Emnity

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Thanks for clearing that up oh mighty one.

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No problem, mate. There are a lot of people on the forum unaware how presenting their point of view as a tantrum conflicts with getting their point across - you won't be the last to get confused!

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These are issues that NEED to be addressed.

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Every gamer has those.

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Reputation? I'm here posting how it is. Reputation on an online game? DUMB. Now let's continue...

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You're not in an online game, lil' scrapper, you're in a discussion forum trying to get your perception heard about a feature in an online game. Presentation ties into that.

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If I wanted to know what was up with the PPP's, I'd make a thread to ask about it that didn't try to accuse the Devs of any wrongdoing or dishonesty. I don't care if people feel it's justified, coming off like you're blaming them for something or misattributing behavior to them is an easy way to get them to ignore your topic.

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Ahem.
The thread linked above was started a year or more ago. It started out without any accusations on the part of the devs. It was asking a question. To this date there have been ZERO red name replies.

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I thought Posi or Castle already stated at some point that they felt they were fine for now?

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Reason being they don't have the answers. So how can they reply?

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Well, Big, they can either keep quiet and have you rant about them "hating" CoV and "not having answers" or they can open up about their intentions and listen to yet more mindless rants about how stupid their choices are. It's a lose/lose scenario. Gamers are never happy, and even if one is it means 20 more aren't.

I'm stunned they've been as open as they have been. Mind you, I'm far from surprised that it's rarely acknowledged - the most open dev communities are raked over the coals by everyone not getting *their* answer on a regular basis, just as you're doing now.

I'd flesh it out and say the #1 reason for not giving in to the demands of wee gamers is that the result would not only see the exact same complaints existing, but it would couple them with complaints about the now-visible decisions and, worst of all, it would mean *any* future change in the discussed decisions would render former communication a "lie" and the current choice a "betrayal".

Say whatrcha want about gamers - they're predictable.

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To me they would only be the same game if any of my characters, hero and villain, could enter almost every zone. That's the way it is in WoW.

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Wow is FAR more PvP-oriented than here, and that design decision supports that move.

Wouldn't really be in-line with this game's casual PvE focus, would it? Either every zone would have to be PvP-permit co-op, which would change the focus of the game entirely, or every zone woudl feature villains running by heroes yet unable to touch them. Odd.

In any case, while that's a very arbitrary feature to pick as "the defining factor" or whether or not this game is or isn't a two-faction single game, it is one point of view.

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If it's one game with 2 factions, then an issue devoted to either side (including the red side) shouldn't cause a stir on the forums.

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That's odd - new horde content causes a stir on alliance side replete with gripes. New alliance content causes a stir on horde side replete with the same.

I think this proves it's an "MMO".

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Because it can't be both ways. Either it's one game and ANY update is a good update, or it's two games that share similarities and zones and updating one side only is a bad thing.

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"If it's one game, then every player will be happy with the features of every new issue and update..."

Yeah, Nancy, that makes a huge amount of sense. It's *just* like that in other games, too - every single update is all birdsong and the pitter patter of spring rain on the daisies.

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Maybe this is why NC is hiring alot more people for the game? To bring more to the table for villains? Hey we can dream you know!

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I sincerely hope that NC's aquisition brings more to the table to even out content for each faction. We can, indeed, dream.

Because it has to be done:

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This is one game. I play it all. I prefer redside.

*Now STOP....

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COLLABORATE AND LISTEN! BILL IS BACK WITH A BRAND NEW EDITION!

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... The 3 sentences I just typed are not tied to what I'm about to type.*

Villain side market is broken. PPPs suck, were badly designed and are in NO WAY better than APPs.

Merge the markets. Do a total rehash of the PPPs.

*STOP*

The give the freaking graphics engine an overhaul for the ONE GAME we have here.

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Wait... Bill... are you trying to say that a person can ask for addressal to issues unique to the faction sides yet NOT BE SINGLE SIDE PLAYER!?

Ye jest, sir... surely ye jest. By this logic, many of the folks who object to a blue or red item of some sort might be doing so out of GAME concern, not faction rivalry! And those who wrote them off as a mindless side-supporter would be... nuts!

Blasphemer. Your words do not gel at all with the divisive nature of the thread. How can I hate mine enemy when HE IS MEEEEE!?

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Why would the devs knowingly ignore CoV?

It doesn't make sense to me.

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Better question:

"Why would some players style the devs as "hating" and ignoring CoV?"

