Anyone Tired of COX and Paragon Market

Not really, since you're talking out your ***.

It predates it, but only by a single issue (Croatoa was i5 (end of August, 2005) and CoV was i6 (end of October, 2005)).

Originally Posted by Shubbie Im very good at taking a problem and making it worse.

Maybe Galactic Fanfiction Online, the latest triumph from the EA MMO hit factory?

I heard Restaurant Story is fun...

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

It does make sense if you think about it in broad terms and accept that people are using whatever term comes to mind even if it's not appropriate. The game doesn't feel "stale" because it's functionally impossible for it to stagnate with this much stuff being pumped into it. However, that doesn't mean that a person can't burn out on it just the same, and believe it or not, TOO much new stuff leads to burnout just as quickly as too little.

Well, that depends on the personality of the player, of course. For those who thrive on exploring the unknown and finding new experiences, there's no such thing as too much new stuff. But then there are others, people like me, who enjoy the game through a sense of habit, familiarity and predictability. When something new comes out, we can't really enjoy it until we've had time to get used to it, figure out all the kinks and commit its function to muscle memory. Without this, new content feels cumbersome, alienating, even scary. It takes time to adjust, and when content releases lead us by the nose into hopping from one new release to another so quickly that we can never get past the "uncomfortable" time of a new piece, the game begins to feel unwelcoming and we lose the desire to bother.

People complained that Beast Mastery was ready and the studio was delaying it for arbitrary reasons. Personally, I feel they were making the right call. Sometimes, too much new stuff splits our playtime and our attention so much that none of it really feels any good. For me personally, if I can't focus on a single item at a time, I can never really enjoy it, to the point that I can feel burnout coming when I start wanting to keep switching characters. I am, as a point of fact, dealing with burnout right now, which is why I'm not playing. Another stint in Lineage II (against my better judgement) may have revitalised my interest in playing Xanta since that's where her original inspiration came from, but that may have to wait, depending on what comes out soon.

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With all of that said, "for free" is really not a legitimate argument any more. This is not a free game. You get what you pay for. Personally, this has been a revelation for me. For years I feared having to pay more and for years I feared continually not getting what I want. Being able to vote with my money, though more expensive in the long run, gives me the power to vote for what I want to have. With the game now focused less on wasting my time (which is a good thing) and more on selling me stuff, it just makes sense it'd try to get me the stuff I want.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Actually Sam that was Staff fighting, Beast Mastery, by extent, was really not ready for prime time (had a lot of major kinks that needed working out), Staff fighting, by comparrison was ready to go and had been for at least a month at that point, instead the buggy set was rushed to release because they "thought people would complain about the imbalance towards melee sets" and not the fact the Beast Mastery was as buggy as all hell while a completed set was sitting on test.

Judging from the comments made by Zwillinger, even the devs admit this was a huge mistake, should have released Staff first and worked more on Beast Mastery.

Eh I like new stuff but I actually think it's not just us that may burn out on the Paragon Marketing thing.

Remember when it was fresh and new, how much new stuff got pumped out? We got a crapton of costume sets, Powersets etc.

Now every two or three weeks out of the month are mostly IO sets (wooo /sarcasm) and sales, the Devs themselves seem to have have burnt out on the Paragon Market under the pressure of trying to release something new every week.

Fair play to them really, there's only so much backlog you can bring forward, yes there is still the Panther travel power that has been sitting on test for about two months but I get the feeling that's not being released because people complained (and rightfully so) that the devs have really spammed stuff to do with the four legged rig in the past few months.

I'm curious what the other MMO is, as every single game I've played ends up being
"Player A" in
"Conflict of Some Kind" with
"Computer Player B" solved via
"Conflict Resolution"

with the 'resolution' being anything from punching, shooting, singing as a spoony bard all the way to genocide, speed dating or catgirls and tentacles.

