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Why is Champions the red headed step child of the PWE family?
pvthudson
Posts: 12 Arc User
Neverwinter
Star Trek
Torchlight (mod pack and editor stuff)
All these games and more get expansions and a ton of devoted time to them
All of them in a genre that is over saturated.
BUT the one title where PWE is unique is a super hero MMO for the most part.
And yet this game is the most IGNORED.
No foundry, character in game settings never remembered when a new character is made, no log out to character selection
NO EXPANSIONS.
Why is this? Why are no resources put toward this game? Instead we get..racing hoops in mid air
Star Trek
Torchlight (mod pack and editor stuff)
All these games and more get expansions and a ton of devoted time to them
All of them in a genre that is over saturated.
BUT the one title where PWE is unique is a super hero MMO for the most part.
And yet this game is the most IGNORED.
No foundry, character in game settings never remembered when a new character is made, no log out to character selection
NO EXPANSIONS.
Why is this? Why are no resources put toward this game? Instead we get..racing hoops in mid air
Post edited by pvthudson on
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Ffdslkphwhat.
I mean, I'm not saying you have an invalid point at all, and everything else in the post certainly resonates true, but what.
2. also we have a lower player base than the other 2 becasue it's not a high interest MMO setting, so there isn't much competition and therefore no need to try to keep characters becasue they have little choice in the type of games available.
. besides if they leave this one , they will go to another PWE game bull**** like Nevermind online
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Once upon a time it was the most promising padawan at the academy. Then Bill Roper lured it to the Dark Side. On discovering its betrayal, Microsoft cut its limbs off and threw it into a fire. Roper managed to save it, but barely. With its budget missing more than an arm and a leg, it could never regain its facility with The Market Force?. So it ended up playing second fiddle to Emperor Palpatrek and being overshadowed by its successor Lukerwinter.
Its pretty much Cryptic's fault all around that CO has a low costumer rate.
...and yet it's not beyond repair.
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
What little is left of the good parts of this game is slowly being destroyed by the constant abuse of this current business model and the game's lack of attention/support.
I can't help but assume that Cryptic is only keeping Champions Online running (barely at that) so they can milk whatever they can out of it whilst they focus on coughing out Neverwinter (another generic fantasy MMO which the market is literally flooded with). Once Neverwinter is released I really cannot see Champions Online being kept open for long, since Cryptic will now have a whole new MMO with a well known title to abuse.
As for Star Trek Online, sure it is getting an expansion of sorts, but that hasn't stopped Cryptic from putting together "legacy" packs that are mind numbingly expensive for what it gives you. Not to mention the same business model on that game is far more aggressive and "in your face" than what it is here. If that wasn't enough abuse to make you want to wash your hands of that game then the constant BS being put out by it's current lead developer Daniel Stahl sure is, the release of the last season update for Star Trek Online caused a bigger part of the community to turn against him as he was caught flat-out lying about important implementations that ended up completely ruining the game experience.
However with Star Trek in the title, you will always have a steady stream of gullible fanboys to keep the money flowing in.
Temporary events for a temporary event (Champions Online), we'll find out soon enough.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
That seems to be the assumption that NCSoft made with regards to City of Heroes, too. I can count on my thumbs the number if people I know that did that, and both of them went to Guild Wars, which they had both purchased prior to the CoH shutdown announcement. I know a much larger number of people who refuse to ever purchase another NCSoft product.
And it makes sense. If you have a large player base that plays one of your games, but none of the others, why would you expect them to suddenly start playing the others if you force them to stop playing the one they do want? Furthermore, they actually have stats that tell them this: My NCSoft account, for example, has a half dozen trial accounts for other games that I never subscribed to; I obviously didn't like them. But I also had multiple CoH accounts with years of paid time, multiple expansions and microtransactions.
I don't have accurate data, but if there were a significant number of accounts like mine, who in their right mind would think that the player base would move to one of their dissimilar games, rather than a competitor's similar game, like Champions or DCUO?
@flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
1- Because Chinese and Korean gaming models aren't about fun, they're about quick bucks and as little developer commitment as possible. Make the game, do maintenance to keep it running, let it bring in a little revenue until it isn't worth the server space. That's how they work.
