Game population

I think you're more correct than you intend, here. The game is doomed from its conception in that one day it will go away.

The only thing my parents could be sure about when I was born was that, at some point in time, I am going to die.

Judging from the server statuses compared to last time they announced 120k, I don't see how anyone could figure 60-70k. I think the 140k is even being conservative, really.

EQ acutally peaked at nearly 500k according to this chart. It did drop off quick when "that other game" came out, though, and only really got that high due to so few viable alternatives. Yes, with the glut of MMOs on the market today, anything over 100k is healthy, especially when that level has been maintained for 7 years and counting.

Yes it really is. And I'm a DC fan from since I can remember.

Unless the server is doing more calculations every time we toss a fireball. Like, I dunno, keeping track of all our new Incarnate buffs or something.

Personally I agree with you but I must admit I do get a kick out of watching people argue otherwise.

That is always a possibility but I'm seeing more people in the various zones ever since GR went live, and the number of PM's and invites have increased a lot as well. And I rarely play during prime hours.

I can't boost your rep anymore, so I will just say, Hear hear!

This. This game has carved a very very deep nitch in the market and for a 7 year old game with fairly outdated material in comparison to the new stuff to have (at the very least) 70K people is astounding. But it's more likely hovering around 150K due to the european servers practically being merged.

Personally, I'd like tostart seeing some server merges. I know a lot of people would scream 'doooom' but I think it would help get more people involved.

City of Heroes will be around for atleast another Decade before it finally dies. Hell! DAoC still gets updates and only about 2K people play a day!

The numbers were up long before they merged the server lists last week.

Yeah what a great idea. They just made everyone very happy by giving them something they've been asking for for years, now let's piss everyone off by destroying everything they've accomplished over the years by deleting bases, breaking up SG's and coalitions, shattering established server communities, scattering characters on players accounts across the remaining servers that have slots left open on them, then deleting the rest of the players characters because once the remaining slots are filled the players are sh** outta luck.

Yep everyone will be cheering the devs and singing kumbaya.

Not if they follow your advice.

There wouldn't be any such problems, if they took a little effort to do it right and did an actual merger rather than move-and-delete.

1) Character names: Duplicated character names would end up, based on creation date (or random chance, if date isn't kept track of internally, renamed Character Name I and Character Name II. Each character would be given an optional rename token for if they don't like this.

2) Supergroups: Same as above for names. No reason why bases or Coalitions would be affected at all.

3) No automatic deletion/scattering of characters - all characters would be moved to the merged. If that causes slot overflow, no new characters can be made by that player on the newly merged server until they delete enough to bring them down to under their proper number of max slots (bought/free bonus slots from both old servers would, of course, be transferred over to the merged server; if that brings them over 36 slots, those excess slots would go back into the queue for placement elsewhere). Optional transfer tokens tied to the merged server (ie, can't be used on characters elsewhere) equal to their current overflow would be given.

None of those things do anything at all about the fact that some people don't WANT to have hundreds of people everywhere at all times.

I play on a smaller server for 2 reasons: 1)I don't like huge throngs of people, and 2) My computer cannot HANDLE large throngs of people. I have to run the game on minimum settings as it is now. If there were people everywhere doing stuff I wouldn't be able to run the game at all.

But that's okay, YOU want the servers merged, so that means *I* should be forced to spend money I don't have on a new computer, or quit playing entirely. That's perfectly fair.

The way it is set up now, if you want lots of people around, play on Virtue or Freedom, if you don't, play on Triumph or Protector.

If you got YOUR way, EVERYONE would have lots of people around and have no choice in the matter.

Those "solutions" also do nothing to alleviate the perception that the game is dying, which every server merge in the history of MMOs has indicated. Since CoH doesn't have the advertising clout of some other games, all they have is word of mouth and website articles. If those people mention that CoH merged their servers, all teh people that got pissed and quit playing over it would not be getting replaced by new players.

Again, if you want to have lots of people around, there are servers you can play on that have lots of people around already. Don't try and force people to deal with what you want because you can't abide people liking something other than what you like.

So, that's a huge HELL NO from me. The servers do not NEED to be merged, and they should NOT be merged just because some people think we should have people all over the place all the time.

(Should be noted that the "you" in this post is intended as a general "you", it sounds very much like i;m berating JDGumby personally, and that wasn't really my intent. It was more my intent to convey that because one person wants something it does not mean it is wanted by everyone, or that it would be a good thing to have happen)

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

From Memphis_Bill:

Oh shi- He's back!

Where have you been?

Killin God.

It was a burnout break. Glad to be back. I once said that I'd be here when the servers shut down and I meant it but I foresee many more such breaks between now and then.

Glad to see you back.

Hey, not sure if you know this, but claws for brutes is pretty awesome.

I made that Claws/DA brute. He's a swirling mass of blades, blood, and sand. And awesome.

Anyone else find it hilarious that his logic is so flawed that his number three his number two statement by providing the very reason SG's and Coalitions would be broken up and scattered due to a server merge and he doesn't realize it.


Oh and the idea that players won't get pissed and cancel their subs if they are forced to delete characters because their accounts don't have enough slots after a merge rather than the system do it automatically is just as laughable.

I still rage at Castle for making brute claws > scrapper claws. Bill's brute clone is in the high 20s. I should take him to 50.

Really?

So, when you say there wouldn't be "any" problems, you really mean there wouldn't be "a lot" of problems. I guess the people who get screwed can just be swept under the carpet.


Because forced character deletion is the way to keep your customers happy.

This. I get into arguments over this on the Rift forum all the time. People scream for server merges, then look at me like I'm crazy when I suggest the idea that there are a lot of people who roll on low pop servers intentionally because that's what they prefer. ( Of course, the scream for merges is just the Chicken Littles having their field day because all the servers aren't showing high/full and everyone isn't packed into the same areas like they were around launch )

Actually, he's saying if you have more than 36 characters total among the servers being merged, none of those characters get deleted: you simply cannot make new characters on the new server because you're over the limit.

Having said that, the notion that such a merge under those parameters wouldn't cause problems is an interesting blend of scary and funny. It would be the single largest disruption in the game in its entire history. For every issue listed in Memphis Bill's post, I can think of one more not listed. Its a huge can of worms.

So, because some guy on another server created his character before me and some people decided they wanted to ram a total change in server community down my throat because they were too cheap to buy a transfer and/or lazy to reroll on a server that more suited their needs, I should be forced to either lose my name or have a tacky roman numeral stuck on the end? And you don't see why that would be a problem for people?!