State of the Game - 02/09/10

[Archived Post]

Greetings, Heroes!

We have a lot going on right now at Cryptic, and with Champions Online in particular. There are huge changes afoot, and rather than spend a lot of time with the preamble, let’s sink our collective teeth into the meat of the matter.

Scrubbing the Kitchen Sink
As we all know, the Kitchen Sink patch had numerous issues that made it onto Live. The reasons for this boil down to two key areas:

Things That Used to Work Stopped Working
Basically, there were changes to the core code that automatically merged with our older code and we didn’t see all of the effects of these before they went Live. Token changes, for example, caused a lot of things to stop working properly in Champions. We use tokens for a lot of things in Champions and when the token system was recently optimized, it caused any token-based missions to stop working properly - namely UNITY and Patrol missions. There was also the AI fixes which were made which affected the attack rates of every enemy in the game that slipped past us all.

Lack of Comprehensive Testing
There were only a few players on during the time the Kitchen Sink Patch was on the Public Test Shard, and we simply didn’t allocate enough QA testers. There were so many issues we were anxious to address, that our desire to get fixes out to the players as soon as possible completely backfired. There are truly an astonishing amount of changes in this patch, and we simply should have spent more time testing them before pushing the build Live.

Moving forward, our updates will spend more time in internal test before going to the Public Test Shard. We’ve already increased the size of our Champions QA group, and the designers have been playing much more on the internal servers. We are also much more aware of the changes coming into the core game engine through other projects and have taken steps to increase communication internally to avoid being surprised by those changes.

Currently, we’re putting new builds up on the Public Test Shard, addressing the current reported issues with the Kitchen Sink patch. If you’d like to help us make sure we’re getting it all, play on the PTS and provide us your feedback in this thread (http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=99627).

Improving Communications
We’ve had a real failure with communicating to our community over the past couple of months. You’ve been vocal about it, and we hear you. In fact, we’ve taken some pretty big steps to fixing this, and I wanted to share our goals with you to address this. There are a lot of things we used to do that fell by the wayside, and now that we have Stormshade back on the team full-time, we’re going to be bringing back a lot of the things you have always told us you look forward to seeing and hearing:

Ask Cryptic
Bi-weekly posting by the developers answering your questions as compiled by StormShade

GM Blog
A general support-oriented Blog where our Game Masters discuss what's being done to address your concerns, talk about bug status, and so on

Developer Chat
A monthly live IRC chat with developers from the Champions Online team

State of the Game
Bi-weekly posting by me (Chronomancer) to provide insight into the high-level vision for the Champions Online universe and address hot-button issues

Game with Cryptic
We’re putting together a new all-company supergroup so you can find us in the game and share adventures. We’re also going to do more PVP events so you can pit your skills in The Hero Games against the devs!

The Champions Universe
Add more Champions Fiction to the website on a monthly basis

New Fan Art
Post new Fan Art to the website on a monthly basis

New Screen Shots
Post new screen shots for use by community sites on a regular basis

New Wallpaper
Post new wallpaper images for use by community sites on a regular basis

Developer Special Features
Everything from what builds we use to tips on how to get through Lairs to, well, whatever we can come up with so you can see how we see the game.

Website Overhaul
The Star Trek site is awesome, and next up for the web team is an overhaul of the Champions Online web page. We can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeves!

You can also expect to see a greater presence in the forums by the developers overall. We’ve been really nose down working on the game for quite a while, but we recognize the need to stick our heads up and at least just say hello!

Champions Online - Revelation
In my last State of the Game, I talked about how we’re adding a whole new area to Champions Online. The expansion formerly known as Vibora Bay (always our working title) has a new, more descriptive name: Champions Online – Revelation. The half-angel / half-demon Therakiel is bent on bringing forth the end times. Now, it is up to you to join a team of the greatest heroes the world has ever known to stop him.

We’ve had continuous discussions for many weeks regarding the Revelation expansion and how it should be delivered to our community. I am very glad to announce that while we built Revelation to the quality and expectations of a paid expansion pack, we are making it available for FREE to our players.

Revelation represents some of the best work to date on Champions. The expansion features an epic storyline filled with noble heroes and terrifying villains and is set in stunning new environments. We've incorporated many suggestions from the community as what they want from the game - new game play areas, new powers, new rewards, and greater challenges are just some of the additions.

I'd like to reassure everyone we consider Revelation to be of a quality and quantity that is very worthy of a price tag. It is still legitimate expansionary content, the same as it was designed to be. But our community means everything to us and we’re incredibly excited to be able to get this massive update out to you all.

We're working on a full package of Revelation screen shots, write-ups, item and costume descriptions and images, a teaser video, and much more that will be released very soon. Revelation is designed for levels 37 – 40 and will have an all new, absolutely staggering level 40 repeatable Lair with all new high-end rewards for our most experienced players.

See you online, Champions!

[Archived Post]

Thank you very much for Listening. I can honestly say I'm getting excited.

[Archived Post]

Thank you for this update. I look forward to seeing the results.

[Archived Post]

...you listened.

I'm shocked, and happy.

Thank you.

[Archived Post]

Lack of Comprehensive Testing
There were only a few players on during the time the Kitchen Sink Patch was on the Public Test Shard, and we simply didn’t allocate enough QA testers. There were so many issues we were anxious to address, that our desire to get fixes out to the players as soon as possible completely backfired. There are truly an astonishing amount of changes in this patch, and we simply should have spent more time testing them before pushing the build Live.

Moving forward, our updates will spend more time in internal test before going to the Public Test Shard. We’ve already increased the size of our Champions QA group, and the designers have been playing much more on the internal servers. We are also much more aware of the changes coming into the core game engine through other projects and have taken steps to increase communication internally to avoid being surprised by those changes.

Currently, we’re putting new builds up on the Public Test Shard, addressing the current reported issues with the Kitchen Sink patch. If you’d like to help us make sure we’re getting it all, play on the PTS and provide us your feedback in this thread (http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?t=99627).


I want to comment on this briefly. Now, you want more eyes on the builds on PTS, which is a good thing so now probably the right time to bring up something that was talked about a couple months ago. Back in early December, when the bonus costume items from previous PTS tests appeared on the C-store, several of us expressed our concern about that and how it would hurt future testing events. To this Daeke said he would look into a new reward system for PTS for those who put their time in there helping the game get better. Last we heard was it sounded like the ball was getting rolling and he would have something to announce about it back In December. Since then we have heard nothing. Maybe now is a good time to dust off that idea and work on implementing it.

[Archived Post]

...and there was much rejoicing.

[Archived Post]

Thank you for listening to the community. You have renewed my faith to a degree, though the burn doesn't just heal with a bandaid. This is the right direction and i am elated to see the company take it. If content of the caliber you claim is released free, and more content of the same quality is released free consistantly where paid expansions are reserved for things on scale of stand-alone content like CoV was then you will have my money for that, as well as my continued support through the C-Store.

Thank you again.

[Archived Post]

Nice work guys. Definitely looking forward to this!

[Archived Post]

...

...

Awesome. I'm at a loss for words.

[Archived Post]

Really, very very nice news.

Time to say thank you.

I'm happy resubbing.

Se you all ingame :)

[Archived Post]

Wow, was not expecting this.

Thank you for listening to us!

[Archived Post]

You have admitted your mistakes and have begun to fix them. I can honestly say this has made my day. No hard feelings.

You can look forward to recieveing more of my money, gentlemen. Let us take this game forward. Together.

[Archived Post]

I am very happy to see you are willing to rethink and think you've made the right decision. As said before, this hasn't completely restored my faith in you but it's a long way towards it.

Just keep in contact and gives us regular content, even if it is in small doses and people will come back and the game can become reborn.

Will there be more than the zone to the expansion? you mention we'll be able to play in a new way, what does that mean?

Thanks!

[Archived Post]

The big problem with the PTS, other than a general lack of players everywhere, is a feeling that reporting bugs on the PTS had no effect -- the patch would go right into the game with the bug unfixed. I don't think that's completely true, but it happens often enough that playtesters get rather discouraged.

[Archived Post]

You Guys... Listened... :eek:

Don't really know what to say here.

[Archived Post]

Why it appears things are improving since you got your devs back from STO :P

Srsly though.. I'll watch the progress of CO. If Revelation turns out to be worth it, I might even resub.

[Archived Post]

I am glad to see that you are doing the right thing with this, but I feel that Mr. Roper doesn't seem to understand why. From the tone of his post it feels to me like he feels they should still be charging for this content and got shouted down.

Mr Roper, the community has forbidden you to talk 'expansion' with only 1/3 to 1/2 a base game; going by standards set by every other MMO on the market.

[Archived Post]

Awesome.

Given this news, I'm definitely willing to keep playing.

Way to go, Cryptic. :)

[Archived Post]

I am glad to see that you are doing the right thing with this, but I feel that Mr. Roper doesn't seem to understand why. From the tone of his post it feels to me like he feels they should still be charging for this content and got shouted down.


<Facepalm>


Just...just....<facepalm>


The devs have given a clear sign that they're responding to almost every major complaint that's been lodged recently. I don't see what more the community could ask for at the moment. I, for one, am very pleased with the recent dev interaction. With this revalation they've shown that they're willing to walk the walk

[Archived Post]

So they listened to our complaints?

good to hear. However, you seem to insist on the "it's worth a price tag" in all that text.

I am a bit worried here. Were you really expecting people to buy an expansion for a game that has monthly sub AND a cash shop?

You'd be better going with the "free issues" system 'cause on long term it will bring more money in than if you lose all your playerbase trying to get money out of them.


Glad to ehar all that stuff is coming. I'll be impatiently waiting for it now.

[Archived Post]

Wow, like some others here I was totally not expecting any free content for a while, not at least until after Viberia Pay (love that the community is so quick to come up with new mocking names for things, we are so clever lol) Revelations sounds like it is going to help push Champions in the right direction, which it really needs. My only fear is that the foundation is fragile enough, that new stuff might too put that over the edge, but I am not a game designer or a programmer so I may be wrong on that account.

I would also agree that as long as we got fairly consistant minor/medium updates (such as CoX's Issues or WoW's Updates) for free and have us pay for major things such as real expansion packs (Villans, Burning Crusade, etc) I think you'll make both your community happy and your publisher happy. Don't you want to make us all happy?

Lastly, after the last couple crushing blows this has shed some good vibes on Cryptic again in my eyes, not a full recovery, but I think the bleeding has stopped and the burn is beginning to heal. Keep at it!

XGC
PS: As a web designer, I am happy to see the site going to get an overhaul, it needs one lol

[Archived Post]

So they listened to our complaints?

good to hear. However, you seem to insist on the "it's worth a price tag" in all that text.

I am a bit worried here. Were you really expecting people to buy an expansion for a game that has monthly sub AND a cash shop?

You'd be better going with the "free issues" system 'cause on long term it will bring more money in than if you lose all your playerbase trying to get money out of them.


Glad to ehar all that stuff is coming. I'll be impatiently waiting for it now.

To me it sounds like they're adding quite a bit and a few new systems which in any other game would be paid for BUT their mistake was to do it so early without any other big updates beforehand. If they'd given us a number of free updates and next year offered this expansion for money I think we'd have seen it as more fair.

I could be wrong but I think this will include more than just a zone.

[Archived Post]

I want to comment on this briefly. Now, you want more eyes on the builds on PTS, which is a good thing so now probably the right time to bring up something that was talked about a couple months ago. Back in early December, when the bonus costume items from previous PTS tests appeared on the C-store, several of us expressed our concern about that and how it would hurt future testing events. To this Daeke said he would look into a new reward system for PTS for those who put their time in there helping the game get better. Last we heard was it sounded like the ball was getting rolling and he would have something to announce about it back In December. Since then we have heard nothing. Maybe now is a good time to dust off that idea and work on implementing it.

I've already been talking to people about this. No solid plan yet, but I'll let you know when we have something.

Thanks,

Stormshade

[Archived Post]

So they listened to our complaints?

good to hear. However, you seem to insist on the "it's worth a price tag" in all that text.

I am a bit worried here. Were you really expecting people to buy an expansion for a game that has monthly sub AND a cash shop?

You'd be better going with the "free issues" system 'cause on long term it will bring more money in than if you lose all your playerbase trying to get money out of them.


Glad to ehar all that stuff is coming. I'll be impatiently waiting for it now.

Well I love the fact it's free, but considering some of oyu are getting ready to go out and pay other companies for an expansion that do have a monthly sub and a cash shop, this statement just leaves me boggled.

[Archived Post]

Thank you.

Edit: Thank you for making it free -- for a new game building a community, this was essential.

[Archived Post]

Well I love the fact it's free, but considering some of oyu are getting ready to go out and pay other companies for an expansion that do have a monthly sub and a cash shop, this statement just leaves me boggled.

I agree with you -- on the surface, that other game's expansion (that will cost $30 or $40 (depending on the flavor you buy)) sounds the same... new area to play in, new powersets, new stuff, new currency... so I guess the only difference is Champions is newer.

