You need to provide evidence that more than one character in your account got into the SG. Or you can PM me your login details and I can make a new character and see it for myself. You won't though because you are lying.
*Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt!*
.......
You have got to be kidding me. He won't because that would be a ****ing stupid thing to do. I mean, how ridiculous can you get? You might as well ask for his email password, his social security number, and his house keys!
Any of you done the math to prove that the game really could benefit from a new zone?
I've done the math to say its a waste of resources and time.
The only thing you've really proven is that not having a new zoneisn't changing anything.
You can't pretend to know what the outcome would be if there was a new zone. Could bring in an influx of players, could be a big flop that causes the downfall of the game, could have zero effect on number of players.
I think it's reasonable to estimate that a new zone would bring a surge, but that surge would bleed away if it wasn't combined with a general increase in the rate of new content.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
And that someone has WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY too much time on their hands. And a possible problem with being obsessive/compulsive.
Checking data is part of the game. Some people care about their character stats.
They beg for help with the numbers on items and powers and attributes and specializations.
They build websites dedicate to theory crafting.
This has never interested me. Neither has having all the perks, or completing all the missions or
gaining all the action figures, getting the best gear, all the costumes, or crafting all the little
widgets into other widgets. Nor has making a wiki.
All things people grind like a second job to achieve a sense of fun in this game, I don't do them.
I team up with people and I show them a thing or two about the game.
When the people to team with are running low, or the locals are spooky, or i'm sick of alerts, or sick
of zone chat, I look for where to go to find players to team with. Cryptic provided me a handy
list of numbers for every little nook and cranny of the game.
There's no sense in roaming an instance with only 8 players in it,
I'm not going to find any needles in the haystack out there in any good time.
(An hour during 'prime time' to find one player in Westside past the prison in the most populous zone)
When I came to this game there were 17 zones of Millenium City.
I had to use the zone tracking to see where my noob teams could converge as the
\system was broken and would spread us through zones after we exited mission instances.
Checking zone population was a practical part of my day.
IIRC, this is the guy that quit the game and was leaving forever, too.
Really? When did I say I was leaving forever? I posted a love letter to the game and its developers
about three weeks ago. You must have me confused with someone else.
Its 5PM server time how are those zone populations looking.
I already did my patrol this morning, your turn.
The only thing you've really proven is that not having a new zoneisn't changing anything.
.
Only thing I have to prove is that my numbers aren't coming from outer space.
I have shown that players aren't using what they have, more of the same
exact game in a new environment isn't going to drive customers in for the long haul, that's clear to me.
The population has not improved over last year, even with the influx of the CoXits and the weirdo short term events we had. Even with a new story arc. Even with smash leveling to 40 in 48 hours so you can enjoy Monster Island or Vibora Bay without much delay at all. All this is not pulling in more costumers than the years previous. Cryptic stated 2.5 million users from 2009 to 2011.
Counting new Champions is telling us that there are only 350,000 new accounts in the year and half that followed. Looking inside of New Champions shows us that masses of these players aren't even getting out of the tutorial. Feel free to test it out and say "Ha told you so" when you have a New Champions with 25% of the 498 players above level 20.
Looking at zone counts confirms that the player numbers are not on increase and that entire
zones of the game are wasted as only a minority ever bother to fill the space.
In November of 2011 they added Queen City, its a small open zone, perfect for RP, you can invite your lowbie friends there just by sharing the mission to meet Black Mask. Lovely adventurous feeling place.
Barren all the time.
People here want more dev time wasted for more empty space.
I've got the solution:
Cryptic, give them a big empty green screen zone, as big as MC.
Add items to it slowly between updates, at far flung distances. It'll be a hoot.
Only thing I have to prove is that my numbers aren't coming from outer space.
I have shown that players aren't using what they have, more of the same
exact game in a new environment isn't going to drive customers in for the long haul, that's clear to me.
The population has not improved over last year, even with the influx of the CoXits and the weirdo short term events we had. Even with a new story arc. Even with smash leveling to 40 in 48 hours so you can enjoy Monster Island or Vibora Bay without much delay at all. All this is not pulling in more costumers than the years previous. Cryptic stated 2.5 million users from 2009 to 2011.
Counting new Champions is telling us that there are only 350,000 new accounts in the year and half that followed. Looking inside of New Champions shows us that masses of these players aren't even getting out of the tutorial. Feel free to test it out and say "Ha told you so" when you have a New Champions with 25% of the 498 players above level 20.
Looking at zone counts confirms that the player numbers are not on increase and that entire
zones of the game are wasted as only a minority ever bother to fill the space.
In November of 2011 they added Queen City, its a small open zone, perfect for RP, you can invite your lowbie friends there just by sharing the mission to meet Black Mask. Lovely adventurous feeling place.
Barren all the time.
People here want more dev time wasted for more empty space.
I've got the solution:
Cryptic, give them a big empty green screen zone, as big as MC.
Add items to it slowly between updates, at far flung distances. It'll be a hoot.
Uh huh. But you can't disprove that a new zone would be worth Cryptic's money. I'm not saying one way or the other. I'm not saying your assumptions are exactly right or wrong. I'm saying you haven't proven whether a new zone is a bad idea or not. Unless you have some evidence of Cryptic putting out a new zone during free-to-play and it was a major bungle, then you really have no proof. You have evidence of lots of little circumstantial things, but no proof.
You're saying players aren't using what they have, they just do alerts. What if a new zone offered better rewards than the alerts? That should have some impact. What if they actually spent some money on advertizing? That could do something too.
For all your research, you're still using a lot of words to prove nothing.
One could argue that existing zones are empty because people are bored with them, that this emptiness of zones is evidence that new zones are needed to entice players into returning, or continuing the leveling process. I mean why bother leveling past 20 if you know that everything beyond MC is dead.
Well, I can confirm that what Next is saying about only the very first toons made on silver accounts being put automatically put into a New Champions SG to be true. I made a silver account not too long ago and I remembered clearly that upon creating my second toon, I was puzzled as to why it wasn't put into the SG like the first was.
However, I don't agree that getting an average of the number of toons joining / leaving all of the current New Champions SGs since the start of F2P till now proves whether or not zones are being underused. The only thing you can prove using this sort of data is to show a progressive graph that indicates fluctuations in brand new player population with every month or even week that passes, to see if it meets a certain expectation that the game service provider has.
To actually determine how many and how often new players are using the zones, you'd have to actually monitor the following within a certain time span:
1) The total number of zone instances a new toon has been in outside of MC.
2) The total number of hours the toon has spent these zone instances.
3) The total number of hours the toon has spent in missions accessed within all non-MC zones.
3) The total number of these toons per new player account.
What's more you'd have to track every single one of new players and their toons on their activities since F2P started, whether or not they're spending more time in alerts, or in zones and their respective missions. Getting a few snapshots of the number of players in each zone instance each day isn't going to cut it. With that you can only prove the population of players during those specific periods in time and it doesn't confirm overall activity.
Unless you have written a sort of script that is able to monitor the activities of every single player and their toons to factually determine such, you can't just base it off tracking New Champions entries and exits.
Also, I think the fact that PWE / Cryptic has decided to focus their development activities mostly on NWO, followed by STO, has much more to do with why they're not bothering with releasing new zones, and have instead opted with focusing on just micro-transactions and scraps of temporary content of late.
