This is vaguely reassuring...

This is a problem that can be cured

I really need to stop peeking at her replies to me. This version is much better.

It's not so easy to help someone who refuses to get help

C'mon GG! You know you wanna see my Giant Size Man-Thing

It's a first printing!

you know, funny thing about apb, since we seem to be momentariy being granted some lattitude, but i wonder if it could have really worked in a superhero setting. apb seemed to (i never got to play it, largely due to its lack of any melee combat whatsoever)cover the urban and maybe punk dystopian look ok, but with the depth of sources that most competent superhero mmos have, i dont know if they could really maintain the depth over the masses of ultratech, mystical, monstrous, alien, four color and all other art styles. heck, phantasy star universe handled the ultra-tech/shibuya trendy clothing fusion look well, because thats all it had to do. Now i'm not saying apb had a bad customization suite, in fact what i have read was that it was amazing, but i just wonder if it really could have maintained the depth of customization that it could pull off in a very specific sub-genre of stylization with the breadth of themes that coh or co has (and dcou completely lacks)

That's just how it is. The consumer is accustomed to going through new games on a very regular basis, and the competition is there to ensure there is enough new content, as long as the consumer is willing to buy new games to achieve that goal.

It's not that important, anyhow. Competing with content means you're, in essence, competing with all video games, ever made. You must compete with the social side of the game. With features. With options. With the ability to customize and personalize characters.

Many MMOs fail in large part because they get burdened with licensing. COH succeeded in no small part because it was able to create a universe where the user was a central part, and not playing someone else's role. They key to the subscription model is to make the user care enough about a character to want to keep it around.

In all industries, there are going to be those that want their competition to fail, either because it then leaves more opportunities for themselves, or simply because they don't like the competition.

However, I find that with long term professionals, particularly ones confident in their professional ability, that is less likely to be true. When I'm looking at "the competition" I rarely root for them to fail. I would actually rather they succeed, by my definition of success (which is to say, I want them to do good work and get paid for it: I don't consider doing shoddy work and getting paid for it "success" so much as "fraud.")

My guess is that the games industry is sufficiently small that many developers see the competition today as potential coworkers tomorrow. If you're a professional games designer, I think the last thing you want to root for is there to be one less game design company on Earth. No one works at the same company forever.

Ooo, that reminds me of a certain wannabe with a superiority complex, convinced she is the font of all knowledge...now who could that be?

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

bravo.

she? i thought you were a guy.

You know, I had fantasies of making a character that looked (and shuffled!) like Ms. Swan, blasting music from a convertible using a playlist comprised entirely of Helen Reddy and Gordon Lightfoot songs. But alas, I never gave the game a go so I've no idea if this was possible. And my dream remains unrealized.

Right. In CoH, my character is as important as I want them to be. Mid level thug, mild mannered detective, or someone powerful enough to jump to the future and beat up one of the most powerful villains in the world, then jump back and hand his "now" version his own armor and essentially dare him to do something about it.

Or I could play that other game, and, you know, end up doing FedEx quests for Aquaman. Yeah. I'll get right on that.

To be fair, our "talk to" missions are essentially FedEx missions. And the legacy content is loaded with them.

We also have our version of killing 10 rats that scales up to annoying levels.

And CoV content is plagued with city of lackeys issues.

BUT as War Witch asserts in her interview, nearly 7 years of content plus a few gems (mostly in the rough) from the mission architect, with tip missions and some of the newer arcs, we do have some really good content that places you at the center of the narrative.

Funny enough, I've found that this range of content actually benefits the game from my experience. There are now a range of stories that I can explore.

So though the narrative that you describe about your character and his/her power armor is one rooted in your private imagination (or amongst your group of mates in game), the games wealth of content currently now provides a pretty good range of backdrops for these personal pretendy-funtime narratives so many of us sketch out as we are watching our various characters' backsides for hours on end.

hold on, cartoony is bad?

Depends on the style and the setting

Oh, it's been fingered a few times buddy

In context, yes. In CO's context, it was pretty terrible.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

There's cartoony that looks a bit like you might see it on a Marvel or DC (or any other of a handful of publishers') comic book's pages, and there's cartoony like you might see on, say, the Teen Titans cartoon series. While there have been comic book artists for whom the latter version of "cartoony" has been their stock in trade, it's not what I think of when I imagine comic book art, and it's not what I prefer my characters (or really almost any of them I look at) to look like. CoH doesn't really exactly look like comic book art to me, but it doesn't look like a television cartoon, and so I prefer what it does look like.

An introvert myself, I can completely understand the raid mentality. I don't think there's any level of familiarity and comfort that can make a raid comfortable.

But just like people that run marathons for fun, we can learn to team up for fun, now and then. Not as a staple of our play time, assuredly, but if you get a consistent group together, teaming up can be quite enjoyable, at least for the duration of a single TF or a few missions. Familiarity helps; making sure you run with the same people each time is a large part of what makes it easy for us, because we're not constantly expending that "Getting to Know You" energy we do when meeting new people.

Like all sorts of exercise, it takes practice to really become easy, but it can be worth it if you feel up to it. Or not. The nice thing about CoX (at least so far) is that nothing requires a team to achieve (reward-wise; some content is obviously team-locked), so teaming is optional.

I'm curious about DCUO but any Super hero MMO would have to look to CoH as the shining example right now. CO isn't doing well at all. If you're going to try to make a super hero MMO, they need to look at CoH, see what it does right (which is a lot.) See what it does wrong, (Not much, though the things that are wrong in this game are pretty glaring) and work to improve on CoHs formula.

I mean this MMO is 7 years old and still generating new content that's as good or better than the content before it, most MMOs arent generating content at all going into it's 7th year (wow being an exception as well). So if DCUO isn't taking pages from CoH's book, who knows.

DC Does have a very established community of fans though, man of whom are gamers and they get to advertise for free in all their own comics, so there will be some interest there. However I think it could be good for CoH, people might get into DCUO because of the DC name, not having gotten into MMOs or a Super hero MMO, and then hear about CoH and come over and join us!

I believe DCUO will have to open up their character creator and costume options if they have any hope of truly competing with CoH and CO. I would guess that much of their launch playerbase will be vets of both aforementioned games, and those people have a certain expectation of how a hero game should be. As much as it was probably originally designed to just be just a MMOG, I just don't see them lasting long (at least on PC) without adding some RP elements; many of which will probably be borrowed from CoH and CO.

This only applies if players have a meaningful choice in the matter. Yes, for those of us who don't like teaming all that much, conceding to team every once in a while isn't such a big problem. But if I want to be an Incarnate, what do I do the rest of the time? Re-grind my old missions? I'll be done with all of them by the time I hit the Uncommon slot, and none of that is Incarnate content, strictly speaking.

This has always been my problem with every proposal for end game I've ever seen, because raids and trials are what people imagine it will consist entirely of. A raid and trial every now and then is doable. Enjoyable, in fact. But I want something to do the rest of the time, and as of right now, such doesn't exist.

Given the latest management address talking about making the new I20 Incarnate trials accessible to everyone, I hope they're using the word "trial" in its literal meaning, which is to say as "a way to test a character's skill and strength," rather than the game system name Trial, which tends to be a very difficulty 8-person TF. If they do mean the former, then even Ramiel's arc can count as a trial for the Incarnate, as it has our characters go out of their comfort zones and take on some serious enemies.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.