Originally posted by baff Originally posted by hehenep Originally posted by Serling Let's look at the numbers again: 163,000 "hits" on 11 servers for quarter ending June 04. 182,000 "hits" on 16 servers for quarter ending March 06. People using free trials count as "hits" (accesses).
Just to clarify something there, NCSoft employees have, several times that I've seen pointed out that they only report subscription hits. Meaning that any reported hits that they claim in their investor reports are from paying subscribors. To do otherwise would be very misleading to their investors.
This is not correct, the stockholder reports make it clear that these are "users" and not subscribers. NCsoft employee's my lie or post in error on the forums, but not in their investor reports.
The figures given are of users (people who connect to the server) only and not subscriptions.
Where did it say that? I just read through the thing, and the only specific comment on what a 'user' was exactly was back in the appendix where it had a nice drawing with an arrow explaining how a 'user' was a customer who paid a fee.
Anyhoo, I'm more likely to honestly go by either the information released by the company to stockholders or well researched data than I am to pay attention to folks who are upset at the game in a random forum. As such, my only bit of a questionmark in my mind is the figure of 160,000 reported by mmogchart.com. Though, that's a June 06 number, and the one reported in the document was from May. The rest of NCSoft's games numbers on that site accurately reflect the numbers reported by the company. So I'm kind of curious as to where the updated numbers came from.
In any case, this month I've seen more 'yellow dot' servers than I have since CoV was released, AKA not a single green server. That's after the free reactivation trial was over, and based upon the ebb and flow of the game a hefty portion of that is customers wo re-up their subscription after every issue release. So it's a good bet that the numbers this month are up eh.
The problem with your numbers for Wow, jdun1, is that Blizzard counts total subscriptiosn ever. Every account that has ever been active, whether currently still active or not, is included in their count. As such, my account, which has been inactive for some time now, is part of that 6.5 million. This also includes the free trials, then if you actually buy the game after the free trial, that can count as another account.
This has been a source of some debate among many gaming magazines. Nobody outside of Blizzard has any way of knowing how many actual active subscriptiosn WoW has. Cryptic only counts current paying subscriptions.
it may be that blizzard uses a counting system to up its numbers but given that, they still dominate this market currently.
Me, I'd like to see something new, different and with something near the numbers of WOW. I play at odd times and finding a zone with 4 poeple in it is depressing. Going to new games and hearing no one talk is even worse
IMHO: CoV/H main problem is that they can't hold their players interest long time. There is no items to collect, no houses to build, no big reasons that will create attachment to your character and other players around. Also repeating same content (same mission maps, same mission types...) is getting boring really fast.
I played my first MMORGP - Anarchy Online about 1 and half year. Biggest reasons why I was playing so long were all kind items that I was able to collect, huge level grind (210 levels), lot's of cool places to explore (traveling was much more slower) and most important from all - player community. I did slowly familiarize myself to players around me. I started to remember their names, how they look and what they like to do. Most of our time was used to social chit-chatting. We were sitting in one those virtual bars and chat. My friend used to say that AO wasn't game - it was 3D chat room.
CoX doesn't have much social community. Game is so streamlined and easy that there is basicly no reason to exchange information with players. You don't need to ask from other players how complex game system X works, where you can find item X or how item Y is working. You can't tell stories from great place Z or you don't even have good game world background story to roleplay with others. If your team stops for chit-chatting, then team is bad - it is isn't generating XP at peak efficiency. I rarely remember my team members names if someone lose connection - I need to look name from chat log. It is much more harder to create social connections in CoX than in AO.
"I know I said this was my last post, but you my friend are a idiotic moron." -Shadow4482
Originally posted by hehenep Where did it say that? I just read through the thing, and the only specific comment on what a 'user' was exactly was back in the appendix where it had a nice drawing with an arrow explaining how a 'user' was a customer who paid a fee.
A user is someone who uses the server.
The tables plot the number of people who concurrently use the server, or use it on a monhly basis. etc etc. to be uaser of the server, you must simply use it. At no point in any of the appendices can I find reference to whether or not all recorded access is paid access.
The word subscriber is never mentioned, hence they are not plotting subscribers.
I can't find the appendix where it gives a nice drawing with an arrow explaining haw a user is a customer who paid the fee.
I am reading form their report found on this page.
On page 13 of that report they clearly state that they have 3 million paying customers worldwide, yet if you add up their server users on the same page, you get 4.5 million.
Originally posted by baff Originally posted by hehenep Where did it say that? I just read through the thing, and the only specific comment on what a 'user' was exactly was back in the appendix where it had a nice drawing with an arrow explaining how a 'user' was a customer who paid a fee.
A user is someone who uses the server.
The tables plot the number of people who concurrently use the server, or use it on a monhly basis. etc etc. to be uaser of the server, you must simply use it. At no point in any of the appendices can I find reference to whether or not all recorded access is paid access.
