I can't be positive about something unless I'm given a reason. I'm not going to pretend that despite the lack of content since 2011, that things are going to get better. I have yet to see any momentum in the direction to make this happen. I have yet to see developers state that any of this will happen.
Yes, these mini-alerts and tiny missions are 'content'. However, if you come crawling and begging for food to fight your starvation and I throw you a lemon drop- it's 'food', just not what you want.
And that's the problem. 'Not what we want' is probably the exact opposite of a reasonable business decision. Generally, when you want to make money you give people what they want, and saying 'oh well, at least we got something!' doesn't ever happen.
I won't give positivity until I see the people who make decisions for this game showing positivity. This negativity would not be running new players off if it didn't have a valid reason to exist in the first place.
Being a fanboy isn't good for you, especially with PWI/Cryptic at the helm.
All that being said, I like Champions. It is my favorite game. But right now, it's like watching my best friend shoot heroin and live in a rat-shack. I can be positive and say 'he'll stop doing it and be the best-est dude ever, you'll see!' but unless he actively does something to help himself, it's not going to happen.
Again, no matter how positive you are about this game it's not going to change anything unless there's something to back up that positivity. Otherwise you're just going to come off like a silly fanboy.
pretty much said how i feel.
now think about the only realistic way to save champions is one of 5 ways,
1. Get it the STINK away from Cryptic Studios to another well organized studio that CARES about its fan base
2. Write management, CEOs, CCOs, etc directly and ask what is going on for some kind of information about the future of the game
3. Let the game die and let the rights revert back to its rightful owners and hope they still want to keep the game.
4. Boycott cryptic since they deserve it, for terrible management decisions
5. go back playing freedom force, and wishing for a proper superhero game from a studio that isn't going to mess you over
and being a fan-boy and blind loyalty doesn't get you anywhere
Interesting. I followed your links, as well as links contained within the linked documents, and couldn't find a single piece of corroboration for the claims being made. I don't really doubt the existence of, "astroturfing," as it seems very much like a tactic that a modern marketing or PR firm might develop. I do find it odd that these bloggers can make such blanket accusations of it being widespread, everywhere, etc. and not be able to provide a single piece of evidence.
Well from my personal experience, when i was a mod at Waroftheworldsonline.com almost a decade ago which was then the nets biggest fansite on the many versions of the story when the competing film versions were announced: The Speilberg/Cruise Dreamworks Film, the Sony Animated version of Jeff Wayne's musical prog-rock concept album (never finished), Pendragon Films shoestring budget period film made in many of the actual locations of the novel and the C. Thomas Howel starring straight-to-dvd low budget modern-setting film (which got a sequel) we very swiftly found that certain key people in the flamewars and conflict that erupted had identical IP addresses showing that several people had made quite a few sock-puppet fake accounts in order to create false impressions of the amount of people who felt certain ways. This was used both to defend their own projects and to attack the competitions projects while trying to appear to be fans without direct connection to the projects they were actually involved in.
Also note that in the radio program the interview subject:
Sydney-based advertising strategist, Ravi Prasad, helps his clients to set up Astroturf campaigns.
I think that an admitted orchestrator of such campaigns is reasonably credible evidence that they exist.
As for being so widespread, well when they get sloppy they get caught, such as the case in Canada in 2007 that always makes me laugh when undercover police officers, one carrying a rock, were caught by protest organisers because they were wearing brand new police issue boots! The Canadian police later admitted they were there saying their job was to ensure the protest was peaceful.. they didn't explain how that could be achieved by throwing rocks at the uniformed police though. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2007/08/23/police-montebello.html or how about the tobacco companies creating mail-in services against anti-smoking measures?
Here's this link from wiki of a list of astroturfing cases which includes the tobacco companies efforts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astroturfing_cases so you can track down their evidence and references if you wish.
Would the big bucks behind DCUO and Marvel astroturf Champs? I'm sure they would. Would Cryptic astroturf to defend itself? Well while i cannot dismiss the possibility i'd think they'd pay for more Devs and other staff instead.
