Clintastic

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Also I should note that patron powers don't count as content, as they've mainly discouraged people from leveling villains, thus experiencing content.

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That's more a very subjective opinion than fact, isn't it?

It's hard to argue anything as "not counting as content". There's a fairly easy argument to be made that different content carries different weight, though. 30 new costume pieces does not equal a new TF/SF, or PvP stuff does not equal PvE stuff overall, for example.

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Wait. Am I 'same guy' this time, or is that a different thread?

I get confused easily.

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That would make you "confused guy", not "same guy". Since there are multiple "confused guy's" on any given day, I'd be inclined to refer to you as "amusingly sorta blasphemous name guy". Or maybe just whatever your actual forum name is this month, since the mods don't seem to be monitoring your posts and inevitable replies after being insulted as much as "same guy".

Have we disappeared into a 'blind item' hell yet?

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Schedueling IS a big deal for someone who wants to play every single day (gimme escapism damnit!) like I have for the last 30 months. And I'm not 'playa hatin' when I bring that up so kindly leave me and whatever faults I personally have out of this discussion so I can go back to sulking over another unrelated mid-20's life crisis while listening to webcast Emo like any dork in my position would.

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Hear, hear. I hate to say it, but it's usually the same guy kick-starting the cavalcade of disparaging personal commentary. It shows an inability to discuss the topic on merits. I have no idea whether it's because of personality quirk, twisted sense of entertainment, or just a difficulty in articulating politely and on-topic via the anonymous internet. I'm all for good-natured snark, but...

I have little doubt that another 'snippage' is due here sometime soon. Thanks, "same guy".

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Whether you think Issue 8 should have had more features or not, the fact remains that CoH is one of very few MMOs that do free content updates AT ALL. Most relatively major MMOs charge you for your retail box and then give you little to nothing else in the future for your $15 a month fee.

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That was true two years ago, maybe, but most of the major MMORPGS use a variation of the same model that CoX uses. That model is, by the way, not free updates, but "free"-no-additional-cost updates that were the tradeoff for the notable jump in typical monthly fees a couple of years ago.

Subscribers are still paying for updates, just not necessarily for the box expansion kind. I'm not sure how people can believe otherwise, since artist, writer, and coder salaries don't pay themselves off a money tree grown in the backyard. One can check the Knowledge Base article on monthly fees in the Support section of the main game site if one is still confused. This is not to imply that we're getting gouged or whatever other kookoo exagerrated strawman argument that some people might enjoy knocking down--

"...To claim that Cryptic/NCSoft are ripping you off because you didn't get your new flying pony archetype or Candy Mountain hazard zone or whatever in Issue 8 is patently absurd." for instance...

--just that there is some amount of money being exchanged for content updates and there always will be with MMOGs. It's up to the individual whether one is 'getting the bang for the buck' appropriately.

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2007 has three Issues planned for it, one near Q1/Q2, one for the summer, and one for the end of the year.

[/ QUOTE ]OK, then. January 1st, June 21st and December 31st. We'll be waiting with complaints at the ready should any of these dates slip!

[/ QUOTE ]Umm... near Q1/Q2 would be near the end of April/beginning of May, and the second one will more likely be in August not June. That's if you use every 4 months as a rule.

You may want to adjust your complaint calendar a bit.

[/ QUOTE ]Hey, Q1 Starts January 1st. Summer starts June 21st. Posi said Q1 and Summer. So there.

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Well, it's probably foolish to expect that Positron meant to indicate that product would deploy on the earliest possible date in a larger indicated timeframe reference. More than probably foolish, in fact.

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Ok I'll shuddup now: I wouldn't *bother* to make posts of this sort if it hadn't been a problem more than once. Likely I haven't made a bit of difference, but it's my nature to try anyway!


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You'd have likely make more of an impression in a thread that was actually having notable "ZOMG!" problems. Lecturing in several posts about constructive criticism in a thread where constructive criticism is very well represented (but whose topic is NOT constructive criticism) seems odd. Just my take on things.

