CoH missing an opportunity for free publicity?

Even journalists and columnists who don't (admit to) being gamers, who don't (normally) cover games, are picking up on Guild Wars II's abolition of the dedicated healer class. I'm a news junkie, and it feels like over the last couple of weeks, one by one, a steady stream of journalists have picked up on the NCsoft press releases about that, or picked up on articles by people who did.

Would it have been too much to ask that NCsoft include, in those press releases, a reminder that City of Heroes has never had a dedicated healer class? That NCsoft pioneered the idea that refilling another player's hit points stat is only one way to make a hard encounter easier, that weakening the enemy or strengthening the player's other stats, combined with easier access to health potions (or Inspirations, as City of Heroes calls them), and giving all players some way to either weaken enemies or strengthen themselves or strengthen their team mates has always allowed City of Heroes players to include whatever mix of character classes they wanted in their teams and still beat the hardest content in the game?

Of course, I'd also like those press releases to point out that as a game that did away with the holy trinity no later than October of '05, City of Heroes has had more than six years to perfect a game mechanic that newer games, like Diablo 3 or Guild Wars 2, are only just now experimenting with. Maybe that's too much to ask.

It's just ... well, grrr. I'm sick and tired of features that CoH has had all along being called "innovative" when some non-CoH game does them.

I feel you, almost as if there's a conspiracy to destroy CoX in favor of 'superior' MMO's.

The journalists probably saw the ever-present "healer lft" in help.

They could always make up for it by buying some ads to run concurrent with Avengers tv spots, or place a brief ad before Avengers showings in selected larger markets.

But really, why start marketing the game?

Actually, this is the kind of post where in all truth, I'd love to see Black Pebble (or Ross the marketing guy) come in and give a bit of insight in how Paragon/NCsoft handles marketing.

It'll probably never happen, but I'd still love to see it.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I don't think City of Heroes breaks the mold on that. While we don't have a 'healer' class, we do have several 'support' classes which are mostly responsible for the same duties in a group.

In Guild Wars 2 everyone is basically a Damage (DPS) class.

CoX has a healer power set (Empathy) as a choice for support ATs, which essentially equals a "healer class" insomuch as any AT/powerset combo can be called a "class" at all in this game. The reason I claim that Empathy Defenders represent the de facto healer class in CoX is because that is how players have always treated it. Players coming from other MMOs always seem to bring their Must Have a Healer mindset with them and scour the game for the healer "class". They find the Empathy Defender, realize it is the closest thing Cox has to one, and then they start advertising "looking for healer" in the hopes of landing an Emp.

COH doesnt count since its a superhero MMO.

Considering the current management has been promoting more and more healing and healer based gameplay lately, it'd feel downright schizophrenic if they started shouting "look at us, we don't have healers either!"

Healing as a proeminent role is actually an anomaly in many MMOs. It's mostly the popular ones (esp. in the western world) who have these. I find it strange you name Diablo 3, the original one didn't have healers and while my memory is more iffy on the second one since it was designed to be soloable for every class I'd wager even if there was such a character it wasn't that important.

It's "groundbreaking" in the sense millions of people discovered MMOs with WoW and so believe it is the norm.

I see that a lot of you are still thinking that marketing = traditional advertising. These days, buying up television, radio, newspaper, and magazine spots doesn't get you a whole heck of a lot of bang for your buck.

Remember a few weeks ago when Massively did an Exclusive™ on the new mecha armor costume sets coming out? That was Black Pebble at work. Did you by any chance catch the Facebook posts from the OCR team asking us to vote on the Choose My Adventure series of articles to be about City of Heroes? Yup, that was marketing.

You can also probably thank marketing (with a healthy dose of praise on the OCR team also) in large part for the Player Summit, which was undoubtedly pitched as a means of getting existing players more excited about the game--and thus spreading word-of-mouth to their friends about it. Also, although the OCR team maintains the Facebook page, Twitter feed, and now Google+ hangouts, I'm sure Black Pebble et al have their hands in it too, since when I "like" or "+1" something, it's putting out there in front of my friends' faces.

Do you know how expensive it is to fly people from San Francisco to San Diego every year to attend Comic-Con? It ain't cheap, but that comes out of marketing's budget. How about Seattle for Pax? Are they still doing Pax East? I imagine flying people all the way across the country was a pretty heavy outlay of cash to get the product out there in front of a very targeted demographic.

