Some CoH questions

grumb7fish

Will CoH be around for awhile yet? What I've read, the game descriptions and player reviews, it seems that this game should be getting more attention. 

I've finished my WoW run and don't think I'll be going back. It is a good game but for many reasons I no longer enjoy myself when I play it.  I've hopped around playing trials but nothing I've played held my attention for longer than 40 or so hours of play.  I stumbled across this and it sounds fascinating. I'm downloading the trial now and am looking forward to playing. This game sounds like a lot  of fun.  

So to the questions. How is the game doing? Does it have a solid fanbase to keep enough cashflow for NCsoft to support the game for a long time to come? How is the community? This game sounds so light-hearted, fun. I couldn't help smiling looking over some of the characters in the screenshots. I've seen so many mmo communities not really reveal itself till you've been around for awhile, after you demonstrate your 'staying power'. Then it seems to be either overly serious (sometimes to the point of being rude) or 'exclusive' to the point of, whether intentional or no, leaving players alienated. Well, back to topic. I want to have fun with other people who are having fun. I miss that and I really want CoH to have that kind of community.

I know  I'll eventually find out on my own but I've really taken a shine to this game (yes, even without having playing it) and want to know from the people who have played it or are playing it.

Thanks in advance.

Happy gaming!

therain93

Disclaimer -- I'm an original open beta tester from 2004 and have been a near consistent subscriber since then, with one short break. While I strive to provide balanced information, my long-time allegiance ultimately has to qualify me as a fanboy of the game (as much as I abhor the term).

I believe City of Heroes will be around for quite some time. Since it was sold by Cryptic Studios (the original designing studio) to NCsoft (the original and present publisher), staffing has increased dramatically (up to about ~150 people) as has the quality of content releases largely improved. During that sale, about 99% of the original developers made the transition over with the game so there's a very strong base of development. The studio (now called Paragon Studios) strives to release approximately 3 free content issues every year and is also presently working on a brand new expansion, Going Rogue, which is slated to go into beta shortly.

How is the game doing? We *think* the game is doing well -- the game had been averaging roughly 130,000 subscribers but have no hard numbers to back it up. Certainly those aren't WoW numbers either, but the game seems to never had an eye for anything outside of its target market. The game is available to North America and Oceania (AU and NZ) from the main cluster of servers as well as France, Germany and the UK from the European servers. The top two NA servers I happen to play on, Freedom and Virtue, always have a solid population across the level spectrum.

Does it have a solid fanbase? Most certainly they are a passionate and dedicated group in game and in the forums. The release of champions onlines has probably invigorated them as well. To gauge the fanbase, consider how many games have their own conventions. Blizzcon and the SOE Faire cover their stable of games while City of Heroes has its own dedicated Hero-Con convention. In-game and on the official forums, players are extremely helpful. Perusing the forums really is the most ideal way to get a feel for the game. Players ask and answer questions related to the game and technical issues; events are scheduled on a server by server basis; there are committed artists and authors; players offer suggestions and feedback. What makes this even more special is that the City of Heroes team has a very involved group of moderators and developers that interact with the playerbase -- they listen.

Since that's all you have asked, that's where I'll leave it rather than running through some spiel about the differences between this and WoW or Champions.

Amarsir

They are no doubt counting on Going Rogue to pull in/pull back players. And I'm hoping it will too.

The last year has been slow. Issue 14 added Architect. Issue 15 added bells & whistles to Architect. Issue 16 nerfed Architect. And that's 2009.

So those (like myself) who sort-of shrugged at the Architect concept have seen very little in 18 months. This from an "always free expansions" game. And you can tell that it's hitting the population.

Which doesn't diminish the fact that the game is actually fun at it's core. But stagnation isn't healthy. I don't know if it's official that i17 will be the Going Rogue partner issue, but I suspect it will. Which means they're not making Q1 with that either.

