Idea Circle: How to get more people into CoH?

I'm back, with a semi-vengeance. (shudder-worthy, I know.)

This thread, I hope to attempt circling about ideas on improving the amount of people playing City of Heroes. (Evidence of my concern: I see all but 2 servers are always green, with Freedom and Virtue yellow; IIRC, this is pre-Freedom level population.)

To start this off, another observed concept, but first with background:

I was recently trying out an MMO named around a powerful piece of finger jewelry, and noticed that completion of an in-game task that took some time (approx. 20 minutes at least for this specific item) gave me a small amount of "premium shop currency". Could this be workable, perhaps, in CoH, but tied to, say, difficult badges? To me, it feels like the Rewards Program could use a complement to it (other than the store, obviously) so that others can earn the points, and by extension tokens, but slow enough to still be quite tempting to make a purchase instead of all the time-consuming tasks that would be defined. The MMO in question, I hear, is one of the most successful of Free to Plays.

Not trying to say that your goal isn't a good one, but your evidence is faulty to a certain extent.

The servers have been upgraded several times since the game came out. What might have once pushed a server to red or even to lock it out might now only register a green dot. So that's not a good measure of overall population, just relative.



Edit -> Also, while getting more people into CoH would be a good thing, what we'd really want is to get more subscribers. Basically, we want them to give the game money, if truth be told, as that funds development. As such, I don't know how much giving free points away will help with that kind of end-goal, but I'm not opposed to your idea, as long as they are one-time things, and can't be farmed.

Honestly, we just need some form of advertisement in my opinion. A way to get our name out there better. I'm not suggesting a commercial, but it feels like doing random articles on MMO sites so the same readers who frequent those sites can see what's going on in our game isn't cutting it. Maybe get another article in Game Informer, or other big name magazines?

I think for this, the real thing needed to be done is a change to graphics. Without looking cartoony (the other two MMOs). Maybe in the vein of that Perfect F2P MMO.

Which btw leads me to this suggestion...giant cross backpacks!

I can only speak from my own experience but most of the people that I run into that play MMORPGs tend to play WoW for the PvP content.
When I go to the PvP zones in CoX, there is hardly anyone there, I feel like the "Omega Man", to have more epic RP PvP would be so cool!
So the suggestion to promote more PvP, thereby, in my own personal theory, increase the player community, there should be an awesome costume/weapon/power set exclusive to meeting some sort of PvP quota, but only awarded to subscribers, no free handouts.

I've tried to get more people into CoH by cramming them into my internet modem while I'm logged onto the game but I just keep getting blood everywhere.

I wonder... would an implementation of NCSoft's "Truly Free" model work, perhaps? If, say, the first MMO using it (can't even say other NCSoft game names, yeh?) was as successful as claimed, and if NCSoft liked it enough to use it again with the Epic Wing Simulator MMO, could it work with CoH?

(yes, I know Freedom isn't THAT old, but with NCSoft's start of this bit of change, it came to mind)

My vote goes for more advertisement. The biggest issue with CoH and more players is that I never hear about CoH. Ever. I don't see commercials, I don't see ads on websites, I don't read about it in the paper. Occasionally I'll see a review or something... when I get directed to it from these forums. The biggest obstacle to getting players is actually getting players to see that this game exists, and is a viable option for their free time.

I really don't see any real threat, When I log on I see tons of people on Virtue, sometimes 2-3 Atlas open up and as well with RWZ Instance, where people gather for Trials.

Beside games like Wow and Star Wars only has alot of players, is because it's a franchise, Coh has a normal amount of players on it compare to most..

The most successful free to play games are successful because they provide incentive for brand new players that don't want to commit to monthly payments into spending money. CoH isn't built to attract brand new players into becoming premiums or spending money. The only people the current CoH model attracts is new potential subscribers. For a f2p game this hurts it.

I can only assume that this is a conscious decision by the developers because its really obvious why this is the case with the Paragon Market.