What Can Be Done to Recruit Players?

[Bill Z Bubba]

9 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

I feel like we have had 20 years of being overhammered by Super Hero Movies and TV shows.  And that can't be good for COX.

 

I just watched Spider-Man: No Way Home last night and had moments that made me feel as I did when I first saw Sam Raimi's 1st Spider-Man thanks to Willem Dafoe. I don't feel overhammered by the comic book movies. Compared to the total shit of reality on this planet at the moment, even the crappy stuff is a welcome distraction.

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, Haijinx said:

IMaybe we should all move to one server and hope enough occasional log ons keep it alive for longer.

 

 

you see a level of unity and organization in the player base that i am totally missing

[golstat2003]

On 4/26/2022 at 1:25 AM, wjrasmussen said:

Just meant that we had a covid situation that may have accounted for our population and now that we have opened up, the population would naturally dropped.

I don't think elden ring is to blame.

 

There are plenty of other games with new content other than Elden Ring that recently released. People will play other games as that's newer content, including mmos that just released recent content.

[FenrisWolf44]

It still surprises me that in 18 years there still hasn't been a game made that beats COH in the superhero genre. There have been several attempt but all have come up lacking. There are a lot of young fans of the MCU/DC out there that are more than likely unaware of Homecoming. Many would love COH, despite it's age. New doesn't always, and many times doesn't mean better, and to my old fart brain it still looks very good 😋

Edited May 1, 2022 by FenrisWolf44

[Haijinx]

12 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I just watched Spider-Man: No Way Home last night and had moments that made me feel as I did when I first saw Sam Raimi's 1st Spider-Man thanks to Willem Dafoe. I don't feel overhammered by the comic book movies. Compared to the total shit of reality on this planet at the moment, even the crappy stuff is a welcome distraction.

 

I am a fan of the genre.  Ever since I was a kid. I have even read the original comic book arcs that No Way Home is sort of based on.  And I havent even bothered to watch it.  Nor a lot of the other shows out recently.  

 

People less interested than me surely exist even beyond my personal anecdottes among my family and friends of "Another Super Hero Movie?  Meh."

[Forge]

I remember when I first heard of City of Heroes. It sounded like everything I'd ever dreamed of: an mmo where I could play as a super hero. 

I believe there still are lots of people who would like to experience that, and the lore in this game is pretty solid, IMO.

If each one of us, lovers of CoH, did their part in inviting friends, talking about it in forums/social media etc, then we could have new players. If we welcomed newbies in game and showed them the ropes, played with them, answered questions, more of those newbies would stick around long enough to discover the great things in CoX. 

[MrAxe]

Put simply I don't think coh is modern enough to attract much new blood. I get the piss taken out of me at work by younger gamers for playing coh. It's in a light hearted way but it shows that its only appealing to the old guard because, well, its old. I've been waiting for a relevant thread to bring that up. Not sure much could be done because to get more people interested I'm sure the answer would be to change the game itself.

 

Take a look at Final Fantasy. They had to stop selling it because its so popular. It's the new, up to date kid on the block.

[ChzBoi]

4 hours ago, MrAxe said:

I get the piss taken out of me at work by younger gamers for playing coh.

...to be honest, that's their problem, not yours.......

[Glacier Peak]

On 4/30/2022 at 8:34 AM, Neiska said:

 

Have to disagree here, whole-heartedly. It was a multitude of issues at the time, not a bunch of greedy CEO bean counters as suggested. They were sued by marvel, had other side projects going on, and a whole host of other considerations.

 

Here is an older video that explains it pretty well - 

 

 

 

So please don't throw in "Capitalism BAD" into the discussion, especially when its untrue.

I watched that whole thing, but the voice over person didn't tell me why it died. There was mention of profits not being high enough, but if I'm going to spend another twenty minutes on a video about why a game died, I'd like a concrete answer and not speculation. 

[Neiska]

6 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

I watched that whole thing, but the voice over person didn't tell me why it died. There was mention of profits not being high enough, but if I'm going to spend another twenty minutes on a video about why a game died, I'd like a concrete answer and not speculation. 

 

But that's kind of the point, there was no single reason but several.

 

- They were sued by marvel. The case was dropped but I think it would be silly to think that didn't impact their decision.

- The game was profitable, but not profitable enough.

- The main owner, cryptic, sold their rights to NC soft.

- The new owner had other projects going on as well such as Guild Wars.

