Ganymede?? Valentines event on live now?
By
Beber,
Posted on: 2009-02-09 10:14 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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BaB said
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To answer that, we're (those of us not working directly on the MA) working a lot of things for Issues 15 & 16, upcoming booster packs, Spring/Anniversary events, Veteran rewards, etc.
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Ok, he didn't mention the year... but if it's for the year 2048, then they could just wait 3 decade to announce that the had, in fact, worked a lot on Spring Event, and then show us what wonderfull job they did.
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Note that it says Spring/Anniversary as one item in the comma seperated list. It could easily be the 5th anniversary event which (I think) is still in Spring.
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Iirc, Spring's event refers to Valentine's Event this year.
Linky.
And it turns to be the same event as we got last year... 
@Shadowe
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because there are those of us who understand that GR cannot tell us everything we want to know, because his contract expressly forbids him from doing so.
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Super-heroes'MMOs market is highly competitive, especially this year, I get that.
But if GR can't say anything without breaking his NDA, then why the teasing ? Nobody asked him to.
We've been teased for more than a year, and this busy-working-on-next-issue-hang-on-folks speech's getting boring.
I don't need anymore teases or hints, I would appreciate basic communication (should I say Customers relationship ?).
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@Shadowe
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because there are those of us who understand that GR cannot tell us everything we want to know, because his contract expressly forbids him from doing so.
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Super-heroes'MMOs market is highly competitive, especially this year, I get that.
But if GR can't say anything without breaking his NDA, then why the teasing ? Nobody asked him to.
We've been teased for more than a year, and this busy-working-on-next-issue-hang-on-folks speech's getting boring.
I don't need anymore teases or hints, I would appreciate basic communication (should I say Customers relationship ?).
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Hazarding a rough guess on my part, and this is pure supposition on the basis of how things have gone in the past - we're going to find out something within the next few weeks. Something quite important. What that might be, I won't speculate on. But in the past it has not been unusual for the Rednames to tease us like that within a very short time before an official announcement. Sometimes it falls flat when things don't go to plan, but the teasing has historically been indicative of important stuff.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise 
; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
QR
Well, he has to get his kicks SOMEHOW, right?
Issue...Four-teen......RAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!
-droolfrothfoam-
Anyway, if people want more events when the Devs are up to the gills in work, we should ORGANISE some! It is our game, really. Get people together, organise events, do what we can to enjoy it.
And, as for Valentines as an aside, if your spending time in-game without the other half when you COULD be with the other half (those with massive, cross-continent journeys excused) then, frankly, you are a very silly person I know where I'M going on valentines...Kehehehe
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Well hope you all had fun moaning away on here.
I had a really fun night with excellent teams and thoroughly enjoyed myself, and that was purely valentines stuff, and judging by how busy PD was, so did a lot of others
Zhaan, Chakyra, Fiorina 161, Aeryn, Polly Nation, Dee Pression, Shazanne, Night Jester and too many more to mention.
Network Hell 47640
Valley of the Harpies 74519
Green and Pleasant Land 75966
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Well hope you all had fun moaning away on here.
I had a really fun night with excellent teams and thoroughly enjoyed myself, and that was purely valentines stuff, and judging by how busy PD was, so did a lot of others
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Surely not? You make it sound like people were enjoying the event
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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GR, one quick question,
Will I be issuing my Gold Plated Premium "I Told You So" business cards this year to all those who have openly stated that the Dev team will fall in the face of Champions Online and DC Universe Online?
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Nobody has said the Dev team will fall in the face of the upcoming competition, what I personally am concerned about is player veterans slowly bleeding away from the game after seeing content re-hashed and presented as new.
NCSoft CEO Geoff Heath has been quoted as saying the average lifespan of a CoX subscriber is 17 months and that they were pleasently surprised by that figure. Pleasently surprised with 17 months?, I don't get it?, should the bar not be set higher?, I'm not sure what the average subscription time of other well-known MMOs are but I suspect they are longer than 17 months. It would be a shame if two years from now a high percentage of the playerbase was at this average of a 17 month veteran or less and even more of a shame if NCSoft was happy with that figure.
