it is the most repetitive game ive ever played. you fight the same crap over and over and over and over and over in the same areas over and over. the character custom job is outstanding. powers are fun, travel powers rule. other then that, boring
Yeah, and that is what makes it so tragic. I have stopped and returned to CoX many times. I have 7 or 8 level 50s. So many things about the game are great... except for the total lack of things to DO.
When friends ask me "How can you play that game? What is fun about it" I make the following analogy:
City of Heroes is like owning a Ferrari that is really fun to drive, but you are only allowed to drive it in a parking lot.
QFT
Plus I'd like to add that the instanced level design is some of the worst laid out levels I've played through in any game. People who've played through the offices, warehouses, sewers, etc. know what I mean. And for a superhero game, the superhero characters actually feel less powerful as they level since the enemies are much harder to take out. The first ten to fifteen levels are the best in the CoX games. After that, it's time to move on.
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
I played CoH for approx a year and a half and CoV for another 6 months or so and what turned me away was the lack of end game content.
Once you hit max level you can either stand under the Globe and have contests to give away influence to the noobs or you can stand around and let everyone admire your costume.
Even the PvP at that time was short and pointless.
It really boiled down to here's the city and all that it contains and once you've done the instances that's all there is.
Unfortunately CoH/CoV in it's basic development and concept is not an MMORPG that can keep someone's attention for more than 18-24 months.
I played the game for about 6 months and enjoyed that time... The graphics were passable and the combat was fun, the travel system itself is worth the price of admission, although a little more speed to flight would be nice.
The things I see holding the game back, are the instances all being a too similar and the lack of loot. I understand that the loot thing is by design, and a personal prefercnce... but for me, there just wasn't enough reward for quests. I know plenty of games are successful and fun without having loot drops, but not many MMOs are... people are accustomed to a little bit of shiny loot... it's hard to come from another game and feel satisfied without that tangible reward at the end of a mission, or even just occasionally surprising you as a good random drop.
I still play the game, and I like it, but I'd like it more if I could do some exploring, and if there were some more mechanics to promote socializing.
The combat is fun, pvp is good, team interaction good, but the gameplay has become predictable. I'm hoping that this will change with the mission creation tool for players. That should add some spice to things, and I'd really like to customize some missions for friends.
On top of this though, I'd still like to see more exploring and socializing.
Some supergroups use base raids for "kickball" tournaments. Those are actually fun lol. Maybe some superhero team and solo olympics would be a change from bashing mobs in instances and pvp.
I like the auction house too btw; it added a new dimension to the game, and I think they did it well.
Also, regarding your Martial Arts / Super Reflexes Scrapper, that's going to be an amazing character in just a few levels. At level 22 you can buy Single Origin Enhancements that will make your Scrapper not only able to solo, but very, very powerful. Super Reflexes is probably the latest blooming defense set for Scrappers, but when it does bloom it is amazing. For the later levels, it's arguably the best PVE armor in the game.
True, martial arts is a good primary power set if you want to solo, but yeah reflexes is only really good at the higher levels. A better lower level solo combination might be martial arts/regeneration. You get a couple of self heals at fairly low levels, and mez protection at around 13 I think.
I have a katana/regeneration scrapper and I can solo anywhere I want really. He's fun in groups too, and I often get invites to teams if they're looking for a damage dealer. I've turned him into a pvp build for the most part, and that really works well. Martial arts gives you more disorient tho -_^. Katana's good for knocking people up, down, back etc. lol. Nice animations too, and cool unlockable weapons.
There simply isn't enough content. In the end, however good it is, you run out of things to do. Actually compared to other MMO's, you run out quite near the beginning. There is a monthly fee for this game, if you run out of new content you can always pay that fee to someone else and play theirs instead.
Did I mention the nerfs? Nerfs suck. People you nerf won't re-subscribe if you have lost their trust.
what in the world are you talking about? have you played COx since i6 even?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
There simply isn't enough content. In the end, however good it is, you run out of things to do. Actually compared to other MMO's, you run out quite near the beginning.
Near as I can figure, he may be talking about one of the several spots where as you play through the game your contacts run out of missions for you and the only thing you can do to level is either radio missions or other repeatable content, which does honestly get boring very quickly.
I ran into hickups like this several times as I was playing through the game. I would get to some level like, say, level 38, but all my contacts would be out of missions and for whatever reason wouldn't introduce me to any new contacts until level 40. So for two levels, I've got exactly jack squat to do except radio missions and other repeatable stuff. But then you hit level 40, get intrudoced to a dozen new contacts all at once, each with tons of missions and several story arcs and you are all like "where was all of this stuff 2 levels ago when I was bored out of my mind?"
Maybe this guy ran into one such snag early on when he was playing and figured that was all there was as far as content goes in the game. A little hasty of a decision on his part but I could see how it could happen. I can't really blame CoH for having these things though. Nearly every RPG and MMO I've ever played has suffered from some from of "slow down" at certain levels like this. And some of them were far worse than CoH. (A great example being Tabula Rasa, where missions started to become further and fewer between around level 25 and only got worse as you got higher in level.)
Yea I have a a big gripe with not really feeling super enough. It just seems to me like you're given a mission, go into a door, alienate yourself from the outside world and rescue the dumb mayor or some random NPC. Or even get the chance to clear the whole building just for information that never seems epic enough. What would be cool are open missions where you can enter a building and someone can already be in there and you can help or try to run ahead and get your kills. If you have to rescue someone or click on said box that looks nothing like an old artifact, have them respawn in like 30 sec after so others can get it as well. Hate to say it, but that's what I like about WoW.
Or, have it so when you rescue someone they take you outside and tell you personally where the boss is, or gang that kidnapped them. You then don't need to talk to a stupid contact and can feel like you're really doing justice to the person you just saved. Or maybe they need to get to other zone back to family and they fly with you or some kind of tag along thing so you don't just see them run off and vanish after 5 seconds.
Because I would so love to come back, I love the whole comic genre more than fantasy, high elf crap.
As an x 5 year DAOC vet and WAR beta tester....I found it just another pve game(with classes poorly done) ,some weak rvr thrown in and the most minimal crafting possible.
World too small. They've made it bigger, certainly, but its still TINY compared to the variety available in other MMORPGs. IMHO they killed the game when they made the first expansion a standalone that added very little to the original game and actually split the available player population in half.
