Righto I had a look in the investor reports for Q4 at NCsoft they include figures for current subscribers (162,953) And maximum concurrent users (server population) for all the US and EU servers during september of last year. of 22,340. after the release of the expansion pack these figures grew to 23,730 for December. These figures are spread over a total of 15 servers.
Down from it's first quarter maximum concurrent users of 31,085 at its U.S. release. Spread over a total of 11 servers.
Average maximum server population was 1582 for the month of December 2005 up from Average maximum server population was 1431 for the month of Decemeber 2004 and down from Average maximum server population was 2825 for the month of June 2004
So, basically this says that the game isn't dying, but it certainly isn't what it used to be. The server maxs show a little up from Dec 04, most likely because of the expansion. I think if they slow down with the nerfs (or stop them from now on) and keep adding new content the game may last 2-4 more years.
Personally on my villain, I don't have a hard time finding a group (currently a lvl 20 brute) but I don't team much. The brute AT for now is easily soloable. However, when I have a tough mission or even if I just want a team, I have no problem finding one. Last week I did a player count on my villain and found 947 people online on Virute. This was only for villains so I'm going to assume at most the total was around 1894 (double). The total was more around 1300-1500 though because I think more people are currently playing villains.
The Dev's asked if everyone wanted the proposed nerfs. Everyone said "we don't want them".
Actually, the only big nerf the backed away from recently was -ACC on ALL so-called "travel powers" and replaced it with an even more heinous "suppression." People, it turns out, hate that even more, but the dev response as quoted by Emmert himself? "We're happy with suppression." In other words, "Screw you. If you don't like the nerfs, leave!"
Enhancement "Diversification" was actually a fast one Emmert and company tried to pull over on the players, that is until some gutsy CoV beta testers broke their NDAs and posted that huge nerf on the community forums there. When Cuppajo and the rest of the dev team couldn't remove those posts fast enough, the devs had to admit what they were doing, pleaded with players to try the nerf on the test servers before they went live, promising that if they didn't work on test, they'd be adjusted or nixed altogether.
Yeah. And I've got some swamp land for sale if you want it.
Turns out players had less than a month to "test" ED (gee, what an appropriate abbreviation for castrating whole ATs) even though Emmert and his horde of liars had been working on ED for 7 months, while at the same time telling the player base they thought that most ATs and powers were - in Emmert's very own words - "working as intended."
Look folks, you may think the nerfs in all their various guises and forms are fine. You may even still enjoy the game. But the two things I resent the most in all of this are the way that people working in a service industry - where customer support and satisfaction are key to a company's survival - can treat their paying customers the way they do and continue to get away with it!
Saying the devs at Cryptic are the best in the MMO world isn't saying a hell of a lot.
Furthermore, the thing I resented more than that was the fact that I spent literally hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars building my toon just the way "I" wanted to play him within their rules, only to have their rules constantly change! They baited people in with the promise and hype of a game about super heroes, took a lot of money based on that promise and hype, then completely switched the game to something not even closely resembling what it had been just a year earlier!
Sorry, but you all can continue to give your money to con-artists, liars, and scammers. I won't.
Furthermore, the thing I resented more than that was the fact that I spent literally hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars building my toon just the way "I" wanted to play him within their rules, only to have their rules constantly change! They baited people in with the promise and hype of a game about super heroes, took a lot of money based on that promise and hype, then completely switched the game to something not even closely resembling what it had been just a year earlier!
What MMO have you played that wasn't adjusted, granted they didn't think out the problem of SO's for the after 40 content and that started to create the problem but any toon is still soloable, heck my scrapper can even take on 15 or more even con enemies, the problem people are having is that they were used to taking on +2 and +3. The game really didn't change all that much, you just need to move the difficulty slider down a few notches and everything plays as it was. So the game has not totally changed. And I think in this game you do feel like a super hero, what other game can you take on 4 or 5 bad guys and defeat them in 30 seconds, I know in GW i couldn't. But sorry you didn't agree with the changes, maybe this game just wasn't for you. Hope you have fun in whatever game you are playing now.
