I take this quote from a review that I agree with.
"customisation is so linear; everyone is after the optimal dps:survivability ratio with 0 reliance on other players = autonomous gameplay... Players don't need each other anymore... which in my opinion is a bad thing."
tin foil hat,
special scanner made form kid brothers/sisters science set.
underpants on the head,
tights made into a mask,
badly made, 'hero'gear.
unlicenced(and unworking) homemade weapons
The last time a dev tried to compared Store prices to a food analogy, which was about the Hideouts, it was laughably insulting. He stated that "you don't buy the cheeseburger for the wrapper". The problem with that comparison is that it implies you buy the house for the furniture.
This price increase and change, which is claimed to be entirely based on the quality of a costume set, will only be fair if you fix all the problems with all costumes going up in price. When that happens I'm for this change 100%.
But Mad Scientist barely making it through. The Space Scoundrel Jacket is set to one torso category. The Victorian Dress' third color is broke. And the two store sets I listed are going UP in price? Its impossible to believe that you care about quality.
We're not calm about this, we're just used to disappointment. We're used to Cryptic making decisions that ends up hurting the game. Fighting and getting angry about it is pointless because when Cryptic makes a decision its going to happen no matter how much reason gets thrown at you guys.
Again, just fix up the problems in the old costumes and make all the pieces fit in more categories. Everyone will be happy for it. I'm sending you a note by the way about this to make it happen if the team doesn't want to do it themselves. Because players HAVE been able to make it happen. After all, some of us are more committed than most devs to making this game greater than it already is.
tin foil hat,
special scanner made form kid brothers/sisters science set.
underpants on the head,
tights made into a mask,
badly made, 'hero'gear.
unlicenced(and unworking) homemade weapons
I take this quote from a review that I agree with.
"customisation is so linear; everyone is after the optimal dps:survivability ratio with 0 reliance on other players = autonomous gameplay... Players don't need each other anymore... which in my opinion is a bad thing."
Even in semi-maintenance mode they have to cover costs, and inflation (even during the recession) is a fact of life. So, something in the game is going to have to cost more over time.
Most economies are currently struggling with deflation, not inflation. Nor are there increased costs associated with additional sales of digital content items that were created a year or more ago.
My pure speculation is that last year/Steel Crusade was their attempt at "going big", relatively speaking, and investing more development effort in the game, and the result was that they didn't see the ROI they expected. We could debate what the reasons for that might be. My thoughts are that the lack of communication with the players about future plans has had a very negative effect over time on the audience's outlook for the game, such that most past players have tuned out almost entirely. Also, the neglect of enhancing gameplay (new powers, systems, things to get excited about), not to mention rolling out Steel Crusade with some poorly considered nerfs that were contentious at best and probably seen as negative overall.
If it's the case that they've decided that the ROI for significant new development is not really there, then this may be an effort to increase revenue enough to keep the lights on, by trying to make a little more money from new players (and the devoted item collectors who don't really care about gameplay). Whether or not this change results in more revenue for them, who knows; I certainly have my doubts. But as a long-time player, the message I'm seeing is certainly not a positive one. With the lack of development signs, and quality of the most recent costume sets and nothing positive being rolled out with this price increase, it feels to me like a desperation move.
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
Most economies are currently struggling with deflation, not inflation. Nor are there increased costs associated with additional sales of digital content items that were created a year or more ago.
My pure speculation is that last year/Steel Crusade was their attempt at "going big", relatively speaking, and investing more development effort in the game, and the result was that they didn't see the ROI they expected. We could debate what the reasons for that might be. My thoughts are that the lack of communication with the players about future plans has had a very negative effect over time on the audience's outlook for the game, such that most past players have tuned out almost entirely. Also, the neglect of enhancing gameplay (new powers, systems, things to get excited about), not to mention rolling out Steel Crusade with some poorly considered nerfs that were contentious at best and probably seen as negative overall.
If it's the case that they've decided that the ROI for significant new development is not really there, then this may be an effort to increase revenue enough to keep the lights on, by trying to make a little more money from new players (and the devoted item collectors who don't really care about gameplay). Whether or not this change results in more revenue for them, who knows; I certainly have my doubts. But as a long-time player, the message I'm seeing is certainly not a positive one. With the lack of development signs, and quality of the most recent costume sets and nothing positive being rolled out with this price increase, it feels to me like a desperation move.