[Archived Post]

I've already been talking to people about this. No solid plan yet, but I'll let you know when we have something.

Thanks,

Stormshade

Good to know it is at least still being looked at. Thanks for the update.

[Archived Post]

You know, I always lurk, never really feeling the need to get caught up in publicly heated debates.

I just want to say thank you.

Thank you Cryptic for really making a big effort to turn a bad situation into a great situation.

I love bug fixes, balancing, more developers, more content, and fancier websites, but I really love a business that can listen to it's customer base and reply with earnestness that it wants to give us a product it can be proud of, and a product with value.

Sincerely,

McPants

[Archived Post]

Awesome news. I am so glad you guys decided to listen and act. You have made the right decision. Once this is implemented I think many of us are willing to sink, swim or succeed with Cryptic. I look forward to the future of CO once again.

[Archived Post]

Well I love the fact it's free, but considering some of oyu are getting ready to go out and pay other companies for an expansion that do have a monthly sub and a cash shop, this statement just leaves me boggled.

Woah, woah WOAH.

I never, EVER said I'd go to another MMO if they made us pay for VB but I was angry, yes.

I always have been against MT in a game with a monthly sub but I swallowed my pride with the C-store. it was hard but I was able to live with it but when they announced paid expansions on top of that, that,s when I lost my cool.

Look, don't dump me with the others. I have my opinion on the matter and I doN,t think that is illegal.

I think monthly sub + MT is already bad but monthly sub + MT + paid expansions even worse!!!

I know it's gonna be free but I am concerned about the future. I'd prefer to avoid another ragefest on the forums.

[Archived Post]

i've been lurking on these forums while settling in over in STO, and especially since this whole vibora bay thing blew up.

I'm glad its coming free, I'm glad your showing that you will listen to your community and respond to them and that your not just trying to milk everyone for every penny as has been claimed oh so many, many times by a lot of people.

I hope a lot of the people who've been "vocally objecting" to this on other sites bother to take the time to link to this information. spin it how they want, but the damage to potential new subs, and re-subs, has been done by people being upset about the initial information and something should be done to address that.

[Archived Post]

A couple of notes:

I'm talking with Poz right now about the tech and timing required to tie the required account data between PTS and the Live servers so we can give our testers some cool in-game stuff. More on this as we sort it out.

In regards to my statement of, "I'd like to reassure everyone we consider Revelation to be of a quality and quantity that is very worthy of a price tag." What I am saying is that we didn't consider the expansion to be sub-par and so we're just giving it to you, or that in some way you're getting less than we always intended because we're not charging for it. I am ecstatic that we can provide this level of content to you for the low, low price of nothing! We're having an internal play test right now and it's been great to see peopel that haven't been through the zone before be blown away at how it looks and plays.

Lastly, we didn't get any developers back from STO. It seems to be a common misconception that we lost a bunch of designers and whatnot to Star Trek. We've been nose-to-the-grindstone on Revelation which is why we haven't been putting out a lot of other content or in the forums. As I said above (behind? up top?) we're going to be working extremely hard to keep you in the loop and stay in much better contact with the community. We don't expect one post to fix everything, but it's our first step of many in the right direction!

[Archived Post]

It feels good to see all the positive replies coming from people who were ****ed off just a few hours ago!

[Archived Post]

(...)


I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for pretty much every topic your State Of The Game post covers.

I am very very happy to hear about all the new and/or returning features that promote Dev communication and keep us informed about what's going on.

Having the vibora bay expansion be free is like tasty icing on the cake of good news.

Thank you again for everything you guys are doing for us.
And thank you for bearing with us through the forum outcries. We can get a bit emotive at times. :o

[Archived Post]

Lastly, we didn't get any developers back from STO.

Are they gone forever?

[Archived Post]

You know, I always lurk, never really feeling the need to get caught up in publicly heated debates.

I just want to say thank you.

Thank you Cryptic for really making a big effort to turn a bad situation into a great situation.

I love bug fixes, balancing, more developers, more content, and fancier websites, but I really love a business that can listen to it's customer base and reply with earnestness that it wants to give us a product it can be proud of, and a product with value.
...

This; expresses my thoughts exactly.

[Archived Post]

There were only a few players on during the time the Kitchen Sink Patch was on the Public Test Shard, and we simply didn’t allocate enough QA testers.
I call BS. There were plenty of issues that were reported and ignored. Some weren't but there were plenty that still existed that you knew about when you decided to push it live. That you are deflecting responsibility is a slap in the face to the people that bothered testing for you, so you can continue testing without my minor help in the future.

[Archived Post]

PROBLEMS:

More END GAME content (for FREE)
Fix EXISTING bugs
Increase quality & quanity of COMMUNICATION between players and Dev's
Streamline & Fix EXISTING powers before adding new ones
More LEVELING content


SOLUTIONS:

CHECK
In Progress
IMPROVING, not perfect YET
In Progress
TBD


I'm reminded of a section of lyrics from a song on the "Smokey and The Bandit* soundtrack...

"West bound and down, eighteen wheels are rollin' ,
we're gonna do what they say can't be done.
We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.
I'm west bound, just watch ol' "Bandit" run."

I just want to remind all those who are going to flame those who are going to share the following opinion.
It took ALONG time for us to "loose faith" in Cryptic...

...It will take us MORE time to regain it...

...We'll see what happens

[Archived Post]

theres a thread about this over on MMORPG.COM about this.

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/269069/We-Complained-andthey-listened-WTF.html

[Archived Post]

Thank you, Cryptic.. and Chronomancer. You've literally made my day. It's 9 PM EST.. and you've made me a very happy man. I hope that this is the start of a beautiful new future.

[Archived Post]

I haven't posted here in the longest time. My attention to Champions has waned over the last few months. (Too Many Games!!!) However this news has renewed my interest considerably. I'm glad to see that you are embracing the service side of the MMO business. Too many game companies treat their customers as one-and-done consumers. I work in a service company and we are constantly reminded that it is more cost effective to keep our current customers happy than to get new customers. (Not that you can neglect that either, but you get the point.)

Again, thanks for the great news.

[Archived Post]

Thank you, Cryptic.. and Chronomancer. You've literally made my day. It's 9 PM EST.. and you've made me a very happy man. I hope that this is the start of a beautiful new future.

I'm happy as well, but to be honest, if Revelation was announced free in the first place, it might have been a normal reception. lol

[Archived Post]

...

...

Awesome. I'm at a loss for words.

This put Bioshock 2 on hold for a bit

You listened, The players rejoice, Keep this up, And this will be one hell of a game in short order, as it can only get better

[Archived Post]

Kudos Crypic!

Something to really be excited about!

~Surreal

[Archived Post]

Thanks for the increased honesty and candor in this state of the game, and thanks also for having good news to report.

The direct effect for me will be:

1. Return to buying things from the C store if I want them.
2. Return to recommending the game to everyone.
3. I am excited for the upcoming expansion!

[Archived Post]

So if I understand correctly, this post is kinda like this:

Players: When you don't listen to your players, nobody wins. In fact, lack of communications may well have cost you many monthly subscriptions; loss, which may well have been avoided under other circumstances.

Cryptic: Now we know!!!

Players: And knowing is half the battle.

Both: G.I. JOEEEEEE!!!

[Archived Post]

We’ve had continuous discussions for many weeks regarding the Revelation expansion and how it should be delivered to our community. I am very glad to announce that while we built Revelation to the quality and expectations of a paid expansion pack, we are making it available for FREE to our players.
While I have argued that this is the best decision you could make for the sake of the game's survival, I honestly didn't expect it. Well done.

The rest of the post had a few good points, but this was the kicker. My Cryptic-meter has nudged up from 4.0 to 5.0. Let's see if you can tip it above the mid-point.

Keep this up and I might even feel obliged to change my sig. ;)

[Archived Post]

Yay! This is great news, and really gives me hope that the game is going to have an upswing in the coming months!

I'm looking forward to the new content!

ETA one thing about the current market and MMOs is that I think there is the possibility for games that have a rocky start to come back based on changes. Here's hoping!

[Archived Post]

I was trying to find a way to ***** about something because it just wouldnt be the forums with out someone with a negative attitude... but alas... ive got nothing I can complain about.

Way to step up your game.
I know a lot of people may not agree with me when saying this, but I wouldnt have had a problem with paying for VB if the bugs in the game were minimal, and to be honest, I'm more excited about playing with cryptic than I am even the patch. Dont get me wrong, im excited for the patch... but it will be good to see cryptic in the game and experiencing the problems and bugs that we are so that we can get them fixed. Its a completely different and more reliable way to get feedback on whats wrong with the game than say, just bug reports and the like... not too mention actually forming some sort of relationship with the players.
After the PVP event, Ive got more respect for Akinos, Robobo and Storm Shade more than I've ever had with any kind of developer and the fact that Akinos and Robobo stuck around after the event to play with us, made me very happy.

Im glad to see you guys are realize the potential of this I.P. and I hope for all of our sakes that it draws a huge crowd in, which I believe it will.

[Archived Post]

Wow, ya'll listened :)

I still think Jack's a knob, but your post is all good :)

[Archived Post]

Great news! I'll be re-subbing forthwith, this has restored my trust in Cryptic.

And, as I've said in another thread, you should have faith in your players that once this game is done to the level that people expect for paying a monthly sub, done to the level it should have been at release, with major bugs squashed, teaming sorted, some more content in the way of alternative levelling paths, and a few QOL improvements (esp. UI, block responsiveness, etc.), THEN you will be able to charge for expansions with no fear that the majority of people will baulk at the idea.

You guys have made a game with great potential - that's almost a universal chorus - your only really big mistake was forgetting what made CoX special: the teaming. Had you done that right, you would have retained the vast majority of ex-CoX players who tried the game out, and that would have given you a great foundation of happy, committed players spreading the luuuurv. But it's all still recoverable, and I look forward to sticking around to see the game developing and getting the kudos and solid fanbase it deserves.

[Archived Post]

I want to say THANK YOU!!

I wasn't shy to voice my opinion recently, so as soon as I read the State of the Game I wanted to come on here and say Thanks!!

You deserve the good vibes going on in this thread.

This in addition to seeing from the Ask Cryptic that working on additional leveling paths was realized as something needed, and I'm pretty happy about that progress.

People said they wanted actions and not words, and this is action. It's a really good start.

[Archived Post]

It's good that they are listening, even though it may take some time but they do care. So thank you cryptic :)

[Archived Post]

Sweet! Great news.

[Archived Post]

I am impressed. See how alot of things get solved with something simple called "communication"?

Anyway, I like the direction this is going and I hope Cryptic continue to deliver the goods to the fans. I was really close to unsubbing but now I will continue to play a bit. At least, until they fail to follow through with what they have planned for.

[Archived Post]

I recently swore off the forums because of all the high school childishness going on (regardless of whether or not it was deserved) and restricted myself to only the dev tracker.

Hopefully things can calm down now.

[Archived Post]

Awsome job, Cryptic!

I love reading this thread...

I remember back the weeks before launch; the Lifetime sub had suddenly sold out and the nerd rage on the forums was deafening; I was screaming just as load as the rest...

Then, you brought them back... I was stunned... absolutely floored... they had LISTENED! They actually heard us, and RESPONDED! I truthfully had never expected that to happen...


I see a number of these types of posts right now, and it makes me smile... Because I remember how I felt ...

:)

[Archived Post]

First of all

So if I understand correctly, this post is kinda like this:

Quote:
Players: When you don't listen to your players, nobody wins. In fact, lack of communications may well have cost you many monthly subscriptions; loss, which may well have been avoided under other circumstances.

Cryptic: Now we know!!!

Players: And knowing is half the battle.

Both: G.I. JOEEEEEE!!!

Is awesome and I feel happy to quote it in my reply :D

Secondly, I hope they can see the pure turn around this honesty, continued communication and and showing of commitment to our once thought of "Red headed step child" to STO, which seemed like it was the favorite and we were getting nothing but table scraps. I may not have total renewed faith (burns take a while to heal you know) but I am definitely going to be continuing on my sub as well as donating a few coins over to the C-store. While the high end content is nice, I still hope for some alternate leveling paths earlier on. I now know that my hopes are not empty as I once worried they were. Thanks Crytic!

XGC

[Archived Post]

I'm glad to see Cryptic honestly committed to the game, to the same degree as many of the players! Like so many others have said, the game has amazing potential, and I really hope to see that potential realized so that two, three, or five-plus years down the road, we'll still be rocking out in CO thinking, "Remember when everyone was all 'DOOOOM!' about the game?" :D

I can honestly say I'm surprised about the expansion being made available for free. It's a great gesture, and one which I hope will go a long way toward renewing the goodwill of the playerbase. ;)

[Archived Post]

Awesome. You earned my continued subscription, can't wait til March. Thank You!

[Archived Post]

Very good. I've changed my sig back, it no longer ref my account for sale on eBay. :)

[Archived Post]

Moving forward, our updates will spend more time in internal test before going to the Public Test Shard. We’ve already increased the size of our Champions QA group, and the designers have been playing much more on the internal servers. We are also much more aware of the changes coming into the core game engine through other projects and have taken steps to increase communication internally to avoid being surprised by those changes.

