A new itrial every issue? How about no?

I'm really not sure what your point is. It appears you are arguing that player feedback should never be considered because it always leads to a slippery slope in which the entire game implodes. That's a level of doomsaying and pessimism far beyond anything stated even by the people who have said they don't like the incarnate system.

So if you're at a party with a bunch of people does that mean you're all on a team?

If you go to a 4th of July event, is everyone on the event on your team/league?

No.

Massively Multiplayer simply means that you have multiple people sharing the same environment. Nothing more.



Again, stop attempting to claim majority. You don't have the data to back that claim, and it looks stupid when you make it.

What about the non-teaming social component of the game?

Or are you now going to claim that people who inhabit chat servers/irc channels, etc, would all be off "playing in notepad"?

Incorrect. Teaming is one of several options, and may be required for CERTAIN content, but it's not the sole reason for playing an MMO.

But please. Let's hear more of your One True Way.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

None of which are an MMORPG.

So, would you claim that the majority of the general MMO player base prefers to play solo & dislikes teaming? I think it's obvious how silly a claim that would be.

As far as data goes, the developers have access to plenty of it, and have a much better idea what the majority of existing, and perhaps more importantly, potential players desire from an MMO. The recent development direction of the game is a pretty clear indicator of what they think is important to those players. And that's teaming with other players.

They're not doing this for their own amusement. They're doing this to keep a business running and profitable. They are going to allocate resources based on what appeals to the largest number of players.

What about it? People socialize all the time while playing single player games or multiplayer games like L4D or CoD. Doesn't make those games MMORPGs. Heck, I can socialize at work while I'm using Excel... Pretty sure Excel isn't claiming to be a MMORPG.

Never claimed it was the "sole reason" for playing an MMO. Nice strawman though..

And again, I'm not saying the devs should ignore solo players completely. I'm not saying teaming is the only way to play the game. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with wanting to play solo sometimes, or even all the time. I do those things myself.

However, when you break an MMO down to its core concept, it's about people playing with other people. Rationalize all you want, it won't change that simple & basic concept..

This keeps being bandied about a lot and I just don't get it. What if...I like City of Heroes' gameplay? There really aren't that many good superhero games out there, let alone ones where I can play a psychic werewolf cyborg ninja alien that shoots yellow fire out of her eyes.

Yeah, most singleplayer games don't come with a monthly fee, but soon enough anyone can play most flavors of CoH for completely free, so...

This strawman keeps being bandied about despite being chewed up, soaked in gasoline, set ablaze, and chopped in half. Then buried, spit upon, nested on top of by wild geese, then dug up again, slapped around, tossed in a swamp, sunken, hauled out by a rusty winch, then stepped on with stilettos, followed by one last kick from a South American football player.

Yes, those who say that are jerks.

Luckily, the devs are splitting there attention and providing both types of content.

Are you aware that this is the same argument used by Objectivists for why you should never do anything nice or unselfish for anyone, ever?

I see I'm going to have to lead you through this slowly.

Does the word, or acronym for "teaming" come up ANYWHERE in MMO?



I did not say this. And I'm not making any claims to "majority" without any real support other than "IMNSHO". YOU are the one doing this.

Yes, but YOU don't have that data. So YOU (personally) don't know and are unqualified to make quantitative statements. You can make guesses as to what's going through the developer's minds by their actions all you want. But it's still just that, a guess.


"It's about people playing with other people".

Again, "teaming" is NOT mentioned there. It's, as I have maintained, merely one of many options.

If teaming was the raison d'etre, you'd be dropped into the game and slotted into a team.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

You noticed this too, eh?

Yeah... something tells me that it's different people. I know I for one have not changed my mind about this.

This has always been true. The problem for some is when both types of content comes out. It would be nice if both sides got content every Issue, but some Issues just don't make sense that way. If the Devs choose to focus an Issue on Incarnates, does it really make sense to throw in some random arcs for everyone else? Content is better when it's focused.

foam!

Dang strawzombies.

