Mothers_Love

Ditto, Its going to be (If all our predictions eventually come to pass) very indicative of just how much NC West values the EU.playerbase regarding how much effort they put into any potential transfers and keeping us as subscribers.

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When they closed the Korean servers, they just gave them all US accounts; no character transfers at all.

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S*d that, I would expect everything related to my Character suite Red-side/Blue-side and SG ported over or replicated.

Major pouting and reconsiderations if not.

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But i don't want to be American

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Don't worry Kallandra, we'll all band together under one massive EU.supergroup and educate them to how you really kick Villain A$$.

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Yes the UK servers are relatively new, probably still got the delivery stickers on them - Its been widely acknowledged that the problems are not your computers nor the servers but the European Infrastructure inbetween.

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Sorry Mumsy, but that's wrong. The EU servers are about 4 years old now, whereas the US ones were upgraded last year.

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Ninja edited FFM - sorry - I posted then remembered that it was the US tech that was upgraded to meet out specs not the other way round, - but yeah, emphasis on the EU. infrastructure inbetween that is the cause of much of our lag.

Some sad predictions there FFM, ... PlayNC are still advertising a Localisation manager position (albeit it may have been just not taken down yet). I agree with you re: the unretainability of the UK arm if these machinations are anything to go by.

Yes the UK servers are just as good as the new US ones - Its been widely acknowledged that the problems are not your computers nor the servers but the European Infrastructure inbetween.

Yeah, thats the 'positive thinking angle' I thought you intended Shockwave.

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I guess its just me then who thinks this is a move for the better

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*Psst, Seventy people lost their jobs this morning - probably not the best time to be calling it a good thing.

(I know Its meant as your well-intentioned opinion for the potential future good of the franchise. *the aboves not meant in a slapping-down kinda way*).

I doubt it Scarlet, They would not of invested so heavily in the IP if they had any intention of letting the franchise slide into obscurity.

This is just the global economic downturn and NC West looking at their figures and consolidating back to their native shores.

I'm surprised it has happened so close to the last cull. Thats cold.

My sympathies to all of you down there in Brighton if this affects you.

<blows coffee all over monitor in shock>

Oh, Those rumours from 38 mins ago!....

Hmmm, have to wait and see. I'm waiting for the spin on the press release if they are.

Linky

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Just to keep hopes in check: there are still a LOT of pieces that need to fall in place first, and anything that does happen is unlikely to be a CoH-specific event. It's far from certain that we'll be able to reach our ambitions.

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Please reassure me that (re: my post on NCWest and how in my opinion they should be supporting you / us on our annual event) - you are not going round the office looking down the back of sofas and under floorboards for spare funds.

Was this not from when Jack was still answering and speculating on the future of CoX and teasing his 'City of pulp spies' MMO take on the franchise?.

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Realistically, how many subscribers will we really lose due to not updating the Valentines event who would have stayed if the event had been given a couple of new bits?


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I was talking about a scenario (and my greatest fear for the game) of any potential Dev complacency (in updating the 'Big Three' yearly events) driving away Veterans of 2 years of more through apathy, not singling out the Valentines event against the greater development gameplan.

While I greatly appreciate there are many players of whom this is their first Spring event and will be having their first Halloween and Xmas event later on this year, whats the incentive for me to keep playing when the events are the same?, 'Spring Fling' this year means less than nothing to a whole swathe of my characters both Red and Blue-side other than a few more people readily available in PD to team with (as was the case last night).

RL Populations fear an aging workforce, with MMOs its a balance of keeping Vets relatively content whilst appealing to new recruits, but I do fear a youngification and high turn-over of the playerbase exascibating any potential complacency by the Devs on future events. In effect the Devs looking at the average subscription length and thinking "Well we have replenished x% of the game population over the last year so thats fresh players who will have not seen Its the same event we run every year, lets keep it the same again this year/next year".

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Spill the beans Mumsy... You obviously know more about CoX in the short to mid-term than I do. Or maybe you just have different scales - I'd say short term is anything up to the next 6 to 9 months and mid-term is probably more like 9 to 18 months.

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I'd say it the different scales thing JD, I am privy to no more information than you are, but I would put Mid-term at a little more than 18 months. See NorCal are looking at the game and (hopefully) planning a development timetable in the scope of years not months, and then back-engineering all the steps necessary to get to that point.
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Brian Clayton (Executive Producer): "It's a little bit of both, to be perfectly honest. We certainly have huge plans, plans that go over the next five to ten years, for the City of Heroes franchise. So we certainly need to ramp up for that. But we also feel that by providing the Super Booster packs and things like that, it's a win-win in that it helps grow the studio internally to provide more things for our community, but it also helps us to justify those costs and build for the future. I think that's certainly a part of it, but there are larger initiatives again that we can't fully go into detail about, for the future of the franchise".

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So thats the good news restated - CoX is going nowhere, I just want it (as I'm sure you all do) to evolve as much as Its done over the next five years as It has done over the last, events 'n' all.

I believe most prices on PlayNCs site are listed Sterling/Euros ... or Euros/Sterling.

Whatever.

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GR, one quick question,

Will I be issuing my Gold Plated Premium "I Told You So" business cards this year to all those who have openly stated that the Dev team will fall in the face of Champions Online and DC Universe Online?

