MASSIVELY: Has Homecoming torched the plans of City of Heroes successors?

[neuropsych]

On 11/10/2021 at 11:33 PM, Crysis said:

The fundamental problem with any of these successors actually becoming a reality is what’s often referred to as the “MVP” (Minimum Viable Product) quandry.  To achieve any possible level of success as a competitor to Homecoming or it’s variants requires them to effectively MATCH the level of functionality and content currently available from the SCORE release.  That’s no small task.  Anything LESS in terms of functionality, scope and content will likely be met with a very large yawn from the admittedly already SMALL potential customer base that are currently playing on the SCORE variant servers. 

 

This is probably going to be one of the biggest issues.  HC is releasing content at a good pace.  The longer the successors take to release their products, the more they have to contend with an ever increasing amount of content HC is releasing.

[Ukase]

I'm someone who has spoken with Casey over the phone, briefly - he's the CEO and President at Heroic Games, a videogame development company focused on a single title, Ship of Heroes. This one will be completed regardless of what happens with HC CoH. How will it do? That's anybody's guess. But, make no mistake - his operation is not a fly-by-night operation. He's legit. He's got experience in game development. Whereas, the same can't really be said of CoT. But, they did have a lot of volunteers who were/are quite knowledgeable about game development, and I'm pretty sure they're going to keep the customer in mind when they finally get going. As to them getting going...I'm also someone who contributed to City of Titans. They're making progress, but man, it has been a looooong time. I thought that it would be unrealistic to expect anything before 5 years. But, I also thought it would have beaten HC; in the sense it would be working before HC opened their servers. They have woefully missed that mark. And it may very well cost them. Suppose they had been going for 2 years before HC opened their servers? A lot of us would have signed up, and have time invested in a number of characters and may not have even given a look at HC or the other servers. 

I cannot speak for everyone, but I don't think I'll play City of Titans, even if it finishes tomorrow. Why? Because I'd have to learn an entirely new system. How to get the requisite gear to make the character "super", how to acquire, earn all the stuff that may be equivalent to accolades and badges & such. The novelty might be interesting in the beginning, but I hate change, and I know how things work in CoH. I can't say that about CoT.  I can see myself loading the game, hopping in, checking things out, but unless I'm completely compelled due to content or other features, I can't see sticking around for long. They'll really have to make things compelling. 

 

But, that's just my opinion, and if there's one thing I've learned on these forums, my thinking is rarely like anyone else's. 

[tidge]

21 hours ago, Ukase said:

I cannot speak for everyone, but I don't think I'll play City of Titans, even if it finishes tomorrow. Why? Because I'd have to learn an entirely new system. How to get the requisite gear to make the character "super", how to acquire, earn all the stuff that may be equivalent to accolades and badges & such. The novelty might be interesting in the beginning, but I hate change, and I know how things work in CoH. I can't say that about CoT.  I can see myself loading the game, hopping in, checking things out, but unless I'm completely compelled due to content or other features, I can't see sticking around for long. They'll really have to make things compelling. 

 

But, that's just my opinion, and if there's one thing I've learned on these forums, my thinking is rarely like anyone else's. 

 

The thinking you express in this post aligns closely with my own. Even if my own tastes in what I want and get from CoX are considered unrefined, I am not motivated by the CoT efforts on artwork (characters, the world, the buildings) to really switch. I appreciate the challenges and effort that programmers are putting in, but those things won't get me to jump ship as long as the comfortable, appreciated, and supported Homecoming exists.

 

Not that it is up to me, but if *I* were the majority investor in something that was originally intended to be something like a 'comic book universe', I'd try to reconfigure the work done so far to change from a CoH-clone (because that effort is unlikely to offer enough exciting new experiences) and instead focus on one or more of the following:

• idea-clone Freedom Force, which was a beloved game even if it was rather limited
• reskin the efforts into an explicitly PVP (or Team Co-op PVP) that has a comic-book bent... as these are more-or-less an area that CoH doesn't really appeal to most players and have proven difficult to balance with the core non-PvP game.

I'm not saying that some great new comic-book MMORPG can't some along, but any of them that's been in development for 5+ years is unlikely to be the game-changer.

[PeregrineFalcon]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

I'm not saying that some great new comic-book MMORPG can't some along, but any of them that's been in development for 5+ years is unlikely to be the game-changer.

You're probably right about not being a game changer.

 

At this point though it seems unlikely that any of them are actually going to launch.

[voyager2001dl]

I posted earlier the link to SoH schedule page because it had been recently updated.  Pitty they didn't acually include a date for the top section, rather than just "current" but it has been updated recently.

 

The comment I made about them proving the successors weren't dead was because of the banner at the top of that page also announces the game is scheduled to launch in 2022.  This message also was not there a couple weeks earlier and the entire site seems redesigned this month to boot.