Black Scorpion was talking about the Incarnate system being team focused, not the amount of Trials being put out per Issue.

The devs are aiming to release one Trial per Issue, along with a few of these in between "mini-Issues" to boost the number of Trials - and the Incarate system is team focused because in an MMO, there will be some things that are team focused.

I agree with both of these comments.

Eco

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Really? If my Blaster could solo the ITF, then that's incentive for me to Incarnate him up the wahoony. If only I can put up with the endless dull grind of the trials.

Solo Incarnate paths and no minimum TF start rews would be winderful for solo players

Eco

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

Apparently, it does to the Devs, what with the new Signature Arcs and all.

There's already quite a lot of content that is team focused. All task/strike forces, for instance. You can't start one without a team, and if you want to solo it, you would have to bend the system quite a lot and make an effort.

So the incarnate system would still be team focused if there were task forces added instead of trials. Then they wouldn't have had to develop an entirely new raid system for the incarnate content, and the programmers could focus on other cool stuff.

One possible reason that Incarnate content is almost exclusively trials is that trials are the fad of the day among the devs. They do them simply because they like them.

Another possible reason is that the devs are convinced that raid-like trials are necessary as end game content because all other big MMOs have them. This becomes even more important now that CoH is going F2P/subscription hybrid: they feel that it's necessary to be more like the other big MMOs in order to attract new customers. If the game wasn't going F2P, it wouldn't be as important, because then the incarnate system would just have to cater for old customers that are accustomed to the old ways the game was played.

In neither possibility, teams have anything to do with the reason for incarnate content being trials.

In fact, the regular instanced mission system is one of the best pieces of evidence for the game being team oriented. In almost every other MMORPG out there, there's a single player quest system, with a few add-ons that let you share quests (start another instance of this quest at the other player) provided you both are at the exact same spot in the quest chain. The only exceptions are the raids and few instanced missions there are.

This makes CoH stand out even more: its mission system isn't a regular MMO single-player quest system with raids tacked on as an afterthought. It's made for teams! Here, the leader (or for that matter, anyone) sees the team's members' missions, select one of them, and the entire team clearly sees what is going to be done next and can read up on the story if they want.

Hence, trials doesn't give or take anything from the game's team orientedness. It already IS team oriented, from the ground up.

But previously, we have been allowed to choose our own teammates and how many of them we want to tool around with, with relative impunity. Even the TF/SF - very few of them require a full team.

I prefer to hang out with the 3-4 people I play regularly with. Previously to the incarnate system, this was plenty. We could solo when we wanted to, get together and run missions together when we want a glorious cascade of destruction of many mans, and even invite PuG people to fill out our teams when we were adventurous or wanted to do a TF that required more folks.

OTOH, the Trials are a complete departure from this. You're pretty much forced to play with a load of strangers, there's not much socializing getting done, and the small group/solo play is such a long path to advancement that it basically doesn't exist.

I, like many others, really loved the shard system, and enjoyed it immensely. I could run a TF/SF and snag a whole component, or just rampage around on missions and get shards to turn into components. It was pretty much the perfect system. Why they decided to "fix" this to FORCE people to do the League thing is beyond me.

The problem really is that CoX has, from the ground up, pretty much offered ALL options for advancement to its players. You want to solo all the way up? That's cool. Want to team all the way up? You can do that. Want to sit in AE and never leave one building while you get to 50? We got that. Want to do TFs every single day until you hit 50? That's available. Story arcs or random scanners, teaming or not teaming, there has ALWAYS been an EQUALLY VIABLE WAY to get where you're going.

Now, there isn't. THAT is the problem.

HE'S NEUTRAL! GET HIM!

I do too.

I do too. As long as they make the same commitment to solo/small team content.

Just because raids dominate the endgame of other MMOs, doesn't mean we have to be the same.

The only thing I'm having to try hard to do is type while laughing at your post. Let me give you a newsflash, buddy, making personal attacks against people because they disagree with you is childish. Deliberate exaggeration of what those people are asking for is hyperbole. Both of which exemplified your first post and merited it being mocked.