If you had one year...

pion01

what would you do?

To the players - what if the Devs said to give them one year to get CO completely polished and started infusing some new stuff into the game?

To the devs - what if the players were ok with not getting anything new until Feb 14 as long as you guys gave something spectacular?


The past year was already pretty unsatisfactory for both sides, so what if instead of arguing back and forth we just agreed on one thing for one year and made it great?

Need money? Just rotate the different lockboxes into the game on a monthly basis, maybe throw some more sales up.

cellarrat33

I have no problem with giving them a year.

Heck, I've already given them 3 and I still love playing CO.

I would probably give them 3 MORE years, IF they at least talk with us about said development.

vikinggamer

I happen to be an optimist and believe that cryptic will add a few things this year after Neverwinter is established. I did buy a lifetime sub after all. But I don't think they can get away with doing next to nothing for another year. It has already been too long given what has been lost in opportunity with CoX shutting down and the recent updates of DCUO. I get that they are putting all they have into Neverwinter and that sometimes you let things coast in one area for the sake of another. But another year of largely nothing really could kill this game. And new lock boxes are not content. In fact, lock boxes drop so much that they seem more like a stolen drop and a space filler since a useless gear drop can at least be vendored but a drop box that you don't plan to use and are so common that you cannot really sell them on the broker is genuinely worthless.

What I want to see is something new this year. Not much, just something. And next year I would like to see the foundry come to CO.

bioshrike

I do not think long-term projects are what this game needs, currently. I would rather see new weekly missions added. These would use existing game assets, and either continue the story of existing characters - like what happened to Hi Pan after the Westside Culmination, revisit the Protopath you rescued from Argent, and how she's coping after her ordeal, deal with the aftermath of Whiteout, and so on. These wouldn't need all the flourish of an adventure pack, but would still culminate in 3 or 4-issue story arcs.

If we *had* to think long-term, I'd like to see the Vibora Bay Crisis turned into a repeatable Ap or some sort, and Vibora Bay proper given a full review. Perhaps it could be made into a 30-40 zone, (instead of 37-40), and more open world and instanced missions added, (again using existing assets).

vikinggamer

bioshrike wrote: »

I do not think long-term projects are what this game needs, currently. I would rather see new weekly missions added. These would use existing game assets, and either continue the story of existing characters - like what happened to Hi Pan after the Westside Culmination, revisit the Protopath you rescued from Argent, and how she's coping after her ordeal, deal with the aftermath of Whiteout, and so on. These wouldn't need all the flourish of an adventure pack, but would still culminate in 3 or 4-issue story arcs.

If we *had* to think long-term, I'd like to see the Vibora Bay Crisis turned into a repeatable Ap or some sort, and Vibora Bay proper given a full review. Perhaps it could be made into a 30-40 zone, (instead of 37-40), and more open world and instanced missions added, (again using existing assets).

I like this. Small scale but soon is exactly what I was thinking when I said they need something this year. In a year I would like to see something big. Something that expands the world or significantly changes the features of the game. But in the mean time there needs to be a flow of little things. This new event that has just started is a good starting place but it needs to continue.

zahinder

Up until recently I would have said FOUNDRY FOUNDRY FOUNDRY.

On the theory that a well-done Foundry would relieve some pressure on the need to come out with other content.


I now have 0 confidence that Cryptic is capable of making functional Foundry system (given the 2+ year running fiasco on STO).


So. I dunno... um... more alerts? New sets, like Plants? I DO think smaller scale projects are more useful than big clunkers -- if a small project fails, big deal, next!

bwdares

If they put out a weekly or even bi-weekly blog post about the progress they were making, and if they were working on such things as adding the new Foundry(NWO's), new Zones, and Real hardcore Bug fixes...and I guess PVP stuff Then yes, I would be fine with giving them one year.

Though I would love for them to still throw out Costume Sets so that I could buy them, and I would even be willing to donate money as lon as it went to ONLY Co.

draxonfly

I duno what to do.. the game is pretty awesome to me (been playing on and off since beta)

Maybe add more to the 'nemesis' thing.. or even make a 'villains Online' as an xpack/DLC to play the other-side/nemesis (like CoH/CoV did) ...

itsbrou

I hope they take this Lemurian event to make sure that MC will truly never be the same. It is too perfect.

