Steampunkette

So link the TF timers.

Problem solved! Do either Posi TF and the other one gets diminished, too.

-Rachel-

OMG! That's such a silly thing to be upset over. He fixed your Wall of Text so other people would BOTHER reading it.

You see, the wall of text hurting people's eyes makes then not want to continue hurting their eyes. It's that simple. He did you a favor to ensure that other people would read your points. Perhaps because he -agreed- with what you were typing.

-Rachel-

Hate to say this... But your argument fails.

You see, he offered his opinion on the matter, not a Dev-Confirmed rule set in fact... But an opinion. Key point being his final sentence.

People didn't respond to this thread because they didn't think it needed one.

-Rachel-

Particularly the last part...

Considering the next expansion is "Dark Mirror" I've got a feeling the Devs now have the technology (using the AE tech as a base) to create enemy factions or AVs of the Player's currently controlled character. So this might work.

-Rachel-

Capes are fabric and use the in-game physics engine to collide with a player's model in order to avoid too much overlap. The Wings anchor to two specific points on the player model and scale well due to the fact that they arc away from the body, thus avoiding clipping for the most part.

There may be an anchor point. But it's one that doesn't accommodate a rigid item pressed flat against the back at different sizes which works with the various animations in the game. This is why we don't have them, yet.

-Rachel-

Agreed, more or less. The point is that, eventually, 4-5 years from now, when I would expect to see CoH2 launch, Vista and 7 will be the base, unless some better Microsoft OS came out.

-Rachel-

Well geeze. Y'know. You're right! they shouldn't make a new engine for Windows 7 and make all the Vista (who got free vista upgrades) and XP users SoL. After all; You can play CoH on windows 3.1, right..?

As computer code and information becomes more and more complex so, too, does the method in which it is translated by various components. This is why there are graphics cards, sound cards, and other riser boards with minimum system requirements. In order for the game to progress, graphically and in it's ability to handle more situations, the hardware and firmware supporting it must also progress. This is why the nVidia Geforce 7900 video card isn't still the end-all and be-all of graphics cards.

At some point you have to sacrifice the size of your targeted playerbase in exchange for the flexibility of the software. By making it a Windows 7 game rather than Windows XP any user with Windows 7 can play, right? Well an XP compatible computer can be upgraded to 7, in many cases. So by making the base of their game in 7 they offer full graphical card range. From the highest end equipment to the lowest end that Windows 7 supports. Which is a wider range considering that future graphics cards will likely also require Windows 7 base.

-Rachel-

Doing just a teensy bit of research I found that there are people using a GeForce 5200 on Windows 7's Aero interface. And remember XYZ0 Model, Quality, Revision 0. High First number, high Second Number, 0 for third and fourth is always better. So by using Windows 7 the Dev team would likely temporarily lose a portion of the playerbase on the upgrade to CoH 2. But those players would probably still play CoH1 until they could put together $100 for a Windows 7 disk, wouldn't they? Think like the business, not like the player.

There's also the issue of animations. When your character bends his or her body for a specific animation the scabbard or backpack or jetpack or whatever needs to not clip. Currently there are two back Anchor Points. The waist point (for waist capes and trench coats) and the shoulders (for capes) Assuming the Shoulder slot was used there are certain animations which could make a jetpack clip through the body completely and come out of your crotch.

And in the reverse case the jetpack would not always be against your upper back during specific animations and, at other times, woulc stick out just under your chin.

-Rachel-

Nothing, Yet. Though it's not inconceivable, as Asheron's Call and Everquest both prove.

Once the game's engine and content have been pushed to their extremes you have two choices: Fake it or Make it.

Faking it is never again advancing what the engine can do and instead focusing entirely on new content (new missions, new zones, more costume pieces and emotes, new powersets without any further graphical or engine enhancements)

Making it is either Modification of the engine (which can destroy a game in soooo many different ways after a certain point) or creating a new engine (and thus a new game) which has all the capabilities of the game you've got -and- new ones (wall crawling, anyone?)

Personally I'd prefer to see CoH1 get a new engine compatible with all the old data, I really would! An engine in which physics are a consideration from the get-go (getting hit by or riding on cars, boats, or blimps for example) buildings are considered "Walkable" objects with specific powers toggled on. Rope-swinging as a travel power is a viable option based on an "Above Ground" mesh which allows the rope multiple target locations. Running on Water. And many more abilities.

But the development time needed to create that engine would, likely as not, be better spent on a new title or a new version of an old title (CoH2)

-Rachel-

The reason the CoH2 turnaround could be a decent time to offer Lifer subscriptions to city is simple.

There are two ways to handle the creation of CoH2. Either A) The Devs from CoH are pulled off their regularly scheduled work (bugchecking, content creation, etc) to instead work on CoH2 -OR- a new crew or simply larger crew will be hired on to do so while the Devs we have now continue working on CoH1.

I suppose, in truth, you'd likely as not combine the two or simply hire a full second team, as the current Devs are content generators, not engine builders. And trust me, those are two -incredibly- different tasks.

Now. You've suddenly got a massive work force to pay, one way or the other. Loans are taken out against the company's credit or offered by NCSoft's budgeting committee on the creation of a new game (CoH2). This money is expected to be returned at some point, usually with interest. Unless, of course, CoH starts bringing in a playerbase massive enough that the extra money brought in could pay another 15-20 people's 80k+/year salaries.

