Overheard during Reactivation/DXP

There was the usual influx of players during the weekend, magnified by the Reactivation event and double experience weekend. I had TF or leveling groups pretty much the entire weekend and heard some telling things over and over again:


"I'd love to come back, but I can't afford to."

I heard this personally in group chat or tells from three or four different players who'd left the game and came back for reactivation. I saw it repeated a few more times in broadcast or global channels. It hints at something that I've suspected for quite a while; the rough economy is having a very large effect on the number of people who WOULD be playing.

NCSoft financial people: Aren't quite a bit of your Asian sales from people who pay daily or per session in net cafes? If you can get some kind of pay-as-you-go plan in place for CoH, you might be able to catch some revenue you're currently missing because some North American folks simply can't justify or budget $15 a month.

It also means that as the economy is now in a 'starting to recover' phase, it's an ideal time to attract players who suddenly have a bit of disposable income they're not used to. It would seem especially important when there are newer games intent on carving away from CoH's playerbase.


"Yeah, I played [competing game] for a while, but it really sucked. This reactivation weekend makes me realize what I was missing."

I heard this repeated at least once an hour as the inevitable end to the conversation that began, "Well, I switched to [competing game]..." The only time that players were in any way positive about those other games was when they were describing features that were also strong CoH features, such as a certain other superhero game's character creator. Even then, it was usually in the context of "But it was ripped off from CoH."

This illustrates an important facet of the 'City of' franchise's customer loyalty. The game trades heavily on its quality and featureset maturity. This will be an important subject to keep in mind as the game continues to age, especially when integrating new features into it. If the quality of the game degrades significantly for any given reason, it could have a larger effect than you might initially think.


"So what are people doing for exp these days? Are they still farming AE?"
"Only Dev Choice Missions work with DXP this time around."
"Really? Okay, I'll do those."
or
"Really? I'll just do regular missions then."

I heard this quite a few times in the course of the weekend from returnees. Current players griping about the most recent AE exploit plugs were over their tantrums by the time DXP started (or had moved on to another exploit). There was little or no whining or moaning about having to do Dev Choice missions to get DXP. The choice between regular missions and Dev Choice was a non-issue in every chat venue I monitored.

This tells me that the balance of reward-to-effort in Architect missions, especially those Dr. Aeon's been flagging for us, is just about right.

Personally, having been playing my lowbies through AE missions BEFORE the weekend, I think it may be just a hair on the low side, but so close to 'right' that it merits only minor tweaks.

It's been a hard, nasty road for those working to balance AE, but it looks like you're finally at the top of the peak, and have to maintain balance rather than try to create it where none existed. Good Job!

Good post. I enjoyed seeing yellow Freedom dots all weekend. (happy for you too, Virtue)

While playing this weekend gave me the enthusiasm to log in for hours on end again i did hear a few unfriendly people chat about the game unfortunately.

They were nearly all from returning players saying that they WONT resub until GR comes [they feel that i17 doesnt bring enough to them as a person], but the pleasing thing was that they all said they knew people who were saying the same thing. Not enough has changed in the game to warrant them wanting to come back but they will when GR comes.

So i dont think we'll see a lot of returning players now but least its more positive to hear that they are at least interested in returning for GR

Plus i hope they do, saw a few very old mates this weekend and was just nice and refreshing to see people i used to look up to as a young player

Crushing the MM pet exploit has certainly made the mission list look better for people tyring it out for the first time.

Very good post.

Sadly it will fall on the deaf ears of the black pebble that is NC marketing.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

"I can't afford to find $15 a month" is only the completely true reason in a very small proportion of the population who are truly living pay cheque to pay cheque. Most people who make those kind of comments likely can't justify the cost in terms of the value they get back from CoH/V. It's also a kind way of saying, "I'm just not that into you."

Personally CoH/V could probably drop its price down to $9.99 a month and attract some more players back that way, but I couldn't guarantee that the number of returning players would match the loss in revenue as it currently stands.

I personally think that anyone that says they can't afford it is simply making an excuse. It's roughly 50 cents a day, at full price. Buy one less soda a day from the vending machine. And if you "only play 4 or 5 hours a month?" If you go to the movies twice in a month, you get roughly 4 hours of entertainment (usually less), and pay more.

It's an entertainment expense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brillig It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.

My take on DXP weekend, and this hasn't much to do with how the game overall is doing, is that I'm more convinced now that the devs must be at least considering server merges.

Sure, Virtue and Freedom were in the yellow the whole time, but I was playing on Champion, and it was dead. I hardly ever saw other players. I could walk into Wents' in Talos and find a whole one other player at prime time. When I made the new DP Blaster there was no one in Outbreak. I had the place to myself until I was halfway through Isolator.