- Keep in mind that NCsoft suffered a 6-million-dollar loss in Q2 of 2012, and actually went bankrupt in 2013. They also closed several of their studios, not just CoH.

- There was also a declining player base even 10 years ago. Those that remained were like us, die hard fans, but even back then numbers were slowly lowering.

- Let's also take a moment to look at the other games at the time. The main games at the time were - WoW, Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, EVE, Rift, Lord of the Rings Online, and Diablo 3 also came out that year. 

- CoH wasn't the only MMO to end either. There were other titles such as Vanguard, Warhammer Online, and a whole host of much smaller MMOs that have come and gone.

 

But the truth of the matter is, is that unless we were sitting on the board meeting, none of us will truly know. NCsoft did publish a few statements - 

 

To their fanbase - 

 

To our Community,

Thank you. Thank you for your years of support. You've been with us every step of the way, sharing in our challenges, encouraging us to make City of Heroes better, more than everyone else thought it could be. We couldn't have come this far without you. I implore you all, focus on the good things of CoH and Paragon Studios. Don't dwell on the "how" or the "why", but rather join us in celebrating the legacy of an amazing partnership between the players and the development team.

 

And this is a statement they left with IGN - 

 

Both NCsoft and Paragon Studios are incredibly proud of the success of City of Heroes, but unfortunately, the continued support of the franchise no longer fits within our long term goals for the company. All employees at Paragon Studios are affected by this decision, including the management team. We will begin the City of Heroes sun setting process immediately with the goal to officially stop our service offerings for the franchise on November 30, 2012.

This was a very tough decision to make and wish the best for all Paragon Studio employees in their next ventures.

 

So there wasn't really any single cause. If I had to put it all together I would say that NCsoft looked at the various points above, and decided to trim down on side products that while profitable, they may not have been able to keep affording the servers. maintenance, staff, and all the other assorted upkeep costs. The fact they closed several studios and products at roughly the same time sort of implies this.

 

Now if they had bought CoH, let it run a year, and closed it down by itself then I agree it could have been a case of the greedy bean counters at play. But everything mentioned here suggests something larger was at work. I mean, they actually went bankrupt shortly after CoH was closed. Which also tells me that at the time they closed it, it was a sinking ship, and they were trying to avoid bankruptcy.  So they closed CoH and their other products that didn't meet whatever cost/profit ratio they decided upon and tried to upright the ship. Obviously, that didn't work.

 

Hope this helps!

 

PS - Another thought occurred to me. NCsoft bought CoH in 2007. But the game actually went free to play before the shutdown in June of 2011. Which I suspect was kept alive by NCsofts other products at the time, as well as those annoying ingame advertisements that some of us remember. If I was a company like NCsoft facing bankruptcy, a game in such a state would be the first thing to go. If it was kept alive by ingame advertisements, those likely were enough just to keep the lights on and the staff paid. But that's just me musing.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Neiska
Added a PS

[UltraAlt]

On 4/28/2022 at 11:54 AM, Neiska said:

My reply to this is that you must not have looked very heard, either on the forums, even here in this thread, in the discord, or perhaps the most important place of all - actually ingame.

 

I'm in the game a good bit. I'm not watching the /general channel so i don't know what goes on there.

I don't know what server you are on.

I don't go out of my way to look for negative feedback on farming. Sounds like a waste of time to me.

 

Perhaps you lure this kind of content to yourself.

 

On 4/28/2022 at 11:54 AM, Neiska said:

About your comment with the DEVs - HC is not "Live."

 

Okay. That's obvious.

Perhaps you don't understand that farming in the AE would not have happened if the DEVs on live had stood their ground before the sunset.

IF they had, most likely, there wouldn't be farming on Homecoming.

On 4/28/2022 at 11:54 AM, Neiska said:

The Devs of Live, have little say in HC, or vice versa.

 

Obviously.

You prove no point with that statement

 

On 4/28/2022 at 11:54 AM, Neiska said:

They use the same game engine, but different rules with a different community and different host. So your comparison is largely moot.

 

Makes no sense.

The largest change is removing micro transactions and making all paid content free.

 

The Devs added more to the game, but the main changes to farming in the AE have been to NERF IT.

 

I think somehow you are confused.

 

On 4/28/2022 at 11:54 AM, Neiska said:

Wither or not "Live" had farms/ae has little baring or relevance on if we have farms here and now.

 

I disagree.