If PWE wanted to try to invest in CO, the way to go about it, IMHO, would be to invest in things that are more clearly end game content that isn't grinding rampages (which players have been complaining has been lacking for years) and, perhaps more importantly, advertising for the game. There's already a lot of content in the level 18-35 range, so making Steel Crusade 18+ seems like a mistake.
The goal for a decent ROI on CO should be getting new players and attracting back ones that left, not something for current players (as much as current players hate to hear that). The folks still here are the ones who've already put up with a bunch of crap from PWE/Cryptic and aren't likely to disappear tomorrow, especially if you're throwing almost any kind of new content at them.
Once you've got the player base broadening some, then they could look at things like new powersets, systems, etc. But that's a long haul view for a decent ROI that I don't PWE's interested in.
And yeah, this whole costume set price change thing seems like a "let's wring as much as we can from this game as it dies" move.
CN is in Seattle and Cryptic is in Silicon Valley. The US has been experiencing some inflation the last few years. Both Seattle and SV have higher inflation rates than the rest of the country, so I wouldn't be surprised if things are costing more. Sure, the old sets were created sometime ago, but charging more for them is one way to generate more revenue. Again, I'm not saying I'm happy that prices are going up, but that's life. Maybe TT bought a new boat that he has to pay for?
Most economies are currently struggling with deflation, not inflation. Nor are there increased costs associated with additional sales of digital content items that were created a year or more ago.
I never considered that. It all makes sense now. This happened when STO got that reinvestment after PWE bought Cryptic. CO paid the price.
Nope. I can't speak for the other time you're referring to, but there was no pressure brought to bear on us related to other games. Radio and I had a few spare cycles and we used it poking around Champs, looking at the game on a structural level, trying to see whether anything looked out of whack. When we found this mismatch between costume set value and price, we started working on this.
I can't discuss future releases, hypothetical or not, unfortunately.
For the customers, can you get anyone who can to bother communicating anything with us? If your bosses really want us to keep putting money into this game we need something to go off of.
Otherwise why should any of us continue to pay for anything?
Changes like this are why I made this month my last as a gold subscriber.
I already considered the Zen cost of many costume sets to be outrageously expensive. Many sets have limited use, or few pieces. The cost, when looked at in actual currency, is just not worth it on top of paying a monthly subscription. In addition, the cost of things like auras, aura slots, and other "extras" are just adding insult to injury.
Obviously PW and CO are well within their rights to change (and raise) costs but given that there has been virtually no addition to actual gameplay (other than iterative alerts) it strikes me as a painful blow to find that even the customization options are getting to be so costly.
Maybe it's nitpicky of me to feel this way about "extras" but considering that I've essentially seen and done it all in the game (and in a very short time, no less) the replayability now seems to lay largely in customization and expression through costumes and social aspects. Making that more expensive feels like the wrong way to go.
At this point it seems far too late to continue asking for new zones, new power sets, new character body types, or other additions that many MMOs consider to be routine content updates.
New costume pieces are nice but they don't add gameplay value, at least not for long. And certainly not when the cost continues to become increasingly prohibitive. I think they'd do far better to price costume pieces individually and they'd see people buying a lot more. I know many people who want a set for one hairstyle, a pair of gloves, boot, etc. Paying 750 to 1000 Zen for that is ridiculous. Now subscribers have to wait two months to get "good" costume sets... that seems like an act of desperation on the part of PW.
I really like CO but with such limited replayability and this move to profit more off non-gameplay content is distasteful so I am done. Perhaps in time, with luck and good planning, they'll add more real content and I'll be tempted to return to Millennium City.
Er... An abandoned game is raising up the prices? Wut? What sort of sense does this make?
This is pretty much my feel on the situation too.
Bugs continue on unquashed and are running even more rampant than they were at this time last year.
All we've really gotten are a bunch of lockboxes shoved at us.
And now they're kicking the pricing on costumes that've been around for YEARS, that nobody currently "working" (and I use the term loosely) on this game even had a hand in creating.
On a living, developing game, that'd be annoying, but some justification could be made if there was a cleanup pass going on for said costumes.
Doing it on a game that isn't even on maintenance mode, and leaving stuff as broken as ever?
I SMELL BOVINE FECES!
.
.
.
.
.
.