You cannot breed villains in perfectville easily. There needs to be scarcity, desperation, doubt, distrust, and other things that not even Westside can offer.

Cryptic's best first step before beginning this expansion zone talked about on the Field Report is shattering the perfect wholesomeness of MC.

honestresearcher

You cannot begin to talk or dream about agreeing with people, who wont even show up to talk with us.

eastgatewidow

pion01 wrote: »

what would you do?

To the players - what if the Devs said to give them one year to get CO completely polished and started infusing some new stuff into the game?.....*snip*

Hi Pion,
Your theoretical premise would entirely depend on how many Devs were assigned to the project, *not to mention that creative writing needs to drive the content developed so that it does not seem shoe-horned into the game for the sake of it*.
I do not believe long-scale development without return$ is a viable-option that PWE would accept anyways.


*Eg: Training at Ravenswood Academy in-game as an alternative levelling path. The option to flunk-out early and become an Anti-hero barely-tolerated by the public and hunted by the authorities / police.
Some marine-based incident or monster introducing Atlantis' discovery. Your Champion's path of discovery of their power tied into training in Shamballah, Arcadia or Well of The Worlds.
The UNTIL space-station being developed as cosmic-level end-game challenge as it ties your Champion into advancing from local city-scale threats, to regional and national threats on into world-saving cosmic threats such as Mechanon. (etc)

forutnefire

cellarrat33 wrote: »

I have no problem with giving them a year.

Heck, I've already given them 3 and I still love playing CO.

I would probably give them 3 MORE years, IF they at least talk with us about said development.

This. I mean, we're still playing. Most of us are obviously still willing to give them chances.

eastgatewidow

I used to play daily, pretty hardcore - perk-collecting, grinding for invention salvage, trials - the works.

Now I've barely logged on in over 8 months. I logged on at Christmas for 10 minutes, chatted with old friends on several global channels and sadly confirmed my forum-research that no new playable content of value had been added and promptly logged off again.
Thats from someone who loves the superhero genre, who loves creating new concepts and costumes, and would gladly part with $35-odd per month if there was anything worth buying.
I'm also big on enviromental immersion in MMOs and the Champions IP in particular so as-such am utterly disappointed in Cryptic-Studio's total failure to make more of the Hero Games IP re: new zones or (to be frank) any kind of comprehensive development plan.

zahinder

Actually, what I'd REALLY love is a year spent cleaning up and fixing bugs that are years old.

Like Nemesis bios, or Telepathy pass.

matixzon

Yeah, given how much content is being added now (almost nothing) I would have no problems with waiting a year, assuming they fix long-time bugs and implement important features or content (NW's Foundry, Adventure Pack, Aura Slots).

crypticbuxom

I want to see what they do when they don't have to put the majority of staff on NWO when its finally out. The added year delay is what hurt CO the most. But maybe they have gotten better enough that when they work on this game regularly, we'll see progress.

zahinder

Except they are apparently working on SOMETHING ELSE.

So... Neverwinter goes live, they announce the secret project, and ... so sorry, we need to focus our development on NewThing. But ONCE THEY ARE DONE WITH THAT, I'm sure they'll circle back to CO, STO KDF/Foundry, Neverwinter WhateverTheyLeftUndone, etc.

jennymachx

If they say that they need a year to get the goods out the door, then fine, do it. Because I have a lot of fondness for the game, I guess I can overlook having to wait that long.

It doesn't mean that they switch to radio silence during that one year though. They would need to give us frequent updates on the progress on whatever huge project it is that they might be working on.

crypticbuxom

They last time they were open about upcoming major content for Champions ahead of schedule, people complained about the cost.

That essentially ruined any incentive for Cryptic to make any zones for CO ever again.

zahinder

crypticbuxom wrote: »

They last time they were open about upcoming major content for Champions ahead of schedule, people complained about the cost.

