Polygon Article on City of Heroes and Interview with Widower

[Lunar Ronin]

It's a fairly in-depth article that you can find here.  I find it interesting that one of the reasons attributed to NC deciding to sunset CoH is that the player base became split between CoH, Champions Online, and DC Universe Online.

[biostem]

Meh... they're late to the party.  AFAIK, NCSoft dropped CoH because its Korean launch didn't do well, and as a Korean company, THAT was their main market...

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

Meh... they're late to the party.  AFAIK, NCSoft dropped CoH because its Korean launch didn't do well, and as a Korean company, THAT was their main market...

 

I seem to recall a little annoyance that some development funding was going towards COH 2 preliminaries without an OK from NC.

[BlackSpectre]

Wasn't there are bout 150,000 players still playing COH when NCsoft closed down COH?

 

[biostem]

3 minutes ago, BlackSpectre said:

Wasn't there are bout 150,000 players still playing COH when NCsoft closed down COH?

Working from memory, here, CoH was still earning enough to "keep the lights on", so to speak, but due to various issues, was shut down - it wasn't the tremendous success they wanted, and "doing OK" wasn't good enough...

[Akalabeth]

Didn't they launch GW2 at the time of shutting it down?  I always thought they just wanted to concentrate more on that because CoH wasn't making enough.

[BlackSpectre]

The likelihood is that there were multiple reasons why NCsoft decided to shut down COH, not just one. Reasons such as resources being stretched too thin, other projects seeming to have better prospects to make more money, to rising costs, etc. 

 

Personally, I never understood the decision. A business endeavor generating enough revenue to support itself with a small profit is no reason to shut it down. It is a reason to start pursuing additional business ventures though. 

 

I've never heard anyone state that it was expected that COH would start losing money in the future, but that also could have been a possible consideration to factor in.

 

[Glacier Peak]

Every time I read articles like this I think of how Blockbuster turned down buying Netflix many years ago. Blockbuster missed out and closed down (bankruptcy?) while Netflix went on to become a big company. I see Marvel and D.C. getting billions of U.S. Dollars for the media franchise they built over the last twenty years and think how a superhero game with an established player base could have enjoyed continued relevance and financial success even off said coat-tails.

 

That being said, I am much more satisfied with the experience Homecoming has created with this community and game than I was during the old subscription and microtransaction days.

 

Edit: My favorite line of the article and one I can relate to and appreciate the most is when @Widower said: "It helped that, in spite of never having met before, everyone on the team got on very well together and also was very willing to obliterate their sleep schedules.”

 

Based on my experience, the initial rush of support and passion for projects that a lot of people enjoy is abundant, but sustaining something like this for over five years and gaining legitimacy - that is incredible. Sometimes I find myself thinking about how much time has passed since I started playing on Homecoming. It feels like a big chunk of my life, already five years on. But I only play (and sometimes test!), I don't have to responsibilities like managing server infrastructure or donations or moderating the community. How folks can find the time to do all that and still have fun in this game is beyond my comprehension, but not beyond my appreciation and enduring thanks!

 

Edit 2: High praise in another part of the article: "Lee cited the Homecoming team’s addition of asymmetrical costumes, a community ask the Paragon team had never been able to figure out how to deliver."

Edited November 9 by Glacier Peak

[tidge]

15 hours ago, biostem said:

Meh... they're late to the party.  AFAIK, NCSoft dropped CoH because its Korean launch didn't do well, and as a Korean company, THAT was their main market...

 

CoX definitely did not fit the Korean mold (at the time, I cannot speak to *now*): The game didn't require/drive the type of all-day farming that was typical for that market.

 

Also: Standard subscriber rewards were pretty generous, and in-game purchases weren't necessary for the most part. I got the sense that the game was more than paying for itself (including development) just that it wasn't going to show the sorts of crazy growth that NCSoft wanted.

 

While I *hated* seeing the game sunset, I didn't like what the Live team was doing with the Lore at the end... specifically driving development on the Incarnate path. I know many players were tempted by the siren song of MOAR POWA, but getting new primary/secondary sets and sub-Incarnate content were IMO a much better thing to focus on for an engaged player base.