City of Heroes is going nowhere in the short to mid-term, it has years left to it and a well established Universe that it has worked hard to build up from scratch. Both Champions-Online and DCUO are going to be different playstyles altogether to CoX, and as such there is going to be plenty of room for all three. What our market share is going to be is a different matter.
Both companies have other big name licences in their portfolio - NCsoft with GuildWars and Lineage II to name a few, Cryptic with what I'm sure will be turn out to be their ace card in the pack 'StarTrek Online', and I'm sure all three companies will be watching their specific SuperHero MMO subscriber numbers with interest a couple of years from now, because as we have recently seen with Tabula Rasa the individual MMOs in their portfolios are judged on their stand-alone performance.
Shazan:
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Well hope you all had fun moaning away on here.[/i]
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Was fun teaming in PD tonight, the teamage that is - not the event specifically.
Oh, and we always have fun moaning on here, thats the whole point of the forums!... the fun that is - not just the moaning.
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Pleasently surprised with 17 months?, I don't get it?, should the bar not be set higher?, I'm not sure what the average subscription time of other well-known MMOs are but I suspect they are longer than 17 months.
[/ QUOTE ]The most accurate estimate I've heard was 6 months, although that's 2 or 3 years old for now. Still, the average is way less than CoH's rate.
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Well hope you all had fun moaning away on here.
I had a really fun night with excellent teams and thoroughly enjoyed myself, and that was purely valentines stuff, and judging by how busy PD was, so did a lot of others
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I went into (Defiant) PD just to see what was going on, around Midnight and it was fairly busy. I quickly got myself in a decent team and had a fun time doing the Event missions.
There was a lot of broadcast chat, both with players looking for a team and teams offering places. I recognised some old faces and some players were clearly new to the game.
Could it be that the lack of new features isn't as much an issue for the general player population as it is for some people on this forum?
Proud member of FOXBASE ALPHA and coalition associates.
Hero 50's - 25
Villain 50's - 1
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I'm going to look back at this thread at the end of the year and have a good giggle.
*ahem*
I can vouch for what Ex Libris has said with regards the dev team having too tight a schedule to put in any new content for Spring Fling 2009.
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Kerensky used to make posts like this too 
We should hang ghostraptor upside down and shake him until all sorts of juicy info falls out of him 
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We should hang ghostraptor upside down and shake him until all sorts of juicy info falls out of him
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He's Australian. He's USED to being upside down!
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
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We should hang ghostraptor upside down and shake him until all sorts of juicy info falls out of him
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He's Australian. He's USED to being upside down!
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Then we should stand him the right way up until he gets confused, panics and tells all!
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We should hang ghostraptor upside down and shake him until all sorts of juicy info falls out of him
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He's Australian. He's USED to being upside down!
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An Aussie.... Hanged... Upside down... Dripping juicy things...
Oh you just made my day. I wonder how can i work today with that fantasy image in my head.
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Nobody has said the Dev team will fall in the face of the upcoming competition, what I personally am concerned about is player veterans slowly bleeding away from the game after seeing content re-hashed and presented as new.
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Realistically, how many subscribers will we really lose due to not updating the Valentines event who would have stayed if the event had been given a couple of new bits?
I'd gather that just now putting dev time into serious updates (of engine and story/environment) that will last more than 2 weeks a year is probably the higher priority.
Given that we still have no real idea what to expect past I14 (and even there we're still very hazy) it's possible that getting upset over the lack of improvement to Valentines may end up making a lot of people feel a little silly.
Of course, I'm not privy to any extra info other than my own assumptions and extrapolations, so I may end up feeling stupid for the above... I doubt it, but it's possible.