2- Customer service is terrible. WoW, TSW, DCUO, GW2, SWToR... any of those games, you have a problem, and someone is trying to help you within an hour or two. In CO, customer service is some copy/paste email and ignoring the problem. I can say that if it had not been for me buying my lifetime membership when I did, I wouldn't be paying for it during this last year. If I had been subscribed before that, I would have canceled it and played a Silver Account.
When you look at Champions Online and the constant lack of effort on the part of the team- you cannot justify a subscription that is the exact same as functional, reliable, and content-driven games that charge the same. Essentially, CO is worth 5 dollars a month for freeform... and it's probably best to buy the slot and forget about it.
CO will not last much longer, unless they dedicate more time to it
CO might be the red headed stepchild of the PWE family but it is probably the one that they tout to people to get more business.
Take NeverWinter Online, for example. Based on a version of D&D that is closer to a superhero RPG than a fantasy RPG it made sense for Wizards of the Coast to come to PWE for this game.
While this continues the game will survive.
The gameplay is good, the content is deep and it still receives a fair amount of critical acclaim.
A Prootwaddle is one of the weirder player-character races in "The Fantasy Trip", Steve Jackson's first published role-playing game.
NWO was in development under Atari. Wizards of the Coast never went to PWE.
And the only reason it came out now instead of a year ago is because PWE wanted to make sure it could be monetized, limited to customization without pay, and more of a grindfest comparable to other PWE games. It was ready to go BETA when On Alert first hit.
Delay in that meant more money had to be put into its development and that came from CO (primarily). So this game suffered and STO's budget was left alone to keep it fresh and advance in the past year.
That is why CO is doing horribly. And Cryptic expects to never invest into it unless it magically gets popular and gets more customers. The customers that will never come because of no promotion and no expansions.
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NW was delayed because PWE wanted Cryptic to upgrade it to a full fledged MMO (which is was not originally intended to be).
CO was doing poorly (horribly if you like) before the PWE/NW thing. Remember how many people were posting their hopes that the new owners would invest int he game rather than letting it languish horribly under Atari ?
Yeah, this is not a new thing.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Accounts from play-to-test Beta weekends indicate that this fully fledged MMO is just like CO with at least one MW forum moderator explaining that spider climb will not be available because CO does not have wall crawling.
NW seems to have D&D-style art assets and flashier animations (in order to appeal to the younger audience that makes up the rump of the D&D market that stuck with D&D4) but all signs are that it is simply CO with a bit of a makeover and a few more bells and whistles.
A Prootwaddle is one of the weirder player-character races in "The Fantasy Trip", Steve Jackson's first published role-playing game.
Also negligible power choice and forced pseudo-fps controls.
It's like they took everything good about CO and STO and intentionally filtered them out to produce substandard f2p garbage play.
. . . but with less character customization.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
unfort, this is why for now im hanging up my cape. until i see real dev time in this game i wont be back. and no you cant have my stuffs
You all were supposed to come in here and at least fanboy my butt and instead I feel worse now after posting this
I thought at least ONE dev or someone would come in here and post that new content was on the way blah blah but now I dont even feel like logging in if all we do is level and then make alts and do the same stuff over and over.
Sigh
Champions Online remains an excellent MMO, it simply hasn't had hardly any development recently.
It will constantly draw older gamers, maybe at a trickle, who will enjoy the depth of content, the humour & strong storytelling and simply enjoy the experience. I've been playing for months now and I've yet to exhaust the game.
It remains interesting for some people, who don't have vast pools of resources, to gather, unlock, balance currencies and work on myriad goals and targets.
There will be more Champions Online content soon, but it will be available in the re-badged NeverWinter Online and you can only play a superhero with a D&D4 theme ...
A Prootwaddle is one of the weirder player-character races in "The Fantasy Trip", Steve Jackson's first published role-playing game.
LOL I found this juxtapostion to be most humerous... if sad.
Fine, run then. But realize that the less players that login, the more likely Cryptic will decide this game has reached the end of its useful economic life.
