Discussion: Double XP Weekend and Account Reactivation
By
100watt,
Posted on: 2009-09-29 10:36 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
Was soloing much of the time... Actually hidden on several toons and still had people asking me to team in local and braodcast if they were in sight of me...
Gave out all kinds of influence and magic booster buffs to "newbs" all over the place.. On Saturday I think I handed out influence to almost 20 new players who had less than 6 months badges on their characters.. in Kings Row of all places...
All the naysayers and doomers need to let it pass... Don't want to play then don't. Speak your peace and move on... Those of us who enjoy the game deal with not only the cherries but the pits too...
G_G... Your replies are hilarious 
Dragon-King First level 50 -- Fire/Nrg Blaster
(and to many alts to mention)
Protector
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| Originally by Arcanaville: Everything in Praetoria was designed during a drinking binge in which the devs temporarily forgot the rules. |
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This was the exact opposite of my experience. I was on many many teams at several different times over the weekend. I did 2 ITFs, a Manticore, a Sister Psyche, 2 different 8 man villain teams running mishes in the 30s, and 5 or 6 different hero teams ranging from the mid 20s to the upper 40s. There was also a lot of stuff that I couldn't do because I was already on a team. There were 2 RWZ raids and several TFs I didn't get to participate in..... and all this on Justice. |
Originally Posted by iBones
Hmmph, i logged in Thursday night, friday during the day, saturday night, and earlier this morning, and all servers were green, and I stood around looking for a team for at least 20-30 minutes a pop, and the servers seemed bone dry.
Just seemed odd, its too bad, this was one of my favorite games for a long time, its sad to see the lack of support to be so harsh. |
The global channel populations were the highest I have seen in awhile and their were several peeps that I haven't seen in a while that were on.
The SSK system made teams easy to put together. XP for those that exemp made TFs much more attractive.
I don't know if the population is down or not, but it may be a matter of not knowing the best way to find the teams that are out there. All the servers usually have global channels of some sort that are focused towards badging, TFs, or Raids. I get some teams from people finding me on the search, but most are from the global channels.
Even with a small population, putting teams together isn't hard if people work to make it a community rather than a bunch of random people running around.
Level 50s: to many to remember at this point
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This is just your hallucination trying to reinforce itself!|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
I didn't do a Katie this weekend
 |
Medicate! Medicate heavily!
*Hands GG a bottle of 190-proof and a bottle of peppermind schnapps*
Here! Mix these and drink!
Wait, what server were you on again?
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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And here is the other side of the coin:|
Originally Posted by Purplelicious0ne
Seems like there's a lot of complaining over this dbl xp weekend. Wait, isn't there always? You can't keep everyone happy. My views on what i've seen posted here.
1. MA isn't giving dbl xp. For all you crying that this was done deliberate, why don't you stop and think for a minute. MA has gone through A LOT of updating recently. Maybe, just maybe, because of those updates, it changed something in there that made it hard to have the dbl xp going in it. The devs say it's a bug, I believe them. Why do I believe them, you ask? Because, they have CHANGED a lot of the issues that were taken advantage of during the last dbl xp weekend, so it's not like you were going to be able to take advantage of it this time anyway. So stop crying. 2. Servers: For those crying about the servers not going above green. Like some others have already said, the servers have been upgraded, so you won't see servers in the red anymore. Now I played quite a bit over this weekend, during all different hours of the day, and noticed on several occasions that both Freedom and Virtue were in the yellow. So don't know how you can say that none of the servers were ever in the yellow or hardly in the yellow. 3. This kind of goes along with the servers. Finding people to play with. The only time I had a real problem getting a team was Sunday morning. You know, when a lot of people go to church, etc. etc. I had no problems whatsoever getting teams at any other time during the weekend. 4. Problems with the game, ie: rubberbanding, lag, etc: Honestly, I didn't see any of these issues. My game ran perfectly the entire weekend, and none of my friends, or anyone else I teamed with complained of any problems. For those that did have problems, I might suggest you look to your own computer first as a possible solution, graphics cards up to date, etc. etc. All in all, it was a completely enjoyable weekend for me. I teamed up with a lot of people,ran all kinds of different missions and tf's, leveled up a lot of my toons, and had a lot of fun. Thanks to the Devs for giving us the weekend, and especially extending it to monday. Have a nice day all! |
I posted 2 bugs/petitions over double XP weekend. They were as followed:
PROBLEM 1) AE not giving any double XP rewards.