On the other hand, if Next IS right, it gives a very clear picture about how bad off the game is and why dev is so meager
We really don't need fancy math to tell us that the game is in the craphole. It's plain as day that population is terribly low. We matter so little that we've been relegated to a piece of a third-party developer, and neither Cryptic or Perfect World see fit to give us anything other than that, unless spending habits in this game change by a large margin.
I know I'm jumping in halfway here, but as someone who's been around for about a month I might be able to offer a somewhat unique perspective.
I've played through all the zones in the process of leveling my character to 40. Since reaching cap I've picked up 3 pieces of Heroic primary gear and slotted it all up with rank 6 mods. I like that the UNITY missions sent me all around the game worlds, it's fun to have a reason to play in Canada and the Desert again. I've gotten 2/3 of my vigilante secondary questionite gear, and I've enjoyed doing the 3 daily alerts, custom alerts, comics and adventure packs to reach the Q cap every day. Once I get my last piece of secondary gear, I'm going to start working on upgrading my primaries to Legion gear and rank 7 mods.
The reason I'm mentioning all this is that I think it puts the discussion into context. I like to play content, but not just for the sake of playing it- I like to feel like I'm progressing my character. I always set goals for myself in games and it's nice to achieve them and see results. For me, a huge part of that is improving my gear and getting a better understanding of gameplay mechanics along the way.
Now I've also noted the low population in zones outside of Millennium City. Once I get all the top tier gear and mods, I can't really see myself sticking around the game anymore. Not because I'll stop liking it, but because I'll be out of things to do. A new zone for the level up process would not get me to keep playing, but if the level cap is raised and a new end game zone were added with higher tiers of progression through the skill tree, new abilities and more elite gear, that would give me a reason to keep playing the game. I would honestly prefer raids over a new zone since they're generally my favorite content in MMO's, and I'd love to see the unique combat systems of this game in place for elaborate 20-40 man ordeals.
Regardless of how progression is implemented, I don't see an incentive to do any new content, zone or otherwise, unless it means raising the level cap and growing level 40 characters. I have to say that as much as I'm enjoying Champions Online, I'm pretty shocked at how trivial it was to get to max level, and the quick rate that I've been able to gear myself up at so far. I can sort of understand the low pop.
Low zone populations don't really mean anything if you spend the majority of the time solo'ing the missions in those zones.
Which leads to my next question to anyone complaining about how empty the zones feel, does it really matter if you're not teaming? Let's face it; outside of lairs, the missions aren't exactly team-friendly and there isn't a practical benefit to justify going through the trouble of forming a PUG and having to deal with people slowing you down, especially when they have a slower TP than you. The only reason you'd want to team is with friends who enjoy your company and you theirs, who don't mind doing it solely for that and not for any tangible reward.
Well, I can confirm that what Next is saying about only the very first toons made on silver accounts being put automatically put into a New Champions SG to be true.
Wait, it's just on Silvers that this happens? Well, that explains it since I've been Gold since I've started.
So assuming a number of people went Gold outright like I did, Nextname's numbers are still bovine excrement.
Low zone populations don't really mean anything if you spend the majority of the time solo'ing the missions in those zones.
Which leads to my next question to anyone complaining about how empty the zones feel, does it really matter if you're not teaming? Let's face it; outside of lairs, the missions aren't exactly team-friendly and there isn't a practical benefit to justify going through the trouble of forming a PUG and having to deal with people slowing you down, especially when they have a slower TP than you. The only reason you'd want to team is with friends who enjoy your company and you theirs, who don't mind doing it solely for that and not for any tangible reward.
I know I'm not the typical player (weirdo anti-social MMO player), but I don't like being in zones that don't have any banter going on in them. Call me crazy, but I like zone chat, and when I'm in Millennium City, the only reason I ever hesitate to go into the instanced missions is because I won't be able to chat and read the banter. But like I said, I'm atypical.
It's entirely possible that alll the zones are so underused because the population dwindled, and that the population dwindled because we went so long without getting something like a new zone.
So now, that dwindled population is the justification for not making a new zone?
"That road with all the potholes isn't being fixed because no one uses it anymore because of all the potholes, so it wouldn't be worth it."
I know I'm not the typical player (weirdo anti-social MMO player), but I don't like being in zones that don't have any banter going on in them. Call me crazy, but I like zone chat, and when I'm in Millennium City, the only reason I ever hesitate to go into the instanced missions is because I won't be able to chat and read the banter. But like I said, I'm atypical.
I would venture to say that CO is a glorified chat client for a lot of people, so you're not all that atypical.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
I know I'm not the typical player (weirdo anti-social MMO player), but I don't like being in zones that don't have any banter going on in them. Call me crazy, but I like zone chat, and when I'm in Millennium City, the only reason I ever hesitate to go into the instanced missions is because I won't be able to chat and read the banter. But like I said, I'm atypical.
So you're like Deadpool; You never shut up. :biggrin: Just kidding.
I know where you're coming from. Personally it never really bothered me. When I feel like chatting I do so, when I feel like beating up some bad guys I focus on that instead.
I would venture to say that CO is a glorified chat client for a lot of people, so you're not all that atypical.
Nah not really. I don't often sit around and just chat. I'm usually out leveling some stupid alt or answering the cries to queue for Gravitar or trying to get the damn Foxbat belt.
The atypical part about me is being antisocial (to the point where I really dislike teaming with people, and I feel dread when I see a friend request pop up because this person might want to team with me later, or just keep talking to me), but not enjoying single-player games as much as I enjoy MMOs. Not for playing with other people, but to be able to chat with all those people I can't team with because my dumb brain is broken.
I know I'm not the typical player (weirdo anti-social MMO player), but I don't like being in zones that don't have any banter going on in them. Call me crazy, but I like zone chat, and when I'm in Millennium City, the only reason I ever hesitate to go into the instanced missions is because I won't be able to chat and read the banter. But like I said, I'm atypical.
Same. Even if I am currently soloing its kind of cool to read zone banter.
People often complain when other people play mmos almost exclusively solo.
But a lot of mostly solo folks like seeing folks around, trading, chatting, all that jazz. And part of the value of f2p games is that 'having people around adds value to the game.'
Empty zones are a problem because they make the game less fun for many people.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
One could argue that existing zones are empty because people are bored with them, that this emptiness of zones is evidence that new zones are needed to entice players into returning, or continuing the leveling process. I mean why bother leveling past 20 if you know that everything beyond MC is dead.
Agreed.
People aren't leaving MC anymore because of alerts.....XP alerts circumvent the need of other existent zones outside of silver gear quests. They took away all the rare rewards and devices for doing open world missions.....they put things that used to require exploration to get in the questionite shop, questionite that you can gain without even leaving MC. They put up burst alerts so you don't even need to go out of MC to canada and other areas to gather T2 craft items. They put up alerts that give you more globals than you could ever get normally before resistance in less time.
Its not rocket science. Those zones had plenty of people in them before on alert. I know, I was one of them. After on Alert and the quick and easy progression came up from that I think I stopped giving a damn about leaving MC all together after my inventor was level 30.
We can sit up here all day and debate about there being people in game or not, or a new zone being the solution to all your worries. But if the current problem that prevents people from giving a damn about exploring the game isn't solved then you'll run into the same loophole down the line. <
And it all points to Alerts.
People often complain when other people play mmos almost exclusively solo.
