Disappointment in the Update Schedule
By
8_Ball,
Posted on: 2006-11-21 24:55 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Think the boards tell you the post/thread someones replying to .
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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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yawn
Statesman wrote:[ QUOTE ]
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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Jack, I know it's up to NCSoft (not Cryptic) whether or not to implement server transfers and/or additional character slots for a fee but could you please put a bug in their hear? Both additional slots and server transfers would be welcome and would only make them additional money. 
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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.
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What genre are you speaking of here, 'cos it's not revolutionising the superhero genre so much as it's basically ignoring it...
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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..
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Yeah I noticed that too. Quite impressive! Foo's fu is VERY strong.
You go, Foo!
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I'm composed of 98% pure awesome. The other 2% is humility.
Not that this thread is in need of more posts, but I thought I'd toss my 2inf in.
Whether you think Issue 8 should have had more features or not, the fact remains that CoH is one of very few MMOs that do free content updates AT ALL. Most relatively major MMOs charge you for your retail box and then give you little to nothing else in the future for your $15 a month fee. Run out of content, and you're out of luck unless you buy the expansion(s). To claim that Cryptic/NCSoft are ripping you off because you didn't get your new flying pony archetype or Candy Mountain hazard zone or whatever in Issue 8 is patently absurd. Would I like to see even more free content in each issue? Absolutely, I'd have to be crazy not to wish for that, you can never get enough of a good thing and all that. But for most of 3 years now, I've been quite pleased with the way this game has continued to move forward. Beyond the WalMart GvsE thing, I've never had a real complaint about anything CoH related. Keep up the good work, Cryptic! 
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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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A very "political" answer, statesman didnt actually mention or even touch on anything about COx staffing numbers, hiring people means nothing if they are diverting staff to other projects. Granted the quote he was replying to didnt specifically mention the COx development team but given the boards I think its fair to assume he wasnt refering to Cryptic as a whole, merely the apparant exodus of the COx dev team to other projects.
I think a skeleton crew is certainly hyperbolic, but many of us who have been around throughout CoH's existence have noticed big differences. I think the decision to share people between running CoH and devloping CoV, instead of having a team develop CoV while another team separately improved and ran CoH, was a poor one. That led to CoV being very disappointing to many of your players due to the lack of original content (new power sets, powers, and enemies, primarily); and to a string of CoH updates going live with scads of bugs and graphic problems that were reported and acknowledged but not fixed in testing (or for months thereafter, in many cases).
It seems that the same thing is going on with CoX. Instead of having two teams that work collaboratively, we have one team doing two jobs. I certainly hope that you are hiring as you keep expanding the amount of upkeep and development, but the game seems to be suffering as that expansion continues to outpace the expansion of staff.
Scorus
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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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Not to be harsh, but as you know, there weren't three issues in 2006, there were two-- and the (perceived) major feature of Issue 8 had to be postponed in order to achieve that many.
Ergo: disappointment in the update schedule.
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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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First, 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.
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The update shedule in the beginnging was great, but lately it has slowed down to a crawl. I am still happy with what we have gotten in each update, in fact I have loved most of the changes, but the fact remains they are taking to long to come out. Yes, 3 updates a year would be great, but we were also told update 8 would not take that long to come out, in fact we were told by Positron it would be arount Sept time frame for Issue 8, well that was missed by 2 months. Whatever the reason is for issues taking so long to come out, needs to be addressed, I would think that the update team would get more effecient as time when by, not less. Issue 7, I understood why it took so long, but I still dont understand why Issue 8 took so long. And we do have a right to voice are concerns if they continue down this road of 6 month updates like Issue 7 (7.5 months) and Issue 8 (5.75 months). Its just a trend we dont like to see continue thats all.
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What genre are you speaking of here, 'cos it's not revolutionising the superhero genre so much as it's basically ignoring it...
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Actually, there are many CoX fans who love this game, me among them, who don't give a darn about "superhero genre". But I'm sure you already know that, Foo. 
*Notices a sudden gush of wind whipping the trees about outside her window when she mentions the name, Foo.*
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*Notices a sudden gush of wind whipping the trees about outside her window when she mentions the name, Foo.*
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Must be all the hot air escaping 
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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..
