Not being funny, but isn't the Cryptic Engine new since Cryptic and CoH parted ways? Pretty sure it is...anyway shuffling to Ten Forward as this isn't STO related.
There's Cryptic Engine MK I - used by CoH/V - and Cryptic Engine MK II - used by CO and STO. NWN might be using Cryptic Engine MK IIa.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
I think the one thing we can learn from CoH's closing is that it's not enough to have a dedicated fan-base. You also need a schtick to get people to spend extra money. For STO that schtick is Lockboxes, for LotRO that schtick is yearly Expansion Packs, and so on.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Also, looking at NCSoft's financials, we see that CoH/V accounted for about 2% of their sales - with no indication of what percentage of those sales were profit. At a certain point every company has to decide whether the resources used are worth the ROI.
A company can spend $5 million per year to gross $8 million - making $3 million profit - or they can spend $5 million to gross $12 - making $7 million. Most companies will shutdown an under-performing division in favor of the more profitable option.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Except expenses weren't greater than income. I already said that. CoH was healthy. They were pulling in millions per year profit. That said, it was barely a blip on the radar next to Lineage, and that game that starts with "A"? It lost about 10 times more subs than CoH even HAS. CoH, while profitable and healthy, was a rounding error over at NC.
I think you answered the thread. STO is Cryptic's moneymaker and STO has become PWE NA's biggest game. So shutting down STO would result in economic suicide for both firms. But NC Soft saw that Paragon wasn't worth keeping open for whatever reason. And as a "rounding error" it appeared they didn't think it was worth the effort.
Look, I don't know why they are closing it. I'm just saying I highly doubt it is related to Cryptic pulling the engine license. Some times simply "making a profit" isn't enough. Maybe someone will pick them up before the servers close. If not for the competing Champs, PWE would've been a good option.
"If you have never used Cello, I'm not interested in your browser opinion."
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
I think you answered the thread. STO is Cryptic's moneymaker and STO has become PWE's biggest game. So shutting down STO would result in economic suicide for both firms.
Just so there's no confusion here, STO is not PW's biggest game. STO recently became PWE's biggest game in their North American market. There's still the European Market, Oceania Market, South American Market, and Asian Market. On top of that PWE is a small division within PW. PW's Asian Market games would make the STO's income look like a drop of rain in a bucket.
And it was the same at NCSoft. Their North American Market accounted for 4% of NCSoft's sales - meaning CoH was half of their entire NA gross income, but said income was still just a fraction compared to what they earned from their other markets.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Just so there's no confusion here, STO is not PW's biggest game. STO recently became PWE's biggest game in their North American market. There's still the European Market, Oceania Market, South American Market, and Asian Market. On top of that PWE is a small division within PW. PW's Asian Market games would make the STO's income look like a drop of rain in a bucket.
And it was the same at NCSoft. Their North American Market accounted for 4% of NCSoft's sales - meaning CoH was half of their entire NA gross income, but said income was still just a fraction compared to what they earned from their other markets.
You are correct. I'll go back and adjust my post.
"If you have never used Cello, I'm not interested in your browser opinion."
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
I think you answered the thread. STO is Cryptic's moneymaker and STO has become PWE NA's biggest game. So shutting down STO would result in economic suicide for both firms. But NC Soft saw that Paragon wasn't worth keeping open for whatever reason. And as a "rounding error" it appeared they didn't think it was worth the effort.
Look, I don't know why they are closing it. I'm just saying I highly doubt it is related to Cryptic pulling the engine license. Some times simply "making a profit" isn't enough. Maybe someone will pick them up before the servers close. If not for the competing Champs, PWE would've been a good option.
No one will be buying CoH because NC would never sell it. NC keeps a vice grip on its IPs. Richard Garriot tried in vain to get Tabula Rasa back and that didn't work out for him.