I personally still find it annoying that the missions are focused on stories outside of the character. This sounds like a wierd complaint, but comics are very character centered. And the game makes no attempt to create story arcs ABOUT the character. They have the best character editing tools in the MMORPG world and they couldn't create a stable of 80 to 100 villains to act as enemies. Its sounds hard but its just a matter of
1)Making costumes (5 minutes per villain, max)
2)Choosing a few powers
3)Applying the AI for a melee fighter, dps blaster, or controller.
There are also a lot of residual memories from people who played it in its unfinished form. It was originally a very grindy, forced grouping game, with many of the classes flawed. Three things that really turn people off.
If WoW didn't exist, I think CoH might be a lot more successful. But it does. It made classes that were frankly more superheroic than CoX's, a bigger world, and more interesting stories.
I'm not currently playing CoH/CoV but, I played it when both first came out - I enjoyed it each time and so did my friends. Although I have to say even though it's super fun it seems that the end game is lacking a bit. So I would max a char and not get enough satisfaction end game. Now, it has been about half a year since I last played and things could be different now. I can't imagine that I won't come back and try this again as it was super fun each time I played it.
Issue 12's sync bug that left thousands of players unable to interact with anything in the game (no movement, no combat, no crafting, selling, opening doors etc.) for about a month straight. The bug was reported in beta testing, and allowed to go live anyways.
Issue 13's promise of a mission creator for players, then the announcement that this is being delayed, and that we are getting a pve and pvp game revamp instead. We're told that putting customized bosses in the mission creator will take too long. Apparently a game revamp takes less time...
Issue 13's hated pvp revamp. Melee toons lose their mez protection, completely. This leaves them completely vulnerable to holds, stuns etc.. Tanks lose teleport. This leaves stone tanks unable to move without dropping their best protective power. All heroes and villains have movement suppressed in the pvp zones. Flying, ranged toons with mez will reign supreme. Imagine a held melee toon, with no mez protection on the receiving end of spam holds by flying dominators. All builds with powers that will be disabled or supressed will become junk, with all of their expensive crafted enhancements sets rendered useless.
The reason for the hated pvp revamp--appeal to new players. Miller has said he's aware that current players won't like the changes, but they're making them anyways. Lighthouse said the changes were not made based on current player input. When criticized for this, he then said that they were. One of these statements is obviously untrue. Players feel lied to on top of being given an unwanted revamp.
Why it wasn't super big before:
Initially because of repetitive gameplay: enter instanced missions, kill all bad guys, click glowie (sometimes), rinse and repeat. Some variety was introduced in the new villain/hero co-op zones. This was nice.
Lack of crafting, buying, selling: fixed with the introduction of the invention system and auction house.
Lack of open world exploration. The game is heavily instanced, which isn't all bad, but doesn't have a balance of open world exploration in it. Each zone feels like a limited box that can be crossed very quickly with little interesting things to see or discover along the way.
Lack of social elements. The game is very action oriented, which is nice, but lacks any mechanisms that promote social connection during down time. There is a dance club, but it's been empty for years, with no reason to go in, apart from arena combat in a small section.
Recent performance and treatment of players (Issue 12 and 13) has been poor, and issues like exploration and socialization remain unaddressed.
ArcAngel3, given that your first paragraph (regarding Issue 12's sync bug), is 95% exageration, the credibility for your analysis is blown out of the water.
The sync bug was cleared before 12 went live, but a patch reintroduced it into the game. For most people, it only interfered with UI screens where they displayed real-time changes in influence, salvage counts, prestige amounts, xp totals and so on. These defecits were especially noticeable at the Auction Houses, the Tailor Shops, and while in Base Edit mode in your SuperGroup or VillainGroup Bases. Other people reported visual discrepancies on their screens, particularly those with less acute video cards. A toon might have been teleported away, for instance, but still visable standing in place on your monitor. And all of this occurred for THREE WHOLE DAYS. As soon as the bug was detected, a system message was issued by the devs in all channels, and repeated at log-ins, with a command code to correct the problem on a case by case basis until they could wipe it from the game.
I agree with several of the first respondants. City of Heroes/City of Villains is not as huge in popularity as some of the other games out there because it is a sub-genere, a secialized niche, and it was never heavily markeeted. I think many adults see the comcic-book look and perceive it as a kids toy. And while it is true that Cryptic cum NCSoft struggles with strength of content, that area of the game gets better by leaps and bounds with every new release. To say that the game is not what it could be because of WoW however is not entirely accurate. They are very different games and seem to attract a different caliber of player.
I don't know. There are always different reasons. However, I would have to guess that not everyone is attracted to the setting of this game.
Some people still like the idea of Heros and Villians, however the trend lately is straying toward uncommon heros and villians that isn't even villians. This points to the direction of more generic type of world where it is easier to express those ideals. This is really just a guess however, I am sure there are other reasons.
If I said to you.. "hey lets make a game with no loot, no pvp, and no endgame," well I image that you'd tell me it would never work. If I told you that I was rebalance the game a couple months after release and piss everyone off.. you'd probably tell me that its doomed.
I've played CoX on and off for close to 3 years now, and I love the feel of combat in the game. I think its fun, but it loses my interest after a month or so, and leaves me feeling like there should be more to it.
I think that if the game that you see now had been the game that launched.. it would have done a lot better. A lot of things were too little too late when they were finally added into the game. I think that the game still lacks meaningful pvp and endgame.
If I said to you.. "hey lets make a game with no loot, no pvp, and no endgame," well I image that you'd tell me it would never work. If I told you that I was rebalance the game a couple months after release and piss everyone off.. you'd probably tell me that its doomed. I've played CoX on and off for close to 3 years now, and I love the feel of combat in the game. I think its fun, but it loses my interest after a month or so, and leaves me feeling like there should be more to it. I think that if the game that you see now had been the game that launched.. it would have done a lot better. A lot of things were too little too late when they were finally added into the game. I think that the game still lacks meaningful pvp and endgame.
If Cryptic had held CoH in the barn until it was the game we see now, would you be willing to pay a subscription fee equal to the 4 yrs of missed revenue when it was perfectly playable and capable of earning income for the company? Or maybe now that it is a better game, are you willing to pay more?
