Incentivize playing a villian

[justicebeliever]

That seems like an awesome, but highly untenable solution.  We should probably focus on possibilities that are more realistic.  I think a week or two of XP could work.  If we get 500 players to switch for a week or two, and only 10% keep their alts their, that's a 10% increase in the current population.  What do we have to lose?

 

So let's go over it:

Sidelocking characters would require a bunch of work to set up thanks to the current alignment system. We'd have to develop a way to lock them out of receiving tip missions or benefitting from them, then add a Null the Gull "Do not interact" flag.

Why do we need to lock anyone in or out?  Will some people abuse or exploit it?  Sure...so what?  That happens today, and it's temporary

 

The XP Boost would mean these players wind up skipping scads of content to create a character that does... what? Trials? Why do Trials with a double XP character when you can just do Trials with your main? "Oh, we could give them double trial rewards!" Oof the big bad of -that-. Though with the way Vet Levels work, you'd already be doing that!

We need a way for people who want to do villain content to opt out...I was thinking you'd just modify the XP Booster to do the Xtra XP for redside, but again - why does it matter if they do redside content with their Incarnate Main?

 

And in a month when those 450 leave redside 'cause of a plethora of OTHER REASONS That this 'Fix' doesn't touch: we get another one of these threads.

 

I would assume most people would leave the second that the XP boost is over...And we can handle another thread...We handle a lot of threads...It's like McDonalds...Homecoming, over 6000 threads served and counting...

 

Holding a carrot in front of a horse only works until the horse eats the carrot. And then you're right back where you started. Incentives don't work long-term. For that you need ACTUAL fixes.

 

That's a very simplistic view of incentives.  Ever used a coupon?  That's an incentive...In fact most restaurant coupons fail to make any significant change in long term dining habits, most people use the coupon and then never go back...Except for the small percentage of people who use it and continue coming back.  And that's what restaurateurs are counting on.  90% of advertising is producing incentives for you to try things...that's all this is, a gimmick...and it won't change most people habits long term...it only needs to change a few...

[Steampunkette]

That doesn't -fix- anything.

 

That's why I mentioned another of these threads. Because the underlying problems will continue to exist.

 

Coupons might get you into the door of a restaurant that barely passes health inspections, but at what cost!?

 

For a real fix to Redside we'd need to fix the underlying causes. That means at the very least a MASSIVE content rewrite.

[Legree]

For a real fix to Redside we'd need to fix the underlying causes. That means at the very least a MASSIVE content rewrite.

 

I'd say expansion rather than rewrite.  There's a ton of good stuff in the Isles, and the core criticisms of it, while valid to a point, are not without issues that would be difficult if not impossible to correct without reworking the entire game into something entirely new.

 

The feeling of being someone else's lackey... well, that's inevitable in any contact/mission based MMO.  What, you just killed the Lich King?  Well done, now go bring me 10 bearskins.  Thanks.  CoH/CoV isn't as linear as a lot of more recent games in the genre, but it's not a free-for-all sandbox either.  At best it can give you small choices, and the illusion of bigger ones, which Praetoria, for example, does rather well.

 

Similarly you can challenge Recluse, but you'll never overthrow him, any more than you'll be hailed as the next Warchief of the Horde.

 

It's a variation of the eternal problem of MMO stories - you're the chosen one, and so is every other player.  I actually think CoV (and CoH) handles this better than most games - in that while you have to suspend disbelief for individual story arcs and repeat content the overall setting is one which absolutely recognises that you and hundreds of other heroes and villains exist.  For me the setting works best if I think of my villains not as global menaces, but mid-level supervillains.  We're not Doctor Doom or Darkseid, we're the Sinister Six or the Gotham City Sirens.

 

(Of course a lot of that reasoning goes out the window somewhat once we get into the Incarnate stuff, but that kind of power/story creep is a different topic altogether.)

 

As to being not evil enough - that's an extremely tricky balancing act that CoV, I think, mostly pulls off by softening even the nastier stuff with humor.  Doctor Creed is a good example of that, but even so some people are repelled by parts of his arc, and let's not even start on Westin Phipps...

 

Thee's a very fine line dividing villainous evildoing from gratuitous sadism and cruelty, and even if it was only to keep their family friendly rating I'm glad CoV stayed on the right side of that line... at least most of the time.  If there's new content I hope that does too.

