How to Get More Players

I have been playing COV/COH on and off since 2006. Total in-game time a little over 2 years, I just came back from a 1 year break. Any break that I took it was for financial reasons which are much better now so I won't have to take any breaks. I'm not suggesting to make the game cheaper I think it is worth $14.99/month.
Here are my game suggestions :

1 - Mass e-mails to all the COV/COH players telling them about updates and changes, even the inactive ones. The only e-mail that I ever get is when I purchase something. Maybe something in the e-mail may spark interest for someone to return to the game.

2- You need to shut down some "dead" servers. All my main characters are on Pinnacle, when I left a year ago there was almost 100 players on-line at the peek. Now the peak I found was a little over 40 on-line. I am not on-line all day but about 6-7 hours broken up so I can't be sure how accurate this is just what I sew. Also I have not check the other severs so I can only speak of Pinnacle. If the Devs shut down some of the less active servers and make everyone go to a different server(s) that will help tremendously. It was very disheartening to log on for the first time after a year and see 3 players in Port Oaks and I was one of them. Send a mass e-mail to everyone telling them what server(s) you will be shutting down and give them enough free character transfers and renames to move all there characters to a different server. I think 10 transfers for everyone for every server that you will shut down will be enough. Give everyone 6 months to move everything, after that any characters that are still on the dead server(s) you move to a random server and give them enough character transfers to move so when they come back if they don't like the server you put them on they can move. I think they need to shut down at least 3 servers.
3 - The only thing that I haven't figured out are the SG/VG. If it can be done this is my idea for it, I think any SG/VG that has had no activity in 2 years should be disbanded, do that game wide to clean-up the servers, this needs to be permanent.. Let the SG/VG Overlords decide what server to send their group to. They will keep the base intact and the prestige the VG/SG has but all the members will be removed except the Overlord who will just have to re-invite all the members back. Give the SG/VG a 1 time rename option for the transfer to avoid conflict, do that game wide.

Think about the new players trying COV/COH for the first time and only seeing 2 or 3 players in a zone won't stay long. Or someone like me that remembers the hay days of Pinnacle when there was 15-20 players running around in every zone to see it now "dead". Think about the players that left because of inactivity on the servers that will comeback knowing they can move there characters to more active servers for free.

HELL NO on shutting down "dead" servers.

I play exclusively on Pinnacle, because I LIKE IT THERE. I like the fact that I'm not forced to deal with throngs of people at all hours of the day when I log in. My computer is not top of line by any means, and huge crowds of people cause my system to lag a LOT. If I had no choice but to play on servers as crowded as Freedom, I would have no choice but to quit playing altogether. Unless you think it is fair to force people to spend money they don't have on a new computer so they can play a game they could play just fine a week ago.

I also enjoy the community on that server, and I would rather not see it spread out amongst all the other servers.

You seem to have forgotten that a large number of people A) Stay hidden at all times to avoid blind invites, and B) spend most of their time inside missions where you can't see them. When I logged in on Friday afternoon there were 120 people logged on in my global channel alone.

10 transfers for each server will be enough? Not even close. I have 27 characters on Pinnacle. If Pinnacle were shut down and I were only given 10 transfers, I would have 2 choices: Pay $170 to move the rest of my characters, or have 17 of them gone forever. Now, if I don't have the money to buy a new computer, what makes you think I would have the money to spend on something as relatively frivolous as moving characters in a video game?

Shutting down servers will NOT bring in more players, it will just create the illusion that there are more players because they're all being crammed together on a smaller number of servers. It will also stand a good chance of creating a net LOSS of players when people get upset that their server is being taken away and quit.

I'm not the only person that feels this way. I'm quite sure this thread will explode with people saying variations on what I just said.

1) A few mass e-mails might be okay, but please Devs, don't spam me. Also, for me, the e-mails go to an e-mail account that I don't use much, and I would guess that if you haven't played the game in 5+ years, then that may be the case as well. So I don't know how many 'new' players you'll get this way.