The core mechanics of the original DOS version of Sid Meier's Civilization hasn't changed much at all through the other 4X style games, from Call to Power, Civilization 2-3-4-5-Revolution, Alpha Centauri, they all involve the same enemy civilizations in conflict with mine as I build more monuments in the wrong era in the wrong city-state.

FPS's aren't much different, as even when the mechanics change, you're still shooting someone with a weapon of some kind. Single shot rifle, high tech railgun, semi-futuristic pistol, alien parasite energy carbine, it's all used in the same way to kill Nazis, alien zealots, Illuminati conspiracy supporters or alien harvesters.

I've always been partial to Progress Quest myself. Haven't played it in quite a while though, burned out a little on it.

I really should install it on my laptop so I'll always have it with me.

So I misheard. My point wasn't really to comment on the development cycle so much as to support the notion of staggering major releases to avoid having too much stuff plop down all at once. Not to mention doing so prevents the Market from stagnating by having all the major releases lumped together one one date with the rest being nothing. As I said, it's a matter of balance between releasing too much stuff too often and releasing too little stuff too rarely.

Far as I'm concerned, that kind of release schedule is best. Have a major release once per month, then have filler the rest of the time. From the beginning I was opposed to having major releases every week, for the simple fact that these were never "major." Content came out rushed, bugged and light and we were spammed with so much of it the Market was starting to feel like dining at McDonald's. I'd like to see bigger releases staggered more from each other.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

How do you know it was out of spite? Can you provide a source on that one? I think they were looking for shock value, which they missed because they told us before it happened. Which was stupid imo. I was more shocked by the other deaths in the arc.

About the store.

I would like to see one major release a month. Staggered between Costumes and Powers. If I could get a new costume, or a new power every month, I would stay happy. Well as long as I could use the costume, and it was not something like the CoL set.

Yeah ... Let's take the game's most recognizable and marketable signature hero and kill him in a pretty pointless way - and then publicly come out and say that the character will remain dead.

What other motive do you want to go for?

That unlike the other superhero MMOs, every character in our game CAN die?

Not every character.

Just the signature ones that Jack created.

Yes indeed he did die - as have other prominent comic hero and villains.

The difference here is quite obvious but I'll carry on anyway.

Superman and other prominent comic characters that have been killed are brought back.

Miller has stated that he has no plans to do this with Statesman.

Matt Miller was recorded as saying this was an attempt to move away from Cryptic Studios, I believe in one of the Ustreams. Whatever the reason that drove them to kill the game's single most recognisable character and the face on every item of promotional material ever made, it certainly wasn't the desire to tell a good story. Which is fitting, considering the abominable story that carried that act forth.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Spot on.

so what?

Arthur Conan Doyle declared Sherlock Holmes was dead forever when he published The Final Problem. Years later he rose from the dead in The Adventure of the Empty House.

Fictive death just isn't death, however adamant the creator is about it.

There's a big difference here.

Holmes was Doyle's own creation.

My distaste for the game right now is my perception of the motivation for killing Statesman.

Also he wasn't a comic book character, if you're going to pick nits.

The fact remains that "death" for fictional characters, especially comic book characters, is a revolving door, not a one way chute to the incinerator.

I've seen people nurse sillier grudges over the years, but that's a really goofy one.

Is it that Statesman was a Mary Sue with no weaknesses and arguably one of the most douchey "hero" characters ever to reside in fiction?

I'm not picking nits .... it's the focal point of what I'm saying .....

Miller has killed off Jack's character - the most recognizable and iconic character that this game has.

Miller has stated that the character will remain 'dead'.

The reason for this is the key, because it certainly doesn't do the game any good.

My suspicion is that Miller killed off Statesman simply because he was Jack's character - and that IMHO is spiteful.

In your opinion.

I saw Statesman as an iconic hero that was underdeveloped by the writers following the split.

While I have zero idea if this is true, the fact that so many in the community think it is true gives me smiles.