 

All in all though I agree with you that "come for the xp, stay for the content" isn't going to work.  I suspect most of the players who want to experience redside content are the ones who already are.

[justicebeliever]

That doesn't -fix- anything.

 

That's why I mentioned another of these threads. Because the underlying problems will continue to exist.

 

Coupons might get you into the door of a restaurant that barely passes health inspections, but at what cost!?

 

For a real fix to Redside we'd need to fix the underlying causes. That means at the very least a MASSIVE content rewrite.

 

We aren’t going to get a “massive” anything.  I don’t disagree that’s required to gain significant traction.  But since it’s not an option, we have to make do with the tools we have.

 

The biggest reason forum posters say they avoid redside is a lack of people to team with.  Getting more of those people together will help with some small part of that.  A forum board would also help.  Designating a specific server as a unofficial Rogue Island server would help.  So I’m not for just bonus XP (and in fact I am a die hard Hero forever).  But what do you have to lose?  How would it harm you?

[Steampunkette]

We aren’t going to get a “massive” anything.  I don’t disagree that’s required to gain significant traction.  But since it’s not an option, we have to make do with the tools we have.

 

The biggest reason forum posters say they avoid redside is a lack of people to team with.  Getting more of those people together will help with some small part of that.  A forum board would also help.  Designating a specific server as a unofficial Rogue Island server would help.  So I’m not for just bonus XP (and in fact I am a die hard Hero forever).  But what do you have to lose?  How would it harm you?

 

"The Biggest Reason"? Citation needed.

 

Yeah, a lot of people dislike that there's not many people redside, but there's also a ton of people who:

 

A) Don't wanna be a Villain

B) Don't wanna be a Lackey

C) Hate the Atmosphere/Environment

and

D) Hate the Enemy Groups

 

Most people have 2-3 of these gripes rather than just one. And 'Fixing' 1 for 2 weeks with a "Villains get MOAR XP!" event just 'Fixes' it for that one week. I don't deny that a handful of people will probably stay redside at the end of those two weeks, but is it really worthwhile?

 

And Legree, I disagree. (Hey, that Rhymes!)

 

There's a few dozen people who would HAPPILY rewrite all the Redside Content to being you beating people up for information or getting tips and suggestions from various NPC Contacts rather than working on their behalf. That would go a LONG way to changing the way Redside feels.

[Clave Dark 5]

 

"The Biggest Reason"? Citation needed.

 

Yeah, a lot of people dislike that there's not many people redside, but there's also a ton of people who:

[/quoe]

 

See the thread pith a poll up top that's labeled "For those who don't play redside - why not?".  Right now that is indeed the number one answer.

[Steampunkette]

 

"The Biggest Reason"? Citation needed.

 

Yeah, a lot of people dislike that there's not many people redside, but there's also a ton of people who:

 

See the thread pith a poll up top that's labeled "For those who don't play redside - why not?".  Right now that is indeed the number one answer.

 

48/118,317

 

Your sample size is WAY too small to draw meaningful conclusions.

[Legree]

There's a few dozen people who would HAPPILY rewrite all the Redside Content to being you beating people up for information or getting tips and suggestions from various NPC Contacts rather than working on their behalf. That would go a LONG way to changing the way Redside feels.

 

There's already contacts in the game with whom you have an antagonistic relationship, to one degree or another, as well as writing that ties itself in knots to portray the events as being of your instigation.  Some of it works, some of it doesn't.  Either way you're still heading into that warehouse to defeat all Mooks.

 

There's a good reason why many contacts treat player villains as no more than freelance muscle, and that's because for much of the levelling experience that's exactly what they are.  Regardless of what's written in a bio or the player's own personal head-canon they are one of many and a dozen more just like them are dropped off in Mercy on a regular basis.  That's true at least up until Grandville, and to disregard that is to disregard a large part of the setting.

 

There's always a bigger fish.  Five of them, in fact, and they've got an army of spider soldiers - and every other freelance villain in the Isles - to deal with anyone who gets too far out of line. For me that's the most important thing Arachnos does in the game - it justifies why the Rogue Isles are the way there are, and more importantly it justifies why they don't descend into total anarchy.