>>>REPLY 1: GM Support - "This feature of the game is working as intended."
>>>REPLY 2: Positron (in-game global reply, not to me directly obviously) - "There appears to be a bug in the AE missions not rewarding double XP rewards..."
PROBLEM 2) Normal mission clears not rewarding Leader/Star holder double XP event rewards.
>>>REPLY 1: GM Support - "Thank you for submitting this to our attention. However, please do not use the bug/petition support feature for others on your team or friends."
...huh? lol
Obviously, the second problem made me really LOL. Not sure where the idea that I was sending in the second bug/petition for a friend or someone else came from. Simply speaking, the player (in my case me, but could be anyone and in fact was...but I wasn't submitting this for them) who was the team leader did not receive the x2 XP reward for mission completions (clears)...no x2 XP, no x2 Influence/Infamy, and no x2 Prestige.
The star holder did get the x2 XP reward for mobs during the mish, just not the completion bonus. I am assuming the code for the new super sidekicking may be conflicting in some way with the x2 XP code, but that is purely speculation.
I also experienced the game crashing event after leaving a mission and then heading to a WW/BM immediately after, but after the first two support posts I placed had such miserable replies, I didn't even bother with this one...
All in all, sort of fun and sort of frustrating game experience for this extended weekend event. I did hear from a lot of old globals from the reactivation, but the majority were not really happy with the super sidekick feature. There is room for a lot of improvement with all the added features the devs unloaded on the players with this issue - the bugs with this event just spotlight those issues even more.
Globals: Johnnykat & Johnnykat2
http://johnnykat.deviantart.com/
Aside from the occasional rubberbanding, the only issue I had during the weekend was when it appearde that I had gotten stuck in one of those steel cages in the PCU control room on Cap - after much trieal and error, I was able to jump sidewaise out of it.
Because it was Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, I wasn't able to be on as much as I wanted to. Also, I was pretty much locked out all Thursday and part of Friday because of the Rogers Online Protection suite causing issues - I just have to turn the firewall off when I want to play now.
And yes, there were times when I logged on and saw both Freedom and Virtue at yellow. But I know that we have lost some players, quite a few of those to the new shiny toy under the tree. My RL friend is one of them, even though he has admitted that I won't like it - seeing as an altaholic like myself will have problems with them having only 8 slots period.
Global: @All-American Teen
70 toons across 11 servers.
Top hero -All-American Teen lvl 50 eng/invul Tanker (01:10 EST; 1/24/09)
Top villian -Poisoned Plum lvl 30 robots/devices Mastermind
I had some rubber-banding too, but it was spotty and it didn't really affect my gaming too much. *No* problems finding a team at all, which for the villain-side was really welcome.
I was saddened by the AE bug. But, I am such a fan of AE, than I can forgive the situation. I'll live with the glitch, because AE is a role player's dream. Still, at a time when it could have really showed off the new "toy" in the game, it was a shame AE was abandoned because it offered only half of the rewards the generic content provided.
I am not sure how successful the event was in winning gamers over to reactivate their accounts. I think, it was a noble attempt, but the "buy 6, get the 7th month free" is hardly a thrilling enticement to come back and pay-to-play. The competition is fierce for MMOs right now, so I think the game has its work cut out to keep the players it has, let alone find a way to grow.
I know it is a point of contention, but to truly win old players back, I think you have to finally adjust the level-cap. This will cause some consternation, but it seems the most reliable way of bringing old accounts back. It has worked for several MMOs in the past.
Also, I was stunned they didn't provide free costume tokens for all. I imagine, many people returned to check out the new color schemes, only to see they lacked the influence to actually use the new feature. It's pretty expensive if your character is a decent level, but hasn't been actively played since inventions changed the economy/enhancement game. Perhaps I missed something? Did they give old accounts a chance to change their colors without the prohibitive cost? I hope so because it is a nice feature to show-off when old players return.
I have to say though, it was a really fun weekend. No major lag, and it was very easy to find teams and advance characters. I had a ball playing this weekend and finally got my first character to level 50.
This is a great game. A great game, that is showing its age a little to be sure, but still a great game. I hope it did convince some gamers to come back and give it another go. It deserves some good news, and some additional success. Clearly the Devs have worked hard on some great new features - and it would be nice if they were rewarded with some additional revenue for their hard work.
