How come we have no red servers yet???
By
Accualt,
Posted on: 2005-11-01 20:08 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
GET OVER IT
[b]Virtue[/b]
Lady Mantis, Dark/empathy defender
Woman in Purdah, DM/regen scrapper
Gravity Monkey, Grav/kin controller
Stone Woman, Stone/stone tanker
Freyja Incarnate, Fire/invuln. tanker
Head Shrinker, Ill/FF controller
Blowup Doll, AR/dev blaster
Geek of Darkness, Dark/dark defender
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Personally, States, I think WoW kinda sucks compared to CoH, and I'm a Blizzard fangirl...but that's just me. ^_^
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I agree. WoW's ok, but you spend a LOT of time solo'ing. I missed the fast action, short travel times, and easy teaming of CoH/CoV.
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Everything a Nerf in the last 10 months?
Hyeprbole
Some big things added
Striga (maybe not sure on timing)
[/ QUOTE ] Was here when I got here... looks like last November.
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Just a nitpick: Striga was part of I3. It was on put on the test server some time in Novemeber, but it did not hit the Live servers until shortly after New Year's - 10 months ago.
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When you do get the Q4 numbers, will you then say the same thing about the following Q1 numbers?
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And he's going to keep acting like he's already been proven right until then.
If numbers actually go up, he'll make up another excuse as to why, like he blamed free trials for numbers going up with I4.
He has a problem with a nerf that he's trying to turn into everyone's problem. He also likes all the attention this is getting him.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
nah by that time he'll have moved on to the next thing he's gonna be pissed about.
who we talking about anyhow?
[b]Virtue[/b]
Lady Mantis, Dark/empathy defender
Woman in Purdah, DM/regen scrapper
Gravity Monkey, Grav/kin controller
Stone Woman, Stone/stone tanker
Freyja Incarnate, Fire/invuln. tanker
Head Shrinker, Ill/FF controller
Blowup Doll, AR/dev blaster
Geek of Darkness, Dark/dark defender
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*sigh*
Let's see if I can lay this thing to rest.
At I5 - and now again with ED - some claim that the game is "dying" and that thousands of players are leaving. This isn't true. We're actually gaining customers. Not hundreds of thousands, but we're gaining nevertheless.
Then all of a sudden I read Armsman's post where he talks about our original launch subscription numbers - which isn't really the point. My entire response on this thread has been focused to I5 and ED reaction - so the more pertinent number to look at would be what our numbers were just previous to I5...not our numbers just after launch. Never did I make a claim that we have more subscribers now than we did last year. My point continues to be: ED and I5 haven't created a ghost town out of City of Heroes.
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*sigh*
Now remove that little variable in the equation called "City of Villains". Where would your subscription numbers be if ED had gone live without the launch of a hugely hyped expansion? Your mastery at the prestidigitation of facts is astounding. Had ED gone live sans CoV, then we would be looking at an entirely different scenario.
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And if only we could remove that variable of time moving inexorably forward, it would be April 28th, 2004, when Fire Tanks and AR/Dev Blasters were gods among men.
It can be interesting to look at data with certain variables taken out, but ultimately one has to look at all the pertinent data and all the variables. If there wasn't CoV, there would still be something else in a box on the shelves from Cryptic/NCSoft right now. It's part of the business plan for MMOGs to solidify their base after about a year. WoW is following suit, I believe. I don't know about EQ2.
Some variables are more optional than others. CoV, or some other boxed Expanshalone!, is not a very optional. If ED was planned from last March (of this, I have little doubt. The general idea of it coalesced in the HO adjustment threads from last Xmas.), then I4, I5, and ED all set set the stage for a revitalized combat math system just in time for the next retail offering from the company.
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Wow, a post from States' that isn't condescending. Been a while since we'e seen that. Thanks.
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My point continues to be: ED and I5 haven't created a ghost town out of City of Heroes.
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And, you're right there. It started before that. Rounds about I4 is when I started to notice a significant increase in the number of people from friends lists and SG rosters that showed OFFLINE.
I5 and ED aren't the way to bring them back either. If you guys are perfectly content just doing enough to maintain your current numbers not much I can do to persuade you otherwise.
I can only hope I7 is BIG, because we sure as heck need it to be. I suspect though that PvP is going to have another round of large "tweaks" to powers and mechanincs coming our way.
Been almost two years now and no new Melee or Defense sets, no Skills, no power customization, no end game activities, no fixes for lots of stuff that has been broken since beta (damn disorient bugs), no weapon customization, only 1 Epic AT, no sprucing up of the old zones or missions or TF's, the list goes on and on.