All MMORPGs are a work in progress. If you find one that seems to come out of the gate better than others of equal caliber, it is most likely because those devs share the same priorities that happen to meet your specific style of play. That doesn't mean all the other games suck, only that they aren't a good match for you.
If I said to you.. "hey lets make a game with no loot, no pvp, and no endgame," well I image that you'd tell me it would never work. If I told you that I was rebalance the game a couple months after release and piss everyone off.. you'd probably tell me that its doomed. I've played CoX on and off for close to 3 years now, and I love the feel of combat in the game. I think its fun, but it loses my interest after a month or so, and leaves me feeling like there should be more to it. I think that if the game that you see now had been the game that launched.. it would have done a lot better. A lot of things were too little too late when they were finally added into the game. I think that the game still lacks meaningful pvp and endgame.
If Cryptic had held CoH in the barn until it was the game we see now, would you be willing to pay a subscription fee equal to the 4 yrs of missed revenue when it was perfectly playable and capable of earning income for the company? Or maybe now that it is a better game, are you willing to pay more?
All MMORPGs are a work in progress. If you find one that seems to come out of the gate better than others of equal caliber, it is most likely because those devs share the same priorities that happen to meet your specific style of play. That doesn't mean all the other games suck, only that they aren't a good match for you.
Pfffttt the agruement about subscription fees is not even close to being rational. The question was asked as to why this game isn't super big, and I answered it as accuratly as possible. I agree that MMOs are a work in progress, but the features in the game had little appeal outside of the niche market, and the ones that make a game competitve came too late.
If I had a nickle for everytime I've heard someone respond to criticism on the CoX forums with the statement "this game is not for you" .. I'd be rich. Apperantly its not for a lot of people, and it doesn't make it a bad game, but its certainly nowhere near as successful as it could have been if they would have had a little broader vision with gameplay features.
ArcAngel3, given that your first paragraph (regarding Issue 12's sync bug), is 95% exageration, the credibility for your analysis is blown out of the water. The sync bug was cleared before 12 went live, but a patch reintroduced it into the game. For most people, it only interfered with UI screens where they displayed real-time changes in influence, salvage counts, prestige amounts, xp totals and so on. These defecits were especially noticeable at the Auction Houses, the Tailor Shops, and while in Base Edit mode in your SuperGroup or VillainGroup Bases. Other people reported visual discrepancies on their screens, particularly those with less acute video cards. A toon might have been teleported away, for instance, but still visable standing in place on your monitor. And all of this occurred for THREE WHOLE DAYS. As soon as the bug was detected, a system message was issued by the devs in all channels, and repeated at log-ins, with a command code to correct the problem on a case by case basis until they could wipe it from the game. I agree with several of the first respondants. City of Heroes/City of Villains is not as huge in popularity as some of the other games out there because it is a sub-genere, a secialized niche, and it was never heavily markeeted. I think many adults see the comcic-book look and perceive it as a kids toy. And while it is true that Cryptic cum NCSoft struggles with strength of content, that area of the game gets better by leaps and bounds with every new release. To say that the game is not what it could be because of WoW however is not entirely accurate. They are very different games and seem to attract a different caliber of player.
My points about sync bug are accurate. I'm not sure where you were, or why you would even think to say the bug lasted only 3 days. Also, read the hundreds of posts on the official boards where people are completely unable to interact with the map. They couldn't move or do anything. This is just the way it was for many people. It was in fact players that discovered a work around for the sync bug. If you had teleport self, it would get you back in sync with the map--but only temporarily. It took a couple of weeks for the devs to get something like that on test. If you'd remember correctly, it was called the "/sync" command. This then went live after it was tested successfully, and the code was further modified to make the use of /sync less necessary. This was a long drawn out process, that I helped troubleshoot, along with many of my friends who were affected by it.
In fact it was so serious that the friends of mine who were directly affected received a month's worth of subscription time reimbursed. Why would they get a month of time refunded if the bug only lasted 3 days? The refund was a nice idea, I'll give them that, but it came too late for some players. Also, those that had multiple accounts affected for the full month, only got one account refunded, which was not so helpful.
So, you can say it's inaccurate if you like, but you're simply wrong. It was a serious bug that rendered people out of "sync" with the map server, and it lasted a month's time. These are all just statements of fact. I'm sorry if you're not aware of them, but that doesn't change their reality.
The rest of my analysis is equally factual. If you don't believe that, check the forums now again regarding the pvp revamp, and check the server populations. Friday night and all of them light, exept for one on medium. That's the first time I've ever seen that on a Friday night. If you don't believe that, check the damage control interviews being done by Miller to try to stop the exodus.
The first step to correcting a problem is admitting it exists. Unfortuntely, it's this first step that seems to prove most difficult for some.
My points about sync bug are accurate. I'm not sure where you were, or why you would even think to say the bug lasted only 3 days. Also, read the hundreds of posts on the official boards where people are completely unable to interact with the map. They couldn't move or do anything. This is just the way it was for many people. It was in fact players that discovered a work around for the sync bug. If you had teleport self, it would get you back in sync with the map--but only temporarily. It took a couple of weeks for the devs to get something like that on test. If you'd remember correctly, it was called the "/sync" command. This then went live after it was tested successfully, and the code was further modified to make the use of /sync less necessary. This was a long drawn out process, that I helped troubleshoot, along with many of my friends who were affected by it. In fact it was so serious that the friends of mine who were directly affected received a month's worth of subscription time reimbursed. Why would they get a month of time refunded if the bug only lasted 3 days? The refund was a nice idea, I'll give them that, but it came too late for some players. Also, those that had multiple accounts affected for the full month, only got one account refunded, which was not so helpful. So, you can say it's inaccurate if you like, but you're simply wrong. It was a serious bug that rendered people out of "sync" with the map server, and it lasted a month's time. These are all just statements of fact. I'm sorry if you're not aware of them, but that doesn't change their reality. The rest of my analysis is equally factual. If you don't believe that, check the forums now again regarding the pvp revamp, and check the server populations. Friday night and all of them light, exept for one on medium. That's the first time I've ever seen that on a Friday night. If you don't believe that, check the damage control interviews being done by Miller to try to stop the exodus. The first step to correcting a problem is admitting it exists. Unfortuntely, it's this first step that seems to prove most difficult for some.