I have never played WOW or any other current MMORPG since Asheron's call and AO. I never played COH either. I started COV when it came out, so this is the observation of a pretty objective player.
I feel that the player base has gone way down in the last couple of months. The first two months of COV, there were always tons of people on at al times of the day and finding good teams was never a problem. Hell, i remember when i got mad because of too many invites.
Now, the game is a ghost town(even pocket D), no one responds to your invites, even the ones on the broadcast channel(i dont do blind invites). it is very hard to find a team. One night I was on for half an hour and couldnt find a team so i logged off in despair. I love COV the game and Love playing my characters. I just want to know what happened? can anyone tell me?
from my perspective of the game itself: it seems like the first 8-10 levels are the most fun, which is why many players have so many characters. One issue that i see is that around levels 12-20 is a repetitive level grind, more so than the rest of the game. You most of your meat-and-potatoes powers in the first 10 levels and your few high-power powers after lv 22. I say most because every AT is different. I notice this because i have 3 ats now between 12 and 19 and I am kind of numb to playing them. When i express disatisfaction to other players they almost all tell me to wait until my characters get to lv 32 and above, then they will be great i am told. Well, that is fine and dandy but i dont want to have to level grind all they way to 32 just to have a kickass character.
Also, the enhancement system kind of blows now. Experienced players who have learned the hard way are now telling people not to even buy ANY TO's or DO's because they found that when they got to high enough levels to buy SO's(the most powerful ones) the had NO money left.
The biggest complaint I've heard from people about CoV - who also own and play CoH - is that it's virtually the same game. Same mission grind, same manner in which you acquire and enhance powers. CoV is simply more of the same with a few new costumes and villainous ATs. Beyond that, it's really nothing more than a "been there, done that" kind of experience.
Even Pocket D features missions where villain and hero - gasp! - actually work together! Hmmm...I wonder what was wrong with just heroes working together? Seems they wouldn't have had to waste all that code on the PvP hack they built in to CoH if they had left it as a heroes working together game.
Well, word on the street is that SOE sold the developement right of Marvel's MMORPG to Microsoft. Here's hoping Microsoft will get it right, then CoH/CoV will be DoA. RIP.
The difference here is not that the game has been adjusted, but that it has been adjusted so many times, and so noticeably by so many people in a widely perceived to be detrimental manner.
The only MMO that compares with this for nerfing is Star Wars Galaxies. Luckily for NCsoft their big rounds of nerfs chronologically coincided, and SOE got all the press.
MMO's that I have not been nerfed in:
(That is not to say that there haven't been nerfs, but only that they either didn't affect me, or that they were so gentle that I couldn't see that effect, or that none occoured during my particular stay with the game).
Eve, Wow, Matrix, Planetside, Guild Wars, Neocron, Anarchy, Final Fantasy, Lineage II. I'm sure theres more.
In COH, 3. One for every update. (And a history of 1 for every update I missed that would have affected me too). giving it in my book a 100% track record of nerfing in every patch. And hence a 100% likelyhood of nerfing in the next one too.
Play it enjoy it, and move on fast.
Sooner or later, if you stick around, your number is going to come up. I think you might be able to imagine how that feels having seen some of the responses from the other posters in this forum. There is no need to do it to yourself. Better to leave on a high note and always look back at the game fondly.
Originally posted by happytrails7 What MMO have you played that wasn't adjusted,
The difference here is not that the game has been adjusted, but that it has been adjusted so many times, and so noticeably by so many people in a widely perceived to be detrimental manner.
The only MMO that compares with this for nerfing is Star Wars Galaxies. Luckily for NCsoft their big rounds of nerfs chronologically coincided, and SOE got all the press.
MMO's that I have not been nerfed in:
(That is not to say that there haven't been nerfs, but only that they either didn't affect me, or that they were so gentle that I couldn't see that effect, or that none occoured during my particular stay with the game).