The bumps were nice, though.

edit: I'm sure this thread will fall by the wayside soon, considering I8 should be going Live this week or next, and it seems even odder to critique the update schedule with a brand new update hot out of the oven, but there was good stuff earlier on nonetheless. I'm sure this will come up again.

Taser's brief and only appearance in this thread was, like, last Wednesday or Thursday. Today's Monday.

<cue sound of axe grinding over and over and over>

BTW, the first couple of hundred of posts in this thread gets my kudos for a pretty reasonable feedback discussion of what most people consider a hotly controversial topic for this forum. I hope it gets printed out and passed around the next big scheduling meeting at Cryptic. They're not going to get a more well-rounded read on non-"ZOMG!" player expectations than this. Hopefully, it helps is some small way.

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There was Clint, this thread has been clipped more then once.

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"There was" hissy-fittage, I guess you were trying to say?

Really, the only notable snippage was the Taser digression before the weekend, and you can't really hold the thread responsible. Much like this digression, he was complaining about a "ZOMG!" discussion that didn't actually exist in this thread.

Have fun in the parody threads before they get deleted.

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I wasn't fighting with anyone, I was just stating my opinion on the matter/thread/issue blah blah blah. If you don't like me saying "Hey, hit that dead horse again" then fine, but I am definitely not angry or threatened by people discussing anything.

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The title of the thread is "Disappointment in the Update Schedule", not "Disappointment in the Quality of Constructive Criticism" - in case you missed that. Since there hasn't been much hissy-fittage at all in this thread, I'm not sure why this digression you've perpetuated over the weekend became the point of the thread.

Smells a little threadjack-y. Smells a little axe-grindy. Maybe something's being lost in translation. Thanks for keeping this thread on the front page, though. There was some good constructive dialogue and feedback for the actual topic of the thread going on before the weekend, and your bumps have a good chance to get some fresh eyes today for the original topic that was initiated by the first posting.

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Why is it that people come on these boards with legitimate complaints, and then a gaggle of posters call "whiner!".

Hey, stop using the boards for one of thier chief purposes!

I don't know if these guys realized this, but the devs have actually actioned issues which have been vetted on these boards. The halloween event is a recent example. Also of note is that the RSF is being lowered to level 53, and villains are going to get access to the hami raid.

Not all complaints are worthwhile, but at least make that case instead of the ad hominem attack of "Whiner!"

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People already did make the case. The boards aren't here to make the same complaints over and over and over again, nor are they here for people to use to try and bash the devs.

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Well, you've made your point that you feel this thread's topic has been driven into the ground several times. The peak of your moral high ground is so subtle as to be nigh imperceptible to the outside observer.

I'm not telling you to stop posting as you please, but there seems to be a paradox at work here. Just sayin'.

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No paradox, just beating one repeative post with another.

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Well, no moral high ground for you, either, just preaching to the choir for some strange reason. I don't understand why this polite, reasonable thread threatens you so much. Right now, what we have going is a long unrelated digression about what's 'worthy' of posting. If you're so angsty about elevating the discussion, why don't you go to an actual "ZOMG!" thread and educate some actual "ZOMG!" posters? It would seem to be a more constructive choice, but maybe I'm missing something here.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I could've sworn that this was an engaging and fairly constructive discussion about CoX's content update scheduling and composition before the holiday weekend.

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Constructive criticism consists of well thought out posts laying out the problem, the solutions available in your mind, the reasons you suggest these solutions, and why people may agree with you. You do *not* speculate on how stupid the developers are or how moronic a given system is - instead you present ideas on how to fix it, and what exactly is wrong with it. No personal attacks, no stupidity, no horrendously flawed logic.

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While there's plenty of inflammatory commentary in this forum, there's plenty of reasoned critiques as well. Daikon's point was that the good gets tarred with the less than good frequently, perhaps reflexively, and often with scathing rebukes of things that were never said by the reply target. Taser's replies in hot topic threads are good example.