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NCSoft CEO Geoff Heath has been quoted as saying the average lifespan of a CoX subscriber is 17 months and that they were pleasently surprised by that figure. Pleasently surprised with 17 months?, I don't get it?, should the bar not be set higher?, I'm not sure what the average subscription time of other well-known MMOs are but I suspect they are longer than 17 months. It would be a shame if two years from now a high percentage of the playerbase was at this average of a 17 month veteran or less and even more of a shame if NCSoft was happy with that figure.
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Wasn't that 17 month lifespan quite some time ago (around about the IP purchase of 6/11/2007 iirc)?
If so CoX had only been going for approximately 3.5 years/42 months. It had had non-US servers for about a year less than that.
In a pretty fickle market where the customers are often at the younger end of the scale (and maybe more prone to changes of circumstance, fads and peer pressure) I'd say that a mean average subscription life of 17 months in a 42 month old game was pretty darn good.
And what's wrong with a low mean average subscription life? If it's measured from the current and past subscriptions then the mean average could easily come crashing down by an influx of new subscribers (having a starting subscription life of only 1 month).
BTW I'm pretty sure that at the time an industry average of something like 6 months was mentioned. IIRC the devs and NC were all pleasently surprised that CoX had such good retention.
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City of Heroes is going nowhere in the short to mid-term, it has years left to it and a well established Universe that it has worked hard to build up from scratch. Both Champions-Online and DCUO are going to be different playstyles altogether to CoX, and as such there is going to be plenty of room for all three. What our market share is going to be is a different matter.
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Spill the beans Mumsy... You obviously know more about CoX in the short to mid-term than I do. Or maybe you just have different scales - I'd say short term is anything up to the next 6 to 9 months and mid-term is probably more like 9 to 18 months.
On the plus side, in the US boards a subscriber to imdb has posted some notes about the City of Heroes film listing being refreshed and notes that:
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I know this might/might not be hopeful for some, but the producer (Tom DeSanto) that purchased the rights only has two upcoming listings for projects: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and City of Heroes. Transformers in in Post Production and there are no other "coming soon" films for DeSanto. My guess is because he's going to focus on making the Co* movie a reality.
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And (with my highlighting):
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It's also insteresting to note that along with the Dreamworks update and a 2010 (we knew that already) production date, it also says that Dreamworks will be distributing "All Media" surrounding the Co* project. Which means... CoH/CoV Merchandise!
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source
We have to trust that:
* the devs have the best interests of the game at heart (i.e. they want to make it a continuing/growing success even if we don't always agree with their methods)
* NC have the best interests of the game at heart
* the devs have been working on a 5 year anniversary event and I14/I15/I16+ which will help CoX be a continuing success
So with a little imagination...
What if the devs have planned out an anniversary event leading to I15 launch bringing the coming storm closer (if it hasn't arrived yet). Anniversary announcements of the film plans (which will bring associated merchandise) allows a good year or so of ingame development to improve the engine/client and have story tie-in with the film. All culminating in a (relative) media feeding frenzy when the film hits and the game has been sufficiently updated to keep hold of all the fresh meat that the film hooks.
Damn though... new meat would mean the average subscriber lifetime dropping. Can't win.
So this last bit is just wishful fancy just now.. but it's possibly just as based in reality as those predictions that seem to say everything is going stale/the devs hate us and they're letting the game die.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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Realistically, how many subscribers will we really lose due to not updating the Valentines event who would have stayed if the event had been given a couple of new bits?
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Oh, if you just consider just the "non updated event" itslef, not many, but if you consider the lack of concrete content in the last issues, the lack of communication by NC, the "teasing" of the past year and a half that leads to nowhere (as of now), plus the "We're working very hard on spring event", and then see that it's the same as... always, I think that make a good bunch of reason to quit the game.
For some people, that juste may be the straw that broke the camel's back.
And yeah, if those people hadn't quit because of the new event, they may have quit for another reason in the next few days/weeks/months/years... and that's always that much money for NC...