Dunno arc,
I looked at the CoX forums and I don't see anyone talking about this stuff at all, at least not to the extent you are making it out to be, I might have missed something.
I also looked at NCSofts Q3 report and CoX is down slightly in subs but its been sorta dropping for the last 2 years. Q3 124k vs Q2 137k. (peak of 172k in Sept 2006) Concurrency of users is down slightly. (17k down to 13k) but last quarter (Q2) they had a bunch of "open weekends"
My points about sync bug are accurate. I'm not sure where you were, or why you would even think to say the bug lasted only 3 days. Also, read the hundreds of posts on the official boards where people are completely unable to interact with the map. They couldn't move or do anything. This is just the way it was for many people. It was in fact players that discovered a work around for the sync bug. If you had teleport self, it would get you back in sync with the map--but only temporarily. It took a couple of weeks for the devs to get something like that on test. If you'd remember correctly, it was called the "/sync" command. This then went live after it was tested successfully, and the code was further modified to make the use of /sync less necessary. This was a long drawn out process, that I helped troubleshoot, along with many of my friends who were affected by it. In fact it was so serious that the friends of mine who were directly affected received a month's worth of subscription time reimbursed. Why would they get a month of time refunded if the bug only lasted 3 days? The refund was a nice idea, I'll give them that, but it came too late for some players. Also, those that had multiple accounts affected for the full month, only got one account refunded, which was not so helpful. So, you can say it's inaccurate if you like, but you're simply wrong. It was a serious bug that rendered people out of "sync" with the map server, and it lasted a month's time. These are all just statements of fact. I'm sorry if you're not aware of them, but that doesn't change their reality. The rest of my analysis is equally factual. If you don't believe that, check the forums now again regarding the pvp revamp, and check the server populations. Friday night and all of them light, exept for one on medium. That's the first time I've ever seen that on a Friday night. If you don't believe that, check the damage control interviews being done by Miller to try to stop the exodus. The first step to correcting a problem is admitting it exists. Unfortuntely, it's this first step that seems to prove most difficult for some.
Dunno arc,
I looked at the CoX forums and I don't see anyone talking about this stuff at all, at least not to the extent you are making it out to be, I might have missed something.
I also looked at NCSofts Q3 report and CoX is down slightly in subs but its been sorta dropping for the last 2 years. Q3 124k vs Q2 137k. (peak of 172k in Sept 2006) Concurrency of users is down slightly. (17k down to 13k) but last quarter (Q2) they had a bunch of "open weekends"
For your reading pleasure, just a very small sample of all the wth are you doing to our game threads regarding Issue 13.
Also, you won't the sub hit in quarterly reports that have already been published. People either just left in closed beta (many did) or are now leaving in open beta. You may see the numbers next report.
People aren't leaving because of change though. People are leaving because the devs asked for feedback, ignored it, then said they are making these changes to appeal to new players and don't really care if current players have their game ruined.
Regarding the sync bug, you'll have to look months back in the forums to see the posts about that. It has been many months since the last content patch. Another complaint. This is one of the longest times the game has gone without a content patch, and it's a quest-based linear game. Now that a patch is finally coming, the anticipated content is being pushed back, and an unwanted revamp is being pushed through.
P.S. Almost missed the largest thread on the PvP revamp, is around 300 PAGES long at this point. You'll find most of your shocked and angry, WTH!?! posts here:
For those that don't want to take the time to sift through the linked threads, here are some samples:
1) I have just returned to the game after a couple of month’s illness to find many of my online friends (PVE and PVP alike) who have closed their accounts and left the game for good. Every time I asked why someone has left, I get more or less the same answer 'issue 13 and the many changes to the game' and after I read them I can fully understand why now.
To be honest my jaw dropped when I was reading the issue 13 changes, and I cannot believe that NcSoft are going to carry some of the proposed changes that they call PVP 2 and against the wishes of many long time players of this game.
I know that many people only play PVE and don't want to know or care about PVP in this game, but what you all fail to grasp is that if they are going to do this to the PVP community in this game, then do you really think that they care about the PVE community? I really wonder if many of you will turn around and say that it is acceptable and I will get the usual response 'Well if your not happy just quit!' I don't think so. Whether most of you like it, we are part of this community and love this game as much as you guys, but for different reasons.
I find it strange that before there was pvp in this game I actually hated the thought of it being part of COH. I never fought in the arena or in the zones until I went badge hunting. Omg I got my [censored] kicked from the second I went into Sirens to the minute I left, and I hated every moment of it. If it hadn't been for a stalker on Infinity I wouldn't have gone back either. He sent me a ‘tell’ explaining why and what and actually helped to understand what pvp was about, and how to actually play and survive for a little longer. Many people on infinity will know me as Shana Storm, the noob stormie that took ‘energy’ as her secondary and got her butt kicked daily. I just took the time to learn how to pvp and to stay alive in these zones. Most importantly it became fun to play.
I found most of the pvp community were only too happy to help with my builds or pvp tactics. (People like Stasis, Josef, barbs and many more). I find it sad that good helpful players like them are leaving or have left and it seems like no one from NcSoft actually seems to care.
I urge and plead with you Castle to reconsider the changes to PVP you are making for issue 13. To sit down and listen to all the community regarding the wish list that you asked for the pvp community and discusses the future of PVP so that everyone can enjoy pvp at some level within the game. I just don’t understand why you would ask the community for their input and completely ignore them.
I hereby ask the developers to delay the proposed release date of issue 13 to discuss many of the issue that many players are unhappy with and hopefully come to some agreement that could only be good for all the COX community. Please! : )
Signed
Miss De’Stalker"
2) "Here is the deal, I believe that LH's post was 100 percent the truth, these changes were never intended to be accepted by any of us nor to be made to address any of the things in the PvP wishlist which we were told to come up with so the Devs would have somewhere to look for what changes need to be made to make PvP better in this game and how to maybe entice some of the PvE only players into PvP. 100's of hours went into making that list and voting on which ones needed to be on it and so forth. Now with these changes, of which only 1 was taken from the wishlist, it pretty much shows us that getting us to make the list and telling us those are what would be looked at when they got around to looking at PvP was all just a way to placate us at that time. Heck there was even a ventrillo meeting where many of the Test PvP SG/VG leaders and LH were there and he "wrote" down the concerns that we had about the changes that were being implemented in this issue, again seemingly he took back a blank paper.