As I say, the game is still good. If you want to try it (again), the fast combat and easy pickup teams are at least as true as they ever were. But for new excitement and new blood, wait for Going Rogue.

astoria

I still have fun every time I log in. I don't as often as I used to and I haven't leveled a toon in some time, but still rotate among any of my dozen plus lvl 50s doing high end content.

My global is Dark Astoria, mainly on freedum or email me here if you need a hand with anything.

gurugeorge

I've just re-subbed after leaving it altogether for a year (and playing other MMOs), playing it sporadically for a year before that (and playing other MMOs) and being totally and exclusively addicted to it for 3 years before that (I came in just before I3).

Just how good a game it is has been finally brought home to me by playing lots of other MMOs and, just recently, playing CO.  All the current "big"  MMOs are great games, no doubt about it, they all have something to recommend them (LOTRO and AoC are other particular faves of mine).  Just like other MMOs, CO has some good points, and it might yet be a great MMO (although I'm beginning to doubt it will ever fulfil its potential now, the way Cryptic have been handling things recently).  But at the end of the day, for me as a casual player, apart from its consoley combat and classless power system, CO is "just another MMO", and a rather buggy, incomplete and unpolished one at that.  The main point is, CO is just like every other MMO in being a mostly-solo-some-teaming experience unless you dedicate to a guild.

Whereas, for the casual player who loves teaming, CoX is absolutely the other way round, mostly-teaming-some-solo, and therefore almost unique in the MMO-verse (the only other comparable is DDO).  To give you some idea, it has always been the case, and it's still the case now, on most servers most of the time, that you can log in, and within 5 minutes be merrily chatting away and teaming with a bunch of strangers.  Almost without fail.  Some people do solo, but I venture to say that for the "hard core" of people who play CoX, it's typically for the fact that you can just jump in and team at the drop of a hat.

It's basically PUG Heaven for the casual player.  It's a genuinely social MMO for the casual player.  This has resulted in a fanbase that loves this sort of play, is pretty tight, and yet at the same time open and friendly to newcomers.  Because there's not much endgame to speak of, and the vast number of possibilities of combining powersets induces "altitis", probably most of the people you encounter while levelling up are vets (which incidentally also makes PUG-ing much more fun, less irritating than in many other MMOs - in any given PUG nowadays, you can count on most of them knowing what they are doing).  And they are usually very friendly, helpful and kind to newcomers.

Having taken a total break for a year, the game feels fresh again for me and I'm now really looking forward to the GR expansion.  A graphical update and some new, snazzy zones is just what the doctor ordered. 

CoX is like an "old faithful" - it will always be there.  I don't anticipate it ever dying, tbh, it's going to run for as long as people play MMOs.  It's always held around the same subs (around 130k or so) and with a high retention rate (according to what I've read). 

How a company could make such a gem of a game as CoX and then very nearly totally bork its "spiritual successor" will be forever beyond me (well, of course it is explicable, many of the people who did design CoX are still working on it, as Paragon Studios, the Cryptic that now exists is mostly no longer the Cryptic that designed CoX).

 

olepi

I've been playing CoH since issue 1 went live. There are probably two things that keep a lot of us still playing:

1) casual pick-up groups -- this game is by far the best I have ever seen at getting into, or creating pick-up teams.

2) there is an amazing variety of game play styles -- there are lots of different "classes" and ways to specialize within each. There is the straight tank/healer/dps kind of play, and then dozens of other ways to play. Crowd control is huge in CoH.

This makes for lots of "alts", you can easily create 8 different characters that all play quite differently.

I bet CoH will be around for years to come, give it a try!

Beatnik59

Paragon Studios and NCSoft have big plans for CoH.

They are designing a whole new paid expansion that will more or less double the depth: allowing villains to become heroes and vice versa.  They aren't just including a new zone, but a whole new world with many zones.

The next free update will include a graphics update that will put CoH on par with the most cutting edge titles on the market today.  That said, it will still retain the old graphics package for those who don't want to upgrade their hardware.

