TerraDraconis

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And what does Garriot have to do with COH? Nothing, so... shrug on that one.


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Oddly enough back in alpha Garriot was the NCSoft manager overseeing the City of Heroes development by Cryptic. Then he went off to develop TR.

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I see, I did not know that.


.... I wonder if had I known he was making a penny off me, I might not have ... bought the game? o.o Hm.

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That translates into... he wasn't the prime devoloper but his opinion carried weight. So he had input into the shape of the game. The cryptic team had more input but NCSoft through Garriot had input into it as well.

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From the stratics interview
"NCsoft NorCal will be focusing exclusively on the City of Heroes franchise and will be doubling, if not tripling, the size of the development team in the coming months. "

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This really supports the idea that NCSoft wants to grow COX. It looks like they want their cash cow healthy and giving them calves.

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And what does Garriot have to do with COH? Nothing, so... shrug on that one.


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Oddly enough back in alpha Garriot was the NCSoft manager overseeing the City of Heroes development by Cryptic. Then he went off to develop TR.

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Is Joe stealing Weaver One's orbital space platform of death since he isn't using it? Of course he will have to somehow get Lady Athyna out of it.

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Haha... you're funny.

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ain't he just? That won't last long, I almost have target lock.

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Shame on you targeting Joe/Hero One like that.

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we weren't. Hold still this is going to hurt a lot.

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Set it to wide-beam. Holding still is unnecessary.

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You know it is for things like this that I kept the flying sharks with lasers mounted on their heads handy. Simply attach false transponders to them and let them go....

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Tripling the size of the development team? Wow. Maybe we'll see power customization within a reasonable time-frame (i.e., keeping with the 3 issues a year formula) after all.

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This sounds like nothing but pure win to me. I understand change makes people nervous but still.

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Is Joe stealing Weaver One's orbital space platform of death since he isn't using it? Of course he will have to somehow get Lady Athyna out of it.

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Haha... you're funny.

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ain't he just? That won't last long, I almost have target lock.

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Shame on you targeting Joe/Hero One like that.

Is Joe stealing Weaver One's orbital space platform of death since he isn't using it? Of course he will have to somehow get Lady Athyna out of it.

There is enough specific types there that once trained we would be seeing a definate increase in the material being released.

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The PVE player in the post 40 game that is not interested in loot has been largely neglected for well over a year. the 40+ game is now seemingly gearing up to be loot, raiding, and PVP. I'm sorry that I cannot be optimistic about this trend. I just can't be happy about this game becoming everything it wasn't.


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So the extra level 40+ content in RWZ that I'm having fun with is an illusion? The fun of getting sets is not worth my time? The upcoming flashback system that most favors the 40+ crowd isn't of any use then? Oh lets not forget newspaper and policeband missions so I don't run out of things. And if I want to I can have fun collecting the new better sets that are coming in I11 since they favor the level 50 who wants to flashback.

I'm sorry, I'm not seeing the lack of content for the 40+ crowd here. It seems to me that the lions share of issues 9, 10, and 11 is for the PVE 40+ crowd.

The fact that your not intorested in any of it doesn't make it any less valid content.

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Anyone else have a sinking feeling that this game is goin' down?

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Frankly, no. I just got the feeling that the game improved ... alot.

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/me Notes with Nervousness that the biggies are all named individually... _except_ States.


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That is because States stayed at Cryptic to work on MOU.

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If only the PlayNC people can resist making sweeping changes to the game and trying to optimize or overhaul it in any way for the sake of better sales, then maybe there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.

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That is the core of people's concerns. So long as they can resist making sweeping changes just to change we should be fine. I do think that the sweeping changes happened back in I5 and I6 so we are safe but we will see.

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Just wow...

1. Devs have lives, homes, and roots in their current communities so there is no guarentees they will move with the project.
2. If enough designers dont move this could mean sad news for the project.
3. The move for cryptic makes perfect sense from a buisness sense to me at least.
4. Depending on how corporate NCSoft makes things and who if any dont come to the new studio will determine if I stay subscribed.

