Elusivity is perfect now. MUAHAHAHAHA!
A very sad story about War Witch and the neglected kitty. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=219670
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Black_Barrier
Guess it's hard to click while actively trying to keep the drool away from the keyboard...
|
[ QUOTE ]
I expect it's about the same with COH. A lot of the hiring was done in the last half of last year so I'd expect the payoff to come in the second half of this year. Time will tell.
[/ QUOTE ]
You don't seem to get the problem. It's not that the programmers aren't smart enough. It's their management. You're a manager, you should know. Imagine this scenario: your customer base specifically tells you what they want from your product. You completely ignore everything they say, and instead redesign the product into a totally different program. Your customer base has no idea why you did that, and hates you for it, with many of them simply choosing to not use your software anymore.
Are your programmers at fault here? No, you are, as the guy that speficially told them what to do.
And in our case, the problem is that the management is telling the programmers to do the exact opposite of what the customers are actually asking for. Even the best programmer in the world can't fix that kind of idiocy.
[ QUOTE ]
I think it is fair to say that the devs in this game do a good job overall, but they have no direct competition and they are still only able to garner approx 200k subs? When they have two direct competitors that are shiny,new, and participating in active marketing, the cox team is going to have to step it up another 10+ notches.
[/ QUOTE ]
If the fantasy genre is any indicator, the most likely outcome is the market will be elastic enough to accommodate all three games. The established games all continue to exist and be developed even as newcomers elbow their way into the space. Even the 800 lb gorilla of WoW didn't cause the extinction of existing fantasy MMOs. An MMO with an established subscriber base that paid off the initial development/launch costs is extremely hard to kill.
Should times prove too tough to support all three, the risk of one of the new games falling by the wayside is far higher than for the established one.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think it is fair to say that the devs in this game do a good job overall, but they have no direct competition and they are still only able to garner approx 200k subs? When they have two direct competitors that are shiny,new, and participating in active marketing, the cox team is going to have to step it up another 10+ notches.
[/ QUOTE ]
If the fantasy genre is any indicator, the most likely outcome is the market will be elastic enough to accommodate all three games. The established games all continue to exist and be developed even as newcomers elbow their way into the space. Even the 800 lb gorilla of WoW didn't cause the extinction of existing fantasy MMOs. An MMO with an established subscriber base that paid off the initial development/launch costs is extremely hard to kill.
Should times prove too tough to support all three, the risk of one of the new games falling by the wayside is far higher than for the established one.
[/ QUOTE ]
If the fantasy genre is sex then the hero genre would be hot wax fetish.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I expect it's about the same with COH. A lot of the hiring was done in the last half of last year so I'd expect the payoff to come in the second half of this year. Time will tell.
[/ QUOTE ]
You don't seem to get the problem. It's not that the programmers aren't smart enough. It's their management. You're a manager, you should know. Imagine this scenario: your customer base specifically tells you what they want from your product. You completely ignore everything they say, and instead redesign the product into a totally different program. Your customer base has no idea why you did that, and hates you for it, with many of them simply choosing to not use your software anymore.
Are your programmers at fault here? No, you are, as the guy that speficially told them what to do.
And in our case, the problem is that the management is telling the programmers to do the exact opposite of what the customers are actually asking for. Even the best programmer in the world can't fix that kind of idiocy.
[/ QUOTE ]
or even what not to do.
good management would have stopped powerset normalization in pvp on its tracks.
tell that to blasters.....
wooops this is directed to the post that said...make any toon you want tehy all get nerfed...
--Captain Myotis
Watch this!
Iz eat all ur cookies!
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I expect it's about the same with COH. A lot of the hiring was done in the last half of last year so I'd expect the payoff to come in the second half of this year. Time will tell.
[/ QUOTE ]
I personally think the PvP system was broke, and I never PvP'd. I thought this because I had toons that I made just to play the game and as it turns out, they weren't good sets for PvP. Guess what. I was not alone. Only a tiny fraction of the subscribers PvP'd, precisely for this reason. So how can you tell me that the devs were ignoring the customer base? Sorry, dude, but you ualone are not the customer base.