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I think the GR end game stuff - the-level-cap-raise-that-isn't-a-level-cap-raise - will help a bit |
Originally Posted by ChaosRed
I know it is a point of contention, but to truly win old players back, I think you have to finally adjust the level-cap. This will cause some consternation, but it seems the most reliable way of bringing old accounts back. It has worked for several MMOs in the past.
|
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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*HEADDESK*HEADDESK*HEADDESK*|
Originally Posted by ChaosRed
I know it is a point of contention, but to truly win old players back, I think you have to finally adjust the level-cap. This will cause some consternation, but it seems the most reliable way of bringing old accounts back. It has worked for several MMOs in the past.
|
No. It's...
*HEADDESK*HEADDESK*HEADDESK*
*HEADDESK*HEADDESK*HEADDESK*
*HEADDESK*HEADDESK*HEADDESK*
No. It's been explained before. All that means is they'd have to rebalance the enemies and player powers. In the end, it's be the same old thing, just with a bigger number, and a lot of people ticked off because their powers got nerfed for such a silly reason.
Either that, or it would create a level-locked zone that nobody but the vets would be in, pulling people out of the rest of the zones and contributing even more to the illusion that "nobody is on".
Neither of which is going to help retention or bring in new players.
*HEADDESK*HEADDESK*HEADDESK*
Just...no.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
People have been leaving the game FOR YEARS.
Some come back. Some don't. New blood is ALSO coming in and taking up the slack. Simply stating "people are leaving the game" with no qualifiers is just unsupported *DOOOOOOOM*. If you can SHOW that significantly more people are leaving the game than coming in, then you have something to worry about. But, you cannot show that. Your observations of server population are somewhat meaningless. Why? Because you're not everywhere on the server and you don't have access to some mysterious panopticon giving you hard numbers on who's actually on the server and who's hidden. The devs can. They have access to the aforementioned hard numbers. They say that subs are up. Yes they should. They need to stop *DOOOOOOOM*ing and just play the fricking game. It's easier to get on teams that way. Standing around whining "thus sucks", "there's nobody on", "there's no teams", "nobody will team with me" accomplishes exactly JACK *BLEEP* SQUAT. Wait. That's not QUITE true. It makes people go out of their way to AVOID YOU. In short, lighten up a bit brother... Currently? Sure. It does the same thing this time every year. Unfortunately, you can't say whether this is part of a past trend (that'll rectify itself), or a new trend (that won't). Why? Because you don't know. Weak updates. *Sigh* See CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM. Simply flaming what's come before as "weak" helps NOTHING. If you're going to ragequit, please do so SILENTLY. The attention-******* is just ever so slightly nauseating. |
Wow. I love how you're Mr. CoH and can, in one single swoop, prove so many people so wrong (in your own mind).
Anyway, you can spin comments anyway you like. That is fine. You can be in your own reality
You cannot dispute facts and then call people doomers for saying them - get real. Fact: the player base is declining and at an all time low during my 22 months. These players may or may not return and the new ones aren't flooding in. I hope this changes and we get a large player base but who knows. I don't have hard numbers and the NC Soft people don't make them readily available. All I can see are the server loads and they are low. Again, a fact. Weak issues? You actually want me to detail this? Dude, are you a DEV or working for the company? Ugh.
Ok, why not. I joined after i11. So, my first issue was 12. It had some good stuff in it but was light. I pretty much like all of it. However, the huge wait for 12 made is seem worse.
Issue 13 was quite lame. We waited a long time for i13 and they give us Day Jobs. Shield power was cool and some QoL stuff. The rest? Meh.
Issue 14 was good. They finally gave us something innovative and cool. MA is wonderful but it was very poorly implemented into the game despite numerous cautions from the beta testers. Enter City of Farmers!
Issue 15 was light and weak. Reichman stuff used a lot of the same old maps (for the most part) and the storyline was a bit...off.
Issue 16 was a decent issue. It had some very cool elements but, once again, did not add anything new to do.
I don't have any desire to detail each issue and if you liked them well good for you. I thought they were ok.
It would have been nice to have something new to do, new maps...something different. Ah well. It seems many people have spoken by leaving the game.