If they wouldn't have been allowed before the Sunset, i serious doubt Homecoming DEVs would have been okay with changing the rules.

 

Honestly, the hardest part of the DEVs dealing with Farming with AE was policing the AE. With so much content, all they could do was look for excessive XP/Influence gains during AE missions and robotically ban accounts based on that automated feedback. The Policing and dealing with complaints about banning must have been overwhelming.

 

They needed to do a huge overhaul on AE so that it could not be abused, but that may have been to daunting of a task ... sort of like fixing PVP.

 

On 4/28/2022 at 11:54 AM, Neiska said:

someone with the intelligence to do so will figure out the fastest most efficient way to gain levels, currency, or whatever that game has.

 

 

THere is a difference between playing a game efficiently and cheating/exploiting.

 

On 4/28/2022 at 11:54 AM, Neiska said:

First off, you have no proof that it does, or that it doesnt.

 

People like to ding. Take away dinging and people don't play.

People that are attached to something are more likely to be involved in that thing.

If you don't understand human nature, then I'm not going to go out of my way to find proof on some of the most obvious facts of life.

Your not worth my time so maybe I should stop wasting my time now.

 

On 4/28/2022 at 11:54 AM, Neiska said:

ONLY from those in the "die hard open world content only" crowd, as if that was the single activity, method, or source of enjoyment in the game.

 

Maybe you are confusing my use of "PVP" as "PVE".

you seem to just be attacking me to defend yourself.

I'm sorry you feel like you are experiencing PVP.

 

The best PVP in City of Heroes is the Auction House.

 

On 4/28/2022 at 11:54 AM, Neiska said:

We agree that no one should be "strong-armed" into anything.

 

I don't think anyone can get "strong-armed" into anything in CoH.

They just succumb to peer pressure.

 

On 4/28/2022 at 11:54 AM, Neiska said:

"door sitting is wrong" in the same statement.

 

Yep. I think Doorsitting is wrong.

I don't see how that statement is "strong arming" anyone.

I think you are getting increasingly defensive and nitpicky so I think i'm over this waste of my time.

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by UltraAlt

[Neiska]

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

I'm in the game a good bit. I'm not watching the /general channel so i don't know what goes on there.

I don't know what server you are on.

I don't go out of my way to look for negative feedback on farming. Sounds like a waste of time to me.

 

Well, this isn't exactly how I planned to spend time on a Monday morning, but here we go.

 

Nor do I go looking for it, but I would not call seeing it in /General channel or seeing them posted in these forums at least once a month as "going out of my way to look for it." Take this very thread which in no way was started meant to do with farms at all whatsoever, and yet here we are. Again.

 

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Perhaps you lure this kind of content to yourself.

 

Ah, yes. Me respectfully posting my side of things is so very much alike to painting a target on my own back. We can't have a civil discussion about it, no no no, of course not. Better to just label the opposition whatever term is convenient for the moment or make insinuations in the most vague possible terms that's all the better to devalue their points instead of addressing them. How dare I defend my own opinion and forms of enjoyment which are in no way against the rules. FOR SHAME! (am I doing it right @Snarky?)

 

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Okay. That's obvious.

Perhaps you don't understand that farming in the AE would not have happened if the DEVs on live had stood their ground before the sunset.

IF they had, most likely, there wouldn't be farming on Homecoming.

 

Perhaps what you don't understand is that this is no longer NCsoft, and that HC in all likelihood could give a flying sack of leaky rat farts about what DEVS said on live on any relevant policy. Moreover, I disagree - even if AE as removed, there still would be farming, merely a different version of it. But I will get to that point in a moment.

 

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Obviously.

You prove no point with that statement

 

And yet it rings true. The live DEVS have zero authority as to what goes on in HC, just as the HC staff might have had to say on live. Unless of course, one of the HC staff also happened to be on the staff during live, in which case they are the same person, but I doubt that is the case.

 

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Makes no sense.

The largest change is removing micro transactions and making all paid content free.

 

The Devs added more to the game, but the main changes to farming in the AE have been to NERF IT.

 

I think somehow you are confused.