A much easier question to answer: look at the post results.

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"I think RP immersion is a poor justification"

Oh really? According to positron, I quoted this sentence out of context and removed a portion of it to make it seem as if I had a point!!1111!one!1

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Exactly

But the fix aside, I thought Posi's citing RP was pretty weak. I find sort of non-sequitur that you'd support the idea and try to use it as further justification for keeping options away from villains.

Really, B_S (illustrative!), you started off strong but you're getting your intentions mixed: merged markets mean MORE goodies for villains, not less. Try to keep the flame bait on track or people will get confused.

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As it has been brought up many times, the devs do not see CoV has a full game.

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I only wish "bringin something up" made it true.

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City of Villains still has it's own .exe. It still has it's own title screen. it still has it's own characters, it's own content, it's own game

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Lol... two-faction MMOs featuring spash-screens by faction, content unique to side, and at least one or two classes unique to side is pretty par for the course, man. You just described WoW.

And if WoW had needed to test the market for its game concept (which it didn't, since it's game concept has been a seller for decades) by releasing its core portion first, it would likely still have an .exe for hordeside tucked away soemwhere.

Lookie here:

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Meanwhile, to support the SEPARATED GAMES idea, the devs themselves have continued to keep CoV characters from unlocking the Hero ATs

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If being unable to unlock the other faction's exclusive ATs indicates seperate games, you do realize that almost every faction MMO out there is a seperate game? Bad deduction.

This:
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It was the heroes who cried about I7

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the straw man that blue siders as so font of bringing up

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heroes come to the board in droves and complain

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... work a little harder to divide us into two camps! Do it! Anyone who stands against an idea for red side must be a blue sider! Anyone who does vice versa must be an evil red! The sneetches have stars on their bellies!
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We are not just another update you damn heroes got for your game.

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Nope, you're just another wee portion of the single game we all play, and it's weird arsed personalized attitudes like the above the bury the relevant points made by those of us interested in addressign content disparity and instead move the discussion into the schoolyard realm.

"You damn heroes..."

You guys trying to promote this us. vs. them mindset are better than the Horde vs. Alliance types, and they've MASTERED the art of taking in-game facgtion vs. faction to a personal realm.

Edit: misquoted you.

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Well, heaven forbid a hero should purchase something from a villain and the villain should make a profit off the hero. I'd roll my smiley eyes if I could.

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The anonymity of internet purchases sees people making profit form others with whom they share no moral qualities all the time. Why would an anonymous black market bid system or a consignment shop be any different? I don't remember the last time I asked about a craftsman's moral qualities in a consignment shop. "Well, I may buy this dresser... but... was the carpenter a christian? I need to know!"

In any case, I think RP immersion is a poor justification for leaving a portion of the game's pop in the lurch.

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It might be too late to fix, but if the markets had been cross sides as well as cross server---

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It's never too late to fix. Every time I start a new alt with no cash hero side and have 200K by lvl 12, 400k+ by lvl 20, and so on, I demonstrate that success on either side's market has nothing to do with starting capital - the game provides starting capital through regular play.

I simply don't do influence transfers. The system works hero side.

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Don't make it sound as though a player that limits themselves to one side, the red side, is in the wrong here.

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I don't think anyone is in the "wrong" for prefering a side, else I'd have said it - I think anyone who thinks the game is broken into pieces because they only play a piece and therefore try to inflate game addressal into personal affront is in the wrong. Trying to inflate this product's development with "The devs hate CoV" is foolhardy and achieve nothing beyond laughter and flames. (Which in this OP's case was what was intended, but in most cases it's someone honestly not getting why people don't understand their point.)

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There are plenty of hero only players that post(ed) that they couldn't and/or wouldn't play the "bad" side yet want everything the red side has to offer. I didn't see anyone telling them not to limit themselves to one side.

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You're trying to create a new issue, one of "People shouldn't ask or content from the other side". You're missing my point entirely, but that's ok - my point wasn't central to the thread. Still it remains that the issue lies in the approach, not the want. Want is common to all gamers.

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I will in the future though.

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Because of my post? I have changed the internetz!

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That's not the title of the thread, nor is it in the OP. I don't recall anyone making it personal.

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If you'd like to believe the tone behind many of the divisive posts isn't one of underlying betrayal which assigns a personal emotion to a business interaction, and that countless "We need more attention red-side" posts have been unfortunaterly expressed in a histrionic fashion which styles any boon to heroside as a detrminent to red (ensuring they will not be taken seriously), that's your call, nothing to do with me.

