Why am I still Introducing Gamers to CoH
By
Aura_Familia,
Posted on: 2009-07-09 14:02 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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When it was launched I remember seeing some. They had a nice ad campaign at launch from what i remember.
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5 years is a long time for a game.
They need more advertising.
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Well with Aion, they will be ramping up some sort of effort to get subscribers. Once they get into the NC Launcher and see the other games that could be what they are expecting to drum up some influx.
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The interesting thing that competiion has done is that it has forced Paragon Studios to take on more staff and expand the game in response.
I expected side switching as a response to DC Online/CO a long time ago. It is a natural choice on their part. It generates lots of good buzz among COH players (active and inactive) at a time when someone else is trying to steal them away.
There is a real possiblity that competition will enhance CoH rather than hurt it.
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Super Hero games are a niche market.
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Unless they're a franchise licensing deal based on the lastest Batman/Spiderman/Stupidman movie - not that Paragon Studios (did I get that right?) can touch that sort of money to throw around.
Still, these days superheroes as a marketable commodity are hardly niche, unless you're talking the comics themselves.
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Actually have you looked at the pre-orders for Batman:Arkham, which has a huge push, my last chat with my game store buddy tells me after the initial "OMG I got to have it" push it's sitting pretty low. Super Hero games have a huge reputation for being the dogs of the gaming world. Superman N64, mention it I dare you. DC/Mortal Combat, Lego Batman, almost any Batman or Superman game on the NES, Iron Man(lets not leave out Marvel here) the landscape is littered with failed superhero games that only made their market numbers because of their franchise.
Similar comparison how many people playing this game have heard of Freedom Force?
Super Hero games are either 1) Niche or 2) Crap in the minds of your typical gamer.
Heck even with it's targeted saturation on MMO sites (messages here, on the WoW boards, MMORPG.come huge interviews, gaming magazines), lots of people aren't really talking about CO, the average person I talk to still thinks it is the Marvel or DC vapor ware MMOs.
They've had banner ads on PvP Online and Penny Arcade very recently. For about a month.
They have recurring features on MMORPG.com and IGN.
You people suggesting they're not trying to market the game are dense.
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@Razoras
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Super Hero games are a niche market.
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Superhero games are an UNTAPPED market. So many of them in the past have been badly done that no one took notice.
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I'm still irritated that EVE was partly the reason Earth and beyond went under. EVE isn't even similar to the gameplay syle of EB. Frankly I don't understand the pull that EVE has for the sci-fi niche. I didn't like it at all.
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Your irritation is greatly misplaced. EVE was horrible in beta. I know...I was there. And it was horrible at launch. CCP lost their publishing deal and ended up self-funding and publishing and they had less than 20K subscribers for a while. EVE didn't kill E&B...trust me.
As to EVE itself...it's draw is that it has very few limitations. You can do what you want and pursue your goals at your own pace. As well it has a SINGLE SHARD system...the entire game is on a single instance.
The niche thing is a horrid excuse and I've heard it used here on the forums several times to defend the lower numbers of this game. You want to know why we have lower numbers than EVE? This game failed to expand fast enough and add enough things of real value in its earlier days.
This game started with a lot of momentum while EVE started with 20K players. They are now pushing 350K accounts and we are certainly NOT. I think this game has/had a lot of potential that went untapped due to lack of resource allocation and a harsh 'vision' of what a MMO was supposed to do.
Instead of expanding the core game, for a very long time 'side fluff' became the focus. The mission types/format never got properly expanded and costume pieces and options became too much of the focus of development.
I'm not saying this game hasn't come a looong way...but we're no where near where we should be in terms of what COX can offer. It's sad...because when we hold this game up next to EVE...we started way ahead and both games are in the horrid 'niche' market people keep holding up in COXs defense.
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I've gotten used to just calling it City of Heroes. Nobody knows what CoH stands for. And not that many people I've talked to have even heard of the game.
You folks should advertise more.
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This. Has anyone ever seen an ad for this game anywhere on tv?
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Tv? What's that? Is that like the phonograph or something?
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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The mission types/format never got properly expanded and costume pieces and options became too much of the focus of development.
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That emphasis is what has kept me here so long. Expanding the mission types/format would be nice, but it's not as important as more costume pieces/options and powersets are to me. It would take a major overhaul of the combat system and mission system for me to get truly excited.
Branching Paragon Police Department Epic Archetype, please!
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DC/Mortal Combat
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Actually, this is a bit of the odd man out since MK vs DCU actually did get 1 million+ sales which is pretty high for a fighting game, especially since MK isn't sold in Japan.
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That emphasis is what has kept me here so long. Expanding the mission types/format would be nice, but it's not as important as more costume pieces/options and powersets are to me. It would take a major overhaul of the combat system and mission system for me to get truly excited.
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Well I'm still here too. The thing is that catering to 'just us' doesn't bring in more people...or more importantly keep more people.