The word subscriber is never mentioned, hence they are not plotting subscribers.
I can't find the appendix where it gives a nice drawing with an arrow explaining haw a user is a customer who paid the fee.
I am reading form their report found on this page.
On page 13 of that report they clearly state that they have 3 million paying customers worldwide, yet if you add up their server users on the same page, you get 4.5 million.
1/3 of all NCsoft users aren't paying.
Oddly, I go to that page and got a 40 page PDF file with all sorts of nice information on all their games and everything like that. The same one I was refering to. And a large part of that discrepancy is that over in Korea and the like a bunch of customers follow the other buisness model. The PC Cafe one. Where the PC Cafe charges and is charged hourly rates for connecting to their games.
CoX doesn't have much social community. Game is so streamlined and easy that there is basicly no reason to exchange information with players. You don't need to ask from other players how complex game system X works, where you can find item X or how item Y is working. You can't tell stories from great place Z or you don't even have good game world background story to roleplay with others. If your team stops for chit-chatting, then team is bad - it is isn't generating XP at peak efficiency. I rarely remember my team members names if someone lose connection - I need to look name from chat log. It is much more harder to create social connections in CoX than in AO.
This is an excellent point. There is little sense of "community" in COH. Often broacast is silent. Help is silent. People just shoot random invites to each other, group up, and go into a private instance, and totally ignore the rest of the community. I sort of noticed but not really... until I started playing Saga of Ryzom. Now THAT is a community. Regional and Universal chat (the equivalent of Broadcast and Help channels) are very active. People chat away on all sorts of topics, but mostly help each other do or find or create things. There is a very strong sense of community at SOR, and absolutely none in COH.
There's also a very aggravating minority, but a large minority, of players who are elitist min-maxers, and will basically insult and vilify other players for not having an uber-maXXed out build. Heck there is a hundreds-post-long thread on the forum entitled "How do you tell someone their build sucks?" that is all about whether there is one holy "right" way to build each character, and half the people posting say, yes there is, and if you don't build like this, we will kick you from teams. This make COH extremely newbie-unfriendly, and newbie-friendliness is one of the MAIN ways to build community. Again I see this in SOR... I have seen people newbie-helped who then turn around and do the helping themselves a week later, and who then get invited into guilds because they are nice people, etc, etc. When does this ever happen in COH? I don't think I've ever seen much of it.
I don't think there's something fundamentally different about the player community as a whole in the two games though. I think it has to do with game complexity. You could see this within one game in SWG. When the game first came out it was complex like Ryzom, and people were constantly spamming help text at each other, either through gobal channels, or in public places like starports or cantinas. As they simplified the game and turned it more and more into an FPS with no complexity, people don't need help, so the community clams up... there's less to talk about, so there is less talking, and everything goes quiet and you feel like you are in a graveyard.
COH is the same way. It's so simplistic there's nothing to need to ask help over. It's full of small teams doing private missions, so you hardly ever see other people (take a look around some places like Boomtown or Dark Astoria some time -- there are dozens of people with mission doors in there, but they ignore the zone and make a beeline to their door, so the zone is empty). The game is built in a way that it almost has to fracture the community into small groups that basically ignore each other (the fact that you can't see channel chat while in-mission does not help, since 90% of the person-hours spent in the game are in-mission).
I think these factors all contribute to COH having a pretty weak, disconnected community. And for a game that is supposed to be a "massively multiplayer" experience, having a fractured, weak, silent, uncommunicative group of people forming a non-community, does not work very well.
Originally posted by Resetgun IMHO: CoV/H main problem is that they can't hold their players interest long time. There is no items to collect, no houses to build, no big reasons that will create attachment to your character and other players around. Also repeating same content (same mission maps, same mission types...) is getting boring really fast.
That is an issue, but that isn't the main problem. Before thinking of having peoples busy for a long time, you have to make sure that players are happy. A happy player leaving is fine, not the best outcome, but fine as he will come back most of the time and if not, well he will keep a good memory of the game and will strongly consider other products of the same name.
And this come from someone who is an achiever and want a LOT more to do, yet a LOT of right stuff, I don't care for HOs and IoPs.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Originally posted by hehenep Oddly, I go to that page and got a 40 page PDF file with all sorts of nice information on all their games and everything like that. The same one I was refering to. And a large part of that discrepancy is that over in Korea and the like a bunch of customers follow the other buisness model. The PC Cafe one. Where the PC Cafe charges and is charged hourly rates for connecting to their games.
Cafe subscribers count as paying subscribers and users. The matrixes in that report only refer to users on the server. Subscription numbers are different and given at the top of page 18. They are not broken down by game.
The bulk of (4 million) Lineage players are from the Cafe model. NCsoft does not have 3 miilion paying western subscriptions, and 1 million cafe users. They are counting the Cafe model as paying subscriptions.