The problem is, the solution they proposed to to turn more normal players into PvPers has not increased the number of PvPers. So I can't say they were successful. I'd love to take my EM/EA brute into RV and do some PvP now that I have a fighting chance. But whenever I go there, there's still nobody there to PvP against.
You don't seem to get the problem. It's not that the programmers aren't smart enough. It's their management. You're a manager, you should know. Imagine this scenario: your customer base specifically tells you what they want from your product. You completely ignore everything they say, and instead redesign the product into a totally different program. Your customer base has no idea why you did that, and hates you for it, with many of them simply choosing to not use your software anymore.
Are your programmers at fault here? No, you are, as the guy that speficially told them what to do.
And in our case, the problem is that the management is telling the programmers to do the exact opposite of what the customers are actually asking for. Even the best programmer in the world can't fix that kind of idiocy.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
PVP: PROGRAMMERS Vs. PLAYERS
[/ QUOTE ]
OH NOES! an I WIN button! 
Post Comic book Fan Films that ROCK!
Fight my brute
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
With those new games coming out, there isn't even a guarantee that this game will be alive in a year. It's currently still a cash cow for NCSoft. I believe it's the second biggest source of revenue behind GuildWars. But the upcoming competiton will surely change that.
[/ QUOTE ]
Definitely. I don't think playing dress up with our toons and now enemy toons is enough to maintain any kind of sustainable competitive advantage.
MA seems like it could be a golden ticket, but the current edition of it is pretty weak. I don't think they have years to improve it either.
Every 'feature' in this game is only half complete whether it be pvp, base building, modding, raiding, loot, market etc. Not every game offers everything that cox does, but cox doesn't do a good job on anything it does offer, so unless you take advantage of a ton of their packages we will likely find better games elsewhere.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think you're dramatically underestimating the advantage a game has when it has been out for 5 years. It's true that newer games will have new graphics engines and are designed for things like power customization that will require tremendous effort to achieve in this engine. But any 1.0 version of an MMO is going to have tons of shortcomings and balance issues and a fairly shallow pool of content compared to when that same game has been out for a couple of years. And if you think CO and DCUO won't have devs equipped with nerf bats, you're an amazingly optimistic person.
WRT to the MA, what we have now is just a 1.0 release. What's there already is good, and it'll get better.
The most important game-changer is the additional staff that they hired on. And they are still hiring. I manage a software team for a living and I can tell you the difference you can make when you grow a team the way they've grown theirs is HUGE. The product I manage has more than a million lines of code. It takes a smart programmer typically about 6 months before they can make meaningful contributions. I expect it's about the same with COH. A lot of the hiring was done in the last half of last year so I'd expect the payoff to come in the second half of this year. Time will tell.
[/ QUOTE ]
All of this is true to some extent, but it's not what they CAN do, it's what they ARE DOING.
Mission Architect looks good, but it was supposed to be out with I13, then they said early first quarter, and now it looks like it's finally going to be out in the second week of april. They are just moving WAY too slowly, and with new competition on the horizon, that is a death sentence. And that is assuming MA works well and there aren't a lot of bugs... Then look at the gap between I12 and I13. Still waiting for cathedral of pain to be fixed, base raids are still disabled, I still have to wait for all my team members to be in a zone to set a damn mission, etc.
Then you have to question some of the decisions they are making, specifically about the topic at hand, PVP. I'm not a big pvp'er in this game, but I'd love to get into it. However, when the rules of the game change drastically from one moment to the next, it's a major turn-off. Tweaks are fine, but drastic changes make it seem like working on pvp toons and skills is a waste of time. It's even worse when the changes are simply idiotic, and I'm sorry to use that word, but no other word conveys how ridiculous some of the changes are. There is no way in hell I should want to drop energy transfer for flurry, or want 'trow sharks' more than anything in my primary, lol.
