City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

So how is CoH REALLY doing? (An answer)

Acemace

By Acemace,
Posted on: 2010-01-09 13:31 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zombie Man View Post
Since people will see Heroes leaving hero zones and going to villain zones and vice versa, I'm going to assume that those who do not buy the Box will see some changes with Issue 18.
And don't forget there will be a whole new slew of idiots making DOOOM! posts and pointing to the shifting population as proof the game is dying, when in reality the players will be in Praetoria blowing thru the new content as they switch sides.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
And don't forget there will be a whole new slew of idiots making DOOOM! posts and pointing to the shifting population as proof the game is dying, when in reality the players will be in Praetoria blowing thru the new content as they switch sides.
ive read in at least 2 threads so far that claimed that "redside is gonna be so dead cause everyone will switch to blueside", when i saw stuff like that it kind of made me cringe a little because i strongly dislike blueside, the content and tfs are so dull, yes i dont mind the tfs because they are actually worth something merit-wise, but when half a tf is just mind-numbing kill alls on medium to large maps, then i rather be without

i personally will be moving all of my hero toons to villains, i might make all my toons rogues so i can still partake in hero tfs, but ill still be redside primarily, i honestly dislike blueside, the zones are way to big, they are not connected very well, contacts have stupid simultaneous glowy clicking mishs and send you all over the freaking place instead of sticking to 1-2 zones

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Necrotech_Master View Post
ive read in at least 2 threads so far that claimed that "redside is gonna be so dead cause everyone will switch to blueside", when i saw stuff like that it kind of made me cringe a little because i strongly dislike blueside, the content and tfs are so dull, yes i dont mind the tfs because they are actually worth something merit-wise, but when half a tf is just mind-numbing kill alls on medium to large maps, then i rather be without
I think we're going to see City of Vigilantes/Rogues because that allows one's toons to play most of the content of both 'cities'.

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Posted

Lies...

Damned Lies...

And Statistics...

You can have my doom when you pry it from my cold dead doomed fingers.


....

Seriously though, good post. Though I had a feeling NCSoft wouldn't be putting all this money into this game, and hiring all these people, if the game wasn't showing some signs that it could make some money. If it were losing players right and left, they would not be putting this much money into GR etc.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zombie Man View Post
I think we're going to see City of Vigilantes/Rogues because that allows one's toons to play most of the content of both 'cities'.
I tend to agree with this.

I think this will be a boon to Red side, since people who don't like Redside can now experience it in smaller doses if they choose. People moving back and forth more easily will make it more popular, I believe.

Also, I'm hoping that the Ultra Mode graphics, will make redside look a little better in regards to lighting, and hopefully it won't seem so drab and dismal, which honestly makes it less fun to play there. I like blue side zones because they seem so much more colorful and bright. The gray-ness of the red zones seems to run together and make it boring, visually IMO. I'm hoping Ultra mode fixes some of that.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by bAss_ackwards View Post
The drop rate on Villain pants is far too low as it is. No more! Nooo more!
What the hell was I even talking about? What an idiot. Yeesh.

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Posted

This last weekend, my wife and I attended the PAX COH panel. Now, we haven't played in a few years- but before that, we played COH pretty intensely, starting in Beta. Since then, we've played WoW, AoC, and now we're playing Champions. Anyway, we got fairly excited by what we saw at PAX, and when my wife won a signed copy of the game at the Paragon party, we figured it was a sign.

So when we got home, we (re)installed the game. And...

... I'm not sure, yet. When we last played the game, everything was hopping. Heck, it was almost too crowded. Now, though... we played for two hours last night and I think we saw a grand total of six other players... and two of them were AFK. The city was a ghost town. I looked in Atlas Park, Steel Canyon, and parts of the Rogue Isles... and everything felt just so empty. Where the heck is everyone?

It may be that our server (Victory) is just deserted. Moving to another server would kinda suck, though, as it's unlikely we could get the same names (and I'm very attached to names).

We also found that we couldn't really remember how to play. One feature I was very interested in was the Level Pact system- but we couldn't find any documentation on it. How're we supposed to find out about features like that? And why couldn't I change the colors of my Peacekeeper's powers?

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Carapace View Post
This last weekend, my wife and I attended the PAX COH panel. Now, we haven't played in a few years- but before that, we played COH pretty intensely, starting in Beta. Since then, we've played WoW, AoC, and now we're playing Champions. Anyway, we got fairly excited by what we saw at PAX, and when my wife won a signed copy of the game at the Paragon party, we figured it was a sign.