The biggest and most important difference between the Cafe model and the western model, is that the cafe people didn't buy the game. In the west the bulk of players bought the game in a box from a shop for £30 and then subscribe monthly, making them a much more profitable market. In the cafe's they pay by the hour only.
If you have a look at WoW's figures you will see that they count people with cafe subscriptions as subscribers.
Does it matter if it's 160k or 150k? My point is to make it simple so everyone can get the general idea where the game is headed. Why? Because lots of people thinks this game is pack full of people on the servers and that's not true. NCSoft has lay off a bunch of people and City of XXXX didn't even go to E3 to promote the game so that tell you something about the state of it.
No, it doesn't really matter all that much. But if you're going to argue points, you might as well argue using true points as opposed to false ones. It helps your argument a little. For instance, the devs were at E3, there was a whole Meet&Greet thing where they talked about upcoming additions to CoH/CoV. They didn't have a presence because they didn't really have anything on next year's expansion at the time I'd imagine. It's hard to show off a product that you don't have.
Also, I keep on seeing folks going on about the layoffs at NCSoft as if they were CoH's fault. CoH/CoV was and still is profitable. Its revenue is down from last years due to there being no box sales mostly. Honestly, I imagine the layoffs were more due to the utterly lackluster performance of Auto Assault than anything else. I mean, it's current number of subscirbers is somewhere in the 10,000 to 11,000 range and all of the US and European servers are soon to merge into one. I'd imagine it caused a bit of a worry over on the NCSoft side of things there prompting the layoffs and a bit more cautious planning for future release titles.
It is a niche game, to say the least. But in response to those who say it's losing money, I have to disagree. Let's say revunes drop 32% for a gas station, shall we? Now, does that mean they are losing money? Not at all. It just means that there is less coming in, that their profit margin has shrunk. Of course, with most people who ever will buy the game already having bought the $50 box and are now in the $15 a month club, yeah their revenue will shrink. A lot like Dish Network not selling as many of their dishes and have more monthly subs instead, their revenues dropped as well. Doesn't mean that it's time to look for holes in the hull just yet, as they probably thought of this event occuring anyways.
It was (I7 that is) the first major update since CoV came out; so I can see why it took longer to get togther. And I7 was/is still kinda buggyalthough playable. I can't say that everything is all sunshines and lollipops, but all things considered, I'm still happy with the game. Sure, finding a team isnt always as easy as it was in SWG at the MO, but on the same note, I'm happy to avoid any similarities with that trainwreck.
I can see this game still being around for a good year and a half, if not longer. Niche markets are usually rabid markets; just look at how well Star Wars books sell. I enjoy reading, but just won't pick one of them up to read, no matter how well written. But they keep writing them, and some people keep reading them.
in response to those who say it's losing money, I have to disagree. Let's say revunes drop 32% for a gas station, shall we? Now, does that mean they are losing money? Not at all. It just means that there is less coming in, that their profit margin has shrunk. Of course, with most people who ever will buy the game already having bought the $50 box and are now in the $15 a month club, yeah their revenue will shrink.
Remember the OP's point (citing the article):
Based on the current state of the game, the future of City of Heroes/Villains is quite promising.
This is an overly optimistic prognosis given that revised earnings for the game(s) are down 32% from last year's levels.
Shrinking profit margins mean less money spent on staff and/or future project development. How long could you survive taking a 32% pay cut?
Furthermore, given that peak server populations are half of what they were at release means that finding a team at any given time is becoming increasingly difficult. And since the nerfs have practically forced teaming at the higher levels of the game, how long are you going to want to wait around trying to find a team? Last time I was on Champion, broadcasts were sent out to get people to take down Lusca. Four players showed up. This was on a Saturday afternoon in January. The four of us agreed it would be pointless to try and take down Lusca, and we all ended up logging for the afternoon.
An MMO without players is an MMO without a future. Cryptic either needs to buff toons for solo play (instead of constantly nerfing them), merge servers, or get out of the game design business. Unfortunately, Emmert and crew will probably take falling numbers and revenues as a sign they need to nerf everything again to bring in new subs.
Since I7 I have started to see fewer and fewer people on the servers each day. Even some of my regular friends who play are lot are logging off early because they can't deal with the constant disconnects and long mission load times.
I love this game, and have stayed even through ED (which I hate - decreasing my slotting options was not diversity).
Whoever thought an increase in AV regen from say 100 to 1100, either made a coding error or just has no idea on how the game works, just my opinion. And now they say they are changing it, but still no change. Every night I hear of people stuck with missions because of an AV. Even had one rad Defender asking how much he would get to join them.
Alot of these issues where clearly stated and brought to their attention when I7 was on the test server and yet they still put I7 live knowing that there was bugs. Like the time DA lost its fog. I won't play on the test server anymore, they don't seem to want to listen to some of the customers testing results.