But a lot of mostly solo folks like seeing folks around, trading, chatting, all that jazz. And part of the value of f2p games is that 'having people around adds value to the game.'
Empty zones are a problem because they make the game less fun for many people.
Its not rocket science. Those zones had plenty of people in them before on alert. I know, I was one of them. After on Alert and the quick and easy progression came up from that I think I stopped giving a damn about leaving MC all together after my inventor was level 30.
No they didn't, by December 2011, Canada was down to one zone of about 23 people average, Crisis had turned into a 3 person adventure at every time of the day down from 50 in two zones each, Desert was the same deal with less people especially since it was buggy, Monster Island was a ghost town, never once got a team anytime I was there, Vibora was the same deal, I leveled over 12 toons through the Crisis only to find myself alone as a result.
By December 2011 the total population of the game took a massive punch to the nose, in every zone. Down from 17 zones of MC in the city to 4. Down from 17,000 logins from Steam in 48 period to roughly somewhere between 450 and 780.
On Alert pulled it out of the fire until August 2012 when it dropped off Steams top 100
with less than 585 Steam logins in a 48 period. Now we can't even use that to count.
Like I said I've been tracking these numbers since June 2011.
It's entirely possible that alll the zones are so underused because the population dwindled, and that the population dwindled because we went so long without getting something like a new zone.
So now, that dwindled population is the justification for not making a new zone?
l.
This is your own circular thinking lost to reality by your choice to remain ignorant of the facts.
Of 492 New Champions in a single super group 180 leave at level 1, has nothing to do with a new zone.
200 more leave before level 6 has nothing to with a new zone
100 more leave before level 12 has nothing to do with a new zone.
12 players remain and one player manages to reach level 25, before quitting has nothing to do with a new zone.
This happens to a new New Champions SG every two days.
It has nothing to do with getting or not getting a new zone.
We got a 'new zone' in November 2011, a new zone that never ever fills up.
The population still drained like a hammered coconut.
Cryptic stated 2.5 million accounts were made from Septemeber 2009 to
September 2011(I think thats when the numebrs were posted for the anniversary, else it was December).
Those 2.5 million didn't leave because there was no new zone, hell they got Vibora Bay in
March 2010 and the game was forced to go free to play following that after it lost Atari $7 million.
What if instead of releasing it as a patch they could do it as an actual digital expansion pack, followed by a ad campaigne. They could add several things that have been discussed for a while (think new zones, foundry, level cap increase, land vehycles, new gear, new lairs, new costumes, new AT's/Powers) and sell it for a one time price. This would still be a gamble i agree but new expansions and proper advertisement of the events always breaths new life into a game. They could do it like wow does it for their expansions this can then be done for CO up untill lvl 40 and only make the new zones and new content inaccesible for the non expansion buyers
I think this is the only way for them to play it safe, make money of it and keep the game fresh.
The game is never going to be 'saved' unless there is an aggressive schedule of new material. And THEN you can use advertising and other tricks to try to get notice (heck, how about some CO adverts on _Neverwinter_?)
But their current direction is probably the 'safest.'
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
The free to play experiment gives them the data they need to see what these
kinds of efforts pull in and what the player attrition rate is.
If they can't figure it out for themselves one community rep's salary could be
sacrificed to hire someone else to figure that out. Goodbye kitty on the payroll hello
Smackwell shadow enforcer of the overlords. Hypothetically of course.
The reality is certainly that they have data and they know what drives what, up to the point they have gone.
That is why you see some of the things you see now, like Alerts.
They implement things that players request that sometimes fail, like that race.
I feel ashamed to have taken part in the suggestion thread for that.
They implement things for very few like Gravitar,
I clearly remember being angry at people who posted in the forums that they wanted the game harder
across the board. Half venom and half laughs I suggested that Cryptic give them
a super powered villain on a rampage with a sexy bra reward Wow. Look at those rewards.
Soon to be producers [url=http://i.imgur.com/IYJlUVX.jpg[/IMG]Stokeman[/url] and Lord Gar back then.
Enough memes. I'm serious. They implement stuff that we suggest and measure it.
New Zone was the expectation for every MMO and it is not a working model.
The cost versus return is not there.
The game is already Free to Play, there is no guaranteed money flowing from 90% of the players in the game.
Do the math yourself and figure out at that rate what would it take to pay one person a six month contract salary?
ie , how many total players do you need to pay one guy for six months if only 10% of players give you money?
Multilply by the complexity of a 'new zone', add another six months for one guy to handle
the Q&A issues you couldn't catch before rushing it out the door.
How many months until you see a profit and your shareholder's stop threatening to stop you
and everyone that works under you from making your mortgage, childcare,healthcare and college loan payments?
Pop out your calculators and figure it out.
One new zone. How many lives will you ruin for it?
1. Don't provide new content.
2. Less players.
3. Use less players to justify not providing new content.
Repeat until death.
It's sad when game producers go from "Let's see what cool things we can do in this career we love!" to "Okay let's do a cost-benefit analysis to decide what we should do next". Even if only in the eyes of the players. Yes, it's a business, but it's not a widget factory.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Well, what bugs me is that they DO spend a fair amount of time developing stuff.
It's just, IMO, they have an absolutely terrible idea of what to develop.
On Alert was a massive change. Vehicles was a pretty extensive thing. The various events over the past year.
On Alert has a few flaws that could be corrected, and I think it could have worked if the other content was better:
Vehicles should have been travel powers. Like people asked for. That would have saved the effort of creating special events and instances for vehicles, mechanics with the vehicle mods and so on.
Or they could have sweetened the pot. Being too greedy can shoot you in the foot -- if everyone had a reasonable chance of getting a basic vehicle with minimal work, people might have gotten more involved and more excited about trying to get exotic/fancy vehicles for zen or out of lockboxes.
They could have taken the effort spent on the last 3 or four events and rolled it into something more... evergreen. Make a new mission hub, or comic series, or... something.
And they should have REALLY thought out the lack of unique rewards out on the map. I hadn't really thought of the combination effect of On Alert's 'you don't have to go anywhere to join an alert' and 'all the game's valuable and interesting loot are in RenCen.'
So. yeah. To recap, it's not even the fact they don't have enough resources for this game... it's that their decisions about what to do with the limited resources have been really terrible.
Campaign: The Fenwick Cycle NWS-DKR9GB7KH
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
People often complain when other people play mmos almost exclusively solo.
But a lot of mostly solo folks like seeing folks around, trading, chatting, all that jazz. And part of the value of f2p games is that 'having people around adds value to the game.'
Empty zones are a problem because they make the game less fun for many people.
Honestly, empty zones make the game more fun for me. When I go do missions, I don't like it if there are a billion other heroes zipping around doing all the same stuff. I feel less like a hero doing heroic things, and more like a kid at a carnival going from booth to booth. I like the way the mission zones are now.
People aren't leaving MC anymore because of alerts.....[...]
We can sit up here all day and debate about there being people in game or not, or a new zone being the solution to all your worries. But if the current problem that prevents people from giving a damn about exploring the game isn't solved then you'll run into the same loophole down the line. <
And it all points to Alerts.
Alerts don't need to be solved. You mentioned what needs to be solved, but you looked at it backwards. They need to make running missions worth it. Part of the solution is to make missions more fun; fact is, running missions is just like running alerts. It's repetitive and grindy, the only difference being that there's more travelling involved. They need to make us excited to go run missions. People right now just aren't excited about running missions because even a new player discovers very early on that it's just the same uninteresting thing over and over again.