Yes, there are plenty of less than useful threads out there, but I think some people are just building up resentment from bad apples and take it out on good apples. Those people have little patience for the occasional "ZOMG!" post that pops up in an otherwise reasonable thread and give into the temptation to dump on a thread just because a couple of numnuts insert "ZOMG!" into an otherwise interesting discussion. I've found that a good chunk of "ZOMG!" posts are made by the same people, and using the forum software to 'Ignore' them out of a thread cuts down on a lot of shoulder-chippage, which in turn cuts down on the "whining about whiners".

Your mileage may vary.

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Why is it that people come on these boards with legitimate complaints, and then a gaggle of posters call "whiner!".

Hey, stop using the boards for one of thier chief purposes!

I don't know if these guys realized this, but the devs have actually actioned issues which have been vetted on these boards. The halloween event is a recent example. Also of note is that the RSF is being lowered to level 53, and villains are going to get access to the hami raid.

Not all complaints are worthwhile, but at least make that case instead of the ad hominem attack of "Whiner!"

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People already did make the case. The boards aren't here to make the same complaints over and over and over again, nor are they here for people to use to try and bash the devs.

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Well, you've made your point that you feel this thread's topic has been driven into the ground several times. The peak of your moral high ground is so subtle as to be nigh imperceptible to the outside observer.

I'm not telling you to stop posting as you please, but there seems to be a paradox at work here. Just sayin'.

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Perhaps the reason we don't get more frequent, smaller updates, is because if we did, no one (other than pre-existing players) would care that "CoH patch 79658" was being released...

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As long as there's been a dev ready to supply quotage, every mini-event this game has done has gotten coverage online. I don't think the problem is that CoX can't get on Gamespy, MMORPG.com, or whatnot. It's that they run out of things that Cryptic people will talk about.

General P.S. - Normally I'd feel awkward about carpet-bombing a thread, but it's the early hours and not much posting going on anyway. By noon, this'll be at the bottom of the front page or lower.

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I don't have a problem with I8 being a bit late, but going from a hoped-for September date to one nearly in December is more than a bit late.

But there's nothing we can do about it, really, except to voice our concerns and hope the devs can deliver new updates in a more timely manner once I8 is out.

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What if, when it looked like it was going to be late, and let's not kid ourselves, someone knew it wasn't going to be a quick fix. When it looked like September just wasn't going to happen at all, would it have been acceptable to you (lurkers, you guys answer too, ok) if Cryptic came out and said, "I8 will be released, but we can't get all of it done. We're releasing this part now (insert something, costumes, safeguard missions, whatever isn't totally fubared right now) and we'll release the rest when it's ready."

I guess I'm playing dev-fangirl here and trying to find away that they can placate us.

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Y'mean like when we found out that Inventions was pushed back to I9 so I8 would come out this year?

That fork in the road you describe happened a couple of months ago now. Just saying. The title if the thread is not 'Disappointment in the I8 Schedule'. It's 'Disappointment in the Update Schedule' - meaning, in general for well over a year.

The thread has made it's point clear, and it may seem like mild dogpiling, but it's a mostly adult discussion that is worth being made for more than few posts then forgotten. We can't suggest anything that the fine people at Cryptic haven't had meetings and water cooler talk over, so the best we can do is try to describe our expectations and how they are or aren't being met.

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I guess I'm playing dev-fangirl here and trying to find away that they can placate us.

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This really isn't flame-war going on. We certainly aren't a family trying to get through an awkward dinner. I'm not sure if placating is required. Sometimes things don't have to end up wrapped into a pretty bow that everyone can appreciate. I'm sure there'll be plenty of over-exuberance once I8 goes Live, if history is any indication. The devs and mods can tune out the forum or even just the obvious critique threads until then if they want to.

Frankly, I'm sure most people don't give a fig about being placated. They just don't want to wait 6-8 months between major content updates and some want to register that publicly.

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That's the bulk of what I remembered writing last time. Now watch this whole thread get nuked by the time I get back to checking it out again in a few hours.