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Yeah I noticed that too. Quite impressive! Foo's fu is VERY strong.
You go, Foo!
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I'm composed of 98% pure awesome. The other 2% is humility.
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It's called disabling the "Mark as Edited" feature
Here comes Foo, weeeeee!
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What genre are you speaking of here, 'cos it's not revolutionising the superhero genre so much as it's basically ignoring it...
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Actually, there are many CoX fans who love this game, me among them, who don't give a darn about "superhero genre". But I'm sure you already know that, Foo.
*Notices a sudden gush of wind whipping the trees about outside her window when she mentions the name, Foo.*
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Honestly, that's fantastic, but it really doesn't change the fact that this was/is supposed to be a SUPERHERO GAME, right?
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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..
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah I noticed that too. Quite impressive! Foo's fu is VERY strong.
You go, Foo!
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I'm composed of 98% pure awesome. The other 2% is humility.
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It's called disabling the "Mark as Edited" feature
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My 2% humility precludes me from responding further to your propaganda.
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Whether you think Issue 8 should have had more features or not, the fact remains that CoH is one of very few MMOs that do free content updates AT ALL. Most relatively major MMOs charge you for your retail box and then give you little to nothing else in the future for your $15 a month fee.
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That was true two years ago, maybe, but most of the major MMORPGS use a variation of the same model that CoX uses. That model is, by the way, not free updates, but "free"-no-additional-cost updates that were the tradeoff for the notable jump in typical monthly fees a couple of years ago.
Subscribers are still paying for updates, just not necessarily for the box expansion kind. I'm not sure how people can believe otherwise, since artist, writer, and coder salaries don't pay themselves off a money tree grown in the backyard. One can check the Knowledge Base article on monthly fees in the Support section of the main game site if one is still confused. This is not to imply that we're getting gouged or whatever other kookoo exagerrated strawman argument that some people might enjoy knocking down--
"...To claim that Cryptic/NCSoft are ripping you off because you didn't get your new flying pony archetype or Candy Mountain hazard zone or whatever in Issue 8 is patently absurd." for instance...
--just that there is some amount of money being exchanged for content updates and there always will be with MMOGs. It's up to the individual whether one is 'getting the bang for the buck' appropriately.
If you all will excuse me, I have to go pull some money off my trees out back. And no, you can't come over: do you have any idea how long it took me to perfect these trees?!
"I see your words..." ~The most menacing thing a forumite could say
*in ur yard stealin ur treez*
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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.
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Hear, hear. I hate to say it, but it's usually the same guy kick-starting the cavalcade of disparaging personal commentary. It shows an inability to discuss the topic on merits. I have no idea whether it's because of personality quirk, twisted sense of entertainment, or just a difficulty in articulating politely and on-topic via the anonymous internet. I'm all for good-natured snark, but...
I have little doubt that another 'snippage' is due here sometime soon. Thanks, "same guy".
Wait. Am I 'same guy' this time, or is that a different thread?
I get confused easily.
"I see your words..." ~The most menacing thing a forumite could say
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Wait. Am I 'same guy' this time, or is that a different thread?
I get confused easily.
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That would make you "confused guy", not "same guy". Since there are multiple "confused guy's" on any given day, I'd be inclined to refer to you as "amusingly sorta blasphemous name guy". Or maybe just whatever your actual forum name is this month, since the mods don't seem to be monitoring your posts and inevitable replies after being insulted as much as "same guy".
Have we disappeared into a 'blind item' hell yet?
Oh. Well, that clears that up.
Oreo? *waves package*
"I see your words..." ~The most menacing thing a forumite could say
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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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Seems to be trending to <2/year.
Also I should note that patron powers don't count as content, as they've mainly discouraged people from leveling villains, thus experiencing content.
Just don't clip the proof of my fantastical powers!! 
OR I SHALL CRUSH YOU WITH MY FANTASTICAL POWERS!! 
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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..
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah I noticed that too. Quite impressive! Foo's fu is VERY strong.
You go, Foo!
- Green Lantern
"Say, Jim...woo! That's a bad out-FIT!" - Superman: The Movie
Me 'n my posse: http://www.citygametracker.com/site/....php?user=5608