2) No. No way in hell. The servers aren't dead, even Pinnacle. At peak, I'm seeing over 200 on Pinnacle, so I'm not sure how you're getting 40. Every night, I'm seeing a decent amount of people in Atlas organizing sewer runs and such, so even that zone isn't empty. New players need to learn a few things about this game that make it different from some others, and what they see is one of them: the game is heavily instanced. You don't see a lot of heroes running around street-sweeping, because running missions is a better use of time.

On top of learning how to play and view this game, shutting down servers is a great way to drive existing players away, while also broadcasting to the world that the game is dying, even if it's not true. So in fact you end up driving away potential customers because they think that the game population is winding down.

3) If players come back to the game and find that their SGs have been disbanded, they're likely to be frustrated. Plus, I'm not sure how much space SGs take up in the memory of the game, compared to other features like Wentworth's and AE. So I don't know how much bang for the buck the Devs would get out of this.

Want more players? It's really simple.

Add in more objects of desire to returning players that you want to stay, entice other players of MMO's desiring something new, and to catch the attention of players that have heard of COX but hadn't really taken the time to pick up info on it.

How?

For one, and foremost: FEMALE PETS. Also MM Customization.
Sybil costumes.
More, BIGGER, titan weapons.
Also fix Bases (PVP style raids) and PVP in general



Word of mouth WILL prevail, trust me.

I honestly can't tell if the OP is serious or not. Give people ten free transfers per server to be closed down, and then if there are any characters left on the servers, transfer them to a random server anyway and give them all a free transfer token? That's...very random. Bordering on bizarre.

To the OP.
Shut down the so-called 'dead servers' and you will end the game. Secondly if you're on Pinnacle and having issues, I advise you to join the main global channels and learn about the server's main traffic times, and the availability of teams etc.

As someone who plays almost exclusively on Virtue, generally accepted as the #2 server in population and occasionally busier than the #1, and therefore in no danger of going away even if this "shut down the dead servers" thing were to happen, let me just say...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyperstrike No. NO. HELL *BLEEP!* NO! This is basically a "merge the servers" demand again. It's been posted many times why merging the servers is undesirable.

Oh, I see someone's already made that point. Well then I'll just agree and be on my way.

Except for this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hyperstrike If you want to move your toons off Pinnacle and go to Freedom or something, you get one free server transfer a month and can purchase more. Move them off yourself.

Again, I agree. This "suggestion" kind of strikes me as another roundabout way of complaining that the switch to free-to-play didn't make enough stuff free. "The game show gave me a new car, but now I have to pay to insure it, and put gas in it... those jerks should give me all that for free too!"

Server transfers are available. Use them, earn them, buy them, or just start something new on a server more to your liking. I've changed servers three times myself, all before transfers were even an option. Now they sometimes hand the things out for free. I've got four I'm not even using. They're not that hard to come by.

Ok, so why is someone who hasn't played much of the game telling us how it should be changed to be better? Also, OP, you need to learn about the wonders of global channels, because while Pinnacle might have a smaller population than some others, it's by no means dead.

It makes you wonder why suggestions like these show up in CoH and any other multi-server MMOs. Has there ever been a case of a successful application of server-merging that benefited a game both in hard numbers and perceptually?

If there isn't, what historical evidence is available to compare against the objective ones (people pointing out why it's such a bad idea).

It's already been said how BAD an idea it is, I'm curious to know why it was ever considered a good one!

They do send out emails fairly regularly to inactive accounts when there is something to announce.

I came back after a multi year hiatus because 1) Free activation weekend and 2) more details about Going Rogue were coming forth.

Just to prove the fallacy of the OP's statement that Pinnacle is dead I just took these screenshots on Pinnacle at 3:22 pm on a Wednesday afternoon.