 

Let me elaborate in simpler terms - you are comparing apples to oranges. The policies on Live to the policies in HC as some sort of validation to suggest that ever since the live Dev's "backed down" as you put it, everything that ever came after that was somehow null and void and "wrong?" It doesn't matter what they did or didn't do on live. The staff aren't the same people. It isn't the same game. It isn't the same company. That was over a decade ago, in a different time, with a different community. You are really setting the bar for nostalgia goggles here. I think you are perhaps the confused one in this scenario. You seem to be suggesting that the current HC staff, allow the decisions made a decade ago by the staff of another company dictate their own policies now? That doesn't strike you as a bit ridiculous? 

 

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

I disagree.

If they wouldn't have been allowed before the Sunset, i serious doubt Homecoming DEVs would have been okay with changing the rules.

 

I think you vastly over estimate the value of your opinion on HC policy. Or are you expecting the staff to be in a meeting to go "We are about to make a decision on policy. Quick! TO THE FORUMS! We simply MUST hear the opinion of UltraAlt! What would he do? We need answers, STAT!" Your opinion bares no greater weight than mine, thank you very much.

 

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Honestly, the hardest part of the DEVs dealing with Farming with AE was policing the AE. With so much content, all they could do was look for excessive XP/Influence gains during AE missions and robotically ban accounts based on that automated feedback. The Policing and dealing with complaints about banning must have been overwhelming.

 

They needed to do a huge overhaul on AE so that it could not be abused, but that may have been to daunting of a task ... sort of like fixing PVP.

THere is a difference between playing a game efficiently and cheating/exploiting.

 

Right, first off, nobody involved would agree on what the term "abuse" would mean in such a situation. But let's play hypothetical here. For the sake of argument lets say by whatever reasons you care to pick, AE was removed. Gone. Poof! Pixies magically klepped it in the night. You know what would happen? A few things -

 

Firstly, farming would still happen. People would simply figure out what now the most expedient way to level. Whatever activity that happened to be. It could be a specific story arc, or a certain mission, or just standing around on autopilot. "That" would be the new "farm." As an example I would point to DFB. People used to run that to 20 or so until it was nerfed into the ground. Now, people may run it once for the badge, and move on. Or run it a few times. What they do instead is do other things.

 

And, for the record, doing the work and figuring out the way to play the game most efficiently is not cheating/exploiting, its simply playing smarter. Unless of course, rules state doing X thing is wrong, which they don't in this case. There are even rules fo rmultiboxing, so, am I to assume you are going to say that since Live had different rules on multiboxing, that we are cheating by doing it now on HC, even though the rules are different now?

 

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

People like to ding. Take away dinging and people don't play.

People that are attached to something are more likely to be involved in that thing.

If you don't understand human nature, then I'm not going to go out of my way to find proof on some of the most obvious facts of life.

Your not worth my time so maybe I should stop wasting my time now.

 

Here's a news headline for you then. People like to make alts. People can still be attached to their alts. Or to MANY alts. And this might shock you to your very being but, people might be just as attached to their alts/farmers as you are to your own character. Shocker, I know. Another obvious fact of life. You seem to like to suggest that there is an entire horde of farmers just cranking out multiple armies alts without rhyme, reason, or thought. Let us pretend for a moment that they were - So what? What business is that of yours what others do in their time? Hint: It isn't. 

 

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Maybe you are confusing my use of "PVP" as "PVE".

you seem to just be attacking me to defend yourself.

I'm sorry you feel like you are experiencing PVP.

 

The best PVP in City of Heroes is the Auction House.

 

Up and until this post I had thought it was a mutually respectful discussion until that point, until I seemed to detect a level of platitude in your latest reply. And one thing I have been hesitant to bring up until now is I suspect that some of these voices saying "nerf AE" might in fact have harder and harder times filling their task forces or teams, or simply finding themselves fewer people to play with. And they might possibly feel that by removing the AE tool, suddenly all those people who were farming will now suddenly add to the pool of possible team mates. I am not suggesting in any way you are such a person, but I think it would be a bit childish to pretend that might not be a cause of outcry against AE for some.

 

28 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Yep. I think Doorsitting is wrong.

I don't see how that statement is "strong arming" anyone.

I think you are getting increasingly defensive and nitpicky so I think i'm over this waste of my time.

 

You think Door sitting is wrong. Good for you. Then don't do it. Many others feel it isn't wrong. And their opinion and gameplay is just as valid as your own, whatever yours happens to be. Because until HC staff comes out and states "Doorsitting is wrong" then your opinions are only just that, not a fact, rule, or policy. So stop using your mere opinion as some sort of moral high ground to lecture people whose game hobby has exactly nothing to do with yourself. You want to go out and do contact and news paper missions? Fine. Go do it. I am happy for you.