Don't delay putting things onto test, delay putting things LIVE. Put things on test ASAP, but also have internal QA running those builds until you're sure it's ready to ship, then you can switch the internal QA people to the next big thing.

I'd like to reassure everyone we consider Revelation to be of a quality and quantity that is very worthy of a price tag. It is still legitimate expansionary content, the same as it was designed to be. But our community means everything to us and we’re incredibly excited to be able to get this massive update out to you all.

Very nice, and I'm sure that it will be appreciated, even if the game did launch without enough content, so really this "free" expansion is just stuff that should have come out at launch anyways.

One thing that is worrying here though, you claim that you consider this to be "worthy" of being a paid expansion, and yet all it is, apparently, is level 37-40 content. That is NOT an expansion that people should ever be asked to pay for. In other games, the first expansion would offer at least ten levels of content, usually including a raise of the level cap, so that those ten levels of content are equivalent to 15-20 levels worth of content at the scale of the previous ten levels (ie if the cap were raised from 40-50 then getting from 40-50 would likely take twice as much XP and therefore content as getting from 30-40).

I have no idea what your next expansion after this one will be, but I assume you'll expect people to pay for it, and I just hope that you understand that you cannot do that unless you are prepared to raise the level cap to 50 and provide a full ten levels of content to go with it, basically the equivalent level of content in MON, LEM, and VIB combined, probably a bit more than that.

[Archived Post]

I'm happy as well, but to be honest, if Revelation was announced free in the first place, it might have been a normal reception. lol

Was it ever officially announced as a paid expansion?

[Archived Post]

A couple of notes:

I'm talking with Poz right now about the tech and timing required to tie the required account data between PTS and the Live servers so we can give our testers some cool in-game stuff. More on this as we sort it out.

In regards to my statement of, "I'd like to reassure everyone we consider Revelation to be of a quality and quantity that is very worthy of a price tag." What I am saying is that we didn't consider the expansion to be sub-par and so we're just giving it to you, or that in some way you're getting less than we always intended because we're not charging for it. I am ecstatic that we can provide this level of content to you for the low, low price of nothing! We're having an internal play test right now and it's been great to see peopel that haven't been through the zone before be blown away at how it looks and plays.

Lastly, we didn't get any developers back from STO. It seems to be a common misconception that we lost a bunch of designers and whatnot to Star Trek. We've been nose-to-the-grindstone on Revelation which is why we haven't been putting out a lot of other content or in the forums. As I said above (behind? up top?) we're going to be working extremely hard to keep you in the loop and stay in much better contact with the community. We don't expect one post to fix everything, but it's our first step of many in the right direction!You made the right choice on this one.

Now make sure you provide free content updates alongside the paid ones, and to hype those ones more than the ones you pay for.

[Archived Post]

Gotta say I am impressed admitting mistakes have been made and the steps you are taking to coreect them.

I am one of the more vocal Critics on theforums and in Game when things are bad I say they are bad...now I have to be a voice of positive reinforcement.

Cryptic, you probably made more money with this decision then you know, I think the people on the fence are now at least back in your yard and the ones that jumped over already i am sure quite a few will be looking for the gate to come back in.

Seriously, as some posters above said its not that your customers don't want to spend money on your game, its that we felt we were being fleeced. Now you are showing commitment to the game I feel like I can once again start recommending this game to fellow guildies in WoW (although I will hold of on that until the sink repair is done, so as to make that first bite of Champions be enjoyable)

Please use the whole situation as a learning tool, I have some hope now for the games future where for the last two months I did not.

[Archived Post]

In regards to my statement of, "I'd like to reassure everyone we consider Revelation to be of a quality and quantity that is very worthy of a price tag." What I am saying is that we didn't consider the expansion to be sub-par and so we're just giving it to you, or that in some way you're getting less than we always intended because we're not charging for it. I am ecstatic that we can provide this level of content to you for the low, low price of nothing! We're having an internal play test right now and it's been great to see peopel that haven't been through the zone before be blown away at how it looks and plays.


My biggest concern on VB was the fact that it was a paid expansion that was only offering 3 levels of content.

As I've stated before, I can't see how only 3 levels of content can be called an expansion and not a simple update or amendment.

Since you guys remain adamant on stating that this update is what you intended to be as expansion sized, this suggests to me that when you do once again try to issue a paid expansion, that it's once again going to be on this scale. Granted I don't know how much content is going to be included in the range of 37-40, but a paid for expansion really need to cover about 10 levels of content.

If you make something smaller and call it a mega-pack or whatnot, that is smaller and cheaper than what other MMOs release as expansions, the players are going to once again just feel like they are being nickle and dimmed for content that other MMOs release as regular updates.

So when it comes time to make "another" expansion that you want extra money for, please make it range 10 levels of content and make it large enough that you can price it the same as other major MMOs price theirs, if the content is good enough and large enough, people will pay for it and be happy to do so.

[Archived Post]

You have the eye of the community watching you and you are filling our hearts with renewed joy at this point. Deliver on these things so that CO can have a rebirth!

[Archived Post]

<Facepalm>


Just...just....<facepalm>


The devs have given a clear sign that they're responding to almost every major complaint that's been lodged recently. I don't see what more the community could ask for at the moment. I, for one, am very pleased with the recent dev interaction. With this revalation they've shown that they're willing to walk the walk

I agree.

Ultimately the fact that he believes that Revelation is of a quality to justify (at least to him) a fee separate from our monthly sub is an indication of pride in the work that went into its development. I dont hold pride in one's work against anyone. I am glad however that this announcement indicates that I am far more likely to get my money's worth out of my lifetime subscription.

Edit: I personally dont think that a level cap increase is necessary to increase enjoyment of the game through adding expansions. If the added content is fun to play then it is well worth playing regardless of whether or not a level cap increase is included. This is a game. Games are meant to be fun. I dont mean that ever increasing level caps are not fun but rather that they are not required to have fun. I have been playing my ranger at max level in Guild Wars for 4 years now. I would rather see interesting content added to play through on my level 40 than see 10 levels of grind added. If the level cap is increased at some point I just hope that it is implemented in a fun and interesting manner.

[Archived Post]

This is excellent news.

With some additional lower and mid level content this community will be in great shape again.

[Archived Post]

This is excellent news.

With LOTS OF additional lower and mid level content this community will be in great shape again.

/fixed

And yes, it seems they've actually decided we're worth fighting for...

[Archived Post]

Time and again Chronomancer says they hear us.

It doesn't seem they're listening though.

In what world does 3 pre-existing levels in a content bare game getting fleshed out with inreased content less than a few months after launch deserve repeated reminders of how it should be pay-to-play but out of the kindness of their hearts it's free?

It wasn't just that we had to pay for the content it was the relatively small quantity of content we were expected to pay for and the fact that the game barely has enough content atm to reach max level..those were also major factors in the crap-storm that ensued Daeke's mention of cost.

Honestly, it sounds to me like Daeke wanted us to know it was pay-to-play before it was too late for us to throw a fit and get it changed and in mentioning that and starting the fire he saved us all some cash and got the boot because of it.

I hope no one here is actually crazy enough to think this was done out of kindness. They probably had a ton of people contacting CS and Billing requesting to cancel their LT subs or transform them into 6 month subs or otherwise canceling their subs after that "announcement".

If you're already sinking you don't want a monsoon to boot.

Glad to hear it changed but starting to get tired of being yanked around by a chain by the CO dev team...they need to be more like the STO team.

[Archived Post]

To some extent it depends on what Revelations contains. If those 3 levels includes an excellent end-game experience, then just being 3 levels doesn't matter - it's the right 3 levels to focus on.

Personally it would sound better if it was at least 5 lvls - from 35 to 40 - since that provides a bigger spread of use.

[Archived Post]

As long as Vibora is a social spot for me to idle in away from MC I won't care. I hope it has vendors, a market and everything just because I want a place that isn't Millenium City to hang out in.

[Archived Post]

I am very pleased that you guys woke up. It is about time. I am very glad to see you change your mind on the outset for the game Bill. I have had a lot of faith in you and followed you for quite sometime. When I took notice of how new updates seemed to come to a halt until trek released I was very upset and felt abandoned.

In short you have regained my trust again. Just remember Chase after the dreams and not the money. Thanks so much for not letting the community down.

I apologized for my recent cynical posts.

[Archived Post]

Good to hear that you're finally taking action, especially since I really like the game and I feel that with my 21 main (been busy with work) I'm kinda stuck right now and hardly gaining any levels. So yeah, more content per zone would be awesome.

[Archived Post]

nice reaction to the vibora bay issue.
you should have done this from the start, tell us that this is what you would considerprice tagged content in the future but let us get the first one gratis so we see what we can expect for our money.

you are, with the communication, definitily taking a step in the right direction, let´s see where it takes us from here.

[Archived Post]

I just spent like an hour reading through all of these posts. I'm new to the game, and the forums, as my profile indicates. Haven't even been able to log on yet owing to technical issue that are, hopefully, being looked into elsewhere. And I've noticed something that seems to have been left out of this.

In the past two or three days, I've been browsing the forums, lurking, reading various posts on various topics and I've noticed a recurring issue in the fact that tech support still seems to be really lacking. I'm not one to sit here and grate on someone for making a mistake, nor am I one to nag repeatedly about fixing mistakes. I'm the quiet guy in the back who'll -usually- simply walk away from something that gives me too much trouble. I played CoH and CoV on and off for about two years a while back. When I first heard rumors about champions, I had thirty new bookmarks in my browser directing me to the sites that had the buzz.

I've put a lot of time in, waiting for this game to be released, and just a couple of days ago, was finally able to get a subscription. As a new player who hasn't even been able to access ANY content yet, though, I'm finding it difficult to maintain a positive outlook, and to keep anticipating the content in store for me once I can actually start playing, when the biggest buzz on the site is about new stuff for the people who can already play, and nothing is being said about those like me, who haven't been able to yet.

I agree with an earlier poster when they said that keeping your old customers happy is key, but the update talked about here has made no real comment about how Cryptic is going to help the new guys. Communication being promoted is good in concept, but does this also apply to the lack of responses on support tickets? Or is this communication that's being promoted apply simply to the forums? I'm not an irate customer yet, just a disappointed one, though, I'll admit, if I wasted my money on a program that I'll never be able to play, that could change rapidly.

It all sounds good to me, the free expansion, the improved customer relations, all of it really sounds good, now if I could only experience it, maybe I could join the others on here who keep praising you for it. As of yet, though, that isn't the case. *shrugs*

[Archived Post]

As long as Vibora is a social spot for me to idle in away from MC I won't care. I hope it has vendors, a market and everything just because I want a place that isn't Millenium City to hang out in.

Why? It's creepy and scary. Oh right, you're a lycan.

[Archived Post]

This is as it should be. I'm glad to hear it; but, still, bothered by the way that it had to come about.

I've a 6 month sub, so I'm in until April... truth be told I've barely played the game since after the Halloween event. The content that we have (at 40) just isn't worth my time. I'm busy with DA:O just now, I have Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 to play when I'm done with DA:O, by the time that I've finished ME2 the expansion to DA:O will have been released; so I'll move straight on to that. With all the other options, and the quality of those options, I'm really not sure there could be enough good news about CO to keep me in.

A step in the right direction nontheless.

[Archived Post]

Thats some good news :)

[Archived Post]

I am glad to see that you are doing the right thing with this, but I feel that Mr. Roper doesn't seem to understand why. From the tone of his post it feels to me like he feels they should still be charging for this content and got shouted down.

Mr Roper, the community has forbidden you to talk 'expansion' with only 1/3 to 1/2 a base game; going by standards set by every other MMO on the market.

This.. all night long and twice on Sunday. I'm glad they have reversed their decision, but the post seems to begrudge having to do so. Everything said should have applied to the original game yes? I mean the worthy of being paid content stuff. I would have to argue that the sales and subsequent sub retention argues that it didn't. So a reasonable person might conclude that the community was still owed product to flesh out the shortcomings of the original. Don't listen to me though.. just look at how the game is doing. That's the proof.

Des

[Archived Post]

Way to go guys! Looking forward to the expansion!

[Archived Post]

Great news! Am I suprised? No. Atari is a business and obviously needs to make a profit to survive. Any profit they would have made from sales of 'Vibora Bay' would have been overshadowed by the drop in subscriptions from disgruntled players. As I have said before, money talks and once they realised the depth of feeling over the charge for a part of the missing content, they had to back-track. The only reason to insist on a charge would be if Atari had given up hope of achieving a subscription base large enough to justify maintaining the game. Then, milking us of every last drop before closing the servers would have made sense, financially at least. This was a major concern for me, especially as a LTS, so I am delighted to see continued support and what appears to be more resources being poured in. I feel far more optimistic than I have in a while.

[Archived Post]

If you make something smaller and call it a mega-pack or whatnot, that is smaller and cheaper than what other MMOs release as expansions, the players are going to once again just feel like they are being nickle and dimmed for content that other MMOs release as regular updates.