Every review of this game that I have read says the same thing: 'Great costume creator...almost limitless options to customize your hero. Powerful abilities and nifty travel powers. Lootless system is refreshing(well that was before Inventions).'
Then they go on to list the cons: 'Repetitive after a while. Missions all come down to the same thing. Not enough variety in mission maps. Hard to keep interest for the long term.'
We're doing great on the costume and powers front. Hey...we even added loot and a player-created mission system. But those same damn cons remain five years after the game has launched.
EVE keeps expanding in ALL directions...its playerbase keeps growing. They've added more stuff for PVE players to pursue, more casual PVP options for people who don't want to get into the bigger alliance warfare stuff, greatly expanded their PVE mission system, research systems...grown the whole friggin galaxy(which was plenty damn big to start with), added more complex ship combat systems and modules, updated their graphics engine, are adding station exploration stuff. ALL directions and they haven't lost the focus of their core game.
We here on the forums can all talk about what keeps us playing...but why aren't there more people coming to join our fun? I happen to think there are very definite reasons for that. They relate back to those ever-present cons that the devs have yet to address.
A friend of mine plays EVE. He showed it to me. The game world graphics look incredible, but I can't get excited about a game where my character graphics are alittle snapshot, spreadsheets are crucia, and PvP means 'start over'.
I think there is something in that there was a window of opportunity in the beginning that COH did not exploit, and did not grow. Instead we got ED, developers stolen for other projects, a surviving Freem-15, NCSoft buying out Cryptic, and here we are.
Was it worth it so we could nerf enhancements so we could gut production and make room for Inventions waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay on down the road? I don't think so.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
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A friend of mine plays EVE. He showed it to me. The game world graphics look incredible, but I can't get excited about a game where my character graphics are alittle snapshot, spreadsheets are crucia, and PvP means 'start over'.
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Been a while since I left EVE, but I have seen dev posts there saying that the player avatars will soon be able to move around and interact with things in space stations and other places where your ship can land. Not sure if it's in yet but its definitely coming from what I understand.
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I think there is something in that there was a window of opportunity in the beginning that COH did not exploit, and did not grow. Instead we got ED, developers stolen for other projects, a surviving Freem-15, NCSoft buying out Cryptic, and here we are.
Was it worth it so we could nerf enhancements so we could gut production and make room for Inventions waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay on down the road? I don't think so.
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That's kind of what I'm getting at. The game needed to be expanded on years ago. We were already ahead of the competition in terms of costume options and avatar customization...no one was even TRYING to catch up to us then. Instead of fleshing out the rest of the game, we just kept adding costume stuff and zones that looked nice but offered nothing much different.
ED and GDN went into place so we could get 'new types of enhancements' and 5 issues later we got Inventions. Hey I love Inventions...but FIVE issues later?
We were supposed to get an alternate skill system for out of combat use...that got scrapped and we got...well... DAY JOBS about 8 issues later! That totally refreshed the game for me...all that thinking about where to log out next you know? It's DEEP.
I see what you're saying but I really enjoy COH's differences from other MMOs. I like its lack of crafting. I don't feel a drive to sink (waste) gobs of currency and time on a pointless task to drive up skill points on another type of collectable like a badge counter. I can do that in LOTRO. In contrast, in LOTRO I don't worry about where to log off which is refreshing.
The auction house in this game is more advanced than in LOTRO. It's timer is 60 days rather than 2 for LOTRO (with a 14 day timer on your money delivered by game email, if you don't check it it's gone). There are no respecs there. Selling your gear and drops? Ha! A comparison - I bought a horse for 750 silver, it sells for 1.55 silver.
I enjoy inventions but it has been an adjustment and I still long for the days of simplicity. That was a big selling point for me with COH - getting away from the loot system. 10 enhancement slots for drops and a simplified drop system - so nice. I don't like the greed and 'screw your buddy in the auction house' mentality that came with inventions at all.
I can see why inventions appeal to a greater market share than the simplified drop system. Maybe market PvP does too. The human mind can be nasty.
Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
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Well I'm not saying that Inventions didn't take time to grow on me. I was indifferent to it for a while...probably up til I got a few rare drops and sold them...then started to think about what to do with my money.
When Jack was still here...the talk about new types of enhancements lead me to think that we were simply going to get enhancements with differing properties and that they would be sold at regular vendors. I honestly didn't think we'd get a 'loot' system to go with them.
All that aside, I'm not saying that the things that make us unique are a bad thing. It's just that we've relied on them a bit too much to keep people here and bring new ones to the game.
I know there was behind-the-scenes trouble and that the game was being run with a skeleton crew for quite a few issues. Still, that's not my fault...or yours. And while I can sympathize with how hard it is to push out content when you're short staffed...I'm not obligated to care or stick with your game just because bad decisions were being made by management.