Someone in authority at NC soft needs to wake up and throw down the gauntlet by listening to their customers, picking up the pace, and fixing some of this stuff that is so blatantly broken, because pretty soon, their customers will have competing super hero games offering a competing product.
I only post this because I love this game and would like to see it remain competitive and viable.
I dissagree completely. Are the issues a little slow? sure, I wont really argue that. But cathedral of pain and pvp?
The vast vast vast majority of the CoH playerbase this is such a non-issue I seriously dont know how people can say thing like that with a straight face.
Death sentence of the game? Please. EQ is still running its servers and hasnt been "competitive" in many many years.
Is CoH competitive? I think so. Their not Bleeding Edge and i'm ok with that. I find the "Bleeding Edge" type games draw a certain type of player who is only interested in whats hot and whats new and then moves on when the next hot new game comes along.
I think the vast majority of the CoH playerbase loves the game, likes new updates, but isnt rabid about constant new upgrades and updates. They may check out the new games they might even like them enough to quit here, such is the life of MMO's. But the majority play CoH because they like CoH, alot. And they arent really going anyplace.
The hard core type A's gotta have it my way or else i'll quit already left over the last pvp changes, the majority of the ones remaining arent going anyplace anytime soon.
If you PL'd to 50 just to get an "epic" thinking you'd be �ber, you're going to be sorely disappointed with the HEATs, because the VEATs were designed so that anyone with one good finger and a braincell can rock the toggles.
[ QUOTE ]
I dissagree completely. Are the issues a little slow? sure, I wont really argue that. But cathedral of pain and pvp?
The vast vast vast majority of the CoH playerbase this is such a non-issue I seriously dont know how people can say thing like that with a straight face.
Death sentence of the game? Please. EQ is still running its servers and hasnt been "competitive" in many many years.
Is CoH competitive? I think so. Their not Bleeding Edge and i'm ok with that. I find the "Bleeding Edge" type games draw a certain type of player who is only interested in whats hot and whats new and then moves on when the next hot new game comes along.
I think the vast majority of the CoH playerbase loves the game, likes new updates, but isnt rabid about constant new upgrades and updates. They may check out the new games they might even like them enough to quit here, such is the life of MMO's. But the majority play CoH because they like CoH, alot. And they arent really going anyplace.
The hard core type A's gotta have it my way or else i'll quit already left over the last pvp changes, the majority of the ones remaining arent going anyplace anytime soon.
[/ QUOTE ]
time will tell. I believe the majority of people in this game play it because they like/love the super hero genre, through which they have built up a comfortable position here.
The pve experience in this game is replicated and improved in other titles, while offering better perks during playtime. But none of them let you be a super hero/villain.
I don't think either of the new titles will mean doom to this game, but I would not be surprised that in 1 to 2 years CoX was 4 servers, which really isn't as bad as it sounds because it could already be cut in half to 6 servers.
Just FYI too, the hardcore pvp'ers that Castle ran out of town w/ i13 were some of the most dedicated players in the game across all aspects of it. I'd imagine the hardcore badgers would quit too if they removed all the badges or put DR on them heh. Would the hardcore base builders hang around if you could only build a one room base? dunno.
Anyway, people are saying "step up your game" to the devs because they want CoX to remain good and they don't want to play in a ghost town (ie 6-7 of the live servers now 
). Lots of people will stay with CoX because they have settled in nicely and major change is scary and for the most part (pvp not withstanding) the game has hopefully gone through all of its aggressive change cycles, which the new titles will be smack dab in the middle of.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I dissagree completely. Are the issues a little slow? sure, I wont really argue that. But cathedral of pain and pvp?
The vast vast vast majority of the CoH playerbase this is such a non-issue I seriously dont know how people can say thing like that with a straight face.
Death sentence of the game? Please. EQ is still running its servers and hasnt been "competitive" in many many years.
Is CoH competitive? I think so. Their not Bleeding Edge and i'm ok with that. I find the "Bleeding Edge" type games draw a certain type of player who is only interested in whats hot and whats new and then moves on when the next hot new game comes along.