But that's my POV, I don't have any numbers, and since nobody can say "what would have happened if...", this is a dead and.
Of course it could mean that I14 and I15 are going to be even better than our current expectations.
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plus the "We're working very hard on spring event", and then see that it's the same as... always
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As I noted earlier they said Spring/Anniversary event - this may be advertised as the Spring Fling, but the anniversary is timed such that it could easily be the Spring/Anniversary event.
If the anniversary is what was meant then the devs can't be fully blamed for people assuming it was the Valentines event - although they maybe should have written copy that would be less ambiguous in the fans eyes.
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For some people, that juste may be the straw that broke the camel's back.
And yeah, if those people hadn't quit because of the new event, they may have quit for another reason in the next few days/weeks/months/years... and that's always that much money for NC...
But that's my POV, I don't have any numbers, and since nobody can say "what would have happened if...", this is a dead and.
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No-one will have solid, reliable numbers.
Some people will always be moving on from hobbies and games. For some it's just because they've been so into the hobby/game that they feel that they've done everything and need a complete change of scenery.
Some of these people would have moaned at virtually anything new that the devs did for Valentines day and then stated that the half-hearted (in their eyes) additions were a sign that the devs are short changing us, and then proceeded to shout about how they are leaving as this game is doomed.
At the same time, without any additions to the event there are going to be players who have never seen the event before who have a great time and think the devs did well...
Reception of the event is a matter of subjective perception.
Personally I actually couldn't give much about a 2 week event that is more of a non-event - heck it's a RL 1-day event to boost greetings cards profits. Valentines is more of a cynical excuse for commercialism than Christmas is becoming.
But then... I wondered why the devs did the changes to the Xmas event this year. I'd rather have them work on continuing, all-year round content.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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I wondered why the devs did the changes to the Xmas event this year.
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I expect it was used as a proving ground for new ideas. the valantine event was used to prove co-op missions, Winters Gift was used to prove alternative methods for gaining recipes. The new ski slope was probably done by one of the new staff as an apprentice piece.
I really should do something about this signature.
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I wondered why the devs did the changes to the Xmas event this year.
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I expect it was used as a proving ground for new ideas. the valantine event was used to prove co-op missions, Winters Gift was used to prove alternative methods for gaining recipes. The new ski slope was probably done by one of the new staff as an apprentice piece.
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Probably right. I'd forgotten about Winters Gift.
Of course, practically no-one complained about Xmas being a cheap rehash partly due to the new recipes and the new badges.
I'd guess that a lot of the older players who feel that the game is stagnating are possibly involved in badging to some degree or another (if nothing else in the hope that it spices up the game). Adding a few new badges can be just enough to persuade some of them that there's something new and shiny for them - not all of them, mind, but some.
Maybe the devs should have added a new cupid-style bow and badges for defeating Snaptooth 100 times and doing the Ganymede/Scratch missions 5 times each.
Think the contact's Scratch...
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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Of course, practically no-one complained about Xmas being a cheap rehash partly due to the new recipes and the new badges.
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Actually, there were a fair number of people complaining that the Baby New Year mission was still the same old one...
@FloatingFatMan
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
You'll notice the word practically and that we may put slightly differing interpretations on this words meaning.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
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Realistically, how many subscribers will we really lose due to not updating the Valentines event who would have stayed if the event had been given a couple of new bits?
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I was talking about a scenario (and my greatest fear for the game) of any potential Dev complacency (in updating the 'Big Three' yearly events) driving away Veterans of 2 years of more through apathy, not singling out the Valentines event against the greater development gameplan.
While I greatly appreciate there are many players of whom this is their first Spring event and will be having their first Halloween and Xmas event later on this year, whats the incentive for me to keep playing when the events are the same?, 'Spring Fling' this year means less than nothing to a whole swathe of my characters both Red and Blue-side other than a few more people readily available in PD to team with (as was the case last night).
