Old school playing is getting rare

[Greycat]

14 minutes ago, cranebump said:

I think what ultimately killed the game was a business decision?

 

Never heard of anyone quitting because they didn't want to slog through the Hollows. Certainly never heard "droves" of complaints. Was that actually *a* thing or is it *your* thing? (P.S. Players can avoid the Hollows by going to KR at lower lvls, as well--Hollows was not automatic).

 

Yes, it was a (questionable, from our standpoint) business decision. COH was doing well enough and the decision to close it down seemed to take even Paragon Studios by surprise (not likely they'd be having a meeting on new content when word came down.) WOW was an outlier with all its players and anything Asian-market is... odd... compared to the western market, given how people access (or accessed, not sure how true it is now) games there.

 

As far as the Hollows? The "slog" was largely gone by 2012. Between early travel powers, familiarity, etc. it was orders of magnitude easier (given I hear frequent mentions of people running Frostfire teams, I don't think anyone's really avoiding it now, either.) 2005, when I started? Yeah, it *was* a mess. Die on the way to a mission, you had to run back from Atlas, without a travel power (even a temp, like ninja run.) Taxibots (and Warshades - early inherent recall friend was useful, plus tp or flight if you took Nova at 6) were popular. And yet... people kept playing.

 

So, yeah, I'd agree -  if it didn't turn them off *then,* I highly doubt the Hollows turned anyone off by 2012.

[TygerDarkstorm]

2 hours ago, Judasace said:

I really don't think Zoomers are playing a 16 year old cancelled MMO on a private server. Most of the people that would have their gaming impacted by school starting hadn't even started going to school when this game came out. The people playing this now were in their teens at best in 2004 and I'd say 95% are between the ages of 30 and 60. Sure there are a few kids that might have wandered in, but not enough to have the school schedule impact player numbers as a whole.

Some of us in our 30's are not just parents (and/or teachers) as others have pointed out, but also students ourselves. It's not just teens and young 20's people going to college/trade school to better themselves. 😉

[Apparition]

1 hour ago, cranebump said:

I think what ultimately killed the game was a business decision?

 

This is second hand from one of the Paragon Studios' developers, so take it with a grain of salt, but from what I've heard:

 

The subscriber numbers to City of Heroes took a serious dip in early 2011 when DC Universe Online launched.  I know a lot of people here don't like DCUO, but it hit CoH hard as a lot of people did like DCUO.  Then when Star Wars: The Old Republic launched in late 2011, the subscriber numbers to CoH took another, very serious, hit.  I know a lot of people that left CoH for SWTOR.  At this point, CoH was just barely profitable.  Then when Disney and Gazillion announced Marvel Heroes in 2012, NCSoft saw the writing on the wall for CoH and decided to shut it down before it started going into the red.

 

So it was a triple punch that killed CoH.  DC Universe Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Marvel Heroes.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Apparition

[roleki]

For a game that absolutely nobody wants to play, they sure seem to meet their donation goal in a hurry every month.  

[Bill Z Bubba]

19 minutes ago, roleki said:

For a game that absolutely nobody wants to play, they sure seem to meet their donation goal in a hurry every month.  

That's cuz the five of us that play are all obscenely rich!

[DoctorDitko]

Sad to hear that DCUO played a part. I love the DC universe, especially the Timmverse, but DCUO makes the Redside complaint "I don't wanna be a minion" look like a papercut. Even Kevin Conroy voicing Batman wasn't enough to keep me playing.

[cranebump]

57 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

This is second hand from one of the Paragon Studios' developers, so take it with a grain of salt, but from what I've heard:

 

The subscriber numbers to City of Heroes took a serious dip in early 2011 when DC Universe Online launched.  I know a lot of people here don't like DCUO, but it hit CoH hard as a lot of people did like DCUO.  Then when Star Wars: The Old Republic launched in late 2011, the subscriber numbers to CoH took another, very serious, hit.  I know a lot of people that left CoH for SWTOR.  At this point, CoH was just barely profitable.  Then when Disney and Gazillion announced Marvel Heroes in 2012, NCSoft saw the writing on the wall for CoH and decided to shut it down before it started going into the red.

 

So it was a triple punch that killed CoH.  DC Universe Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Marvel Heroes.

Well, that would explain the business aspect of it. 

[cranebump]

33 minutes ago, DoctorDitko said:

Sad to hear that DCUO played a part. I love the DC universe, especially the Timmverse, but DCUO makes the Redside complaint "I don't wanna be a minion" look like a papercut. Even Kevin Conroy voicing Batman wasn't enough to keep me playing.