I think the vast majority of the CoH playerbase loves the game, likes new updates, but isnt rabid about constant new upgrades and updates. They may check out the new games they might even like them enough to quit here, such is the life of MMO's. But the majority play CoH because they like CoH, alot. And they arent really going anyplace.
The hard core type A's gotta have it my way or else i'll quit already left over the last pvp changes, the majority of the ones remaining arent going anyplace anytime soon.
[/ QUOTE ]
time will tell. I believe the majority of people in this game play it because they like/love the super hero genre, through which they have built up a comfortable position here.
The pve experience in this game is replicated and improved in other titles, while offering better perks during playtime. But none of them let you be a super hero/villain.
I don't think either of the new titles will mean doom to this game, but I would not be surprised that in 1 to 2 years CoX was 4 servers, which really isn't as bad as it sounds because it could already be cut in half to 6 servers.
Just FYI too, the hardcore pvp'ers that Castle ran out of town w/ i13 were some of the most dedicated players in the game across all aspects of it. I'd imagine the hardcore badgers would quit too if they removed all the badges or put DR on them heh. Would the hardcore base builders hang around if you could only build a one room base? dunno.
Anyway, people are saying "step up your game" to the devs because they want CoX to remain good and they don't want to play in a ghost town (ie 6-7 of the live servers now ). Lots of people will stay with CoX because they have settled in nicely and major change is scary and for the most part (pvp not withstanding) the game has hopefully gone through all of its aggressive change cycles, which the new titles will be smack dab in the middle of.
[/ QUOTE ]I just can't imagine why, if so many folk complain about something (paying customers) why wouldnt you as a business model try to accommodate as many as possible. I myself left for three months over i13 and havent decided whether i'm a stay or not as of yet. I came back to give io's to a buddy, but just think 15 bucks multiplied times three, that's over 45buck lost just from me not much you say?
Now take that same projection and multiply that by one hundred people or even one thousand, and the loss model greatly increases. The main problem is it was totally avoidable the changes didn't add pvp'rs as it was intended, it instead drove them away. So a normal company would either cut their losses and revert it back, or make it so people could still play the old way and give it's player base an option.
That way all sides are happy, but they refuse to admit the mistake, and we are where we are now.
The funny thing is, even though you seem like one of the whiners that got the changes made in the first place, you're probably still bad..------Macskull on Crop_of_shaolin
http://ravens-wins.mybrute.com
[ QUOTE ]
So a normal company would either cut their losses and revert it back, or make it so people could still play the old way and give it's player base an option
[/ QUOTE ]
Show me proof where "most companies" would do this, and I'm not talking about 1 or 2 sources as that is not complimenting of "most." Also, the dev's did indeed revert many changes and tone others down. In i14 they do even more of that. In arena, you can already pretty much play with the new i13 changes off. So they "have" indeed done something to pacify the playerbase, whether or not it helped or was right.
[ QUOTE ]
In arena, you can already pretty much play with the new i13 changes off. So they "have" indeed done something to pacify the playerbase, whether or not it helped or was right.
[/ QUOTE ]
Same mez system? Same borked up damage? There's still resisted debuffs/AS? Buffer's dont' really buff?
Sounds like pvp 3.0
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In arena, you can already pretty much play with the new i13 changes off. So they "have" indeed done something to pacify the playerbase, whether or not it helped or was right.
[/ QUOTE ]
Same mez system? Same borked up damage? There's still resisted debuffs/AS? Buffer's dont' really buff?
Sounds like pvp 3.0
[/ QUOTE ]
What I'm pointing out, is they have done "something" to pacify the problems. They still need to "fix" the problem, but at least they are somewhat listening. Somewhat..
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In arena, you can already pretty much play with the new i13 changes off. So they "have" indeed done something to pacify the playerbase, whether or not it helped or was right.
[/ QUOTE ]
Same mez system? Same borked up damage? There's still resisted debuffs/AS? Buffer's dont' really buff?