[Burnt Toast]

ROFLMAO! CoH NEVER had 2 million players.. NEVER. At the height of CoH there was approx 180,000 (https://www.gamefront.com/games/gamingtoday/article/cryptic-ceo-jack-emmert-talks-neverwinter-mmos-and-more) paying accounts. When the announcement was made on 8/31/2012 there was approx 65,000-70,000 accounts active (Not all of those were premium), but that doesn't mean they were all being played. That's 70,000 spread across all the servers that CoH had when it was live.

 

There certainly were more ACCOUNTS on Virtue, but that again doesn't mean players. Your numbers are so far off it is ridiculous. Think of it this way... Atlas Park reached 33 during the rally - that was approximately 2200 people (Not all APs were full). That was the big showup on Freedom... Virtue was close behind.. so let's say another 2000... that's still HALF of what Homecoming sees on a busy evening.

 

While it's true Paragon/CoH was not LOSING money... they were not making much in the way of profits because 1. The player base was 1/3 what it was in it's prime and 2. There were a lot of freemium/free accounts.

 

There is no way to get 900,000 players back because that is 4.5 times the total number of players at the game's peak. Not sure where you got your numbers from, but there is some (limited) data showing what CoH had as far as subscribers out there. If you are going to reply (and poopoo other people) at least make sure you are using real facts and not just pulling numbers out of your butt.. that just makes it so no one takes you remotely serious.

 

 

Redside has always been anemic.

Yes, but as pointed out, it wasn't this anemic before shut-down.  Something 's changed here and we should react to that, much like reacting to people doing nothing but AE farming required a nerfing of that system.

 

This whole -game- wasn't this anemic before shut-down. There were still around 2 million players when the lights went out, Clave. Now there's 100,000. There's not enough people to fully populate the game to a literal 1/10th of the degree that it was populated before the shutdown.

 

There were more players on -Virtue- than there are players, today. Consider that whackiness.

 

If we should "Incentivize" anything it's getting another 900,000 players to come back to the game. That would largely "Fix" the Redside population 'cause if even 1/10th of them were to go Redside that'd be the whole population of all the Homecoming Servers.

[Steampunkette]

ROFLMAO! CoH NEVER had 2 million players.. NEVER. At the height of CoH there was approx 180,000 (https://www.gamefront.com/games/gamingtoday/article/cryptic-ceo-jack-emmert-talks-neverwinter-mmos-and-more) paying accounts. When the announcement was made on 8/31/2012 there was approx 65,000-70,000 accounts active (Not all of those were premium), but that doesn't mean they were all being played. That's 70,000 spread across all the servers that CoH had when it was live.

 

There certainly were more ACCOUNTS on Virtue, but that again doesn't mean players. Your numbers are so far off it is ridiculous. Think of it this way... Atlas Park reached 33 during the rally - that was approximately 2200 people (Not all APs were full). That was the big showup on Freedom... Virtue was close behind.. so let's say another 2000... that's still HALF of what Homecoming sees on a busy evening.

 

While it's true Paragon/CoH was not LOSING money... they were not making much in the way of profits because 1. The player base was 1/3 what it was in it's prime and 2. There were a lot of freemium/free accounts.

 

There is no way to get 900,000 players back because that is 4.5 times the total number of players at the game's peak. Not sure where you got your numbers from, but there is some (limited) data showing what CoH had as far as subscribers out there. If you are going to reply (and poopoo other people) at least make sure you are using real facts and not just pulling numbers out of your butt.. that just makes it so no one takes you remotely serious.

 

 

Redside has always been anemic.

Yes, but as pointed out, it wasn't this anemic before shut-down.  Something 's changed here and we should react to that, much like reacting to people doing nothing but AE farming required a nerfing of that system.

 

This whole -game- wasn't this anemic before shut-down. There were still around 2 million players when the lights went out, Clave. Now there's 100,000. There's not enough people to fully populate the game to a literal 1/10th of the degree that it was populated before the shutdown.

 

There were more players on -Virtue- than there are players, today. Consider that whackiness.

 

If we should "Incentivize" anything it's getting another 900,000 players to come back to the game. That would largely "Fix" the Redside population 'cause if even 1/10th of them were to go Redside that'd be the whole population of all the Homecoming Servers.

 

You're right. Though I had earnestly thought the number was 2 million it was 200k.

 

My mistake!

 

But even though that's the case... https://mmo-population.com/r/Cityofheroes

 

There's 685,000 players out there who claim to be playing it in the last few months.

 

Maybe there's a bunch of other servers out there I don't know about, or maybe there's 500+ thousand people who are nostalgic.

