Abraxus

Perhaps, one of these days, these publishers will figure out ways to INCLUDE folks that want to play their stuff, rather than going to all the trouble to legally EXCLUDE them. It's rather sad that the scenario just keeps repeating, but I suppose that is the nature of profit-driven business. Money first, and foremost. The customers who supply that money, much lower on the priority list. Both Blizzard and NCSoft are public companies, which means they are *required* to generate profits for their shareholders. Ideally that means increasing customer counts, or generating more revenue from existing customers. Take Blizzard for example - they were going after private servers because those players were essentially playing the same game as paying customers, but for free. Blizzard shut them down, knowing that many of the people they shut down would just say "Screw it...I'm done with you Blizzard" (which doesn't really hurt Blizzard because these people were playing for free), but some people would come crawling back resubscribe. In NCSoft's case, I think part of the reason they aren't doing anything is because CoH is dead right now, and we aren't competing for customers... Yeah, profit. Both boon, and bane to everything in our world. These companies are typically so driven by the need/desire to meet unrealistically high quarterly growth expectations (remember when 3-5% annually was acceptable, as opposed to that much or more every quarter?), that they are pretty much willing to do ANYTHING to meet them. Their profits drive society, but the means that they are willing to sink to in order to make them happen, denigrate it in ways that only get worse the closer one looks. If you look at just about any important aspect of modern day life, it is not as good as it could be if pursuit of, and hyper-prioritization of profit, weren't as real as they are. We don't have the infrastructure we could because of the cost. We don't have the best healthcare because of the cost, and the fact that everyone from one end of the system, to the other is more interested in profit, than actual healthcare. We don't have the best education, because education institutions have to make money. Our journalistic integrity is a thing of the past, because unlike the old days, when news divisions were considered loss leaders (not required to make a profit), now they have to do things that guarantee more web activity, and more viewership, which sometimes collide with their basic responsibility to be absolutely truthful, and that has eroded trust in the whole process. So, when it comes our games, and the large companies that publish them, I never allow myself the luxury of believing that anything they do is for me as a customer. It is primarily intended to contribute to the aforementioned unrealistic quarterly growth, demanded by those stockholders, and the hyper-overpaid management of those companies. If they manage to provide something I find enjoyable, and I end up contributing to their pursuits of incalculable wealth, I have to live with the morals of that choice, knowing I contribute that system, despite knowing how wrong it is. But, what choice have we got? As for NCSoft in particular, I have said it before. They never understood this game, didn't know how to properly market it, and if weren't for their US-based devs, it wouldn't have been as good as it was, or gone on for as long as it originally did. In the end, they took it down, despite the fact that it was still making them money, to finance other games that were closer to their market comfort zone (at the height of the super hero craze in the US, and eventually, the world mind you), most or all of which subsequently went bust. So, IMHO the best thing they could do is just continue not to care about the existence of this iteration of a game, which suites me right down to the ground. If they refuse to find a way to be inclusive of the players who would have been willing to sign-on again if they had made it possible, then hopefully, they will just stay out of the picture, and let us continue to do what we love. Be SUPER!

This is why the Homecoming Group shuts down the donation page when they reach their monthly cost goal. Whether there are two hundred or two hundred thousand players, what's the cost/benefit tradeoff for them to sue a group that has no more resources than what's needed to keep the servers running for another month? It depends what a company wants to gain. If they are after money, then no, suing Homecoming wouldn't help with that. Their legal costs would be more than anything they could get from the group. If their goal is control and intimidating other potential private servers, then a lawsuit would very likely pay off. But NC Soft would have care in order to go that route, and right now it's not clear that the do. Blizzard is a good example of a company doing this. Their lawsuits against private servers and cheaters don't bring them immediate financial profit, it's about control and scaring off other potential people from doing similar things. Perhaps, one of these days, these publishers will figure out ways to INCLUDE folks that want to play their stuff, rather than going to all the trouble to legally EXCLUDE them. It's rather sad that the scenario just keeps repeating, but I suppose that is the nature of profit-driven business. Money first, and foremost. The customers who supply that money, much lower on the priority list.

Welcome back! It's great, isn't it? I wouldn't count on getting your original characters back. That option was bandied about at the beginning of this whole resurgence of the game, and I believe it was decided against for a number of potential legal, and privacy issues that would unnecessarily increase the risk of losing our game again. So, we pushed forward with new characters/accounts. It's been a blast redoing all of that early level stuff, being totally broke again, and having to build up your fortune from scratch. I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey this second time around, and I intend to keep enjoying it with each of the many characters I have created/re-created here!