Yeah, that's the problem, the percieved notion of nickle and diming. Like, if a standard expansion contains ten levels of content, as well as ten new levels worth of powers and other capabilities, and various bells and whistles, and generally runs around $50 or so, then that's the established practice. If you then take that product, cut it into thirds, and release each third for $16 each, then that would, mathematically, be an equivalent deal, the same total content for the same total price (although that would involve level 41-43 content, not 37-40). It wouldn't be percieved that way though, because the amount of content being delivered would instead be more in line with the standard amount released by other games as free expansions, and players would expect that level of content to be made free.

I can understand the temptation to try this, since many offline games like Dragon Age get away with releasing only a single mission area or so, about 5-10 hours of gameplay tops, as a $10-15 expansion, but they have an entirely different model to work with. Those games cost the same as the retail box of an MMO, but then you don't have to pay them any more, so if they add content, then they can fairly enoguh request additional payment for it.

You guys don't have that luxury.

You made an MMO, and you're charging people a monthly fee that's equivalent to an offline game's expansion costs. Therefore, people have a reasonable expectation that they will be recieving that level of content as a free consequence of their monthly fee. They keep giving you money, you keep giving them new content to play with, it's a fairly simple equation. If you want them to pay for bonus content then you'll have to knock off the monthly fees. Nobody is going to believe that the monthly fees are really worth merely keeping the servers running, when pirate servers manage to operate for free (not that I'm condoning them, just pointing out that operating costs clearly aren't anywhere near $15 per month, per player).

So take some time, re-examine your profit models, and try to figure out a way of monetizing the game that doesn't insult the players by asking them to pay for things that other games wouldn't even consider charging for, because they know that the players would refuse it.

My suggestion would be to keep putting out Revelation level expansions for free on a three to six month schedule, while at the same time preparing a large scale expansion pack, with a retail price of $40-50, that includes no less than levels 40-50, no less than three new powers for most power frameworks (maybe more), a few more travel powers (nothing too fancy, most can just be adaptations of the existing ones like a "hover board" that uses the Ice Slide model, or a "shadow meld" that uses the Tunneling structure), several new advantages to existing powers, and no less than three zones with roughly the scale and content level of Monster Island, preferably at least one new urban area among them (not counting Vibora Bay). That would be an expansion worth paying for.

I would also suggest taking the current c-store-exclusive content and making it available through ingame means roughly three to six months after it hits the store. That way early adopters with money to throw around can buy them and have their bragging rights, while your other loyal customers can still get access to them through ingame play eventually. And of course even after that, the c-store is always available for those who don't care to go through the normal ingame channels to acquire things, because they value their time and energy more than the cash the items cost.

Alternately, drop the monthly price considerably (to perhaps only $5 per month), so that players can feel that micropayments for extras are a reasonably portion of their total involvement in the game. Of course, if this is done, then I imagine lifers will need to recieve some level of reimbursement, probably around $50-$100 in c-points that they can use to buy further expansions and whatnot would cover it.

[Archived Post]

My biggest concern on VB was the fact that it was a paid expansion that was only offering 3 levels of content.

As I've stated before, I can't see how only 3 levels of content can be called an expansion and not a simple update or amendment.


semantics. it expands the game, not vertically (with a new levelcap) but horizontally. and 3 levels for the price of 3 levels is fine by me.

[Archived Post]

Ok...wow. I have to say that I really think the State of the Game and the announcement of V-Bay were huge! I liked the candid way you guys talked about the Kitchen sink and the same for V-Bay.

Definately restored some faith. Make no mistake, we'll still be watching you guys like hawks, but you guys definately took a giant leap in the right direction.

Yeah, I can say: Good job guys and thank you for listening. It definately means a lot!

See you in-game!

[Archived Post]

I'm excited :D

[Archived Post]

Great news! This is a good business decision that Atari should be able to use to show their shareholders how you are listening to your costumers. Furthermore, this should be a good example of how your dynamic management team is able to adapt their business plan to the current economic environment and release a few more free updates.

The Shareholders will be happy to hear that you understand that not everyone has tons of discretionary capital right now.

Current numbers to consider:
US unemployment - 9.7%
US underemployment - ~17%

[Archived Post]

@Devs and the Cryptic team:

Thank you for beginning to make the changes necessary to make this game a winner.

Much appreciated.

[Archived Post]

Thanks for this update. i am very happy to hear what is coming.

Also I agree with Ohoni that it might be better to get updates shoved out ot test faster and have some qa involvement on the test server for extended testing. Certainly it needs an internal pass to make certain that the build isnt just plain 'broken' but the sooner all hands can get on board to validate the better. Perhaps find a way to make it 'fun' to help test content there by making some sort of event out of it.

The point here is that clients typically think more outside of the box than what a traditional QA department would. We are the ones who have to play in the sandbox and try and figure out how to stretch the tools given to us in game to fit our concepts so, in theory, we are going to break stuff more easily than what would happen with QA 'feature/fix' testing.

[Archived Post]

Hot Dang! Cryptic Rock!

[Archived Post]

I hope no one here is actually crazy enough to think this was done out of kindness. They probably had a ton of people contacting CS and Billing requesting to cancel their LT subs or transform them into 6 month subs or otherwise canceling their subs after that "announcement".


Yes, people call in to cancel LT subs. Good call. You really thought that out before you posted it.

[Archived Post]

-Hmm. I am glad Chronomancer and the rest at Cryptic have given many in the community what they want.

Now, because you are getting this for free, go earn yer keep and play on the Test Shard for a bit!

I only have trepidations when this type of thing starts, though, as sometimes the vocal folks on the forums want something that either A) divides the player base in significant ways or B) actually hurts the development of the game. It does not sound like this is the case with Revelation, but i am cautious with further outburts.

Either way, looking forward to more revelations about Revelation. Thanks.

Rattletrap

[Archived Post]

Yes, people call in to cancel LT subs. Good call. You really thought that out before you posted it.

lolz

[Archived Post]

I, for one, am very glad for this. I was in a very 'DOOOOOM'-y mood this morning before work as I played along with 11 (yes, eleven) players on MI. When I logged off to come to work, I was thinking that I should just resign myself to the fact that the game is gonna crash & burn. But then, I get to work and decide to check the forums.......>>BOOM<<!! I read this post and I feel like flying some cartwheels over the volcano at Andrithal ! Thanks for listening guys. I hope we can all work to save this great game! :)

[Archived Post]

Glad to see everything is moving in the right direction. I hope to play CO for many years, and now it's starting to look like that maybe the case. Keep up the good work Cryptic.

Have a Good Game. :)

[Archived Post]

While you may have burnt off a lot of goodwill in the initial announcement, I think this should get a lot of it back for you.

Thank you for listening to your community and actually ACTING on it.

[Archived Post]

At this point I'm shocked, but in a good way. Thank you. :D

[Archived Post]

Sounds promising. I'll be resubbing as soon as they sort out the ATI anti-aliasing issue.

[Archived Post]

Holy moly, you've won me back. Way to go, guys :)

[Archived Post]

Good news, good move, Cryptic.

Let's face it though, this was the only thing they could have done to save the game and salvage the community; anything else would have been financial suicide. I'm not as rah-rah as some of the posters simply because Cryptic has done the same extreme strategy in the past (e.g., nerf xp by 80%, scale back to 50%, reap goodwill). In this case players might have complained about only 4 levels worth of content: 'for pay? Rage! now for free? You guys are the BEST!' when they might have only been 'meh' about it otherwise.

Cryptic has ALWAYS been good about making the appropriate sounds and responses, but it always seemed like their actions contradicted their talk. This is what breeds mistrust. So....I wait and see.

But, I don't mean to inject wariness into a congratulatory thread. Carry on, good gesture, and this definitely moves CO's Doomsday Clock back a minute or two.

[Archived Post]

Why? It's creepy and scary. Oh right, you're a lycan.

You mean it has atmosphere and personality. Then I will take it :D

[Archived Post]

I enjoy parts of Champions Online.

I do not enjoy it enough to have paid for ANY expansion that did not raise the level cap (or provide a hero class).

I'm not looking to expand my horizons when my current sandbox is full of bugs (literally). And not the cool worms that all boys like to play with, but the tiny red fire ants that swarm you and give you a taste of hell.

Well, now I'm looking forward to it. Cause... I can afford to. Ants and all.

But seriously, get the Amdro ready, cuz quite frankly, it hurts

[Archived Post]

Hot Dang! Cryptic Rock!

Hmm.

No, seriously. When they manage to get my supergroup's members back to the game, I'll admit that they rock. But had they managed to keep them in the first place, by:

having a gameplay that doesn't punish teaming by rewarding support characters and making all missions shareable and scalable
released enough content to not make you bored on your second run to 40
made some events that didn't reward only the lvl 40s with optimized damage
went underground for two months
broken one fifth of the game for two weeks
broken the kitchen sink
shot themselves in the foot when first announcing Vibora
fixed the many ancient bugs that have riddled us since beta (weapons in tailor, just to mention one)

...they wouldn't be in this position. And then they would rock.

But in my not especially humble opinion, it's a bit far-stretched to say that they rock just because they've started talking again and put a band-aid on the self-inflicted gunshot wound in the foot.

I'm happy that they changed their minds, but it's a LOOOONG way to go before they rock.

[Archived Post]

They probably had a ton of people contacting CS and Billing requesting to cancel their LT subs or transform them into 6 month subs or otherwise canceling their subs after that "announcement".


Is that possible? I assumed that there was no way to get a partial refund for a lifetime sub this far in...

[Archived Post]

Yays! I'm really happy to hear that the Expainsion will be brought to us for free ^^. And what was said about it sounds really exciting..I can't wait to get in there and try it out! I'm also really excited about seeing what the new powers that are coming with it are going to. *crosses fingers for a sonic scream based power set* Thank you for listening to us and I hope that things get even better from here on out. Keep up the good work Cryptic!!

[Archived Post]

Bill Roper, I'm a lifer.

Thank you for showing the doomsayers you will turn this thing around and build a success for us to share and enjoy.

March can't come fast enough.I look forward to seeing that website refresh and reading your State of the Game articles.

I had high expectations going in. Thank you for working to justify them.

[Archived Post]

Really excites me to feel the feedback loop working and resulting in announcements like this. It actually feels like a vibrant and growing community!

This passionate mob can definitely work for you.

All of us are hoping to see/play/pay for the delivery/realization of this labor.

"Deeds. Not Words.". -- Megaforce: the movie.

[Archived Post]

I had already given up my faith to cryptic but this post definetly got my hopes back up again.

[Archived Post]

I will be happy when I actually see something. Words are empty without action.

[Archived Post]

Looks great.

[Archived Post]

:DAlternately, drop the monthly price considerably (to perhaps only $5 per month), so that players can feel that micropayments for extras are a reasonably portion of their total involvement in the game. Of course, if this is done, then I imagine lifers will need to recieve some level of reimbursement, probably around $50-$100 in c-points that they can use to buy further expansions and whatnot would cover it.

Interesting issue.

The amount they might have to pay to lifers would depend on how long the game had been in market.


If they did it today $50-100 in c-points would be probably be seen to be sufficient.

If they didn't re-price until the first anniversary LT's would be close to break-even, so at $5/month they'd stil be ahead, so they could credibly argue that there is no need for compensation. It might still be prudent to offer a symbolic amount, but the maths would still favour LTs.

All that aside I don't expect re-pricing is part of their strategy. Cutting out about 2/3rds of your regular income stream is a brave move.

That's not to say it couldn't work: if they could sell $40 packs three times a year they'd have roughly the same gross income. OTOH 100% conversion is not going to happed - but then factor in higher sub numbers and they might end up well ahead.

Pricing strategies are tricky things to get right. Witness the "VB is our first paid expansion" debacle/backflip as evidence. :D

[Archived Post]

It still fascinates me people keep saying the MTs need to go, yet none of the games they refer to have an MT-less system. This includes WoW, CoH, UO and many, many others. And CO is also the only one of that bunch that actually let's you get the stuff in game as wella s just paying up front for it.

[Archived Post]

It still fascinates me people keep saying the MTs need to go, yet none of the games they refer to have an MT-less system. This includes WoW, CoH, UO and many, many others. And CO is also the only one of that bunch that actually let's you get the stuff in game as wella s just paying up front for it.

Don't exagerate, most other monthly sub games offer mostly just pets and stuff, not costumes, and most didn't have any of that stuff until years after the game launched, and people had already gotten their money's worth out of the product and plenty of free upgrades. Also, most items in the c-store are NOT available through ingame activities. I have no problem with them selling those that are, I think that's the ideal purpose of the c-store, as an alternative to third-party goldfarming behavior.

[Archived Post]

While I welcome these changes, I won't hold my breath. As a lifer I already feel snubbed and mistreated, making me gun shy of any thing Cryptic announces.

I'm been following this game from the beginning. I was so excited, I convinced seven of my closest friends to sign up as lifers, and currently they do nothing but ***** at me for wasting their time and money.