I could never get into it, either. Played CO for a bit. Even had an account there. But didn't enjoy running to various-sized circles on the map for most of the mishes. Also, the shorthand on characters was difficult to non-existent. On teams, couldn't tell at a glance if I was running with a tanker type, a blasty type, etc. I did like the freeform for CO, and actually could build by character concept there, a nanite-infused hero that used pistols that fired either projectiles and cables for travel (really, a sort of DP/Regen blaster, with swingline; concept being the nanites, which were self-perpetuating , could form the projectiles and the cable).  But teaming. Just. Sucked. I was always all alone. Same with DCUO. The former, I didn't give a lot of time to, so perhaps that's my thing. The latter, though, I did play for a great deal of time, ran to max level and all that, and was never really satisfied with it. 

[DoctorDitko]

You reminded me of one thing I thought was cool about DCUO: It's always daytime in Metropolis and always nighttime in Gotham City.

 

Too bad about Champions Online. I was a huge fan of the Champions paper & pencil game, precisely because you could create any character you wanted. The innovation that game effects were what you bought in the rules and everything else was Special Effects was a nice innovation. Made for very consistent rules. (True story: I once wrote a virus in Champs! It was contagious telepathy that would make other characters telepathic if you used it on them too much. Good times.)

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

14 minutes ago, DoctorDitko said:

You reminded me of one thing I thought was cool about DCUO: It's always daytime in Metropolis and always nighttime in Gotham City.

 

Too bad about Champions Online. I was a huge fan of the Champions paper & pencil game, precisely because you could create any character you wanted. The innovation that game effects were what you bought in the rules and everything else was Special Effects was a nice innovation. Made for very consistent rules. (True story: I once wrote a virus in Champs! It was contagious telepathy that would make other characters telepathic if you used it on them too much. Good times.)

 

Champions had its issues. I once created Lead Lined Shit Man so that no-one with x-ray or n-ray (that couldn't see through shit) could see through him.

[ShardWarrior]

On 8/30/2020 at 7:04 AM, Diantane said:

My enjoyment of City of Heroes or any other mmo is "playing the character all the way through".

Something to keep in mind - many people here have already played many, many, many characters "all the way through".  Playing through it yet again is not going to be anything new or unique.  

[DoctorDitko]

4 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Champions had its issues. I once created Lead Lined Shit Man so that no-one with x-ray or n-ray (that couldn't see through shit) could see through him.

Ah, but they could always buy the Armor Piercing advantage on their N-Ray vision! Unless you bought Hardened shit. And that's nasty.

[DrBasics]

Your way of playing (old school leveling) is not more important for you, anyone else or the survival of the game.

 

Others' play style (Power leveling farms) is not more important for you, anyone else or the survival of the game.

 

There is no correct or incorrect way to play a game. One style of play is not more important than another style.

 

Just because I eat with chopsticks doesn't mean that those who eat with forks are "Lazy", or "think this is the only way to eat".. it is simply the way they prefer to enjoy their food. It doesn't mean that if people continue eating with forks that chopsticks will become obsolete. Get it?

Edited August 31, 2020 by DrBasics

[Dazl]

2 hours ago, Apparition said:

 

This is second hand from one of the Paragon Studios' developers, so take it with a grain of salt, but from what I've heard:

 

The subscriber numbers to City of Heroes took a serious dip in early 2011 when DC Universe Online launched.  I know a lot of people here don't like DCUO, but it hit CoH hard as a lot of people did like DCUO.  Then when Star Wars: The Old Republic launched in late 2011, the subscriber numbers to CoH took another, very serious, hit.  I know a lot of people that left CoH for SWTOR.  At this point, CoH was just barely profitable.  Then when Disney and Gazillion announced Marvel Heroes in 2012, NCSoft saw the writing on the wall for CoH and decided to shut it down before it started going into the red.

 

So it was a triple punch that killed CoH.  DC Universe Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Marvel Heroes.

Sounds like piss poor management at NCSoft. Look at what the folks at Homecoming are doing with just donations to cover cost, imagine if they could have subs and make some money.

[DoctorDitko]

1 minute ago, Crimsonpyre said:

Sounds like piss poor management at NCSoft. Look at what the folks at Homecoming are doing with just donations to cover cost, imagine if they could have subs and make some money.

Not going to find a lot of NCSoft defenders around here!