"Do you need advice on how to play CoH? Are you looking for help with a build or finding content? Do you have a suggestion to improve gameplay? Have you tried asking in-game and found to hard to get the information you need? Then the Homecoming forums are for you. We provide many boards for you to post in, and we have several thousand forum posts ready to hear you out! Required Warning: Side effects of posting in the forums include frequent criticism, threads moving way off-topic, and side arguments between posters. Other common side effects can include anxiety, rage, and frustration. If you experience those side effects you should step away from the forums and do something less frustrating like folding clothes, putting away dishes, calling your mom (that's 50/50 on helping) or playing City of Heroes." You forgot to mention Perma-Haten. I don't think I'll ever forget Perma-Haten! ;D

You mean the small team that kept their server secret for six years until it was forcibly revealed? They didn’t “keep the dream alive” for us, they did it for themself. Oh, and you weren’t invited to their party either. Technically, the current regime is different, and I’m happy the game is now out, I’ll leave it that. Feel about the past as you will, but the bottom line is that, were it not for these guys doing it for themselves, we would not be where we are, which is playing again. Life doesn't always provide for the smoothest path to something, but in this case, we got what we have wanted for a long time, which was to have our game back. I for one, am not looking back for recriminations on why we couldn't have had it sooner, and harboring anger about it. Life is too short. Instead, I am looking forward, in order to enjoy the second chance we have been given, and appreciate what I have for as long as I can.

If we somehow had 10,000 players on each shard, I think you'd see higher concentrations of folks everywhere. However, since the most popular shard (Excelsior) is currently peaking at just under 2,000 players at peak time, folks are spread out doing all manner of things, and the lower populated areas reflect those percentages. With 10 times the players, everything would be 10 times more utilized. But, we are working with what we have, and doing the best we can with the player-base as it is. There just aren't a lot of folks out of the average of 1,200-1,500 players on any given server to have the concentrations in all zones we'd like to see. Perhaps someday though. More former players are becoming aware of this, and hopefully that influx is faster than those who whose attention span has already compelled them to move on.

Hey - I have a mouse just like that. Found mine on the internet...you? I saw one just like it on the....ummmmm...City of Heroes: Homecoming forums...I think...??? :o :-X ;) 8)

"Here I come to save the daaaaaaaaay!" Don't touch the cape though...he's very sensitive about it I don't want to know what you use for left, and right click on a mouse like that, let alone any special function buttons. I really don't want to know! ;)

One of my sons (my oldest) played with me on Father's Day this year. We had a really good time, but he has other interests, so it's kind of a rarity. I just love the fact that this game was around when he was quite young, and it was one of the first MMOs he ever played. Now that it's back, he still loves it.

Corsair M65 RGB Elite. Compact, configurable, and comes with adjustable weighting which I like, because I prefer a heavier mouse.

Yup! I get that. I was responding to some of the comments that have materialized since the OP in my assessment that comparing a fantasy-based MMO, with a Super Hero MMO beyond the fact that they are both MMOs is kind of "Apples and Oranges". ;) :)

Part of that bonus pay would be to work in a building that is laid out as those office maps are. It would drive one insane, so one would want to be well compensated for it. Of course, the reason they are that way is probably due to the constant reconstruction, and remodeling from the aforementioned frequent devastation. :o ::) ;D 8)

I don't think anyone disagrees that WoW is graphically superior, or that it has always enjoyed a much larger subscription base. However, I think it's been pretty well established that what people love about this game is not it's graphical presentation. So, while that level of polish would be great, it just isn't in the cards (and probably never was). But, now with the age of the engine, and the advances in video card tech in the years since it's been gone, most folks can run all the graphics settings to "11", still have a decent frame-rate, and it looks good enough. You also commented about the details in their world. Well, there are a lot of details here too, that a lot of folks just tend to run through so fast that they miss a lot of it. They don't hit one over the head with the Lore, but it's out there to find and explore if you want to do so. Like everything here, it's a choice to do, or not. There might not be the same level of detail, but again, it's appeal is not strictly in the settings, maps, or tiles. IMHO, it's because this allows one to feel like a newborn super hero, that gets stronger as they progress, until they are practically gods at the end. Isn't that what a super hero game should allow one to do? I believe it is, and this game does that very well. Just like any MMO, there will always be the mundane, less fun things to do on the way to those halls of ultimate power. But, all in all, it's an experience that most fans of the DC and Marvel stuff can really appreciate. It plays well to their fandom. It just suffers from having been published by a company (NCSoft) who never really understood the genre, and really didn't know how to market it as well as it should have been, considering it was around for the beginnings of the MCU, and went offline the same year as the first Avengers movie came out! That should have marked the announcement of CoH2, not the closure of CoH! The Devs in the US understood, and did their best, but without the backing of the folks back in South Korea, there was only so much they could do. As for the large player base of WoW, well let's face it. They started off with a huge advantage of years, and years of content before the game came out, and that carried over. CoH had to generate it's lore from scratch, which I think they did a pretty good job with, but that kind of thing is hard to sell to the masses that already felt quite at home in the WoW. I believe that the only real comparisons that can be made with CoH, are other games in the same genre (CO, DCUO, etc.). In those arenas, the others are again superior in the graphical representation, but I think the majority of folks here would agree that CoH is a better game in most respects. Having played both, I know I do! Don't get me wrong. I think there is plenty of room in the gaming world for both. But, I don't feel these WoW comparisons are really "apples to apples".