RL Populations fear an aging workforce, with MMOs its a balance of keeping Vets relatively content whilst appealing to new recruits, but I do fear a youngification and high turn-over of the playerbase exascibating any potential complacency by the Devs on future events. In effect the Devs looking at the average subscription length and thinking "Well we have replenished x% of the game population over the last year so thats fresh players who will have not seen Its the same event we run every year, lets keep it the same again this year/next year".
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Spill the beans Mumsy... You obviously know more about CoX in the short to mid-term than I do. Or maybe you just have different scales - I'd say short term is anything up to the next 6 to 9 months and mid-term is probably more like 9 to 18 months.
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I'd say it the different scales thing JD, I am privy to no more information than you are, but I would put Mid-term at a little more than 18 months. See NorCal are looking at the game and (hopefully) planning a development timetable in the scope of years not months, and then back-engineering all the steps necessary to get to that point.
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Brian Clayton (Executive Producer): "It's a little bit of both, to be perfectly honest. We certainly have huge plans, plans that go over the next five to ten years, for the City of Heroes franchise. So we certainly need to ramp up for that. But we also feel that by providing the Super Booster packs and things like that, it's a win-win in that it helps grow the studio internally to provide more things for our community, but it also helps us to justify those costs and build for the future. I think that's certainly a part of it, but there are larger initiatives again that we can't fully go into detail about, for the future of the franchise".
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So thats the good news restated - CoX is going nowhere, I just want it (as I'm sure you all do) to evolve as much as Its done over the next five years as It has done over the last, events 'n' all.
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Spill the beans Mumsy... You obviously know more about CoX in the short to mid-term than I do. Or maybe you just have different scales - I'd say short term is anything up to the next 6 to 9 months and mid-term is probably more like 9 to 18 months.
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I'd say it the different scales thing JD, I am privy to no more information than you are, but I would put Mid-term at a little more than 18 months. See NorCal are looking at the game and (hopefully) planning a development timetable in the scope of years not months, and then back-engineering all the steps necessary to get to that point.
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Ah - I thought you'd taken short to medium-term to be even shorter, so I reread your earlier post...
I think that, with the background of your expressed disatisfaction at the Valentrine event, I misunderstood your saying City of Heroes is going nowhere in the short to mid-term as meaning 'in the short term there are no real developments happening in CoX' whereas I think you probably meant 'this game is going to last into the long term'.
With that misinterpretation in mind, I thought that you were expressing disatisfaction at Valentines event, and the lack of hard details for the next few months (I14/15). I took it to be the next few months as I didn't think you're the sort to think that the devs havenothing planned for years...
Anyway:
* My mistake due to the ambiguity of the phrase 'going nowhere'...
* And possibly good if the CoX film does go ahead, and bring merch/media-attention.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
JD - I read it the same way.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
; Techbot_Alpha: Also, what Shadowe said. It seems he is still somewhat wise ; Bull Throttle: Shadowe was unwise in this instance...; Rock_Powerfist: in this instance Shadowe is wise.; Techbot_Alpha: Shadowe is very wise *nods*; Zortel: *Quotable line about Shadowe being wise goes here.*
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Stop flogging that poor stillborn horse, Shockwave. Please. All it does is +1 your post count to absolutely no use at all - because there are those of us who understand that GR cannot tell us everything we want to know, because his contract expressly forbids him from doing so.
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I wasnt on about any NDC or GR breaking it, i was on about the fact that this event is the same old stuff from the past four years.
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In which case I apologise unreservedly - given that you were quoting GR basically saying "There's good stuff to come", I assumed (and assumption is the mother of all **** ups, as we know), that your post was directed at that, rather than the thread topic relating to no new content.
Having said that, though, while certainly no longer directed to yourself, my point still stands for anyone else who feels that revealing information is one of the most £$%^@*&! important things the devs should be doing.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.