Are people leaving?

[Water]

On 12/27/2023 at 1:47 AM, Clave Dark 5 said:

I've been hearing talk of this for like two years now, I don't think we have anything to worry about.

 

Haha, I heard this in the Winter of 2019 - the first Winter after HC launched ! Y'know what - population has never dwindled from the average in those 4 years. Sure there have been quieter times but then there have been busier times. It remains at a mean level in my experience.

 

[GM Crumpet]

I have no idea of the figures except what everyone else sees, but as a player I see events with full leagues on the busier servers, MSR and Hami leagues full, TF's filling quickly and plenty of teams and farming going on. There is the general drop off of players that every game gets, but we do seem to be reasonably stable. As someone else said, there is a new page on the horizon and that always drums up interest, and the event runners don't seem to have much trouble filling their regularly scheduled events so the numbers are still there. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

4 hours ago, JasperStone said:

undead room is more like it

that was the bloody joke. Hence the inverted commas

[Doomguide2005]

5 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

 

Are you sure you're playing City of Heroes or are you in Snarky's "living" room?

I believe it's called long time storage or cold storage but @Snarky no doubt has an old term for it...very old.

[Snarky]

When I light it I find it quite cheerful.  I even have a gaming nook set up.  Although running power and internet was a bitch.

 

[kelika2]

name release live

server merges

new global channel, SG/friend/Coalition recruitment.  Give it a lockout timer every time you post in it.  like a 15 minute lockout timer would prevent people spamming their SG or people using it just to chat

[Snarky]

47 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

name release live

server merges

new global channel, SG/friend/Coalition recruitment.  Give it a lockout timer every time you post in it.  like a 15 minute lockout timer would prevent people spamming their SG or people using it just to chat

Server mergers is a bad idea.  You can research why, take my word for it, or hate on my comment.  Will not change the fact.  Gravity is also real.

 

I do like the SG channel thing, although I honestly think it is of limited use.  Recruiting toons that tend to be alts is something I went through on Live for months. My best experience for grouping in CoH was Cosmic Council, on Discord, and they ran near constant.   Until they burned out and are now hiding.  I swear I do not know where the bodies are

[GM Crumpet]

20 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Server mergers is a bad idea.  You can research why, take my word for it, or hate on my comment.  Will not change the fact.  Gravity is also real.

 

I do like the SG channel thing, although I honestly think it is of limited use.  Recruiting toons that tend to be alts is something I went through on Live for months. My best experience for grouping in CoH was Cosmic Council, on Discord, and they ran near constant.   Until they burned out and are now hiding.  I swear I do not know where the bodies are

Yeah, I think Number Six explained why it's not happening from an admin point of view, and from a GM point of view it would be a nightmare as so many players would lose names, globals, SG's, bases they have spent years working on etc. I'd never see the end of the tickets about it.

 

As for new channels, we have plenty that cover most things, and players can make their own if they wish. We added the global channel as people tended to use the LFG channel to talk about everything and nothing so it made sense to have an off topic channel. It works well, though it does seem to make people think they can be spicy if a help or LFG conversation dares stray off topic for any reason 😛 

 

[DougGraves]

People are clearly leaving - My global friends list has a lot of people who never log on anymore.

 

But the population seems to be fairly  stable overall.

[Snarky]

4 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

People are clearly leaving - My global friends list has a lot of people who never log on anymore.

 

But the population seems to be fairly  stable overall.

New people show up.  Play for months or years.    It is a game that fills a niche not found elsewhere.  Customization at the level CoH offers is extremely rare.  The customization is not just exterior but powers/animations/ and builds.  Of course it would be nice to have a “modern” engine and new content.   But city buses still get constant use too.  Just like decades ago.  

[Glacier Peak]

2 hours ago, Snarky said:

When I light it I find it quite cheerful.  I even have a gaming nook set up.  Although running power and internet was a bitch.

 

 

 

Is that the Pocket D card on your desk!? That used to give players exclusive access to the Tiki Room, right?

[Frostbiter]

2 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Is that the Pocket D card on your desk!? That used to give players exclusive access to the Tiki Room, right?

 

I think that's a Sheetz card. They look really similar.

[Snarky]

9 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Is that the Pocket D card on your desk!? That used to give players exclusive access to the Tiki Room, right?

Yes indeed!  I got it when I bought the Good vs Evil edition from a brick and mortar game store so long ago….  Had a map of the city.  Which is lost somewhere in the back of my catacombs.  I think. Someone may have stolen it thinking it was a map to the outside.  Dinner guests can be quite a challenge

Edited December 28, 2023 by Snarky

[kelika2]

2 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

Yeah, I think Number Six explained why it's not happening from an admin point of view, and from a GM point of view it would be a nightmare as so many players would lose names, globals, SG's, bases they have spent years working on etc. I'd never see the end of the tickets about it.