[Octogoat]

I was crushed when coh shutdown and it catapulted me into a ten year drift of going from MMO to MMO making new characters after new characters it tore my online social life to pieces as I no longer wanted to connect because in the back of my mind I thought "this could just shutdown tomorrow" homecoming is slowly healing that ridiculous social bug but it's slow and still in the back of my mind is that nagging feeling that the plug could be pulled any day now. It's hard to game and form online friendships with that kind of complex. It's also stupid and overdramatic but I can't help it. 

 

Articles like this just confirm the love even the dev team had for the game and why corporations shouldn't always make decisions.

[Oubliette_Red]

On 11/9/2024 at 11:19 AM, tidge said:

 

CoX definitely did not fit the Korean mold (at the time, I cannot speak to *now*): The game didn't require/drive the type of all-day farming that was typical for that market.

 

Also: Standard subscriber rewards were pretty generous, and in-game purchases weren't necessary for the most part. I got the sense that the game was more than paying for itself (including development) just that it wasn't going to show the sorts of crazy growth that NCSoft wanted.

 

While I *hated* seeing the game sunset, I didn't like what the Live team was doing with the Lore at the end... specifically driving development on the Incarnate path. I know many players were tempted by the siren song of MOAR POWA, but getting new primary/secondary sets and sub-Incarnate content were IMO a much better thing to focus on for an engaged player base.

 

If I recall correctly, CoH also had one of the highest retention rates of any MMO. People would continue to pay their subs even if they didn't log in for 6 months stretches. I recall all the doom-n-gloom when they switched to the hybrid model, I wasn't too sure about it myself when I first heard about it but then when details were shared about what was being provided (might have been during a HeroCon or meet-nogreet, don't exactly recall) I thought it was pretty even-keeled. Subs weren't losing out and Premium/F2P players could enjoy the majority of the game. Every MMO I've played since then wasn't nearly as generous with accessibility, I found most were overly stingy and made playing with friends nearly impossible.

 

I think the push for the Incarnate stuff was to fill the desire of players that wanted more "end-game/raid" content, which compared to most other MMO's CoH didn't have much to speak of.

[srmalloy]

On 11/9/2024 at 9:19 AM, tidge said:

CoX definitely did not fit the Korean mold (at the time, I cannot speak to *now*): The game didn't require/drive the type of all-day farming that was typical for that market.

I also suspect that a factor in their deciding to shut the game down was that the way Paragon Studios had set up the cash store, where anything you bought unlocked permanently for the entire account, couldn't be turned into the sort of one-time individual purchase microtransaction-based cash shop that sits behind virtually every Asian MMO, where you'd pay to unlock a single costume piece for a single character that could be used in a single costume slot, and if you changed the costume in that slot to not use the piece, you'd need to buy it again to use it again.

 

Asian MMOs are also stylistically different in gameplay. The average home computer there didn't have the graphical power to run the MMOs, so the Asian MMO publishers made deals to supply the internet cafes with systems that could if they'd make their games available. So while with a Western MMO you would go home, fire up your computer, sign into the game, and meet up with your friends or run solo, with an Asian MMO you got together with your friends, went down to the internet cafe, and all sat together playing as a group -- so once you got out of the tutorial area, it was expected that you'd be playing in a group, and all the content was balanced around your being part of a group to face it.

[tidge]

5 hours ago, Oubliette_Red said:

If I recall correctly, CoH also had one of the highest retention rates of any MMO. People would continue to pay their subs even if they didn't log in for 6 months stretches.

 

My gaming rig died at some point and I couldn't play CoX with my replacement PC (for a year+), but I kept my subscription active!

 

42 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

I also suspect that a factor in their deciding to shut the game down was that the way Paragon Studios had set up the cash store, where anything you bought unlocked permanently for the entire account, couldn't be turned into the sort of one-time individual purchase microtransaction-based cash shop that sits behind virtually every Asian MMO, where you'd pay to unlock a single costume piece for a single character that could be used in a single costume slot, and if you changed the costume in that slot to not use the piece, you'd need to buy it again to use it again.