I am patient and can wait but not forever.

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Read closer - the City of Franchise development team has moved with the game in majority (Minus Statesman).

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I will believe it when I see it. I have been with to many software companies that have been gobbled up both other. I am far to pesimistic and know better than believe a press release on its face value.

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Yes but we already have the answers to these questions from Lighthouse and Ex Libris who are right there on site.

1. The new studio is 15 miles from the old one. What moving, angst etc?
2. They both posted a list of named devs who are going with the move. LH mentioned all but one of the current COX staff took the job offer.
3. of course it makes good sense.
4. NCSoft has already been in charge of COX development since the games alpha days. second all but one of the staff appear to have moved to the new office. I'm not seeing the negative side here.

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My concern is that it'll turn into SWG all over again. Publishers, so far, in my experience are more interested in getting bullet point features onto their marketting promotions and on packaging as possible rather than actually adding features that are of use and are of a high quality. Take a look at SWG and its development history, it has alot of 'features' but their half broken and the publishers didn't care because in the end it looks good from a marketting angle.


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I understand your fear Tal_n but your kind of doing a watermelon to steak comparison. They are not even in the same category really.

SOE bought a dieing product from its publisher and studio, then tried to do what they could to save it. Not fun or good. Keep in mind that before that purchase SOE had not hand in the development, design or previous existiance of the matrix.

NCSoft has been the financier and backer of COX since fairly early in it's development. From that point on they have had an active hand in the vision and development of the game. Certainly the day to day development remained at the studio but over all direction always involved NCSoft.

With this change we are essentially losing Jack and the Cryptic managers input while keeping the NCSoft management input tha already was there. The thing we don't lose is the in studio vision and direction that Matt and the others bring to the table. See they are moving to the new studio with the IP.

So in our case one partner just bought the other partner out. This is not the case that happened with SOE where they came in and bought failing IP's and did what they could with them.

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What about pohsyb? He's a programmer and posted sometimes. Is he coming with us?

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Pohsyb posted up in the other thread that he needs to get his forum title changed. It currently reads Cryptic Programmer.

I take that to mean that yes he is now part of NCSoft Norcal.

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In this case, it seems that NCSoft just wants to create a franchise around their most successful North American product. CoX is going to be NCSoft's Everquest. The product they invest in and grow.

I see nothing but good things coming from this.


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Exactly, NCSoft has been positioning itself to fight it out with Sony for some time. I'm certain they see nothing but good from taking direct control of COX and pouring development money into it.

It already is a solid, successful, growing MMO for them. Cryptic had a small dedicated team working on it but no longer was directing major development time into this IP. NCSoft wanted to see it developed and expanded so to do that they went ahead and purchased it from Cryptic. A win win for both sides. It frees Cryptic up to focus on their new game while allowing NCSoft to give the COX IP the development resources they want.

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LOL yeah, I'm sure that was their motavation for buying out Cryptic. I'm pretty sure you can bet on the fact that NCsoft has an idea on how they are going to make COX "better." And with Ncsoft and the announcement that everyone is going to have hero/villian it's a sfe bet that much their vision is going to be based on PVP.


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I would say that your safe bet isn't so safe at all. Keep in mind that NCSoft has been the publisher/manager of COX since before it launched. They have had someone who worked with the cryptic team and had a fair amount of influence with them from long ago. In the past that was actually Richard Garret, but then he moved on to TR.

I'm pretty certain it is this other guy in the announcement who has been the NCSoft manager for the COX property for the last few years.

There might be reason for this pessimism if COX where moving out to a completely new controller. Instead one of the partners managing it has bought out the other partners share and move the people working on it to new digs.

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We've been told Power Customization simply because it would mean a huge amount of work. They will have more employees soon. It's not unreasonable to think it might be on the table again.