 

Also, their homepage has been updated to announce pre-orders will be available this holiday season.  Though I admit, were a full week into December now, so if they're going to make good on that,  it's needs to be in the next few days.

 

"I distinctly remember someone saying, 'Were not gonna make it.'  We made it.  Maybe next time, you'll just wait and see"

Jack Oniell, Stargate SG1

[Without_Pause]

If that's what a recently redesigned site looks like, it looks like on the level of a college project. If they paid someone for it, they need their money back.  I don't doubt it will come out. I'll repeat I think it has the best chance of being put out and being good, but everything about it looks old which is partly due to how long it has been in development. The UI for what I have seen in spots from images is honestly not good. 

[Dazl]

58 minutes ago, voyager2001dl said:

I posted earlier the link to SoH schedule page because it had been recently updated.  Pitty they didn't acually include a date for the top section, rather than just "current" but it has been updated recently.

 

The comment I made about them proving the successors weren't dead was because of the banner at the top of that page also announces the game is scheduled to launch in 2022.  This message also was not there a couple weeks earlier and the entire site seems redesigned this month to boot.

 

Also, their homepage has been updated to announce pre-orders will be available this holiday season.  Though I admit, were a full week into December now, so if they're going to make good on that,  it's needs to be in the next few days.

 

"I distinctly remember someone saying, 'Were not gonna make it.'  We made it.  Maybe next time, you'll just wait and see"

Jack Oniell, Stargate SG1

Maybe they are dressing it up to try to get more cash investments. In any event with CoH back, looks like that ship has sailed (pun intended).

[Lusiphur Malache]

In the past I believed that all the successors should band together and release something while they had an opportunity.  That doesn't seem likely at all and with the announcement of a Marvel MMO coming, I think the sun has set on the lot of them.  I don't know what that means for the possible legitimacy of Homecoming or continued existence of DCUO.   

[Without_Pause]

1 hour ago, Lusiphur Malache said:

In the past I believed that all the successors should band together and release something while they had an opportunity.  That doesn't seem likely at all and with the announcement of a Marvel MMO coming, I think the sun has set on the lot of them.  I don't know what that means for the possible legitimacy of Homecoming or continued existence of DCUO.   

Considering two failed attempts already and this being from the makers of DCUO, I can't say I'm all that excited. I absolutely hated how you activated powers in DCUO. Something closer to a reskinned CoH would have me playing it long term as I felt like the rest of it was worth getting into.

[Lusiphur Malache]

On 12/9/2021 at 9:36 AM, Without_Pause said:

Considering two failed attempts already and this being from the makers of DCUO, I can't say I'm all that excited. I absolutely hated how you activated powers in DCUO. Something closer to a reskinned CoH would have me playing it long term as I felt like the rest of it was worth getting into.

I think with Jack Emmert in charge it will look more Champions Online.  Hopefully, Disney will keep him on a short leash and we get something other than a vendetta to kill COX and anything else associated with it.

[Without_Pause]

6 hours ago, Lusiphur Malache said:

I think with Jack Emmert in charge it will look more Champions Online.  Hopefully, Disney will keep him on a short leash and we get something other than a vendetta to kill COX and anything else associated with it.

I never played, so maybe if it played lit it, then it would be fine. I don't know. I hated the look of it though.

[Hardboiled Hero]

The obvious answer to the OP is "no".

 

First, it's not as if people can only play one game.  Homecoming is free and doesn't demand much in the way of time and effort.  What stops people from playing most of the "alternatives" and "successors" has nothing to do with Homecoming, and has much to do with the fact those games aren't much fun (not to say they couldn't be with some time and work, but they aren't right now.)

 

  CoH is good because of it's design philosophies which were/are relatively unique these days.  They weren't chasing shares of a market. Instead, they made the product they wanted and the market came to them.

 

  Apart from the philosophy, there's also, in my case at least, a trust issue.  CoH was loved by many people, was making decent profits, and was mercilessly shut down in spite of that.  Can any of the companies involved in these "plan Z" projects really guarantee that won't happen again?  I'm sure they're all scrambling to do so..  but my trust has already been betrayed by corporations too much for me to actually believe it.. at least until I see it.  In fact, I would argue that the fact these companies are trying to make "the successor to CoX" is proof that they're just out looking for a profit.  Otherwise, they'd be doing what paragon did.. make the game they want and hope for the best.

[Nerva]

If they can't stand on their own merits despite Homecoming's existence, why should we care what effect Homecoming might have on them?  They obviously aren't quality enough to bother with if a fan-run recreation of a seventeen-year-old game is still enough of a superior product - and holds its own fanbase firmly enough - that they can't get a playerbase because of it.  If anything, all Homecoming does is set a standard, a minimum level of quality that these 'successor projects' need to exceed to be worthwhile.