Missions probably need a slight increase in their xp reward, so that their "xp per hour" is more inline with alerts; all that extra travelling has to be compensated for somehow, and once the xp rate is the same then it will truly become a choice between the two, and we'll see which content wins out on interest alone. Personally, I think the uninteresting nature of missions will continue to cripple the level of interest, but as stated above I like the low population in quest zones so I would be okay with that.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
How many months until you see a profit and your shareholder's stop threatening to stop you
and everyone that works under you from making your mortgage, childcare,healthcare and college loan payments?
Pop out your calculators and figure it out.
One new zone. How many lives will you ruin for it?
Hokay.
While I'm sure this argument seems to be comprehensive and cogent reducto ad absurdum in your head, out in the real world this is called a Straw Man argument. It's a gross and misleading oversimplification on many levels. It presents one possible, partial and indirect cause and effect relationship as if it were direct and singular. It's a logical fallacy.
While I am not in favor of "ruining lives", I agree with Smoochan, it's a business, but it's not a widget factory. There are more factors than just raw capitalism. Otherwise why even ever make an MMO when other things generate more revenue?
Somebody has this on their sig, but "A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business."- Henry Ford
The reality you are obviously detached from: Vibora Bay, Free to Play, Adventure Packs, Comics, Costumes, Powers, Action Figures, Becomes, Queen City, Modding, Fusion, New Gear, New Travels, Tutorial Update, Westside Update, On Alert, Rampage, Hi-Pan, Red Winter, Nighthawk, Vehicles, Destroids Invasion, Harbinger, Race, Moonfight, Fatal Infringement.
3. Use less players to justify not providing new content.
Whoa whoa you slipped back into absolutes and ignoring the facts.
Whats next?
I hear auras? Will that help? now? And then a sidekick system?
In my mind they would discount all the power costs to 1 for per rank and add auras and powers into the power training system. Pay for style or pay for power, your choice. Need a better slogan for that.
It's sad when game producers go from "Let's see what cool things we can do in this career we love!" to "Okay let's do a cost-benefit analysis to decide what we should do next".
They want to keep their jobs, jobs gets them paid and words that rhyme with paid so they don't have to complain about other people's games all day. Livin' the dream.
Yes, it's a business, but it's not a widget factory.
Do you know how many 'widgets' of data , individual files, are in the download on your harddrive right now?
I'll give you clue, a month ago I took a reading and it was something like 52,860 plus or minus a pinch.
52,860 little nuts, bolts, tubes, and lubes to tweak and worry over every day while
unemployed angry people rage against your factory walls clamouring "feed us".
Did you get a new zone done while you are writing angry at these guys?
Theoretically you could use demo_record and -demoplay to create 'a new zone' demo file
that Cryptic likely could copy paste into action, or at least be inspired to say "that aint workin'
that's money for nothing and your chicks for free", because they are into
old songs and 3D animations and free to play ladies in lingerie.
You could do it. Take that zone idea of yours and run with it guys.
Develop the zone using demo_record.
Take my program I made and extend it to shuffle data around so you can pop
objects and NPCsin and out of a file like french fry cooks. Your Foundry is there waiting. Do it. Dooooo it.
I think there's some legal issues with throwing Cryptics data around the internet like hosting it on Sourceforge or Git.
If we share it between players though that should legally be reasonable, its only
game data and we all already have 4 gigs of that, right? What's another couple gigs between pals?
Well, what bugs me is that they DO spend a fair amount of time developing stuff.
It's just, IMO, they have an absolutely terrible idea of what to develop.
Champions Online has no lack of ideas.
What it has is a huge lack of experienced developers and producers who can execute quality releases. Implementation is the problem.
Secondarily, when they release half baked content it tends to trivialize all of the work they'd put in before. In many cases removing the previous content completely.
The result of the two of these is the game has no foundation on which to build.
I think it's more than fair to say "You're just not that good at your job" if every single release has more bugs and less content than the one before it.
I think it's more than fair to say "You're just not that good at your job" if every single release has more bugs and less content than the one before it.
They have had less and less people working on the game for a reason.
The redline cost of the initial release, Vibora expansion, and free to play release, with the kinds of MMO
gameplay this engine was made for, which only briefly attracts a pariticular kind of locusty leeching fly by night player, tells them that the money is not there to maintain a large team.
Reduce, refocus, regroup, recommit resources and recalculate the bottom line.
Players asked for the race. Its as bad as I thought it would be.
I swear I asked for that forum malvanum wave after wave of enemies with different enemies in each wave, but they didn't see what I was seeing in my head which was Killing Floor with super heros. Well they didn't have Telepathy, obviosuly and I didn't say it right out. being cryptic and all.
For what they do, they do alright. Sometimes.
BUT. What looks good on a design document doens't always translate well in three weeks or three months work. Sometimes its just a crappy idea, or sometimes that first long hard draft is just the thing you need to see how it all could be better.
They have had less and less people working on the game for a reason.
The redline cost of the initial release, Vibora expansion, and free to play release, with the kinds of MMO
gameplay this engine was made for, which only briefly attracts a pariticular kind of locusty leeching fly by night player, tells them that the money is not there to maintain a large team.
You talk as though Cryptic's other two games and their development schedules had nothing to do with this. They painted themselves into a corner with simultaneous crunches on the Neverwinter launch and Legacy of Romulus.
Reduce, refocus, regroup, recommit resources and recalculate the bottom line.
I think that was General Motors' slogan through the '80s and '90s. It's how they became the bastion of merely adequate motoring for over 20 years. Then again, they climbed out of that hole by killing off Saturn, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile because they were left to rot for so long, they were dead-weight brands.
How Cryptic got to this state, with two games they praise to the high heavens and a third they mumble about under their breath, is well known by now. The only remaining question is: Are they willing to invest in that third game so it can be as praiseworthy as the other two?
And no, hiring a B-squad to maintain the CO status quo without affecting the STO and NW schedules is not an investment, it's a band-aid. It still doesn't prevent Cryptic from pulling the plug here and reallocating Cryptic North to another game, because that's how Cryptic has always managed its personnel. Foundry? Mac support (which Dan Stahl is talking about for STO)? New zones and villains? That's investment.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
No but I am a game developer and I am not wanting for any material or financial excesses at this point. Well like Cryptic I could use more money to demand more say over more people to get more work done for me. But...I get that right here.
For free and they pay me pennies.
No but I am a game developer and I am not wanting for any material or financial excesses at this point. Well like Cryptic I could use more money to demand more say over more people to get more work done for me. But...I get that right here.
For free and they pay me pennies.
Livin' the dream.
Add lockboxes to your games. I hear they make buckets of cash!
And no, hiring a B-squad to maintain the CO status quo without affecting the STO and NW schedules is not an investment, it's a band-aid. It still doesn't prevent Cryptic from pulling the plug here and reallocating Cryptic North to another game, because that's how Cryptic has always managed its personnel. Foundry? Mac support (which Dan Stahl is talking about for STO)? New zones and villains? That's investment.
Star Trek had millions of followers and thousands of players a day, before Champions Online was ever a video game.
Its naturally going to drive more money.
There's a movie out this Summer for Star Trek.
Not a big movie for your character or my character or Lord Gar.