♪ I'm going around not in circles but in spirographs.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
Just so there's no confusion here, STO is not PW's biggest game. STO recently became PWE's biggest game in their North American market. There's still the European Market, Oceania Market, South American Market, and Asian Market. On top of that PWE is a small division within PW. PW's Asian Market games would make the STO's income look like a drop of rain in a bucket.
And it was the same at NCSoft. Their North American Market accounted for 4% of NCSoft's sales - meaning CoH was half of their entire NA gross income, but said income was still just a fraction compared to what they earned from their other markets.
So, "Guild Wars" and "****" were the other 2% of their NA market then? Somehow, I think GW and ***" were and are doing WAY better then CoH.
I'm actually sorry to see the game go (and I was one of the first 300 people too get into CoH beta in 2003); and I played the game off and on for 5 years. That said, I don't think there is any conspiracy where Cryptic did something to pull the plug as NCSoft has a habit of closing MMOs for various reasons.
- "Auto Assualt" was closed because it did meet retention benchmarks for NCSoft.
- "City of Hero" flopped big time in the asian MMO market (it was the entire reason PvP was tacked on to "City of Heroes" in Issue 4.)
- "Tabula Rasa" (after being re-tooled prior to beta at the demand of NCSoft management) - but even so, by mosyt analysis was doing well and expanding it's playerbase) was closed so they could terminate a contract with Richard Garriott.
and the recent history of CoH was:
- Paragon delivered "Going Rogue" way late and over budget.
- "Going Rogue" sales and the resulting CoH supscription bump underperformed in NCSoft's eyes.
- NCSoft took the game F2P/Freemium in an attempt to boost profitability a little over a year ago. Maybe the results were again below NCSoft's expectations?
(And interestingly enought didn't the Paragon folks say that NCSoft had green lit them to work on a new MMO for NCSoft recently?)
But I don't think the NCSoft decision was motivated by any action of Cryptic or PWE.
And as for NCSoft foling Paragon into tjhe GW2 development team - most of the articles I read stated all 80 Paragon employees had in fact received their temination notices.
Again, it sucks for EVERYONE involved ffrom the current CoH playerbase, to the developers who lost their jobs; but I haven't seen anything to suggest it was because of something done by Cryptic Studios to kill the game; and I have a feeling were that in fact the case someone from the Paragon Studio would have made that known in some way.
Again, NCSoft shutting down one of their MMOs isn't unheard of and in fact, is (unfortunately) a rather common occurance of late for that developer.
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
So, "Guild Wars" and "****" were the other 2% of their NA market then? Somehow, I think GW and ***" were and are doing WAY better then CoH.
Based on their own published financials for 2nd Quarter 2012, GW was 1% of their overall sales - about half of CoH. Of course that will look different in Q3 with GW2.
In case anyone's wondering about Sales breakdowns:
Lineage: 45%
A.ION: 28%
Lineage II: 13%
CoH: 2%
GW: 1%
All other games and sources: 11%
Their largest sales market was Korea at 70% of overall sales. As I said above, the North America market accounts for 4% of sales.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Based on their own published financials for 2nd Quarter 2012, GW was 1% of their overall sales - about half of CoH. Of course that will look different in Q3 with GW2.
In case anyone's wondering about Sales breakdowns:
Lineage: 45%
A.ION: 28%
Lineage II: 13%
CoH: 2%
GW: 1%
All other games and sources: 11%
Their largest sales market was Korea at 70% of overall sales. As I said above, the North America market accounts for 4% of sales.
^^^
If that's indeed the case, then yep - from a financial perspective, it makes no sense; but also that wouldn't be anything new at NCSoft. I would have been curious to see A.ION's NA numbers broken out seperately.
(I'm assuming the 28% breaks across all markets that A.ION is in) - because people keep saying the NA version isn't doing well. I also have to wonder why (if GW was 1% - they greenlit a sequel MMO to it that's now supposed to be the best thing to come to the MMO genre in the last decade; but again, NCSoft's made IMO some very wierd decisions over the years.)