No matter what excellent suggestions or feedback anyone from the PvP community has for these changes they are worthless because we were not the targetted group for the PvP changes and damn us for not agreeing with these changes no matter how more broken this system is going to be compared to the pre-i13 system. Also most of these changes even though it was stated they were looking at arena PvP seem to cater towards the fightclub zone type PvPr's with the movement suppression, heal decay, the anti gank code(thank god that was removed) DR etc. In the test arena 8v8 scene, you didn't hear people whining that someone was running and not standing and fighting it out, or that purple sets caused the other team to win. If you were the "target" you are supposed to run(evade) break LOS, do what you can to stay alive, or any of the other things you read in broadcast in the zones which most of the changes seem to address. I could go on and on but this has gone on for too long and it is nothing that has not been said before. "
Both of these examples provide good summaries of what's currently going on in CoH/CoV regarding Issue 13. Anything that fails to acknowledge this reality is likely p.r. spin, outright denial or genuine ignorance (which is understandable, since this is "breaking news" if you will--happening as I type this. It takes time for awareness to spread.)
P.S. Sync bug was a pain in the arse, but it's forgiveable, especially with the refund offer. Delay of mission architect is also understandable, but getting an unwanted revamp instead of the architect is not. I'm sure people would have been much happier to have them get custom bosses into the game instead of the revamps. Also, having players compile a list about how to improve pvp, take 100s of hours to do it, and then say it's irrelevant, well that's just asking for trouble. Tell current players that new potential players are more important than them? That's just self-destructive. With the revamp, it's not too late to turn the game back to a path that treats current players and their progress as valuable. Hopefully the dev and management teams will recognize this, and rethink their current direction. Work with current players, not against them.
Archangel, everytime a new release comes, there are changes, and every time there are changes, there are people who whine and cry. Some of them for good reason. But the very fact that they are in the forums whining shows that they are still in the game. Nonetheless they are entitled to vent. If enough people vent about the same narrowly focused complaint in a polite manner in the appropriate venue, the devs are prone to listen and might consider it a seious flaw. The begging of one player is not going to change the game. One very well written letter sent inadvertantly at just the right time might be a catalyst for such change. The game is after all a business, meant in the end to turn a profit --- some profit even if its not enough profit to please you --- and not given to intentionally piss off its clientelle. However there are no doubt a multitude of factors which play into these decisions that you and I will never know a thing about. NCSoft is after all not a publically held company and we are not on the board of directors. With all of your discontent, are YOU still playing the game?
PS. Synchbug - I had it - for three days. I play every single darn day, and I noticed the thing interferring my game for three whole days. Sorry you were sick for longer. <Shrugs>
Comments
Yeah, and that is what makes it so tragic. I have stopped and returned to CoX many times. I have 7 or 8 level 50s. So many things about the game are great... except for the total lack of things to DO.
When friends ask me "How can you play that game? What is fun about it" I make the following analogy:
City of Heroes is like owning a Ferrari that is really fun to drive, but you are only allowed to drive it in a parking lot.
QFT
Plus I'd like to add that the instanced level design is some of the worst laid out levels I've played through in any game. People who've played through the offices, warehouses, sewers, etc. know what I mean. And for a superhero game, the superhero characters actually feel less powerful as they level since the enemies are much harder to take out. The first ten to fifteen levels are the best in the CoX games. After that, it's time to move on.
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
I got tired of the same type quests over and over again.
I played CoH for approx a year and a half and CoV for another 6 months or so and what turned me away was the lack of end game content.
Once you hit max level you can either stand under the Globe and have contests to give away influence to the noobs or you can stand around and let everyone admire your costume.
Even the PvP at that time was short and pointless.
It really boiled down to here's the city and all that it contains and once you've done the instances that's all there is.
Unfortunately CoH/CoV in it's basic development and concept is not an MMORPG that can keep someone's attention for more than 18-24 months.
That link was hideous.
-Glamis
Threshold RPG - Our World, Your Imagination
http://www.thresholdrpg.com
I played the game for about 6 months and enjoyed that time... The graphics were passable and the combat was fun, the travel system itself is worth the price of admission, although a little more speed to flight would be nice.
The things I see holding the game back, are the instances all being a too similar and the lack of loot. I understand that the loot thing is by design, and a personal prefercnce... but for me, there just wasn't enough reward for quests. I know plenty of games are successful and fun without having loot drops, but not many MMOs are... people are accustomed to a little bit of shiny loot... it's hard to come from another game and feel satisfied without that tangible reward at the end of a mission, or even just occasionally surprising you as a good random drop.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
I still play the game, and I like it, but I'd like it more if I could do some exploring, and if there were some more mechanics to promote socializing.
The combat is fun, pvp is good, team interaction good, but the gameplay has become predictable. I'm hoping that this will change with the mission creation tool for players. That should add some spice to things, and I'd really like to customize some missions for friends.
On top of this though, I'd still like to see more exploring and socializing.
Some supergroups use base raids for "kickball" tournaments. Those are actually fun lol. Maybe some superhero team and solo olympics would be a change from bashing mobs in instances and pvp.
I like the auction house too btw; it added a new dimension to the game, and I think they did it well.
True, martial arts is a good primary power set if you want to solo, but yeah reflexes is only really good at the higher levels. A better lower level solo combination might be martial arts/regeneration. You get a couple of self heals at fairly low levels, and mez protection at around 13 I think.
I have a katana/regeneration scrapper and I can solo anywhere I want really. He's fun in groups too, and I often get invites to teams if they're looking for a damage dealer. I've turned him into a pvp build for the most part, and that really works well. Martial arts gives you more disorient tho -_^. Katana's good for knocking people up, down, back etc. lol. Nice animations too, and cool unlockable weapons.
There simply isn't enough content.
In the end, however good it is, you run out of things to do. Actually compared to other MMO's, you run out quite near the beginning.
There is a monthly fee for this game, if you run out of new content you can always pay that fee to someone else and play theirs instead.
Did I mention the nerfs?
Nerfs suck. People you nerf won't re-subscribe if you have lost their trust.
what in the world are you talking about? have you played COx since i6 even?
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Near as I can figure, he may be talking about one of the several spots where as you play through the game your contacts run out of missions for you and the only thing you can do to level is either radio missions or other repeatable content, which does honestly get boring very quickly.