 

Maybe if you spent more time playing and having your own fun, and less time worrying about what other people are doing for fun, you may have more of it. Because attitudes like yours in fact drive away many players. The argument of "I am RIGHT, therefor all who don't believe precisely as I do are WRONG" is a source of needless grief in the world. You like to play a certain way. And that's okay. But other's like to play a different way. And that's okay too. Even if YOU don't like how THEY play. Their play, isn't ABOUT you, or what you THINK is right, or wrong, or what is exploiting, or what isn't. Because HC has made their policy already pretty clear about it. Which would make that play, not exploiting. 

 

But for what it's worth, thanks for helping me kill a bit of time at work. 

 

Cheers!

[MoonSheep]

[UltraAlt]

15 minutes ago, Neiska said:

Well, this isn't exactly how I planned to spend time on a Monday morning, but here we go.

[Neiska]

@UltraAlt

[Glacier Peak]

5 hours ago, Neiska said:

 

But that's kind of the point, there was no single reason but several.

 

- They were sued by marvel. The case was dropped but I think it would be silly to think that didn't impact their decision.

- The game was profitable, but not profitable enough.

- The main owner, cryptic, sold their rights to NC soft.

- The new owner had other projects going on as well such as Guild Wars.

- Keep in mind that NCsoft suffered a 6-million-dollar loss in Q2 of 2012, and actually went bankrupt in 2013. They also closed several of their studios, not just CoH.

- There was also a declining player base even 10 years ago. Those that remained were like us, die hard fans, but even back then numbers were slowly lowering.

- Let's also take a moment to look at the other games at the time. The main games at the time were - WoW, Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, EVE, Rift, Lord of the Rings Online, and Diablo 3 also came out that year. 

- CoH wasn't the only MMO to end either. There were other titles such as Vanguard, Warhammer Online, and a whole host of much smaller MMOs that have come and gone.

 

But the truth of the matter is, is that unless we were sitting on the board meeting, none of us will truly know. NCsoft did publish a few statements - 

 

To their fanbase - 

 

To our Community,

Thank you. Thank you for your years of support. You've been with us every step of the way, sharing in our challenges, encouraging us to make City of Heroes better, more than everyone else thought it could be. We couldn't have come this far without you. I implore you all, focus on the good things of CoH and Paragon Studios. Don't dwell on the "how" or the "why", but rather join us in celebrating the legacy of an amazing partnership between the players and the development team.

 

And this is a statement they left with IGN - 

 

Both NCsoft and Paragon Studios are incredibly proud of the success of City of Heroes, but unfortunately, the continued support of the franchise no longer fits within our long term goals for the company. All employees at Paragon Studios are affected by this decision, including the management team. We will begin the City of Heroes sun setting process immediately with the goal to officially stop our service offerings for the franchise on November 30, 2012.

This was a very tough decision to make and wish the best for all Paragon Studio employees in their next ventures.

 

So there wasn't really any single cause. If I had to put it all together I would say that NCsoft looked at the various points above, and decided to trim down on side products that while profitable, they may not have been able to keep affording the servers. maintenance, staff, and all the other assorted upkeep costs. The fact they closed several studios and products at roughly the same time sort of implies this.

 

Now if they had bought CoH, let it run a year, and closed it down by itself then I agree it could have been a case of the greedy bean counters at play. But everything mentioned here suggests something larger was at work. I mean, they actually went bankrupt shortly after CoH was closed. Which also tells me that at the time they closed it, it was a sinking ship, and they were trying to avoid bankruptcy.  So they closed CoH and their other products that didn't meet whatever cost/profit ratio they decided upon and tried to upright the ship. Obviously, that didn't work.

 

Hope this helps!

 

PS - Another thought occurred to me. NCsoft bought CoH in 2007. But the game actually went free to play before the shutdown in June of 2011. Which I suspect was kept alive by NCsofts other products at the time, as well as those annoying ingame advertisements that some of us remember. If I was a company like NCsoft facing bankruptcy, a game in such a state would be the first thing to go. If it was kept alive by ingame advertisements, those likely were enough just to keep the lights on and the staff paid. But that's just me musing.

This! Thank you, I appreciate the added context. I didn't get that from the twenty minute YouTube video.

[Bleuception]

Here are some novel concepts, since apparently certain individuals cannot help throwing blame on certain game play styles because they personally dislike/hate that style of gaming.

