Hyperstrike

Glad. Any sort of surgery always has risks. Having people chop things off/out-of you is never high on the fun-o-meter (though some of the drugs can be SPECTACULAR).

Sounds like a major pain in the butt to me.
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Sorry. Hospital humor. 10 years in nursing really REALLY warps your notions of "funny". Obvious anatomical/scat references abound and are used and reused mercilessly. Absolutely GREAT way to ruin a nice dinner party.



It's in one of the places in your body with a very high concentration of nerve endings and excellent blood flow. If it DIDN'T hurt, things would be very VERY bad indeed.

Cold pack and doughnut pillow FTW here. Then lots of laying on your stomach or lying on your side. If you have a few extra pillows and don't mind learning to sleep on your side (assuming you're a back-sleeper), with a little planning you can usually prop yourself up into a comfy position to fall asleep in.

You immediately drop to 2 (TWO) character slots plus any additional slots you may have bought.

You lose access to any VIP content/costumes/systems you didn't buy or didn't qualify for under the Paragon Rewards system.

You cannot partake of Incarnate content.

You aren't being given points for free every month.

You lose access to the Exalted server.

You can't interact with the SG registrar. So you can't pay base rent.

You can't access the T9 VIP costumes when they're made available.



Good for you.

Bought straight out? Yeah. So what?

Because they didn't.

The appropriate answer to this is "Well DUH!" That's why we had various "packs" and expansions over the last 8+ years. Because they wanted to monetize the game outside of the basic $15/month. More money comes in means more money getting put into development of the game.

Yeah, it also means more profits for NCSoft and possibly raises for employees. So what? Doesn't the company have a right to profit from their product? Don't you think the devs deserve to profit from their labor? Happy, well paid workers are PRODUCTIVE workers.

The fact that the cash shop is a giant money sink while, comparatively, a Bad Thing ™ for an individual's finances, is a Good Thing ™ for this game.

Under the old model, we'd see roughly 3 issues a year and a couple Super Boosters with small costume add-ons for an additional price.

Now, in addition to issues, which are sporting more content per issue (including free costume pieces and powers), we're seeing new content, costume pieces and powers on a, roughly, semi-monthly to monthly basis.

How much would you have spent going to the movies once or twice a month during that same amount time? So, something between 3 and 6 hours a month vs the ability to log on at any time of the day or night and play as long as you liked.

You act as if you got NO value for your money. That's just bovine fecal matter and you know it.

It's also not taking into account a little thing we like to call "reality".

You're getting access to all the content for free.
As a Premium player you'd lose access to any new Incarnate content and you'd have to pay for the Signature Story Arcs.


That's the funny thing about logic sometimes. It's possible to over-analyze something and derive erroneous conclusions.

Your "logic" is treating this as a platform game. Where you play things through once and you're done. That's not how this game works.


Maybe. Or maybe you just missed out on a lot of entertainment and positive interactions with other players.

It was never INTENDED to be "enough" for anyone to simply buy any and everything and never spend a dime on points.

Why is this a problem?

If Paragon is going to continue expanding the game, they're entitled to profit from the fruits of their labor.

You are NOT entitled to get everything for free, simply because you're a subscriber.

CoV shot that notion in the head.
The Super Boosters followed up with a couple miniguns and the idea went through a ballistic shredder.
The introduction of the cash shop basically went and dropped it into the sun.

Welcome to the new world.
Accommodare, et vincitur

Remember though. That's only the second half of the "Fun with other peoples' kids" method:

1. Load them up on sugar and caffiene.
2. Hand back to mom and dad.

No. As someone mentioned. CoH is a far more significant portion of NCSoft's NA/EU market. Quite simply it can't compare to the vast numbers in the Asian market though.



Look at it this way. Those numbers are profits on a game that's 8+ years old, and has essentially paid for itself several times over, even with the necessary hardware upgrades and continued development.

Is it some huge, triple-A cash cow? No. It never was and never will be.
Is it a nice, steady, easy earner? YEP! And while they certainly wouldn't gripe if CoH suddenly sprouted 30 million paying players, they're not going to pass up easy earnings when the numbers you're talking about end in "millions of dollars"

NCSoft is a business. They simply don't tolerate products that fail to earn money.

Tabula Rasa didn't earn.
Auto Assault didn't earn.
Dungeon Runners didn't earn.

Note where these products are now.

DEAD!

CoH may not be going gangbusters. But it earns.
So long as it keeps doing that, the game remain live and actively developed.

So, in short. Trying to infer ANYTHING about the corporate "health" of the game from yearly earnings, or percentages of yearly earnings, or comparisons to yearly earnings past is a pointless mental exercise.



Last edited by Moderator 13; Today at 03:14 PM.

Mod 13: If you dislike the term "M-word" I used, please add it to the word filter. Your willingness to content-edit posts is rather...alarming.

Which particular rig from their site? Want to step through the various models and see if there's anything they're offering that might serve you better.

Pfft!

You're now, offfically "Too old to trust"

But, from my perspective, you're still a 9 year old. And you missed being born on the absolute COOLEST day of the year by two days.

There's late, and there's fashionably later.
You're the former.

NOW GET OFF MY LAWN KID!

Crank res as high as your monitor goes.
Turn everything on/up as far as it goes.
Never worry about FPS.

The 690's a waste of money as the game won't use the SLI.
But the 680 is like dropping Earth into the Sun just to kill a mosquito.

I transferred a pair of characters off Protector last night.
They went over fine.

One of the beauties of my job. I'm basically sitting in front of computers all day. As long as I'm not generating obnoxious levels of noise, and getting my work done, I can pretty much do whatever I want.

Most days, I work on clients remotely and browse the forums during the inevitable waits while automated processes (program installs, database conversions, etc) are "doing their thing".

Some days are deader than a Praetorian Percy Winkley. Then my post count jumps.

Then, some days, you see jack ssssquat from me. Why? I'm busy!