I heard there may have been some nationalism involved, apparently the head of NCSoft wasn't a big USA fan. Most of their other games were hugely popular in Korea, City of Hero (sic) not so much.

[Greycat]

14 minutes ago, Crimsonpyre said:

Sounds like piss poor management at NCSoft. Look at what the folks at Homecoming are doing with just donations to cover cost, imagine if they could have subs and make some money.

Well, we're also not paying a development team, marketing team, management, janitorial staff, etc, etc, etc.

 

That said, there's a lot to lay at the feet of NCSoft. Like their clever advertising scheme for COH of "don't advertise anywhere." And their short lived "let's bring irrelevant advertisements into the game, because Jeeter Clutch needs to be on a broken billboard in Boomtown."

[Ironblade]

6 hours ago, Judasace said:

I really don't think Zoomers are playing a 16 year old cancelled MMO on a private server. Most of the people that would have their gaming impacted by school starting hadn't even started going to school when this game came out.

You fail to consider the number of parents who were thrilled to return to this game and to be able to show it to their children.

[Coyotedancer]

On 8/30/2020 at 9:48 AM, Bill Z Bubba said:

I've started doing both now that all my old mains are back to where they should be. Sometimes I street sweep to 4, then run a witch farm to 12 then go run paper missions. Sometimes I PL to 50. Sometimes I'll run regular content just for the hell of it and do a PL bump in the middle of it.

 

That's the beauty of this game. Do what you want. Just don't hurt anyone else in the process.

 

Bill is wise.

[skoryy]

4 hours ago, Greycat said:

Well, we're also not paying a development team, marketing team, management, janitorial staff, etc, etc, etc.

That, and the sub model is deader than Elvis at this point.

[FoulVileTerror]

Yeah, just a rough estimate, assuming about 30 staff between Devs and GMs working fulltime hours, and some other typical fees and costs, the monthly target would jump up at least another $120,000.

One of the advantages of having GMs covered by the publisher, rather than the studio, was that one GM could cover multiple games' playersbases, diffuses the employee cost.  Similarly, Developers could theoretically be working on multiple projects (and often are), so again the cost of employment gets diffused.

 

If Homecoming goes legit, before we even know what a licensing fee might look like, to provide the presently-volunteer Devs with compensation for all their hard work, we would be looking at the donation model requiring some larger contributions.

 

But really, this sort of thing should be discussed in a different thread.

For the topic addressed in the original post:  "Grindy" gameplay also tends to have fewer and fewer participants due to players growing wiser to the intent behind game design.  If an aspect of the game was intentionally created to waste our time, damn-right we're going to reject it.  It's one of the reasons I'm so staunch in encouraging the current Homecoming Devs' plans and philosophy toward game design.  I'd really like to know how much critical review they've done of existing game mechanics, and if/when/how they plan to address other problem areas.

[Six-Six]

What??? The King is dead??? Long Live the King!

I think the beauty of CoH is that it evolved from Old School. I've played a bunch of other MMOs where the grind was king. You need materials to craft new armour? go grind. unlock new contacts, new quests? go grind. more xp for the next area or new skills? go grind. Grinding has always been a part of MMOs, and in most of them, it was just that--a necessary but utterly repetitive and boring GRIND! What CoH did is not remove the grind, but give you several choices on how you can. You can do the story arcs, paper/radio missions, task forces, AE farms, AE alternative story arc content (some of which are purdy dang good, too), or any combination of them. Whatever you're doing you're still technically grinding, but in a manner YOU deem fun. So whatever floats your goat, that is King. 😃

[VV]

Another thing to consider is that we've all done it. I mean, HC has been around over a year now, and most players played a lot during Live. 

[nightroarer]

3 hours ago, Six Six said:

What??? The King is dead??? Long Live the King!

I think the beauty of CoH is that it evolved from Old School. I've played a bunch of other MMOs where the grind was king. You need materials to craft new armour? go grind. unlock new contacts, new quests? go grind. more xp for the next area or new skills? go grind. Grinding has always been a part of MMOs, and in most of them, it was just that--a necessary but utterly repetitive and boring GRIND! What CoH did is not remove the grind, but give you several choices on how you can. You can do the story arcs, paper/radio missions, task forces, AE farms, AE alternative story arc content (some of which are purdy dang good, too), or any combination of them. Whatever you're doing you're still technically grinding, but in a manner YOU deem fun. So whatever floats your goat, that is King. 😃

I don't get the idea that playing story missions is grinding. I think that is doing active content with something to hook your imagination into, not just a mindnumbing repetitive grind. To me, grinding is doing make-work or repetitive tasks to get a reward, as opposed to doing something that engages the imagination. Opinions will, of course, vary.

