Been gone, can u fill me in?

Ok i took a significant break from cov and wanted to know some basic things. First I noticed that the servers are never full even on weekends. Is this game on its way out? I see a whole lot of new attractive content that makes me wanna play, but finding teams is like pulling teeth and im on freedom ( which used to be packed) Did champions steal our fan base? or dent it? Friends are saying that WoW is takeing there toons to lvl 85 soon. Any talk of going above 50? mmorg's take lots of time. I just hope its not a waste. can anyone rank the top mmorgs.. I know Wow is 1..which i have no intensions on playing, but are we second or third at least. I want to see packed srvers again.

You have obviously been away a VERY long time.

The servers themselves have been upgraded at least twice, and that means what you might think of "green light" meaning "no one on", means "light load". It only takes a dozen people to work up a medium load if you do it right, letting off the right powers and such. So, ignore the red-yellow-green and go find a server you like playing on.

There's no need to go over 50 just because another game does.

Incarnates upcoming at some point in the future will have gains over normal 50s but *will not be over level 50*. Getting to 50 is not the point of the game, remember... the path TO fifty is, and beyond.

Don't forget that you DO NOT NEED A TEAM to play about 90% of the content in this game. Very rarely do you REQUIRE a team, and unless all you want to do is run task forces, you can take your time and enjoy the great CONTENT we've been given at your own pace.

We don't compare and contrast with other games, because in general that just leads to flame wars, not civil debates.

1. The game's population certainly isn't at CoV release levels, but the game is definitely not on its way out.

2. Finding teams isn't that difficult if you know how to go about it. The first thing I'd suggest is joining one of Freedom's global channels. You could also look for a Supergroup to join on the Freedom subforum so you have a regular group of people to run with.

3. lol, champions

4. The level cap isn't going to be raised but we are getting an endgame system called the Incarnate System that will be a way of making level 50s more powerful through a series of 10 Incarnate Levels (but remember, this isn't raising the level cap to 60). We don't know much more than this for now, except that we will see Incarnate Level 1 in Going Rogue and/or Issue 18 (released concurrently, but we don't know if GR will be required to access the Incarnate System).

5. All MMOs are a waste of time, sorry.

6. Dunno about ranking, but I'd be shocked if we're in the top 3 or even top 5. We're in a niche.

Per Xfire, Champions is rated #187 and still dropping. CoX is #98 and pretty stable. Best Champions ever pulled was to be the 25th most popular online game among Xfire users. CoH pulled #10.

Since you've been gone our wonderful developer team has actually grown. Not the sign of a company that is dying by any stretch.

on the higher-than-50 thing, be glad our developers are smarter than that. Think about it, which do you prefer:

Option A: Twice a year everything you currently have and all your past accomplishments negated and taken away from you forcing you to redo them all, just with bigger numbers, but 99.999999999999% the same actions. If you do not throw away all your shiny toys that you worked so hard to get and work so hard to get new ones, you are not capable of playing with 99.999999999% of your friends who are doing this.

Option B: New content comes out 3 or 4 times a year. All you characters from brand new to oldest and most powerful can enjoy it immediately. Your characters never stop getting more powerful if you keep investing in them and tweaking them. But even your weakest can accomplish virtually everything solo, and absolutely everything in a team. But nothing ever becomes obsolete and you are never forced to scrap it all and start over.

Our dev's give us Option B and I'm very grateful for it. Red pill, or blue pill? chocolate or vanilla?