PvP server merg

Can't blame you. You'd be one of the majority of CoH PvP'ers that have already quit.

As far as expecting anything from the devs, don't. Depending on them for anything at all is just setting yourself up for disappointment.

this

Basically you have three options, since a server merger will never happen and cross-server zone/arena seems less and less likely as the days go by:

1. Transfer stuff to Freedom or start over there
2. Try and play against the two or three people left on Guardian
3. Unsub and go somewhere else

Option 1 is probably the best investment for your time if you're insistent on staying with this game, but in the long run I'm guessing option 3 is probably best.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

why didn't anyone ever think of that!

they already said - there will be no pvp server, no server merges - admit the broke pvp and plan on breakng it more after GR goes live...they are all focused on that because that will save this game and bring back everyone...

oooh crack pipe...brb to type more.

Like this?
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=122744

There is a huge difference between putting your ideas on a piece of paper that you leave beside them and telling it to their face. For all we know they might have not even read that piece of paper, but actually telling them they need to listen and respond.

Yea, because coming at them level headed has paid off so well for the pvp community in the past. Please let your sub lapse for a month. Then use the money to go buy a clue. Thanks.




You have no clue and should probably stop posting on the subject. Though sadly this has not stopped you in the past so you will probably keep going. There was many communications in the past, just because you never hung around here before doesn't mean it never happened. I have told you before about learning your history if you want to talk and be taken seriously. This is another one of those times.

No, i'm not completely aware of the past, and i assumed the idea has already been thrown, as a lot of people were attached to pvp before i13 and would have done anything to get it back.

What i don't understand is why we gave up. If we keep pushing something, it will fall over. We're dealing with human beings that can be influenced. This is not something to be considered impossible, because if you try hard enough something will change.

I think we're doing it wrong, at least some of it. The devs are never going to listen to us if everytime we have time to throw some words in we throw in pages and pages of ideas. We need to summerize, and tell them what needs to be fixed or changed right away and save the little stuff for later.

The past is a large factor in winning, as i wouldn't want to make the same mistakes some others have made, so i wouldn't mind hearing what has happened.

This is in the same line of idea that the Squeaky Wheel Gets the Oil. It's applicable to cars, but not so applicable to MMO's, or video games in general.

For starters, most video games have a clear design vision and goal. When Nintendo makes a Zelda game they focus on elements that are very Zelda Like, such as the sword play and adventure. When Nintendo makes a Mario game they focus on elements that are very Mario Like, such as vertical puzzles requiring jumping. You wouldn't approach Nintendo asking them to incorporate a motorcycle into Zelda, and you wouldn't approach Nintendo to suggest that Mario with a machine gun would be a great idea. When you play a Video Game you automatically accept some of the limitations set in place by the developers, and accept how those limitations affect the world you play in.

When confining ourselves to looking at the MMO space we can see empirical evidence of what happens when a game loses a sense of what it is, and what it is going to be. The first example is Planetside. The game started out as a simulation of a genuine war, and playing the game involved learning skill sets that would be applicable in an actual war-time situation. Commanders needed to learn how to move supply trains (ANTS), run armor columns (MagRiders, Sunderers), organize protective squads (lightings, threshers), direct air support (Galaxy, Liberator), and manage air combat (reaver, skeeter). Taking a continent would require hours of raging war where people who didn't have FPS skills could still be very useful driving, flying, healing, repairing, or setting up defenses. At some point the developers lost the campaign vision and started to adjust Planetside to cater to the session based gameplay of Quake and Unreal Tournament. The Warp Gates were readjusted and the concept of having to take a set number of conts was done away with. The move away from the original gameplay decimated player population. Today Planetside only has one server, and survives almost solely on the profits of Everquest.

Then there was Star Wars Galaxies. Need I say more than NGE? Now, I didn't play SWG, so I'm not intimately familiar with how proceedings went down. What I do know is that the developers decided to target the WoW audience with a severe game modification, which caused one of the largest examples of nerdrage witnessed from legions of Star Trek Fans.