I ran into hickups like this several times as I was playing through the game. I would get to some level like, say, level 38, but all my contacts would be out of missions and for whatever reason wouldn't introduce me to any new contacts until level 40. So for two levels, I've got exactly jack squat to do except radio missions and other repeatable stuff. But then you hit level 40, get intrudoced to a dozen new contacts all at once, each with tons of missions and several story arcs and you are all like "where was all of this stuff 2 levels ago when I was bored out of my mind?"
Maybe this guy ran into one such snag early on when he was playing and figured that was all there was as far as content goes in the game. A little hasty of a decision on his part but I could see how it could happen. I can't really blame CoH for having these things though. Nearly every RPG and MMO I've ever played has suffered from some from of "slow down" at certain levels like this. And some of them were far worse than CoH. (A great example being Tabula Rasa, where missions started to become further and fewer between around level 25 and only got worse as you got higher in level.)
The History of the Order of The Golden Shields
Yea I have a a big gripe with not really feeling super enough. It just seems to me like you're given a mission, go into a door, alienate yourself from the outside world and rescue the dumb mayor or some random NPC. Or even get the chance to clear the whole building just for information that never seems epic enough. What would be cool are open missions where you can enter a building and someone can already be in there and you can help or try to run ahead and get your kills. If you have to rescue someone or click on said box that looks nothing like an old artifact, have them respawn in like 30 sec after so others can get it as well. Hate to say it, but that's what I like about WoW.
Or, have it so when you rescue someone they take you outside and tell you personally where the boss is, or gang that kidnapped them. You then don't need to talk to a stupid contact and can feel like you're really doing justice to the person you just saved. Or maybe they need to get to other zone back to family and they fly with you or some kind of tag along thing so you don't just see them run off and vanish after 5 seconds.
Because I would so love to come back, I love the whole comic genre more than fantasy, high elf crap.
As an x 5 year DAOC vet and WAR beta tester....I found it just another pve game(with classes poorly done) ,some weak rvr thrown in and the most minimal crafting possible.
World too small. They've made it bigger, certainly, but its still TINY compared to the variety available in other MMORPGs. IMHO they killed the game when they made the first expansion a standalone that added very little to the original game and actually split the available player population in half.
I personally still find it annoying that the missions are focused on stories outside of the character. This sounds like a wierd complaint, but comics are very character centered. And the game makes no attempt to create story arcs ABOUT the character. They have the best character editing tools in the MMORPG world and they couldn't create a stable of 80 to 100 villains to act as enemies. Its sounds hard but its just a matter of
1)Making costumes (5 minutes per villain, max)
2)Choosing a few powers
3)Applying the AI for a melee fighter, dps blaster, or controller.
There are also a lot of residual memories from people who played it in its unfinished form. It was originally a very grindy, forced grouping game, with many of the classes flawed. Three things that really turn people off.
If WoW didn't exist, I think CoH might be a lot more successful. But it does. It made classes that were frankly more superheroic than CoX's, a bigger world, and more interesting stories.
I'm not currently playing CoH/CoV but, I played it when both first came out - I enjoyed it each time and so did my friends. Although I have to say even though it's super fun it seems that the end game is lacking a bit. So I would max a char and not get enough satisfaction end game. Now, it has been about half a year since I last played and things could be different now. I can't imagine that I won't come back and try this again as it was super fun each time I played it.
Why it isn't super big lately:
Issue 12's sync bug that left thousands of players unable to interact with anything in the game (no movement, no combat, no crafting, selling, opening doors etc.) for about a month straight. The bug was reported in beta testing, and allowed to go live anyways.
Issue 13's promise of a mission creator for players, then the announcement that this is being delayed, and that we are getting a pve and pvp game revamp instead. We're told that putting customized bosses in the mission creator will take too long. Apparently a game revamp takes less time...
Issue 13's hated pvp revamp. Melee toons lose their mez protection, completely. This leaves them completely vulnerable to holds, stuns etc.. Tanks lose teleport. This leaves stone tanks unable to move without dropping their best protective power. All heroes and villains have movement suppressed in the pvp zones. Flying, ranged toons with mez will reign supreme. Imagine a held melee toon, with no mez protection on the receiving end of spam holds by flying dominators. All builds with powers that will be disabled or supressed will become junk, with all of their expensive crafted enhancements sets rendered useless.
The reason for the hated pvp revamp--appeal to new players. Miller has said he's aware that current players won't like the changes, but they're making them anyways. Lighthouse said the changes were not made based on current player input. When criticized for this, he then said that they were. One of these statements is obviously untrue. Players feel lied to on top of being given an unwanted revamp.
Why it wasn't super big before:
Initially because of repetitive gameplay: enter instanced missions, kill all bad guys, click glowie (sometimes), rinse and repeat. Some variety was introduced in the new villain/hero co-op zones. This was nice.
Lack of crafting, buying, selling: fixed with the introduction of the invention system and auction house.
Lack of open world exploration. The game is heavily instanced, which isn't all bad, but doesn't have a balance of open world exploration in it. Each zone feels like a limited box that can be crossed very quickly with little interesting things to see or discover along the way.
Lack of social elements. The game is very action oriented, which is nice, but lacks any mechanisms that promote social connection during down time. There is a dance club, but it's been empty for years, with no reason to go in, apart from arena combat in a small section.
Recent performance and treatment of players (Issue 12 and 13) has been poor, and issues like exploration and socialization remain unaddressed.
ArcAngel3, given that your first paragraph (regarding Issue 12's sync bug), is 95% exageration, the credibility for your analysis is blown out of the water.
The sync bug was cleared before 12 went live, but a patch reintroduced it into the game. For most people, it only interfered with UI screens where they displayed real-time changes in influence, salvage counts, prestige amounts, xp totals and so on. These defecits were especially noticeable at the Auction Houses, the Tailor Shops, and while in Base Edit mode in your SuperGroup or VillainGroup Bases. Other people reported visual discrepancies on their screens, particularly those with less acute video cards. A toon might have been teleported away, for instance, but still visable standing in place on your monitor. And all of this occurred for THREE WHOLE DAYS. As soon as the bug was detected, a system message was issued by the devs in all channels, and repeated at log-ins, with a command code to correct the problem on a case by case basis until they could wipe it from the game.