This game was my favorite PnP game in high school and I expected so much more from it when the MMO version was annouced. I know there were problems to be worked out, but when the game goes from Beta to Release you expect it to move forward, not backwards.

I'll wait and see what happens as this new patch is released and I reserve the right to be joyous later when I see every thing come to fruition.

One other thing, if you expect me or any of my lifer friends to spend any more money on patches or updates, forget it. We've already been burned by Cryptic and we don't plan on getting burned again.


Greetings, Heroes!

We have a lot going on right now at Cryptic, and with Champions Online in particular. There are huge changes afoot, and rather than spend a lot of time with the preamble, let’s sink our collective teeth into the meat of the matter.

...................


I'd like to reassure everyone we consider Revelation to be of a quality and quantity that is very worthy of a price tag. It is still legitimate expansionary content, the same as it was designed to be. But our community means everything to us and we’re incredibly excited to be able to get this massive update out to you all.

We're working on a full package of Revelation screen shots, write-ups, item and costume descriptions and images, a teaser video, and much more that will be released very soon. Revelation is designed for levels 37 – 40 and will have an all new, absolutely staggering level 40 repeatable Lair with all new high-end rewards for our most experienced players.

See you online, Champions!

[Archived Post]

Don't exagerate, most other monthly sub games offer mostly just pets and stuff, not costumes, and most didn't have any of that stuff until years after the game launched, and people had already gotten their money's worth out of the product and plenty of free upgrades. Also, most items in the c-store are NOT available through ingame activities. I have no problem with them selling those that are, I think that's the ideal purpose of the c-store, as an alternative to third-party goldfarming behavior.

I'm not exagerating since no other game has costumes past CoH, and oh look, those have MTs to. Sorry to say Ohoni, you're definitely exagerating.

And if you really want to get into that argument, I can point out the front runner game, if I want to change my appearnce in WoW, I have to pay for it.

CO might have MTs, but it also has an in-game alternative to most of the items in store.

[Archived Post]

And if you really want to get into that argument, I can point out the front runner game, if I want to change my appearnce in WoW, I have to pay for it.


No, armor in WoW is an ingame thing. You get it by beating up enemies and stuff.


CO might have MTs, but it also has an in-game alternative to most of the items in store.

But not all of them. If you offer ten costumes, nine of which can be gained in-game, then that's still a problem if the one that isn't is the one that you want. While some of the current costume offerings on the c-store are things that can be gained ingame (although in many cases they're bundled up with options that cannot be found ingame), many of the c-store options still cannot be found in game, and several more of them were in the game at one point, but no longer are. I suggested a while back that the clear solution is to just simplify things and make it so that you get a certain number of Cryptic Points with each month of your subscription, so that instead fo them adding five new costumes to the free side of the game (which you may or may not want), and five to the c-store (which you also may or may not want), they just add ten to the store, and give you enough points to buy five, and you can pick which ones you want and which you don't want.

I don't have any problem with MTs as a concept, I just have serious problems with the way Cryptic has chosen to use them. The "action figures", fine, go nuts on that. As an alternate method of getting things that you can reasonably get in game? Fine, no problem there, beats buying them off ebay or whatever it is people with more money than time tend to do. But they should never be the ONLY way of getting a given costume piece, not so long as we're still expected to pay a substantial monthly fee.

[Archived Post]

Yea, because it's amndatory you have to wear the armor, and you have no chocie on the style or look, so your argument over costume sort of lost it's wind. Considering none of the costumes in the C-Store are required, and all teh armor in WoW is, and god awfully ugly to boot, I find it like comparing an apple to a turd.

[Archived Post]

Yea, because it's amndatory you have to wear the armor, and you have no chocie on the style or look, so your argument over costume sort of lost it's wind.You're free to mix and match equipment pieces any way you want in WoW. You have the same kind of choice over what you wear in WoW that you do in CO, the only real noticeable difference is that you have to craft for most of your duds, and your stats sometimes suffer for your choices.

Also, it really isn't mandatory to wear armor, my Hunter was running around naked for the longest time.

[Archived Post]

You're free to mix and match equipment pieces any way you want in WoW. You have the same kind of choice over what you wear in WoW that you do in CO, the only real noticeable difference is that you have to craft for most of your duds, and your stats sometimes suffer for your choices.

Also, it really isn't mandatory to wear armor, my Hunter was running around naked for the longest time.

I think you are confusing choice with necesity. Choice is what we have with our costumes in CO now. We can choose whatever pieces to mix and match and we can choose how we look, and there will be no consequence for going out looking like Tarzan or decked out like you were a Space Marine from Warhammer 40k.

On the other hand, if you try that in WoW, not only will you seriously be gimped, but your survival chances will also be nixed to the Nth degree. Stating your hunter ran around naked for the longest time, since any definition of the word longest time is an arbitrary statement of how long you actually did perform this duty, considering one player can consider the longest time to be several hours and another can refer it to several levels. But considering the leveling curve in WoW was also upped to a much faster rate, again longest time is quite subjective.

WoW armor still has no comparison, what-so-ever to CO costumes as other than your look here, a costume provides no other benefit, where as the WoW armor practically defines your character. You can claim to have a choice, but without said gear and armor you are pretty much nothing there.

[Archived Post]

It still fascinates me people keep saying the MTs need to go, yet none of the games they refer to have an MT-less system. This includes WoW, CoH, UO and many, many others. And CO is also the only one of that bunch that actually let's you get the stuff in game as wella s just paying up front for it.

Well, most MTs are really for Character transfers and Name changes...that sort of thing. WoW does MTs in the way of trading cards...which people collect ANYWAY, so really the WoW MT is presented usually as some kind of bonus. They have a better PR/Marketing team.

I think people get upset with CO because games like CoH just add costumes to the character free of charge unless its some lore based specialty item. Also, Jet packs...you can get them at level 5 anyway for free. CO has a long way to go before they start charging for Generic Costumes imo.

Quite frankly, I don't even care about paying for them at this point, the trouble started with V-Bay. When they tried to charge us for much needed content, THATS when people started to revisit the C-Store and question it. I've seen posts now where people have said they don't mind going back to the C-Store.

So, all the new costumes in the C-Store I can get ingame? Nottrying to be funny, just asking. Like that Dark Armor set...how would I get that?

[Archived Post]

Thank you for the update Chronomancer. I look forward to seeing Vibora bay.

Personally Ive been in STO and Eve last week, but I havent forgotten CO. For my biggest problem was graphical problems or lag that seemed to be associated with the latest patch. I had to lower my graphical settings to get above 8fps on certain areas which I didnt like. It had been working fine earlier. I havent checked what the game is like right now, but I will soon.

As long as the game is functioning, I would propably have paid for the expansion, but if the game is a laggy mess like it was couple weeks ago, I would not.

[Archived Post]

Cautiously optimistic that we're back on track. Will be maintining my sub for a bit, after all.

We shall see.

[Archived Post]

It still fascinates me people keep saying the MTs need to go, yet none of the games they refer to have an MT-less system. This includes WoW, CoH, UO and many, many others. And CO is also the only one of that bunch that actually let's you get the stuff in game as well s just paying up front for it.

I enjoy what i have .. I like the cos ops for Holiday wear.. but i exist without them .. Demand drives market.
I don't think brother even looked at C-Store since opening week.. [I closely monitor billing account]..

It does no provide advantage to a pve so its something there we know its there and cant say we dont care
its just Blythe for other fare'

[so MT= testing what a market would except as a straw pony..? trial horse?]

brother no tells me im wrogn and the word we want was Accept. ok Bye now.. Have u some funs.

[Archived Post]

Im glad we got the C-Store, to buy character slots, renames, retcons or costumes unlocks...

But theres a big difference between that and putting updates for a game that lacks content 6 months after launch. I dont understand the opinion of people like Silverspar, are you working for Cryptic or something? Because most of the playerbase isnt happy with the last facts they made.

When we to pay montly susc. to this game and it is suffering for lack of content, theres no way they can put a price on that needed update. All games have made free updates, and after big content, they have MT from time to time... I think theres a difference.

[Archived Post]

The only thing with even a remote amount of good posted here that isn't speculative is the fact that it's free. Wonderful, that's how it should have been to begin with. I don't mind paying for an expansion but it should damn sure add an extremely large chunk to the game...growing it to atleast 1.5x it's original size, if not more. I beta-tested this game and left because the lag was killer but decided to try the demo a week ago and found it to be much more entertaining and less laggy.

I bought the game 4 days ago.

I'm starting to regret it.

Seriously, I came on here and saw this and immediately went "awesome, lets see what's in store". Well, things for end game are nice but...so what. New raid...alright...but what else? What things are being fixed? What things are being added in that should fix the ever-nagging issues? There used to be a time I could go on CoH and easily hundreds of people could be in a single zone. Now? The zones are damn near dead. I used to team up all the time in CoH, have yet to team once. If it wasnt for the fact that you guys MADE CoH I guess I could give you some slack and say you're doing your own thing, but you really aren't.

So, why are teams still broken?
Why are missions the same things over and over and over?
Where the hell are Super-Group Bases? These came out in CoH a LONG time ago, why haven't they converted over?
Why are there so many bugs and graphic glitches still left in this game from the BETA?
When are we getting all these things promised?

I got 1 month free with my purchase of the game. If, after that 1 month, it's still like this, I'm leaving. Keeping us in the dark and building us up is good and well if you have a history for amazing surprises. So far, nothing. Keeping us in the dark with your current track record is only going to make people doubt you even more. Saying SOMETHING is in development, but not even saying what? Not even hinting, preparing, giving us reasons to go "well, it may be bad now, but this will come about shortly so I should stick around"? Don't be Blizzard and stop caring about everything but one product (WoW, which is the reason why Star Craft 2 and Diablo 3 are years past original date), that being STO, and start caring about this game. It's one of the most unique games on the market, with alot of possibility. I don't want to cancel but things like this will cripple, if not destroy your game...and to have that happen within the first year of it's existence is not a good showing.

[Archived Post]

The only thing with even a remote amount of good posted here that isn't speculative is the fact that it's free. Wonderful, that's how it should have been to begin with. I don't mind paying for an expansion but it should damn sure add an extremely large chunk to the game...growing it to atleast 1.5x it's original size, if not more. I beta-tested this game and left because the lag was killer but decided to try the demo a week ago and found it to be much more entertaining and less laggy.

I bought the game 4 days ago.

I'm starting to regret it.

Seriously, I came on here and saw this and immediately went "awesome, lets see what's in store". Well, things for end game are nice but...so what. New raid...alright...but what else? What things are being fixed? What things are being added in that should fix the ever-nagging issues? There used to be a time I could go on CoH and easily hundreds of people could be in a single zone. Now? The zones are damn near dead. I used to team up all the time in CoH, have yet to team once. If it wasnt for the fact that you guys MADE CoH I guess I could give you some slack and say you're doing your own thing, but you really aren't.

So, why are teams still broken?
Why are missions the same things over and over and over?
Where the hell are Super-Group Bases? These came out in CoH a LONG time ago, why haven't they converted over?
Why are there so many bugs and graphic glitches still left in this game from the BETA?
When are we getting all these things promised?

I got 1 month free with my purchase of the game. If, after that 1 month, it's still like this, I'm leaving. Keeping us in the dark and building us up is good and well if you have a history for amazing surprises. So far, nothing. Keeping us in the dark with your current track record is only going to make people doubt you even more. Saying SOMETHING is in development, but not even saying what? Not even hinting, preparing, giving us reasons to go "well, it may be bad now, but this will come about shortly so I should stick around"? Don't be Blizzard and stop caring about everything but one product (WoW, which is the reason why Star Craft 2 and Diablo 3 are years past original date), that being STO, and start caring about this game. It's one of the most unique games on the market, with alot of possibility. I don't want to cancel but things like this will cripple, if not destroy your game...and to have that happen within the first year of it's existence is not a good showing.

Use the action figure to show me where the bad game touched you.

[Archived Post]

Yea, because it's amndatory you have to wear the armor, and you have no chocie on the style or look, so your argument over costume sort of lost it's wind.

Every game is different, WoW is limited in their character design options, but the point is that their armor is available through ingame activities, not through cash money transactions. It's not like you can take a Rogue and buy them Paladin armor only available through cash payments.

I'm not even remotely arguing that WoW has in any way a better, or even equal customizability selection as CO has, I'm not arguing the merits of the game as a whole, I'm just arguing that they have a more respectful interpretation of how micropayments should work.

Considering none of the costumes in the C-Store are required, and all teh armor in WoW is,

In a game like CO, costume options are about as important to enjoyment of the game as stats are. I mean, you seem to be a werewolfy sort of fellow, how would you feel if the wolf-based costume pieces were all locked behind the c-store, and assuming for a second that you objected to buying anything through the c-store? Wouldn't you resent that the choices that mattered to you would incur a non-optional additional cost, while plenty of options that you couldn't care less about are available for free?


WoW armor still has no comparison, what-so-ever to CO costumes as other than your look here, a costume provides no other benefit, where as the WoW armor practically defines your character.