CoH has been a big money maker for NCSoft.  Even though it isn't their most popular title, they make a lot of money on subs and (some) RMT.  Yes, they do sell costumes, emotes, powers, character slots, and fluff in the online store.  However, I think the way they do it is better than other RMT models, because the subscriber gets a lot of options in each "super booster."

So given all of this, I have to imagine that this game is going to be around for a long time to come, and if I would have to bet, I'd say that CoH will be around long after Champions, DC, Marvel, or other superhero MMOs.

I've been around since the introduction of CoV.  I can say that the game will be exactly what you want it to be.  I've seen RP so deep that you'd swear it was a sandbox (though it's not).  I've also seen people who drop in from time to time without even joining an SG.  Everybody can find something here.  The community believes in the game so much that they'll go out of their way to be considerate to you.  Drop in and out of groups; nobody makes a big deal out of it.  Most everything can be done in an hour of play, but there's nothing stopping you from spending a whole weekend in there.

I haven't PvPed in a while, but when I did, it was fun, intesnse (in a good way), with no smack.  Nobody I met ever cared if I was on TS/Vent or not.  PvP is one of those areas that is ripe for some changes, but not because nobody wants to.  We're just hanging back until Paragon can undo Cryptic's mess when Cryptic broke PvP a few years back right before they left.

green13

Originally posted by therain93

How is the game doing? We *think* the game is doing well -- the game had been averaging roughly 130,000 subscribers but have no hard numbers to back it up.

Ah but we do!

NCSoft is a public company and accordingly publish details like how many subscribers they have in their publicly available financial reports.

So their subscription numbers, which you can see here, are reliable (click on Subscriptions 150k - 1m).

CoH has been a solid performer for many, many, many, many years. The only real exodus they experienced was when WoW released, which unfortunately coincided with a series of some of the biggest (and most hated) nerfs CoH had ever seen.

More important than raw subscription numbers, they've been consistently profitable. NCSoft is probably making more money from Aion right now, but they're not going to shut down an established game that provides steady profits and has no serious competitors in the market. Even if CO eventually sorts out their problems they have a bad reputation for being money-grubbing MT-whores. And DCUO belongs to SOE, who are not exactly beloved by the mmo community.

It would take something really surprising to shut down this game.

green13

Originally posted by Beatnik59

CoH has been a big money maker for NCSoft.  Even though it isn't their most popular title, they make a lot of money on subs and (some) RMT.  Yes, they do sell costumes, emotes, powers, character slots, and fluff in the online store.  However, I think the way they do it is better than other RMT models, because the subscriber gets a lot of options in each "super booster."

I'll add a few comments here.

Cryptic - with CO and STO - are seen as really greedy with their subscription + MT model. And rightly so. They tried to liken it to CoH but they are fundamentally different.

I'm anti MTs but have never found CoH's use of them to be offensive, because they aren't greedy about it. They've released years worth of free updates - which other mmos would have released as paid expansion packs - and there's only a small handful of MT packs which are complete fluff. Even if you bought every single one of those fluff MT packs, you'd still have paid less than players of other mmos would have spent on paid expansions.

For me, that's what sets CoH's MTs apart from other mmos.

championsFan

 

I think that the OP will like CoH, the community and the on-going development are two things that game has done very well.  I played 2004-2007, and even as a retired player who is currently fanatical about the competition (CO), I still think CoH is a great choice for the OP.  It has years of fun in it for new players, as it always has.  And I agree with the other posters that CoH will continue to lead the superhero genre, even after the launch of DCUO, so the game has a healthy future (both WoW and CoH launched in 2004 and are successful, so they are at similar points on the age-curve). 

Xondar123

CoH will be around for years and years and years. I, personally, think it's a really fun game, and it only improves all the time.

I do think this game should have much, much more attention, but the NCSoft marketing team seems to have forgotten that CoH even exists. Well, they remember when it comes time to tell the devgs not to talk about the game.