[justicebeliever]

 

"The Biggest Reason"? Citation needed.

 

Yeah, a lot of people dislike that there's not many people redside, but there's also a ton of people who:

 

See the thread pith a poll up top that's labeled "For those who don't play redside - why not?".  Right now that is indeed the number one answer.

 

48/118,317

 

Your sample size is WAY too small to draw meaningful conclusions.

 

Way to small to draw any statistically significant conclusions.  But it’s still data.  And changes have been made on less feedback.  But i’m still not hearing a reason that doing so will cause a negative experience.

 

And look Steampunkette, I’m not looking for fight or to win an argument here.  I really want to see us help more people have more fun on the servers.  Do you have some alternate suggestions that are doable in the short term?  Let’s solve this together before we lose even more people and even small differences won’t help...

 

 

[Steampunkette]

 

"The Biggest Reason"? Citation needed.

 

Yeah, a lot of people dislike that there's not many people redside, but there's also a ton of people who:

 

See the thread pith a poll up top that's labeled "For those who don't play redside - why not?".  Right now that is indeed the number one answer.

 

48/118,317

 

Your sample size is WAY too small to draw meaningful conclusions.

 

Way to small to draw any statistically significant conclusions.  But it’s still data.  And changes have been made on less feedback.  But i’m still not hearing a reason that doing so will cause a negative experience.

 

And look Steampunkette, I’m not looking for fight or to win an argument here.  I really want to see us help more people have more fun on the servers.  Do you have some alternate suggestions that are doable in the short term?  Let’s solve this together before we lose even more people and even small differences won’t help...

 

There are two big reasons I have:

 

1) The Admins/Staff/Developers have limited time and resources. VERY limited. I'd rather they spend it on something more impactful than a couple of weeks of "Moar XP for Villains!"

2) This course of action sets a precedence in which redside can create another thread 2 months from now and get another big XP Buff Event or some other incentive that, AGAIN, takes up the limited time mentioned previously.

 

Yeah. The "Real" solutions are big as fuck. It would take a lot of effort and time to get them implemented. But I'd rather the devs spend 6 months on -that- than 9 months on that with random interspersed breaks where they set up ANOTHER Incentive Drive every 3-5 weeks.

 

Development in this time and place is very much a Zero Sum Game. And there ain't a lot of it to go around. Asking for a big chunk of it to go to maybe getting a dozen more long-time Redside players seems like such a waste.

[SwitchFade]

 

"The Biggest Reason"? Citation needed.

 

Yeah, a lot of people dislike that there's not many people redside, but there's also a ton of people who:

 

See the thread pith a poll up top that's labeled "For those who don't play redside - why not?".  Right now that is indeed the number one answer.

 

48/118,317

 

Your sample size is WAY too small to draw meaningful conclusions.

 

Incorrect.

[Burnt Toast]

The link you provided states it is an estimate - and I am HIGHLY suspect of how they reached such an estimate. I find it hard to believe that HC has over 3 times the number of registered players than CoH had at it's prime. I know HC at one point released data on how many accounts there were and it was NOWHERE near that - at the end of April there were 31,500 accounts - If we have doubled that amount I would be surprised which would still be 1/10th of what that site claims. You honestly believe in 2 months we have went from 31,500 accounts to nearly 700,000?

 

I am sorry that you think 7000-9000 people is anemic spread across 5 shards - that leaves roughly 1,400 people per server at peak times - or 175 full 8-man teams per shard. Right now at 4:21AM EST on a Sunday morning there are 2,469 people playing... 308 8-man teams.

 

And to clarify - NO there was not even 200k active accounts when the announcement was made - it was 1/3rd of that... that 200k is not even correct according to site data and Jack himself.

 

Again... if you are going to try to use numbers/facts do not rely on estimates from 3rd party sites (who obviously have no clue what they are talking about)...and instead look for official sources/data.

 

ROFLMAO! CoH NEVER had 2 million players.. NEVER. At the height of CoH there was approx 180,000 (https://www.gamefront.com/games/gamingtoday/article/cryptic-ceo-jack-emmert-talks-neverwinter-mmos-and-more) paying accounts. When the announcement was made on 8/31/2012 there was approx 65,000-70,000 accounts active (Not all of those were premium), but that doesn't mean they were all being played. That's 70,000 spread across all the servers that CoH had when it was live.