Eve, Wow, Matrix, Planetside, Guild Wars, Neocron, Anarchy, Final Fantasy, Lineage II. I'm sure theres more.
In COH, 3. One for every update. (And a history of 1 for every update I missed that would have affected me too). giving it in my book a 100% track record of nerfing in every patch. And hence a 100% likelyhood of nerfing in the next one too.
Play it enjoy it, and move on fast.
Sooner or later, if you stick around, your number is going to come up. I think you might be able to imagine how that feels having seen some of the responses from the other posters in this forum. There is no need to do it to yourself. Better to leave on a high note and always look back at the game fondly.
You never been nerfed in WoW or any of those other MMOs? Sounds like a load of shit to me. But anyway, you sound like you don't stick with one MMO for very long anyway.
In response to the original question about the population, I think alot of people just got bored with the game. I quit about a month ago, I still like the game, but there wasn't much to do after lvl50 or lvl40(CoV). I know they will have lvl 50 put in with the next issue(CoV), so I may come back for that. But other than pvp there isn't much, especially if you have most of the badges and a few lvl 50's in CoH or lvl40's in CoV. But if you have an active guild and teamspeak it's so much more enjoyble. I stayed about a year because the guys in our sg were alot of fun.
You never been nerfed in WoW or any of those other MMOs? Sounds like a load of shit to me. But anyway, you sound like you don't stick with one MMO for very long anyway.
Yeah I get that a lot.
(Only in this COH forum though).
And yes you are right I usually stay for between 1 and 6 months depending on how much I am enjoying the game, what other games are available (or what the guests at my LAN bashes want to play).
It's the subscription effect, I'm always looking to get the most thrills from my money. I am retired/a dosser, so I get to play all day and all night as often as I want. It's not uncommon for me to log 500 hours in a month. On resubscription day, if I'm not in peak addiction mode I look around to see what other games are available. So many worlds to see, games to play, so little time.
Originally, I had planned to stay longer with COH, but my anticipation of all the fun I would have with my hero, building bases and exploring new and villain infested areas has been nerfed away.
Although I don't stick with any game for too long (not MMO's anyway), COH still managed to fit 3 nerfs into my short time with it. It's in a league of it's own.
I am retired/a dosser, so I get to play all day and all night as often as I want. It's not uncommon for me to log 500 hours in a month. On resubscription day, if I'm not in peak addiction mode I look around to see what other games are available. So many worlds to see, games to play, so little time.
Man I'm so jealous of you. Anyway, I didn't mean to come off so harsh. I do understand how nerfs piss people off. I mostly play CoH because it doesn't take forever to get a team together. When I was still playing WoW I used to hate trying to get people together to do some quests, usualy a group would only stay together for one quest and then everyone would go their own ways. I like to get a team together and run mission after mission... good times.
Originally posted by BuZZKilgore Originally posted by baffOriginally posted by happytrails7 What MMO have you played that wasn't adjusted, The difference here is not that the game has been adjusted, but that it has been adjusted so many times, and so noticeably by so many people in a widely perceived to be detrimental manner. The only MMO that compares with this for nerfing is Star Wars Galaxies. Luckily for NCsoft their big rounds of nerfs chronologically coincided, and SOE got all the press. MMO's that I have not been nerfed in: (That is not to say that there haven't been nerfs, but only that they either didn't affect me, or that they were so gentle that I couldn't see that effect, or that none occoured during my particular stay with the game). Eve, Wow, Matrix, Planetside, Guild Wars, Neocron, Anarchy, Final Fantasy, Lineage II. I'm sure theres more. In COH, 3. One for every update. (And a history of 1 for every update I missed that would have affected me too). giving it in my book a 100% track record of nerfing in every patch. And hence a 100% likelyhood of nerfing in the next one too. Play it enjoy it, and move on fast. Sooner or later, if you stick around, your number is going to come up. I think you might be able to imagine how that feels having seen some of the responses from the other posters in this forum. There is no need to do it to yourself. Better to leave on a high note and always look back at the game fondly.You never been nerfed in WoW or any of those other MMOs? Sounds like a load of shit to me. But anyway, you sound like you don't stick with one MMO for very long anyway.