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Personally, I don't see it as one game.

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*Shrug*. Why CoX would share maps, mobs, powers, physics engine, portions of backstory, and be designed in a standard two-faction MMO fashion yet not be a two-faction MMO rather than "two seperate games" is beyond me, but obviously some folks are choosing to see it that way. The devs' treat it differently, though, they treat it like most other two-factions MMOs. I don't think people insisting otherwise are going to change that.

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That way if there is an issue devoted to the red side no one should have any complaints.

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Heh... you're acting like that "there's histironic types on both sides" thing doesn't exist. Prepare to be disappointed.

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Time to lobby for a red only issue

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Do it! Just avoid tying it into assigning personal emotions to the devs and inflating updates into affronts and I'll be right there with ya. (Provided it's something that I want on red side, natch.)

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Issue 12 heroes will get some cool content and fixes. Villains will get Double XP weekend. Can't Wait.

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Right there is what I was talking about. You can't discuss anything with anyone that takes this stance.

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One sort of gets the impression he's trying to keep a fire going, eh?

One sort of got that impression in the OP.

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I don't know if this has been brought up in this thread or not, but what percentage of the game population plays heroes/villains? It's obvious and well known heroes is much more populated. Since that is the case then why would NC Soft/Cryptic develop for both sides equally? That doesn't seem like a smart business move.

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Long Term: A more complete product (i.e. both factions offer comparable content) will be a bigger player draw.

To get that content there, though, is going to happen in bits and pieces. I doubt we'll see one massive content dump that equals out the factions, and that's the only thing that will make people insisting on a side vs side to speak reasonably - until then their perception of unequal faction content allows free license to decide the devs "hate" them, and the choice to view cross-faction content as a slight to one side aids in that perception. I keep wanting to highlight how funny that is, but I don't know how... "The devs 'hate' me..." lol.

The smartest thing the devs can do right now is add cross-faction content, as it is new content for *every* player - but nothing will please the side that feels it needs exclusive content now, now, now, as neither is likely to get it.

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And how longs the RSF been out? The Lab techs been bugged from day 1. If there was such a case in the STF, it woulda gotten fixed the first week.

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Yeah... lol... they've been really fast addressing "hero-side" issues.

Lol.

Again, B_S (indicative!), the us vs. them illusion is 90% of the issue. The rest is standard MMO timlines.

At some point, you folks are going to have to realize we get "game updates", not "my side of the game updates" - otherwise it's going to be a long, frustrating road as you continue to insist the game is divisive while the devs continue to treat it as the whole product that it is.

Kudos again on the OP: never seen this done with so little effort. Nice choice in subject matter, too - barely needed a push to get the ball rolling. Well played, sir.

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Dang it Emnity, what is up with you and logic?

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Dude I cannot even be relied upon to keep my threads straight. I think I just posted a recipe for quiche on the PWNZ forum.

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Threads like this that are coming up more and more often are why it was a horrid idea to combine the two boards. I am hesitant to post in another of these threads because I have been told that no matter what I say it is condescending, or rude, or a combination of the two, this is an attempt to not be either.

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Combining the forums actually decreased the number of such threads for some reason. Used to be the CoV forum was only ever used for people to complain about the injustice and little else.

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But did they generate the massive flame wars now that the casual browsers see them?

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Yeah. People who favored one side were always happy to run over to the other side to tell them to shaddap.

Honestly the combined forum has done away with a lot of that in general. The more the devs phase out the little window dressings that support the "us vs. them" ilusion, the sillier people feel trying to play into it.

Sadly, if you were able to see a lot of those threads, and this applies to both villain and hero forums, you'd have seen a neat trick:

Often the person saying "this issue is trivial, I can't believe you're inflating this...." in response to a "the devs hate us" thread or some such was a full-game player - they'd even say so in their first post to establish their motivation.

But if they were on a villain thread, they became a "blue sider" and if it was on a hero thread they became a "red sider". *Poof* just like magic.

Happened to me a couple of times: I'd weigh in on a red side issue and if I didn't support it, I was "just another blue sider shouting them down" - never mind that I had been playing villains for months straight and hadn't touched a hero in ages.

People see what they need to see and the "us vs. them" game is far too entertaining to let a little reality get in your way.