Yes, because coming out with a zone for cash after a disappointingly light content release is monstrous to complain about.

crypticbuxom

And we haven't gotten anything as substantial since (aside from the APs). Take it or leave it.

jennymachx

crypticbuxom wrote: »

They last time they were open about upcoming major content for Champions ahead of schedule, people complained about the cost.

That essentially ruined any incentive for Cryptic to make any zones for CO ever again.

People complained because at the time, CO's level of content was subpar compared to other MMORPGs in the market to justify a monthly-subscription fee, and that was way before CO was converted to F2P.

serendipitynow

It doesn't mean that they switch to radio silence during that one year though

what do you mean SWITCH to radio silence? thats what theyve been doing for months!

As for waiting a year for something, weve been waiting 15 months already since the last permenent story content!

yogid0nnie

cellarrat33 wrote: »

I have no problem with giving them a year.

Heck, I've already given them 3 and I still love playing CO.

I would probably give them 3 MORE years, IF they at least talk with us about said development.

So much this ^^^^

beldin

pion01 wrote: »

To the players - what if the Devs said to give them one year to get CO completely polished and started infusing some new stuff into the game?

One year for me was always something like the "far future" in the SOTGs.

So .. they said : wait one year for a new Zone in the first SOTG, so i waited a year, after that
they said : Wait another year, however not for a full Zone but just for an expansion of MC.

So i waited another year .. just to get Vehicles and see all development of the game stopped to NULL.


At the moment they can say what they want, i don't believe it until i see results, but i doubt
that they will say anything like that at all.

vorshoth

Champs is, and always has been, my core MMO since I started playing it. Before that, and possibly after that, I would probably return to another MMO, which is apparently censored. Who knew? Anyhow... *Shudder*

And I don't want to go back there.
As such, I would be willing to give them as much time as they'd like to refurbish the game if they want to. I can't help but think it's a touch unecessary, but for people who've completed everything the game has to offer (I generally play on my own, have severe alt-itis, and take my time, mostly looking for easter eggs and filling up perks more than doing actual missions and levelling, so not me on the 'finish everything' front), I suppose new content needs to be added.

More than anything else in my opinion, we need to rework the character creation system so we can flip genders and also have the same costume pieces on either gender (yes, this'll mean fishnet, or garter males, and you know what? That's Okay. Fishnets and Garters Are Cool.), and also maybe have more extreme sliders, with wider ranges.

Secondary to that, it'd be nice if we ran on the same kind of engine as Star Trek Online, facilitating Foundry but mainly for me the capability to have items sheathed on our person when not in use. Admittedly our power selection system could hinder how that works.


Thirdly, the only other improvement I can envisage is bringing back descriptions to items.
I know, it's just meaningless fluff, but honestly, it was entertaining, and turned items from meaningless stat-boosts to actual items in your imagination that you kept because they had emotional value to you. And it's a coming of age thing for many characters to talk about [Foxbat's Balls] on Zone chat. We want more moments like that!
Stuff the crafting system magubbins, we want items with character so our characters feel incentivised to carry items!



Of course, these aren't really demands. This is just stuff I'd figure take a lot of effort and time to do with the current system, so it'd be stuff that'd fit in a year-long gap perhaps.

Although I wouldn't reccommend that: what's going to happen to our population if we shut down as they worked on things?

kenpojujitsu3

cellarrat33 wrote: »

I have no problem with giving them a year.

Heck, I've already given them 3 and I still love playing CO.

I would probably give them 3 MORE years, IF they at least talk with us about said development.

100% pure this^.

matixzon

vorshoth wrote: »

Secondary to that, it'd be nice if we ran on the same kind of engine as Star Trek Online, facilitating Foundry but mainly for me the capability to have items sheathed on our person when not in use. Admittedly our power selection system could hinder how that works.

We run in exactly the same version engine as STO, It's just that the devs have to work to put that things into the game, but any system that is in any Cryptic engine game, it's possible to put into any Cryptic engine game, technically, we could even have starships, but of course that would make no sense and be too much work

visionstorm01

beldin wrote: »

One year for me was always something like the "far future" in the SOTGs.

So .. they said : wait one year for a new Zone in the first SOTG, so i waited a year, after that
they said : Wait another year, however not for a full Zone but just for an expansion of MC.