He never played as a Priest in WoW.
"Speek for yourself, I dno't make misteaks." - fyerwall
I started playing CoH back in August of 2005, and then CoV when it came out in October. I cannot speak to any nerfing issues, but I can say that I enjoy both CoH and CoV very much -- more than any other MMO I've ever played. Since ED, I4, and other updates were before me, I have little patience for those who bemoan the game being nerf'd. It's like listening to your grandparents talk about how life was so much harder for them back then. I can only hope I am not so locked into the past when I am in their (grandparents/nerf'd victims) place.
Also, I am on the Virtue server and only have a hard time finding a team around 6-9am. I did notice after CoV was up and running, that CoH got more quiet (presumably same players were now creating villains). But now there seems to be a good balance between the two games.
Comments
http://www.ncsoft.com/eng/nccompany/ir_data_report04.asp
Righto I had a look in the investor reports for Q4 at NCsoft they include figures for current subscribers (162,953)
And maximum concurrent users (server population) for all the US and EU servers during september of last year. of 22,340.
after the release of the expansion pack these figures grew to 23,730 for December.
These figures are spread over a total of 15 servers.
Down from it's first quarter maximum concurrent users of 31,085 at its U.S. release.
Spread over a total of 11 servers.
Average maximum server population was 1582 for the month of December 2005
up from
Average maximum server population was 1431 for the month of Decemeber 2004
and down from
Average maximum server population was 2825 for the month of June 2004
So, basically this says that the game isn't dying, but it certainly isn't what it used to be. The server maxs show a little up from Dec 04, most likely because of the expansion. I think if they slow down with the nerfs (or stop them from now on) and keep adding new content the game may last 2-4 more years.
Personally on my villain, I don't have a hard time finding a group (currently a lvl 20 brute) but I don't team much. The brute AT for now is easily soloable. However, when I have a tough mission or even if I just want a team, I have no problem finding one. Last week I did a player count on my villain and found 947 people online on Virute. This was only for villains so I'm going to assume at most the total was around 1894 (double). The total was more around 1300-1500 though because I think more people are currently playing villains.
Actually, the only big nerf the backed away from recently was -ACC on ALL so-called "travel powers" and replaced it with an even more heinous "suppression." People, it turns out, hate that even more, but the dev response as quoted by Emmert himself? "We're happy with suppression." In other words, "Screw you. If you don't like the nerfs, leave!"
Enhancement "Diversification" was actually a fast one Emmert and company tried to pull over on the players, that is until some gutsy CoV beta testers broke their NDAs and posted that huge nerf on the community forums there. When Cuppajo and the rest of the dev team couldn't remove those posts fast enough, the devs had to admit what they were doing, pleaded with players to try the nerf on the test servers before they went live, promising that if they didn't work on test, they'd be adjusted or nixed altogether.
Yeah. And I've got some swamp land for sale if you want it.
Turns out players had less than a month to "test" ED (gee, what an appropriate abbreviation for castrating whole ATs) even though Emmert and his horde of liars had been working on ED for 7 months, while at the same time telling the player base they thought that most ATs and powers were - in Emmert's very own words - "working as intended."
Look folks, you may think the nerfs in all their various guises and forms are fine. You may even still enjoy the game. But the two things I resent the most in all of this are the way that people working in a service industry - where customer support and satisfaction are key to a company's survival - can treat their paying customers the way they do and continue to get away with it!
Saying the devs at Cryptic are the best in the MMO world isn't saying a hell of a lot.
Furthermore, the thing I resented more than that was the fact that I spent literally hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars building my toon just the way "I" wanted to play him within their rules, only to have their rules constantly change! They baited people in with the promise and hype of a game about super heroes, took a lot of money based on that promise and hype, then completely switched the game to something not even closely resembling what it had been just a year earlier!
Sorry, but you all can continue to give your money to con-artists, liars, and scammers. I won't.