Sounds like pvp 3.0
[/ QUOTE ]
What I'm pointing out, is they have done "something" to pacify the problems. They still need to "fix" the problem, but at least they are somewhat listening. Somewhat..
[/ QUOTE ]
Oh ok, just making sure. For a second I thought you were one of those crazed nutjobs claiming that i13 pvp is "balanced" and the best thing to happen to the game. Was about ready to throw a rubber brick your way.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
In arena, you can already pretty much play with the new i13 changes off. So they "have" indeed done something to pacify the playerbase, whether or not it helped or was right.
[/ QUOTE ]
Same mez system? Same borked up damage? There's still resisted debuffs/AS? Buffer's dont' really buff?
Sounds like pvp 3.0
[/ QUOTE ]
What I'm pointing out, is they have done "something" to pacify the problems. They still need to "fix" the problem, but at least they are somewhat listening. Somewhat..
[/ QUOTE ]
Oh ok, just making sure. For a second I thought you were one of those crazed nutjobs claiming that i13 pvp is "balanced" and the best thing to happen to the game. Was about ready to throw a rubber brick your way.
[/ QUOTE ]
LOL
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I dissagree completely. Are the issues a little slow? sure, I wont really argue that. But cathedral of pain and pvp?
The vast vast vast majority of the CoH playerbase this is such a non-issue I seriously dont know how people can say thing like that with a straight face.
Death sentence of the game? Please. EQ is still running its servers and hasnt been "competitive" in many many years.
Is CoH competitive? I think so. Their not Bleeding Edge and i'm ok with that. I find the "Bleeding Edge" type games draw a certain type of player who is only interested in whats hot and whats new and then moves on when the next hot new game comes along.
I think the vast majority of the CoH playerbase loves the game, likes new updates, but isnt rabid about constant new upgrades and updates. They may check out the new games they might even like them enough to quit here, such is the life of MMO's. But the majority play CoH because they like CoH, alot. And they arent really going anyplace.
The hard core type A's gotta have it my way or else i'll quit already left over the last pvp changes, the majority of the ones remaining arent going anyplace anytime soon.
[/ QUOTE ]
time will tell. I believe the majority of people in this game play it because they like/love the super hero genre, through which they have built up a comfortable position here.
The pve experience in this game is replicated and improved in other titles, while offering better perks during playtime. But none of them let you be a super hero/villain.
I don't think either of the new titles will mean doom to this game, but I would not be surprised that in 1 to 2 years CoX was 4 servers, which really isn't as bad as it sounds because it could already be cut in half to 6 servers.
Just FYI too, the hardcore pvp'ers that Castle ran out of town w/ i13 were some of the most dedicated players in the game across all aspects of it. I'd imagine the hardcore badgers would quit too if they removed all the badges or put DR on them heh. Would the hardcore base builders hang around if you could only build a one room base? dunno.
Anyway, people are saying "step up your game" to the devs because they want CoX to remain good and they don't want to play in a ghost town (ie 6-7 of the live servers now ). Lots of people will stay with CoX because they have settled in nicely and major change is scary and for the most part (pvp not withstanding) the game has hopefully gone through all of its aggressive change cycles, which the new titles will be smack dab in the middle of.
[/ QUOTE ]I just can't imagine why, if so many folk complain about something (paying customers) why wouldnt you as a business model try to accommodate as many as possible. I myself left for three months over i13 and havent decided whether i'm a stay or not as of yet. I came back to give io's to a buddy, but just think 15 bucks multiplied times three, that's over 45buck lost just from me not much you say?
Now take that same projection and multiply that by one hundred people or even one thousand, and the loss model greatly increases. The main problem is it was totally avoidable the changes didn't add pvp'rs as it was intended, it instead drove them away. So a normal company would either cut their losses and revert it back, or make it so people could still play the old way and give it's player base an option.
That way all sides are happy, but they refuse to admit the mistake, and we are where we are now.
