Disappointment in the Update Schedule
By
8_Ball,
Posted on: 2006-11-21 24:55 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Cuts at NCsoft? No cuts at Cryptic at all? (Where's Geko, for example? I remember this being asked before, I think the answer was he's on another NCSoft game)
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Geko is on another Cryptic project.
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uh huh.....welocme to maintenence mode people. Marvel is the new money maker and we were the test bed
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This seems an ironic thing to say the same day a new issue goes live (and with inventions coming in the next issue).
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Inventions are an IF and a very big if.....hell i can code inventions to be exactly like Titan So's....right no one knows about those because they truly suck. ED was balanced around the fact that we would get new enhancment types....except we suffered ED and havent seen but a glimpse of inventions.......
Inventions were also scheduled way back when, i4 i think but got put off because of the not fun factor......which is Dev speak for "we couldnt make them suck time out of you guys".....conjecture was because the dev team couldnt make them suck enough to be worthless and take up timesink hours for people to try and get them.
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You seem to be mixing up the abandoned skills system with inventions. They are not the same thing.
If you are not happy with the game, I'd recommend taking a break or quitting. In the end, it is only a game and it's everyone's choice to play or not. I honestly do not understand how people can appear so bitter and cynical and yet still play. Maybe complaining releases endorphins or something.
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....
I am seriously wierded out right now. Catching up on this thread I saw Foo summon Statesman! He summoned him like he was a primordial wizard or something. The powers of The Foo I knew were many, but scorcery and the magical arts? Whooo, those are new to me..
>.>
<.<
Oh, yeah, I have nothing on topic to say. This thread lost me a few days ago.
=^ ^=
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I summoned Positron, too, but I'm honour-bound not to abuse the power.
With great power comes great responsibility...
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So what happened to Lord Recluse? Anyone know? Just curious. This is not a rant.
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He left awhile back to work on another project. I believe it was the Stargate MMO.
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So what happened to Lord Recluse? Anyone know? Just curious. This is not a rant.
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He left awhile back to work on another project. I believe it was the Stargate MMO.
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Correct, Stargate Worlds is its official name. Though there was some time lapse between Zeb leaving and the news of his involvement in Stargate coming up, so we don't know that he left CoX to go to there or if he left for other reasons, and subsequently found employment with the Stargate game.
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And now the Issues are getting smaller and even less frequent? Issue-7 was a lame duck that should come out of Crytic's pockets, not ours. Boasting an increase in subscription numbers while shrinking the Development team down to a skeleton crew while still charging the same price is unnacceptable. I think I've seen enough... I'm tired of getting screwed. This game's potential has finally decreased the the point that it fails to balance the monthly cost and time investment.
I'll be back when/if they ever come around and accept their share of the burden.
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Skeleton crew? Guys, let's not jump to conclusion here. First, Cryptic Studios hasn't layed anyone off. A quick glance shows we're hiring! Second, NCSoft announced cutbacks, but the announcement didn't specify where people were taken off. Remember, NCSoft is a leading MMORPG publisher. They have LOTS of stuff on the burners...Most of which never see the light of day.
A quick look at our release schedules show that only the first issue was released within two months. The second issue was 79 days later (as noted in this thread). Issue 3 then followed 110 days later, Issue 4 120 days, etc. We started trending more towards 3/year within a few Issues...mostly because we started learning about the production & QA cycle.
Bottom line: CoH remains a success in NCSoft's portfolio. They're continuing to financially support the product for a long time to come...Cryptic Studios loves the game. It's our baby. The game isn't going anywhere!
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3 a year is good with me. I'd like more obviously (who wouldn't?) But if they stay big >.> and can be gotten back on schedule (1 every 4 months at 3 a year), I think we'll be fine frankly.
Would Cryptic, at some point in the future, consider multiple small updates instead of big issues? Like say 6 small issues a year instead of 3 big ones?
3 is fine, but as someone had mentioned earlier in the thread, even on schedule that can feel a twinge slow >.> Merely a thought, good to have inside info!
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Id be perfectly happy with 3 BIG ones a year. 4 month wait isnt too bad, but this 6 month wait for an issue that alot of people think is "frosting" (myself included) is dissapointing.
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Skeleton crew? Guys, let's not jump to conclusion here. First, Cryptic Studios hasn't layed anyone off. A quick glance shows we're hiring! Second, NCSoft announced cutbacks, but the announcement didn't specify where people were taken off.
We started trending more towards 3/year within a few Issues...mostly because we started learning about the production & QA cycle.
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I don't know why this guy thinks he is, but he obviously doesn't read these boards very well because none of this rubbish is supported by all the other stuff I've read here. He's making it all up. Fanboy.
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Skeleton crew? Guys, let's not jump to conclusion here. First, Cryptic Studios hasn't layed anyone off. A quick glance shows we're hiring! Second, NCSoft announced cutbacks, but the announcement didn't specify where people were taken off.