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It is much more involved than just that. The huge amount of time is one factor but if that had been all they would have moved forward on doing power customization. The cold hard reality is that the games core engine doesn't support it. And to make it support it requires a major rewrite of portions of the system.

Now that said there is nothing preventing NCSoft Norcal from hiring a team specifically to redesign and rewrite the games core engine. But even if they did that I wouldn't expect to see results from it before mid 2009 if that soon.

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How do I get on CoH?

I have a paid CoV account, but whenever I use the CoH Updater, and choose a server, it just takes me into CoV..

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Lighthouse mentioned it wouldn't be live until tomorrow probably. But when it does simply login as normal and create a character. If you have access to both games you'll have a popup window appear with two icons in it. One for COH and one for COV. Simply pick the one for the type of character you want to create and jump into the game.

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..... They've moved all the team that wanted to go. That's why I'm not crying too much more dooooom than necessary. They offered everyone on the team jobs, and it looks as though the important bits and many of the less visible team members did take them up on that. So: same dev team, with the same control over their product, only under a different studio name.

That is working for me, I think. I just hope that everyone up the ladder *has learned from the mistakes of other publishers* that usurp - look at the disaster area that was Sony and SWG.


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This doesn't worry me as much as it might because NCSoft has been in the development chain for COX since before it's launch. Keep in mind that as the publisher and supplier of money they could lean a fair bit on the studio if they had wanted to. So from the sounds of it they basically bought the IP and the existing dev team minus one and are setting them up in their own studio.

Now if cryptic had sold COX to a publisher with no previous experience with COX then I would be concerned. That is usually where problems develop. In this case the existing publisher is simply the buyer. Not a frantic change, particularly since they appear to not have changed the internal command structure.

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1.) Why did NcSoft buy the Co* franchises? I mean...was it to get rid of Jack/Statesman/Cryptic so that they could do their own thing and if so, why take Positron/and other devs unless it is a timed thing where after x months Posi/other devs go away and get replaced by "NcSoft" peeps?


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People tend to forget that COH is a nice highly successful MMO for North America. They tend to think of the aberrant numbers for WOW and then look at the 150K subscribers here as bad. This isn't true it is very successful. Additionally the last 2 issues have increased the subscriptions.

I noticed when I was at the store getting a copy of Hellgate that there was a solid set of GVE on the shelf.

NCSoft is recognizing that at this stage in its life COX is a cash cow that brings them in money. Additionally they appear to be lining up with the idea that there competition is Sony not Blizzard , this means that they want a nice collection of core games to offer for a station pass type arrangement.

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I'm nervous though, I admit that - every time in my past when an MMO has 'switched hands'; things have gone Topsy-turvy. BUT it sounds like we're keeping a fair chunk of the original dev team - and those are good folks, so I'm not worried about that...


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I'm with you such changes usually make me nervous, but.... It appears we keep pretty much our existing development team and management staff in the move. This is good and I suspect that for I11 and maybe I10 they operated on their own direction in preparation of this move.

So I'm moderately optimistic about the announcement.

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All those things that we asked ourselves ..Why wont the Devs do this or that ...and the answer was..They didnt want to spend the time or money....Stand a better chance of getting done...


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Exactly, NCSoft appears to be directing money into NCSoft Norcal to enhance and improve their new title. That means more programmers and devs to work on things. Ie, first thing to get dropped for an issue is EAT's etc because of lack of resources. Well now NCSoft Norcal will have more of those resources to work with. It means a much better chance of seeing things we the players and they the devs have wanted for along time. But haven't haven't happened because there was only so much that they could do with their current staff.

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So basically, Cryptic released their CoH department to NcSoft. What of jack?

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Cryptic kept him we got everyone else.

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So what happens to Ex and LightHouse?

Do they stay or go?

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They stay and are in an even better position because they now work for the same studio that the dev team does.

There is no longer an artificial barrier of NCSoft => Cryptic => NCSoft to deal with.

Though I suspect that the devs/former Cryptic team have known for a bit and maybe even that gave them a bit more freedom to do things.