[/ QUOTE ]
Very few companies would admit the mistake and revert it, too much time/resource/money was dumped into the project to just scrap it. Not to mention admitting the mistake and reverting widescale would strike a black mark they could never be rid of compared to currently being able to spin it as a "minor setback".
A good company would try to rectify the errors as best as possible and as quickly as possible without blowing the budget. I believe they are trying to do that, but of course will only get so far with the wrong person calling the pvp shots.
CoX already does attempt to cater to as many as possible, which is something that has always bothered me because they are so small the result is spreading everything thin and most stuff coming across as half complete.
One need look no further than MA. A great idea, huge opportunity to gain first mover advantage, but they only went half way with it. In terms of a modding tool it is a C or C-. Sure they will likely keep improving it, but if they weren't spread so thin trying to do so many things it would have been launched with map editing abilities, custom spawn points, and much more indepth critter customization to name a few. And then from there it would be improved.
One thing you often see small companies attempting is to "be all things to all people" because they are small they figure a small piece of each pie is the best way to go. This of course stretches resources to the limit and results in a mediocre performance in every aspect. Of course convincing management to turn away the low hanging fruit (easy potential customers) to look at the bigger picture is a pretty daunting task.
As to what areas CoX should have specialized, well that is debatable. But w/ only 150-200k subs (which is fine) as the ONLY entrant in their corner of the market I doubt they would have seen smaller numbers than that. I mean the higher level of polish would pretty much ensure it imo along with being able to do more focused marketing and creating much stronger word of mouth (or viral marketing if you will).
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So a normal company would either cut their losses and revert it back, or make it so people could still play the old way and give it's player base an option
[/ QUOTE ]
Show me proof where "most companies" would do this, and I'm not talking about 1 or 2 sources as that is not complimenting of "most." Also, the dev's did indeed revert many changes and tone others down. In i14 they do even more of that. In arena, you can already pretty much play with the new i13 changes off. So they "have" indeed done something to pacify the playerbase, whether or not it helped or was right.
[/ QUOTE ]Your in a bubble, for you to be arguing, listen to what your saying? A business has a portion of it's main customer base that's not happy and they don't take the necessary steps to rectify the situation. This is business not personal, in a business situation it is the goal to accumulate as much capital as humanly possible, and to even bring in new income. An example of this? Why do you think they give you free time to invite a friend? Answer this brings in new income in several ways. 1st your friends bring in their immediate income, if they like the product, then they tell others, this is a word of mouth system. All this is done to bring more income, now the adverse effect of word of mouth is, if I'm a customer and i tell my friends who might be interested in a similar product, what negative effects that was relegated to me, friends i might have lost, or what have you, than that will detract their possible income and maybe someone they might know that wants to use a similar product and continues to grow like a cancer.
It's a book called basic business practice with not so basic results, written by two of the wealthiest business men in the world i picked up during my time in Afghanistan. And you'll never guess what the first page says "The customer is always right"
But i digress enough about business, your in a bubble because, even if you cut dr off, you infact make things worst because of the changes that shouldn't have happened IE squishies with capped resist. Also everyone doesn't always want to arena and shouldn't have too. You are one of the few people that is defending this nonsense, and it's your right, and those of us who hate it will continue to create threads such as this and it is our right also. So good luck in your bubble, and hopefully some concessions are made for everyone.
The funny thing is, even though you seem like one of the whiners that got the changes made in the first place, you're probably still bad..------Macskull on Crop_of_shaolin
http://ravens-wins.mybrute.com
[ QUOTE ]
One need look no further than MA. A great idea, huge opportunity to gain first mover advantage, but they only went half way with it. In terms of a modding tool it is a C or C-. Sure they will likely keep improving it, but if they weren't spread so thin trying to do so many things it would have been launched with map editing abilities, custom spawn points, and much more indepth critter customization to name a few. And then from there it would be improved.