Formerly known as Armsman from June 2008 to June 20, 2012 PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
Based on their own published financials for 2nd Quarter 2012, GW was 1% of their overall sales - about half of CoH. Of course that will look different in Q3 with GW2.
In case anyone's wondering about Sales breakdowns:
Lineage: 45%
A.ION: 28%
Lineage II: 13%
CoH: 2%
GW: 1%
All other games and sources: 11%
Their largest sales market was Korea at 70% of overall sales. As I said above, the North America market accounts for 4% of sales.
CoX was making more than Guild Wars... yet the latter gets rebooted...
Making a City of Heroes 2 is a much better choice IMO
^^^
If that's indeed the case, then yep - from a financial perspective, it makes no sense; but also that wouldn't be anything new at NCSoft. I would have been curious to see A.ION's NA numbers broken out seperately.
(I'm assuming the 28% breaks across all markets that A.ION is in) - because people keep saying the NA version isn't doing well. I also have to wonder why (if GW was 1% - they greenlit a sequel MMO to it that's now supposed to be the best thing to come to the MMO genre in the last decade; but again, NCSoft's made IMO some very wierd decisions over the years.)
They don't have it broken down that specifically. They did make an addendum to state that A.ION's numbers were down due to scaling-back on items to sell in that quarter, though.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
CoX was making more than Guild Wars... yet the latter gets rebooted...
Making a City of Heroes 2 is a much better choice IMO
Profit isn't just about sales but also costs to get those sales. While CoH's sales were twice has high as GW's their Operating Costs could have been 3 times higher - meaning GW gave a better Net Profit, even with only 50% of the sales.
Shareholder financials don't go into that much detail. Only NCSoft knows that type of information.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
So licensing issues are unlikely, and CoH was profitable...
obviously they were NOT profitable, or they wouldn't be shutting down.
and you can't pull the license in the manner some people are suggesting. you'd be up to your neck in lawsuits if you tried that. besides that cryptic couldn't do anything seeing as they have no rights to anything CoH related. they sold off those rights years ago
Except expenses weren't greater than income. I already said that. CoH was healthy. They were pulling in millions per year profit
obviously they were not healthy. you don't shut down a game making you millions of dollars a year
I think the one thing we can learn from CoH's closing is that it's not enough to have a dedicated fan-base. You also need a schtick to get people to spend extra money. For STO that schtick is Lockboxes
uhh....lockboxes are not a schtick that will keep anyone around. they're not even legal. this isn't a casino. gambling isn't going to keep long term interest in a space mmo
Profit isn't just about sales but also costs to get those sales. While CoH's sales were twice has high as GW's their Operating Costs could have been 3 times higher - meaning GW gave a better Net Profit, even with only 50% of the sales.
Shareholder financials don't go into that much detail. Only NCSoft knows that type of information.
They never think beyond it seems..
GW2 while a great game placed itself among the other sword and sorcery games out there.
City of Heroes > Champions
City of Heroes > DCUO
It's edged out every MMO of its genre, just odd to see two NcSoft titles with a Part 2. While a title that has had so many years be brushed off
and you can't pull the license in the manner some people are suggesting. you'd be up to your neck in lawsuits if you tried that. besides that cryptic couldn't do anything seeing as they have no rights to anything CoH related. they sold off those rights years ago
Just as an FYI, Cryptic owns the game engine running CoH. They sold the IP but licensed the game engine to NCSoft.
uhh....lockboxes are not a schtick that will keep anyone around. they're not even legal. this isn't a casino. gambling isn't going to keep long term interest in a space mmo
A pointless debate. Until they are legally declared gambling they're not. It's really just that simple.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
So seeing as PWE owns Cryptic and such Champions Online..
Its a power play to reduce the amount of competition from a title they can make a greater profit on.
Power plays are meaningless when you have license agreements. Cryptic didn't give NCSoft the license to use the engine based on a handshake. It was drawn-up by many attorneys, and would include many renewal clauses. The license agreement could have been for 100 years - NCSoft would have wanted the longest agreement they could get.