I'm here 'til the end. Why aren't you? :cool:
People are broken. - Lum the Mad
I'd like to point that no player has any sacred duty to stick with a game when he/she doesn't enjoy it enough.
Games are played for fun, not because of any obligations.
CO is only a product, and not a top notch one.
If product fails to keep people interested, then losing customers is a very logical and the most fitting way.
Customer loyalty must be earned.
There is nothing wrong with games finally dying. It happends all the time.
It keeps getting wrinkled in the sock drawer.
DCUO is a sorry excuse for a console fighter, Marvel Heroes is nothing but a re skinned Diablo 3 and COH is gone.
So yeah...that would SUCK
The popular stance in the forums is, "CO sucks and it's going to be shut down any time now!" Anyone actually expressing any support for the game is immediately dismissed as a "fanboy", as you gratuitously expressed yourself ("fanboying it up").
Now, start a thread that isn't about how terribly CO is, and how mistreated it is by the parent company, and maybe you might see some support occasionally. But as it is, some of us are just tired of being flamed for daring to express contrary opinions.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Quoted for truth, yo!
Actually Jon I don't think CO sucks. I love playing the game after all these years. I just have low expectations for significant updates being added to the game.
As for being shut down any time now, eh. CoH proved that can happen to any MMO. Personally I don't think CO is shutting down soon, but I don't think PWE is going to set aside significant resources for major updates.
Guilty as charged, I do believe CO is mistreated by the parent company.
I may disagree with your view points, but, and I mean this sincerely,
in the words of Cmdr Peter Quincy Taggert of Space Quest - "Never Give Up! -- Never Surrender!"
At least you're not a new jerk idiotic "Fanboi" type. Just a "somewhat" cranky contrarian.
:biggrin:
CellarRat33 :: formerly Bsquared
***
"The great thing about glory unending is that it's dirt cheap!" - Tateklys
From the Adventures of Thundrax (canadascott)
***
Kinda makes it hard to market, right? Even with all of the great ideas we spout to put directly in the Z-Store, Cryptic seems to be having a really hard time monetizing this game save for lockboxes. Legion Gear, 8 slot vehicles found in lockboxes, exclusive Become devices... I dunno, maybe these are all attempts to induce the elitism of the 'extremely rare drop club' found in other MMOs to appeal to that type of gamer while trying to pull in more money? Neverwinter supports this kind of gamer inherently due to worn armor appearing on your character (so you may very well be farming for that level 80 super armor with all the spikes and auras, which looks 'cool' and gives you hella buffs), and STO has ships, which are a BIG PART of the game, therefore making super-rare lockbox ships relevant. There's my crackpot theory for the day.
The reason CO's the red-headed stepchild is lack of marketability (in their eyes, but do remember; we generally suggest things we would buy, not the general MMO playing public) and presumably because CO defies all of the other MMO conventions too. We have customized, personalized characters, from the top of their head to the soles of their feet, and we decide how they move through the CO world and how they fight the enemies populating it. We aren't rogues, fighters or wizards. We can be, but most of us aren't. We are what we want to be. A gun-toting mutant with a journalism day job, an anthropomorphic fire dragoness who runs her own fashion company when she's not superheroing, a psychic shark woman who rips her enemies apart with telekinetic blades, a wolf lady wearing advanced power armor, a brooding mercenary who wields dual pistols like they're an extension of his body, or even an iconic stand-out Canadian tights-clad hero who hits things really hard. We can even be a Russian bear from a planet of Soviet bears, for cripes sake! We aren't elves, dwarves, tieflings or humans... we can be, but many of us simply aren't.
That's why Champions Online is precious. That's why we're the red-headed stepchild.
Fortunately, we're the stepchild with the most potential. If only we could get a little love and care like our big brothers. Champions Online is the latent artist of this family but its talents are either ignored or shunned, while Star Trek Online and Neverwinter are the straight-laced kids who will grow up to become lawyers or doctors.
Did I mention CO currently shuns the players who prefer crafting rather than raiding and looting and such? Getting a proper working crafting system rather than the basic Diablo-style gem system we have now goes a long way, you know.
tl;dr: ya can't sell race expansions in CO, ya can't sell new classes (well, you can, archetypes are a thing) but the main playerbase generally won't buy them, ya can't be a good crafter, ya don't got things that make hardcore MMO players drool, etc. etc.