 

There certainly were more ACCOUNTS on Virtue, but that again doesn't mean players. Your numbers are so far off it is ridiculous. Think of it this way... Atlas Park reached 33 during the rally - that was approximately 2200 people (Not all APs were full). That was the big showup on Freedom... Virtue was close behind.. so let's say another 2000... that's still HALF of what Homecoming sees on a busy evening.

 

While it's true Paragon/CoH was not LOSING money... they were not making much in the way of profits because 1. The player base was 1/3 what it was in it's prime and 2. There were a lot of freemium/free accounts.

 

There is no way to get 900,000 players back because that is 4.5 times the total number of players at the game's peak. Not sure where you got your numbers from, but there is some (limited) data showing what CoH had as far as subscribers out there. If you are going to reply (and poopoo other people) at least make sure you are using real facts and not just pulling numbers out of your butt.. that just makes it so no one takes you remotely serious.

 

 

Redside has always been anemic.

Yes, but as pointed out, it wasn't this anemic before shut-down.  Something 's changed here and we should react to that, much like reacting to people doing nothing but AE farming required a nerfing of that system.

 

This whole -game- wasn't this anemic before shut-down. There were still around 2 million players when the lights went out, Clave. Now there's 100,000. There's not enough people to fully populate the game to a literal 1/10th of the degree that it was populated before the shutdown.

 

There were more players on -Virtue- than there are players, today. Consider that whackiness.

 

If we should "Incentivize" anything it's getting another 900,000 players to come back to the game. That would largely "Fix" the Redside population 'cause if even 1/10th of them were to go Redside that'd be the whole population of all the Homecoming Servers.

 

You're right. Though I had earnestly thought the number was 2 million it was 200k.

 

My mistake!

 

But even though that's the case... https://mmo-population.com/r/Cityofheroes

 

There's 685,000 players out there who claim to be playing it in the last few months.

 

Maybe there's a bunch of other servers out there I don't know about, or maybe there's 500+ thousand people who are nostalgic.

[justicebeliever]

 

There are two big reasons I have:

 

1) The Admins/Staff/Developers have limited time and resources. VERY limited. I'd rather they spend it on something more impactful than a couple of weeks of "Moar XP for Villains!"

2) This course of action sets a precedence in which redside can create another thread 2 months from now and get another big XP Buff Event or some other incentive that, AGAIN, takes up the limited time mentioned previously.

 

Yeah. The "Real" solutions are big as fuck. It would take a lot of effort and time to get them implemented. But I'd rather the devs spend 6 months on -that- than 9 months on that with random interspersed breaks where they set up ANOTHER Incentive Drive every 3-5 weeks.

 

Development in this time and place is very much a Zero Sum Game. And there ain't a lot of it to go around. Asking for a big chunk of it to go to maybe getting a dozen more long-time Redside players seems like such a waste.

 

Again, not arguing, because on the surface I agree with everything you've said so far...but I want to discuss some of the assumptions here

1.) Dev time to develop content:  Unless SCoRE announces a major content push, I wouldn't count on new content happening anytime soon.  In 6 years, SCoRE added one TF consisting of 3 missions...So in my mind, new content is pretty moot at this point from the SCoRE team (who does the development for HC).  At that rate any significant changes to content won't happen in my lifetime...

 

2.) So if we assume #1 is true (and I said if - they could surprise us), we need to go elsewhere for content...I'm pretty sure that if players started developing content, it would be vetted and implemented...You mentioned

There's a few dozen people who would HAPPILY rewrite all the Redside Content to being you beating people up for information or getting tips and suggestions from various NPC Contacts rather than working on their behalf. That would go a LONG way to changing the way Redside feels.

Let's get those people to work, shall we?  If such a group is really serious, then I am sure that HC/SCoRE would be really serious at looking at what they could come up with...

 

3.) Regarding precedence...I think we can really handle that - If we try bonus XP week and it works, then YEAH!, we might seriously want to consider that precedent, because it's valuable.  If we try it and in a few months there is <5% gain in Villain population, then people can bring it up all they want and I'll be the first to say - "Look, we tried it, and it doesn't work".