Typically when a game ships you see a price tag of around $45-60 for a standard console game or a one-off computer game. This could be anything from Half-Life to Dragon Age to a Barbie's Magical Pink Racing Horse game. This inflated cost is to make up for the Development time. And a company needs to ship and sell tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of copies to pay off their debts to banks or investors and make a reasonable profit. The same goes for an MMO Title.

However an MMO title rarely goes on the shelves for $60, does it? I mean sure you've got your multiple-expansion boxes being sold 3 months after the last one ships on WoW with a Prima Strategy Guide. But that's about it. usually they're on the shelves for about $30 and include a free first month of game-time with the box. so you're actually paying about $15 for the box in CoH's case since a monthly sub is $14.99.

So they're not making all their money back on that initial get, are they? Nope. They need to sell twice as many copies as that $60 game up there, or stay online with the same number of players for 4 months (at $15 a month) just to pay off their debts and make a "Reasonable" profit.

Now when CoH2 comes out will NCNC and Paragon Studios keep the full development team for it or, more likely, will we see the same size of skeleton crew we had earlier in the life-cycle of the game? Since it's an older game we'll likely as not see the Dev team shrink a bit as more Devs are swapped over to CoH2 to be the Content Developers there. Does this mean CoH will be completely shut down?

Well the answer to that is: Maybe.

If CoH is deemed, after the release of CoH2, still profitable, then you'll likely as not see further content generation and, at the least, the maintenance of the server farm. If it is not deemed to be profitable NCNC and Paragon will likely cut back on employees until it -is- profitable.

Now. NCNC and Paragon might also choose to offer Lifetime Subs for CoH1 in order to pay off their backers for the Development of CoH2. And at $200-$500-$1000 (who honestly knows how much they'd charge?) they'd pay it off fairly quickly in relation to a standard MMO payoff of a game. So it wouldn't be a -bad- business decision, as they'd have a great deal of turnover from one playerbase to the next (CoH players becoming CoH2 players) and I think it's safe to say that comparatively few players would maintain open accounts in both games.

So yes. With CoH2 on the horizon offering Lifetime Subs to CoH1 might not be a -terrible- idea, so long as the company does it within 2-3 month of launch (likely after seeing how bad CoH2 hit their CoH1 population) Why would it be good to continue offering CoH1? Because CoH2 will, almost undoubtedly, be offered on Windows 7 as it's platform. XP is obsolete, Vista was terrible and should be forgotten, but 7 is the new standard. CoH2, I'm sad to say, may bot even be -playable- on a Vista or XP computer. That's not even getting into the graphical updates and other system requirements.

"So what?" you ask. "why does it matter if you can't use XP on CoH2? I have windows 7!" Yes. You do. I don't. Well, i -do- but I haven't bothered to install it on the hunk of junk tower I'm using. A lot of people don't have high-end computers. in fact it's fairly safe to say most people who have computers don't even have "Gaming rigs". So killing CoH in favor of CoH2 utterly would be a poor business decision so long as the various XP and Vista users were still willing to pay $15 a month for a subscription. Well... At least enough that they're making a profit for keeping the server farms running.

Add the tantalizing Lifetime subscription bump paying off Paragon's debts incurred by developing CoH2 and instead causing them to turn an early profit. now you've got a winning equation.

So in that situation, if in no other, short term profit on an "Obsolete" engine and game would hasten the long-term profit of a "New and Improved!" engine and game.

-Rachel-

Umbral's idea, however, is a good one, I think!

Thought the market for PvP IOs would go sideways as people bought the ones they wanted rather than getting one they can't use and, instead, selling it.

-Rachel-

Oh. No. With this I vehemently disagree.

At the launch of CoH2 offering lifetime subscriptions for CoX would be fine. Since most of the development staff would, instead, be working on content for CoH2. Allowing players to keep playing CoH1 (along with any new bits of content added to it) wouldn't be such a terrible idea. And offering both lifetime and monthly subscriptions would be a sound business decision in that case, as the money coming in from CoH2 would help to offset the cost to maintain the server farm, if nothing else.

-Rachel-

Edit: I should also note that the money coming in from the Lifetime Subs to CoH1 would help to offset the CoH2 development costs. And you would still, likely, have players playing CoH1 on a monthly subscription basis, as well. If only due to the minimum system requirements of newer and newer games.

Are the reason I also made note that I had read it in a different manner.

But I think that's enough Threadjacking for now? Let's get back to the original topic, Hmm?

-Rachel-

Psssssssssssst. >.>

I read it just like he did. And due to the lack of inflection of a pure written medium added to the fact that it barely seemed like a reply to the quote written above it...

"Offering a $200 Lifetime subscription within one month of Going Rogue's Release would be a bad idea. Why? Because those 120,000 new players aren't going to plop down $230 on a game they've never played before."

"Read above where I am referring to NEW subscribers, not the existing base. Offering a lifetime sub is a good deal and can be an incentive for new subscribers."

And you get a very strange quote.

If you look at the Quote of my text in her post and then her reply it's as if she's ignoring the fact that I'm -talking- about new players in that quote.

So. Yeah. It's open to interpretation based on the person reading it, I'm afraid. At least until clarification is offered. But Ad Hominem attacks aren't helping the case any.

Ultimately, based on recent and past trends, offering a Lifetime subscription to CoH would kill it in a few short years unless there was another Paragon Studios Cash-Cow on hand to take up the massive slack of the payments no longer rolling in.

-Rachel-