Remember how Atari actually relased what were, allegedly, "French" and "German" versions, so badly translated in parts that at least they had comedic value [EDIT: and Cryptic actually went defending this at the time with absurd claims that a translator couldn't possibly know that "back" within the context of the costume creator means a person's back, not a back button!]? The marketing value of never having had localizations in the first place would be off the charts here, because it would mean fewer bad reviews in two of the biggest European markets...
I'm pretty sure CO is also the only noteworthy MMO that went F2P without any provisions for former subscribers to be able to play old characters without re-subscribing. Think about what that means in terms of getting old players to give it another shot. Yes, that's right: Worst. Plan. Ever.
Or how about this one: there's so many things that according to Cryptic can't be done that you seriously have to wonder how crappy the underlying code base really is and whether thhe game would implode if anyone tried to, say, implement new neighborhoods/zones, a Gold-Freeform-to-Silver-Freeform conversion token (you know, to fix the previous point) or *gasp* the Foundry.
Sure, PWE made no end of bad calls since (On Alert, vehicles, carny con lockbox business model, etc.), but that's just nails in a coffin they didn't have to actually build.
Also i love redheads.. if you are a card carrying member please contact me immediately.
Actually, City of Heroes kinda bungled this. One of my regular teammates had one level 50. He let his sub lapse while out of the country for a couple of months. During that time, NCSoft announced the shutdown, shuttered the studio, and locked all accounts in place as far as sub status. When we were prepping for the final night, he could not access that character because it was one of the archetypes not available to F2P players. Fortunately, he had enough points accumulated to unlock that character, but it was an added annoyance to the whole situation.
Part of the problem since December, 2012.
I agree with Keiko, here. Co has not been able to find the "Killer App" they can make money from. I don't think vehicles are quite "it." With money, comes additional resources and development.
a
I agree with this 100%
Funny how the perception of criticism and even offering interesting ideas is equated to "YOU HATE THE GAME"... sure there are a few that are very vitriolic, but when you put on the same category people that offer other ideas to monetize CO, to strengthen the big innovative things (Nemesis systems) etc, you are just strawmaning the other position.
DO I like CO? yes
DO I think CO could be a lot better with proper care? HELL YES
Do I think what CO is now is not living to all the potential it has and that is largely due to it being abandoned and or the company not caring? yes
Now read that as "I HATE THE GAME GRAWWRRR" if you want.
QFT. This isn't hate for the game. It's love for the game by players, and disappointment in the way the game (and US) have been treated by the company.
I have issues with the game itself, (art/writing style, Hi Pan's voice). But those, I can deal with.
That actually proves my point. Most any game going F2P with anything that can even remotely be described as a plan has a price at which players can unlock pre-F2P characters; in many cases, one or two are actually free to convert over. (The CoH shutdown procedure causing problems for some players is an entirely different can of worms.)
Maybe CO shouldn't give away free freeform characters (though t's debateable whether a freeform slot for longterm pre-F2P subscribers might have been a prudent decision), but only someone without an ounce of business sense (i.e. Cryptic) would introduce Silver freeform slots without the option to unlock an old character into one.
Personally, I think it would energize the player base, give people a lot more to do, solve a lot of content complaints, and bring back a lot of players who got bored with the game. I also think the results of that amount of work is more likely to get results than an equivalent amount of missions/zones/costumes.
But I can't prove it.
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?
I think you can, if you look at the graphics from an old CoH piechart... only doing the user generated content of the game, without touching the missions would have taken you over 10 years... that is an amount of content no dev team can produce but we as players can.
http://www.loveinfographics.com/wp-content/uploads/entertainment/2011/12/city-of-heroes-entertainment-infographic.jpg
Actually, Hudson is merely one person asking the questions which have been asked before by others. His opinions, as well as your own, have shown through multiple examples to have little to no bearing on the amount of support this particular title recieves. Some of us, the players, have even been told at times that the forums are the minority and that our input has very little to do with anything.