I rarely play CoV anymore, it just doesnt feel the same as CoH or as much fun to me.
The above is a quote taken from the CoH website. Apparently, more and more people are starting to feel this way which is why the forecast for the CoX franchise isn't nearly as rosy as the Gamespy article would have you believe.
The shrinking profit margins aren't a good thing, I'll give you that. But who is to say that they will reduce staffing, devolpment, etc by any percent?
If you make $100 dollars a month let's say, and your revenues go down by 32%, that leaves you with 68 dollars for the next month's take. Ok, with 68 dollars, and let's say it costs (totally random number here) you 60 dollars to run your business, you don't have to cut back. Some operators would instantly start cutting corners, others would stay where they are to provide the same level of service that had originally earned them 100 dollars a month. Some might even sink more money into the business in order to attempt to regain their old numbers. Frankly, who knows if they're cutting back or staying the same?
With the promises of a new box next year, and issue 8 around september give or take, I doubt they'd cut corners at this point to generate more profit at the expense of possible future gains. And as I've pointed out before, of course revenues will drop as more and more of the people who will ever be intrested in this game have already bite the bullet and bought the initial boxes. Landscaping companies and auto detailers make the most money in the early spring, when people are ready to plunk down the cash to get their lawn/cars 'pimped' out for spring and summer ( in minnesota at least, long winter and all). They'll still make money throughout the summer and into fall, but since they aren't doing as much large work and are more into quick lawn groomings for upkeep ( or a buff and wax instead of a total car detailing), they expect their profits to go down.
Now that Cox is getting into it's late summer phase, yeah they need to start to get ready to keep those customers they might lose over the winter ( ie waiting for issues and new boxes). But I doubt they're over there pacing the floors just yet. Thinking about it, planning their next moves, sure; but it's not the end of the world. I wonder how much WoW's revenues have fallen in the past year alone, they arent selling as many boxes as they used to either...
There are fewer people entering the game these days. And many of my old friends are leaving/taking breaks as well. It happens, and while the game isnt helped by it by any means, all games have turnovers. Using an example of a giant debt-inducing monster months after most of the badge hounds have gotten said badge isn't exactly a good one though. I have one badge toon, and other than that, if I'm on a low level toon I'm gonna be hard pressed to care to get 2 bars of debt unless there is a good turnout of players there. No 'phat lootz', just a touch of Xp and some debt, maybe a shiny SO or whatever.
I'm just not sold on the theory of the giant monster barometer for this game, and never will be. I do look at the members of Infinity Hami channel, or the badge channel, and see well over 100 people on it during prime time. Down from the 150's of a year ago, but still a lot of people there.
Server merge, hmm, that actually might not be a bad idea in all honesty though. Maybe drop the lowest 2-3 and let them recreate them on a new server; although the name thing would be a total pain to deal with. I'm mainly on infinity, and rarely go long without an invite at whatever level I'm at. Either through friends or random pickup groups, it might take 15-20 minutes. Go work on a kill badge or something while you wait it out.
This game is odd that way, as in if a team has 4 controllers already, many wont invite another controller. If a team is in a mission, odds are they aren't looking at that moment to add others on until after it ends. A lot of people flat out refuse to do pick up groups for some reason. Others want just the right combo of AT's, and you can sit there for a while not getting an invite for no other reason then you aren't what a team is looking for at that moment. Which is too bad, but there are other toons you can hop on and try out, maybe a more populated server than champion or pinnacle or whatever. It's weird, but I've gotten a few good teammates from having them send me a tell when I'm on a team asking if they need a whatever at whatever level. It's not the most polite thing, but often times it works; give that a shot maybe?
Anyways, sorry to go on and on, but I just don't see a need to cry about the falling sky just yet. It is creeping down a bit every week though, but not so fast that I feel a need to question if the game will even be there in a year from now. I wouldn't mind a buff though, the nerfs have gotten a bit old, and then after buffing us they can go and buff the npc's too! Then buff us again! At least then we'd be overpowered then normal, overpowered then normal; not this underpowered/normal phase we're in now.
But as an emp at heart, I'm used to being underpowered. And frankly, regen is still powerful, even though it's commonly used as a yardstick of nerfage. My god, took me forever to get to level 50 as an emp, since after level 38 NO ONE NEEDED ME! This is back issue 2-3ish, but still, besides blasters, there was no one who really needed a defender unless they wanted a specific buff/debuff. At least now after i5, tanks do need a team, they can't herd the whole damn map and go afk in the dumpster for a minute while 200 wolves line up to get nuked; there is no good reason for that level of 'power' imho. It's nice to be needed, even if you're a lowly controller or defender after all!