We started trending more towards 3/year within a few Issues...mostly because we started learning about the production & QA cycle.
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I don't know why this guy thinks he is, but he obviously doesn't read these boards very well because none of this rubbish is supported by all the other stuff I've read here. He's making it all up. Fanboy.
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I'm pretty sure that's incorrect usage of "fanboy". A fanboy would be a "fan".
He's more of a hateboy, or a naysayer, really.
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but it doesn't sound like you addressed the complaints exactly, unless when you're saying "Cryptic Studios," you're referring to the CoH development team too.
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Id be perfectly happy with 3 BIG ones a year. 4 month wait isnt too bad, but this 6 month wait for an issue that alot of people think is "frosting" (myself included) is dissapointing.
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Both /QFT
You other goons need to lay off me. This company saw over $500 from me over the years while I got to play and talk with with some of the coolest people I've ever met. So it's something I never thought I could ever walk away from. But I think I payed my dues too and I'm entitled to withdraw that support even if I can't articulate the reasoning to everyone's satisfaction. But that reasoning stands. This is just like when Blizzard boasted "having 3 development teams" and assured us all to support all those products equally even though THEY weren't supporting us back equally.
Statesman loves this game still? DOI! Hell, -->I<-- still love this game too! It was hands down the best MMO on the market when it was released. But here's the 64K question: what the hell is it doing lately to evolve and revolutionalize itself or the genre? ...NOTHING.... because it doesn't have the resources to push that envelope anymore. Maybe Cryptic itself has more resuorces than before, but guess what? They're not going into this game anymore and you'd have to have blinders on for the last year not to see that one. What we've gotten is more of the same old timesinks, further and further apart.
Schedueling IS a big deal for someone who wants to play every single day (gimme escapism damnit!) like I have for the last 30 months. And I'm not 'playa hatin' when I bring that up so kindly leave me and whatever faults I personally have out of this discussion so I can go back to sulking over another unrelated mid-20's life crisis while listening to webcast Emo like any dork in my position would.
Thank you
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And now the Issues are getting smaller and even less frequent? Issue-7 was a lame duck that should come out of Crytic's pockets, not ours. Boasting an increase in subscription numbers while shrinking the Development team down to a skeleton crew while still charging the same price is unnacceptable. I think I've seen enough... I'm tired of getting screwed. This game's potential has finally decreased the the point that it fails to balance the monthly cost and time investment.
I'll be back when/if they ever come around and accept their share of the burden.
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Skeleton crew? Guys, let's not jump to conclusion here. First, Cryptic Studios hasn't layed anyone off. A quick glance shows we're hiring! Second, NCSoft announced cutbacks, but the announcement didn't specify where people were taken off. Remember, NCSoft is a leading MMORPG publisher. They have LOTS of stuff on the burners...Most of which never see the light of day.
A quick look at our release schedules show that only the first issue was released within two months. The second issue was 79 days later (as noted in this thread). Issue 3 then followed 110 days later, Issue 4 120 days, etc. We started trending more towards 3/year within a few Issues...mostly because we started learning about the production & QA cycle.
Bottom line: CoH remains a success in NCSoft's portfolio. They're continuing to financially support the product for a long time to come...Cryptic Studios loves the game. It's our baby. The game isn't going anywhere!
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SSSSTTTTTAAAAAATTTTTEEESSSSMMMMAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!
Sorry, I have to say that, I miss seeing that big star avatar around sometimes. 
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Would Cryptic, at some point in the future, consider multiple small updates instead of big issues? Like say 6 small issues a year instead of 3 big ones?
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I felt a great disturbance, as if thousands of programmers suddenly cried out in terror... 
As someone who now develops PC applications for a living, any more than three times a year would seriously limit what any one release/issue has in it. It is simply the fact of fixed overhead for each release eating an ever greater percentage of the schedule leaving less time for the actually work. A week or two each of planning, alpha testing and bug fixing, beta testing up on the test server and bug fixing all adds up to a good chunk of time. If you do a 6 times a year there will be only four months of time where real work is done every year. You end up never having enough time to do anything big.
Now you could have multiple teams working on different releases at the same time but it has a different set of problems. Lets say that Team A starts to work on a release for 4 months from now and Team B starts to work on the really cool release for 8 months from now. They both start with the same current code base. Now as Team A does it's development, they may change the a bit of code/texture/geometry/etc that Team B didn't expect to change or that they may have changed differently. Now Team B could spend a chunk of there time every week trying to keep up with the changes that Team A has been making or they could wait until Team A is done in 4 months and try to integrate all the changes at that point. And it gets even more complicated if you add a 3rd and 4th team into the process.
Either way isn't an enjoyable way to develop software, I've done it both ways. There isn't a happy medium.