I agree with several of the first respondants. City of Heroes/City of Villains is not as huge in popularity as some of the other games out there because it is a sub-genere, a secialized niche, and it was never heavily markeeted. I think many adults see the comcic-book look and perceive it as a kids toy. And while it is true that Cryptic cum NCSoft struggles with strength of content, that area of the game gets better by leaps and bounds with every new release. To say that the game is not what it could be because of WoW however is not entirely accurate. They are very different games and seem to attract a different caliber of player.
I don't know. There are always different reasons. However, I would have to guess that not everyone is attracted to the setting of this game.
Some people still like the idea of Heros and Villians, however the trend lately is straying toward uncommon heros and villians that isn't even villians. This points to the direction of more generic type of world where it is easier to express those ideals. This is really just a guess however, I am sure there are other reasons.
If I said to you.. "hey lets make a game with no loot, no pvp, and no endgame," well I image that you'd tell me it would never work. If I told you that I was rebalance the game a couple months after release and piss everyone off.. you'd probably tell me that its doomed.
I've played CoX on and off for close to 3 years now, and I love the feel of combat in the game. I think its fun, but it loses my interest after a month or so, and leaves me feeling like there should be more to it.
I think that if the game that you see now had been the game that launched.. it would have done a lot better. A lot of things were too little too late when they were finally added into the game. I think that the game still lacks meaningful pvp and endgame.
If Cryptic had held CoH in the barn until it was the game we see now, would you be willing to pay a subscription fee equal to the 4 yrs of missed revenue when it was perfectly playable and capable of earning income for the company? Or maybe now that it is a better game, are you willing to pay more?
All MMORPGs are a work in progress. If you find one that seems to come out of the gate better than others of equal caliber, it is most likely because those devs share the same priorities that happen to meet your specific style of play. That doesn't mean all the other games suck, only that they aren't a good match for you.
If Cryptic had held CoH in the barn until it was the game we see now, would you be willing to pay a subscription fee equal to the 4 yrs of missed revenue when it was perfectly playable and capable of earning income for the company? Or maybe now that it is a better game, are you willing to pay more?
All MMORPGs are a work in progress. If you find one that seems to come out of the gate better than others of equal caliber, it is most likely because those devs share the same priorities that happen to meet your specific style of play. That doesn't mean all the other games suck, only that they aren't a good match for you.
Pfffttt the agruement about subscription fees is not even close to being rational. The question was asked as to why this game isn't super big, and I answered it as accuratly as possible. I agree that MMOs are a work in progress, but the features in the game had little appeal outside of the niche market, and the ones that make a game competitve came too late.
If I had a nickle for everytime I've heard someone respond to criticism on the CoX forums with the statement "this game is not for you" .. I'd be rich. Apperantly its not for a lot of people, and it doesn't make it a bad game, but its certainly nowhere near as successful as it could have been if they would have had a little broader vision with gameplay features.
My points about sync bug are accurate. I'm not sure where you were, or why you would even think to say the bug lasted only 3 days. Also, read the hundreds of posts on the official boards where people are completely unable to interact with the map. They couldn't move or do anything. This is just the way it was for many people. It was in fact players that discovered a work around for the sync bug. If you had teleport self, it would get you back in sync with the map--but only temporarily. It took a couple of weeks for the devs to get something like that on test. If you'd remember correctly, it was called the "/sync" command. This then went live after it was tested successfully, and the code was further modified to make the use of /sync less necessary. This was a long drawn out process, that I helped troubleshoot, along with many of my friends who were affected by it.
In fact it was so serious that the friends of mine who were directly affected received a month's worth of subscription time reimbursed. Why would they get a month of time refunded if the bug only lasted 3 days? The refund was a nice idea, I'll give them that, but it came too late for some players. Also, those that had multiple accounts affected for the full month, only got one account refunded, which was not so helpful.
So, you can say it's inaccurate if you like, but you're simply wrong. It was a serious bug that rendered people out of "sync" with the map server, and it lasted a month's time. These are all just statements of fact. I'm sorry if you're not aware of them, but that doesn't change their reality.
The rest of my analysis is equally factual. If you don't believe that, check the forums now again regarding the pvp revamp, and check the server populations. Friday night and all of them light, exept for one on medium. That's the first time I've ever seen that on a Friday night. If you don't believe that, check the damage control interviews being done by Miller to try to stop the exodus.
The first step to correcting a problem is admitting it exists. Unfortuntely, it's this first step that seems to prove most difficult for some.
Dunno arc,
I looked at the CoX forums and I don't see anyone talking about this stuff at all, at least not to the extent you are making it out to be, I might have missed something.
boards.cityofheroes.com/ubbthreads.php
I also looked at NCSofts Q3 report and CoX is down slightly in subs but its been sorta dropping for the last 2 years. Q3 124k vs Q2 137k. (peak of 172k in Sept 2006) Concurrency of users is down slightly. (17k down to 13k) but last quarter (Q2) they had a bunch of "open weekends"
ncsoft.net/global/ir/quarterly.aspx
They publish everything. I don't see any "mass exodus" post, I don't see anyone complaining about the PvP changes just business as usual.
Dunno arc,
I looked at the CoX forums and I don't see anyone talking about this stuff at all, at least not to the extent you are making it out to be, I might have missed something.
boards.cityofheroes.com/ubbthreads.php
I also looked at NCSofts Q3 report and CoX is down slightly in subs but its been sorta dropping for the last 2 years. Q3 124k vs Q2 137k. (peak of 172k in Sept 2006) Concurrency of users is down slightly. (17k down to 13k) but last quarter (Q2) they had a bunch of "open weekends"
ncsoft.net/global/ir/quarterly.aspx
They publish everything. I don't see any "mass exodus" post, I don't see anyone complaining about the PvP changes just business as usual.
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12521711&page=0&fpart=1&vc=1&nt=14
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12421739&an=0&page=16#Post12421739
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12440173&an=0&page=13#Post12440173
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=12477845&an=0&page=8#Post12477845
For your reading pleasure, just a very small sample of all the wth are you doing to our game threads regarding Issue 13.
Also, you won't the sub hit in quarterly reports that have already been published. People either just left in closed beta (many did) or are now leaving in open beta. You may see the numbers next report.
People aren't leaving because of change though. People are leaving because the devs asked for feedback, ignored it, then said they are making these changes to appeal to new players and don't really care if current players have their game ruined.