So, all that said is that NCSoft is releasing (to put it gently) 70 employees. From what divisions? Didn't say. Nowhere in that article did it say that due to Cox losing subs and box sales, they were releasing personnal. Maybe they released design personnel from Cox, maybe the people were scattered across the company, ie PR, marketing, HR, the janitors, a few from each game; maybe they released the whole Cox team? We don't know, at least not from that article.
It didn't make the point you are saying it alluded to: that Cox's lack of profitability was the reason for the firings.
I used to work in restaurants when I was younger. In a lot of those stores, we had our own cleaning crew; in a few others we had a seperate company do the mainentence/floors/windows/landscaping. Maybe 10 of those 70 were janitors/mainentence men, and it's cheaper to contract that work out? Again, it didn't say where those firings were from or what caused them other than 'streamlining'; whick is a cryptic word coming from a business.
Or maybe they were from the Guild Wars team: after all, that game just had a large box come out and probably had some 'excess fat' that just wasn't needed seeing as how there is no monthly income for that division? The article alluded to maybe NCSoft lopped a few people off of the Tabula Rasa project, but who knows?
Sorry, you didn't make the point you were going for as I see it. Saying that since KFC has slumping sales and then that Pepisco has cut it's workforce DOESN'T mean that we can infer that KFC had it's workforce diminished due to slumping sales. I forget what that argument is called, the 'since we know A and B, then C is obvious' one. Transference? Ahh, whatever it's called, it's a moot point, as it's an invalid arguement to make since you havent shown that Cox is losing any personnal, as well as not showing that NCSoft is anything but happy to maintain the status quo at the Cox division.
Losing a large chuck of people? 70 our of 300 is a huge number, but again I won't say the sky is falling around them at Cox at least until I see something that points in that direction.
Nowhere in that article did it say that due to Cox losing subs and box sales, they were releasing personnal.
Didn't have to. It's implied. If you have a product that's losing money, you can't continue to offer the same level of staff, support and development you were when it was making money.
Auto Assault has been a disaster, too.
I fully expect the Q2 IR on CoH/V to be a greater disappointment than Q1's report. December 05's Issue 7 spike has already begun wearing off. I'm looking for the tend to continue and even accelerate as Cryptic drags it's feet on content while still trying to address balance issues. (Expect more nerfs in I8 because that's all the devs there know how to do).
When the only tool you have in your toolbox is a hammer (nerfs), every problem starts to look like a nail. That's been Emmert's approach thus far, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
Still waiting on something that says Cox will lose staff or funding though. You have infered that Cox is a part of NCSoft's woes, I still think they expected revenues to drop as the stop selling so many high priced boxsets of the game and have moved to a monthly sub income. Again I ask wonder how much Wow's revenues have fallen in the past year as well? Not expecting a drop is foolhardy at best; it's enivetable. Now how much of that is from lost subs too is up for debate.
Anyhow, I get the sense you were a tank or a scrapper, 2 pretty overpowered AT's from my experience. I'm sorry they need to bring squishy's with them now to fight large spawns. Actually, no I'm not sorry, if they want to be solo artists they can play at the lowest diff and never need a def/controller. My tank/scrappers all do just fine, and even better when I'm teamed. Sorry, guess we need to agree to disagree on this point as well.
AS well as the Cox future, as you infer an awful lot. I'm sure you're an insightful person, but I will now head to work ( on a friggin saturday ) and be content in knowing that just because NCSoft has cut employees to streamline their business doesn't mean Cox is getting the same treatment until I actually see something that states it. Not just allude, infer, reading tea leaves, etc; I mean something concrete. Something that actually states Cox is losing any of those 70 people and will be hampered by a smaller budget for dev or lessened staffing for their art teams/coders etc, when the cuts may all have been employees who are now replaced by contracted workers (they are cheaper, no insurance, no SS taxes to pay for them, etc...).
Cryptic either needs to buff toons for solo play (instead of constantly nerfing them), merge servers, or get out of the game design business. Unfortunately, Emmert and crew will probably take falling numbers and revenues as a sign they need to nerf everything again to bring in new subs. I don't think they're smart enough to "get it".
Soloing is still very possible and very easy. All my character's (ranging in solo-ability from a lowly Emp Defender to a Scrapper) can complete missions on the third difficulty and some even higher.
They were ill-timed and the devs didn't communicate well enough but they were needed. Before the nerfs a Tank (and some other characters) could literally solo an Invincible mission spawned for 8.
When the only tool you have in your toolbox is a hammer (nerfs), every problem starts to look like a nail. That's been Emmert's approach thus far, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
Were the nerfs harsh and ill-timed? Of course. Were they needed to balance the game? Definitely. The game balance was crap! All a team needed was a Tank and they'd eliminate almost 100% of the risk.
And I'm sorry but herding was not fun. Even as a Tank it got tedious after a while since there was little risk of dying. Basically the rest of the team just stood around, while the herder played connect the dots. No skill required and it was boring as heck.