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Tempus unum hominem manet
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And now the Issues are getting smaller and even less frequent? Issue-7 was a lame duck that should come out of Crytic's pockets, not ours. Boasting an increase in subscription numbers while shrinking the Development team down to a skeleton crew while still charging the same price is unnacceptable. I think I've seen enough... I'm tired of getting screwed. This game's potential has finally decreased the the point that it fails to balance the monthly cost and time investment.
I'll be back when/if they ever come around and accept their share of the burden.
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Skeleton crew? Guys, let's not jump to conclusion here. First, Cryptic Studios hasn't layed anyone off. A quick glance shows we're hiring! Second, NCSoft announced cutbacks, but the announcement didn't specify where people were taken off. Remember, NCSoft is a leading MMORPG publisher. They have LOTS of stuff on the burners...Most of which never see the light of day.
A quick look at our release schedules show that only the first issue was released within two months. The second issue was 79 days later (as noted in this thread). Issue 3 then followed 110 days later, Issue 4 120 days, etc. We started trending more towards 3/year within a few Issues...mostly because we started learning about the production & QA cycle.
Bottom line: CoH remains a success in NCSoft's portfolio. They're continuing to financially support the product for a long time to come...Cryptic Studios loves the game. It's our baby. The game isn't going anywhere!
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WWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTTT!!!
Is all I gotta say!! Applause
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But here's the 64K question: what the hell is it doing lately to evolve and revolutionalize itself or the genre?
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Hard to answer that without knowing what's in future Issues.
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Posi can call them "Free" all he wants, but there's plnety of other games out there that charge much less than $15 a month for basic Support and Bandwidth. Guildwars (which is where I am right now) charges nothing for Bandwidth & Tech/GM Support. There's no way in Hell that our subscriptions are only going to that stuff. There's no doubt in my mind anymore, they're using the profits and resources from this game, to either bloat their own salaries, or on their next pet projects.
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if you look at it carefully Guild Wars is not free not one bit actually
look at it this way if you buy the original retail box thats 49.99 for a set number of items and ATs then if you buy the first expansion for it Factions thats another 49.99 for an increase to your static lv of ATs and items then if you buy the second expansion for it NightFall thats another 49.99 for an increase to items an ATs
you just payed 149.97 for Updates to the same game
if you were to buy COX's good vs evil edition you basically get more for your buck because it already includeds the same lv of incremental updates that you would get from Guild Wars seperate retail type updates
Now you say well GuildWars wins out cuz you dont have to pay for a subscription fee to play.....well yes but its made up for the lack of free updates or atleas update of the magnitude of COX
Well lets say for the hell of it you say well "I dont have to buy the retail expansions for GuildWars I can just I can make due with my retail version and then it wins out over CoX" well yes but then you hinder yourself to never having any new items or classes added to your repertauir while in CoX its a continuum of Updates
And if you say well I bought COH dvd plus COV dvd and and ive spent way more on COX then I have on GuildWars....well yes you have but then you didnt need to buy the dvd editions there were options you could have just bought their regular versions and even so both games included a month of play and items exclusive to them.....Now dont go tell me your going to be a pessimistic and say well the the items suck! well maybe but then again you knew what you were buying when you went for the shinier box didnt ya!
Dont get me wrong i like to play guild wars but its not like your getting everything for nothing its coming out of somewhere you are eventually paying for those updates in Cox not every issue update is a must reactivate account type thing so its not like you have to play every month
With Guild Wars sure you could make due with never buying an expainsion but you know the game eventually looses its shine just a matter of time when youll want to upgrade
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With Guild Wars sure you could make due with never buying an expainsion but you know the game eventually looses its shine just a matter of time when youll want to upgrade
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I am not complaining about this issue , yes i would like to see more but the difference between GW and CoH/V is you can pay the 50 bucks for the next expansion when you feel it has lost its shine.
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With Guild Wars sure you could make due with never buying an expainsion but you know the game eventually looses its shine just a matter of time when youll want to upgrade
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I am not complaining about this issue , yes i would like to see more but the difference between GW and CoH/V is you can pay the 50 bucks for the next expansion when you feel it has lost its shine.
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The games are simply too different in approach to compare.
"His Imperial Majesty's Minister of Restraints and Leather" -LHF
Two naughty acronym teams / Ascension / Convenient / Artic and the Chillz / Fap / Other teams I can't remember (sorry.. mind is goin')
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Hey guys, our plan is to get you new Issues three times a year. Issue 7 was bigger than originally planned (Mayhem Missions got thrown into the issue at the last possible second) and that, coupled with other delays, screwed up the schedule for 2006, thus only 2 free content expansions on the Live servers this year.
2007 has three Issues planned for it, one near Q1/Q2, one for the summer, and one for the end of the year. I can't give more exact dates than that because everything is subject to change.