Regarding the sync bug, you'll have to look months back in the forums to see the posts about that. It has been many months since the last content patch. Another complaint. This is one of the longest times the game has gone without a content patch, and it's a quest-based linear game. Now that a patch is finally coming, the anticipated content is being pushed back, and an unwanted revamp is being pushed through.
P.S. Almost missed the largest thread on the PvP revamp, is around 300 PAGES long at this point. You'll find most of your shocked and angry, WTH!?! posts here:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=Dev&Number=12263971&Searchpage=3&Main=12221755&Words=Castle&topic=&Search=true#Post12263971
For those that don't want to take the time to sift through the linked threads, here are some samples:
1) I have just returned to the game after a couple of month’s illness to find many of my online friends (PVE and PVP alike) who have closed their accounts and left the game for good. Every time I asked why someone has left, I get more or less the same answer 'issue 13 and the many changes to the game' and after I read them I can fully understand why now.
To be honest my jaw dropped when I was reading the issue 13 changes, and I cannot believe that NcSoft are going to carry some of the proposed changes that they call PVP 2 and against the wishes of many long time players of this game.
I know that many people only play PVE and don't want to know or care about PVP in this game, but what you all fail to grasp is that if they are going to do this to the PVP community in this game, then do you really think that they care about the PVE community? I really wonder if many of you will turn around and say that it is acceptable and I will get the usual response 'Well if your not happy just quit!' I don't think so. Whether most of you like it, we are part of this community and love this game as much as you guys, but for different reasons.
I find it strange that before there was pvp in this game I actually hated the thought of it being part of COH. I never fought in the arena or in the zones until I went badge hunting. Omg I got my [censored] kicked from the second I went into Sirens to the minute I left, and I hated every moment of it. If it hadn't been for a stalker on Infinity I wouldn't have gone back either. He sent me a ‘tell’ explaining why and what and actually helped to understand what pvp was about, and how to actually play and survive for a little longer. Many people on infinity will know me as Shana Storm, the noob stormie that took ‘energy’ as her secondary and got her butt kicked daily. I just took the time to learn how to pvp and to stay alive in these zones. Most importantly it became fun to play.
I found most of the pvp community were only too happy to help with my builds or pvp tactics. (People like Stasis, Josef, barbs and many more). I find it sad that good helpful players like them are leaving or have left and it seems like no one from NcSoft actually seems to care.
I urge and plead with you Castle to reconsider the changes to PVP you are making for issue 13. To sit down and listen to all the community regarding the wish list that you asked for the pvp community and discusses the future of PVP so that everyone can enjoy pvp at some level within the game. I just don’t understand why you would ask the community for their input and completely ignore them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hereby ask the developers to delay the proposed release date of issue 13 to discuss many of the issue that many players are unhappy with and hopefully come to some agreement that could only be good for all the COX community. Please! : )
Signed
Miss De’Stalker"
2) "Here is the deal, I believe that LH's post was 100 percent the truth, these changes were never intended to be accepted by any of us nor to be made to address any of the things in the PvP wishlist which we were told to come up with so the Devs would have somewhere to look for what changes need to be made to make PvP better in this game and how to maybe entice some of the PvE only players into PvP. 100's of hours went into making that list and voting on which ones needed to be on it and so forth. Now with these changes, of which only 1 was taken from the wishlist, it pretty much shows us that getting us to make the list and telling us those are what would be looked at when they got around to looking at PvP was all just a way to placate us at that time. Heck there was even a ventrillo meeting where many of the Test PvP SG/VG leaders and LH were there and he "wrote" down the concerns that we had about the changes that were being implemented in this issue, again seemingly he took back a blank paper.
No matter what excellent suggestions or feedback anyone from the PvP community has for these changes they are worthless because we were not the targetted group for the PvP changes and damn us for not agreeing with these changes no matter how more broken this system is going to be compared to the pre-i13 system. Also most of these changes even though it was stated they were looking at arena PvP seem to cater towards the fightclub zone type PvPr's with the movement suppression, heal decay, the anti gank code(thank god that was removed) DR etc. In the test arena 8v8 scene, you didn't hear people whining that someone was running and not standing and fighting it out, or that purple sets caused the other team to win. If you were the "target" you are supposed to run(evade) break LOS, do what you can to stay alive, or any of the other things you read in broadcast in the zones which most of the changes seem to address. I could go on and on but this has gone on for too long and it is nothing that has not been said before. "
Both of these examples provide good summaries of what's currently going on in CoH/CoV regarding Issue 13. Anything that fails to acknowledge this reality is likely p.r. spin, outright denial or genuine ignorance (which is understandable, since this is "breaking news" if you will--happening as I type this. It takes time for awareness to spread.)
P.S. Sync bug was a pain in the arse, but it's forgiveable, especially with the refund offer. Delay of mission architect is also understandable, but getting an unwanted revamp instead of the architect is not. I'm sure people would have been much happier to have them get custom bosses into the game instead of the revamps. Also, having players compile a list about how to improve pvp, take 100s of hours to do it, and then say it's irrelevant, well that's just asking for trouble. Tell current players that new potential players are more important than them? That's just self-destructive. With the revamp, it's not too late to turn the game back to a path that treats current players and their progress as valuable. Hopefully the dev and management teams will recognize this, and rethink their current direction. Work with current players, not against them.
Archangel, everytime a new release comes, there are changes, and every time there are changes, there are people who whine and cry. Some of them for good reason. But the very fact that they are in the forums whining shows that they are still in the game. Nonetheless they are entitled to vent. If enough people vent about the same narrowly focused complaint in a polite manner in the appropriate venue, the devs are prone to listen and might consider it a seious flaw. The begging of one player is not going to change the game. One very well written letter sent inadvertantly at just the right time might be a catalyst for such change. The game is after all a business, meant in the end to turn a profit --- some profit even if its not enough profit to please you --- and not given to intentionally piss off its clientelle. However there are no doubt a multitude of factors which play into these decisions that you and I will never know a thing about. NCSoft is after all not a publically held company and we are not on the board of directors. With all of your discontent, are YOU still playing the game?
PS. Synchbug - I had it - for three days. I play every single darn day, and I noticed the thing interferring my game for three whole days. Sorry you were sick for longer. <Shrugs>