In short. What have you done to earn my dollars? Hell, what've you done to earn my LTS stipend?
Seriously, every change to this game since VB, and every other game that's come out, has been heralded as "the death of CO".
Vibora Bay (and the greed underlying the debacle it spawned) *DID* kill this game.
It's like smoking. A very slow, arbitrary method of suicide.
It chased away people who were hot for the game because they were offended by Cryptic charging for the first "expansion" to an unfinished game. When said "expansion" were really just the last few bits of the game that weren't actually completed by the game's street date.
The reversal but a burr up the butt of Cryptic, and development dropped off sharply immediately afterward.
Note: I said "dropped off", not "ceased". Development continued for another 2-ish years and then fell off a cliff.
We've had a couple "And we have new guys in charge who're hungry to do stuff!" announcements. Some cheer. And then back to status quo, with the game slowly grinding itself to pieces as it gets older and buggier. All the while hearing nothing from the devs save "WE HAZ NEW LOCKBOXZ!" and the rare new costume or piece in the Z store.
As a quick update: Thanks for pointing out the Scoundrel cape issue. Should be fixed in the next PTS build, Monday or Tuesday.
So, err... why did it take the issue being pointed out in this thread before this happened? The issue was pointed out on PTR. It was supposedly fixed. The issue was pointed out as still being there. That went live, still broken. We have a bug report thread on this issue. And it feels like it's not until someone managed to get your personal attention turned to the problem that anything happened.
Is this what we should expect for other issues? That they'll be ignored until and unless someone manages to get you to personally pay attention to the problem?
The problem with PTS threads is despite being asked not to, a lot of discussion takes place which can cause problems to be lost in the flood, especially if they are not formatted to stand out from a wall of text.
Vibora Bay (and the greed underlying the debacle it spawned) *DID* kill this game.
It's like smoking. A very slow, arbitrary method of suicide.
It chased away people who were hot for the game because they were offended by Cryptic charging for the first "expansion" to an unfinished game. When said "expansion" were really just the last few bits of the game that weren't actually completed by the game's street date.
The reversal but a burr up the butt of Cryptic, and development dropped off sharply immediately afterward.
Note: I said "dropped off", not "ceased". Development continued for another 2-ish years and then fell off a cliff.
We've had a couple "And we have new guys in charge who're hungry to do stuff!" announcements. Some cheer. And then back to status quo, with the game slowly grinding itself to pieces as it gets older and buggier. All the while hearing nothing from the devs save "WE HAZ NEW LOCKBOXZ!" and the rare new costume or piece in the Z store.
I cannot agree more. Though now-a-days, I would be willing to pay for an expansion.
I always second guessed buying a costume set because I didn't consider the price worth it. I never bought an aura set because the price for that wasn't worth it in the least. Now I'll be less inclined to buy a costume because I'll know for sure it isn't worth it anymore.
I'm now in the process of buying costume sets I know I'll want now before it goes up in price. Otherwise I'll never get them.
Bugs continue on unquashed and are running even more rampant than they were at this time last year.
All we've really gotten are a bunch of lockboxes shoved at us.
Doing it on a game that isn't even on maintenance mode, and leaving stuff as broken as ever?
I SMELL BOVINE FECES!
.
.
In short. What have you done to earn my dollars? Hell, what've you done to earn my LTS stipend?
These is how I feel, what has pwe/cryptic done in the past few years to make my pay real money for zpoints? I left City of for co in beta phase two, because I really thought this game was going to be something. However, since pwe took over this game has gotten pasted over and pasted again and again. There is nothing stopping pwe to fix this game; like they did with sto. They do not want to, they drove away the majority of the fan base of this game and blamed everything on the player base.
So until I see some real commitment from pwe and pride in this game, pwe will not see any commitment from me. I asked this on the Facebook page and got no responds so I will post it here, why should I pride in this game when pwe/cryptic has none for this game?
Radio and I had a few spare cycles and we used it poking around Champs, looking at the game on a structural level, trying to see whether anything looked out of whack. When we found this mismatch between costume set value and price, we started working on this.
Really the costume price mismatch was all you guys came up with? Especially when there are so many bugs being reported? Players screaming for content?
It feels like a squeeze. You've done your revenue analysis and realized Champions Online is really Costumes Online. Your revenue lies in all things costume related, even the lockboxes.