 

4.) Back to Dev Time:  Here are my thoughts on what will make the biggest difference (in order) with only small amount of dev time:

• Make a forum board for redside - It's really hard to plan events if you have to manage them across 5 shards, and without events, it's just going to be really hard to redside to coordinate
  
• Designate an unofficial server - Once the redsiders have a home, they can figure out what's the best server for redsiders and they can choose to consolidate there if teaming up is more important than their current server home
  
• After the above are finished, remind people who have given up on the redside, or have ignored it for now, or just haven't gotten around to it, to come back and try it, with a double XP event
  

I think the 1st 2 bullets matter more than the 3rd.  And if XP on redside only is a development hurdle, them I am sure that idea will go nowhere, and rightfully so...

 

 

[Steampunkette]

The link you provided states it is an estimate - and I am HIGHLY suspect of how they reached such an estimate. I find it hard to believe that HC has over 3 times the number of registered players than CoH had at it's prime. I know HC at one point released data on how many accounts there were and it was NOWHERE near that - at the end of April there were 31,500 accounts - If we have doubled that amount I would be surprised which would still be 1/10th of what that site claims. You honestly believe in 2 months we have went from 31,500 accounts to nearly 700,000?

 

I am sorry that you think 7000-9000 people is anemic spread across 5 shards - that leaves roughly 1,400 people per server at peak times - or 175 full 8-man teams per shard. Right now at 4:21AM EST on a Sunday morning there are 2,469 people playing... 308 8-man teams.

 

And to clarify - NO there was not even 200k active accounts when the announcement was made - it was 1/3rd of that... that 200k is not even correct according to site data and Jack himself.

 

Again... if you are going to try to use numbers/facts do not rely on estimates from 3rd party sites (who obviously have no clue what they are talking about)...and instead look for official sources/data.

 

... Who exactly are you trying to impress, at this point, Toast?

 

I acknowledged I was wrong about the subscriber count. I haven't tried to "Prove" anything using Third Party facts or websites. I also never claimed Homecoming has 3 times the number of users that CoH did.

 

I pointed to the website to indicate that there's a lot more buzz -out- there about CoH than 200,000 people scattered across the globe. That website? Their algorithm is based on unique hits to the CoH Subreddit and the CoH Subreddit Subscribers. SHITLOADS more people have checked it out since April than have ever been on the CoH Subreddit before.

 

As to HC going from 38,000 accounts to however high: Check the bottom of the forums. There's 118,526 users with forum accounts. Checking my post yesterday there were 118,317. That's 209 new subscribers since 9pm yesterday. HC is getting more and more users by the day.

 

I eagerly hope to see them in-game.

[SwitchFade]

 

There are two big reasons I have:

 

1) The Admins/Staff/Developers have limited time and resources. VERY limited. I'd rather they spend it on something more impactful than a couple of weeks of "Moar XP for Villains!"

2) This course of action sets a precedence in which redside can create another thread 2 months from now and get another big XP Buff Event or some other incentive that, AGAIN, takes up the limited time mentioned previously.

 

Yeah. The "Real" solutions are big as fuck. It would take a lot of effort and time to get them implemented. But I'd rather the devs spend 6 months on -that- than 9 months on that with random interspersed breaks where they set up ANOTHER Incentive Drive every 3-5 weeks.

 

Development in this time and place is very much a Zero Sum Game. And there ain't a lot of it to go around. Asking for a big chunk of it to go to maybe getting a dozen more long-time Redside players seems like such a waste.

 

Again, not arguing, because on the surface I agree with everything you've said so far...but I want to discuss some of the assumptions here

1.) Dev time to develop content:  Unless SCoRE announces a major content push, I wouldn't count on new content happening anytime soon.  In 6 years, SCoRE added one TF consisting of 3 missions...So in my mind, new content is pretty moot at this point from the SCoRE team (who does the development for HC).  At that rate any significant changes to content won't happen in my lifetime...

 

2.) So if we assume #1 is true (and I said if - they could surprise us), we need to go elsewhere for content...I'm pretty sure that if players started developing content, it would be vetted and implemented...You mentioned

There's a few dozen people who would HAPPILY rewrite all the Redside Content to being you beating people up for information or getting tips and suggestions from various NPC Contacts rather than working on their behalf. That would go a LONG way to changing the way Redside feels.

Let's get those people to work, shall we?  If such a group is really serious, then I am sure that HC/SCoRE would be really serious at looking at what they could come up with...