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I can deal with 3 issues/year. That averages out to 4 months per issue. Works for me.
Virtue: multiple characters.
CoH/V: Woot! Maybe Fun is to be had once again.
Ack! RUN! Regen is glowing mean & green!
If it reduces you, it's a nerf.
If it buffs the mobs, it's challenge.
They are not the same.
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But here's the 64K question: what the hell is it doing lately to evolve and revolutionalize itself or the genre?
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Hard to answer that without knowing what's in future Issues.
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QFT
And this game is still so far ahead of others when it comes to revolutionizing itself and the genre that I think they still have quite a while before woo'ing people becomes a necessity. I play other games. I play GW. I play WoW (filler games I assure you). This game remains my main MMO fix because you can do things here that you simply can't do elsewhere. I'm not going to list what, there's just too much. They're welcome to my subscription fees for a long time to come.
"His Imperial Majesty's Minister of Restraints and Leather" -LHF
Two naughty acronym teams / Ascension / Convenient / Artic and the Chillz / Fap / Other teams I can't remember (sorry.. mind is goin')
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But here's the 64K question: what the hell is it doing lately to evolve and revolutionalize itself or the genre?
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Hard to answer that without knowing what's in future Issues.
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Sorry Ilr, but you have to pick one. Either it is revolutionising the genre or it is evolving it.
Revolution is sudden and dramatic change.
Evolution is a slower process of change that builds on previous structures.
CoH/V is evolving the genre. It would be a bit rich to expect it to revolutionise the genre after it has been out for 2 years. A revolutionary change would have lots of established players up in arms.
I await I9, I10 and I11 in 2007. New powersets, hero / villain powerset crossovers, new zones, an ongoing storyline, inventions and whatever the heck we don't know about. Plus I may just finally get to lvl 50 on heroside. ;-)
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Cuts at NCsoft? No cuts at Cryptic at all? (Where's Geko, for example? I remember this being asked before, I think the answer was he's on another NCSoft game)
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Geko is on another Cryptic project.
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Haven't seen pohsyb in a while either. He's moved onto another super-sekret Cryptic project as well?
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And now the Issues are getting smaller and even less frequent? Issue-7 was a lame duck that should come out of Crytic's pockets, not ours. Boasting an increase in subscription numbers while shrinking the Development team down to a skeleton crew while still charging the same price is unnacceptable. I think I've seen enough... I'm tired of getting screwed. This game's potential has finally decreased the the point that it fails to balance the monthly cost and time investment.
I'll be back when/if they ever come around and accept their share of the burden.
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Skeleton crew? Guys, let's not jump to conclusion here. First, Cryptic Studios hasn't layed anyone off. A quick glance shows we're hiring! Second, NCSoft announced cutbacks, but the announcement didn't specify where people were taken off. Remember, NCSoft is a leading MMORPG publisher. They have LOTS of stuff on the burners...Most of which never see the light of day.
A quick look at our release schedules show that only the first issue was released within two months. The second issue was 79 days later (as noted in this thread). Issue 3 then followed 110 days later, Issue 4 120 days, etc. We started trending more towards 3/year within a few Issues...mostly because we started learning about the production & QA cycle.
Bottom line: CoH remains a success in NCSoft's portfolio. They're continuing to financially support the product for a long time to come...Cryptic Studios loves the game. It's our baby. The game isn't going anywhere!
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THANKS GOD!!! I HAVE INVESTED ALLOT OF TIME IN THIS BABY AS WELL AND I WANT TO PLAY IT FOR YEARS TO COME.
P.S.
PLEASE GIVE US SERVER TRANSFERS!!!
(the caps were intentional)
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Hey guys, our plan is to get you new Issues three times a year. Issue 7 was bigger than originally planned (Mayhem Missions got thrown into the issue at the last possible second) and that, coupled with other delays, screwed up the schedule for 2006, thus only 2 free content expansions on the Live servers this year.
2007 has three Issues planned for it, one near Q1/Q2, one for the summer, and one for the end of the year. I can't give more exact dates than that because everything is subject to change.
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That's awesome - I'm very happy with this arrangment. I8 definitely shows the TLC that you guys have for your product, and so do we.
We love it - thank you so much!
Yea, how the hell did you do that Foo? Twice, even!
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GWs maintenace come out of the fresh boz sales a couple of tiems per year.
Once those sales start drying up - you can expect the online environment there to deteriorate. Its actually the one thats got a substationally different business model to the rest of the MMO styles right now.
$15/month id the goin rate in the market, but yes if you feel like you are not getting value for money then by all means leave.
The bloating their own salaries is a real low dig though.
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Shoot...I wish I could bloat MY salary!
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So what happened to Lord Recluse? Anyone know? Just curious. This is not a rant.