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Saying something is a fact is not quite the same as it being a fact |
Originally Posted by TheJazMan
Fact: the player base is declining and at an all time low during my 22 months.
|
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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I would tend to agree. However, how would you explain every server being at light load all the time now? Please don't use the expanded capacity on Freedom and Virtue as that was done a while ago |
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Saying something is a fact is not quite the same as it being a fact
|
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According to you. Based on what real evidence, exactly? (Note: "I never see anyone in game" is not evidence, it's an anecdote. I still sometimes play WoW, on a server that is routinely listed as High population. I rarely see any players outside the cities. I *know* they're in there somewhere, just not in the areas I can access. I'll have to assume they're all in instanced dungeons, or in an area where I can't go, or rarely visit. Like Northrend.)|
Originally Posted by TheJazMan
Fact: the player base is declining and at an all time low during my 22 months.
|
Fact: By I 16, the AE had resulted in a large number of players being visibly concentrated in a very small number of zones. With the changes made in I 16, those players no longer had any reason to be there. The changes to AE make it counterproductive to run MA missions at all if your only goal is XP per minute, since all but the most challenging enemy groups yield somewhat less XP than their standard game equivalents.
Assumption: Some of them almost certainly quit once their "Easy" button was revoked.
Assumption: The remainder (whatever percentage that may be) have split up and gone to other zones, since that is the only way to find content in their level range that yields "excellent" XP per minute.
Fact: The changes to the difficulty system allow the Fire/Kins and other uber-builds to go quietly run massive farms for hours, with no need for other players at all.
Assumption: Some of the farm leaders have probably switched to this mode, and have effectively removed themselves from normal gameplay. They're still in the game, but they have no reason to come out unless they need to vendor/market all their loot.
Assumption: Some of them probably still include friends or other players in their farms for various reasons. (I've been invited along by a farming friend just so they'd have someone to talk to. And since I don't doorsit, they find my attempts to fight level 53 Battlemaiden henchmen with my level 26-but-sidekicked Peacebringer amusing. Especially since when I manage an epic faceplant, I don't whine about it.)
Fact: During the height of the AE craze, some players that *didn't* want to be constantly bothered by AE farm teams looking for fillers switched themselves to hide from searches.
Fact: Some players were set to be hidden from searches before this, either because they wanted to hide from spammers or just prefered to solo.
Fact: Using the Team Search tool to get number of players in-game is *wildly* unreliable, since it *only* returns the number of characters that match the search parameters. Anyone hidden automatically fails to match any search parameters and is excluded. Characters from the opposing faction are also excluded, except possibly in Co-op or PvP zones (I've never checked so I have no idea how it functions in these areas.) If you search by zone, anyone inside missions is excluded. If the list is truncated, it only returns the number of characters that were actually shown, and anyone not on the list is excluded.
Fact: All the servers have been upgraded substantially. An in-game population that might have locked a server when the game first launched could very likely still register as "green" at this time. (Only the devs know what the approximate population cap is for each server. I'm not aware that they have felt it necessary to share this information with the player base at this time.) In any case, the server load indicators are also not a reliable way to gauge the number of people playing the game.
Fact: In North America, the school year just recently started for many students that don't attend school year-round.
Assumption: Some of the people you aren't seeing are indeed, not in the game. But these people would still consider themselves active players if asked. They just consider "not flunking" to be a higher priority than teaming with you at this time.
Query: Coming to the forums and shouting "The game is dying, the sky is falling, DOOOMMMM!!!" is meant to accomplish what, exactly? If you have a suggestion that you're certain would increase the size of the playerbase, the Suggestions forum is over that way. <--> Otherwise, I'm not certain what you intend to accomplish, other than to mildly annoy some people. (I'm assuming here that mildly annoying people is not actually your primary goal.)
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Good lord I cannot believe I am saying this AGAIN but here we go. The decline is based on my observations of the server loads - all light since late Aug. Mentioned this before and saying it again. Feel free to read SOME of the posts here - there aren't that many.|
Originally Posted by ShadowsBetween
According to you. Based on what real evidence, exactly? (Note: "I never see anyone in game" is not evidence, it's an anecdote. I still sometimes play WoW, on a server that is routinely listed as High population. I rarely see any players outside the cities. I *know* they're in there somewhere, just not in the areas I can access. I'll have to assume they're all in instanced dungeons, or in an area where I can't go, or rarely visit. Like Northrend.)