 

3.) Regarding precedence...I think we can really handle that - If we try bonus XP week and it works, then YEAH!, we might seriously want to consider that precedent, because it's valuable.  If we try it and in a few months there is <5% gain in Villain population, then people can bring it up all they want and I'll be the first to say - "Look, we tried it, and it doesn't work".

 

4.) Back to Dev Time:  Here are my thoughts on what will make the biggest difference (in order) with only small amount of dev time:

• Make a forum board for redside - It's really hard to plan events if you have to manage them across 5 shards, and without events, it's just going to be really hard to redside to coordinate
  
• Designate an unofficial server - Once the redsiders have a home, they can figure out what's the best server for redsiders and they can choose to consolidate there if teaming up is more important than their current server home
  
• After the above are finished, remind people who have given up on the redside, or have ignored it for now, or just haven't gotten around to it, to come back and try it, with a double XP event
  

I think the 1st 2 bullets matter more than the 3rd.  And if XP on redside only is a development hurdle, them I am sure that idea will go nowhere, and rightfully so...

 

This should be the point in this thread where we all let every post before go, and redirect to suggestions like this. Good suggestions.

 

So

 

- Wednesday event called: Wicked Wednesday, repeats weekly, a 50% boost to exp rediside only.

-redisde captains on wicked Wednesday: in tandem, experience redside captains are in zones, in level ranges 1-20, 21-35, 36-50, they answer questions, direct people to best and most fun content, form tf's and teams and tour people, so that these people fall in love with redside.

-dev hosted redside costume contest each month on a Sunday called:  ThreadZ, and info rewards for the top 5 places.

-weekly strike force event: Maniacal Monday, each Monday a rediside strike force that gives double XP, or double merits. Dev choice.

 

Some thoughts. XP boost is a tool that can help. Used wisely.

[Charistoph]

Having a dedicated redside server may not be so useful.  I like having all my characters on one server, and I'd hate to have to move everybody just so my Villains have some friend time.

[Legree]

There's a few dozen people who would HAPPILY rewrite all the Redside Content to being you beating people up for information or getting tips and suggestions from various NPC Contacts rather than working on their behalf. That would go a LONG way to changing the way Redside feels.

Let's get those people to work, shall we?  If such a group is really serious, then I am sure that HC/SCoRE would be really serious at looking at what they could come up with...

 

Writing new content?  Sure, why not.  AE's a good testing ground for that.  But rewriting existing content?  <Bleep> no.  Never.  I like the Rogue Isles as they are, and have no desire to see the existing story arcs reworked.

 

"Beating people up for information"?  How do you think we get those clues after we defeat <boss> and his crew?  It doesn't need to be spelled out, nor should it be.  It would be as out of place as it would if half the story arcs on blueside played out like they were written specifically for dark 'n gritty 90s anti-heroes.

[Steampunkette]

Having a dedicated redside server may not be so useful.  I like having all my characters on one server, and I'd hate to have to move everybody just so my Villains have some friend time.

 

It seems to me like Everlasting would make a great "Unofficial Villains" server?

 

There's plenty of heroes to play and fight against, lots of roleplay for the villains that go into that...

 

Just need to drastically increase the power to that one server...

[Burnt Toast]

Impress - no one. Curtail people from throwing random numbers out there that are in no way accurate... anyone. You claimed "There's 685,000 players out there who claim to be playing it in the last few months" which is  over three times what CoH had at their peak. You can't go around claiming stuff without the data to back it up. Maybe the problem isn't your "data" but the way you use such data to fit your stance/opinion at the time. You clearly stated there were 685,000 players who claim to be playing... no that is not the case at all. Reddit hits etc do not correlate into actual players etc... Choose your words more carefully is the lesson.

 

The link you provided states it is an estimate - and I am HIGHLY suspect of how they reached such an estimate. I find it hard to believe that HC has over 3 times the number of registered players than CoH had at it's prime. I know HC at one point released data on how many accounts there were and it was NOWHERE near that - at the end of April there were 31,500 accounts - If we have doubled that amount I would be surprised which would still be 1/10th of what that site claims. You honestly believe in 2 months we have went from 31,500 accounts to nearly 700,000?

 

I am sorry that you think 7000-9000 people is anemic spread across 5 shards - that leaves roughly 1,400 people per server at peak times - or 175 full 8-man teams per shard. Right now at 4:21AM EST on a Sunday morning there are 2,469 people playing... 308 8-man teams.