My CO characters are considerably more defined by their costumes than any other MMO characters I've ever played. t might have zero impact on how strong they are, but it has every impact on who they are.

[Archived Post]

You're free to mix and match equipment pieces any way you want in WoW. You have the same kind of choice over what you wear in WoW that you do in CO, the only real noticeable difference is that you have to craft for most of your duds, and your stats sometimes suffer for your choices.

Also, it really isn't mandatory to wear armor, my Hunter was running around naked for the longest time.

Normally I don't agree with Silverspar so much, but this is just silly! Try doing a raid in WoW half naked see how long before you get kicked off the team for not keeping up with heals, dps..w/e... Not only that, your choices are very limited in wow. Every lvl 80 anything will look the same as any other like race and class.

Free to mix and match? My healer in CO can wear HEAVY armor with invunerability...my healer in WoW can wear...let me think....um...cloth robes...yep, big choice there.

Edit: On that note, WoW has a better MT transaction system. They mix playing cards with their MMO, so someone buying the cards could get a cool mount or something in WoW. Not so much a MT but more of a benefit of playing both. The only real MTs are Transfers, renames, and such.

[Archived Post]

Use the action figure to show me where the bad game touched you.

*points at the back end*

It...it still hurts...

[Archived Post]

That's what you get for not checking the forums first. A simple review of this forum would have netted you a world of information saving you time and money.

We are all hoping Cryptic gets the "hint" and starts to really shape up. I especially want this game to succeed but it appears that development decisions being made in the best interest of this game are less than progressive.


The only thing with even a remote amount of good posted here that isn't speculative is the fact that it's free. Wonderful, that's how it should have been to begin with. I don't mind paying for an expansion but it should damn sure add an extremely large chunk to the game...growing it to atleast 1.5x it's original size, if not more. I beta-tested this game and left because the lag was killer but decided to try the demo a week ago and found it to be much more entertaining and less laggy.

I bought the game 4 days ago.

I'm starting to regret it.

Seriously, I came on here and saw this and immediately went "awesome, lets see what's in store". Well, things for end game are nice but...so what. New raid...alright...but what else? What things are being fixed? What things are being added in that should fix the ever-nagging issues? There used to be a time I could go on CoH and easily hundreds of people could be in a single zone. Now? The zones are damn near dead. I used to team up all the time in CoH, have yet to team once. If it wasnt for the fact that you guys MADE CoH I guess I could give you some slack and say you're doing your own thing, but you really aren't.

So, why are teams still broken?
Why are missions the same things over and over and over?
Where the hell are Super-Group Bases? These came out in CoH a LONG time ago, why haven't they converted over?
Why are there so many bugs and graphic glitches still left in this game from the BETA?
When are we getting all these things promised?

I got 1 month free with my purchase of the game. If, after that 1 month, it's still like this, I'm leaving. Keeping us in the dark and building us up is good and well if you have a history for amazing surprises. So far, nothing. Keeping us in the dark with your current track record is only going to make people doubt you even more. Saying SOMETHING is in development, but not even saying what? Not even hinting, preparing, giving us reasons to go "well, it may be bad now, but this will come about shortly so I should stick around"? Don't be Blizzard and stop caring about everything but one product (WoW, which is the reason why Star Craft 2 and Diablo 3 are years past original date), that being STO, and start caring about this game. It's one of the most unique games on the market, with alot of possibility. I don't want to cancel but things like this will cripple, if not destroy your game...and to have that happen within the first year of it's existence is not a good showing.

[Archived Post]

MUHAHAHAHAHA!

Use the action figure to show me where the bad game touched you.

[Archived Post]

Whilst I welcome the news that Cryptic have taken what we have said on board, I think there are a couple of things are worthy of note here:

1 - Given the more or less universal condemnation of making Revelations paid for content, did Cryptic really have any choice at all but to make it free?

2 - All this hype about new content from lvl 37 - 40, but we still have to do the same level path with each character to get to lvl 37 in the first place. All this is going to mean when all is said and done is that we now don't have to do Lemuria.

3 - It doesn't matter HOW many people you put on the PTS, if you don't appear to take notice of any of the bugs reported. Maybe as part of the dev interaction, the top 10(?) reported issues with whatever new patch or addition is being tested are listed and some comment as to what is being done about them, even if that is "we acknowledge this is an issue, but will need more data gathering to find out it's cause"

Yes it's a step in the right direction, but you're going to have to do a lot more than that to get my monthly sub back.

[Archived Post]

The information about the updates is good news. Did Cryptic listen to its customers, or did it cave due to hemoraging subscriptions. Only Cryptic/Atari will ever know for sure. Does this announcement erase the major slips with:

1) Lamuria being broken for 2-3 weeks
2) the "kitchen sink" patch that seemed to break as much as it fixed and left major, LONG term bugs unanswered (unkillable zombies anyone?)
3) asking for a paid expansion when the overwhelming opinion of the player base is that there is barely enough content available at release to be called a complete game.

No, it doesn't. Following through with what they have promised the player base is the only thing that will do that. My faith in Cryptic (the small amount I had) is not "restored." But they have taken a small step to repair it. If they follow through with everything this announcement promises, then they may come close to erasing the bad taste these issues have stirred up.

As has been pointed out, the tone of Mr Roper's update does concern me, as it feels like he still thinks this content release should be paid for. How this bodes for further expansions has yet to play out.

Many people have commented that "if they were raising the level cap" or "if they were adding new power sets" or "they were adding new mechanics to the game" then paying for the expansion would be justified. Looking at the only other superhero MMO on the market at the moment, which Cryptic developed, CoH:

1) raised the cap 10 levels within the first 6 months - as part of a free expansion
2) Added Archery, Sonic, Pain Domination, Dual Pistols, Demon Summoning power sets, and 4 completely new ATs - as part of free expansions
3) Added the crafting and Mission Architect systems- as part of a free expansion
4) Added (or revamped) on the hero side 8 zones - all as part of free expansions
5) New graphics engine - as part of a free expansion

I suspect all of this were added for free because they were envisioned as part of what "the game should be" - a living, breathing, growing entity, paid for by the subscription fees on the players.

What constitutes paid expansions for CO's forebearer:

City of Villains:
10 all new zones and one revamped zone - 7 PvE, 4 PvP
Brand new Level 1- 50 content
5 new Archtypes, each with 4-7 primary and secondary power sets each

Going Rogue (as announced so far):
Mutiple new zones (3-4?)
Brand new Level 1-20 content
Side switching system, unlocking probably 40+ levels of Hero/Villain content to their counterparts
???

This is the reputation that a large percentage of the player base is measuring Cryptic against and finding them wanting - Bare minimum launch content with only one advancement path that has a tendency toward content gaps in the mid game, and within 6 months announcing the next update is going to be a paid expansion.

Cryptic has changed that policy, and that seems to have rebuilt some of the good will of the community. Some people are willing to say "All forgiven" and forget that any of this took place. Not me. They have finally shown they can talk the talk... all that buys them in my book is sticking around to see how the walk goes. And that walk is going to be on a tightrope, not through the park.

[Archived Post]

Normally I don't agree with Silverspar so much, but this is just silly! Try doing a raid in WoW half naked see how long before you get kicked off the team for not keeping up with heals, dps..w/e... Not only that, your choices are very limited in wow. Every lvl 80 anything will look the same as any other like race and class.

Free to mix and match? My healer in CO can wear HEAVY armor with invunerability...my healer in WoW can wear...let me think....um...cloth robes...yep, big choice there.

Edit: On that note, WoW has a better MT transaction system. They mix playing cards with their MMO, so someone buying the cards could get a cool mount or something in WoW. Not so much a MT but more of a benefit of playing both. The only real MTs are Transfers, renames, and such.

Don't get distracted. NOBODY is arguing against Silverspar about WoW's armor or customization. He's the only one raising that strawman to distract from the actual topic of discussion, microtransactions. The only relevant point about WoW was the part you agreed with, that WoW does not include costume choices as part of thier MT system.



2 - All this hype about new content from lvl 37 - 40, but we still have to do the same level path with each character to get to lvl 37 in the first place. All this is going to mean when all is said and done is that we now don't have to do Lemuria.

Which wouldn't have even been an issue in the first place if they hadn't broken the XP curve right before launch. In the months or so leading up to launch, you could easilly go from 1-40 while skipping entire regions occasionally, giving each alt an entirely new gameplay experience. Since they broke the XP curve, you have to scrape up every last dreg of XP you can find just to squeek by, making any new content more necessity than perk.

[Archived Post]

making any new content more necessity than perk.

Yes, I concur.

[Archived Post]

Reading this, I think I have faith again.

I admit, I dropped off the face of the Earth with uncertainty(with lack of a 'goodbye cruel world' thread because those are pointless) but I REALLY wanted to play this game. Champions Online, along with the Sims 3, were why I bought a brand new computer and I wanted to do it.

This really wants me to go play again and really see whats next. I love adventures, I love a good story. Maybe Revelations is what does it.

Thank you, Cryptic. Thank you again. You guys really do listen.

[Archived Post]

On the other hand, if you try that in WoW, not only will you seriously be gimped, but your survival chances will also be nixed to the Nth degree.You're missing my entire point, but being close-minded generally allows people to miss them.

The point I'm trying to make is you can wear anything you want in WoW. What I did was kept all the pieces of a mixed and matched costume in my inventory, and then wore them when I didn't need to ****ing PvP or raid.

[Archived Post]

Which wouldn't have even been an issue in the first place if they hadn't broken the XP curve right before launch. In the months or so leading up to launch, you could easilly go from 1-40 while skipping entire regions occasionally, giving each alt an entirely new gameplay experience. Since they broke the XP curve, you have to scrape up every last dreg of XP you can find just to squeek by, making any new content more necessity than perk.

The trouble is the content that's there isn't really that repeatable. Once you've done it once, it's rather dull to do over and over again with other alts. If they hadn't have reduced the XP curve the journey from 1-40 would have been over much more quickly, and the lack of content would have been brought into sharper focus. There would be a much worse feeling of "Oh. Is that it?", and perhaps players may have gone back to go over content they'd skipped previously, just for something extra to do!

More content is a necessity which ever way you look at it.

On a slightly different note, There are 4 MMOs that I have played other than CO: Guild Wars, Age of Conan, EvE and City of Heroes. The only ones where I've had to pay for expansions are CoH and GW, and in both instances those expansions were able to stand on their own as complete games in themselves (COV and Nightfall). With EvE I never had to pay anything extra for anything at all. To have a monthly sub, AND MTs for additional "fluff" is fair enough, but the only way we should have to pay for additional content is if there is enough of it to be able to level from 1 to 40 - in other words a whole other game that bolts on to the existing one.

Either have a monthly sub, or have paid for small chunks of extra content. Trying to do both is, frankly, taking the michael.

[Archived Post]

The trouble is the content that's there isn't really that repeatable. Once you've done it once, it's rather dull to do over and over again with other alts. If they hadn't have reduced the XP curve the journey from 1-40 would have been over much more quickly, and the lack of content would have been brought into sharper focus. There would be a much worse feeling of "Oh. Is that it?", and perhaps players may have gone back to go over content they'd skipped previously, just for something extra to do!


Honestly, it's not. When you can skip large chunks of it on the way up each time, it really takes the grind out of it. I took dozens of characters into the 30's and a halfdozen or so to 40 during beta, and was looking forward to doing it again after launch, but after the XP nerf I haven't managed even a fraction of that, I just don't have the will to do it. I would gladly have spent considerably more total time with the game under the old XP curve than I ever will under the new one. As they say, "time flies if you're having fun."

[Archived Post]

Every game is different, WoW is limited in their character design options, but the point is that their armor is available through ingame activities, not through cash money transactions. It's not like you can take a Rogue and buy them Paladin armor only available through cash payments.

I'm not even remotely arguing that WoW has in any way a better, or even equal customizability selection as CO has, I'm not arguing the merits of the game as a whole, I'm just arguing that they have a more respectful interpretation of how micropayments should work..

Theres a flipside to that. When leveling you might have to wear armor pieces that look like dried batdung laced with seaweed because it gives you good stats...

ps. wows content is boring like anything when youre doing it for the second time. That isnt different from CO.

[Archived Post]

Theres a flipside to that. When leveling you might have to wear armor pieces that look like dried batdung laced with seaweed because it gives you good stats...

Again, NOBODY is taking WoW's side in a CO vs. WoW competition on the matter of visual customization. NOBODY. You and Silverspar are arguing against thin air here. The topic that has any actual juice to it is solely on the matter of MT content.


ps. wows content is boring like anything when youre doing it for the second time. That isnt different from CO.

Actually, from what I remember, it was much more fun to play through WoW, since they had six starting locations and dozens of mid-level locations, so there was plenty of content, allowing each new alt to mix and match which content he played through along the way. CO is only just a trudging death march to 40 now because each attempt forces you to redo the EXACT same content, EVERY single time if you want enough XP to reach the finish line.

[Archived Post]

This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Cryptic Studios Forum Usage Guidelines (http://forums.startrekonline.com/announcement.php?f=36&a=2) ~Seadgir

[Archived Post]

So on a differant thread the discussion trended towards: If enough missions were put in the three main zones (Canada, MC, and the Desert) to level you up to 30 or so, it would open up so many options. You could mix and match areas or stay in one the whole time.

Your furry could stay in Canada, your Vigilante could stay in MC, and your Drifter could do desert mishes, etc...

Again, you could mix and match how ya like without having to follow the same path for every alt. We are all talking new areas and such, when really just fill the three mains with heaps of mishes. It would be an easy fix (Easy for me, I don't have to code it) that would still provide viable leveling paths even after new areas are added.

Also the game would *Feel* more complete

So no added areas, but you went from one main leveling path to several paths.

[Archived Post]

Will the new expansion lair be a run through like nem con or is it going to have a actuall challenge to it?

[Archived Post]

Your furry could stay in Canada, your Vigilante could stay in MC, and your Drifter could do desert mishes, etc...

Right, and it used to work this way. It used to be that you could play ONLY the desert OR Canada up to 13, then MC to 17, then ONLY Desert OR Canada until the mid-20s, and so on. There was enough XP in the missions to cover you. You still had to hit MC, they never added proper teens level content in either zone, never had low level content in MC, etc., but it was better than it is now. Likewise, you only used to have to do EITHER Monster Island OR Lemuria (with the Canadian content), not both unless you wanted to.

[Archived Post]

Right, and it used to work this way. It used to be that you could play ONLY the desert OR Canada up to 13, then MC to 17, then ONLY Desert OR Canada until the mid-20s, and so on. There was enough XP in the missions to cover you. You still had to hit MC, they never added proper teens level content in either zone, never had low level content in MC, etc., but it was better than it is now. Likewise, you only used to have to do EITHER Monster Island OR Lemuria (with the Canadian content), not both unless you wanted to.

Ah! Interesting. Yeah, leveling is fairly quick tho so I'd have to go with more content to make each area a more complete leveling path. I only played a bit in OB...not enough to level up too high.

[Archived Post]

Leveling is fairly quick, but that's fine. Back in CB, you could level quickly, but as soon as you got near the endgame you'd just roll up an alt and start all over again, and each time was fun because you'd be skipping half the game each time, so there'd always be new things to do. Now it's just not much fun anymore, because you have to do everything, every time. I played for a year of beta, and would gladly continue playing the CB game for years to come, but the post-launch game I have a hard time imagining myself re-upping my 6-month subscription. Too much slogging, not enough fun. Devs shouldn't spend so much time worrying about how fast people reach cap, and instead worry about how much they enjoy doing so, and what incentives they have to do it again and again and again.

[Archived Post]

Leveling is fairly quick, but that's fine. Back in CB, you could level quickly, but as soon as you got near the endgame you'd just roll up an alt and start all over again, and each time was fun because you'd be skipping half the game each time, so there'd always be new things to do. Now it's just not much fun anymore, because you have to do everything, every time. I played for a year of beta, and would gladly continue playing the CB game for years to come, but the post-launch game I have a hard time imagining myself re-upping my 6-month subscription. Too much slogging, not enough fun. Devs shouldn't spend so much time worrying about how fast people reach cap, and instead worry about how much they enjoy doing so, and what incentives they have to do it again and again and again.

Tell me how early do other MMOs get other leveling paths and no Wow and CoX don't count (I don't remeber CoX even getting a FULL different leveling path after a short while)

[Archived Post]

Tell me how early do other MMOs get other leveling paths and no Wow and CoX don't count (I don't remeber CoX even getting a FULL different leveling path after a short while)

I don't know why WoW wouldn't count, as it's the most successful MMO ever, but looking at other games. . . EQ, from what I remember, had two starting locations, although I didn't get too far in that. **** had three completely seperate content areas up through the midgame. Most games really seem to start with 2+ starting locations, and while many of them do tend to branch back together by mid-game, the better ones offer 125%-150% more content than you would technically need to reach the level cap, allowing you to pick and choose which content you want to pursue, and which content you want to avoid. The really good ones offer 200%+. CO was on track for this in CB, but only launched with about 95% content, maybe 100%.

[Archived Post]

Tell me how early do other MMOs get other leveling paths and no Wow and CoX don't count (I don't remeber CoX even getting a FULL different leveling path after a short while)

I don't know why WoW wouldn't count, as it's the most successful MMO ever, but looking at other games. . . .

I have to agree with Ohoni on this point, when competing in the MMO market every other game is valid, especially if you charging similar fees for the product. As much as ppl like to argue "Cryptic is only small compared to Blizzard" but when you have paying customers who are purely here to have fun, and it is not their concern that the company is small or not, then the amount of enjoyment they get from a game for the $ spent should be the same. The MMO world is a tough world, if you want to play with the big boys you need to be able to compete or you get the $#@% kicked out of ya.

Leveling is fairly quick, but that's fine. Back in CB, you could level quickly, but as soon as you got near the endgame you'd just roll up an alt and start all over again, and each time was fun because you'd be skipping half the game each time, so there'd always be new things to do. Now it's just not much fun anymore, because you have to do everything, every time. I played for a year of beta, and would gladly continue playing the CB game for years to come, but the post-launch game I have a hard time imagining myself re-upping my 6-month subscription. Too much slogging, not enough fun. Devs shouldn't spend so much time worrying about how fast people reach cap, and instead worry about how much they enjoy doing so, and what incentives they have to do it again and again and again.
I dont agree that changing the XP curve at launch has in any way made the content of the game more light when you look at the game as a whole.

Ok, so in CB you may have been able to level a lot quicker, allowing you to bypass certain mission areas, but when you make your 2nd character and level him using a different route, again he levels twice as fast but using the other content that was bypassed previously. The end result is the whole content of the game cleared in the same amount of time, the only difference is that you have 2 characters at 40 instead of 1, thus meaning ppl will explore the powersets twice as fast also. So based on the CB XP curve, it does not extend the life of the game in terms of hours played until all routes are exhausted, infact if anything it reduces the games life.

The main problem with the game is the fact it doesn't have a long enough 'play life', look at it as lacking content or lacking endgame or whatever. The ppl who claim "there is no lacking content issue" tend to be ppl who level very slowly or are extremely casual. Dont get me wrong, I dont feel ppl who level slow or that are very casual are wrong, infact I wish i could be like them in a game like this, but the fact of the matter is... ppl play differently, for different amounts of time. Some like alts, some dont, some play slow, some are faster, some like to chat loads, some RP... etc... For the ppl who are not into alts much, lack of endgame is a problem, for ppl that like alts, lack of levelling paths are a problem, etc... but ppl are not wrong in doing it their way.

Having XP at the curve it was at in CB may help some to get more out of the game, but would also have killed the game a lot faster for more.

Anyhow, with the new content around the corner this will definately help... though it may not help all of the players, it will keep the majority occupied for a while.

[Archived Post]

Ok, so in CB you may have been able to level a lot quicker, allowing you to bypass certain mission areas, but when you make your 2nd character and level him using a different route, again he levels twice as fast but using the other content that was bypassed previously. The end result is the whole content of the game cleared in the same amount of time, the only difference is that you have 2 characters at 40 instead of 1, thus meaning ppl will explore the powersets twice as fast also. So based on the CB XP curve, it does not extend the life of the game in terms of hours played until all routes are exhausted, infact if anything it reduces the games life.

Mathematically, yes, but in practical terms, it's a whoooole different beast. Like I said, going that way I was able to level tons of characters towards the endgame, and didn't get worn out at all after a year of playing, but the OB version of the game killed my attention span within a week. It's somethign about the mix and match aspect, that the second character wouldn't have a completely new experience, but it would be new enough, by having dabbled in this or that area that you passed up on the last playthrough, and that then you could turn around and make a third that had a slightly different experience. It's almost like if you have twice the content you need then it allows for four times the fun.

I don't know, if the game is designed so that when you hit 40, it's game over, and therefor the goal is to force players to take as long to get to 40 as possible, then you might as well pack it in from the start. I think it's a better goal to have players have FUN, at all levels, so that when they hit 40, then even if there's not much to do there then they'll hapilly start over with another character and enjoy the ride back up.

Now, of course the more content they add, the more fun there is to be had, but I really do think that it's an exponential curve, rather than a linear curve, the more unnecessary content you have in the game, the game becomes exponentially more fun for each amount added.


Anyhow, with the new content around the corner this will definately help... though it may not help all of the players, it will keep the majority occupied for a while.

It's only a little more level 37-40 content, that's hardly a game changer. I barely even got my post-launch main to 36 it was so tedious.

[Archived Post]

Actually, from what I remember, it was much more fun to play through WoW, since they had six starting locations and dozens of mid-level locations, so there was plenty of content, allowing each new alt to mix and match which content he played through along the way. CO is only just a trudging death march to 40 now because each attempt forces you to redo the EXACT same content, EVERY single time if you want enough XP to reach the finish line.

I enjoyed the Death knight starting zone quests and content VERY MUCH. It was just so well done. What bugged me that once I got past he starting content, everything went back to generic WoW content and there was ZERO content that somehow referenced me as being something different from a normal race. All NPC's were like "Oh, hello Death knight, would you like to buy some chocolates?"

I just so wish I could have kept serving Arthas...


Now back to the topic at hand, it is a big problem for CO that there is very little group-content, or content that you need to team for due to its difficulty. People will solo through content, and once its done, they leave for other games. Thats not a permanent solution. Unless CO cashes in on that potential, its not gonna last. Only content that I havent soloed in CO yet (Im lvl 37) has been burial caves, teleios lab and moreaus Lab. Plus couple giant monsters which lack rewards to keep doing them.

[Archived Post]

Been moving and offline for the last 2 weeks and lo and behold I return and find this awesome bundle of fun in the works, with a wait that isn't anywhere NEAR what I thought it would be for it's release.

Awesome job guys I figured the content would be worth the pricetag anyway but after getting a little more info and seeing that it's now gonna be free my outlook on this games future have VASTLY improved, now if you'll excuse me I have a cybernetic Laser sword wielding dragon to play.

[Archived Post]

Mathematically, yes, but in practical terms, it's a whoooole different beast. Like I said, going that way I was able to level tons of characters towards the endgame, and didn't get worn out at all after a year of playing, but the OB version of the game killed my attention span within a week.Practically for YOU, where I was trying to look at the game as a whole. Like I said, not everyone likes to create loads of alts, infact its probably safe to say that you are not "the norm" in this case, but also like I said it doesnt mean you are wrong in the way you play. Thats why I said...

"Having XP at the curve it was at in CB may help some to get more out of the game, but would also have killed the game a lot faster for more."

Now, of course the more content they add, the more fun there is to be had, but I really do think that it's an exponential curve, rather than a linear curve, the more unnecessary content you have in the game, the game becomes exponentially more fun for each amount added.I agree, but considering the game was so thin on content and endgame to start with, and since launch 1 of the main reasons ppl have been dropping like flies is endgame, adding content at the end levels of the game would be a better way to start, ofc again not for you in this case, but for the majority.

It's only a little more level 37-40 content, that's hardly a game changer. I barely even got my post-launch main to 36 it was so tedious.Again, this is why I said...

"... though it may not help all of the players, it will keep the majority occupied for a while."

Although this is 37-40, we still don't know what it includes, there maybe suitable endgame in there.
I hope they do add more content for lower levels too at some point soon, that will allow you to have your multiple paths for your alts... but they have to start somewhere. And although this probably should not have been so thin on content at release, its too late to change what should have been. So, this is a step in the right direction and will hopefully pull ppl back into the game that stopped due to there being pretty much nothing once you hit 40.

[Archived Post]

Practically for YOU, where I was trying to look at the game as a whole. Like I said, not everyone likes to create loads of alts, infact its probably safe to say that you are not "the norm" in this case, but also like I said it doesnt mean you are wrong in the way you play. Thats why I said...

"Having XP at the curve it was at in CB may help some to get more out of the game, but would also have killed the game a lot faster for more."

No, not really. Altitis is an epidemic in a game done right, and CB Champions was a game done right.

I agree, but considering the game was so thin on content and endgame to start with, and since launch 1 of the main reasons ppl have been dropping like flies is endgame, adding content at the end levels of the game would be a better way to start, ofc again not for you in this case, but for the majority.

But that's my point, if the 1-40 content weren't so oppressive, then people would have more fun just doing it, and when they hit 40 they wouldn't stand around looking for things they could do at 40, they'd just roll up a new character and take him to 40. Maybe that isn't the type of gameplay that you enjoy, but I'm talking about the majority here. The point is not what to do once you've maxed out, but having fun along the way.


Although this is 37-40, we still don't know what it includes, there maybe suitable endgame in there.

Level 37-40 content is nothing, that's what, another 12 hours or so of material? The equivalent of a tiny fraction of MON or LEM?

[Archived Post]

Ohoni, you have esplained it and esplained it. You can't tell someone with corncobs in their ears how awesome the leveling pace in CB was. They have corncobs in their ears.