NCSoft might have just gotten tired of paying one of their biggest Asian Market competitors a quarter/yearly fee to operate one of their smallest games.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Power plays are meaningless when you have license agreements. Cryptic didn't give NCSoft the license to use the engine based on a handshake. It was drawn-up by many attorneys, and would include many renewal clauses. The license agreement could have been for 100 years - NCSoft would have wanted the longest agreement they could get.
NCSoft might have just gotten tired of paying one of their biggest Asian Market competitors a quarter/yearly fee to operate one of their smallest games.
Without more information, we'll just be left to guesses.
Maybe PWE should purchase Paragon Studios :rolleyes:
Ironically, many of the design concepts that made UO2 so appealing found their way into Star Wars Galaxies... The lead designer for both was the same guy, after all. Raph Koster, aka Designer Dragon
not to nitpick, but the lead designer for UO2 was Damion Schubert, under the username 'Ubiq' not Raph Koster.
Without more information, we'll just be left to guesses.
Maybe PWE should purchase Paragon Studios :rolleyes:
Half of them will probably be working for them in the next few months, anyway. I heard that BaBs, for example, already works for PW on NWN.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
I am still subbed to one of the CoH server groups on Facebook and saw this "rumor". As my heading states, unless someone can produce a tweet (or other proof) from Positron, War Witch, or anyone else that the license was pulled by PW, then this is just a rumor and should be taken as such.
Matt Miracle
Fleet Commander in Chief [Rank 7] for Covenant of Honor; a FED T5 Starbase
House Leader [Rank 7] for Honorable House of Mor'gue; a KDF T3 Starbase Find us at CovenantofHonor.com. My Twitter handle; @jmattmiracle
Here's my problem with 'em. They seem to be rooted in 1960s Marvel "fight and team up" rules and DC's "1940s legacy" but without Marvel's focus on character flaws or DC's focus on secret identities and generally way more focused on goofy mutant powers than gadgets.
Give me a hero MMO where:
- Our characters are encouraged to have weaknesses and flaws, even if it's just selecting a "Kryptonite" type weakness.
- More focus on gadgets and aliens, less focus on some kind of mythic force or virus giving everyone powers. It would be much more interesting to me if a company started selling gadget kits (some of which may eventually cause mutations or awaken powers) than for everyone to be at that mid-list B-hero power level. Either go more street/gadgets or more cosmic (blowing up planets, throwing buildings) but halfway in is boring to me.
- Include secret identities as a major gameplay feature.
Games like Freedom Force and City of Heroes established an interesting mold but really got too caught up in the costumes and approached heroism in too much of a tongue in cheek way rather than something soap operatic.
I loved COH for the customisation. Even though RP was almost non-existant, you had a game set near to current times with a focus on creating what you want. The first thing you did was pick an origin, it served almost no purpose but was one of the most important aspects of character creation as it starts the first seeds for an idea. Before long you have descriptions for each character and how their personal stories intertwine and stand under Atlas reading what others have created (good or bad!).
There's elements of it in STO with a character editor and open enough universe to make a story in your description but it is considerably cut down. Shame the editor isn't expanded more and better customisation for ships but Cryptic have to conform to the Star Trek IP.
A pointless debate. Until they are legally declared gambling they're not. It's really just that simple.
its not a debate. according to the legal definition of gambling used by the state of california it constitutes gambling. all that is required is something of value - actual or implied and an uncertain outcome. they do not need to be declared anything. they are what they are. that aside, they are still not a schtick that will keep anyone around. what keeps people playing any game is content
Just as an FYI, Cryptic owns the game engine running CoH. They sold the IP but licensed the game engine to NCSoft.
if they attempted to yank the license or anything else from another company as the means to eliminate a competitor they would get sued into bankruptcy for unlawful business practices
So seeing as PWE owns Cryptic and such Champions Online..