What MMO have you played that wasn't adjusted, granted they didn't think out the problem of SO's for the after 40 content and that started to create the problem but any toon is still soloable, heck my scrapper can even take on 15 or more even con enemies, the problem people are having is that they were used to taking on +2 and +3. The game really didn't change all that much, you just need to move the difficulty slider down a few notches and everything plays as it was. So the game has not totally changed. And I think in this game you do feel like a super hero, what other game can you take on 4 or 5 bad guys and defeat them in 30 seconds, I know in GW i couldn't. But sorry you didn't agree with the changes, maybe this game just wasn't for you. Hope you have fun in whatever game you are playing now.
I have never played WOW or any other current MMORPG since Asheron's call and AO. I never played COH either. I started COV when it came out, so this is the observation of a pretty objective player.
I feel that the player base has gone way down in the last couple of months. The first two months of COV, there were always tons of people on at al times of the day and finding good teams was never a problem. Hell, i remember when i got mad because of too many invites.
Now, the game is a ghost town(even pocket D), no one responds to your invites, even the ones on the broadcast channel(i dont do blind invites). it is very hard to find a team. One night I was on for half an hour and couldnt find a team so i logged off in despair. I love COV the game and Love playing my characters. I just want to know what happened? can anyone tell me?
from my perspective of the game itself: it seems like the first 8-10 levels are the most fun, which is why many players have so many characters. One issue that i see is that around levels 12-20 is a repetitive level grind, more so than the rest of the game. You most of your meat-and-potatoes powers in the first 10 levels and your few high-power powers after lv 22. I say most because every AT is different. I notice this because i have 3 ats now between 12 and 19 and I am kind of numb to playing them. When i express disatisfaction to other players they almost all tell me to wait until my characters get to lv 32 and above, then they will be great i am told. Well, that is fine and dandy but i dont want to have to level grind all they way to 32 just to have a kickass character.
Also, the enhancement system kind of blows now. Experienced players who have learned the hard way are now telling people not to even buy ANY TO's or DO's because they found that when they got to high enough levels to buy SO's(the most powerful ones) the had NO money left.
The biggest complaint I've heard from people about CoV - who also own and play CoH - is that it's virtually the same game. Same mission grind, same manner in which you acquire and enhance powers. CoV is simply more of the same with a few new costumes and villainous ATs. Beyond that, it's really nothing more than a "been there, done that" kind of experience.
Even Pocket D features missions where villain and hero - gasp! - actually work together! Hmmm...I wonder what was wrong with just heroes working together? Seems they wouldn't have had to waste all that code on the PvP hack they built in to CoH if they had left it as a heroes working together game.
Well, word on the street is that SOE sold the developement right of Marvel's MMORPG to Microsoft. Here's hoping Microsoft will get it right, then CoH/CoV will be DoA. RIP.
The difference here is not that the game has been adjusted, but that it has been adjusted so many times, and so noticeably by so many people in a widely perceived to be detrimental manner.
The only MMO that compares with this for nerfing is Star Wars Galaxies. Luckily for NCsoft their big rounds of nerfs chronologically coincided, and SOE got all the press.
MMO's that I have not been nerfed in:
(That is not to say that there haven't been nerfs, but only that they either didn't affect me, or that they were so gentle that I couldn't see that effect, or that none occoured during my particular stay with the game).
Eve, Wow, Matrix, Planetside, Guild Wars, Neocron, Anarchy, Final Fantasy, Lineage II. I'm sure theres more.
In COH, 3. One for every update. (And a history of 1 for every update I missed that would have affected me too). giving it in my book a 100% track record of nerfing in every patch. And hence a 100% likelyhood of nerfing in the next one too.
Play it enjoy it, and move on fast.
Sooner or later, if you stick around, your number is going to come up. I think you might be able to imagine how that feels having seen some of the responses from the other posters in this forum. There is no need to do it to yourself. Better to leave on a high note and always look back at the game fondly.
The difference here is not that the game has been adjusted, but that it has been adjusted so many times, and so noticeably by so many people in a widely perceived to be detrimental manner.