So i waited another year .. just to get Vehicles and see all development of the game stopped to NULL.


At the moment they can say what they want, i don't believe it until i see results, but i doubt
that they will say anything like that at all.

This^ is pretty much where I'm at. Its already been a year, and another year...

I also agree with that MothersLove has said and it comes right down to this...

eastgatewidow wrote: »

*snip*

I'm also big on enviromental immersion in MMOs and the Champions IP in particular so as-such am utterly disappointed in Cryptic-Studio's total failure to make more of the Hero Games IP re: new zones or (to be frank) any kind of comprehensive development plan.

Currently, CO has no vision or direction. I have no clue what their vision for this game is at the moment and I doubt anyone else does. And they've done no effort to follow through, flesh out and build up on the stuff they already do have. They're just shooting wildly at the dark when we see anything that passes for development at all.

matixzon

Well, http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/02/05/the-daily-grind-what-game-do-you-still-hope-will-be-revitalized/ Massivelly The Daily Grind Mentioned CO as a game that needs to be revitalized.

atompenguin

We've already gone a long time without a big content update.

Another year with nothing makes me cringe.

pion01

I'm talking more about 1 year with no half assed attempts at alerts and events that are 2 fetch quests long in order to get something real and substantial.

visionstorm01

pion01 wrote: »

I'm talking more about 1 year with no half assed attempts at alerts and events that are 2 fetch quests long in order to get something real and substantial.

In that hypothetical event... I suppose I'll have to log back into the game one year from now and see how substantial that theoretical content is.

Though, I'm just saying, that's already what I'm doing now, and been doing for like a year.

zahinder

Yeah. At this point I log in once a month or so, sigh, and then log out.

I don't have enough interest to pay a subscription, so I don't get the fun of power coloring and freeform, which lowers my interest further.
I've played just about all the content to exhaustion.


Sigh.

clcmercy

zahinder wrote: »

Yeah. At this point I log in once a month or so, sigh, and then log out.

I don't have enough interest to pay a subscription, so I don't get the fun of power coloring and freeform, which lowers my interest further.
I've played just about all the content to exhaustion.


Sigh.

Just gonna comment on the highlighted bolded part. Even if you did have gold, you're not really missing much on power customization.

In CO, you've got a very limited color palette to choose from. And it's just one channel.

This video shows CoX's power color pallette....in TWO channels. Primary and secondary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BQ-2W4QC58

So yeah. Not missing much at all, bud.

zahinder

On the other hand, the edge cases are really flippin' cool.

I had a plant-themed character with Fissure, which causes cracks to open up in the ground and COLOR stuff to expand in the cracks. Normally it's orange, because it's meant to look like magma welling up.

Buuut... colored GREEN it looks like nature very suddenly taking over, as mossy growth expands into the breaking ground.

(that somehow causes people to catch on fire (cough))

I had another water-themed character with metallic ooze travel power. Colored a light blue, it looked very very very much like she'd turn into water and collapse into an animate water blob.


It doesn't always make much of a difference, but when it does, the right color can really bring a concept together.

thatcursedwolf

clcmercy wrote: »

This video shows CoX's power color pallette....in TWO channels. Primary and secondary.

CoH's is kinda no palette in zero channels now.

I'll gladly take limited over non-existent, though I wouldn't complain if the ghost of CoH slowly took possession of CO in a few departments. Like previewing powers in the character creator.

clcmercy

thatcursedwolf wrote: »

CoH's is kinda no palette in zero channels now.

I'll gladly take limited over non-existent, though I wouldn't complain if the ghost of CoH slowly took possession of CO in a few departments. Like previewing powers in the character creator.

There are quite a few quality of life features Paragon Studios incorporated into that game that would go so very well in this game.

Not to mention a great deal of fluff content would fit well too. Emotes...COSTUME CHANGE EMOTES(ie emotes that change your outfit!)...dozens of other ones, too.

Heck, any kind of permanent game content would be appreciated at this point, I'd say.

zahinder

I have to say, the costume change emotes in CoH were AMAZING. Man. Forgot about those.