Honestly, a lot of these guys really enjoy the drama of trying to force a division in sides - look at some of the posters who take every opportunity to cast one side or the other as whingers. Embarrassingly, there are a couple of really high post count peeps who do it, and they've been here long enough to know better. But all too often you'll see a poster presenting their "side's" point of view while summarizing the other side's as "Blah Blah Blah" or styling any disagreement as being censored or shouted down - these people feed the drama as much if not more than the side vs side fallacy its self - they have so much fun with the dynamic that they won't let it die.

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That's a bit biased. What the red side had was a lot of CoV specific threads with very, and I mean very, little of the fluff we see here that really has absolutely nothing to do with the game. "How would your character do against the Hulk?" for example.

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That... has everything to do with the game!

Lord when did this cease being a comic book fantasy RPG and become a spreadsheet?

(Hey, Look, Zyph, I found the correct thread!)

QR:

It's a sad situation for those piecemeal players - new players coming in under the new "full game" bundle offer aren't going to buy into the illusion of two games - just like most other faction MMOs, they're going to see it as what it is; a 2 faction MMO. So the ranks of the piecemeal players, while they will inevitably grow because there are bound to be players who prefer one side to the other, they won't "swell" with the overall game pop, they're always going to be a fringe voice.

And there's usually nothing wrong with being a fringe voice, but in this case the fringe is centerred on a point of view that the devs don't share, namely, that of villain faction being "it's own game" and more deserving of singular attention in order to "catch up" with the other portion, rather than the whole product, with a dash of the strange yet tenacious idea that the devs "hate", or in any case are assigning a personal emotion, to some of their paying subscribers.

But the devs have moved away from that idea. They update the game as a whole and content becomes more and more focused on things shared by both sides - which piecemeal players see not as a boon to both but as a slight to one... becuase their insistance on two seperate games sees one of those games starting with more content and the other with less, rather than one product with "a lot".

The more time goes by, the more firmly "whole" the game becomes, but honestly the nail was put in the coffin with the bundled full-access release - at least in the former state of things a player clinging to only a portion of the game could say "I can't afford the rest".

Now it devolves to personal preference, and you can see a lot of that motivation in this thread, which had a large portion of its thesis devolve to "I don't like the way the RWZ storyline interacts with my RP decisions" - a valid point, but hardly a game-driving issue.

The more time passes, the harder it is going to be for piecemeal players to light a fire of concern under anyone's rear that the portion of the game they choose to limit themselves to is more deserving of new content or changes than the product as a whole.

Happily, inevitably, new content will inevitably fall to that portion of the game as they update the entire product, so in the process of pleasing the overall population they will unavoidably please at least some of those who play in certain areas - I am certain until we reach an undefinable par between the two concocted "sides" we'll see regular updates about how the devs "hate" some of the subscribers, but I don't think anyone takes that histrionic stuff seriously.

I do find this issue terribly interesting before. I've never encountered a similiar situation in another MMO, in which the product was complete only after the core design had been used as a living market test: it's allowed people to cling to one portion or the other while insisting it is its own distinct game unlike any other MMO I've seen. Eager to see how that ends up in watch-the-trainwreck sort of way.

As an afterthought: When it comes to piecemeal players, I think they represent an imprtant concern even if they are a fading breed - they represent a concern for maintaining strict flavor differences in factions, which is good in any game. There's a great urge to start off posts such as this with things like "Why do they HATE US!?!?" - silly in the extreme, naturally, and it sees people laugh off what might have at its core a valid point only because of a facile and simple minded/overdramatic summary - but then it;s followed by others shaking their heads and saying "See? We just can't get any dialogue started - we get heckled..."

No, it's not "you" that gets heckled, it's stuff like the OP - the idea that the devs hate a portion of paying customers is laughable. No use getting irate that no one will take it seriously.

However, when we see things like "I don't feel that the red side story lines cater enough to a villainous flavor" and "RWZ seems to cast a lot of the feel of being a villain aside entirely" - then *those* are some valid and good points. They need to be seen. Nothing wrong with giving a nod to evil.

I feel bad for piecemeal players being represented by stuff like the OP. There are valid flavor issues in both factions, they deserve to be heard, not buried under a pile of giggles.

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These are the people who ask for merged markets.
These and the people who actually understand economics.

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These are the people who don't care if villains get shafted by the grossly inflated prices that heroes charge and are willing to pay for who knows how long before the markets come anywhere close to "equilibrium".