Its a power play to reduce the amount of competition from a title they can make a greater profit on.
there is no indication that anything like that happened. nor would it be remotely legal if it had
Comments
A company can spend $5 million per year to gross $8 million - making $3 million profit - or they can spend $5 million to gross $12 - making $7 million. Most companies will shutdown an under-performing division in favor of the more profitable option.
I think you answered the thread. STO is Cryptic's moneymaker and STO has become PWE NA's biggest game. So shutting down STO would result in economic suicide for both firms. But NC Soft saw that Paragon wasn't worth keeping open for whatever reason. And as a "rounding error" it appeared they didn't think it was worth the effort.
Look, I don't know why they are closing it. I'm just saying I highly doubt it is related to Cryptic pulling the engine license. Some times simply "making a profit" isn't enough. Maybe someone will pick them up before the servers close. If not for the competing Champs, PWE would've been a good option.
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
And it was the same at NCSoft. Their North American Market accounted for 4% of NCSoft's sales - meaning CoH was half of their entire NA gross income, but said income was still just a fraction compared to what they earned from their other markets.
You are correct. I'll go back and adjust my post.
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
No one will be buying CoH because NC would never sell it. NC keeps a vice grip on its IPs. Richard Garriot tried in vain to get Tabula Rasa back and that didn't work out for him.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪
So, "Guild Wars" and "****" were the other 2% of their NA market then? Somehow, I think GW and
I'm actually sorry to see the game go (and I was one of the first 300 people too get into CoH beta in 2003); and I played the game off and on for 5 years. That said, I don't think there is any conspiracy where Cryptic did something to pull the plug as NCSoft has a habit of closing MMOs for various reasons.
- "Auto Assualt" was closed because it did meet retention benchmarks for NCSoft.
- "City of Hero" flopped big time in the asian MMO market (it was the entire reason PvP was tacked on to "City of Heroes" in Issue 4.)
- "Tabula Rasa" (after being re-tooled prior to beta at the demand of NCSoft management) - but even so, by mosyt analysis was doing well and expanding it's playerbase) was closed so they could terminate a contract with Richard Garriott.
and the recent history of CoH was:
- Paragon delivered "Going Rogue" way late and over budget.
- "Going Rogue" sales and the resulting CoH supscription bump underperformed in NCSoft's eyes.
- NCSoft took the game F2P/Freemium in an attempt to boost profitability a little over a year ago. Maybe the results were again below NCSoft's expectations?
(And interestingly enought didn't the Paragon folks say that NCSoft had green lit them to work on a new MMO for NCSoft recently?)
But I don't think the NCSoft decision was motivated by any action of Cryptic or PWE.
And as for NCSoft foling Paragon into tjhe GW2 development team - most of the articles I read stated all 80 Paragon employees had in fact received their temination notices.
Again, it sucks for EVERYONE involved ffrom the current CoH playerbase, to the developers who lost their jobs; but I haven't seen anything to suggest it was because of something done by Cryptic Studios to kill the game; and I have a feeling were that in fact the case someone from the Paragon Studio would have made that known in some way.
Again, NCSoft shutting down one of their MMOs isn't unheard of and in fact, is (unfortunately) a rather common occurance of late for that developer.
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
In case anyone's wondering about Sales breakdowns:
Lineage: 45%
A.ION: 28%
Lineage II: 13%
CoH: 2%
GW: 1%
All other games and sources: 11%
Their largest sales market was Korea at 70% of overall sales. As I said above, the North America market accounts for 4% of sales.
If that's indeed the case, then yep - from a financial perspective, it makes no sense; but also that wouldn't be anything new at NCSoft. I would have been curious to see A.ION's NA numbers broken out seperately.
(I'm assuming the 28% breaks across all markets that A.ION is in) - because people keep saying the NA version isn't doing well. I also have to wonder why (if GW was 1% - they greenlit a sequel MMO to it that's now supposed to be the best thing to come to the MMO genre in the last decade; but again, NCSoft's made IMO some very wierd decisions over the years.)