I wonder why that is?
Add lockboxes to your games. I hear they make buckets of cash!
This is my game, I paid some where around a $200 developer seat, the way its turning out.
Do you know the returns on those lockboxes? Why do they keep making them?
I tried one once and had a terrible 'rush', maybe like the first time I played video games as a kid. I'm too old for that smack.
THere is a 'secret project'. THAT is the third game.
Champions is their "we make mmos" calling card.
Star Trek had millions of followers and thousands of players a day, before Champions Online was ever a video game.
Its naturally going to drive more money.
There's a movie out this Summer for Star Trek.
Not a big movie for your character or my character or Lord Gar.
I wonder why that is?
OK, let's get back to first principles.
See that sig down there? The one that says "Cryptic: Built By Heroes"? Cryptic wouldn't have gotten a D&D license from Hasbro if STO wasn't good. They wouldn't have gotten the Star Trek license from CBS if CO wasn't good. CO wouldn't have been born, except Marvel stopped suing Cryptic long enough to recognize how good City of Heroes was.
Next, I don't know what games you've worked on, but building an MMO is far more than shipping an initial product and lobbing DLCs over the wall every few months for a year after that. MMOs are player communities. If you have a license for a popular existing IP, you can pretty much buy your way into a fanbase, like Forgotten Realms or Star Trek or your own best-selling RTS game I don't think I need to name. That's the easy way.
The hard way is to build your own lore from scratch in a genre nobody else is covering. That's what Cryptic did with City of Heroes. None of this happens if we comic book fans didn't flock to that game and make it a rousing success. Champions is well known among PnP role-players, but in the grand scheme of things, it's as obscure as CoH's lore was. And here we were again, making Champions a success. And that's where my sig comes from:
We made you, Cryptic Studios.
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished. Now Cryptic's gone Hollywood, and we're the old hometown friends left behind while they hang out with JJ Abrams. They've had no time for us for over a year.
Lucas, you expect us to spend more money? On what, nothing but lockbox keys, to the exclusion of everything else we used to get in C-store? That's unsustainable. That's slow poison. You know it, I know it, Cryptic knows it. That's why I'm souring more on the Cryptic North news each day. They're just one more set of developers flexible enough to work on any Cryptic project at any time, only with better coffee and a steady light rain.
Actually, I'm eager to see if Dan Stahl gets the Mac support he wants for STO, because NW's going to go along for the ride, and it's going to require a new version of Cryptic Engine. Either we get that upgrade, too, or Cryptic draws a line in the sand for us and says firmly, "No, Champions Online, you're done." And maybe they'll thank us for making them what they are today before abandoning us totally, but I doubt it.
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Not true. They've been working all along while they thinned out.
How many changes can they implement/break the game with/make players mad at
and still work on the next thing at a time is a matter of money.
Money that isn't coming into their pocket at profitable rate to be a motivation to spend it.
It can't be just a lifetime sub here and there, it needs to be at least two dozen or more lifetime subs a day.
That's why I'm souring more on the Cryptic North news each day. They're just one more set of developers flexible enough to work on any Cryptic project at any time
Really whats the point of the poor bastards doing anything for a crowd that constantly ignores every bit of work to date.
They may as well do it at their own pace and for their own fun to be working. "Hey I had a crazy idea for Champions last night while eating my Wheaties welfare dinner" "Oh yeah Stoke's, what was that?" "What if...ok don't laugh. What if players paaaaaid, man." "hahahha
If I were them I'd be studying player attitudes and play styles and other games and makign a whole new MMO behind the scenes. If it was this MMO and this company and I was the boss, it'd be making "Perfect World of Champions" with a Blockland/ Minecraft open world, a Q/Z/cash shop for user/dev content to add to your land.
Beware the horrors that lurk and thunder and seek to dominate user space.
Good times. No sleep til E3 2015!
If there is no glam rock thrash metal disco archetype in a Cryptic game by then I'm going to ...rage against the machine.
Comments
*Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt!*
.......
You have got to be kidding me. He won't because that would be a ****ing stupid thing to do. I mean, how ridiculous can you get? You might as well ask for his email password, his social security number, and his house keys!
I mean, oh my ****ing god! :rolleyes:
All you got is fart noises and a constipated smiley?
facetious
Treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant.
sarcasm
a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain.
Shocked you both. You're all so easy.
But it's gracious of you to admit that you're trolling. If only I could find a ******n report button on this damn forum.
:rolleyes:
Too bad we can't see no more how many characters there's been made.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
The only thing you've really proven is that not having a new zone isn't changing anything.
You can't pretend to know what the outcome would be if there was a new zone. Could bring in an influx of players, could be a big flop that causes the downfall of the game, could have zero effect on number of players.
And that someone has WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY too much time on their hands. And a possible problem with being obsessive/compulsive.
IIRC, this is the guy that quit the game and was leaving forever, too.
Occam's Razor makes the cutting clean.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
It's almost like new content was extremly short, without connection or continuation and temporary!
Checking data is part of the game. Some people care about their character stats.
They beg for help with the numbers on items and powers and attributes and specializations.
They build websites dedicate to theory crafting.
This has never interested me. Neither has having all the perks, or completing all the missions or
gaining all the action figures, getting the best gear, all the costumes, or crafting all the little
widgets into other widgets. Nor has making a wiki.
All things people grind like a second job to achieve a sense of fun in this game, I don't do them.
I team up with people and I show them a thing or two about the game.
When the people to team with are running low, or the locals are spooky, or i'm sick of alerts, or sick
of zone chat, I look for where to go to find players to team with. Cryptic provided me a handy
list of numbers for every little nook and cranny of the game.
There's no sense in roaming an instance with only 8 players in it,
I'm not going to find any needles in the haystack out there in any good time.
(An hour during 'prime time' to find one player in Westside past the prison in the most populous zone)
When I came to this game there were 17 zones of Millenium City.
I had to use the zone tracking to see where my noob teams could converge as the
\system was broken and would spread us through zones after we exited mission instances.
Checking zone population was a practical part of my day.
Really? When did I say I was leaving forever? I posted a love letter to the game and its developers
about three weeks ago. You must have me confused with someone else.
Its 5PM server time how are those zone populations looking.
I already did my patrol this morning, your turn.
Only thing I have to prove is that my numbers aren't coming from outer space.
I have shown that players aren't using what they have, more of the same
exact game in a new environment isn't going to drive customers in for the long haul, that's clear to me.
The population has not improved over last year, even with the influx of the CoXits and the weirdo short term events we had. Even with a new story arc. Even with smash leveling to 40 in 48 hours so you can enjoy Monster Island or Vibora Bay without much delay at all. All this is not pulling in more costumers than the years previous. Cryptic stated 2.5 million users from 2009 to 2011.
Counting new Champions is telling us that there are only 350,000 new accounts in the year and half that followed. Looking inside of New Champions shows us that masses of these players aren't even getting out of the tutorial. Feel free to test it out and say "Ha told you so" when you have a New Champions with 25% of the 498 players above level 20.
Looking at zone counts confirms that the player numbers are not on increase and that entire
zones of the game are wasted as only a minority ever bother to fill the space.
In November of 2011 they added Queen City, its a small open zone, perfect for RP, you can invite your lowbie friends there just by sharing the mission to meet Black Mask. Lovely adventurous feeling place.
Barren all the time.