Also your explanation of the value/price fails horribly when you take the Scientist set into consideration. It really looks as if the designers spent all of 15mins on it.
My2c. Lifer.
I don't like Sigs, but I'll leave this here anyway. At least I'm not to trying to hypnotise you with moving things!
What a waste of time this would be if we end up with nothing but 1000z sets for the rest of the game's life.
Look at the bright side, at this rate, it won't be long anyway.
Funny... back when they did the LTS sale last year something in the back of my head told me "well, this is it." I knew having to move to a new game was now inevitable... still, I purchased the LTS so I could still come visiting now and then and not lose my characters (and time investment) (while the game was still around, that is). After consulting with a friend who works in the industry, I decided that the game would probably last at least another two years, so I could make the investment without fear of not getting my money's worth. At this rate, however, I'd settle for a year and a half, so as long as they delay the announcement until the end of Q2, I'll call it even.
I just expected the game's death would be more of a gradual fading into obscurity rather than committing seppuku.
The jacket bottom part of the scoundrel coat from the new scoundrel lockbox has some issues.
It basically stretches when moving and using powers or movement powers it gets very noticeable.
YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT GLITCH LIKE THIS WAS MISSED?
POWERFRAME REVAMPS, NEW POWERS and BUG FIXES > Recycled Content and Events and even costumes at this point Introvert guy who use CO to make his characters playable and get experimental with Viable FF Theme builds! Running out of Unique FF builds due to the lack of updates and synergiesPlaying since 1 February 2011 98+ Characters (7 ATs, 91 FFs) ALTitis for Life!
Personally I don't have too much of a problem with this. It's never a good thing when prices change but as long as the premium tier sets are good value and properly developed/tested then so be it. I've already bought most of the sets whose prices will increase and I'd have been happy to do so at the new price; all it will mean is I open fewer lockboxes....
I normally like to think the people I play games with are adults, but that clearly isn't the case here. Whining over 10 whole dollars. Wow. Unbelievable.
Well thanks for posting the price changes trailturtle but it seems the majority of costumes will be increasing in price and a scant few will be lowering in price. I was skeptical at first but now I see this as a blatant cash grab. Costumes are the only things we get on a regular basis, the closest thing we get to content, and now we're not going to be able to use our monthly stipend to enjoy what little has been added to the game. Costumes are what keeps the game interesting for me.
I normally like to think the people I play games with are adults, but that clearly isn't the case here. Whining over 10 whole dollars. Wow. Unbelievable.
To be clear here, this is about more than just "whining over $10".
If you don't understand that, I invite you to go back and actually read the thread.
This is about a general trend towards increased pricing while offering nothing in return.
Great, set XYZ increased in price. I already had it. So what? Well, again, the people doing this had nothing to do with creating most of these sets. And there are issues in this game that are in DIRE need of attention (moreso than some perceived pricing inadequacy).
So. Bugfix? Or try to rake in more cash from our dwindling player base for no work?
Guess which one they chose. Because hey, the players here are suckers right? They'll put up with ANYTHING! And hell! They'll THANK us for crapping on them! Right?
The reek of entitlement did not escape my notice. Nor did the baby steps Cryptic is taking to improve the game. You can play the entire game for free. If you like it, you can choose to buy some fluff item that make you look pretty.
The reek of entitlement did not escape my notice. Nor did the baby steps Cryptic is taking to improve the game. You can play the entire game for free. If you like it, you can choose to buy some fluff item that make you look pretty.
HyperStrike hit some greats points, I think.
I'm just going to elaborate on a personal point as to why it upsets me. See, I'm used to a quality margin falling within a specific price window. I thought that the price window was pretty reasonable. Raising it now and setting arbitrary "tiers" based on objective "effort" just doesn't seem as reasonable.
I honestly hope the devs read this and decide to cancel the whole price change.
Because, I'll be frank with you TT (or any other CN staff member reading this), this is a TERRIBLE idea. I thought the dodge/crit nerf was gonna be bad (Turns out it wasn't) But this raises the bar.
You could be working on the servers recent stability, bugs that have yet to be fixed, possible future content, but THIS is what you decide to do instead? Unbelievable. If someone tried this in any other game company they wouldn't last a week.
You guys want more money? Put effort into CO; Fix the bugs, communicate with the community more often (Even if it's a State-Of-The-Game post [/subtlehint]), even reading the suggestion forum once in a while could really be useful.