So when we got home, we (re)installed the game. And...

... I'm not sure, yet. When we last played the game, everything was hopping. Heck, it was almost too crowded. Now, though... we played for two hours last night and I think we saw a grand total of six other players... and two of them were AFK. The city was a ghost town. I looked in Atlas Park, Steel Canyon, and parts of the Rogue Isles... and everything felt just so empty. Where the heck is everyone?

It may be that our server (Victory) is just deserted. Moving to another server would kinda suck, though, as it's unlikely we could get the same names (and I'm very attached to names).

We also found that we couldn't really remember how to play. One feature I was very interested in was the Level Pact system- but we couldn't find any documentation on it. How're we supposed to find out about features like that? And why couldn't I change the colors of my Peacekeeper's powers?
Peacebringers and Warshades are not customizable. I don't know if we are going to get to customize them and the VEATs anytime or not. I don't recall a dev position on it other than "not at this time".

www.paragonwiki.com has a lot of information about things.

To level pact you have to both be level 5 or lower and one right clicks on the other and chooses to request the pact and the other gets a pop-up and accepts.

Overall online population is currently lower than a few years ago. It is also probably taking a hit to that from people in I17 beta and people waiting for I17 and Going Rogue and we had free server transfers for a few months and some probably migrated off Victory. You may want to head to the server forum and hook up with people there or find out what the global channel(s) used on Victory are.

Also depending on how long ago it was that you were playing people have really moved "indoors" in the missions with a lot less street sweeping and hanging out. Some play in the Mission Architect buildings so their time out of the missions is even less because there is no running to contacts and street sweep missions.

total kick to the gut

This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carapace View Post
This last weekend, my wife and I attended the PAX COH panel. Now, we haven't played in a few years- but before that, we played COH pretty intensely, starting in Beta. Since then, we've played WoW, AoC, and now we're playing Champions. Anyway, we got fairly excited by what we saw at PAX, and when my wife won a signed copy of the game at the Paragon party, we figured it was a sign.

So when we got home, we (re)installed the game. And...

... I'm not sure, yet. When we last played the game, everything was hopping. Heck, it was almost too crowded. Now, though... we played for two hours last night and I think we saw a grand total of six other players... and two of them were AFK. The city was a ghost town. I looked in Atlas Park, Steel Canyon, and parts of the Rogue Isles... and everything felt just so empty. Where the heck is everyone?

It may be that our server (Victory) is just deserted. Moving to another server would kinda suck, though, as it's unlikely we could get the same names (and I'm very attached to names).

We also found that we couldn't really remember how to play. One feature I was very interested in was the Level Pact system- but we couldn't find any documentation on it. How're we supposed to find out about features like that? And why couldn't I change the colors of my Peacekeeper's powers?
Well, several huge console games were recently released (Final Fantasy XIII and God Of War III are two examples) so some players are probably playing those at the moment. I know for a fact that I will be on less when Super Street Fighter IV comes out next month, but not gone. I plan to alternate between that game and this one maybe like every other day.

Though I can't speak for the gamers who have the attention span of gnats, and jump onto every new MMO that comes out.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by SwellGuy View Post
Also depending on how long ago it was that you were playing people have really moved "indoors" in the missions with a lot less street sweeping and hanging out. Some play in the Mission Architect buildings so their time out of the missions is even less because there is no running to contacts and street sweep missions.
Also realize that there are a bunch of "new" zones (depending on when you last played) and places to be - Orobouros, Cimerora, Wentworths, the University for crafting, revamped Hollows & Faultline, etc.

People are more spread out, no more bunching-up in Atlas & P.I. (well, less anyway).

 

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Originally Posted by Ice_Wall View Post
Seriously though, good post. Though I had a feeling NCSoft wouldn't be putting all this money into this game, and hiring all these people, if the game wasn't showing some signs that it could make some money. If it were losing players right and left, they would not be putting this much money into GR etc.
Paragon Studios is gearing up on its new MMO though. That's part of NCsoft's increased resources into PS and also behind some of the recent team changes.

Those Q4 figures came out and the trend continues downwards for CoH/V in terms of quarterly revenue. In fact, Q4 2009 returned the smallest revenue amount in CoH/V's history.