The only MMO that compares with this for nerfing is Star Wars Galaxies. Luckily for NCsoft their big rounds of nerfs chronologically coincided, and SOE got all the press.
MMO's that I have not been nerfed in:
(That is not to say that there haven't been nerfs, but only that they either didn't affect me, or that they were so gentle that I couldn't see that effect, or that none occoured during my particular stay with the game).
Eve, Wow, Matrix, Planetside, Guild Wars, Neocron, Anarchy, Final Fantasy, Lineage II. I'm sure theres more.
In COH, 3. One for every update. (And a history of 1 for every update I missed that would have affected me too). giving it in my book a 100% track record of nerfing in every patch. And hence a 100% likelyhood of nerfing in the next one too.
Play it enjoy it, and move on fast.
Sooner or later, if you stick around, your number is going to come up. I think you might be able to imagine how that feels having seen some of the responses from the other posters in this forum. There is no need to do it to yourself. Better to leave on a high note and always look back at the game fondly.
You never been nerfed in WoW or any of those other MMOs? Sounds like a load of shit to me. But anyway, you sound like you don't stick with one MMO for very long anyway.
In response to the original question about the population, I think alot of people just got bored with the game. I quit about a month ago, I still like the game, but there wasn't much to do after lvl50 or lvl40(CoV). I know they will have lvl 50 put in with the next issue(CoV), so I may come back for that. But other than pvp there isn't much, especially if you have most of the badges and a few lvl 50's in CoH or lvl40's in CoV. But if you have an active guild and teamspeak it's so much more enjoyble. I stayed about a year because the guys in our sg were alot of fun.
Yeah I get that a lot.
(Only in this COH forum though).
And yes you are right I usually stay for between 1 and 6 months depending on how much I am enjoying the game, what other games are available (or what the guests at my LAN bashes want to play).
It's the subscription effect, I'm always looking to get the most thrills from my money. I am retired/a dosser, so I get to play all day and all night as often as I want. It's not uncommon for me to log 500 hours in a month. On resubscription day, if I'm not in peak addiction mode I look around to see what other games are available. So many worlds to see, games to play, so little time.
Originally, I had planned to stay longer with COH, but my anticipation of all the fun I would have with my hero, building bases and exploring new and villain infested areas has been nerfed away.
Although I don't stick with any game for too long (not MMO's anyway), COH still managed to fit 3 nerfs into my short time with it. It's in a league of it's own.
I am retired/a dosser, so I get to play all day and all night as often as I want. It's not uncommon for me to log 500 hours in a month. On resubscription day, if I'm not in peak addiction mode I look around to see what other games are available. So many worlds to see, games to play, so little time.
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Man I'm so jealous of you. Anyway, I didn't mean to come off so harsh. I do understand how nerfs piss people off. I mostly play CoH because it doesn't take forever to get a team together. When I was still playing WoW I used to hate trying to get people together to do some quests, usualy a group would only stay together for one quest and then everyone would go their own ways. I like to get a team together and run mission after mission... good times.
In my opinon there is no other game to match this for teambuilding.
It's world class ahead of all the rest in this department.
It's other centre of excellence is the costume creation. Once again in this department it far surpasses anyother game I've seen.
He never played as a Priest in WoW.
"Speek for yourself, I dno't make misteaks." - fyerwall
I started playing CoH back in August of 2005, and then CoV when it came out in October. I cannot speak to any nerfing issues, but I can say that I enjoy both CoH and CoV very much -- more than any other MMO I've ever played. Since ED, I4, and other updates were before me, I have little patience for those who bemoan the game being nerf'd. It's like listening to your grandparents talk about how life was so much harder for them back then. I can only hope I am not so locked into the past when I am in their (grandparents/nerf'd victims) place.
Also, I am on the Virtue server and only have a hard time finding a team around 6-9am. I did notice after CoV was up and running, that CoH got more quiet (presumably same players were now creating villains). But now there seems to be a good balance between the two games.