Anyone else get a chuckle out of this article?

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged...223042438.html

I know its seems "odd" but, CoH being around for 8 years (a bit more), we still seem to be the red headed step child of the MMO world. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. What I do know is that our Devs (and more) have done a great job with keeping this game "fun" and "up to date". Yes, I use "fun" and "up to date'" in quotes because, after 8 years of playing I find my self from time to time wondering "Why do I still play this game?!" and then when I don't play for a few days, I actually miss it! Sometimes, I don't miss the content or what is going on but, I miss the players. I miss the "LFG". I miss the "Forming TF/SF". I miss the "FOTW". I miss the "* Farming".

You see, there is a lot more to this game than power-leveling your toon to 50 and running Incarnate content. This is actually a game where there is a community, a player base of people who have been around long enough to actually understand how to play the game. These people are not afraid to help and show the newbies how to do it.

As a community, we need to find more ways to show the Devs our appreciation. We need to find more ways of showing new and old players that this game still has LOADS to offer. Sure, we would all like to see less time for Issues in the Development Phase and more items on the Market. But, they only have so much time and so many resources.

As a Veteran player of 8 years, I would like to proclaim that on the date of Issue 24, we also call that date (from here on out) "Dev Appreciation Day!" While so many of us enjoy the this great game, we should give thanks to those who have made it great for us.

what do you say?

I don't think MMO's are a dying breed at all. I think people just have more to choose from, so the numbers are getting spread out. Just because the 800 pound gorilla is finally starting to take a beating doesn't mean the whole market is going down.

Now you could make the argument that the monthly subscription MMO market is starting to go downhill and that might be a bit more accurate. More people want to play, but less people want to pay for it. Which I suppose is just human nature, but it does add appeal to the micro-transaction MMO's.

Thumbs up on the "Dev Appreciation Day". Also, it's funny how much fixation the world at large has on [FANTASY MMO], considering CoH actually predates it somewhat (Released in April 24, while [FANTASY MMO] was released a few months later in November). I assume you can figure out what I mean by [FANTASY MMO].

On an amusing side note, since December, when EA launced their smash hit galactic fanfiction MMO, Paragon Studios has actually put out more content for CoH than Bioware has managed for the TORtanic.

I'd say the problem with the MMO market is everyone and their mother rushed out to throw out some half-*** slapped together generic fantasy game. Of course a huge percentage are gonna fail! Even if they were actually good, the market is over saturated at this point, and you're going to have to slog your way through a huge pile of crap to get anywhere.

Paragon (and NCNC, and all prior names for the devs) have certainly done a good job keeping CoH afloat. Anyone that's familiar with NCSoft's history must know that they're not ones to keep unprofitable games around!

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

a) Pundits can't predict marketplace changes, they can only explain them -- and not very well.

b) The most hilarious part of the article was the Evony ad in the sidebar.

Any developer that now launches a sub-only MMO is insane.

you know, id say coh is less a "red headed stepchild" and more a product that found a small to moderate sized evolutionary niche and filled the @#$% out of it. as my old buddy jack E. said, the long term fans of coh will not leave no matter what you do to them. Heh, maybe we can call coh the duck-billed platypus of the mmo market, unusual, but filling its niche.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

the post was somewhat tongue in cheek, but at the time the comment was taken as an insult by some, but if you paid attention, it was really a compliment about the resiliance of the fans dedication. an ambidextrious left-handed compliment it you will.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Jack is a toad.

the best thing that ever happened to this game was him taking NC's bribe to leave.

You know, for all the grief people give States, they tend to forget, there would be no City of Heroes if not for him. Yeah, he made a lot of sketchy design choices, but he's still become a bit of a Scapegoat Creator. [/devilsadvocate]

The MMO boom is just the latest fad. It's like 20 years ago with the Trading Card boom. One gets successful, spawns a thousand copycats, market gets oversaturated, the weakest/poorest/most mismanaged ones die out, the strongs ones kick around, the lesser ones try to re-strategize and then the process repeats til the pool whittles down and the next big fad comes along.

"We think that a franchise such as Star Wars has the potential to attract 30 million or more monthly active users (MAUs), suggesting that the free-to-play version of the game has the potential to generate $120 —150 million in annual revenues. …"

You know, for anyone not familiar with 'the biz', this would sound like the most moronic statement ever made, often satirized by the 'dumb salesman' who says that they'll give their product away for free and they'll make their profit through 'volume.'

And anyone writing articles in 'the biz' and doesn't use the term 'microtransactions' maybe *is* that proverbial dumb salesman.

I don't think that COH is the Red Headed Stepchild.

My view is that most MMOs are trying to be WOW 2.0 and make (to take a phrase from Wrestling) MILLIONS OF DOLLARS! and BILLIONS OF DOLLARS! Now this somewhat works for WOW except that in the past few years they have been steadily losing a the player base because every expansion they try to "reinvent" the game and each time they turn the system less and less interesting. The new talent system is a great example of why WOW is losing players, none of the choices really matter or are choices at all.

COH doesn't care about billions or dollars they focus more on making a good game, and improving upon what they have.

MMOs are stagnating because they've barely evolved in the past ten years. They're extremely expensive to make, so studios are afraid to take risks. They stick to what has worked in the past, but eventually players get tired of the same old grinding-levels-and-loot routine. It's time for a fresh take.

Fresh takes don't work... Funcom tried that with The Secret World and everyday on their forums there are people complaining about it being too different, lack of levelling system, no mounts, no classes, too easy, too hard, lack of content (which I find hilarious, the game is one month old, you can't expect years of content on the onset...) and so yawn and yawn.

Most people are formatted to a particular model and don't want it to deviate even if it is in a totally different setting. TSW went with a subs only model and everyday there's someone crying for F2P and asking when it's going F2P. People don't seem to realize that F2P is anything BUT free! The amount you spend on micro-transactions compared to a monthly sub with ingame money only stores is ludicrous AND ridiculous. It's fleecing on epic proportions. Couple that with the sense of entitlement and the "I want it nao and I want it all" mentality and you have an ever growing abyssal maw you can never, ever come close to satisfying.

Also, one of the reasons why MMORPG are losing customers has to do with the economical crisis raging all over the world. With less jobs, more unemployment and job instability it's no surprise people are retracting from expenses they cannot justify when they need to worry about food, housing and, for those who have them, family.

And then there's the jaded feeling: no matter what you come up with, no matter how innovative you think you are or can be, chances are you won't get enough player retainability to keep your game afloat, mainly because today's youth (and, regrettably, the 30 something crowd) have the attention span of a fruit fly gnat and are always on the lookout for the next big shiny thing which they then proceed to devour like a cloud of hungry locusts, leaving a wasteland of detritus behind while flocking to the next new horizon which will never quench their hunger.

Rinse and repeat sweetlings, rinse and repeat...

I'm actually really curious about The Secret World, but...yeah. I only have enough spare cash for one MMO right now.