PWE ARC Drone says: "Your STO forum community as you have known it is ended...Display names are irrelevant...Any further sense of community is irrelevant...Resistance is futile...You will be assimilated..."
CoX was making more than Guild Wars... yet the latter gets rebooted...
Making a City of Heroes 2 is a much better choice IMO
Shareholder financials don't go into that much detail. Only NCSoft knows that type of information.
obviously they were NOT profitable, or they wouldn't be shutting down.
and you can't pull the license in the manner some people are suggesting. you'd be up to your neck in lawsuits if you tried that. besides that cryptic couldn't do anything seeing as they have no rights to anything CoH related. they sold off those rights years ago
obviously they were not healthy. you don't shut down a game making you millions of dollars a year
uhh....lockboxes are not a schtick that will keep anyone around. they're not even legal. this isn't a casino. gambling isn't going to keep long term interest in a space mmo
They never think beyond it seems..
GW2 while a great game placed itself among the other sword and sorcery games out there.
City of Heroes > Champions
City of Heroes > DCUO
It's edged out every MMO of its genre, just odd to see two NcSoft titles with a Part 2. While a title that has had so many years be brushed off
A pointless debate. Until they are legally declared gambling they're not. It's really just that simple.
So seeing as PWE owns Cryptic and such Champions Online..
Its a power play to reduce the amount of competition from a title they can make a greater profit on.
NCSoft might have just gotten tired of paying one of their biggest Asian Market competitors a quarter/yearly fee to operate one of their smallest games.
Without more information, we'll just be left to guesses.
Maybe PWE should purchase Paragon Studios :rolleyes:
not to nitpick, but the lead designer for UO2 was Damion Schubert, under the username 'Ubiq' not Raph Koster.
Find us at CovenantofHonor.com. My Twitter handle; @jmattmiracle
i have city of villains collectors edition and was tempted to jump on but that looks like it will go as well.
sad times but if your into the whole superhero game thing try superhero city on arsebook, not as snazzy as CoH but it will do
I made an account when it went F2P, and although I haven't played it that much, it was still a very fun game.
I guess I might have to give Champions Online a try when I want to get back into the Superhero MMO Genre.
Here's my problem with 'em. They seem to be rooted in 1960s Marvel "fight and team up" rules and DC's "1940s legacy" but without Marvel's focus on character flaws or DC's focus on secret identities and generally way more focused on goofy mutant powers than gadgets.
Give me a hero MMO where:
- Our characters are encouraged to have weaknesses and flaws, even if it's just selecting a "Kryptonite" type weakness.
- More focus on gadgets and aliens, less focus on some kind of mythic force or virus giving everyone powers. It would be much more interesting to me if a company started selling gadget kits (some of which may eventually cause mutations or awaken powers) than for everyone to be at that mid-list B-hero power level. Either go more street/gadgets or more cosmic (blowing up planets, throwing buildings) but halfway in is boring to me.
- Include secret identities as a major gameplay feature.
Games like Freedom Force and City of Heroes established an interesting mold but really got too caught up in the costumes and approached heroism in too much of a tongue in cheek way rather than something soap operatic.
There's elements of it in STO with a character editor and open enough universe to make a story in your description but it is considerably cut down. Shame the editor isn't expanded more and better customisation for ships but Cryptic have to conform to the Star Trek IP.
its not a debate. according to the legal definition of gambling used by the state of california it constitutes gambling. all that is required is something of value - actual or implied and an uncertain outcome. they do not need to be declared anything. they are what they are. that aside, they are still not a schtick that will keep anyone around. what keeps people playing any game is content
if they attempted to yank the license or anything else from another company as the means to eliminate a competitor they would get sued into bankruptcy for unlawful business practices
there is no indication that anything like that happened. nor would it be remotely legal if it had