 

14 hours ago, Hardboiled Hero said:

CoH is good because of it's design philosophies which were/are relatively unique these days.  They weren't chasing shares of a market. Instead, they made the product they wanted and the market came to them.

This.  Even at its absolute worst, CoH was barely monetized compared to most other MMOs of its day, and gave you a bevy of content for what little it asks of you.  It wasn't chasing moneymaking at some core level of its game design, like most modern MMOs are.  It existed, it was good (and still is good!), and the money it got came to it because of that.  The fact that it still has a viable playerbase seventeen years after its release, despite publisher switches, being unceremoniously shuttered, and becoming a fan-run project, especially when most MMOs don't see a third of that over their full lifespan, is telling.

[SaintD]

Homecoming torches the plans of the successors simply based on the fact the successors suck.

 

That's the honest reality. All they had going for them was being some kind of hopefully 'close enough' pastiche of CoX, and in the harsh light of actually being able to just play CoX itself again, they look terrible because they're not even as good as the now-ancient OG.

 

And to continue being brutally honest, if they look the way they do now after all this time, and still basically not even in a feature complete state being filled out with content, they weren't coming out, or they're going to be terrible.

[Albion]

On 12/12/2021 at 12:07 PM, SaintD said:

Homecoming torches the plans of the successors simply based on the fact the successors suck.

 

That's the honest reality. All they had going for them was being some kind of hopefully 'close enough' pastiche of CoX, and in the harsh light of actually being able to just play CoX itself again, they look terrible because they're not even as good as the now-ancient OG.

 

And to continue being brutally honest, if they look the way they do now after all this time, and still basically not even in a feature complete state being filled out with content, they weren't coming out, or they're going to be terrible.

Damn, harsh yet nothing but the truth.

[Without_Pause]

On 12/12/2021 at 10:07 AM, SaintD said:

Homecoming torches the plans of the successors simply based on the fact the successors suck.

I'm pretty the current state of them are such regardless of the rogue servers coming out or not.

 

The successors problem isn't really CoH. its very much everything else which is out. My biggest pull isn't another super hero game. It's simply other games. 

[Dazl]

Another problem these games will have is the longer HC operates the harder it will be for them to get people to jump ship. HC is close to the 3rd year anniversary. Many folks like myself have invested a lot of time here. I’m not going to start over on something that is the same with maybe a new coat of paint. It would have to be a huge improvement to even get me interested.

 

I’ll continue to support the people that brought us here and improve the game, not some fly by nights who don’t have the same level of passion for these games that should have been out by now.

[Hardboiled Hero]

7 hours ago, Dazl said:

Another problem these games will have is the longer HC operates the harder it will be for them to get people to jump ship. HC is close to the 3rd year anniversary. Many folks like myself have invested a lot of time here. I’m not going to start over on something that is the same with maybe a new coat of paint. It would have to be a huge improvement to even get me interested.

 

I’ll continue to support the people that brought us here and improve the game, not some fly by nights who don’t have the same level of passion for these games that should have been out by now.

 

  I see what you're saying and mostly agree.  On the other hand, I feel like if there was an official re-release of City of Heroes, many people would immediately go there. I mean an actual re-release. Not something with the name, but completely new mechanics or whatever.  If they feel the need to update programming that's one thing, but actually playing the game should feel the same as playing on a rogue server, except with the ability to say "this is official content".  It would be so easy to shut down all of these "rogue servers", except that, for whatever reason,  NCSoft wants to keep using the IP for flop projects instead of just doing what we all know would be the most profitable thing for them, and re-releasing CoH.

[Bill Z Bubba]

1 hour ago, Hardboiled Hero said:

I mean an actual re-release.

 

Using Unreal 5 and making sure we have jiggle physics.

[merrypessimist]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Using Unreal 5 and making sure we have jiggle physics.

 

It's all about the jiggle.

[SaintD]

1 hour ago, merrypessimist said:

 

It's all about the jiggle.

And if Conan Exiles taught us anything, it's not even the girl's jiggles we truly care about.

[Bill Z Bubba]

3 hours ago, SaintD said:

And if Conan Exiles taught us anything, it's not even the girl's jiggles we truly care about.

 

ALLL THE JIGGLES!!!!

[Without_Pause]

9 hours ago, Hardboiled Hero said:

 

 NCSoft wants to keep using the IP for flop projects instead of just doing what we all know would be the most profitable thing for them, and re-releasing CoH.

They didn't want it when it was profitable.

[Albion]

5 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

They didn't want it when it was profitable.

I think they never were really serious about their U.S. and Europe subsidiaries, they keep focusing on cellphone games and those that appeal to the southern asia market.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

The new Marvel MMO property seems to be going ahead with Jack Emmert, and given what happened with Avengers, I don't think they're overly worried about quality.