 

And to clarify - NO there was not even 200k active accounts when the announcement was made - it was 1/3rd of that... that 200k is not even correct according to site data and Jack himself.

 

Again... if you are going to try to use numbers/facts do not rely on estimates from 3rd party sites (who obviously have no clue what they are talking about)...and instead look for official sources/data.

 

... Who exactly are you trying to impress, at this point, Toast?

 

I acknowledged I was wrong about the subscriber count. I haven't tried to "Prove" anything using Third Party facts or websites. I also never claimed Homecoming has 3 times the number of users that CoH did.

 

I pointed to the website to indicate that there's a lot more buzz -out- there about CoH than 200,000 people scattered across the globe. That website? Their algorithm is based on unique hits to the CoH Subreddit and the CoH Subreddit Subscribers. SHITLOADS more people have checked it out since April than have ever been on the CoH Subreddit before.

 

As to HC going from 38,000 accounts to however high: Check the bottom of the forums. There's 118,526 users with forum accounts. Checking my post yesterday there were 118,317. That's 209 new subscribers since 9pm yesterday. HC is getting more and more users by the day.

 

I eagerly hope to see them in-game.

[Steampunkette]

Impress - no one. Curtail people from throwing random numbers out there that are in no way accurate... anyone. You claimed "There's 685,000 players out there who claim to be playing it in the last few months" which is  over three times what CoH had at their peak. You can't go around claiming stuff without the data to back it up. Maybe the problem isn't your "data" but the way you use such data to fit your stance/opinion at the time. You clearly stated there were 685,000 players who claim to be playing... no that is not the case at all. Reddit hits etc do not correlate into actual players etc... Choose your words more carefully is the lesson.

 

Nah. The lesson here is that there's some people who will go out of their way to be condescending and rude, without even having the grace to accept someone else acknowledging they were wrong.

 

That they'll berate someone needlessly for no apparent reason.

 

I tried to give you a chance, Toast, to interact in a reasonable manner. I'm sad you didn't take it.

 

Bye!

[RikOz]

I play a few villains, and the thing I've always noticed is that it just feels the same as blueside, just with different stories.

 

There's a fundamental issue that I see:

 

Heroes are (generally) altruistic. They do good for the sake of doing good. Any tangible rewards are just bonuses, not the primary motivation.

 

Villains, on the other hand are (generally) greedy. They do crime in order to gain some tangible benefit. They rob a bank to make money. Except, robbing a bank or stealing an object for the purpose of selling it ends up feeling like wasted effort when the only evidence of "loot" is that it says "loot" in the mission completion text, but the character doesn't actually obtain any loot beyond the same standard rewards a hero gets for doing the opposite mission. Villainous "victories" are hollow.

 

Even if the villain's goal is to obtain "power", to become the most powerful villain ... why? Just for the sake of being more powerful? A hero obtains more power so that he/she can help more people and defeat bigger threats. Villains obtain more power to ultimately benefit themselves in the material sense, but that never happens.

 

It's one of the unfortunate side effects of the MMO genre, that neither opposing faction can ever actually "win". The status quo has to be maintained for gameplay/balance reasons.

[SwitchFade]

Impress - no one. Curtail people from throwing random numbers out there that are in no way accurate... anyone. You claimed "There's 685,000 players out there who claim to be playing it in the last few months" which is  over three times what CoH had at their peak. You can't go around claiming stuff without the data to back it up. Maybe the problem isn't your "data" but the way you use such data to fit your stance/opinion at the time. You clearly stated there were 685,000 players who claim to be playing... no that is not the case at all. Reddit hits etc do not correlate into actual players etc... Choose your words more carefully is the lesson.

 

Nah. The lesson here is that there's some people who will go out of their way to be condescending and rude, without even having the grace to accept someone else acknowledging they were wrong.

 

That they'll berate someone needlessly for no apparent reason.

 

I tried to give you a chance, Toast, to interact in a reasonable manner. I'm sad you didn't take it.

 

Bye!

 

Steam, you actually did throw around numbers to validate your point. And, you're doing exactly what you accuse others of. So, toast is correct.

[Catgoyle]

Having a dedicated redside server may not be so useful.  I like having all my characters on one server, and I'd hate to have to move everybody just so my Villains have some friend time.

And with the alignment system, even my dedicated villains may faf about in Paragon City from time to time.