That is the kind of stuff that is going to bring players back/keep them here. If indeed the numbers coming in are growing just imagine what your subscription numbers would be if you guys worked a bit more on keeping players rather than driving them off.
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I agree completely here. You guys should spend more time giving us new features, more end game content, and fixing actual bugs instead of spending all of your time dictating to your paying customers how to play the game through patches because we are obviously too stupid and unaware to know what fun is. I remember how fun this game was when I first got it, and now the way it has gone the past year or so. All but one member of my old supergroup have left, and I'm very close to leaving. The only reason I've stayed this long was to see what kind of impact City of Villains will have. So far I like it. Regardless, I'm thinking that if these "You're too dumb to know what you want" patches don't end that this game will be dead by the end of next year.
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Regardless, I'm thinking that if these "You're too dumb to know what you want" patches don't end that this game will be dead by the end of next year.
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It's funny that only the players of this game think this way. The actual devs, if anything, have stressed repeatedly that the need for balance exists because players were far smarter than them in some regards, finding combinations of powers and enhancements they never dreamed of to achieve a goal in the game faster than they planned for.
Yes, some people to this day look at nerfs in a selfish and greedy manner, yourself included. But not stupid. Perhaps ignorant, but ignorance is not stupid. You just haven't seen yet what an unbalanced game can do to a playerbase. And how much trouble an unbalanced game could be in the future if they want to make new end game content or new ATs/powersets.
If you don't think at least some of the nerfs in the last few issues were needed, you are overlooking the glaring problems of the playerbase. Issue 4 was herd-a-rama. It was herd-a-rama ON THE TEST SERVER... WHERE THE DEVS ARE... even before it got off test. A lot of people were powerleveling 3-5 characters to 50 in a month and then complaining about no end game content. Heck, there's even still people to this day that find a way to do this and still post on this forum about it. Nerfs were needed to stop it.
I'm sorry all but one member of your supergroup has left. But my supergroup has consistantly grown in numbers since issue 1. That's what makes me wonder if the game is truly turning players away or if some players are just hermiting themselves away without looking for new people to team with and new people to join SGs with.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
I've sorta lost track of where the conversation went here in this thread, but he's a quick look at where we are standing compared to the big guns of the industry:
World of Warcraft
Lineage 2
Lineage
Final Fantasy XI
Everquest
Runescape
Everquest 2
Star Wars Galaxies
Dark Age of Camelot
Ultima Online
City of Heroes
We're still holding at 11th place worldwide for MMORPG's (we have for about a year) and some of those like UO, DAOC and SWG are on a steep decline downward.
With the exception of EQ2, WoW and Lineage 2, all the other titles have been around for 6 months to a few years longer than CoH, and have built fanbases over longer time, as well has having multiple expansions to add content. We're just having our first content upgrade and it's about the size of the original CoH when it came out. 
I wouldn't say that.
CoV launched with so much CoH technology that they created in the last year already in from the get-go. Capes, costume slots, RSKing, respecs, auras, the Arena. And it also added a lot of new tech like newspaper missions and the bases as well as a ton of new content.
City of Villains, at launch, even with 10 less levels, is at least as big as City of Heroes was in issue 5.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
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If numbers actually go up, he'll make up another excuse as to why, like he blamed free trials for numbers going up with I4.
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pwned.
Dawnslayer on Virtue.
Trying catching up when word of mouth is COH is not fun anymore.Its called a ripple effect ,hope you have your resume handy. 
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Trying catching up when word of mouth is COH is not fun anymore.Its called a ripple effect ,hope you have your resume handy.
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Oh man, you totally told him!
So then: every game in the history of forever has been a failure because of word of mouth, eh? Because games aren't even released yet nowadays before there are camps of people on the internet ready to tell you 100 reasons why it sucks and you should play some other game.
It's called the Internet Whining Effect, hope you have a better doom post handy.
Current Badge Hunter: Plot Device (Rad/Thermal/Dark) - 1,268 Xbox Live: Friggin Taser
King of Electricity, Lead Inmate running the Carl and Sons asylum, the "Man" behind the Establishment, Given Honor in Hat Form By Paragon City (Favorite Forum Poster 2006!), Master of Ceremonies of the Fair Use Law podcast
It's never good to wield bumper sticker-length economics truisms as if it's threatening, Majestic. It isn't. You're writing 'Full House'-level neener-neeners with a predominately 'Sports Night'-appreciative audience in this forum.