Anyway, they've already stated that I5/ED was required to bring characters back to their intended 'baseline' and that there would be fewer nerfs in the future...
(Expect more nerfs in I8 because that's all the devs there know how to do).
Suprise suprise, there are very few nerfs in I7 and the buff list is very long this time... The only notable nerfs...
- Stealth and Phase Shift Powers will suppress (for self buffs or toggles) or cancel (for external buffs) when a player interacts with Interactive Objects.
Mainly to discourage people farming 'click-item' newspaper missions.
- Reduced the effectiveness of Super Reflexes AoE Defense powers (Stalker and Scrapper).
Not needed with the defense scaling changes.
- (PvP only) All player powers with 'Toggle Drop' effects have lower chances for those effects to occur.
Not needed since player defenses were low enough already.
- Arch Villains/Heroes and Giant Monsters have been significantly boosted. They should now require more people in order for them to be defeated, especially at higher levels.
(The significant boost was scaled back to a minor boost.)
I can understand why you'd be bitter Serling...
I also though back -to-back Issues of nerfs was crap, but if you looked beyond your characters and at the overall game balance, they were needed. The devs didn't communicate well and their implementation was shite but they did it to improve the game and have since let go of their nerf-happy ways...
Have you not heard? Game balance for pve is irrelevant. If you think so, then either you are not really a pve player or there is something wrong with you...*
*Note: Sorry, just having a little carry-over fun from another thread here...
Could you please list some buffs? I have not seen any significant differences in my toons of which the most I play are my Fire tanker, SS/Fire Brute and Dominator. The only buff I remember reading about was to the domination bar filling quicker in PvP and I think it recharges quicker after use in PvE and PvP.
Comments
This is not correct, the stockholder reports make it clear that these are "users" and not subscribers. NCsoft employee's my lie or post in error on the forums, but not in their investor reports.
The figures given are of users (people who connect to the server) only and not subscriptions.
Where did it say that? I just read through the thing, and the only specific comment on what a 'user' was exactly was back in the appendix where it had a nice drawing with an arrow explaining how a 'user' was a customer who paid a fee.
Anyhoo, I'm more likely to honestly go by either the information released by the company to stockholders or well researched data than I am to pay attention to folks who are upset at the game in a random forum. As such, my only bit of a questionmark in my mind is the figure of 160,000 reported by mmogchart.com. Though, that's a June 06 number, and the one reported in the document was from May. The rest of NCSoft's games numbers on that site accurately reflect the numbers reported by the company. So I'm kind of curious as to where the updated numbers came from.
In any case, this month I've seen more 'yellow dot' servers than I have since CoV was released, AKA not a single green server. That's after the free reactivation trial was over, and based upon the ebb and flow of the game a hefty portion of that is customers wo re-up their subscription after every issue release. So it's a good bet that the numbers this month are up eh.
The problem with your numbers for Wow, jdun1, is that Blizzard counts total subscriptiosn ever. Every account that has ever been active, whether currently still active or not, is included in their count. As such, my account, which has been inactive for some time now, is part of that 6.5 million. This also includes the free trials, then if you actually buy the game after the free trial, that can count as another account.
This has been a source of some debate among many gaming magazines. Nobody outside of Blizzard has any way of knowing how many actual active subscriptiosn WoW has. Cryptic only counts current paying subscriptions.
http://wuyausu.com
Who stopped payment on my reality check?
Me, I'd like to see something new, different and with something near the numbers of WOW. I play at odd times and finding a zone with 4 poeple in it is depressing. Going to new games and hearing no one talk is even worse
IMHO: CoV/H main problem is that they can't hold their players interest long time. There is no items to collect, no houses to build, no big reasons that will create attachment to your character and other players around. Also repeating same content (same mission maps, same mission types...) is getting boring really fast.
I played my first MMORGP - Anarchy Online about 1 and half year. Biggest reasons why I was playing so long were all kind items that I was able to collect, huge level grind (210 levels), lot's of cool places to explore (traveling was much more slower) and most important from all - player community. I did slowly familiarize myself to players around me. I started to remember their names, how they look and what they like to do. Most of our time was used to social chit-chatting. We were sitting in one those virtual bars and chat. My friend used to say that AO wasn't game - it was 3D chat room.
CoX doesn't have much social community. Game is so streamlined and easy that there is basicly no reason to exchange information with players. You don't need to ask from other players how complex game system X works, where you can find item X or how item Y is working. You can't tell stories from great place Z or you don't even have good game world background story to roleplay with others. If your team stops for chit-chatting, then team is bad - it is isn't generating XP at peak efficiency. I rarely remember my team members names if someone lose connection - I need to look name from chat log. It is much more harder to create social connections in CoX than in AO.
"I know I said this was my last post, but you my friend are a idiotic moron." -Shadow4482
A user is someone who uses the server.