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Prices are higher because there is more item availability and therefore more money to change hands: same economic experience, but more selection in purchase. Everything costs more, but everything sells for more. It works out.

Look at it this way: if you had no hero alts and started hero side tomorrow, you'd have no issue jumping into the market - the first decent drop you find merits enough infl to afford those high prices.

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No one on the villainside pays 10,000 inf for BRASS.

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No? How about 20,000 for a Demonic Blood Sample?

Because Villain side does not have the players to support the market, the low overall number of items for sale makes it EXTREMELY easy to corner the market on items in 60 seconds, jack the price up and sit back while you reap heaven - I've seen it happen 3 seperate and distinct times this month alone - you're selling or buying and suddenly the number of a salvage starts plummeting, the price skyrockets and the supply bottoms out and ... next thing you know... *poof* 20,000 for a Demonic Blood Sample because some salvage baron only had to buy 200 to corner the market.

Now, this is smart use of the economy, I can't fault the practise of smart play... BUT! Villain side's watery lack of item availability means that doing it is laughably easy: targetting the villain economy with a market buy-out is as simple as lucking into one proc IO to sell for a base amount of cash.

What I am saying is: "Villain only" players (lord help them) are incorrectly intimidated by the blue side cash amounts becuase they're not looking at the whole of the economy - those prices are high because interaction on the hero side market generates that kind of cash - and, beyond that, the anemic state of villain side supply makes everyone over there the of anyone with 1 mill on hand and 30 minutes to waste cornering the market and leveraging a common salvage item into sky-high prices.

That's easy to do on a market that sees 200 of something in moderate demand available on average.

Less so hero side, where there are 1,200 of that same something for sale.

Give all players a fair shake, including those who choose to limit themselves to half the game we pay to play.

I have to say it is sort of ironic - as a player who actually plays the entire product rather than pieces of it, I am never in the position of demanding "more" for half the game... however, this is one area where the sides can be equaled out quite easily and, due to a misconception on the way influence interacts with the market, this is an area where piecemeal players fight tooth and claw to stop improvement.

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I'm failing to see your point about Vanguard. My villains have zero problem with them. They are essentially hiring your character to act as a mercenary for them.

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Terra, as reasonable as you are, if gamers don't want to suspend their disbelief to make a point, then there's no force in the world that can suspend that disbelief.

A lot of players choosing to limit themselves to only half the game have decided Vanguard was not immersive for villains. This supports the notion that the RWZ content was hero-only: it's convenient, it's easy and it's not going away - what you or I or any of the other villain players think is irrelevant - "They" see it as made-for-heroes, therefore a change is called for.

On another note: Kudos to the OP. Blunt and a bit one-layered, but admirable in its simplicity and a few simple prods got it going and kept it flamey.

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Now, there is. Now, if you're in a SG, you can enter a base. Period. And I think that's just awesome.

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It's so double-dip awesome that it justifies the whole manuever by itself for me.

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An interesting spinning target you offer there - first you claim there haven't been any. And now you essentially state "well yeah, there have seen some, I just didn't like them".

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That's facile: Yes, there have been temper tantrums. No, there have not been addressals of buyer incentive as an invalid marketting tool.
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The belief that your are entitled to such incentives does however tie into a worldview.

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Assignation: I hold no such belief. Smart marketing practise != entitlement. Entitlement is your story, not mine. Trying to assign posting motivations for a stranger many miles distant is a futile and revealing gesture; really only good for convincing yourself and illustrating for others the wild presumptions you're willing to throw out in order to score a non-existent point.

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Nice spin and dodge. Does Parry follow or proceed?

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"Maybe if I link something pithy here he won't notice I skirted any rebuttal."

Point remains, as before, unaddressed.

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I've yet to see one person offer up a reason NOT to allow a cosmetic nod to buying early at full price,

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Have you been actually reading the posts or just spinning (as you accuse others of) just those parts that support your worldview?

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Yeah. I did. Why don't you quote for me the one you are thick enough to think is a valid addressal of a marketing tool and not a facile reduction of the issue to a temper tantrum?

Buyer incentives in an MMO don't really tie into a "world view", just so you know, mate, as seriously as you may take it.

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Ah yes, the good old MMO tradition - spinning the slightest and most cryptic of Dev statements into ironclad proof that what you want to happen is already a given... They just won't talk about it yet.

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"which gives a nod to the idea"

Nice try, though.