you were a swordsman or other melee type; it was basically hit this button for this type of attack, and there were only three attacks, high medium or low. No styles, etc.
- No mounts, at least during the time I played. Now mounts weren't actually necessary since you had a running skill you could improve until you were literally flying across the landscape... but it was still a pretty big landscape!
- The ease with which players could dupe items; it just damaged the economy too much and caused rollbacks. If you weren't a duper, you still had to suffer through a rollback that might drop you a level back, removed hard to find items you had just traded for, etc. That was very annoying. To their credit, the dev team did often reward players with items, etc, when such a situation occurred, but still; ugh.
- Lag. The same type of lag that many WoW players faced and are probably still facing. The problem with a contiguous land mass is that a display of latency does not accurately reflect how much lag you are actually enduring as a result of failure of databases to supply information. Which means that you can be in the green zone as far as latency is concerned, but completely locked in place, unable to move, while the server takes actions, i.e., the monster beats you to death while you stand stock still. AC veterans and WoW players are very familiar with this.
Unfortunately, Asheron's Call 2 just chucked everything that made AC1 unique and ground-breaking. Great graphics, I'll give them that; but the world was sterile; no NPCs to speak of, really, no vendors, you can't enter buildings, no ruins to explore, the world never really changes (ie., the premise is that the cities we knew were destroyed and we were supposed to be able to rebuild them.. to my knowledge, that still hasn't happened.)
It was a HUGE step back in MMORPGs.
Everyone I knew was looking forward to AC2 as Asheron's Call with a facelift. Now it appears that the original AC is going to get one. That would certainly be worth watching.
Now CoH has many of the same elements that made Asheron's Call so engrossing; a changing world, new places to explore, new monsters to fight, events, new acrchetypes, new powers; all in a completely different tableau. I am very interested to see what they do with the SSOCS.
And we're still getting this content for roughly $15 a month.
I agree 100% but usually keep my fondness for Turbine to myself around here. I blame AC2 on M$.
I'm happy in Paragon don't get me wrong 
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Holy crapola, what's that around his waist?... Is that... a UTILITY BELT?!
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nah, he completed 6 missions, died 4 times, killed an AV and helped rescue 2000 lawyers...
His contact finally decided to trust him and gave him a phone
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its a belly...
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Sorry to spoil the fun, guys, but that date is certainly not THE day. It all depends upon the bugs we squash and so forth. He asked "When's Issue 3 coming out?" and I said "Heck, a week? It all depends on the bugs." There's no set schedule, though next Tuesday would be nice.
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In that case can't you just put it out tomorrow and fix the bugs along the way?
(Its not as if there isn't bugs already
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They tried that once. I didn't work out so well.
Your forum reg date is the date that Issue 2 came out. Hmm, wonder if the buggy Issue that certain players begged to be released bugs and all inspired you to come to the forum to vent? If not, it's quite the coincidence.