 

For example, in a fantasy MMO I play, sometimes you have to kill so many wolves on the landscape to complete a deed and level up traits/virtues. No story, just kill mobs repeatedly until you finish the deed. To me, that is grinding. And really boring.

 

Playing story arcs (and other missions) that actually have at least a simple story reason for doing what you are doing is far more engaging. Give me less mindless grind and more to sink my imagination into. 🙂

 

But I agree: CoH does a tremendous job of giving players a lot of options for how they like to play the game.

[Ukase]

On 8/30/2020 at 9:07 PM, Diantane said:

I read all of the posts. Some were very interesting and a few were pretty funny. I wasn't putting down PL'ing. I was just saying that I would be playing the game as it was designed to show players the content at hand. We ran missions for several hours today with a team of up to eight players. We all had a great time and everyone gained about five to seven levels. So they got to see their character level slowly and able to see any problems to fix along the way.  It was a experience for all.

 

My Tank went from 17 to 22 (started to get the SO's - man, are they expensive - lol)

First - to the OP - kudos for the initial post. 

Some of you...I agree with. Some of you, I think are very different from me, and that's okay. 

I have PL'd a character or two, sure. The only ones that I actually use are the afk-farmers. 
I Pl'd a fire/rad troller to about level 22...and when I was training it...there were powers to choose and I couldn't remember from live if they were worth taking or not. Essentially, I logged that character off, and there are still 5 levels left to train on that character. I may never play it again. Same with a warshade. I got one to 50, t-4 on live. It was fun to play. I still have the build, based on Dech's MFin' WS build. But it's been so long, that I almost have to turn xp off to learn when to use this power or that. It seems a lot more complicated than it did back in live, but I'm a bit older and don't get a lot of joy out of changing forms like I did then. 

Sure, there are times when even with 2xp, the gains come slowly, particularly on characters who require a bit of a learning curve. But for the most part, I've learned that going slower is faster. I know that seems like a contradiction, so let me explain: 

I like badges. If I skip content, when I ding 50, I will likely have to hunt for the defeat badges. If I don't use 2xp, I can actually do Stephanie Peebles, then go to Faultline and do Jim Temblor's and then go back to Striga, do Longjack Tom (or is it longtom Jack? whatever) Then at 25, go to Croatoa and start those arcs, go back to Striga and Faultline, finish those and back to Croatoa and finish those. And I'll come out of it with the defeats for Geas and Atlas medallion. Do some explores and plaques, and the katie tf, and some gms in croatoa, and I've got Geas and Atlas accolades done by level 35. 

I'm not suggesting that hitting 50 and then getting accolades is harder, or takes longer. It probably doesn't. But for me, it seems faster to knock that stuff out when it's level appropriate. No times were tracked or measured, it just seems that way to me. But that's me. I wouldn't expect anyone else to do things the way I do them. While I think my way is better, or I wouldn't be doing it, to expect others to see it that way is more than a bit silly. 

 

By PL'ing to 50, yeah, you get your inf and the nice drops. And you can always do stuff through Ouro, armed with all of your attuned IOs and all the slots, sure. But with Ouro - you're locked in. By doing the content when you're that level, you can stop, do a tf, whatever. With ouro...you're stuck, or you're re-doing it. But you do you. 

As for teaming during the lower levels, I don't seek them out. Most of the time, they want to do radios, which don't give merits. Story arcs give merits. And if you're doing a story arc - I don't get the merits, you do. So unless I'm doing the same story arc as you, and I opt for simultaneous completion, I'm leveling beyond my story arc, and missing out on merits. So, that's why I don't team up much. That, and  I find so many inexperienced players taking what should be a 30 minute posi 1 (even if you kill all) and making into 90 minutes of frustration because they don't want to learn, they just want to kill stuff without regards to their hp. They don't consider waiting for a blaster to pull to a corner, or a tank or brute to taunt. As one other put it - it's like leading a cat to a bath. Just not easily done, and even if you can do it, the cat doesn't like you afterwards. 