• Nobody is obligated to play the way you do. Their fun is not wrong.
• This is an MMO.  This means there are a variety of activities to partake in. PvE, PvP, Crafting, Storylines, Solo, Group Content, Farming for Inf/Merits/XP/Salvage/Recipes/Etc., Contests, Socializing, Role Playing, Badge Hunting, Temp. Power Hunting, Seasonal Events, and so on so forth.
• Focus on YOUR own game experience. This is a game. The way people play the game can only annoy/harm you if you get involved with these people in groups or go out of your way to police how others play. You can play with people who share similar likes/dislikes without raining on somebody else's parade.
• If a certain piece of content were to be deemed harmful for whatever reasons, it would be removed by the ones in charge of the game. The ones who actually have access to data pertaining to the servers/shards/player population. So, is it in the game? Has it been there for a long time? Have the devs labelled it as an abuse or exploitation of heck or whatever? No? Then it's fine. Just let it go.

 

 

I am sick and tired of every other thread devolving into a whole mess of "You're playing the game wrong".

Stop it.

 

You can dislike something without badgering strangers on the internet about it.

 

 

 

 

I am very tempted to keep a copy of this post, because this particular "discussion" is sure to come up again and again. I hate PvP, yet you don't see me claim it's evil or something. I don't engage in PvP. End of the story. All is good in the world.

 

Now how about them ideas for recruiting players?

 

Edited May 2, 2022 by Bleuception

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, Neiska said:How dare I defend my own opinion and forms of enjoyment which are in no way against the rules. FOR SHAME! (am I doing it right @Snarky?)

 

Nope. You are doing it way wrong.  These long intricate point by point responses will be useless (and mostly unread by everyone).  The person you are trying to dialogue with will definitely take nothing useful away.

 

You know what people remember about conversations the next day?  How you make them feel.  No data.   Very rare person that remembers data.  
 

Basically, needs more salt.  (Snarky And Laughable Taunt)

 

 

[ForeverLaxx]

9 hours ago, Neiska said:

Take this very thread which in no way was started meant to do with farms at all whatsoever, and yet here we are. Again

And if you go back to the beginning of this thread, which many of the people screaming about farms at this point probably haven't done, you were one of the reasons this happened. Most everyone else came in afterwards and started hammering the "you just want to delete farming" strawman that they always employ when the subject of AE comes up and that's partially your fault for happening. Until you made the claim, no one else had said anything regarding the wholesale deletion of AE.

 

When the AE was first mentioned, and I'm paraphrasing, it was that maybe new players shouldn't be catapulted to the level cap right out of the gate. The followup to this was that someone agreed and suggested that the AE in starting zones be shut down (I assume to lessen the focus and accessibility of it for new players) and you, in response, decided to lay your chips at the "farming needs to stay in the game and removing it is bad" side of the table. Which, I'll remind you, no one was claiming that all farming needs to be erased to protect new players; only the AE buildings in starting zones were suggested to probably be not such a good idea.

 

After that, the wolves were set loose and the usual suspects appeared to argue about AE and its merits for general game health, which is outside the scope of this thread and was only an issue because you decided it needed to be. You don't get to lament the direction of a thread you assisted in moving in said direction.

 

For what it's worth, this is going to be my last post in here. The topic has shifted and I already made my original point of concern regarding CoH and its ability to retain new blood in our modern gaming climate. Continuing this AE "debate" further only lessens the value of this thread, but I felt compelled to bring up this revelation a second time since I guess the first time didn't stick.

 

EDIT: And just to be clear, I made sure to go back and read the thread from the beginning to make sure I was remembering correctly and not taking crazy pills. Your decision to double down on your insane interpretation, then move the goalpost when called out on it, only confirms you stopped reading at "remove AE..." and ignored the rest of that sentence. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that this was not done maliciously, but this error made in your zeal is invariably the reason the thread went off the rails.

Edited May 2, 2022 by ForeverLaxx

[Neiska]

24 minutes ago, ForeverLaxx said:

And if you go back to the beginning of this thread, which many of the people screaming about farms at this point probably haven't done, you were one of the reasons this happened. Most everyone else came in afterwards and started hammering the "you just want to delete farming" strawman that they always employ when the subject of AE comes up and that's partially your fault for happening. Until you made the claim, no one else had said anything regarding the wholesale deletion of AE.