Don't get me wrong, but I absolutely love this MMO and it's community. I've made friends in this game that I wouldn't trade for anything else in the world, and it kills me inside to see it in this state. Please, take this post into consideration.
The reek of entitlement did not escape my notice. Nor did the baby steps Cryptic is taking to improve the game. You can play the entire game for free. If you like it, you can choose to buy some fluff item that make you look pretty.
Entitlement?
I think you mistake my disdain for Cryptic's general direction, and my desire for this game to be more than it is for entitlement.
I don't expect CO to be a *Insert Here* Beater or an *Insert Here* Replacement.
But this game has the potential to be so much MORE than it is.
To have watched that potential routinely and repetitively squandered, in favor of wringing blood from a stone, for YEARS is irritating.
And if, by baby steps you mean releasing stuff that's broken, and isn't fixed until well after release, and the community manager's face has been thoroughly ground off in it when they announce something ELSE related to that stuff? More like baby falling headlong, backwards, down a long flight of concrete steps IMNSHO.
As always, if the devs want my money? Fix stuff. There's systems in this game that have been broken for YEARS.
And YES, I know that Cryptic's spaghetti code is some scary, hackish, game-breaking **** (emphasis primarily on ****).
Did everybody miss that big announcement a while back about Cryptic going to STO/NW and Cryptic North, a new dev team, being bought and assigned to CO?
..since this particular thing does tend to come up alot both on the forums and in the actual game from my observations.
Did everybody miss that big announcement a while back about Cryptic going to STO/NW and Cryptic North, a new dev team, being bought and assigned to CO?
..since this particular thing does tend to come up alot both on the forums and in the actual game from my observations.
I saw that.
I'm still waiting for progress on something I actually give a **** about. Lockboxes and one-off raids ain't it.
CO doesn't run on happy thoughts and good intentions. Raising prices on fluff is better than the BS that was vehicles. "lfm for F&I. Must have Victorian Vest and Retro sci-fi boots." said no one ever. But we did have "lfm LI. Must have PB." The shift in making money with costume sets is a good change. Even vehicles have taken a vanity focus instead of making heroes irrelevant by grossly eclipsing their power.
The new team has been slowly picking up speed and making much needed behind the scene changes. You may not give a damn about the global cap and tailor changes, but those are important updates for the future of the game. Demanding perfection and ignoring improvements because they aren't what you want to see while telling Cryptic they aren't allowed to charge prices on fluff that aren't stupid low is whiny and entitled.
Comments
Edit - Thanks for listening guys, it's just with the lack of the love, I'm just concerned.
I take this quote from a review that I agree with.
"customisation is so linear; everyone is after the optimal dps:survivability ratio with 0 reliance on other players = autonomous gameplay... Players don't need each other anymore... which in my opinion is a bad thing."
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
tin foil hat,
special scanner made form kid brothers/sisters science set.
underpants on the head,
tights made into a mask,
badly made, 'hero'gear.
unlicenced(and unworking) homemade weapons
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
This price increase and change, which is claimed to be entirely based on the quality of a costume set, will only be fair if you fix all the problems with all costumes going up in price. When that happens I'm for this change 100%.
But Mad Scientist barely making it through. The Space Scoundrel Jacket is set to one torso category. The Victorian Dress' third color is broke. And the two store sets I listed are going UP in price? Its impossible to believe that you care about quality.
We're not calm about this, we're just used to disappointment. We're used to Cryptic making decisions that ends up hurting the game. Fighting and getting angry about it is pointless because when Cryptic makes a decision its going to happen no matter how much reason gets thrown at you guys.
Again, just fix up the problems in the old costumes and make all the pieces fit in more categories. Everyone will be happy for it. I'm sending you a note by the way about this to make it happen if the team doesn't want to do it themselves. Because players HAVE been able to make it happen. After all, some of us are more committed than most devs to making this game greater than it already is.
I take this quote from a review that I agree with.
"customisation is so linear; everyone is after the optimal dps:survivability ratio with 0 reliance on other players = autonomous gameplay... Players don't need each other anymore... which in my opinion is a bad thing."
I never considered that. It all makes sense now. This happened when STO got that reinvestment after PWE bought Cryptic. CO paid the price.
You sure it wasn't Martians or Commies?