And no folks, the existence of astroturfing does not mean everyone who holds any opinion must be an astroturfer. Nor does the existence of people genuinely holding a particular opinion mean that there are no astroturfers supporting that opinion.
___________________________________
While she has been rescued
what diabolical mastermind
was behind the devious brain-napping of
the Volterrific Dr Cerebellum?
now think about the only realistic way to save champions is one of 5 ways,
1. Get it the STINK away from Cryptic Studios to another well organized studio that CARES about its fan base
2. Write management, CEOs, CCOs, etc directly and ask what is going on for some kind of information about the future of the game
3. Let the game die and let the rights revert back to its rightful owners and hope they still want to keep the game.
4. Boycott cryptic since they deserve it, for terrible management decisions
5. go back playing freedom force, and wishing for a proper superhero game from a studio that isn't going to mess you over
and being a fan-boy and blind loyalty doesn't get you anywhere
and they speak about hate speech
basically you are saying: this game should die not tomorrow but yesterday, so what are you doing here in the forum of a game that you clearly hate?
First off, I want to be on the record saying that I'm pleasantly surprised the game is still around.
Second, for there to be any real optimism about this game's future, I think the dev "team" (surely a grandiose term) has to be more engaged with the game's players.
basically you are saying: this game should die not tomorrow but yesterday, so what are you doing here in the forum of a game that you clearly hate?
well you misunderstand me then.
Have you heard the expression "Love the country, hate the government? well the same principal applies here
I don't hate champions online, i have been very critical of it since i see the potential of it, stuff that we most likely will not see
I have been around since beta so its quite the opposite, what I DO hate however is Cryptic Studios/PWE and how poorly they run and manage their studio, employees and assets. But then again PWE are the lesser evil then the failure that was Atari
You have to realize that I am being realistic here as are other members here who feel the same way as i do.
With Cryptic and PWE at the helm, unless someone pulls a miracle out of their hat within the next little while, to get this game back on track and rolling again I just don't see a future for this game, and some people get rubbed the wrong way at that, and all i have to say is GOOD, its healthy for people to be rubbed the wrong way once and a while
The best example of this is city of heroes, yes cryptic may have designed and programmed, marketed and sold it, and held onto it until shortly after city of villians. but in the end they walked away from it and sold it, and THAT is when the game took a live of its own, and really began to shine, because they separated themselves, it lasted 8 years and then was stabbed in the back by NCsoft, city of heroes could have EASILY ran for 12+ years and still be running like the original everquest
Because it is going to only get worse from here on in, and if you think we have it bad, how do you think the people of war hammer online feel? For being betrayed by EA and Mythic, when they bought bioware, its the same thing we have here
MMOS like this should be growing expanding, getting better for the customer base and experience, look at what SWTOR just got, and Star Trek, even City of Heroes where i hail from
Now look what we have gotten in the last year, free for all was the LAST big recent patch that we got and what did we get? We got a bunch of alerts so people had something to do, (and they aren't even from the winner of the content that happened last year how is that for a slap in the face!) and talents *shrugs**!!! see what i am getting at here.
now before you say "oh but that is content!" WRONG content implies a story the only missions with some story would be the harbringer (since removed... What a DUMB decision whoever was responsible to pull that mission), and this race to an extent and these missions are just filler we don't even have a main STORYLINE in this game
Now, its not a crime to wish that this game was better or TOO get better, and that is something that i have done since the vibora bay patch, but lets face facts here, it is NOT happening anymore.
I mean look at the last ask cryptic, and what did they do? avoided ALL of the questions we wanted answers too, played musical producer AGAIN for the 5th time, (this one will be gone in a year anyways), and must have thought, we answered the questions OH they are going to be happy.
As I have said before, the 5 reasons stated above, there is a 6th cryptic could easily hire programmer, & game design grads from schools to make a development team for this game. Even if it was to get them started in the industry and get them experience and get this game on its feet again, and IF that happened i would be OK with that
But I don't see that happening though since they would mostly be put in STO and New World Order
the BIGGEST thing i hate about cryptic is how they have been called a AAA Game Studio that produces AAA game products.