Nevertheless I stuck...well I took a year off right before COV...but I came back the next issue. A lot of people obviously didn't and not as many as should have been enticed to try the game did.
My main point is that we should be farther along...and there is no acceptable excuse as to why we are not when you look at another game in a similar 'niche' that dragged itself from being horrid and almost unplayable to an MMO phenomenon as the largest singe-shard MMO gameworld in existence.
City of Heroes isn't popular. End of thread.
So what would you like to see it expand upon that would bring it up to par with the standard you wish it be?
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A friend of mine plays EVE. He showed it to me. The game world graphics look incredible, but I can't get excited about a game where my character graphics are alittle snapshot, spreadsheets are crucia, and PvP means 'start over'.
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I played EvE for about 6 months (stopped over a year ago), and it is a truely, vissually, gorgeous game. But at the end of my time there I really had to ask myself why I was still playing. I solo alot, & I wasn't particularly keen on the PvP, so that means soloing the PVE content, which was bassically [censored]; repedative, unconnected missions with the thinest possible venear of story attached to them, and if you wanted the best ones, you wound up in laggy, overpopulated, scamer-rife systems. I hear they are working on that element of the game, so maybey it is differnt now, but well, I dont know, & I dont have the spare time to find out.
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Why is it I continue to run into gamers who have never heard of CoH? Actually seems like almost every gamer I meet has never heard of it, whether they are interestested in the type of game or not.
Somehow the word just isn't getting out on this game.
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I don't know why I'm still introducing gamers to CoH either. I'm about to stop. I have yet to see a commercial advertising this game. WoW has tons of them. I'm thinking of giving AION a try next. It looks like it has potential.
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So what would you like to see it expand upon that would bring it up to par with the standard you wish it be?
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A few things come to mind.
1) More mission variety. The mission types we have now have been done to death and by the time you are level 20 you have seen all the different types you will see.
2) More interactive story/mission elements. I'd like to stop feeling like I'm being dragged along for the ride on every story and mroe like I'm actively helping things along by my actions.
3) More interactive environments. Ways to use all the pretty but ultimately useless stuff we see in mission maps that have no impact on the gameplay of the mission whatsoever.
4) Branching mission/story arcs. Make content that doesn't play out the same way all the time and produces different end results at least SOME of the time.
5) Some kind of secret identity system that isn't about choosing where you log out of the game. And maybe entwined with that...a meaningful skill system to work on that's not directly combat related but can help you advance missions better or even create the opportunity for new missions.
6) Make the gameworld itself more immersive. Now that no one actually street sweeps anymore...you hardly see heroes/villains fighting outside of missions. If a hero chooses to fight crime on the streets...then I think that should generate opportunities for random missions given from people on the street. Encourage players to explore the world for more than just badges.
7) Zone event revamps. I like the burning building stuff in Steel Canyon and I think that kind of thing serves better than spawning giant monsters or ghost ships that no one pays attention to anymore. Which leads me to point 8.
8) Can we have some missions/events that include natural disasters or accidents that don't involve combat? How about rescuing people from construction accidents/gas leaks/auto accidents/tram wrecks? Why does every bad thing in the city have a super villain/villain group behind it? Its nuts. Heroes in comics and movies help people period...they don't just fight bad guys.
That stuff is all off the top of my head. And some of it is based on things that people have said to me about the game as well as my personal observations. The core game has never been truly expanded in a way that generates new types of gameplay.
And in a game like this...I think that's even more important than in those grindy fantasy MMOs. The things I listed above lend themselves to the type of gameworld the devs have created.
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6) Make the gameworld itself more immersive. Now that no one actually street sweeps anymore...you hardly see heroes/villains fighting outside of missions. If a hero chooses to fight crime on the streets...then I think that should generate opportunities for random missions given from people on the street. Encourage players to explore the world for more than just badges.
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This. That's one of the things I like in LOTRO; occasionally you'll come across a quest ring on the landscape in the middle of nowhere, or you'll fight a critter and it will drop an item that starts a new quest.
I'd love to run across a thug and "arrest" him and have him spill the beans about an upcoming heist or rumble or some such that leads us off on another case or caper.
5 is especially good but they are all really good ideas for ways to improve gameplay.
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5 is especially good but they are all really good ideas for ways to improve gameplay.
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Thanks...I'm hopeful that Going Rogue will address some of this stuff. If they would...only...release...some...INFO!!
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Super Hero games are a niche market.
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Unless they're a franchise licensing deal based on the lastest Batman/Spiderman/Stupidman movie - not that Paragon Studios (did I get that right?) can touch that sort of money to throw around.
Still, these days superheroes from well known universes as a marketable commodity are hardly niche, unless you're talking the comics themselves.
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Fixed. If a DC or marvel game is coming out sure. I'm not sure too many folks know what the hell the Paragon City/Rogue Isles universe is.
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