People here want more dev time wasted for more empty space.
I've got the solution:
Cryptic, give them a big empty green screen zone, as big as MC.
Add items to it slowly between updates, at far flung distances. It'll be a hoot.
Uh huh. But you can't disprove that a new zone would be worth Cryptic's money. I'm not saying one way or the other. I'm not saying your assumptions are exactly right or wrong. I'm saying you haven't proven whether a new zone is a bad idea or not. Unless you have some evidence of Cryptic putting out a new zone during free-to-play and it was a major bungle, then you really have no proof. You have evidence of lots of little circumstantial things, but no proof.
You're saying players aren't using what they have, they just do alerts. What if a new zone offered better rewards than the alerts? That should have some impact. What if they actually spent some money on advertizing? That could do something too.
For all your research, you're still using a lot of words to prove nothing.
I mean, sure, it's a feedback loop, but I can certainly understand an executive going 'wait, it has DOZENS of players on?? Sod that.'
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Agreed.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
However, I don't agree that getting an average of the number of toons joining / leaving all of the current New Champions SGs since the start of F2P till now proves whether or not zones are being underused. The only thing you can prove using this sort of data is to show a progressive graph that indicates fluctuations in brand new player population with every month or even week that passes, to see if it meets a certain expectation that the game service provider has.
To actually determine how many and how often new players are using the zones, you'd have to actually monitor the following within a certain time span:
1) The total number of zone instances a new toon has been in outside of MC.
2) The total number of hours the toon has spent these zone instances.
3) The total number of hours the toon has spent in missions accessed within all non-MC zones.
3) The total number of these toons per new player account.
What's more you'd have to track every single one of new players and their toons on their activities since F2P started, whether or not they're spending more time in alerts, or in zones and their respective missions. Getting a few snapshots of the number of players in each zone instance each day isn't going to cut it. With that you can only prove the population of players during those specific periods in time and it doesn't confirm overall activity.
Unless you have written a sort of script that is able to monitor the activities of every single player and their toons to factually determine such, you can't just base it off tracking New Champions entries and exits.
Also, I think the fact that PWE / Cryptic has decided to focus their development activities mostly on NWO, followed by STO, has much more to do with why they're not bothering with releasing new zones, and have instead opted with focusing on just micro-transactions and scraps of temporary content of late.
We really don't need fancy math to tell us that the game is in the craphole. It's plain as day that population is terribly low. We matter so little that we've been relegated to a piece of a third-party developer, and neither Cryptic or Perfect World see fit to give us anything other than that, unless spending habits in this game change by a large margin.
I've played through all the zones in the process of leveling my character to 40. Since reaching cap I've picked up 3 pieces of Heroic primary gear and slotted it all up with rank 6 mods. I like that the UNITY missions sent me all around the game worlds, it's fun to have a reason to play in Canada and the Desert again. I've gotten 2/3 of my vigilante secondary questionite gear, and I've enjoyed doing the 3 daily alerts, custom alerts, comics and adventure packs to reach the Q cap every day. Once I get my last piece of secondary gear, I'm going to start working on upgrading my primaries to Legion gear and rank 7 mods.
The reason I'm mentioning all this is that I think it puts the discussion into context. I like to play content, but not just for the sake of playing it- I like to feel like I'm progressing my character. I always set goals for myself in games and it's nice to achieve them and see results. For me, a huge part of that is improving my gear and getting a better understanding of gameplay mechanics along the way.
Now I've also noted the low population in zones outside of Millennium City. Once I get all the top tier gear and mods, I can't really see myself sticking around the game anymore. Not because I'll stop liking it, but because I'll be out of things to do. A new zone for the level up process would not get me to keep playing, but if the level cap is raised and a new end game zone were added with higher tiers of progression through the skill tree, new abilities and more elite gear, that would give me a reason to keep playing the game. I would honestly prefer raids over a new zone since they're generally my favorite content in MMO's, and I'd love to see the unique combat systems of this game in place for elaborate 20-40 man ordeals.
Regardless of how progression is implemented, I don't see an incentive to do any new content, zone or otherwise, unless it means raising the level cap and growing level 40 characters. I have to say that as much as I'm enjoying Champions Online, I'm pretty shocked at how trivial it was to get to max level, and the quick rate that I've been able to gear myself up at so far. I can sort of understand the low pop.
Which leads to my next question to anyone complaining about how empty the zones feel, does it really matter if you're not teaming? Let's face it; outside of lairs, the missions aren't exactly team-friendly and there isn't a practical benefit to justify going through the trouble of forming a PUG and having to deal with people slowing you down, especially when they have a slower TP than you. The only reason you'd want to team is with friends who enjoy your company and you theirs, who don't mind doing it solely for that and not for any tangible reward.
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!
Wait, it's just on Silvers that this happens? Well, that explains it since I've been Gold since I've started.
So assuming a number of people went Gold outright like I did, Nextname's numbers are still bovine excrement.
I know I'm not the typical player (weirdo anti-social MMO player), but I don't like being in zones that don't have any banter going on in them. Call me crazy, but I like zone chat, and when I'm in Millennium City, the only reason I ever hesitate to go into the instanced missions is because I won't be able to chat and read the banter. But like I said, I'm atypical.
Well yeah, it wouldn't apply for players (like yourself) who decided to go for gold straight away without starting out as silver.
So now, that dwindled population is the justification for not making a new zone?
"That road with all the potholes isn't being fixed because no one uses it anymore because of all the potholes, so it wouldn't be worth it."
I would venture to say that CO is a glorified chat client for a lot of people, so you're not all that atypical.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
So you're like Deadpool; You never shut up. :biggrin: Just kidding.
I know where you're coming from. Personally it never really bothered me. When I feel like chatting I do so, when I feel like beating up some bad guys I focus on that instead.
Nah not really. I don't often sit around and just chat. I'm usually out leveling some stupid alt or answering the cries to queue for Gravitar or trying to get the damn Foxbat belt.
The atypical part about me is being antisocial (to the point where I really dislike teaming with people, and I feel dread when I see a friend request pop up because this person might want to team with me later, or just keep talking to me), but not enjoying single-player games as much as I enjoy MMOs. Not for playing with other people, but to be able to chat with all those people I can't team with because my dumb brain is broken.
Same. Even if I am currently soloing its kind of cool to read zone banter.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
But a lot of mostly solo folks like seeing folks around, trading, chatting, all that jazz. And part of the value of f2p games is that 'having people around adds value to the game.'
Empty zones are a problem because they make the game less fun for many people.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
People aren't leaving MC anymore because of alerts.....XP alerts circumvent the need of other existent zones outside of silver gear quests. They took away all the rare rewards and devices for doing open world missions.....they put things that used to require exploration to get in the questionite shop, questionite that you can gain without even leaving MC. They put up burst alerts so you don't even need to go out of MC to canada and other areas to gather T2 craft items. They put up alerts that give you more globals than you could ever get normally before resistance in less time.
Its not rocket science. Those zones had plenty of people in them before on alert. I know, I was one of them. After on Alert and the quick and easy progression came up from that I think I stopped giving a damn about leaving MC all together after my inventor was level 30.
We can sit up here all day and debate about there being people in game or not, or a new zone being the solution to all your worries. But if the current problem that prevents people from giving a damn about exploring the game isn't solved then you'll run into the same loophole down the line. <
And it all points to Alerts.