I find this very funny because Cryptic is really a B studio run by a bunch of drudges. If you want to get to a AAA status, you should be making games with stories that are par with studios like
- Looking Glass studios (thief, system shock, the Orginal Deus Ex)
- Irrational games (Bioshock, Freedom Force)
- ID (Quake Doom, Wolfenstein etc)
- Relic (Dawn of War, and Company of Heroes)
- Vigil (Darksiders series)
- Westwood studios (Command and Conquer series)
- Blizzard (yes i know i said the B word)
- Lucasarts (Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Star Wars and Indiana Jones)
- Bioware (Balders gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic)
- High Moon Studios (Transformers: War and Fall of Cybertron)
Once they start producing stuff of this caliber (after they fire all of their current management mind you), and show the community that they can make stuff that isn't half finished, or cut out because they didn't hit their deadline), THEN I will stop being so critical on them, and maybe just MAYBE I would start supporting them again, if I felt they deserved it
then and ONLY then will cryptic EVER be even in the same LEAGUE as a AAA studio.
I would love to go onto an MMO forum just once and not have crazy people scream WE ARE ALL DOOMED! but it will never happen.
And the OP is just so annoying all he does is doom threads disguised as cotton candy U_U"
He needs to understand EVERY mmo in the history of man ever on its forums has doom threads. Him saying hug each other wont change that.
Go onto the APB forums a game that went from DEAD to one of the most played MMO's around they STILL have DOOOOOOOM threads >_>
Some people like to moan get over it.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
And the OP is just so annoying all he does is doom threads disguised as cotton candy U_U"
He needs to understand EVERY mmo in the history of man ever on its forums has doom threads. Him saying hug each other wont change that.
Go onto the APB forums a game that went from DEAD to one of the most played MMO's around they STILL have DOOOOOOOM threads >_>
Some people like to moan get over it.
Never hurts to have a little positivity when it comes to this stuff...
Never hurts to have a little positivity when it comes to this stuff...
[Removed. -TrailTurtle.]
The end can be a nice thing.
The game is full of positivity . Who doesnt smile when Bacon and Caliga start a zone NO U fight :P
Champions is one of the happiest games around wolfs flinging water balloons at each other , midgets lifting trucks over their heads and one guy with a toaster for a head.
Game is full of joy
* I just got the joke in ur pic , gad ima slow today :< *
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
how can you have faith in a product when cryptic has none for their own product.
A video game or product is not something I put my faith in. Its something I play for the LOLS.
I will have fun while CO lasts and when it does eventually shut ( they ALL will ) I will thank Cryptic for all the fish and play something else.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
A video game or product is not something I put my faith in. Its something I play for the LOLS.
I will have fun while CO lasts and when it does eventually shut ( they ALL will ) I will thank Cryptic for all the fish and play something else.
A video game or product is not something I put my faith in. Its something I play for the LOLS.
I will have fun while CO lasts and when it does eventually shut ( they ALL will ) I will thank Cryptic for all the fish and play something else.
Most reasonable attitude.
By the way, would you please pass the tartar sauce? My fish is a little dry.
CellarRat33 :: formerly Bsquared
***
"The great thing about glory unending is that it's dirt cheap!" - Tateklys From the Adventures of Thundrax (canadascott)
***
A video game or product is not something I put my faith in. Its something I play for the LOLS.
I will have fun while CO lasts and when it does eventually shut ( they ALL will ) I will thank Cryptic for all the fish and play something else.