What was more interesting to me is that NCsoft budgeted CoH/V to make less revenue in 2010 than it did in 2009. CoH/V didn't hit its revenue target in 2009, and yet NCsoft has given them an even lower target to reach in 2010. To me, that doesn't say NCsoft is confident in CoH/V's ability to keep generating the kind of revenue they used to, even with GR launching. It is possible that Paragon Studios got some soft numbers past NCsoft's accounts team, but telling your bosses you are going to be earning less revenue than you did in the past is generally a hard thing to do.

I've covered some of this here. Looking forward to seeing the Q1 2010 figures to see how revenue has moved since then.

 

Posted

Isnt this all a bit worthless really? The only thing people would want to see regarding numbers are the ones after GR launches wouldnt they?

Since that is the biggest release in the last 2/3 years.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by EU_Damz View Post
Isnt this all a bit worthless really? The only thing people would want to see regarding numbers are the ones after GR launches wouldnt they?

Since that is the biggest release in the last 2/3 years.
Thats subjective. For veterans of the game, side switching might be the biggest draw to keep playing in the last 3 years.

However some players might find the AE system to be that draw.

Or others like myself, find the hardly touched and often hated pvp system to be a draw, even after it was completely ruined (in my eyes) after i13 hit.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by EU_Damz View Post
Isnt this all a bit worthless really? The only thing people would want to see regarding numbers are the ones after GR launches wouldnt they?

Since that is the biggest release in the last 2/3 years.
This is assuming that Going Rogue both is and is meant to bring in significant numbers of new players, as opposed to bringing back veterans. Given the past marketing strategy of the game, I find this unlikely.

Personally, given the increasingly negative climate on these forums and in-game, I think it's unlikely that any increase in subscriptions from Going Rogue can offset the continuing, slow bleed of subscriptions.

Indeed, things have been so gloomy lately that I'm considering just giving up now, rather than going through several more months of cheerleading for a game no one else seems to want to save.

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Posted

One thing that struck me recently was one of Positron's tweets where he stated that everyone he met at PAX was a plus four year veteran.

That's not a bad thing, but it is indicative to me that the people playing now are the Diehards who are going to be here till they close the servers.

I don't know if Going Rogue is really going to bring in new players. I'd hope so, but I won't be too surprised if it doesn't. Even with shiny new graphics it's going to be hard to attract more players.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueBattler View Post
One thing that struck me recently was one of Positron's tweets where he stated that everyone he met at PAX was a plus four year veteran.

That's not a bad thing, but it is indicative to me that the people playing now are the Diehards who are going to be here till they close the servers.
So you don't think it might have been anything to do with veteran players being more likely to attend something like that then someone who's only been playing for three weeks?

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
So you don't think it might have been anything to do with veteran players being more likely to attend something like that then someone who's only been playing for three weeks?
There's a difference between expecting there to be people playing for three weeks and there not being anyone who's been there less than FOUR years.

I'd be a bit happier if there had been some one or two year veterans ...

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by BlueBattler View Post
There's a difference between expecting there to be people playing for three weeks and there not being anyone who's been there less than FOUR years.

I'd be a bit happier if there had been some one or two year veterans ...
Seriously, you're taking an offhand comment and reading WAY too much into it. Did every player Posi met have their initial subscription date tattooed on their forehead? Or just MAYBE the long-term vets are the group most likely to make a big deal of how long they have been playing. Just MAYBE there was some self-selecting bias here.

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This thread fails. Bad.

We're taking numbers without much context and guessing at what they mean. There are too many variables to make many(if any at all) reasonable conclusions.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by _Lith_ View Post
Thats subjective. For veterans of the game, side switching might be the biggest draw to keep playing in the last 3 years.

However some players might find the AE system to be that draw.

Or others like myself, find the hardly touched and often hated pvp system to be a draw, even after it was completely ruined (in my eyes) after i13 hit.
I can attest to AE being a draw. As opposed to the players who outright refuse to play any mission not created by a dev, (and I shake my head at people with that view) there really are some good stories to be found in there. The "too many crap farms" argument isn't really one. You can easily skip over them.

I never felt a lack of content in the game because I haven't done it all, and AE is just a bonus.

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Posted

Yeah, I admit I do find some of the anti-AE objections to be fairly strange. That there are people farming in the AE does not mean that the AE is without merit, and it's not hard to find good arcs if you check the AE forum, and I believe there's a website where people can promote their story arcs.

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Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
I love the AE - I usually play at least one arc when I'm on.
Nice. I have a character who's been playing AE arcs heavily. (And getting quite rich from it from bronze rolls.......) I think I've done about 14 arcs in the last 5 days.

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