Intriguing Massively Article

There was an intriguing article in Massively Wednesday. It contains a lot of conjuncture about the Going Rogue expansion and the motivation for Freedom and I'm curious what other players think about it.

Also I wonder if it's accidental or intentional that the article isn't tagged as a CoH article even though it's their weekly CoH column. Tin foil hats anyone?

Hmm got to say pretty much agree with the theory behind that article.

Despite them saying "Oh Freedom was planned since before we released Going Rogue" I'm not inclinded to believe that, sure tinfoil hat and all but eh...sorry on this occasion, I think I'm justified in not believing that line.

I sort of agree with what the article was saying.

I think Freedom was more of a back up idea, something that they had been considering/working on but didn't plan on resorting to if they didn't have to. If Going Rogue had really revitalized the game and brought in a lot of new people, the game might not have gone into a F2P model.

Their focus on endgame and early game content also kinda lends to the article's theory of what's happened since they went free. They're focusing on stuff that people who are around for the long haul will be playing a lot - the end game. And they're focusing on what new players will see for the first time - the early content. By adding a lot of new content in the 1-30 area, new players have a glut of content in that area to keep them interested enough to keep playing (but the lack of new 30-50 content is probably hurting them a little in some ways, but I bet the hope is that the person will want to stick around if they make it to 30.)

I don't think the game is in any danger of dying in the immediate sense. It's held on for eight years now, surviving a fair amount of competitors in the process. Some of the new content has been substantial enough that it doesn't seem like it'd be the kind of effort you'd put into a dying game.

Of course, we can only speculate, being on the outside looking in.

All I know is that I'm sorely disappointed Going Rogue didn't do what they hoped it would, and that Praetoria wasn't as popular as it might have been. Personally, it's my favorite content in the game, and since it kind of flopped, I doubt the story will expand beyond the 1-20 zones in which it currently exists. Yeah, there's First Ward and the upcoming Night Ward, but those kind of exist in their own little world, referencing events in Praetoria proper but open to all factions and existing within it's own area and with it's own lore. It doesn't have the same feel as the 1-20 content.

I think GR introduced some of the best story material this game has ever seen. I also think GR was a monumental failure. Which makes me sad.

It is my pet theory that Praetoria was designed to be the way to bring 'heroic' archetypes to red-side, and vice-versa (beyond late-game side-switching, of course). As such, Praetoria would be a new hub for everyone, uniting red- and blue-side players from 1-20, rather than a third way to split the playerbase any further.

Of course, that's not how it turned out, and I think the launch of Freedom, and the free AT-pick that game with it, was directly related to the fact that Praetoria was lying largely unused.

Why did it fail? I'm sure there's been a lot of analysis about this, but I think that ultimately Praetoria failed for the same reason that red-side is inherently less populous than blue-side: The majority of players are not fond of moral ambiguity. And those that are, are probably perfectly happy starting in Mercy. There's also the perceived difficulty of the enemy groups in Praetoria, though I don't think that was a significant factor (though the 'issue' was probably magnified by the need to solo everything with fewer and fewer people starting in Praetoria).

The storytelling in Praetoria is really fantastic, though, so I was sad that GR didn't do better. Still am!

What I hated the most about Praetoria was the transition between the new content and the old. Lorewise, once you hit lvl 20, you were suddenly thrust back into mainstream Paragon City with no mention of your interdimensional origin at all, just a *wink-wink* and let's pretend you were a Primal all along. Plus, the decay in mission design complexity was absurd, going from multiple shifting objectives to Issue 1's typical "wall-of-text tells you to go rescue 12 hostages, click 20 glowies and defeat all enemies in a cave across town within 45 mins". Mission design in the Rogue Isles was a little better, but still nowhere as good as what they put in the expansion.

I think Going Rogue was a demo of what Paragon Studios would have done with unlimited funds. Had it not been rushed, overpriced and poorly tested, maybe things would have been different, and NCSoft wouldn't have been so quick to pull back funding. As it is, Paragon Studios charged their playerbase 30$ for a spin-off tutorial zone full of bugs, and those few players that decided to buy it at launch were quick to point out all the problems that should have been solved during beta-testing - the most prominent of all being the overpowered enemies that made teaming in Praetoria almost impossible, as well as a long list of small things like an alternate way to get the missing Villain accolades or the endurance issues in the pre-stamina levels that were resolved through inherent Fitness a few months too late. Small wonder the expansion was a failure...