[/ QUOTE ]
Ever hear the saying "the perfect is the enemy of the good"? In software development you have to balance the desire to create something with an enormous feature set with the need to actually deliver something to customers. They already delayed the MA several months because what they were originally going to offer wasn't feature rich enough. And if you check out Hero 1's interview on Massively.com today, you'll note that MA already took 8 months, and that was seriously blazingly fast for the size project it was.
And as far as being "spread thin", the devs can't work on only one thing at a time. They have to have parts of the team working on different overlapping projects so they can deliver several updates a year. Do you honestly think players would prefer one big expansion per year instead of a few smaller ones?
PLUS, what if the devs did throw the entire team at MA and took many more months to deliver the ultimate version and it flopped? Then people would be flaming them mercilessly. By delivering it incrementally the other big benefit is that the devs get to see it actually used by the players, and they can take their 25 PAGES worth of enhancement ideas and prioritize them accordingly.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
[ QUOTE ]
It's a book called basic business practice with not so basic results, written by two of the wealthiest business men in the world i picked up during my time in Afghanistan. And you'll never guess what the first page says "The customer is always right"
[/ QUOTE ]
In general of course it's a good idea to listen to customers. But the one problem with sticking slavishly to that is that you'll never get really disruptive change. Steve Jobs said "It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them." What he means is if you look at a lot of the big innovations like the iPod, people weren't asking for that. No focus group would ever have come up with that. So Apple took a big chance on a radically new product and it was huge.
Of course, people forget that Apple has swung for the fences before and missed. Remember the Newton? 
That's the risk you take when you decide to go for the big disruptive change instead of the incremental focus group type of change.
Now, maybe the devs should have listened to the players and just tweaked and tuned PvP. But they swung for the fences, trying something really new to try to open up PvP to more folks. Has it worked yet? Nope, everyone would admit that. But it seems like they're going to keep working on it. Obviously this is no comfort to the folks who thought i12 PvP was awesome and could be better with just a few tweaks. 
The problem now is that PvP is in a valley, having lost the old hard core contingent that loved PvP but not really having gained an equivalent new set of players.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
Actually i dont think this is a bad thing at all... 30% nerfed to 10%..... considering they rocked out in i12 with 0% elusivity. 30% was just way to high and made the AT not so fun to play. The dmg nerf on the other hand I absolutly do not agree with.
[ QUOTE ]
Ever hear the saying "the perfect is the enemy of the good"? In software development you have to balance the desire to create something with an enormous feature set with the need to actually deliver something to customers.
[/ QUOTE ]
I can assure you that is not unique to software development lol but rather every single business has to do a balancing act. Companies that focus are able to do it much better than companies that take a "shotgun approach"
[ QUOTE ]
They already delayed the MA several months because what they were originally going to offer wasn't feature rich enough. And if you check out Hero 1's interview on Massively.com today, you'll note that MA already took 8 months, and that was seriously blazingly fast for the size project it was.
[/ QUOTE ]
I know, what they thought was going to be good enough was pretty sad, I'm glad they took it back to the drawing board, but it is still a pretty weak modding tool (at this point) that hasn't changed.
One correction though: 8 months was blazingly fast given the size of the project team and all their other responsibilities. Imagine for a second if the dev team didn't have to work on a thousand different things, but rather only 250 because they weren't trying to be all things to all people.
[ QUOTE ]
And as far as being "spread thin", the devs can't work on only one thing at a time. They have to have parts of the team working on different overlapping projects so they can deliver several updates a year. Do you honestly think players would prefer one big expansion per year instead of a few smaller ones?
[/ QUOTE ]
I certainly never implied that. Again, imagine a team working on only 250 aspects instead of 1000 everyday. Imagine your "todo list" was suddenly much smaller, would you have more or less time/resources left at the end of the day to devote to projects? You are stuck examining what I'm saying based on exactly how the current company/team operates.
[ QUOTE ]
PLUS, what if the devs did throw the entire team at MA and took many more months to deliver the ultimate version and it flopped? Then people would be flaming them mercilessly. By delivering it incrementally the other big benefit is that the devs get to see it actually used by the players, and they can take their 25 PAGES worth of enhancement ideas and prioritize them accordingly.