The third example comes from NCSoft and Destination Games, and it's Tabula Rasa. Through it's beta Richard Garriot promoted and developed TR as a Team based game very similar to City of Heroes. However, after the game launched and Mr. Garriot left for his trip into space, the developers decided to change the fundamentals of the game from a PvE combat system to a system that catered to PvP. Much like our game, CoH, the engine for Tabula Rasa had never been designed for PvP play. The world that Mr. Garriot had created simply didn't support PvP combat, and PvP play was often dismissed pre-launch because it just didn't fit the game. The result of the developers giving into that squeaky wheel was a financial disaster for NCSoft, costing the company millions of dollars.

That event also has had repercussions on other NCSoft games. As the primary financial backer of City of Heroes, to say that NCSoft is gun-shy about funding any PvP development is an understatement. From NCSoft's perspective, they'd rather have PvP-oriented players go to AION, which was designed from the ground-up with PvP combat in mind, and using an engine that was built to handle PvP encounters (CryEngine).

The point from these examples is that games that lose their vision, their goal of what they are, go under, very fast, and generally wind up with somebody loosing a chunk of money. Well, except for Planetside. The dev team was so small and the development was so little, I suspect if it had been killed off 2 years ago SOE would have come out ahead from subscriptions and box sales.

***

Now, from my personal opinion, PvP play is dead in City of Heroes. PvPer's don't just have to convince Castle, Positron, or PhosyB that something has to be done with the PvP system. PvPer's will also have to convince NCSoft that there is actually a large enough market that PvP development will be able to pay-back on profits. Squeaking the wheel at the devs alone won't actually do any good if you also have to convince the people holding the pocket-book as well.

***

There's also another aspect I wanted to address, which is the squeaky wheel / push hard enough and something happens idea. Very few people stop to think that squeaking the wheel too much can also result in a public backlash.

The case in point here is PetitionOnline. PetitionOnline has been abused so much that several years ago, almost every IDSA (Interactive Digital Software Association) / ESA (Entertainment Software Association) member had a strict policy that anything brought up for petition on PetitionOnline was to be automatically ignored. So, if you made the mistake of putting a suggestion on PetitionOnline, you'd actually guarantee that the petitioned event would NEVER HAPPEN.

In the same way, some suggestions that are brought up over and over, and over, and over, are automatically ignored. Server Merges and Vehicle Additions stand as two examples probably on the developers list of threads to not read.

In these cases, squeaking the wheel or pushing again and again and again is more likely to cause the developers to clamp down and not do ANYTHING, than it is to accomplish any desired goal.

There were several threads before I13, all of which were brought to the devs' attention (and some of which even had redname posts). There was lots of good feedback during I13 closed beta but PvPers were basically told most of the I13 changes were non-negotiable and just about the only things that've been fixed since then as a result of player request were NPC mezzes, knockback protection, and a few travel suppression-related issues, and we've got a few doggie treats thrown our way in the form of arena options and tweaks (sudden death being one of those odd ones that no one really likes). I think I was the only one to give them reliable reproduction steps to fix being able to attack someone during the 10-second phase period after respawn in arena as well. Since I16 went into closed beta, at least three trivial PvE "fluff" bugs I've reported (they were, as best I am aware, fixed because of bug reports I filed on live and test - one was the very tiny jump speed debuff on Shadow Fall and the other was the /e alakazam emote not working right when shapeshifted on a Kheld, can't remember the third). If I'd've known they'd put more effort into fixing cosmetic bugs with zero real impact on gameplay, I wouldn't've bothered to even bring up PvP bugs.

Since I13 I've started two PvP feedback threads, one of which was brought to the attention of the devs, and which began an exchange of PMs between myself and a developer. Unfortunately, while I think they've taken note of our concerns, I don't think there will be any meaningful changes to the way things work. That is why most players have just stopped trying. So please, don't tell us we're not trying hard enough, or we're not doing it right.

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."

Not really. The devs have already stated that they make changes based upon their own design plans, regardless of whomever is rude to them on the forums.

The login issues have long been fixed. If your pc can handle it you will have no problems playing there.