The tables plot the number of people who concurrently use the server, or use it on a monhly basis. etc etc. to be uaser of the server, you must simply use it. At no point in any of the appendices can I find reference to whether or not all recorded access is paid access.
The word subscriber is never mentioned, hence they are not plotting subscribers.
I can't find the appendix where it gives a nice drawing with an arrow explaining haw a user is a customer who paid the fee.
I am reading form their report found on this page.
http://www.ncsoft.com/eng/nccompany/ir_data_report01.asp
On page 13 of that report they clearly state that they have 3 million paying customers worldwide, yet if you add up their server users on the same page, you get 4.5 million.
1/3 of all NCsoft users aren't paying.
A user is someone who uses the server.
The tables plot the number of people who concurrently use the server, or use it on a monhly basis. etc etc. to be uaser of the server, you must simply use it. At no point in any of the appendices can I find reference to whether or not all recorded access is paid access.
The word subscriber is never mentioned, hence they are not plotting subscribers.
I can't find the appendix where it gives a nice drawing with an arrow explaining haw a user is a customer who paid the fee.
I am reading form their report found on this page.
http://www.ncsoft.com/eng/nccompany/ir_data_report01.asp
On page 13 of that report they clearly state that they have 3 million paying customers worldwide, yet if you add up their server users on the same page, you get 4.5 million.
1/3 of all NCsoft users aren't paying.
Oddly, I go to that page and got a 40 page PDF file with all sorts of nice information on all their games and everything like that. The same one I was refering to. And a large part of that discrepancy is that over in Korea and the like a bunch of customers follow the other buisness model. The PC Cafe one. Where the PC Cafe charges and is charged hourly rates for connecting to their games.
There's also a very aggravating minority, but a large minority, of players who are elitist min-maxers, and will basically insult and vilify other players for not having an uber-maXXed out build. Heck there is a hundreds-post-long thread on the forum entitled "How do you tell someone their build sucks?" that is all about whether there is one holy "right" way to build each character, and half the people posting say, yes there is, and if you don't build like this, we will kick you from teams. This make COH extremely newbie-unfriendly, and newbie-friendliness is one of the MAIN ways to build community. Again I see this in SOR... I have seen people newbie-helped who then turn around and do the helping themselves a week later, and who then get invited into guilds because they are nice people, etc, etc. When does this ever happen in COH? I don't think I've ever seen much of it.
I don't think there's something fundamentally different about the player community as a whole in the two games though. I think it has to do with game complexity. You could see this within one game in SWG. When the game first came out it was complex like Ryzom, and people were constantly spamming help text at each other, either through gobal channels, or in public places like starports or cantinas. As they simplified the game and turned it more and more into an FPS with no complexity, people don't need help, so the community clams up... there's less to talk about, so there is less talking, and everything goes quiet and you feel like you are in a graveyard.
COH is the same way. It's so simplistic there's nothing to need to ask help over. It's full of small teams doing private missions, so you hardly ever see other people (take a look around some places like Boomtown or Dark Astoria some time -- there are dozens of people with mission doors in there, but they ignore the zone and make a beeline to their door, so the zone is empty). The game is built in a way that it almost has to fracture the community into small groups that basically ignore each other (the fact that you can't see channel chat while in-mission does not help, since 90% of the person-hours spent in the game are in-mission).
I think these factors all contribute to COH having a pretty weak, disconnected community. And for a game that is supposed to be a "massively multiplayer" experience, having a fractured, weak, silent, uncommunicative group of people forming a non-community, does not work very well.
C
That is an issue, but that isn't the main problem. Before thinking of having peoples busy for a long time, you have to make sure that players are happy. A happy player leaving is fine, not the best outcome, but fine as he will come back most of the time and if not, well he will keep a good memory of the game and will strongly consider other products of the same name.
And this come from someone who is an achiever and want a LOT more to do, yet a LOT of right stuff, I don't care for HOs and IoPs.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Cafe subscribers count as paying subscribers and users. The matrixes in that report only refer to users on the server. Subscription numbers are different and given at the top of page 18. They are not broken down by game.
The bulk of (4 million) Lineage players are from the Cafe model. NCsoft does not have 3 miilion paying western subscriptions, and 1 million cafe users. They are counting the Cafe model as paying subscriptions.
The biggest and most important difference between the Cafe model and the western model, is that the cafe people didn't buy the game. In the west the bulk of players bought the game in a box from a shop for £30 and then subscribe monthly, making them a much more profitable market. In the cafe's they pay by the hour only.
If you have a look at WoW's figures you will see that they count people with cafe subscriptions as subscribers.
No, it doesn't really matter all that much. But if you're going to argue points, you might as well argue using true points as opposed to false ones. It helps your argument a little. For instance, the devs were at E3, there was a whole Meet&Greet thing where they talked about upcoming additions to CoH/CoV. They didn't have a presence because they didn't really have anything on next year's expansion at the time I'd imagine. It's hard to show off a product that you don't have.