[/ QUOTE ]
Disagree completely. They have basically said "here is an alpha build, we'll finish it later while taking some of your suggestions into consideration" compared to "here is a finished product (or dam close to it) and we'll be looking for ways to improve it and add more features, so we'll be taking your suggestions into consideration"
Considering most of the suggestions already being thrown at MA are no-brainers I'm pretty confident they could have come up with them on their own and didn't need our help. Same goes for almost every feature they add to the game.
I'm just asking your for a moment to close your eyes and put aside everything that has been established about how the company currently operates. Now pretend the original team took an approach of specialization and focus instead of trying to be all things to all people. And now imagine the follow up (new team) did the same thing. Now that you are in the right frame of mind reread my original statement that you responded too.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
With those new games coming out, there isn't even a guarantee that this game will be alive in a year. It's currently still a cash cow for NCSoft. I believe it's the second biggest source of revenue behind GuildWars. But the upcoming competiton will surely change that.
[/ QUOTE ]
Definitely. I don't think playing dress up with our toons and now enemy toons is enough to maintain any kind of sustainable competitive advantage.
MA seems like it could be a golden ticket, but the current edition of it is pretty weak. I don't think they have years to improve it either.
Every 'feature' in this game is only half complete whether it be pvp, base building, modding, raiding, loot, market etc. Not every game offers everything that cox does, but cox doesn't do a good job on anything it does offer, so unless you take advantage of a ton of their packages we will likely find better games elsewhere.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think you're dramatically underestimating the advantage a game has when it has been out for 5 years. It's true that newer games will have new graphics engines and are designed for things like power customization that will require tremendous effort to achieve in this engine. But any 1.0 version of an MMO is going to have tons of shortcomings and balance issues and a fairly shallow pool of content compared to when that same game has been out for a couple of years. And if you think CO and DCUO won't have devs equipped with nerf bats, you're an amazingly optimistic person.
WRT to the MA, what we have now is just a 1.0 release. What's there already is good, and it'll get better.
The most important game-changer is the additional staff that they hired on. And they are still hiring. I manage a software team for a living and I can tell you the difference you can make when you grow a team the way they've grown theirs is HUGE. The product I manage has more than a million lines of code. It takes a smart programmer typically about 6 months before they can make meaningful contributions. I expect it's about the same with COH. A lot of the hiring was done in the last half of last year so I'd expect the payoff to come in the second half of this year. Time will tell.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'll guess we'll just wait and see. I don't believe cox is going to die, but 3-4 servers instead of 11 is something I could see come to pass considering they could already consolidate down to 6 ish now.
I don't think anyone believes that either of those games won't have significant nerfs. In the case of CO it looks like cox2 at this point and DCUO has already made some sweet announcements about it being a pretty pvp-centric experience and of course it will have all the icon power associated with brandname power. Cox is like noname cookies, they are good and a good value, but everyone wants an Oreo.
Cox launching a modding tool is wicked, best thing they have ever come up with by no small margin. The fact that everything is instanced indicates to me that there is no reason it can't or won't eventually be as good as offline and non-mmo modding tools, but at this time it is not - to say the least. It looks like they are betting the farm on MA, so hopefully they get it good enough in time.
I think it is fair to say that the devs in this game do a good job overall, but they have no direct competition and they are still only able to garner approx 200k subs? When they have two direct competitors that are shiny,new, and participating in active marketing, the cox team is going to have to step it up another 10+ notches.
Hopefully the new hires make a huge difference because if we get things like i13 pvp and now the pet recharge nerf when they have ample time to work on them, I'm worried about what we'll get when they are forced to pump stuff out at a much faster rate.
The cycle is vicious though because imagine hypothetically if cox subs cut in half once CO and DCUO were up and running - is it then feasible to keep on all that extra staff when you are pulling in half the revenue even though you need them then more than ever?
It is always the case though that many businesses skirt along - complacent - performing the status quo until it is crunch time, but when times are tough the money isn't there.