Still, because of this post, I'm going to try and not sweat merits and team more. It's not like I need the merits for anything. I have my next 100 alts funded already. I would even consider mentoring beginning players on how to market, how to make a farmer to subsidize their character's needs, and how to get the 4 passive accolades in a fairly efficient manner. I've often thought about making a super team start off with ZERO from any alt, no assistance from anything other than what drops. How to get those first batch of converters to make enough inf to get your character into the 20's, and then how to get enough inf to get to the 40's and then to a billion before 50, and still be kitted out, and have about 750 badges. (amazing how many badges aren't available until 50!) 

Maybe I should get off my high horse and do that. 

[Tath99]

12 minutes ago, Ukase said:

First - to the OP - kudos for the initial post. 

Some of you...I agree with. Some of you, I think are very different from me, and that's okay. 

I have PL'd a character or two, sure. The only ones that I actually use are the afk-farmers. 
I Pl'd a fire/rad troller to about level 22...and when I was training it...there were powers to choose and I couldn't remember from live if they were worth taking or not. Essentially, I logged that character off, and there are still 5 levels left to train on that character. I may never play it again. Same with a warshade. I got one to 50, t-4 on live. It was fun to play. I still have the build, based on Dech's MFin' WS build. But it's been so long, that I almost have to turn xp off to learn when to use this power or that. It seems a lot more complicated than it did back in live, but I'm a bit older and don't get a lot of joy out of changing forms like I did then. 

Sure, there are times when even with 2xp, the gains come slowly, particularly on characters who require a bit of a learning curve. But for the most part, I've learned that going slower is faster. I know that seems like a contradiction, so let me explain: 

I like badges. If I skip content, when I ding 50, I will likely have to hunt for the defeat badges. If I don't use 2xp, I can actually do Stephanie Peebles, then go to Faultline and do Jim Temblor's and then go back to Striga, do Longjack Tom (or is it longtom Jack? whatever) Then at 25, go to Croatoa and start those arcs, go back to Striga and Faultline, finish those and back to Croatoa and finish those. And I'll come out of it with the defeats for Geas and Atlas medallion. Do some explores and plaques, and the katie tf, and some gms in croatoa, and I've got Geas and Atlas accolades done by level 35. 

I'm not suggesting that hitting 50 and then getting accolades is harder, or takes longer. It probably doesn't. But for me, it seems faster to knock that stuff out when it's level appropriate. No times were tracked or measured, it just seems that way to me. But that's me. I wouldn't expect anyone else to do things the way I do them. While I think my way is better, or I wouldn't be doing it, to expect others to see it that way is more than a bit silly. 

 

By PL'ing to 50, yeah, you get your inf and the nice drops. And you can always do stuff through Ouro, armed with all of your attuned IOs and all the slots, sure. But with Ouro - you're locked in. By doing the content when you're that level, you can stop, do a tf, whatever. With ouro...you're stuck, or you're re-doing it. But you do you. 

As for teaming during the lower levels, I don't seek them out. Most of the time, they want to do radios, which don't give merits. Story arcs give merits. And if you're doing a story arc - I don't get the merits, you do. So unless I'm doing the same story arc as you, and I opt for simultaneous completion, I'm leveling beyond my story arc, and missing out on merits. So, that's why I don't team up much. That, and  I find so many inexperienced players taking what should be a 30 minute posi 1 (even if you kill all) and making into 90 minutes of frustration because they don't want to learn, they just want to kill stuff without regards to their hp. They don't consider waiting for a blaster to pull to a corner, or a tank or brute to taunt. As one other put it - it's like leading a cat to a bath. Just not easily done, and even if you can do it, the cat doesn't like you afterwards. 

Still, because of this post, I'm going to try and not sweat merits and team more. It's not like I need the merits for anything. I have my next 100 alts funded already. I would even consider mentoring beginning players on how to market, how to make a farmer to subsidize their character's needs, and how to get the 4 passive accolades in a fairly efficient manner. I've often thought about making a super team start off with ZERO from any alt, no assistance from anything other than what drops. How to get those first batch of converters to make enough inf to get your character into the 20's, and then how to get enough inf to get to the 40's and then to a billion before 50, and still be kitted out, and have about 750 badges. (amazing how many badges aren't available until 50!) 

Maybe I should get off my high horse and do that. 

Loved reading your post, Ukase.

 

Mentoring players?  Please do!  Teach players how to get the Atlas Accolade.  Help them Hunt Vampires & War-wolves (which can be very hard for squishie AT's to do at Striga appropriate level).  It's stuff like this that helps build (and maintain) the friendly community spirit COH is renowned for.

 

-- Tath99