^This /10characters
No they didn't, by December 2011, Canada was down to one zone of about 23 people average, Crisis had turned into a 3 person adventure at every time of the day down from 50 in two zones each, Desert was the same deal with less people especially since it was buggy, Monster Island was a ghost town, never once got a team anytime I was there, Vibora was the same deal, I leveled over 12 toons through the Crisis only to find myself alone as a result.
By December 2011 the total population of the game took a massive punch to the nose, in every zone. Down from 17 zones of MC in the city to 4. Down from 17,000 logins from Steam in 48 period to roughly somewhere between 450 and 780.
On Alert pulled it out of the fire until August 2012 when it dropped off Steams top 100
with less than 585 Steam logins in a 48 period. Now we can't even use that to count.
Like I said I've been tracking these numbers since June 2011.
This is your own circular thinking lost to reality by your choice to remain ignorant of the facts.
Of 492 New Champions in a single super group 180 leave at level 1, has nothing to do with a new zone.
200 more leave before level 6 has nothing to with a new zone
100 more leave before level 12 has nothing to do with a new zone.
12 players remain and one player manages to reach level 25, before quitting has nothing to do with a new zone.
This happens to a new New Champions SG every two days.
It has nothing to do with getting or not getting a new zone.
We got a 'new zone' in November 2011, a new zone that never ever fills up.
The population still drained like a hammered coconut.
Cryptic stated 2.5 million accounts were made from Septemeber 2009 to
September 2011(I think thats when the numebrs were posted for the anniversary, else it was December).
Those 2.5 million didn't leave because there was no new zone, hell they got Vibora Bay in
March 2010 and the game was forced to go free to play following that after it lost Atari $7 million.
I think this is the only way for them to play it safe, make money of it and keep the game fresh.
But their current direction is probably the 'safest.'
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
kinds of efforts pull in and what the player attrition rate is.
If they can't figure it out for themselves one community rep's salary could be
sacrificed to hire someone else to figure that out. Goodbye kitty on the payroll hello
Smackwell shadow enforcer of the overlords. Hypothetically of course.
The reality is certainly that they have data and they know what drives what, up to the point they have gone.
That is why you see some of the things you see now, like Alerts.
They implement things that players request that sometimes fail, like that race.
I feel ashamed to have taken part in the suggestion thread for that.
They implement things for very few like Gravitar,
I clearly remember being angry at people who posted in the forums that they wanted the game harder
across the board. Half venom and half laughs I suggested that Cryptic give them
a super powered villain on a rampage with a sexy bra reward Wow. Look at those rewards.
Soon to be producers [url=http://i.imgur.com/IYJlUVX.jpg[/IMG]Stokeman[/url] and Lord Gar back then.
Enough memes. I'm serious. They implement stuff that we suggest and measure it.
New Zone was the expectation for every MMO and it is not a working model.
The cost versus return is not there.
The game is already Free to Play, there is no guaranteed money flowing from 90% of the players in the game.
Do the math yourself and figure out at that rate what would it take to pay one person a six month contract salary?
ie , how many total players do you need to pay one guy for six months if only 10% of players give you money?
Multilply by the complexity of a 'new zone', add another six months for one guy to handle
the Q&A issues you couldn't catch before rushing it out the door.
How many months until you see a profit and your shareholder's stop threatening to stop you
and everyone that works under you from making your mortgage, childcare,healthcare and college loan payments?
Pop out your calculators and figure it out.
One new zone. How many lives will you ruin for it?
2. Less players.
3. Use less players to justify not providing new content.
Repeat until death.
It's sad when game producers go from "Let's see what cool things we can do in this career we love!" to "Okay let's do a cost-benefit analysis to decide what we should do next". Even if only in the eyes of the players. Yes, it's a business, but it's not a widget factory.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
It's just, IMO, they have an absolutely terrible idea of what to develop.
On Alert was a massive change. Vehicles was a pretty extensive thing. The various events over the past year.
On Alert has a few flaws that could be corrected, and I think it could have worked if the other content was better:
Vehicles should have been travel powers. Like people asked for. That would have saved the effort of creating special events and instances for vehicles, mechanics with the vehicle mods and so on.
Or they could have sweetened the pot. Being too greedy can shoot you in the foot -- if everyone had a reasonable chance of getting a basic vehicle with minimal work, people might have gotten more involved and more excited about trying to get exotic/fancy vehicles for zen or out of lockboxes.
They could have taken the effort spent on the last 3 or four events and rolled it into something more... evergreen. Make a new mission hub, or comic series, or... something.
And they should have REALLY thought out the lack of unique rewards out on the map. I hadn't really thought of the combination effect of On Alert's 'you don't have to go anywhere to join an alert' and 'all the game's valuable and interesting loot are in RenCen.'
So. yeah. To recap, it's not even the fact they don't have enough resources for this game... it's that their decisions about what to do with the limited resources have been really terrible.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
Honestly, empty zones make the game more fun for me. When I go do missions, I don't like it if there are a billion other heroes zipping around doing all the same stuff. I feel less like a hero doing heroic things, and more like a kid at a carnival going from booth to booth. I like the way the mission zones are now.
Alerts don't need to be solved. You mentioned what needs to be solved, but you looked at it backwards. They need to make running missions worth it. Part of the solution is to make missions more fun; fact is, running missions is just like running alerts. It's repetitive and grindy, the only difference being that there's more travelling involved. They need to make us excited to go run missions. People right now just aren't excited about running missions because even a new player discovers very early on that it's just the same uninteresting thing over and over again.
Missions probably need a slight increase in their xp reward, so that their "xp per hour" is more inline with alerts; all that extra travelling has to be compensated for somehow, and once the xp rate is the same then it will truly become a choice between the two, and we'll see which content wins out on interest alone. Personally, I think the uninteresting nature of missions will continue to cripple the level of interest, but as stated above I like the low population in quest zones so I would be okay with that.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Hokay.
While I'm sure this argument seems to be comprehensive and cogent reducto ad absurdum in your head, out in the real world this is called a Straw Man argument. It's a gross and misleading oversimplification on many levels. It presents one possible, partial and indirect cause and effect relationship as if it were direct and singular. It's a logical fallacy.
While I am not in favor of "ruining lives", I agree with Smoochan, it's a business, but it's not a widget factory. There are more factors than just raw capitalism. Otherwise why even ever make an MMO when other things generate more revenue?
Somebody has this on their sig, but "A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business."- Henry Ford
The reality you are obviously detached from:
Vibora Bay, Free to Play, Adventure Packs, Comics, Costumes, Powers, Action Figures, Becomes, Queen City, Modding, Fusion, New Gear, New Travels, Tutorial Update, Westside Update, On Alert, Rampage, Hi-Pan, Red Winter, Nighthawk, Vehicles, Destroids Invasion, Harbinger, Race, Moonfight, Fatal Infringement.
True. against every plan of attack, less players.
Whoa whoa you slipped back into absolutes and ignoring the facts.
Whats next?
I hear auras? Will that help? now? And then a sidekick system?
In my mind they would discount all the power costs to 1 for per rank and add auras and powers into the power training system. Pay for style or pay for power, your choice. Need a better slogan for that.
Hey, I like that! Kid, you got potential.
Champions Online: Repeat until death.
They want to keep their jobs, jobs gets them paid and words that rhyme with paid so they don't have to complain about other people's games all day. Livin' the dream.