And, sadly, if you look over the history of the forums(as much as is possible before you crash into "Archived Post"-ville) you will see that alot of the strongest supporters of this game through it's history are either losing hope, accepting that this is it, or are simply gone. Now you are right that it has been confirmed that CO is making enough money to not be in danger of being canceled. If you follow the historical patterns of Cryptic this lacking we're currently experiencing is likely due to NW being behind schedule(and a bit of a mess IMO) and, very much like with STO's launch, once NW does go live we should get our devs back and see some kind of "We're back!" surge. The issue here for many people as I see it is that the delays with NW have made this a much longer and more painful process than the last time this happened so the feelings of abandonment and doom are somewhat to be expected. Now if NW goes Live and we don't see something impressive in a month...then people can start breaking out the doomsday maintenance mode signs but even then I would argue that the bug repairs and such would have to improve with this game to qualify as "maintenance."
Now Jon, you've been around long enough to know this isn't true. Go and make your gushingly positive thread and at best you might get a post or two from Trailturtle because he's easily the best CR we've EVER had in this game but I doubt very strongly you would get anything positive from anyone else and I'm almost willing to bet you wouldn't get actual game support because you said a few kind words. If anything this entire point sounds entirely too much like,"If you're nice to him then maybe he'll notice you," or "If you had just been nicer then things would have turned out better." I'm inclined to believe that a company is more professional than what sounds like an abusive Facebook relationship. There's my optimism.
I'm not a fanboy. I'm not a doomie. I find both classifications to be an extension of the whole PvP/PvE/RP divides which some people participate in within the actual game which, as an old school MMOer, make no sense to me at all. We're all simply customers(of varying degrees) being supplied a product which may or may not meet satisfactory levels depending upon the person. For myself, I enjoy the game and try to remain as objective as is humanly possible but even I find myself tired of using phrases like, "Well maybe when NW goes live...," or "This game has so much potential." I enjoy this game because I still have ideas/concepts/builds which I have not yet made to drag through the same content over and over again. I made a new toon last night actually. For me, when I've run out of ideas....I've run out of reasons to play this game BUT I do think that this game deserves much much more than it has as Cryptic repeats the almost nonstop pattern of abandoning the latest project in favor of the next shiny.
Ok, that's alot of words and more than I thought I would type this time but I'm longwinded and perhaps this will further the conversation. Until next time.
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
OT.
The old never ending circle.
No attention because not enough players. Not enough players because not enough attention. No attention because not enough players. Not enough players because no attention.
No one in the pwe cryptic or whoever is behind the scenes is willing to make the first move or risk. Even the greatest games made with a huge population didn't occur without the game creator taking a risk. Out of each multi million subs games out there countless more never made it out of alpha. And the ones that did make it didn't get big by neglect and people in a miracle like fashion appeared. It took serious work and risk.
Right now in CO it puts the playerbase in a puzzle. If we stay they won't add anything if we leave they will say see glad we didn't add anything because it would have been a waste.
The way I see it. Again, for certain people, the way I as in Me as in my perspective not yours, mine, as I see it
I'm pretty sure WoW is thought of as "noteworthy"...
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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... that anyone with more sense than desire to voice sock puppet arguments would compare to an "unlimited free trial" like CO had (restricted to the tutorial), Age of Conan had (restricted to the starter zone) and RIFTS has (their Lite being, for comparison purposes, pretty much the exact same thing as the WoW Starter Edition). Hell, Blizzard actually announced Starter Edition as a replacement to the time-limited trials.
So no, not a noteworthy example of F2P, a perfect example of second-rate gaming "journalists" and people who like to parrot second-rate journalism passing an unlimited trial off as F2P.
Just thought I would throw that in there as an example since it seemed relevant. :biggrin:
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
redheaded stepchildren?
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?
go ahead... tell this kid you think they're in as poor shape as this game just because their mom got remarried.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
ha... WoW... f2p... not really.
If champions still only let you do the tutorial for free, would you consider champions to qualify as a f2p game? Because that's the equivelant of WoW's "free to level 20" scheme.
WoW didn't go F2P... they implemented a demo/trial.
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.