Personally I'd bet on Commies.
Can't go wrong with Communist plots. They're everywhere, I tell you!
It was even more insane than thinking that CO is big enough to pay for X-Box game development with raising its prices.
No, wait.
With Illuminatis it was just insane. With X-Box it was plain authistic.
CO boards.
Can never dissapoint.
Most economies are currently struggling with deflation, not inflation. Nor are there increased costs associated with additional sales of digital content items that were created a year or more ago.
My pure speculation is that last year/Steel Crusade was their attempt at "going big", relatively speaking, and investing more development effort in the game, and the result was that they didn't see the ROI they expected. We could debate what the reasons for that might be. My thoughts are that the lack of communication with the players about future plans has had a very negative effect over time on the audience's outlook for the game, such that most past players have tuned out almost entirely. Also, the neglect of enhancing gameplay (new powers, systems, things to get excited about), not to mention rolling out Steel Crusade with some poorly considered nerfs that were contentious at best and probably seen as negative overall.
If it's the case that they've decided that the ROI for significant new development is not really there, then this may be an effort to increase revenue enough to keep the lights on, by trying to make a little more money from new players (and the devoted item collectors who don't really care about gameplay). Whether or not this change results in more revenue for them, who knows; I certainly have my doubts. But as a long-time player, the message I'm seeing is certainly not a positive one. With the lack of development signs, and quality of the most recent costume sets and nothing positive being rolled out with this price increase, it feels to me like a desperation move.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
If PWE wanted to try to invest in CO, the way to go about it, IMHO, would be to invest in things that are more clearly end game content that isn't grinding rampages (which players have been complaining has been lacking for years) and, perhaps more importantly, advertising for the game. There's already a lot of content in the level 18-35 range, so making Steel Crusade 18+ seems like a mistake.
The goal for a decent ROI on CO should be getting new players and attracting back ones that left, not something for current players (as much as current players hate to hear that). The folks still here are the ones who've already put up with a bunch of crap from PWE/Cryptic and aren't likely to disappear tomorrow, especially if you're throwing almost any kind of new content at them.
Once you've got the player base broadening some, then they could look at things like new powersets, systems, etc. But that's a long haul view for a decent ROI that I don't PWE's interested in.
And yeah, this whole costume set price change thing seems like a "let's wring as much as we can from this game as it dies" move.
Personally? About expected. Business decisions like this are rarely received pleasantly, and
made with the entire population in mind.
Nope. I can't speak for the other time you're referring to, but there was no pressure brought to bear on us related to other games. Radio and I had a few spare cycles and we used it poking around Champs, looking at the game on a structural level, trying to see whether anything looked out of whack. When we found this mismatch between costume set value and price, we started working on this.
I can't discuss future releases, hypothetical or not, unfortunately.
Running on a money-fueled engine.
For the customers, can you get anyone who can to bother communicating anything with us? If your bosses really want us to keep putting money into this game we need something to go off of.
Otherwise why should any of us continue to pay for anything?
I already considered the Zen cost of many costume sets to be outrageously expensive. Many sets have limited use, or few pieces. The cost, when looked at in actual currency, is just not worth it on top of paying a monthly subscription. In addition, the cost of things like auras, aura slots, and other "extras" are just adding insult to injury.
Obviously PW and CO are well within their rights to change (and raise) costs but given that there has been virtually no addition to actual gameplay (other than iterative alerts) it strikes me as a painful blow to find that even the customization options are getting to be so costly.
Maybe it's nitpicky of me to feel this way about "extras" but considering that I've essentially seen and done it all in the game (and in a very short time, no less) the replayability now seems to lay largely in customization and expression through costumes and social aspects. Making that more expensive feels like the wrong way to go.
At this point it seems far too late to continue asking for new zones, new power sets, new character body types, or other additions that many MMOs consider to be routine content updates.
New costume pieces are nice but they don't add gameplay value, at least not for long. And certainly not when the cost continues to become increasingly prohibitive. I think they'd do far better to price costume pieces individually and they'd see people buying a lot more. I know many people who want a set for one hairstyle, a pair of gloves, boot, etc. Paying 750 to 1000 Zen for that is ridiculous. Now subscribers have to wait two months to get "good" costume sets... that seems like an act of desperation on the part of PW.