 

When I finally rejoined with a PC that could game, I found there was nothing I needed micro-transition wise. The subscriber rewards either gave me everything, or pretty close.

 

The only thing I can think of in the old Live model was the limited number of character slots per server might have been a motivation (for a time) to have multiple subscriptions.

[Black Pebble]

21 hours ago, Oubliette_Red said:

 

If I recall correctly, CoH also had one of the highest retention rates of any MMO. People would continue to pay their subs even if they didn't log in for 6 months stretches. I recall all the doom-n-gloom when they switched to the hybrid model, I wasn't too sure about it myself when I first heard about it but then when details were shared about what was being provided (might have been during a HeroCon or meet-nogreet, don't exactly recall) I thought it was pretty even-keeled. Subs weren't losing out and Premium/F2P players could enjoy the majority of the game. Every MMO I've played since then wasn't nearly as generous with accessibility, I found most were overly stingy and made playing with friends nearly impossible.

 

I think the push for the Incarnate stuff was to fill the desire of players that wanted more "end-game/raid" content, which compared to most other MMO's CoH didn't have much to speak of.

COH did have a crazy high retention rate, but that was also partly due to the fact that it was tough getting in new players prior to F2P. Still, there just weren't at lot of games at that time that had such a reputation for socialization and expression. The F2P details were shared at the first and last Player Summit ("Pummit"), which was the lower budget successor to HeroCon.

Yeah, that was the main driver for the Incarnate system. There was a segment of the playerbase that wanted more power, but we weren't going to increase the level cap, so it was an indirect way to do that.

[biostem]

I also have to wonder how much of the shutdown was due to, as others have intimated, that they couldn't really monetize how gear in other MMOs had a large impact on how your character looked, but our version of gear, (enhancements), really has no impact on your appearance...

Edited November 12 by biostem

[tidge]

From my memory: there was an effort to micro-transaction costume pieces and emotes (as well as power sets)... but because they were unlocked per account, and IIRC subscribers could cash in tokens (or whatever they were) to get those things, it wasn't going to be a great financial windfall. The standard costume creator was pretty freakin' incredible, even at launch.

 

I'm pretty sure the Incarnate path was seen as the way to keep people paying, at least prior to the sunset announcement. I smirk when I encounter one of those early blue-side arcs that has me going all over Paragon city... and later, the Shadow Shard... because I remember how absolutely grindy the Incarnate stuff was. The (Live) Incarnate game was pretty much a perfect example of the type of MMO I didn't enjoy.

[gameboy1234]

On 11/11/2024 at 8:42 PM, tidge said:

I smirk when I encounter one of those early blue-side arcs that has me going all over Paragon city... and later, the Shadow Shard... because I remember how absolutely grindy the Incarnate stuff was. The (Live) Incarnate game was pretty much a perfect example of the type of MMO I didn't enjoy.

 

Was that Incarnate, or just the early Task Forces?  A Task Force like Faathim or Numina were big time wasters and had you travel all over just to pad out the content.  But that's not Incarnate.  I find the Incarnate TFs and the LFG queue to be at least decently convenient and relatively compact.  I'm not sure, maybe you were referring to something else.

 

[Mopery]

10 minutes ago, gameboy1234 said:

 

Was that Incarnate, or just the early Task Forces?  A Task Force like Faathim or Numina were big time wasters and had you travel all over just to pad out the content.  But that's not Incarnate.  I find the Incarnate TFs and the LFG queue to be at least decently convenient and relatively compact.  I'm not sure, maybe you were referring to something else.

 

From what I remember, the only way on Live to get iXP was to do iTrials and Apex/Tin Mage, at least until updated Dark Astoria was introduced.

Edited November 13 by Mopery

[tidge]

I don't consider running from zone-to-zone to be grindy. Time wasting perhaps, but there were options, for solo and teams. Certainly in the final year of live, there were veteran rewards for fast travel, plus Long Range Teleport was a power in the Teleport pool, and bases were a thing.

 

The Incarnate rewards however, were designed to be grindy... for a LOT of players, simultaneously. There weren't anything like the options we have today.

[gameboy1234]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

The Incarnate rewards however, were designed to be grindy... for a LOT of players, simultaneously. There weren't anything like the options we have today.