*pillsbury doughboy giggle*
[b]Virtue[/b]
Lady Mantis, Dark/empathy defender
Woman in Purdah, DM/regen scrapper
Gravity Monkey, Grav/kin controller
Stone Woman, Stone/stone tanker
Freyja Incarnate, Fire/invuln. tanker
Head Shrinker, Ill/FF controller
Blowup Doll, AR/dev blaster
Geek of Darkness, Dark/dark defender
I just want to know where these "hundreds of thousands" of players are that I was told by someone on a thread were subscribers. Hundreds I can agree with. Thousands... maybe a few thousand (say, no more than 5 thousand, ) on a Friday night or weekend. Can't see it being much more than that though.
I love it when people pull numbers out of their ... you know where.
[b]Virtue[/b]
Lady Mantis, Dark/empathy defender
Woman in Purdah, DM/regen scrapper
Gravity Monkey, Grav/kin controller
Stone Woman, Stone/stone tanker
Freyja Incarnate, Fire/invuln. tanker
Head Shrinker, Ill/FF controller
Blowup Doll, AR/dev blaster
Geek of Darkness, Dark/dark defender
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I love it when people pull numbers out of their ... you know where.
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Don't touch those numbers! You don't know where they've been!
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I love it when people pull numbers out of their ... you know where.
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I wasn't pulling numbers out my [censored]. I was simply questioning someone else having quoted subscriber statistics. Granted, not in this thread, but even in this thread they are claiming numbers are up/down/steady and not saying where they got the info. Perhaps you should read the post before making a snide and back-handed insulting response to it.
I just logged on virtue, 9:30 AM central on a Saturday morningl, and did a search and found 1184 players. Not exactly prime time.
[b]Virtue[/b]
Lady Mantis, Dark/empathy defender
Woman in Purdah, DM/regen scrapper
Gravity Monkey, Grav/kin controller
Stone Woman, Stone/stone tanker
Freyja Incarnate, Fire/invuln. tanker
Head Shrinker, Ill/FF controller
Blowup Doll, AR/dev blaster
Geek of Darkness, Dark/dark defender
I like CoH/CoV. I played Wow. Took one character all the way to lvl 60. Found I hated the end game content with a passion because it was all about loot and loot and loot and it was just aweful. I came back to CoH, played the CoV beta and really don't intend to go back to WoW.
I have not found that ED has cause any extreme problems with any of my characters, I don't love ED but I don't hate it either. It's change. Most of the time people don't like change. So they will use anything they can find to fight the change. Even subscription numbers to cause problems. ED does not prevent you from slotting your powers anyway you want to. I still slot my Nova power on my blaster with 6 DMG. It works fine.
The numbers are just that Numbers. I have no problems finding people to team with on either CoH or CoV. Actually on CoV I get tired of the blind invites all the time. Those of you who said it was very easy to find teams back in I2/I3 must realize you had a lot of people at your level back then, same as CoV does at this time. So you have a lot of people in your Zones. CoH is now more spread out. People have prefered "friends" they like to team with because they know how they play. Pickup groups are not the norm anymore because they are unpredictable.
Jack is right, Blizzard has a great past in creating games. Coh is still a child compared to WoW. Believe me there are plenty of players on Virtue. We are yellow almost every night. CoH/CoV is not dying. I believe that. If you don't want to believe that, your right to. I know what I believe.
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I wouldn't say that.
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You're right, I should say "expansion." I wasn't meaning to overlook the content upgrades of 6 issues.
EXPANSHALONE!
Come on now, we invented a new term for Chrissakes. At least use it.
Is that anything like Jabberwocky? 
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Since then the game seems to have been bleeding subscribers; and the low point (in the U.S.) seems to have been 120,000. Since then it's fluctuated, and now stands at 150,000 in the U.S. and Europe.
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You are still analyzing things in a bubble.
For the past year, the entire entertainment industry has been on a downward trend (including video games, dvd sales, movie box office sales). In September alone, console video game sales was 20% lower than the same time last year. The fact that CoH had only decreased their subscriber base by 8% from Q2 to Q3 is probably a good thing.
Also consider that CoH sales (including subscriptions and box sales) actually increased 10% from Q2 to Q3. That suggests a surge in box sales that will likely lead to a corresponding surge in subscriptions. (This trend is also shown, only in the opposite direction, in that sales were down in Q2, which led to a drop in subscriptions in Q3).
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So, again, if the 4Q 2005 numbers show a big reversal of the'bleeding subcriber' trend; and show a groundswell of retained subscribers, I will as I've said before, hapily eat crow.
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When you do get the Q4 numbers, will you then say the same thing about the following Q1 numbers?