I really like CO but with such limited replayability and this move to profit more off non-gameplay content is distasteful so I am done. Perhaps in time, with luck and good planning, they'll add more real content and I'll be tempted to return to Millennium City.
This is pretty much my feel on the situation too.
Bugs continue on unquashed and are running even more rampant than they were at this time last year.
All we've really gotten are a bunch of lockboxes shoved at us.
And now they're kicking the pricing on costumes that've been around for YEARS, that nobody currently "working" (and I use the term loosely) on this game even had a hand in creating.
On a living, developing game, that'd be annoying, but some justification could be made if there was a cleanup pass going on for said costumes.
Doing it on a game that isn't even on maintenance mode, and leaving stuff as broken as ever?
.
.
.
.
.
.
In short. What have you done to earn my dollars? Hell, what've you done to earn my LTS stipend?
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
Vibora Bay (and the greed underlying the debacle it spawned) *DID* kill this game.
It's like smoking. A very slow, arbitrary method of suicide.
It chased away people who were hot for the game because they were offended by Cryptic charging for the first "expansion" to an unfinished game. When said "expansion" were really just the last few bits of the game that weren't actually completed by the game's street date.
The reversal but a burr up the butt of Cryptic, and development dropped off sharply immediately afterward.
Note: I said "dropped off", not "ceased". Development continued for another 2-ish years and then fell off a cliff.
We've had a couple "And we have new guys in charge who're hungry to do stuff!" announcements. Some cheer. And then back to status quo, with the game slowly grinding itself to pieces as it gets older and buggier. All the while hearing nothing from the devs save "WE HAZ NEW LOCKBOXZ!" and the rare new costume or piece in the Z store.
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
So, err... why did it take the issue being pointed out in this thread before this happened? The issue was pointed out on PTR. It was supposedly fixed. The issue was pointed out as still being there. That went live, still broken. We have a bug report thread on this issue. And it feels like it's not until someone managed to get your personal attention turned to the problem that anything happened.
Is this what we should expect for other issues? That they'll be ignored until and unless someone manages to get you to personally pay attention to the problem?
@Liath | My PRIMUS Page | Altaholics | New Vehicle Models | New Emblems | Flag Tights
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That on top of all the rest of the assumptions and indignation going on in this thread from the typical rage quitters and doomsayers.
gg
And the scoundrel jacket texture error when using other materials.
I cannot agree more. Though now-a-days, I would be willing to pay for an expansion.
I'm now in the process of buying costume sets I know I'll want now before it goes up in price. Otherwise I'll never get them.
These is how I feel, what has pwe/cryptic done in the past few years to make my pay real money for zpoints? I left City of for co in beta phase two, because I really thought this game was going to be something. However, since pwe took over this game has gotten pasted over and pasted again and again. There is nothing stopping pwe to fix this game; like they did with sto. They do not want to, they drove away the majority of the fan base of this game and blamed everything on the player base.
So until I see some real commitment from pwe and pride in this game, pwe will not see any commitment from me. I asked this on the Facebook page and got no responds so I will post it here, why should I pride in this game when pwe/cryptic has none for this game?
Really the costume price mismatch was all you guys came up with? Especially when there are so many bugs being reported? Players screaming for content?
It feels like a squeeze. You've done your revenue analysis and realized Champions Online is really Costumes Online. Your revenue lies in all things costume related, even the lockboxes.
Also your explanation of the value/price fails horribly when you take the Scientist set into consideration. It really looks as if the designers spent all of 15mins on it.
My2c. Lifer.
Look at the bright side, at this rate, it won't be long anyway.
Funny... back when they did the LTS sale last year something in the back of my head told me "well, this is it." I knew having to move to a new game was now inevitable... still, I purchased the LTS so I could still come visiting now and then and not lose my characters (and time investment) (while the game was still around, that is). After consulting with a friend who works in the industry, I decided that the game would probably last at least another two years, so I could make the investment without fear of not getting my money's worth. At this rate, however, I'd settle for a year and a half, so as long as they delay the announcement until the end of Q2, I'll call it even.
I just expected the game's death would be more of a gradual fading into obscurity rather than committing seppuku.
Gotta admit this would be pretty depressing.