 

When the AE was first mentioned, and I'm paraphrasing, it was that maybe new players shouldn't be catapulted to the level cap right out of the gate. The followup to this was that someone agreed and suggested that the AE in starting zones be shut down (I assume to lessen the focus and accessibility of it for new players) and you, in response, decided to lay your chips at the "farming needs to stay in the game and removing it is bad" side of the table. Which, I'll remind you, no one was claiming that all farming needs to be erased to protect new players; only the AE buildings in starting zones were suggested to probably be not such a good idea.

 

And I'll just point out that the first post of removing the AE is in post #5 of this thread was where the whole move/remove AE discussion began. And no matter how you try to slice or rationalize it, my original response to this has always been - more options are good. CoH is, and always has been, "play your way." And this is removing options, for new players. Players, even new ones, should have the right to decide if they want to use AE or not. Who are you, I, or anyone else to tell them otherwise? They are free to get rushed/farmed, just as they are in any other game. 

 

Also, I will add that moving the AE from starting zones, will likely have minimal effect anyway. At level 10-12 people usually move into the next newbie zone. So what difference would it be from being able to immediately use it, from using it the next zone over? It's not as if a new player once they learn its location, cant just make an alt and run there anyway, right? I would call that a strawman as well.

 

You say "new players shouldn't be catapulted out of the gate." I agree they "shouldn't," but I don't agree with taking away the option to do so, if they so choose. Players, even new ones, should be able to choose their activity, just the same as doing any other - contact missions, random patrols, base building, roleplaying, playing the AH, etc etc. The real strawman here is the argument that power leveling a new player will somehow magically make them disinterested in playing, when it is entirely just as likely a new player can go "wow, this is awesome, I can make as many characters as I want, try any powers I want, as many ATs as I want, and can have the money to do so, and it won't take years of game time." True, SOME might go "eh, this game is too fast." But SOME are just as likely to go "...this awesome." And who are we to tell anyone otherwise? Players, new and old, will like what they like. And I take a pretty dim view of using questionable moral/for the greater good arguments to try and persuade their decision on how to enjoy the game.

 

[golstat2003]

On 5/1/2022 at 1:05 PM, MrAxe said:

Put simply I don't think coh is modern enough to attract much new blood. I get the piss taken out of me at work by younger gamers for playing coh. It's in a light hearted way but it shows that its only appealing to the old guard because, well, its old. I've been waiting for a relevant thread to bring that up. Not sure much could be done because to get more people interested I'm sure the answer would be to change the game itself.

 

Take a look at Final Fantasy. They had to stop selling it because its so popular. It's the new, up to date kid on the block.

 

Yeah some of the tech in FFXIV is bonkers, in terms of modern gaming/mmo tech.

[golstat2003]

7 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

As someone currently obsessed with MTG, this made me laugh waaaay out loud. Thank goodness I was working from home today. LOL 😄 

[Excraft]

5 hours ago, ForeverLaxx said:

The followup to this was that someone agreed and suggested that the AE in starting zones be shut down (I assume to lessen the focus and accessibility of it for new players) and you, in response, decided to lay your chips at the "farming needs to stay in the game and removing it is bad" side of the table. Which, I'll remind you, no one was claiming that all farming needs to be erased to protect new players; only the AE buildings in starting zones were suggested to probably be not such a good idea.

 

And some people over-reacted because no one heaped glorious praise on a bad idea.  Removing AE from starting zones will not do much if anything at all.  New players still have very easy access to it in other zones through a short jaunt on the tram or through readily accessible base teleporters.  You'd also have to get rid of DFB and DiB to "protect" those new players from skipping through the first 15 or 20 levels without ever leaving Atlas Park, in addition to preventing them from seeing or using LFG so they don't see or have the opportunity to join AE mission teams being advertised.  You'd also have to remove P2W vendors from the tutorials and starter zones. 

 

New players don't need to be protected from anything.  If powering to 50 right out of the gate is what they want to do, what makes them happy and keeps them around, let them do it.  If that isn't your play style, more power to you.  Do what you enjoy.  People powering to 50 don't seem to be your crowd anyway, so it shouldn't make any difference to you what they do with their time here.  Trying to arbitrarily force them into doing activities only you enjoy is just going to drive them away.

 

Like others have said, options are the best thing. 

Edited May 3, 2022 by Excraft

[UltraAlt]

12 hours ago, Neiska said:

@UltraAlt

 

[Neiska]