Comments
pretty much said how i feel.
now think about the only realistic way to save champions is one of 5 ways,
1. Get it the STINK away from Cryptic Studios to another well organized studio that CARES about its fan base
2. Write management, CEOs, CCOs, etc directly and ask what is going on for some kind of information about the future of the game
3. Let the game die and let the rights revert back to its rightful owners and hope they still want to keep the game.
4. Boycott cryptic since they deserve it, for terrible management decisions
5. go back playing freedom force, and wishing for a proper superhero game from a studio that isn't going to mess you over
and being a fan-boy and blind loyalty doesn't get you anywhere
The Nemesis system needs fixing and here's ideas:
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. Henry Ford
Well from my personal experience, when i was a mod at Waroftheworldsonline.com almost a decade ago which was then the nets biggest fansite on the many versions of the story when the competing film versions were announced: The Speilberg/Cruise Dreamworks Film, the Sony Animated version of Jeff Wayne's musical prog-rock concept album (never finished), Pendragon Films shoestring budget period film made in many of the actual locations of the novel and the C. Thomas Howel starring straight-to-dvd low budget modern-setting film (which got a sequel) we very swiftly found that certain key people in the flamewars and conflict that erupted had identical IP addresses showing that several people had made quite a few sock-puppet fake accounts in order to create false impressions of the amount of people who felt certain ways. This was used both to defend their own projects and to attack the competitions projects while trying to appear to be fans without direct connection to the projects they were actually involved in.
Also note that in the radio program the interview subject:
I think that an admitted orchestrator of such campaigns is reasonably credible evidence that they exist.
As for being so widespread, well when they get sloppy they get caught, such as the case in Canada in 2007 that always makes me laugh when undercover police officers, one carrying a rock, were caught by protest organisers because they were wearing brand new police issue boots! The Canadian police later admitted they were there saying their job was to ensure the protest was peaceful.. they didn't explain how that could be achieved by throwing rocks at the uniformed police though. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2007/08/23/police-montebello.html or how about the tobacco companies creating mail-in services against anti-smoking measures?
Here's this link from wiki of a list of astroturfing cases which includes the tobacco companies efforts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astroturfing_cases so you can track down their evidence and references if you wish.
Oh yeah and several writers have recently been busted using sockpuppets to defend themselves like the creator of Dilbert http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/04/20/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppet/ and R.J. Ellory http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/rj-ellory-fake-amazon-reviews-caught_n_1854713.html
Would the big bucks behind DCUO and Marvel astroturf Champs? I'm sure they would. Would Cryptic astroturf to defend itself? Well while i cannot dismiss the possibility i'd think they'd pay for more Devs and other staff instead.
And no folks, the existence of astroturfing does not mean everyone who holds any opinion must be an astroturfer. Nor does the existence of people genuinely holding a particular opinion mean that there are no astroturfers supporting that opinion.
While she has been rescued
what diabolical mastermind
was behind the devious brain-napping of
the Volterrific Dr Cerebellum?
basically you are saying: this game should die not tomorrow but yesterday, so what are you doing here in the forum of a game that you clearly hate?
Second, for there to be any real optimism about this game's future, I think the dev "team" (surely a grandiose term) has to be more engaged with the game's players.
Unless players are willing to accept the "nerf" and complete redesign that the game would require to be successful.. then YES.
well you misunderstand me then.
Have you heard the expression "Love the country, hate the government? well the same principal applies here
I don't hate champions online, i have been very critical of it since i see the potential of it, stuff that we most likely will not see
I have been around since beta so its quite the opposite, what I DO hate however is Cryptic Studios/PWE and how poorly they run and manage their studio, employees and assets. But then again PWE are the lesser evil then the failure that was Atari
You have to realize that I am being realistic here as are other members here who feel the same way as i do.
With Cryptic and PWE at the helm, unless someone pulls a miracle out of their hat within the next little while, to get this game back on track and rolling again I just don't see a future for this game, and some people get rubbed the wrong way at that, and all i have to say is GOOD, its healthy for people to be rubbed the wrong way once and a while
The best example of this is city of heroes, yes cryptic may have designed and programmed, marketed and sold it, and held onto it until shortly after city of villians. but in the end they walked away from it and sold it, and THAT is when the game took a live of its own, and really began to shine, because they separated themselves, it lasted 8 years and then was stabbed in the back by NCsoft, city of heroes could have EASILY ran for 12+ years and still be running like the original everquest
Because it is going to only get worse from here on in, and if you think we have it bad, how do you think the people of war hammer online feel? For being betrayed by EA and Mythic, when they bought bioware, its the same thing we have here
MMOS like this should be growing expanding, getting better for the customer base and experience, look at what SWTOR just got, and Star Trek, even City of Heroes where i hail from
Now look what we have gotten in the last year, free for all was the LAST big recent patch that we got and what did we get? We got a bunch of alerts so people had something to do, (and they aren't even from the winner of the content that happened last year how is that for a slap in the face!) and talents *shrugs**!!! see what i am getting at here.