I have 17 characters that range from 1 (waiting for their time), and 50 (with 4 Incarnate powers at T3, and one of them at T4). The one that actually ended up at L50 was never the one that I intended to be the first. It just worked out that way. It took almost 2 months. I did a lot of the content, but certainly not all of it. I didn't farm with that character until after I hit 50. Now that I have one there, who now has sufficient funds to make sure that the rest won't have to struggle for funds, the rest will move steadily towards 50, and get there eventually, enjoying the ride along the way. So, you can have it both ways.

I went with Dimagnetic simply for the mad debuffs on targets.

I've yet to receive a PM on these boards, so I'm not sure if the reason could be that the alert is so subtle that if one is not looking for it, they won't normally see it? I'd like to think that folks don't intentionally ignore other folks wanting to speak offline.

It might have an effect, but I doubt we will lose enough players to be concerned with having to consolidate existing shards. We seem to have a steady influx of new players who are only now becoming aware of the existence of these servers, so while we might see a slight dip when that happens, I don't think it will have any noticeable effect on population.

Literally, nothing. Yes, nothing at all, that's why it has subscriber numbers in the millions, while free CoX can't bust 100k... Let's not forget that since this is basically a home-grown effort on steroids, and not an official release, unless one is plugged into some information source that talked about it, they would be unaware that it was back. Since it is not in the best interest of folks running the servers to advertise, they are at just a bit of a disadvantage in that regard. So, it's not exactly a fair comparison. If it weren't for the articles in gaming publications, we might not have the numbers we have. But, if they were free to advertise far and wide, I guarantee the numbers would be higher.

I can't put an objective opinion here, because I never played it. But, I can say that the one thing that it doesn't do better is...be a super hero-based MMO. I never had any interest in the fantasy-based games, at all. I resisted playing Everquest with a group of my friends for years, because the genre just didn't interest me in a game. I love me some LOTR in the movie format, but I never had the slightest desire to play a game based on it, nor by extension, WoW either. As soon as they switched to CoH, I was right there with them! It could be the best game in the world on paper, in all the right categories, but if the genre is unappealing, it means nothing. As far as I'm concerned, the only real comparisons are Champions, and DCUO. In that regard, played them both, and though they might have been prettier, they both lacked the heart, and sole that CoH always had, at least for me.

This was the very first in-game footage video I ever saw, and I think it perfectly captured the spirit of the game: Justice:

I think we all did on the first day we signed back in for the first time. Glad to hear it's still happening!

I'll take #1, the P2W vendor. I leave it to others to break down some of the other questions. The P2W vendor functions as an optional way to obtain much of which were Veteran Rewards for subscribers. Since the game is no longer subscription-based, they made it possible to obtain those perks via this method. You are under no obligation to take them, but they do make the formative levels a little more enjoyable IMHO. Your mileage may vary. There are other things available as well, such as XP enhancers, and a few other types of items as well. But, you have the choice to forgo all of that if you are looking to preserve the original experience of having 1 attack for your first few levels, and waiting until 14 to get a travel power. That's the great thing about the game. The choices are yours, and nobody, and nothing in the game forces you do it any other way than the way you wish. 8)

Now I have one bad thing to say. I don't have NEAR enough time to play, as opposed to how much I want to play. Well, I guess that's not a criticism of the game, as much as life in general. 8) ;)

For me, belonging to a SG is one of the social aspects of the game that I think adds to it's charm, and appeal. It also allows us to create SG bases, thus putting all manner of handy items in it (like hazard zone teleporters, and crafting tables), so one can go to one place to do many things. So, there is a functional aspect as well.

I could be watching it, but I'm already watching Jessica Jones. Once I finish that, then Stranger Things. I can only accommodate 1 series at a time, and still have time for the important stuff...like CoH!