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Nobody has said the Dev team will fall in the face of the upcoming competition, what I personally am concerned about is player veterans slowly bleeding away from the game after seeing content re-hashed and presented as new.
NCSoft CEO Geoff Heath has been quoted as saying the average lifespan of a CoX subscriber is 17 months and that they were pleasently surprised by that figure. Pleasently surprised with 17 months?, I don't get it?, should the bar not be set higher?, I'm not sure what the average subscription time of other well-known MMOs are but I suspect they are longer than 17 months. It would be a shame if two years from now a high percentage of the playerbase was at this average of a 17 month veteran or less and even more of a shame if NCSoft was happy with that figure.

City of Heroes is going nowhere in the short to mid-term, it has years left to it and a well established Universe that it has worked hard to build up from scratch. Both Champions-Online and DCUO are going to be different playstyles altogether to CoX, and as such there is going to be plenty of room for all three. What our market share is going to be is a different matter.

Both companies have other big name licences in their portfolio - NCsoft with GuildWars and Lineage II to name a few, Cryptic with what I'm sure will be turn out to be their ace card in the pack 'StarTrek Online', and I'm sure all three companies will be watching their specific SuperHero MMO subscriber numbers with interest a couple of years from now, because as we have recently seen with Tabula Rasa the individual MMOs in their portfolios are judged on their stand-alone performance.

Shazan:
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Well hope you all had fun moaning away on here.[/i]

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Was fun teaming in PD tonight, the teamage that is - not the event specifically.
Oh, and we always have fun moaning on here, thats the whole point of the forums!... the fun that is - not just the moaning.

Such information would be waaaay beyond GR's remit, he is utterly powerless to divulge any titbits of future info and could neither confirm nor deny Its said existence without emails to and from the States signed in triplicate.

Shhh, When in doubt go for the reverse Psychology angle

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I'm going to look back at this thread at the end of the year and have a good giggle.

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Pleasure to of been of some amusement

Lets steer this thread back on course shall we? - Ramming Speed!

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Apparently the 5th column make a comeback for the 5th anniversary event, it was in an interview, i forget where though. They said something along the lines of "we're looking foward to something special from the 5th......anniversary" subtlety obviously not being a prerequisite of press releases.

I can't find the quote now though.


(in other news, 1st post!)

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The Mumsie answering DelMonte, she says yes.

Welcome to the forums dear!

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Why not?

Why sould their be a new event every valantines?


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Because subscribers will be turned off by any perceived apathy on NorCals part.

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And why not have events for labour day, or Martin Luthor King's Birthday, or Independance Day, or whatever.

Or better still, just have events occur when significant changes occur in the game world.

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Great Ideas Praf!, I would love to see this either additionally or in-place of.

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Kill in a slightly different way? Give out more phat loot? The Valantines events are rubbish anyway, we don't need more. Thier main purpose was to test co-op teaming anyway.


[/ QUOTE ] Point taken, but its not helping matters just to accept the status quo and let events fall into dis-use.
In game MMO events thrive if they are updated or replaced with new ones. Re-hashed content is seen by subscribers as at best a part of the game to be ignored and never to be bothered with again (See FFMs opinion) or at worse an embarrassing reminder of Dev apathy.

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the Dev team is beginning to think its barely worth the effort development man power-wise to do this event update-content

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And they would be right.

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Cold, possibly true from their Point of view, but cold.
Luckily for them the incentive is not on them for the choice whether or not to bother, It will be mandatory once the competition hits and people have two other superhero MMOs to choose from. Old events and rehashed content are going to hurt the game in terms of player's perception of the game and thus subscription numbers. In short NorCal are really not doing themselves any favours.

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No, they probably realsed a long time ago that they wouldn't be able to fit in anything new for Valantine 2009. Nothing was dropped because nothing was ever planned.

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My point exactly, I doubt anything ever was planned, the point is... why?, Because with the size of the Dev team they could of done something new if they had put aside time to do it!, even if its a variation on the current event.

Look, the Christmas event addition of the tobaggan run happened, I'll give credit where credits due, but I get the feeling that for the few short weeks these events run the Dev team is beginning to think its barely worth the effort development man power-wise to do this event update-content - just drag out the same old event year after year. This year packaged as 'The Spring Fling' co-advertising the Wedding Pack.

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i totally agree, but now, the only extras being produced are the paid for bonus packs. this was inevitable, and an obvious policy shift from NCSoft. i fully expect that issues will go the same way.

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I sincerely hope not, I am trying to give NCsoft the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the events, but those of us who have subscribed for over one year will no doubt start to recognise re-hashed content, and there is the argument that It does more harm than good in the eyes of subscribers.

My fear is that Architect (albeit a player-requested feature) will have a negative effect on the amount of NorCal created new Taskforces and missions both Red-side and Blue-side, because there could be this underlying ethos felt or quoted of "You make the content™ with The Mission Architect" (said in the same way as Robocop's "You pick the heart!") .

I pray with every fibre of my being this doesn't make NorCal lazier.

Well personally I think the last minute splitting, re-development and finessing of Issues 13/14 probably didn't help but I must disagree Praf, the current size of the Dev team is enough to handle updates to events and Issue updates in my opinion - It is glaringly obvious it has just not been planned ahead, otherwise we'll have a redname along shortly on the US forums to say how new features were scheduled for this year - list them and say sorry but finessing Architect got in the way, whereas personally I suspect no updates were ever in-place for this years Valentines event.

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Indeed, and this year, it is do not.

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Hmmm, yeah, I wouldn't actually recommend that strategy when the competition hits, otherwise NCSoft may find subscribers deciding to 'do-not' when it comes to bothering with this title anymore.

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Give people half a chance, and they'll argue about ANYTHING.


[/ QUOTE ]No they won't, you're wrong.

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Aha!- I can spot a fellow Python a mile-off