I'M STILL waiting for the Urban Anime Sets to get fixed and get Available Colours in the Pockets AS ADVERTISED
LOOK HERE! the pockets can be coloured
Ingame: NOPE, and it STILL hasn't been fixed. YOU CANNOT COLOUR the pockets
Excuse me... BUT HOW THE HELL DID DEVS MISSED THAT?
It was reported countless of time in the PTS forums, ingame and in the Bugs and Technical Issues > Gameplay Bugs Sub Forums
YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT GLITCH LIKE THIS WAS MISSED?
Conditionally, so would I.
If it's a mini-zone with 2 contacts and 4 missions, I'd probably leave it.
If it were a full zone or two, with a few dozen contacts with full mission arcs....
But who am I kidding? That's NEVER going to happen here.
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
No. Refer to it as hara kiri. It doesn't deserve the honor of being referred to by the proper term.
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
Do you want the NICE answer?
Or do you want the HONEST one?
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
Cool, Hyperstrike.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
No. Never actually saw the show, but the guy on there was Hyper-Strike.
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
To be clear here, this is about more than just "whining over $10".
If you don't understand that, I invite you to go back and actually read the thread.
This is about a general trend towards increased pricing while offering nothing in return.
Great, set XYZ increased in price. I already had it. So what? Well, again, the people doing this had nothing to do with creating most of these sets. And there are issues in this game that are in DIRE need of attention (moreso than some perceived pricing inadequacy).
So. Bugfix? Or try to rake in more cash from our dwindling player base for no work?
Guess which one they chose. Because hey, the players here are suckers right? They'll put up with ANYTHING! And hell! They'll THANK us for crapping on them! Right?
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
HyperStrike hit some greats points, I think.
I'm just going to elaborate on a personal point as to why it upsets me. See, I'm used to a quality margin falling within a specific price window. I thought that the price window was pretty reasonable. Raising it now and setting arbitrary "tiers" based on objective "effort" just doesn't seem as reasonable.
Swords and Shields!
Plant Abilities!
Because, I'll be frank with you TT (or any other CN staff member reading this), this is a TERRIBLE idea. I thought the dodge/crit nerf was gonna be bad (Turns out it wasn't) But this raises the bar.
You could be working on the servers recent stability, bugs that have yet to be fixed, possible future content, but THIS is what you decide to do instead? Unbelievable. If someone tried this in any other game company they wouldn't last a week.
You guys want more money? Put effort into CO; Fix the bugs, communicate with the community more often (Even if it's a State-Of-The-Game post [/subtlehint]), even reading the suggestion forum once in a while could really be useful.
Don't get me wrong, but I absolutely love this MMO and it's community. I've made friends in this game that I wouldn't trade for anything else in the world, and it kills me inside to see it in this state. Please, take this post into consideration.
Entitlement?
I think you mistake my disdain for Cryptic's general direction, and my desire for this game to be more than it is for entitlement.
I don't expect CO to be a *Insert Here* Beater or an *Insert Here* Replacement.
But this game has the potential to be so much MORE than it is.
To have watched that potential routinely and repetitively squandered, in favor of wringing blood from a stone, for YEARS is irritating.
And if, by baby steps you mean releasing stuff that's broken, and isn't fixed until well after release, and the community manager's face has been thoroughly ground off in it when they announce something ELSE related to that stuff? More like baby falling headlong, backwards, down a long flight of concrete steps IMNSHO.
As always, if the devs want my money? Fix stuff. There's systems in this game that have been broken for YEARS.
And YES, I know that Cryptic's spaghetti code is some scary, hackish, game-breaking **** (emphasis primarily on ****).
I
do
not
care.
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
..since this particular thing does tend to come up alot both on the forums and in the actual game from my observations.
Join Date: Aug 2009 | Title: Devslayer
Guess we'll see.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
I saw that.
I'm still waiting for progress on something I actually give a **** about. Lockboxes and one-off raids ain't it.
"Champions-Online and Star Trek Online contained hundreds of hours of mediocre content!"
and "nothing was polished".
--Jack Emmert
The new team has been slowly picking up speed and making much needed behind the scene changes. You may not give a damn about the global cap and tailor changes, but those are important updates for the future of the game. Demanding perfection and ignoring improvements because they aren't what you want to see while telling Cryptic they aren't allowed to charge prices on fluff that aren't stupid low is whiny and entitled.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
And it's here, right where it has been for the past several days.
We may not agree with them on what belongs on which lists, but they *did* post the lists.