Had they allowed Praetoria to evolve into a well-tested, lvl 1-50 solo-friendly experience, coupled up with a few Praetorian TFs and Trials, I'd never have returned to old Paragon City unless it involved razing it. But priorities have changed, and I think the next issue will be the last Praetorian content ever released - my guess is that they're going to turn their efforts into slowly revitalizing Paragon City and the Rogue Isles next. A pity, that, I really liked Praetoria.

Fun bit of conjecture, but this article is way off the mark, and for a couple of good reasons:

1) Going Rogue launched before it was finished. By all accounts, the game was pitched to include Incarnate content from the very early stages. As they got closer to launch, it was announced that pieces of the Incarnate System would come later but that GR would still be a hard requirement to play that content. Regardless of how the actual product looked upon release, the fact remains that it was an incomplete product at launch. I'm sure that didn't sit well with leadership.

2) As games roll out, and production slows, companies reassess their needs. GR was no exception. At the time however, I was suspicious that the Incarnate content was being slowly piece-mealed out to ensure people still had a job developing new content (and it would help boost retail expansion sales and quarterly metrics over the long term). An admirable gesture but again that probably didn't sit well with the leadership. As someone who has hired, fired and laid off many staffers in my years, I can honestly say that BABs was most likely cut because he was too expensive for an IP this small despite being extremely talented. No more hassle, drama or interoffice politics than that.

3) The free to play model was fast becoming a standard industry practice. From a leadership perspective, this HAD to happen if there was any chance of NCsoft reviving new life/interest/subscriber dollars in their ailing IPs while ensuring that they were getting the most income dollars in exchange for re-investing in dated technology. CoH for a variety of reasons was chosen as the litmus test for the F2P model - and it worked better than anyone thought possible (hence why Aion has since gone F2P as well).

4) I will now put on my fortune teller's hat (no badge here, sorry) and say that there are enough clues in recent and upcoming content to suggest that leadership/marketing is going to try and re-launch and uber-promote CoH:Freedom in Korea at some point in the future. That alone should tell you the game is doing well (certainly much better than it was) in NCsoft's eyes.


At this point, I say let's keep our eyes focused on the game's future and stop worrying about its troubled past.

1 Loved what GR did for the game. Awesome new zones, characters, lore, powersets, costume sets... It took CoH to the "next level" (War Witch pun)

2 Almost every MMO went F2P between 2011 and 2012.

3 I agree, we need a content update dedicated to launch the game in Korea to make some numbers. And we need more W.I.S.D.O.M.

GR could been better for sure but it was awesome to me.

The biggest Going Rogue disappointment is that now those beautiful zones and amazing storylines in Praetoria have been almost completely abandoned. Would love for the devs to find a way to open those zones up to more people.

The article was definitely off on one point, though: he seems to be claiming that Incarnate content was only just made as a reaction to Going Rogue's lack of mind-blowing success. Incarnate stuff was first announced at around the same time as Going Rogue, and they were originally both supposed to release at the same time (in Issue 18), though the Alpha Slot did wind up getting held back for one issue.

Praetoria flopped because it was anti-social. You had those forced to be solo loyalty missions at the end of short story arcs, you had villain groups that got real tough as they began spawning in larger numbers and then of course Praetoria only covering the quickest leveling range in the game was a terrible idea since you could easily miss huge swathes of the content and get shunted off into Primal Earth at 20.

GR was a demo of City of Heroes 2, if NCSoft was willing to invest in it. Apparently they're more interested in keeping the original afloat though.

And, worst of all, (still) no Ouroborous integration meaning people that didn't WANNA make a stable of new alts just to read the story lines were denied the ability to just Flashback and use their favored character.

my problem is that Praetoria is not a superhero game. It is a secret agent/resistance sci-fi game. Just like redside is not a comic book villain zone, it is a dystopian anarchist sci-fi zone.

I want a superhero game. Starting in Atlas provides that.

I agree with that article 100%. I was one on those people to unsub when GR hit and I only ever bought it(during i19) cause it was necessary evil for the incarnate system at the time. I'm still glad I bought it now in hindsight cause all the power sets and costumes and other stuff that came with it was worth the money.