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Listen, if you think you cranked out a really good post in a hot topic thread, you might want to hit the 'Print Post' button at the bottom of your post or the 'Print Thread' link at the bottom of the page and have the browser save it as a .html file for later.

I used to do that often for informative and flamey threads. Good info and good snark should never die.

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Anyone remember when this thread was about I8?

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Zing!

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I don't understand that in all non-WoW forums, there is nothing but hate and the spurning of it's success especially if the two games are compared.

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I may be wrong, Tutelary, but I think wates less about bagging on WoW than finding it humorous for someone to comment that WoW can handle running a MMOG demonstrably better than other companies when they've 'nerfed' their game as much as their competitors over the last year and have started slipping their release windows for content updates as much as their competitors.

You won't find a lot of WoW lovers here mostly because of the loot/no-loot appreciation divide between the two games, but you really won't find a lot of over-the-top WoW hating either. If anything, jabs at WoW here are more about people here bored with sword and sorcery games, of which WoW is the biggest example.

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Is there even going to be a Winter Event this year?

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Yes, there is.

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I know. They've said so in the past.

See, if you include the contextual sentences around the quote you pulled, there's a gag about how we've heard more about something coming in 6 months than something that historically should be cropping up in the next 30-40 days.

There's a 'tongue sticking out' emoticon, but a 'tongue in cheek' emoticon would have been handy earlier, I suppose.

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But is what you want feasible?

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World of Warcraft seems to handle it just fine.

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I'll join the *chuckle* chorus on this. WoW, even with all it's filthy lucre pouring in, is still hitting that post-honeymoon period (like every other MMO) where the design team has run out of stuff that was too unfinished at launch to implement. They're scrambling to recycle as much as possible in order to just be plain tardy with content updates instead of 'what the heck am I paying a monthly fee for?' kind of tardy with content updates.

There really isn't a game studio in the market currently that shows that it can juggle multiple MMO projects at the same time well. (I'm not saying that they can't juggle - just not very well. ) And yet they all are.

*sigh*

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5. The issue finally hits the live servers and everyone rejoices. Soon after the excitement has begun to pass, teasers for the next issue are announced and the cycle begins again.

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Props to the devs for helping the situation by already teasing I9 (which is still 6 months off) before I8 comes out. Is there even going to be a Winter Event this year? Cuz I've read as much about I9 in the last month as I had for the Halloween event with not a frosty chirp about anything else outside of the inevitably ubiquitous I8 coverage.

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Does all the money spent on CoH/V go back into CoH/V (and of course the expenses associated with the game) or do they get diverted into other projects like MUO or Auto Assault?

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Auto Assault is a NCSoft problem, not a Cryptic problem. Cryptic's compensation from NCSoft for CoX should be in no way affected by the any other NCSoft title developed by other studios.

As far as MOU is concerned, yeah, cash flow likely gets commingled. Cryptic gets paid for output. How they get there is their business. If they can maintain CoH subs with fewer people working on CoH, they will, just like any other business would. If they need to pull a writer or artist or coder off of one game to help another make a deadline, they will.

I'm all for critiquing CoH, but I don't how relevant it is to make many comparisons to WoW. WoW exists and operates on a whole different level from most every other MMO due its bewildering level of popularity. If Cryptic had the same amount of cash flow as Blizzard does, it would be more likely that they'd be able to spend their way out of development creep. As it is, even WoW is notably slowing down its feature output like every other maturing MMO product out there. Two words: Burning Crusade.

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'A Council of War' simply added the Kheldians and their story arcs.

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And Striga Isle, don't forget.

And EPPs for heroes.

And Lusca, the Ghost Ship and the Clockwork Paladin.

Issue 3 did a lot more than 'simply' add Khelds.

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QFE

I smell an honest brainfart.

*lights candle*

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Can I cry about whiners?

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wired: just sayin' about just sayers

tired: crying about cryers

expired: whining about whiners

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And right after the Thanksgiving break, the devs will release I8 and everyone will stop crying about it.. go figure...

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Crying about 'cryers'...
Whining about 'whiners'...

Let the circle be unbroken...