What's that say at the bottom? 40 matches found. And how many people are showing up on two of Pinnacles global channels right now?



Hmm 70+ people in global channels and 40 showing up on search in the middle of the afternoon in the middle of the week. Yeah Pinnacle's a dead server.


The OP needs to learn how to count.

I fixed your thread title for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

<snerk>

I should have clarified this in the original topic I only play on Villain side so I don't know the numbers on the Hero side. Also the 10 character transfers would be enough, I have 5 characters that I care about the rest of my villain characters are in the teen levels and I have no problem deleting them. I just assumed most players have 10-12 characters that they care about. Everyone that has responded are active players there is no way to see how many players left COX because of inactive servers. But I think the server merger would be a good idea. I have done missions in the past that I needed a team, which will be harder to do now, also if someone new has a question and doesn't know about the Global/Help Channels will be screwed. Everyone thinks closing server(s) would be bad and drove players away, you have think about new players starting this game for the first. If they log-in now they will see 4 - 5 players in Mercy, after the server merger and it will at least double, if not more. In my opinion someone would be more likely to stay if they saw more players running around. I have called Pinnacle home for many years and I understand how everyone feels about closing servers, in my opinion Pinnacle is dead. I am sure there are other servers out there that are in the same shape. I will be moving I can only afford 1 character transfer a month so it will be a slow process for me. On Saturday I will go server jumping to see if the others servers are suffering also.

*Sigh*

This has been gone over, many, many times. So many that I imagine Memphis_Bill has a two-page refutation of it somewhere, ready to copy and paste whenever it comes up like the one about why we'll never get vehicles.

But just to toss a couple of things out there:

Names. They're important in a superhero game, more than in most genres. Aragorn or Han Solo could have different names and it really wouldn't change the characters themselves. Not so with, say, Spider-Man or the Flash. So if you merge servers, what happens if there's a player on both with the same name? Who gets it? The player who's already on that server? The one being forced to move is already dealing with his server closing, now he has to find a different name, too. See how long that guy keeps his VIP subscription active. Maybe you let the guy being moved keep the name as a "consolation prize." Now the one already on the server has just had his name taken away because someone else's server wasn't active enough. See how long that guy keeps his VIP subscription active.

Supergroups. Do they just split up? Are they all forced to move to the same server, even if they don't agree on which one they want to move to? What happens to their prestige? Their base? Their name, if it's taken on the new server?

Which server? Do you just consolidate the two with the lowest populations, thus not giving anybody a choice where they move to? Do you give everyone a server transfer for all their characters and say, "be moved out by Friday or you're getting deleted"? If you do, you'll likely end up with most people jumping ship to a place like Freedom or Virtue, in no small part because they'll see the writing on the wall and not want to have to go through all this again six months later if the devs decide to shut down another "dead" (but not really) server. Which will really just give the high-population servers even higher populations, while the lower-populations ones will stay low, and then someone would be complaining about how they need to shut down Guardian or Champion or Triumph or whatever -- and this part is important -- "like they did with Pinnacle." See, it would create a precedent for shutting down low-population servers, which would create a mass exodus from those servers, which would just make future server shutdowns more likely. It's what called a "death spiral."

What about everyone else? I don't play on Pinnacle, but if the devs are just giving away free server transfers, I don't see why I should be penalized just for playing on a high-population server. Where's my free transfer? Or rather, where are my thirty-four free transfers, one for each character I have on Virtue? And my twelve for the characters I have on Exalted? And my six for Victory, and my three for Infinity?
Now, I don't really feel that way, but I promise you, there are people out there who would. And if even a tenth of the ones who'd threaten to quit paying in outrage over the "unfair treatment" they were getting actually did, you'd see a net drop in subscriptions, not a gain.

Forbin, your screen shot only showed hero side. It left out the 12 on villain side.

It is a good point though. 40 people on in the middle of the day, before most people are off work or home from school.

You should post another from around 8:00 PM tonight.