Speaking of Pax, did you see the PC that Antec gave away last year? Check out the one on the right. I think you could buy those cases at one point, though I can't find any links to it now. Regardless, there are some City of Heroes customized cases out there. You can thank marketing for that.

Also, does anyone remember when City of Heroes was featured on Apple's games web site after the launch of Issue 14? Marketing. Or when it was an option to have pre-installed on a Dell computer, and Dell included City of Villains screenshots in their ad copy? Marketing.

Point is, just because you don't see City of Heroes ads on television doesn't mean that marketing is sitting around on their duffs. Those ads are expensive, most people just tune them out (or worse, skip them on their DVRs), and you're way more likely to be paying for anti-video game soccer moms to see them than a gamer who might want to give the game a try.

While Tony makes some valid points, I do believe City of Heroes could stand to be paraded as being "different" a little more. If you remember a few years back, the occasional "Why are you here?" thread would eventually settle into a string of people saying "I'm here because City of Heroes isn't like X" where X could be any number of other MMOs. City of Heroes doesn't conform to the MMO holy trinity, and that might be a good sales pitch to someone who's recognised how stagnant the MMO market has been for pretty much the last decade. Instead, we have other, much newer MMOs launching and parading ideas like sidekicking, instanced missions and more like they invented them.

Maybe that's just a question of what the development team feel is this game's real strength. That it's different? I'd say so, but I don't get that feeling from how it's being developed and crammed full of things that are less "different" and more "standard MMO features," so maybe marketing City of Heroes as different just isn't on the agenda.

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Somewhat sideways of the subject, I await the day when an MMO launches that completely breaks away from the concept of gimped support characters as a necessity of team balance, but I don't foresee one of those launching soon, unless Guild Wars 2 is one like those. Yes, they don't have a healer, but that doesn't mean they don't have support. I'd REALLY celebrate the day when an MMO like this launched that WASN'T Fantasy, but that might not happen within my lifetime.

Quote:

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.

I would say we went past missing and have gone full on "missed". To advertise that facet of City of Heroes after it has been touted as part of GW2 would come off as a smaller MMO going "but I have that too!". Right now, I suppose the best we could do is, while NCsoft is talking about GW2, see if they can sneak in a mention about how GW2 has some elements that were experimented with in City of Heroes; another NCsoft game. Whether or not NCsoft will due that is a whole other ballgame.


I have always myself encountered problems whenever I try to advertise this game by word of mouth. It seems like everyone I talk to is doing their best to try and find a reason not to play this game. I've heard things like the following:

#1: "Wait, isn't that game old? I don't want to play an old MMO." Yeah, this doesn't make sense, but it does to whomever says it.

#2: "They've already made a newer one. I'll go play that".

#3: "You play a super hero? So you don't fight dragons and stuff?"

#4: "You only have spells? How are you supposed to fight stuff without an auto-attack?"

#5: "I don't want to play a game where I can't play as Wolverine."

#6: "You can play the game as any AT? Well, then what's the point of playing anything then if you aren't important?". This one... infuriates me.

#7: "I'm not going to play a game without skills/stats I can train and level up".

#8: "Why can't I websling?"


And so on. Of course, you try arguing with them but it is mostly pointless since their mind is made up beforehand. That, or they just circle back to one of the other numbers on the list. I'm certain that this game would be a lot more popular if more people would give it a shot. But all of the newcomers I see play the game just looking for a reason to abandon it.


EDIT: Addendum on #6: Players will also complain that there is no set race in the game in a similar vein.

People like to claim to be the first. It usually just means "not the same as the one everyone knows about". I'm sure the developers just prefer not to be to open about where they steel ideas from. But they play everything that comes out as part of their job. Rift stole "Controllers" for example.

But the reason more MMOs don't have serious control is simple: PvP.

Players hate being unable to act in PvP.

But NCSoft, there is no befit to them in promoting CoH with GW2, because if someone starts playing CoH then they are less likely to play GW2. NCSoft have never been averse to shutting down CoH if they have something else in it's place; it only exists now because Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa flopped.

Cross game promotions is something that NCSoft generally does not do. This sets them apart from many (most?) other MMO game companies.
I guess it is because there are separate and largely independent developer studios - Paragon, Arenanet, Carbine and so on.

Still, I think a more active role in advertising their full offerings to the players of any one game, as well as special cross game deals and such would help. Especially since all the games are B2P or F2P so there is less chance of internal competition over subscriptions.