Do you know how many 'widgets' of data , individual files, are in the download on your harddrive right now?
I'll give you clue, a month ago I took a reading and it was something like 52,860 plus or minus a pinch.
52,860 little nuts, bolts, tubes, and lubes to tweak and worry over every day while
unemployed angry people rage against your factory walls clamouring "feed us".
Did you get a new zone done while you are writing angry at these guys?
Theoretically you could use demo_record and -demoplay to create 'a new zone' demo file
that Cryptic likely could copy paste into action, or at least be inspired to say "that aint workin'
that's money for nothing and your chicks for free", because they are into
old songs and 3D animations and free to play ladies in lingerie.
You could do it. Take that zone idea of yours and run with it guys.
Develop the zone using demo_record.
Take my program I made and extend it to shuffle data around so you can pop
objects and NPCsin and out of a file like french fry cooks. Your Foundry is there waiting. Do it.
Dooooo it.
I think there's some legal issues with throwing Cryptics data around the internet like hosting it on Sourceforge or Git.
If we share it between players though that should legally be reasonable, its only
game data and we all already have 4 gigs of that, right? What's another couple gigs between pals?
Champions Online has no lack of ideas.
What it has is a huge lack of experienced developers and producers who can execute quality releases. Implementation is the problem.
Secondarily, when they release half baked content it tends to trivialize all of the work they'd put in before. In many cases removing the previous content completely.
The result of the two of these is the game has no foundation on which to build.
I think it's more than fair to say "You're just not that good at your job" if every single release has more bugs and less content than the one before it.
They have had less and less people working on the game for a reason.
The redline cost of the initial release, Vibora expansion, and free to play release, with the kinds of MMO
gameplay this engine was made for, which only briefly attracts a pariticular kind of locusty leeching fly by night player, tells them that the money is not there to maintain a large team.
Reduce, refocus, regroup, recommit resources and recalculate the bottom line.
Players asked for the race. Its as bad as I thought it would be.
I swear I asked for that forum malvanum wave after wave of enemies with different enemies in each wave, but they didn't see what I was seeing in my head which was Killing Floor with super heros. Well they didn't have Telepathy, obviosuly and I didn't say it right out. being cryptic and all.
For what they do, they do alright. Sometimes.
BUT. What looks good on a design document doens't always translate well in three weeks or three months work. Sometimes its just a crappy idea, or sometimes that first long hard draft is just the thing you need to see how it all could be better.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
You talk as though Cryptic's other two games and their development schedules had nothing to do with this. They painted themselves into a corner with simultaneous crunches on the Neverwinter launch and Legacy of Romulus.
I think that was General Motors' slogan through the '80s and '90s. It's how they became the bastion of merely adequate motoring for over 20 years. Then again, they climbed out of that hole by killing off Saturn, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile because they were left to rot for so long, they were dead-weight brands.
How Cryptic got to this state, with two games they praise to the high heavens and a third they mumble about under their breath, is well known by now. The only remaining question is: Are they willing to invest in that third game so it can be as praiseworthy as the other two?
And no, hiring a B-squad to maintain the CO status quo without affecting the STO and NW schedules is not an investment, it's a band-aid. It still doesn't prevent Cryptic from pulling the plug here and reallocating Cryptic North to another game, because that's how Cryptic has always managed its personnel. Foundry? Mac support (which Dan Stahl is talking about for STO)? New zones and villains? That's investment.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Nope, absolutely not. Not unless we, the players, invest a WHOLE LOT MORE first. They actually said this.
No but I am a game developer and I am not wanting for any material or financial excesses at this point. Well like Cryptic I could use more money to demand more say over more people to get more work done for me. But...I get that right here.
For free and they pay me pennies.
Livin' the dream.
Add lockboxes to your games. I hear they make buckets of cash!
Champions is their "we make mmos" calling card.
Star Trek had millions of followers and thousands of players a day, before Champions Online was ever a video game.
Its naturally going to drive more money.
There's a movie out this Summer for Star Trek.
Not a big movie for your character or my character or Lord Gar.
I wonder why that is?
This is my game, I paid some where around a $200 developer seat, the way its turning out.
Do you know the returns on those lockboxes? Why do they keep making them?
I tried one once and had a terrible 'rush', maybe like the first time I played video games as a kid. I'm too old for that smack.
OK, let's get back to first principles.
See that sig down there? The one that says "Cryptic: Built By Heroes"? Cryptic wouldn't have gotten a D&D license from Hasbro if STO wasn't good. They wouldn't have gotten the Star Trek license from CBS if CO wasn't good. CO wouldn't have been born, except Marvel stopped suing Cryptic long enough to recognize how good City of Heroes was.
Next, I don't know what games you've worked on, but building an MMO is far more than shipping an initial product and lobbing DLCs over the wall every few months for a year after that. MMOs are player communities. If you have a license for a popular existing IP, you can pretty much buy your way into a fanbase, like Forgotten Realms or Star Trek or your own best-selling RTS game I don't think I need to name. That's the easy way.
The hard way is to build your own lore from scratch in a genre nobody else is covering. That's what Cryptic did with City of Heroes. None of this happens if we comic book fans didn't flock to that game and make it a rousing success. Champions is well known among PnP role-players, but in the grand scheme of things, it's as obscure as CoH's lore was. And here we were again, making Champions a success. And that's where my sig comes from:
We made you, Cryptic Studios.
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished. Now Cryptic's gone Hollywood, and we're the old hometown friends left behind while they hang out with JJ Abrams. They've had no time for us for over a year.
Lucas, you expect us to spend more money? On what, nothing but lockbox keys, to the exclusion of everything else we used to get in C-store? That's unsustainable. That's slow poison. You know it, I know it, Cryptic knows it. That's why I'm souring more on the Cryptic North news each day. They're just one more set of developers flexible enough to work on any Cryptic project at any time, only with better coffee and a steady light rain.
Actually, I'm eager to see if Dan Stahl gets the Mac support he wants for STO, because NW's going to go along for the ride, and it's going to require a new version of Cryptic Engine. Either we get that upgrade, too, or Cryptic draws a line in the sand for us and says firmly, "No, Champions Online, you're done." And maybe they'll thank us for making them what they are today before abandoning us totally, but I doubt it.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
How many changes can they implement/break the game with/make players mad at
and still work on the next thing at a time is a matter of money.
Money that isn't coming into their pocket at profitable rate to be a motivation to spend it.
It can't be just a lifetime sub here and there, it needs to be at least two dozen or more lifetime subs a day.
Really whats the point of the poor bastards doing anything for a crowd that constantly ignores every bit of work to date.
They may as well do it at their own pace and for their own fun to be working.
"Hey I had a crazy idea for Champions last night while eating my Wheaties welfare dinner"
"Oh yeah Stoke's, what was that?"
"What if...ok don't laugh. What if players paaaaaid, man."
"hahahha
If I were them I'd be studying player attitudes and play styles and other games and makign a whole new MMO behind the scenes. If it was this MMO and this company and I was the boss, it'd be making "Perfect World of Champions" with a Blockland/ Minecraft open world, a Q/Z/cash shop for user/dev content to add to your land.
Beware the horrors that lurk and thunder and seek to dominate user space.
Good times. No sleep til E3 2015!
If there is no glam rock thrash metal disco archetype in a Cryptic game by then I'm going to ...rage against the machine.