Fact: By I 16, the AE had resulted in a large number of players being visibly concentrated in a very small number of zones. With the changes made in I 16, those players no longer had any reason to be there. The changes to AE make it counterproductive to run MA missions at all if your only goal is XP per minute, since all but the most challenging enemy groups yield somewhat less XP than their standard game equivalents. Assumption: Some of them almost certainly quit once their "Easy" button was revoked. Assumption: The remainder (whatever percentage that may be) have split up and gone to other zones, since that is the only way to find content in their level range that yields "excellent" XP per minute. Fact: The changes to the difficulty system allow the Fire/Kins and other uber-builds to go quietly run massive farms for hours, with no need for other players at all. Assumption: Some of the farm leaders have probably switched to this mode, and have effectively removed themselves from normal gameplay. They're still in the game, but they have no reason to come out unless they need to vendor/market all their loot. Assumption: Some of them probably still include friends or other players in their farms for various reasons. (I've been invited along by a farming friend just so they'd have someone to talk to. And since I don't doorsit, they find my attempts to fight level 53 Battlemaiden henchmen with my level 26-but-sidekicked Peacebringer amusing. Especially since when I manage an epic faceplant, I don't whine about it.) Fact: During the height of the AE craze, some players that *didn't* want to be constantly bothered by AE farm teams looking for fillers switched themselves to hide from searches. Fact: Some players were set to be hidden from searches before this, either because they wanted to hide from spammers or just prefered to solo. Fact: Using the Team Search tool to get number of players in-game is *wildly* unreliable, since it *only* returns the number of characters that match the search parameters. Anyone hidden automatically fails to match any search parameters and is excluded. Characters from the opposing faction are also excluded, except possibly in Co-op or PvP zones (I've never checked so I have no idea how it functions in these areas.) If you search by zone, anyone inside missions is excluded. If the list is truncated, it only returns the number of characters that were actually shown, and anyone not on the list is excluded. Fact: All the servers have been upgraded substantially. An in-game population that might have locked a server when the game first launched could very likely still register as "green" at this time. (Only the devs know what the approximate population cap is for each server. I'm not aware that they have felt it necessary to share this information with the player base at this time.) In any case, the server load indicators are also not a reliable way to gauge the number of people playing the game. Fact: In North America, the school year just recently started for many students that don't attend school year-round. Assumption: Some of the people you aren't seeing are indeed, not in the game. But these people would still consider themselves active players if asked. They just consider "not flunking" to be a higher priority than teaming with you at this time. Query: Coming to the forums and shouting "The game is dying, the sky is falling, DOOOMMMM!!!" is meant to accomplish what, exactly? If you have a suggestion that you're certain would increase the size of the playerbase, the Suggestions forum is over that way. <--> Otherwise, I'm not certain what you intend to accomplish, other than to mildly annoy some people. (I'm assuming here that mildly annoying people is not actually your primary goal.) |
I am not here to yell DOOOOOOOOOOM or whatever the term is (this is pretty much the only MMO I like and don't really game). I would hope the DEVS take some of the criticisms here as feedback. Most of the game updates have been cosmetic - I believe it is cheaper and more profitable to do this. From what I am told, new environments, art, maps, systems etc is quite time consuming and, therefore, expensive. Unfortunately it is getting to be a bit much and the game is suffering, IMO. I know others feel the same but what %, I don't know. I don't chat with a huge number here and I often see such comments on pages when discussing CoH.
Anyway, I am more than happy to provide my reasoning but I think I have done it enough for this point
Here's to the DEVS stepping up the material we get and to seeing more players join/return to CoX! Excelsior!
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School starting alone would explain this (Hmm, when does school start? Oh, right -- late August/early September). Cyclical. Happens every year. They are still *active subscribers*, however.|
Originally Posted by TheJazMan
The decline is based on my observations of the server loads - all light since late Aug.
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And thinking you can measure anything with any amount of precision based on a green dot versus a yellow dot is absurd.
As far as the server load indicators - we know that the devs made a huge upgrade a while ago, because they announced it. We don't know two very important things. First, we don't know what the max load is for each server, or what percentage is required for the "load dot" to switch to the next threshold stage.
Second, we don't know for certain that the devs haven't made additional upgrades that might have further increased the load capacity. I mean, they're getting ready to release a big expansion, something that they're likely hoping will bring new customers flooding into the game. It seems probable that part of that process would be to make sure that those customers have a smooth experience so they'll want to stay. (I wonder how many Aion fanatics didn't even last through the first day or two of the hours long queues to play that game? I personally know two people who were so upset that they uninstalled it. One microwaved the disk. I don't think they're going back anytime soon.)
Obviously...
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork