Hey Guys
So i am assuming that we are all here because of how much we used to love City Of Heroes / Villains, and i think we agree it all went to pot after AE (Architect Entertainment) came out. we all loved the gameplay the fact of doing mission, and item drops, it was and still is very different to any other MMO game out there today. Are you guys worried or excited about a modern twist being put onto CoX and take away everything what the game used to be or are you excited to see the modern twist and hope that brings something new to it??
Personally i really love the game the way it was, i loved how the missions worked, the interface, player movement, PvP in my eyes was the best out there. Im just hoping they dont take too much away from what it was.
SJ (Super James)
City Of Heroes
December 2007 - The End =(
Global - Super James
Server - Defiant (EU)
I just hope they capture the tone. That is the only thing I worry about at the moment
I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.
well i was just watching the trailer video they were showing building up the city and the characters and stuff and i was getting a little worried from watching that, i know its MILES off a completely finished piece and thats its plan for release is November 2015, but i really enjoyed the essence of CoH, and well really i just dont want it to be ruined or wait near enough another 2 years and it not be worth it =s.
City Of Heroes
December 2007 - The End =(
Global - Super James
Server - Defiant (EU)
Well, we don't see here an other City of Heroes game coming, it will be different and this is Ok for me. What I don't want to see is a game like any others out there, with grinding alone on boring missions in a fantasy setting to the max level and doing the same dungeons over and over again until you are totaly bored. I don't need the best grafics and I don't need a single player story in an MMO game. I want the great character building back with a character I made who is unique and not just a clon from hundred otheres, the uncomplicated teaming no matter what level you are and a level up system with powers they really matters and don't give me just some % in a statistic. When I see this parts in the finnished game then I don't care about that some things are a little bit different.
Who can made a game like this when not the fans, played and love it for years? Not a big publisher, only the fans can do this, so this three games in development are the only chance I see right now.
I'm worried they might try to make it to much like CoH. I loved...LOVED...CoH. But I don't want to see CoT be a game that's surviving off a small population. I want to see CoT being a game that's prospering with a HUGE population.
Thank you for joining us on the forums.
Could you expand on the basis of your concern, particularly relative to the video? Is it a certain feel you want for the game, something visual, or do your concerns trend toward gameplay?
You may also find this thread of interest : "http://cityoftitans.com/forum/question-players-what-do-you-really-want", among others.
Keep the faith, and let us know your thoughts. :)
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Terlin
[color=#ff0000]The Bullpen[/color]
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Indeed. This is what I'm hoping for.
A super hero game that is finally taken serious by the developers and not another aiming merely to be another small niche side super hero game project, although well done. Then treated as something to build until the next million population fantasy game hit the shelf like thus far. The way many super hero get treated, no one would dare do that to even the mediocre fantasy games or risk getting fired. WHy is it ok and accepted that super hero games get treated as such. The Super hero genre is hot like hell fire right now. If there ever was a time to capitalize on it, that time is now. Just have to get out there instead of having this group over here then that group over there and another group over there because everyone want only things they like and no respect for any likes outside of what they like. Eventually someone will get it. Longer time go on, more time it gives the major corps time to allow the idea light bulb to go off. Beat them to it. Time for another game company to be known anyways. Blizzard did well, EA, Sony who said MWM cant be among them. They already have the great story tell news worthy background, some of them seem a beast at knowing games and out, they seem to have an idea of what they are doing, so why go through all of that to be only known by a few players here and there and when asked most people go "Who is MWM?" Yet, mention Blizzard or WoW and people who don't even play video games or never touched a fantasy game in their entire life, know those names. But that can only be done if strived for. If aimed for niche game with a few thousand players focused only on those few thousand's taste and wonder why no one is throwing money at them or there is a struggle to keep the lights on then the ceiling will be at niche game with a few thousand players. Aim for greatness and even if one don't reach record player numbers, 250,000 or so should put them on the map. And when people see 250,000 then more people want to join the party and so on.
Not many people are itching to get the party started by talking about a game with a few thousand players with only a small portion on at any given moment because then people will start wondering and assuming that the game cant be THAT good if it cant even attract a decent amount of players. COH showed that a super hero game can be good. Now time to show the world if possible. Then never know, maybe MWM make so much money they literally hostile take over NCSOFT in a form of poetic justice. But if they are content on conning gray to the big players, then they will achieve that too. Either way I'm with them as long as it's entertaining game. But I still yearn for a super hero game maker to take the genre serious and put forth a serious effort in reaching the potential.
I hope it goes as viciously to gain players and a stronghold in the market that fantasy games do and like many sci fi games are starting to do.
Plus I hope CoT is CoT and when people play it they feel like are playing CoT with some COH in there. Kind of like WoW. WoW is so known now that some people seem to forget that it have lot of D&D elements yet hardly anyone say WoW is a D&D clone. It's WoW.
Well Jag, I think part of the problem is they're afraid to take a risk with the aesthetics of a superhero game. I still think an Asian influence in aesthetics will make a superhero mmo much more popular over "let's be so realistic"
Now, I could be wrong, I admit this, but what I don't think is wrong, is the need to take some sort of risk to get the people in (besides the risk they're taking now, and the donators are taking with donating). Why I believe it's best to go big!
Ehh There are a lot of games out there with Asian flair. When I first saw the trailer to CoH, I thought: "Classic super heroes, like you see in Marvel and DC! How cool! Wow, he ripped the robot's arm right off! This is a one of-a-kind game! I gotta play it!" If the devs plan to chuck that vibe in the bin while searching for something "better", then I am very worried. :(
I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.
There's a lot of MMOs with an Asian flair in the fantasy genre. Not one in the superhero genre. And it is possible to do a mix of Asian/Western flare.
Though, I hope not to see to many trailers that show something like that and not make it possible in game :p "Ooooo...ripped his arm off and beat him with it!" is great until you realize you can't in game :p
This is one point where I'm going to have to relate a story that Richard Garriott told us during the Tabula Rasa War College when we were touring through the NCSoft offices that Destination Games was housed in at the time.
Richard told us (and he had plenty of supporting evidence) that in the American (super)heroic tradition, the superhero is someone who is "more than human" and often possessing "powers" that no normal human should ever have in "reality" making them effectively paranormals. This is the [b]starting point[/b] for American comic book superheroes. They then get thrown into "impossible situations" where they use their impossible powers to save the day, struggling through a few adversities and setbacks along the way.
To an Asian audience, that "gift" of starting out with paranormal powers basically amounts to "cheating" in way. [i]Of course[/i] the superhero is going to win ... because they started out with superpowers. In a lot of cases it isn't even the "character" of the person with the superpowers that is important, but rather that they have superpowers at all.
Asian heroes tend to be different, since as anyone who has watched anime will know, the "standard Asian hero" starts off as an "everyman" type character who [i]becomes incredible[/i] through a journey [i]by overcoming adversity[/i] and challenges. Thus the "spiritual journey" is what is important, rather than the development (and use) of the powers themselves that the hero collects and accumulates along the way. The message of the Asian heroic style is that anyone and everyone COULD BE a hero, if they were to walk the path of becoming a hero ... even though most of us don't (and a lot of us shouldn't!). But it's that underlying notion that we all have the POTENTIAL to be superheroes is what draws Asian audience to their heroic characters and mythos ... not that their heroes are festooned with superhuman abilities like and over decorated christmas tree which [i]no ordinary mere mortal will ever be able to match or acquire[/i].
Richard Garriott was firmly of the opinion that this fundamental disconnect in how "superheroes" were supposed to be structured and constructed explained why City of Heroes essentially flopped in Korea. I mean, look at [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Foreshadow]Foreshadow[/url] and his character design. He's basically "just a guy" who can do incredible feats of martial arts.
[img]http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//e/e3/Foreshadow_original.jpg[/img]
Now look at [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Statesman]Statesman[/url] and his character design. He's basically someone who is so far removed from the "everyman" that you have a hard time relating to him as a human being anymore, because he's (literally) an [b]Incarnation Of A God[/b].
[img]http://paragonwiki.com/w/images//5/59/252px-Statesman.png[/img]
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I don't know if I agree with all that. In mangas/animes their heroes have plenty of abilities no one should have. Some starting out, some building up to. And our characters all built up to being more powerful.
And Foreshadow was one character in many. He was basically "Look! One hero made just for you!" :p
On the other hand American Heroes have changed a lot. Sure it was Superman doing Superthings. However along came Marvel and Spiderman a shift happened. Those special people with special powers started to suffer normal life. No matter how heroic Spiderman is Peter Parker didn't benefit from them, more he suffered for having said powers.
Batman is also an Icon and yes he had more money then Scrooge Mcduck. He had no special powers no abilities. Unless being a badass counts as being a superpower?
In a way it could be said that we do have the with Great Power comes Great responsibilities. We also have those normal guys rising up to be something more. Punisher (okay not quite a HERO type), Captain America was even less of a normal guy he was sickly weak, but because of his spirit was selected.
Then we also have the more extreme of those with powers are Hated. X-men and other such books.
In other words Marketing! Something NCsoft we know lacks.
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Personal rules of good roleplay
1.) Nothing goes as planned.
2.) If it goes as planned it's not good RP
indeed
I think COH had some Asian flair. Of course more subliminal. Mecha stuff- straight out of many popular Asian cartoons to name one.
Yet the vibe remained the same.
Although a vibe does no good in the bigger picture if no one know about it and thus of course the other vibes will seem better because it's out there, marketed, offered, known.
Kind of like a Presa Canario. That dog on an off day will rip most pitbulls to shreds but it's relatively unknown breed of dog. Pit bull is most popular and thus seem to be thought of as the biggest baddest dog out there when there are many breeds that make pitbulls seem like Pomeranians. Most breeds are not even it the running because they are not even known about.
You'd be surprised of how many gamers are willing to try a one of kind game or a game that does something different...only if they known about it. Remember there was days before Halo. A FPS shooter with an involving story? Unheard of! AT first it was a solution to a question no one really asked. FPS wasnt supposed to be about story. It was about pressing start, going through the load screen pick weapons and kill. They did something a little different for their time and not only did something different, let people know that sort of game is being offered on a wide scale. Aimed to go beyond niche. Now, people try to copy them. Now FPS with storylines are coming out the woodwork. But none of that would have came to be if Halo creators made the game let a few players know about it and left it at that. I think we seen the result of that recently with COX. Great game, and probably one of the greatest most unknown games out there. I think more people heard about COX after the shut down than when it was up and running. Which is touching but showed a taste of interest that could have been gathered if even 1/4th of those 8 years was spent of getting the name out there. And look at the shut down stuff. It didn't take millions of dollars or expert Disney level Marketing folks. That was done by the players. Now imagine if it had corporate backing when it was alive. I think there is more youtube videos dealing with the shut down within one year than what the game had to offer during it's live lifespan, (granted though Youtube was in it's infancy stage in 2005)
For my own part, I would not agree that CoX went to pot after AE. The only time I had any doubts was when Freedom came out, but even then it never got bad enough to bump CoX from its position as my favourite game.
To answer the original question: I get worried when I read some threads advocating changes that, in my opinion, would take CoT far from what I believe is the spirit of CoX.
However, whenever I read something posted by an actual redname about their vision for CoT, I'm always reassured that they know what areas can be improved upon without losing that spirit.
I agree with Richard Garriott's view on superheroes as referenced by Redlynne. It's the Western concept of superheroes that excites me. I don't think it's wrong to include the option for players to design more Asian characters, but I hope the setting/story/background of CoT conforms more to the Western tradition.
I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that more players necessarily = good. It depends on MWM's business model and plan. Trying to cater to everyone can dilute a product's identity and blur the focus of a brand. For example, surely MWM could pull in more sci-fi MMO players if they put spaceship battles into CoT, but does that really fit the vision of the game they are trying to make? To take my argument to a ridiculous extreme for illustrative purposes, if numbers are the most important thing, why not make an actual WoW clone? Surely that model has proven to be the best at pulling in numbers? One could even go so far as to claim it's the idea of superheroes that will hold back subscription numbers. Silly, of course, but where do you draw the line?
Now, I'm not saying I don't want CoT to be successful -- but how that success is to be measured is up to MWM. Maybe It would be best for MWM to focus on just reigniting the CoX flames at first, make sure they get that right, and then expand over time once the foundation is secure? I dunno -- it's up to them. If there's one thing I do have faith in here, it's the vision of the MWM folks.
Spurn all ye kindle.
As my handle implies, I love comics. LOTS of comics. To me the important part is good character development, good plot, good writing. Alan Moore took the Swamp Thing, one of the least interesting characters in comics and made it GOOD by telling a good story. It's not about the powers or even the costume...it's about the characters and what they DO that makes or breaks a comic.
Daredevil: Anybody ELSE wear an all-red costume and get away with it? Not many...
Captain America: The world's best acrobat and hand-to-hand combatant...with a shield. But you see the courage and honor...not the costume and the abilities.
Batman: Because he's the G**-****ed Batman...that's why!
Iron Man: Super-wealthy genius expresses himself by building a suit of armor...for himself. Really...HE'S the most trusted person with this thing? But he's fallible and Robert Downey Jr has played him very well.
Magneto: Typical meglomaniacal bad guy right? Nope...just the REALLY powerful guy who is tired of Mutants being treated like freaks. If Geronimo or Sitting Bull had been powerful mutants we'd now be living in Europe and trading with the Collection of Native American Territories. They gave him a reason to be a bad guy.
Mr Freeze (as retold in the animated version of Batman): Wow...from cheap comic hack to a guy you could ALMOST sympathize with. Now if they could just do the same thing to his lame cousin Captain Cold...
Superman was great when he started. A tragic tale of an orphaned child (cue tragic music), literally the sole survivor of his race, rocketed to a strange planet where he has to hide his identity from the people around him. He was tough, strong, fast and fearless. The kind of straightforward guy anyone could look up to. Then 70 years of writing ran away with the character until he became a clown...a parody of every comic hero complete with a secret lair and enough gadgets to make Batman jealous. It happens...writers run out of ideas. The point is that it's the stories and the characters in them that will make the game interesting for me. Sure, the combats should be fun. They HAVE to be fun or else nobody will play. But how many times can you mash the same ten buttons before it gets dull?
That's what I think we're all hoping for here. We want the best of CoX but we don't want to lose that feel...the love of the story that made us play in the first place.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I don't usually do this but MY THREAD GOT QUOTED BY A REDNAME!
Ok...just wanted to get that out... Carry on.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Setting/Story/Background I was not saying to put the influence in, merely the art side of things (like Empowered).
While I love learning the lore and even sticking to it as much as possible when easy enough to do, there's enough players out there who don't care about all the lore. I knew plenty of long time CoH players, who knew only the basics of the lore.
Even I could find some new O.O OMG I didn't know lore before it was shut down, and I tried to learn the lore.
But while they might be able to get by with a small player base, I'd like to see them exceed with a bigger one. :) More so, so we don't see "The game is empty!"
This is purely a guess because I have no inside information but... I think if they want to, the CoT devs will be able to create the next opium den for hardcore ex CoX addicts (myself included). I use that term because an addict will overlook many flaws just to enjoy their perception of a pleasurable experience. That audience has a limited population. It seems to me though from reading Kickstarter info that the plan is to leverage technology to make the successor more universally appealing than the predecessor. The genre is indeed hot so the potential is there for huge success. But, as Positron has said, ideas are one thing, much more will depend on implementation. I would add that implementation includes business savvy and the level of desire to make what could be a painful transition from "family" to "enterprise".
indeed.
Think my concerns are really towards everything, Ciy Of Heroes / Villains didnt need brand spanking new grpahics or engines to make everything seem so realistic. It was unique in its own great way and when ever you wanted to create and new character yes some people loved going for the strongest combo's for PvE or PvP but i think the great thing is you can literally build any power set you just about wanted, customise your costume to near enough what you wanted, and i would hate to see that aspect just dissapear, i loved how the maps works, how easy it was to travel from zone to zone, loading times were quick, PvP zones were easily accessible with different zones for different level's, i loved the Task Forces that were available, only improvement i would of made was a queuing systems for the ones that i needed to finish, i loved how you earned badges cus it was genuine fun to collect badges as it felt a sense of personal achievement and showed to other players as well, There was always something, you could solo missions if you couldn't find a team, i loved the whole Ouroboros aspect on being able to go back and do mission you had previously missed, There are so many great aspects about the game to list that i would hate all of this to just dissapear, i Understand that this game is not going to be a carbon copy of City Of Heroes / Villains, but i would not want it to drift too far apart from the game that we all loved so much. I really love the story lines in SWTOR i think the way they have brought the player into the story line and engross them in the mission to with the way your decisions turn out later game play is really interesting and i love that, and i think that would be a really interesting aspect to bring into CoT and would envelop the players into the game rather than just clicking... Next, Next, Yes, Okay Doc I'll Do It, Complete Mission, and not actually reading what was going on, The whole actually talking to your contacts is really unique and good and only SWTOR is doing this.
If you want to talk to me more Terlin then please feel free to private message me and i will try talk to you in more detail or arrange a skype call or something =)
City Of Heroes
December 2007 - The End =(
Global - Super James
Server - Defiant (EU)
Can't I be both?
I'm excited to see the community pick up the pieces and try to rebuild a brand new city to explore and defend/conquer. That this project even exists, let alone looks like it might actually end up becoming a real game is very exciting. to be even a small part of a community that after losing their focal point went "Well if THAT is how it's going to be, we'll make our OWN!" How can that not be exiting to follow?
But i will admit to being worried, since an MMO is a gargantuan endeavor. I really, really hope the dev team is up to the challenge. I put money on them being so. I belive they'll pull it off, but game development is a tricky, tricky business at best. The strong turnout at the Kickstarter is a very promising start, though. Even if that's not enough, raising over 600.000 on the mere promise of a spiritual successor to City of Heroes has got to have turned some heads here and there.
So, yeah. Excited to see this project actually existing. Worried how it'll turn out in the end. But confident that it will most likely work out.
I'm guardedly optimistic :)
The reality is, we all reflect on City of X with those fond memories. I started playing in April 2004 and along the way made some great friends and had some wildly funny nights of entertainment. So if just a handful of those people turn up to welcome this new incarnation, the rest is just window dressing. I shudder to think of the expectations being placed on this brave group of volunteers. I read through the forums periodically and feel overwhelmed at the barrage of requests and diverging opinions that this group has agreed to navigate through. We all tossed our nickels in the jar because we have faith in the culture that was cultivated at City of X. We're all still hanging around, so seems pretty likely the "feel" of the place will be familiar at least.
I think it's important to view this project as something quite separate from COX. It is going to be a different game, no question about it. ...and that is excellent news. It got to the point on COX where finding loopholes became my favourite pass-time :) COT will have the benefit of a committed and experienced player base from the get go and a dev team who is truly interested in community and collaboration. Like any new game it will be full of bugs and bumps, but we've all gone through that before and this time it's like the struggles you have with your family instead of that one night stand who keeps calling ;)
Everytime someones say CoT all i can think about is Circle Of Thorns! And yes was funny trying to find things to do in the game but thats what made it great, me and a group of friends were he first to discover fun you could have with the Ouroboros portal, if you did it correctly you could stack them next to each other and make a bridge of light and actually walk along it. We started under the atlas and ended at the Sewer Network lol. It was so much fun back then. i loved my Katana-Regen so much could solo just about anything, was funny standing toe 2 toe with AV's when you normally needed a team of 4 or more to do it, I love Task Forces and the whole badge system. Just so many good memories.
City Of Heroes
December 2007 - The End =(
Global - Super James
Server - Defiant (EU)
I loved the game just the way it was. However I do not expect CoT to be the exact same thing. I am hoping for similarity, but also for it to be "more" - especially graphicswise - than the original game was.
I want hands that are not glorified mittens, and hair that moves at least some of the time. I want things that we could not have in CoX. I liked how missions and contacts were set up, how you enhanced your character, all of that. I liked the powers trees.
One of the things I most want to do is remake my alts, only this time they are even more beautiful than they were. One thing I am upset about, is losing my Bane Spider. I don't think I'll be able to remake him in CoT, and he was one of my favorite characters.
I am not sure how much, if at all, AE hurt the game. I admit to believing that is an aspect that CoT should not be in a rush to introduce.
You know what I really think hurt the game? Going FTP. Most everyone stopped paying a sub, and I think that began the final death spiral. [I paid a sub to the end, because I did not want to lose access to my characters, or to the Incarnate system.]
Going from Mercedes Lackey (and has been given the "not wrong" nod by a few others who were involved with the Task Force: Hail Mary project), the number of subscribers went from approx 60K pre Freedom to 40K post Freedom (and shortly before the announcement of CoX Closure, so that CANNOT be viewed as a reason for subscriber loss)
i do think AE took everything away from the game, everytime i logged on all i could see was "Farming in AE looking for 3 people to join" or 500mil inf 1-50 in 7 hours or something daft like that, it took away from teams wanting to do normal missions and task forces, thats how it was when i joined, Power Leveling wasn't a thing back then and people played the game and thats what made CoH, it was the interactive team side, how people communicated and had a laugh within the teams, this gave you friends and members you could team with over and over again, not standing in atlas park going "Looking for free farm" so if your telling me AE made the game better i dont feel it did. It took teams away from doing the proper mission, it took away the communicating within teams and making new friends, organising task forces, SG's then became farming SG's just getting toons to 50 because someone they could. So for me AE ruined everything, impossible to find teams, meeting new people didnt happen, and pretty much all my time after AE was spent solo'ing missions because too many people were interested in farming toons to 50, especially the one that were seriously good in PvP, farming for recipes and just inf. It took over everything, this is why i feel it ruined CoX i dont know how many people done it but on our server we used to do SG Raids, and they were the most funnest thing ever!!!!!!! for me RWZ was one of the best issues they bought out and Lady Grey TF was alot of fun to do, i loved the task forces that were actually a challange to do, but everything got boring cus AE made it tooo easy to access billions of influence and recipes to pimp out your toons with little effort To me a game should not work like that.
City Of Heroes
December 2007 - The End =(
Global - Super James
Server - Defiant (EU)
So, we lost 20,000 subscribers after we went FTP and yet the FTP thing CANNOT have caused subscriber loss? Is Freedom not when we went FTP?
basically.
It's the Announcement of CoX Closure which cannot be viewed as a factor in the subscriber loss. Barring time travel, at least.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
The announcement of CoH's closure happened months after the game went F2P.
Is it at all plausible that the game was no longer competitive?
I considered graphics outdated
The expansion model was not one based on selling development (they surely had plans for new stories etc, but not for SELLING it..)
There was no marketing actions to attract new users
There were new games that users found more attractive
If a doctor cannot save a patient from disease this is not proof that they are a bad doctor. Sure it's easy to blame them the doctor but after the anger wears off you have to go and actually review the data and you may realize that the doctor did a good job treating what they could even if the end result was a loss. The F2P change stunk of desperation and consumers had good noses, but Free to play is not inherently desperate. Blaming F2P is misguided.
Going freemium did make the game more money than being subscription only. After free to play failed its primary objective (perhaps to attract more {new and returning} users) the studio concluded there was no way to curb the stop-loss they announced a shut down of production and closure. While I do not agree with the full closure (due to the loss of jobs, faith and image) I can certainly understand halting/stalling development.
Crowd Control Enthusiast
I thought that on first (and second!) reading, but Gangrel was actually supporting your point. The "cannot" was in reference to the closure announcement -- Gangrel was ensuring no one tried to blame the sub loss on the closure announcement instead of Freedom, where the blame truly lies.
Spurn all ye kindle.
Yeah, sorry.. It made sense to me, but re-reading it back a few hours later, I can see where the confusion is possible.
Cinnder has it right though.
Exactly.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
What you actually seem to be saying (and with which I agree) is that FARMERS took everything away from the game, AE just made it easier.
As a hardcore RPer, and the Storyline Lead officer for a guild for some time, I found the ability to tell my own stories, ones that related to the guild and its members, and the ability to create my own enemies a total rush, and a very powerful tool. The bland, generic newspaper missions and 'done them till I puke' TFs just didn't cut it for ongoing storytelling- that is, they could be used, but nowhere as effectively.
Then the farmers and PLers got involved, driving the devs to (rightly or wrongly) concentrate more and more on ganking the AE to maintain the economy and levelling curve as they envisioned it, rather than expanding it, thereby screwing those of us who were using the tool AS INTENDED. You can (and I did, loudly) argue that they should have seen it coming and been prepared for it, but oh well, water under the bridge.
AE didn't ruin the game. Part of the player base did. *tongue in cheek- slightly*. Before AE there were farming runs, and there will be once again in CoT once people find out what the optimum drop points/mobs are. I would rather, personally, not have my experience curtailed because some people want to abuse a feature to rush through to level cap and then whinge that 'there's nothing to do'- and I hope to see mission design tools in Cot, preferrably more robust ones than the AE. Maybe not at release, no, but along the road.
I am [b] not[/b] an altoholic! I can stop whenever I want. No, really...
I have to disagree with you CW. You make it sound like ganking the rewards of AE was a bad thing. If used as you said you liked to use it, should mean what the rewards are shouldn't be an issue.
So what if you'd get better XP on a dev created mission. So what if you'd get better drops on a dev created mission. I see no reason why AE had to have the same bit of XP or more, if the idea behind it was for people to create their own story missions.
Lots of people kept saying "I want to create my own stories! That is the most important thing!" but tell them they won't level as fast and it becomes "Nevermind then!"
They should have left the rewards and XP low. Not saying they should've gotten rid of them, just kept them low, so people could level with them, but it would be a slower process, after all, it's the story that's more important, right? Not the speed of leveling.
A bit worried when I first saw the [url=www.cityoftitans.com]home page[[/url], and the first article doesn't have a date, and the second article is dated from last November..
Entries from the [url=http://tppdevblog.blogspot.com/]blog[/url] should go there instead, since progress is the product at this stage.
Speaking of which, less links to forum threads please. It looks like fluff, and if I want to read the forum, I can do that myself.