 

As for new channels, we have plenty that cover most things, and players can make their own if they wish. We added the global channel as people tended to use the LFG channel to talk about everything and nothing so it made sense to have an off topic channel. It works well, though it does seem to make people think they can be spicy if a help or LFG conversation dares stray off topic for any reason 😛 

 

this kinda dampens my hopes that the name release thing will ever go live because a server merge + name release going live would be the best time for it to happen.

bases can be rebuilt.  can probably even shake loose those that made bases years ago and been gone for 4 years

names were hopefully one day meant to be released

and im not sure what you mean about Globals.  friend/ignore/@name?  friends obviously come and go from the thread theme, ignores are a few clicks away and @name might be an issue

 

but then again... a server merge would mean RPers and PvPbeggars to be...

Maybe just merge Torch into Excel as a trial and go from there.  And call the new server Full Circle as most of Torch split off into Excel

[Glacier Peak]

2 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

bases can be rebuilt. [...] but then again... a server merge would mean RPers and PvPbeggars to be...

Maybe just merge Torch into Excel as a trial and go from there.  And call the new server Full Circle as most of Torch split off into Excel

Yikes! That's a lot of bad ideas in one post.

 

There's a few bases spread across the servers that are truly awe inspiring, I don't have any, but I'd feel terrible for the folks who put their hearts and many hours in to them to find them deleted just to merge a server. Have you been to any Halloween themed bases? Wow.

 

RP and PvP beggars? Wut?

 

Instead of merging any servers, just don't. There are server transfers for a reason. Basically unlimited too. Players will go where they choose. 

[Coyotedancer]

17 minutes ago, kelika2 said:

bases can be rebuilt. 

 

How to tell everyone "I've never spent six months of my life building an elaborate base" WITHOUT just coming out and saying so.... 😄

 

While it's absolutely technically true that even the most complex base COULD be rebuilt, it's not exactly a small undertaking and definitely not something to just casually toss out there like it would be some easy weekend project. Replicating some of the things people have built would be more like reconstructing Notre-Dame than knocking out a backyard shed.  That alone would make mergers a NO WAY vote for me. 

[Captain Fabulous]

It's true. All the kool kids are playing Ship of Heroes and City of Titans now. 🤷‍♂️

[Snarky]

18 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

It's true. All the kool kids are playing Ship of Heroes and City of Titans now. 🤷‍♂️

City of Titans has like one generic pew pew power to blast wandering minions last I heard.  Of course i stopped looking at their updates after #50 or so. Just got #385

[kelika2]

2 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

RP and PvP beggars? Wut?

Ever since everquest in 1999 to now I never had a good run-in with a roleplayer.  I always avoid RP servers and overly animated/text rich people.

And whenever someone on Excel wants to PVP they generally go on for an hour+ offering people money if they can kill them

 

2 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

How to tell everyone "I've never spent six months of my life building an elaborate base" WITHOUT just coming out and saying so.... 😄

You are correct.  Ingame I use Ouro and the LFGtab to travel around along with TT and MT and I do not see value/pride in bases.

And I say this without knowing how deep the basebuilding is, but if you constantly build and alter.. cant you just go back to that on the theoretical new server?

Or maybe ask the devs a way to "save" bases like AE arcs

[lemming]

Well Kelika2, I think you need to realize why you are getting push back from the people that realize what work goes into base building.  Just because you don't care for an aspect of the game, doesn't mean others don't have investment into it.

 

And read the post by Number 6 about why server merges aren't going to happen.  tldr version: It wouldn't save anything and it would be a pain.

 

Name release will probably happen at some point.  The basics have been put in place and the devs are probably thinking about when.

[GM Crumpet]

I get why people ask "why don't you?" sometimes, and the simple answer is because it would be an absolute pain to do and wouldn't really solve anything. With the shards we have we have flexibility when casual players return for events or new updates and the load is spread out. Merging shards would just increase the load on the remaining shards and restrict any increase in the player base.

[Snarky]

10 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

I get why people ask "why don't you?" sometimes, and the simple answer is because it would be an absolute pain to do and wouldn't really solve anything. With the shards we have we have flexibility when casual players return for events or new updates and the load is spread out. Merging shards would just increase the load on the remaining shards and restrict any increase in the player base.

Why don’t you SHORTEN SYNAPSE

 

easy, lock all kill alls to the smallest maps.  
 

sorry…..it was bottled up in there.  Back to my coffin

[GM Crumpet]

36 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Why don’t you SHORTEN SYNAPSE

 

 

Because I like to annoy the undead

[Scarlet Shocker]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

Why don’t you SHORTEN SYNAPSE

 

oh ok

 

SNAP

 

There, shortened it for you!

[Captain Fabulous]

14 hours ago, lemming said:

Name release will probably happen at some point.  The basics have been put in place and the devs are probably thinking about when.

The bunker they need to hide in after implementing the name release policy isn't finished being built. It'll be implemented once the bunker is completed and fully stocked with 6 months of supplies.