As I have said befor, the game was neer perfect during Open Beta. The leveling pace was perfect.

There is a problem for me atleast, I hate the starter zones. I have already done all the content in both 3 or 4 times. I do not ever want to do it again. (and 2 of those times were during Open Beta/Closed Beta)

Those zones are not fun. The problem I see them facing is they made this game like it is a 1 player consol game. With next to no actual replayability. Sure some people like to drive cars head on into brick walls going 45 mph. But most people do not.

They are bringing out Vibora Bay for free.. (IMO so what) I do not ever want to play another character through Canada/Desert ever again. So they need new starting areas. They also need to find away to make the 41-50 content... And not 6 months from now.

For all of you with corncobs in your ears. 40 is not wher the "end game" begins. Thats where they stopped - and havent bothered to finish yet.

Vibora Bay will propbably have some 41-50 content in it... What would be the point otherwise? 3 levels?

[Archived Post]

People are actually level 40?

[Archived Post]

Vibora Bay will propbably have some 41-50 content in it... What would be the point otherwise? 3 levels?

Maybe it will be jam-packed with end-game content. We don't know. But honestly, an expansion that focuses on the main problem to why people have the level alts to enjoy the game would seem like a win-win.

[Archived Post]

Ohoni, you have esplained it and esplained it. You can't tell someone with corncobs in their ears how awesome the leveling pace in CB was. They have corncobs in their ears.

As I have said befor, the game was neer perfect during Open Beta. The leveling pace was perfect.And from being in OB/CB myself, and when you look at the whole picture also... its logical why they changed it, though some ppl are blind to the reason.

But that's my point, if the 1-40 content weren't so oppressive, then people would have more fun just doing it, and when they hit 40 they wouldn't stand around looking for things they could do at 40, they'd just roll up a new character and take him to 40. Maybe that isn't the type of gameplay that you enjoy, but I'm talking about the majority here. The point is not what to do once you've maxed out, but having fun along the way.Well, the fact that I am an altitis player myself, what you suggest would be the gameplay that would suit me perfectly, though doesn't make me blind to what the game needs and is wanted by the majority.

Also, if you have a hard time accepting this, maybe you should check out the vote that was done a while back. But, up to you if you wish to believe that or not. But, as I said before, I am not arguing that lower level content isnt needed also, and am sure Cryptic are aware, but I guess for the initial added content Cryptic chose to try to keep the majority happy over us... and for that, I'm glad that they see sense.... even if it only keeps them happy for a while, we will see.

Level 37-40 content is nothing, that's what, another 12 hours or so of material? The equivalent of a tiny fraction of MON or LEM?Probably, I dont know and haven't claimed to know whats going to be in the upcoming content package apart from it being in the 37-40 range. Do you?

[Archived Post]

As I have said befor, the game was neer perfect during Open Beta. The leveling pace was perfect.The levelling needed a serious nerf at open beta.

It only took like 24 hours to max out, lol.

[Archived Post]

Well, the fact that I am an altitis player myself, what you suggest would be the gameplay that would suit me perfectly, though doesn't make me blind to what the game needs and is wanted by the majority.

So where does it say which game type the majority enjoy? My impression is that if the majority enjoys the type of game you think they do then they would HATE CO at the moment, and that the proposed changes to VB would not significantly improve that.

Probably, I dont know and haven't claimed to know whats going to be in the upcoming content package apart from it being in the 37-40 range. Do you?

Not aside from it being level 37-40 content, which would be about 12 gameplay hours, or less.


It only took like 24 hours to max out, lol.

So what? If it was 24 hours at launch then it would only be 36-48 hours after launch, not a big difference if you expect people to pay a monthly fee. I certainly never got a character maxed in 24 hours, before or after launch.

[Archived Post]

So what? If it was 24 hours at launch then it would only be 36-48 hours after launch, not a big difference if you expect people to pay a monthly fee. I certainly never got a character maxed in 24 hours, before or after launch.You have no grounds to argue with me on this, I wasn't even speaking towards you.

My point is, which everyone seems to miss all times everytime, is that the rate at which someone can max out thier level is far too quick. I guess I'll just go and use an already established example of a good levelling, City of Heroes, pre-Mission Architect.

You aren't supposed to be able to max out your level in a day when it's an MMO.

[Archived Post]

You have no grounds to argue with me on this, I wasn't even speaking towards you.

My point is, which everyone seems to miss all times everytime, is that the rate at which someone can max out thier level is far too quick. I guess I'll just go and use an already established example of a good levelling, City of Heroes, pre-Mission Architect.

You aren't supposed to be able to max out your level in a day when it's an MMO.

I would agree with that principle, but not with using it an excuse to ruin the game when it's found that someone can level that fast. Ideally nobody would be able to max out in 24 hours, but if that was the cost of keeping the game as fun and XP balanced as it was in CB then so be it. If they wanted to make it take longer than 24 hours for a player to exploit himself to max, and could do so without ruining it for everyone else that took significantly longer than 24 hours to do so, then they should have done that, but they needed to do it in a way that didn't damage the surrounding game. They did not.

[Archived Post]

I would agree with that principle, but not with using it an excuse to ruin the game when it's found that someone can level that fast. Ideally nobody would be able to max out in 24 hours, but if that was the cost of keeping the game as fun and XP balanced as it was in CB then so be it. If they wanted to make it take longer than 24 hours for a player to exploit himself to max, and could do so without ruining it for everyone else that took significantly longer than 24 hours to do so, then they should have done that, but they needed to do it in a way that didn't damage the surrounding game. They did not.

That was Roper's rationale for the launch day nerf patch. Because supposed "power-players" reached max in less than a weekend, the entire game had to be brought to a crawl to slow leveling. The lack of adequate content became even more glaring as a result. An argument could be made that Cryptic gets itself into trouble by being too reactive and heavy-handed. Some who are less kind could say that they don't understand their own game, including how combat numbers spreadsheets work.

Like any work of art or entertainmenet, a sure touch and even some finesse would have gone a long way. Instead we got a haphazard, sloppy, half-baked approach, full of guesswork and trial and error. Just check out the request to leave in the enemy damage increase bug recently, not to mention the rest of the mess called the "kitchen sink" patch.

It currently looks like they are regaining some focus. Maybe somebody lit a fire under them to wake them from their slumber. They have a ways to go before this game becomes great.

[Archived Post]

I agree that one weekend to reach last level is far too short. But Cryptic should have thought about it in time and provided at least some band-aid repeatable missions. They only came afterwards.

[Archived Post]

I have free reign to play any game as much as I want. I did not level to 40 during the PreRelease Event. I had fun playing the game. It was the perfect leveling speed. I didn't feel like playing was a chore.

This game is based around the notion of "FAST PACED" leveling/progression/action.

So why shoot the game in the shin? It made no sense.

When they shot this game in the foot opening day, they forced people to do every single ounce of content in the game to level up, and that was not even good enough because there was still level gaps.

Fast paced leveling = a bunch of alts and plenty of time to get the 41 to 50 content out... because people did not have to do everything, people had choices on what to do.

NOW, people do not. Alts are NOT fun because you have to do all the same stuff you already did... just to do it all the same...

[Archived Post]

I have free reign to play any game as much as I want. I did not level to 40 during the PreRelease Event. I had fun playing the game. It was the perfect leveling speed. I didn't feel like playing was a chore.

This game is based around the notion of "FAST PACED" leveling/progression/action.

So why shoot the game in the shin? It made no sense.

When they shot this game in the foot opening day, they forced people to do every single ounce of content in the game to level up, and that was not even good enough because there was still level gaps.

Fast paced leveling = a bunch of alts and plenty of time to get the 41 to 50 content out... because people did not have to do everything, people had choices on what to do.

NOW, people do not. Alts are NOT fun because you have to do all the same stuff you already did... just to do it all the same...
Yes they did cause problems when they made the xp nerf but honestly I thought you could level to fast in OB .........

[Archived Post]

Yes they did cause problems when they made the xp nerf but honestly I thought you could level to fast in OB .........Most can agree that it was just a bit over the top to get to 40 that fast.

Especially when the problem is compounded with only one levelling path, where you have to pretty much find every mission to get to 40. It was really a terribly high rate of XP, and I don't know how people can say it was "Just right." Perhaps they want an easy-mode MMO.

The bottom line for me is that if Cryptic wants people levelling this fast, they need to first put in multiple levelling paths to take. Since they didn't do that before the Live launch, they should be addressing that now.

[Archived Post]

I enjoy change of pace and not power leveling .
To stretch an experience so i make the most of my time then so do the other happy toons here..

I have hardly scratched MI and only Finished Lemurian Crisis Sub part one Once and Have A couple lvl 34's
That makes me an mien happy and that's the bottom line on content..

Events come and go CSR OCRs come and go... Only The Core NPCs remain unphased by The Shortage of
Sapphire related content... [it's not unreasonable to expect more!]

[Archived Post]

Especially when the problem is compounded with only one levelling path, where you have to pretty much find every mission to get to 40. It was really a terribly high rate of XP, and I don't know how people can say it was "Just right." Perhaps they want an easy-mode MMO.

That would probably be it. I want to have FUN, I don't want a second job. Im' paying them, when they start paying me we can talk about increasing my work hours.

[Archived Post]

In the General Gameplay section of the forums, there is a thread titled "Mob XP vs Mission XP". The premise is, to encrease Mob exp so that street sweeping and forming teams to "Go Hunting" is also a viable source of exp and a source outside the confines of our one leveling path.

Also, the topic of leveling speed is debated there. I do wish there was more content (or be able to bypass missions so I'm not forced to do them every time). If you go to the thread, I think you will find a lot of people wouldn't mind an increased leveling speed.

Anyway, perhaps if they boosted Mob exp, you would be able to bypass missions that you were tired of and do the ones you liked...or go street sweeping for fun and dish out random acts of justice...with a chainsaw...:D

The other thought is to add more contacts in all areas so that each area ALONE could get you up to level 40. This would also allow you to choose your leveling path. You could bounce from area to area as you wanted or, if you had a concept toon could just stay in one area the whole time. Your urban street fighter could stay in MC, your furry cat-beast could stay in Canada...etc...etc...

Just some thoughts as I sit here at work...

[Archived Post]

That would probably be it. I want to have FUN, I don't want a second job. Im' paying them, when they start paying me we can talk about increasing my work hours.

How do you have fun at leveling? Personally I see the dualism between easy and hard. Easy becomes repetitive fast if theres nothing else. Hard is rewarding in the long run but becomes too hard when you come off the work and just want to blow off some steam. Cryptic has always done its game in the 'easy' category.

[Archived Post]

You know what's funny?

How closely the release-day patch matched up the game's available content and the devs' desired rate of progress.

It's almost as if the devs decided that the right rate of progress was "do all available missions", not "it should take a player X hours to reach 40."

[Archived Post]

How do you have fun at leveling? Personally I see the dualism between easy and hard. Easy becomes repetitive fast if theres nothing else. Hard is rewarding in the long run but becomes too hard when you come off the work and just want to blow off some steam. Cryptic has always done its game in the 'easy' category.

I don't have fun at leveling. I see leveling as an impediment between me and fun. What I have fun doing is taking the character I have, improving him over time, and trying him out on the content that I want. When I HAVe to put him through every scrap of content available just to make it to the next power I'd like to try on him and the next content area I'd enjoy trying him in, it saps a lot of the fun out of it, because I'd "working for the weekend", basically.


How closely the release-day patch matched up the game's available content and the devs' desired rate of progress.

It's almost as if the devs decided that the right rate of progress was "do all available missions", not "it should take a player X hours to reach 40."

That would have been an even larger error in judgement. At least under the "X hours" theory you can chalk it up to a sloppy error as they neared the finish line, the "100% contnet" method would have just been an epic failure of a design choice, and a much worse sign for the future of the product.

[Archived Post]

Lack of Comprehensive Testing
There were only a few players on during the time the Kitchen Sink Patch was on the Public Test Shard, and we simply didn’t allocate enough QA testers. There were so many issues we were anxious to address, that our desire to get fixes out to the players as soon as possible completely backfired. There are truly an astonishing amount of changes in this patch, and we simply should have spent more time testing them before pushing the build Live.


I think a more realistic solution than just throwing more internal QA guys at the problem would be to offer incentinves for players to test on the PTS. The cone-hats and dummy-heads were a good example of what to do. The Developer PvP event was another. I think a combination of player rewards (costume parts, action figures, or perhaps even tokens one can trade in for C-Store points) and events like the developer PvP would go a long way in bringing many players to PTS to give your code a run-through when it's needed.

[Archived Post]

I think a more realistic solution than just throwing more internal QA guys at the problem would be to offer incentinves for players to test on the PTS. The cone-hats and dummy-heads were a good example of what to do. The Developer PvP event was another. I think a combination of player rewards (costume parts, action figures, or perhaps even tokens one can trade in for C-Store points) and events like the developer PvP would go a long way in bringing many players to PTS to give your code a run-through when it's needed.

RECONS!!!!!!!!!!!!! would be nice

(did you T2 last nite)