There were news that Cryptic will disable foundry quest making feature for both Neverwinter Online and Star Trek Online, because it's too expensive to maintain.
And seeing a low population in Champions Online
https://steamcharts.com/app/9880 . That raises the worry that Champions Online might cease to exist in following years.
Why do I write this? Well, two of my favorite games are shutting down: "Blacklight: Retribution" and "Orcs Must Die! Unchained". And I don't want another online game to get shut down.
It's difficult to get back to a game to have fun, because of fear of losing it at any moment.
I wonder if there is any emergency plan for the game, like Server Emulation that would've let you play it after official server shut down.
This video explains the Online Game Preservation in more details
https://youtu.be/S4SFE0a9Vqs
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CO is a different sort of beast altogether, and never had a Foundry in the first place, doggone it (I had such plans...). So the economic calculus is far from the same.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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So foundry was implemented like a mod, that needs its own update. It's quite good summary you made. Thank you. But it is still alarming at least a little.
We're fine.
The game is fine.
Why worry something that is inevitable. It will happen eventually. Games do that.
Just enjoy the ride.
When it's really, really sure, then gather in Ren Center with torches and signs that say "hell no, we won't go!".
Until that:
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
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It's good you mentioned "managerial impulse" factor. It's what can lead to the worst fate for the game.
Maybe the game will live for next couple years, but I fear that it might collapse after that.
We also entered a time when bubble called "Games as a service" is bursting. More and more online games are shutting down.
And if "Champions Online is far from a cash-cow", then I hope the developers will do make some emergency plan to make game playable after servers shuts down.
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I can agree with you, but at the same time, not entirely. With this logic, games that were from PS1 era should have perish once new generation of games came in. I still can play these old games via roms and emulators. Their playable state is vastly increase. Without these things, these games would mostly fade away if not such preservation.
Well, yes. But there is a way to prevent that. Like people who extracted old games into roms and can be played via emulators. So they're closer to immortality than before.
I would be surprised too. In a good way.
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To Bulgarex’s point about self-sufficiency and managerial impulse, I worry about Magic: The Gathering’s impending launch. Cryptic has been exceptionally quiet about it since its announcement, but if it’s on track, the launch is bound to impact CO in some way. Hopefully, they’ll have learned the necessary lessons from the Neverwinter/Legacy of Romulus simultaneous crunch that left CO in an effective maintenance mode for much of 2012. There’s still a chance that MtG’s development could upset the balance CO needs to remain viable, though. Maybe they haven’t learned their lesson, and there’s another dev vacuum coming when MtG hits its pre-launch crunch. Maybe data center space or cost becomes a problem and CO gets squeezed out. Maybe, like NW and STO’s Foundries, years of accumulated technical debt comes due, and MtG’s engine enhancements break CO to the point that it’s too expensive to fix. Or maybe that managerial impulse simply says that as MtG approaches its launch date, it would be a good time for CO to $TRAVEL_POWER off into the sunset.
Anything data center-related would likely be terminal. I doubt Cryptic or PWE want to allow player-run CO servers because allowing even binaries to exit their control would put STO, NW, and MtG at risk for exploits, since they all use the same engine and architecture. Migrating player accounts out of Arc would also be a significant risk. Other than that, maintenance mode would be an option, and might keep the game alive for a while longer, but I don’t like CO’s chances of lasting in that state as long as, say, Guild Wars 1.
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
These two videos will explain what I mean.
https://youtu.be/tS9vvF1V1Dc
https://youtu.be/fvxaadSzvxU
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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That's OK. I just wanted to say that online game death is preventable.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
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I can agree on that. Unfortunately, I don't have info on how many players are here on ARC. So my bad, I suppose.
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Guilty as charged. I don't use Steam and don't use ARC.
I hope they'll continue supporting CO. And if not, we need to ask the developers if the have any emergency plan for the game to keep it's playability after it stops giving money.
I heard that developers are likely to read forums here than in steam forum.
I hope so, because I've really become rather fond of this game. I didn't become an instant-fan like I did with City of Heroes; it took me time to warm up to it, but it really is the best MMO of its genre in operation.
Many like me, launch the game directly, and many more use the ARC game browser to access CO. Steam isn't showing you those numbers
There's also no reason to think that a change in the number of steam users equates to a change in any other population. On any given day 100 steam users could rage-quit the game, while 200 new players join through Arc meaning steam charts would give an impression of population change that is the opposite of reality.
Yeah nobody really has that information. Some people in the past were really stubborn about repeatedly posting Steam numbers and claiming they proved the game was dying. And here we are years later with the game still alive, and those people are dead.
The developers would have no ability to do anything if the owners decided to shut the game down, and the owners don't read these forums. I bet the devs wouldn't even be allowed to tell us ahead of time if they were told the game was shutting down soon.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
It probably also doesnt count people like me who log in through the original STO launcher I've been using ever since it came out.
And that is what makes me worried, that we are not allowed to know how well the game is going from their perspective.
We also don't know what amount of money goes to support the game and what amount of money is going to owner's wallets.