now before you say "oh but that is content!" WRONG content implies a story the only missions with some story would be the harbringer (since removed... What a DUMB decision whoever was responsible to pull that mission), and this race to an extent and these missions are just filler we don't even have a main STORYLINE in this game
Now, its not a crime to wish that this game was better or TOO get better, and that is something that i have done since the vibora bay patch, but lets face facts here, it is NOT happening anymore.
I mean look at the last ask cryptic, and what did they do? avoided ALL of the questions we wanted answers too, played musical producer AGAIN for the 5th time, (this one will be gone in a year anyways), and must have thought, we answered the questions OH they are going to be happy.
As I have said before, the 5 reasons stated above, there is a 6th cryptic could easily hire programmer, & game design grads from schools to make a development team for this game. Even if it was to get them started in the industry and get them experience and get this game on its feet again, and IF that happened i would be OK with that
But I don't see that happening though since they would mostly be put in STO and New World Order
the BIGGEST thing i hate about cryptic is how they have been called a AAA Game Studio that produces AAA game products.
I find this very funny because Cryptic is really a B studio run by a bunch of drudges. If you want to get to a AAA status, you should be making games with stories that are par with studios like
- Looking Glass studios (thief, system shock, the Orginal Deus Ex)
- Irrational games (Bioshock, Freedom Force)
- ID (Quake Doom, Wolfenstein etc)
- Relic (Dawn of War, and Company of Heroes)
- Vigil (Darksiders series)
- Westwood studios (Command and Conquer series)
- Blizzard (yes i know i said the B word)
- Lucasarts (Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Star Wars and Indiana Jones)
- Bioware (Balders gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic)
- High Moon Studios (Transformers: War and Fall of Cybertron)
Once they start producing stuff of this caliber (after they fire all of their current management mind you), and show the community that they can make stuff that isn't half finished, or cut out because they didn't hit their deadline), THEN I will stop being so critical on them, and maybe just MAYBE I would start supporting them again, if I felt they deserved it
then and ONLY then will cryptic EVER be even in the same LEAGUE as a AAA studio.
The Nemesis system needs fixing and here's ideas:
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. Henry Ford
And the OP is just so annoying all he does is doom threads disguised as cotton candy U_U"
He needs to understand EVERY mmo in the history of man ever on its forums has doom threads. Him saying hug each other wont change that.
Go onto the APB forums a game that went from DEAD to one of the most played MMO's around they STILL have DOOOOOOOM threads >_>
Some people like to moan get over it.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Never hurts to have a little positivity when it comes to this stuff...
[Removed. -TrailTurtle.]
The end can be a nice thing.
The game is full of positivity . Who doesnt smile when Bacon and Caliga start a zone NO U fight :P
Champions is one of the happiest games around wolfs flinging water balloons at each other , midgets lifting trucks over their heads and one guy with a toaster for a head.
Game is full of joy
* I just got the joke in ur pic , gad ima slow today :< *
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
A video game or product is not something I put my faith in. Its something I play for the LOLS.
I will have fun while CO lasts and when it does eventually shut ( they ALL will ) I will thank Cryptic for all the fish and play something else.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
basically.
Most reasonable attitude.
By the way, would you please pass the tartar sauce? My fish is a little dry.
CellarRat33 :: formerly Bsquared
***
"The great thing about glory unending is that it's dirt cheap!" - Tateklys
From the Adventures of Thundrax (canadascott)
***
The wisdom is strong in this one.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.