 

Ah, right.  Yeah the Incarnate level drops on live were pretty sparse, esp in the beginning.  You had to do a lot of content just to get a few of those drops, and they were totally random.  I guess I was thinking of later, when threads were more available and you could at least reasonably side grade a lot of stuff.

 

[RikOz]

 

On 11/13/2024 at 3:41 PM, tidge said:

The Incarnate rewards however, were designed to be grindy... for a LOT of players, simultaneously. There weren't anything like the options we have today.

 

I've been engaging in some self-inflicted incarnate solo grinding. For my first several level 50s (who hit fifty 3-4 years ago), I just got them to T3 and decided that was good enough for me since I don't really do group content. So since I wasn't gonna bother with T4, I just converted all of their subsequent Empyrean Merits into Reward Merits, which I used to buy boosters to sell on the AH (those things were going for 1-million+ at the time). A few months ago I got the itch to actually get them to T4, but by that point they had enough veteran levels that future Emp Merit rewards were down to like 5 every three levels, and that wasn't gonna cut it to buy all of the Very Rare components. So I just started grinding the first two DA arcs (Heather and Mu'Vorkhan) every day to get the component rewards at the end.

[Triumphant]

Yeah, that's kind of how I did it too, Rik.  Actually, I didn't even bother with incarnates at first.  I just found the whole system too complicated.  After a while I got patient enough to figure out how to parse the branching tree diagram that explains (rather muddily) how to craft your way up the tiers, but ran out of gas once I hit T3.  Now I will usually (eventually) push my way all the way up to T4, but I don't get in a hurry about it, because it's slow, tedious, and grindy.  But, if I don't think about it and just play normal content, eventually I build up enough Empyreans to construct the T4's.

[BurtHutt]

On 11/10/2024 at 1:25 PM, Oubliette_Red said:

 

If I recall correctly, CoH also had one of the highest retention rates of any MMO. People would continue to pay their subs even if they didn't log in for 6 months stretches. I recall all the doom-n-gloom when they switched to the hybrid model, I wasn't too sure about it myself when I first heard about it but then when details were shared about what was being provided (might have been during a HeroCon or meet-nogreet, don't exactly recall) I thought it was pretty even-keeled. Subs weren't losing out and Premium/F2P players could enjoy the majority of the game. Every MMO I've played since then wasn't nearly as generous with accessibility, I found most were overly stingy and made playing with friends nearly impossible.

 

I think the push for the Incarnate stuff was to fill the desire of players that wanted more "end-game/raid" content, which compared to most other MMO's CoH didn't have much to speak of.

I think the CoX Dev team made some big blunders that helped sound the death knell for this once epic game. Going Rogue was poorly assembled - to have another, separated started zone?! BAD idea. The saturation of Praetorian content was a big deal back when. The Incarnate system could've been handled better but, to be fair, the writing was on the wall and they just couldn't add enough content for the incarnate system.

 

Lots of mistakes were made but we're back! I am hoping the HC Devs get some more help and try to become a bit more innovative with the content they add.

[BlackSpectre]

More than anything, I think Homecoming needs more 3D digital artists to design special effects for powers, costumes, buildings, etc. Without a large team of designers, what you can do is severely limited and you're forced to use the same effects and items that you currently have.

 

That said, I loved the storm power set. It was innovative and worked by having one power affect others and visa versa. Not a lot of extra special effects that we haven't seen, but the way the powers worked was different from previous power sets.

 

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

It's important to remember, and give credit, that NCSoft effectively rescued CoH previously, when Cryptic signed up to develop a Marvel MMO (which then became Champions I believe)

 

They invested a lot in creating the NCSoft West studio with almost all the dev team intact (sans Jack IIRC) so bringing the whole game in house.

 

I've no clue as to the numbers but that can't have been a cheap exercise and it's possible that they didn't consider the ROI to be good enough long term.

 

Any memoirs or recall we get now from those involved will likely be tainted by false memories, rose tints, exculpations and ass-covering so I would take a lot of it with large grains of salt, unless accompanied by a paper trail.

 

Either way, it's ancient history now and our beloved game is back.