Also, I keep on seeing folks going on about the layoffs at NCSoft as if they were CoH's fault. CoH/CoV was and still is profitable. Its revenue is down from last years due to there being no box sales mostly. Honestly, I imagine the layoffs were more due to the utterly lackluster performance of Auto Assault than anything else. I mean, it's current number of subscirbers is somewhere in the 10,000 to 11,000 range and all of the US and European servers are soon to merge into one. I'd imagine it caused a bit of a worry over on the NCSoft side of things there prompting the layoffs and a bit more cautious planning for future release titles.
But that's just my take on the issue.
Well, first off, I do like the game.
It is a niche game, to say the least. But in response to those who say it's losing money, I have to disagree. Let's say revunes drop 32% for a gas station, shall we? Now, does that mean they are losing money? Not at all. It just means that there is less coming in, that their profit margin has shrunk. Of course, with most people who ever will buy the game already having bought the $50 box and are now in the $15 a month club, yeah their revenue will shrink. A lot like Dish Network not selling as many of their dishes and have more monthly subs instead, their revenues dropped as well. Doesn't mean that it's time to look for holes in the hull just yet, as they probably thought of this event occuring anyways.
It was (I7 that is) the first major update since CoV came out; so I can see why it took longer to get togther. And I7 was/is still kinda buggyalthough playable. I can't say that everything is all sunshines and lollipops, but all things considered, I'm still happy with the game. Sure, finding a team isnt always as easy as it was in SWG at the MO, but on the same note, I'm happy to avoid any similarities with that trainwreck.
I can see this game still being around for a good year and a half, if not longer. Niche markets are usually rabid markets; just look at how well Star Wars books sell. I enjoy reading, but just won't pick one of them up to read, no matter how well written. But they keep writing them, and some people keep reading them.
Remember the OP's point (citing the article):
This is an overly optimistic prognosis given that revised earnings for the game(s) are down 32% from last year's levels.
Shrinking profit margins mean less money spent on staff and/or future project development. How long could you survive taking a 32% pay cut?
Furthermore, given that peak server populations are half of what they were at release means that finding a team at any given time is becoming increasingly difficult. And since the nerfs have practically forced teaming at the higher levels of the game, how long are you going to want to wait around trying to find a team? Last time I was on Champion, broadcasts were sent out to get people to take down Lusca. Four players showed up. This was on a Saturday afternoon in January. The four of us agreed it would be pointless to try and take down Lusca, and we all ended up logging for the afternoon.
An MMO without players is an MMO without a future. Cryptic either needs to buff toons for solo play (instead of constantly nerfing them), merge servers, or get out of the game design business. Unfortunately, Emmert and crew will probably take falling numbers and revenues as a sign they need to nerf everything again to bring in new subs.
I don't think they're smart enough to "get it".
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=3263859&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=907&vc=1
The above is a quote taken from the CoH website. Apparently, more and more people are starting to feel this way which is why the forecast for the CoX franchise isn't nearly as rosy as the Gamespy article would have you believe.
The shrinking profit margins aren't a good thing, I'll give you that. But who is to say that they will reduce staffing, devolpment, etc by any percent?
If you make $100 dollars a month let's say, and your revenues go down by 32%, that leaves you with 68 dollars for the next month's take. Ok, with 68 dollars, and let's say it costs (totally random number here) you 60 dollars to run your business, you don't have to cut back. Some operators would instantly start cutting corners, others would stay where they are to provide the same level of service that had originally earned them 100 dollars a month. Some might even sink more money into the business in order to attempt to regain their old numbers. Frankly, who knows if they're cutting back or staying the same?
With the promises of a new box next year, and issue 8 around september give or take, I doubt they'd cut corners at this point to generate more profit at the expense of possible future gains. And as I've pointed out before, of course revenues will drop as more and more of the people who will ever be intrested in this game have already bite the bullet and bought the initial boxes. Landscaping companies and auto detailers make the most money in the early spring, when people are ready to plunk down the cash to get their lawn/cars 'pimped' out for spring and summer ( in minnesota at least, long winter and all). They'll still make money throughout the summer and into fall, but since they aren't doing as much large work and are more into quick lawn groomings for upkeep ( or a buff and wax instead of a total car detailing), they expect their profits to go down.
Now that Cox is getting into it's late summer phase, yeah they need to start to get ready to keep those customers they might lose over the winter ( ie waiting for issues and new boxes). But I doubt they're over there pacing the floors just yet. Thinking about it, planning their next moves, sure; but it's not the end of the world. I wonder how much WoW's revenues have fallen in the past year alone, they arent selling as many boxes as they used to either...
There are fewer people entering the game these days. And many of my old friends are leaving/taking breaks as well. It happens, and while the game isnt helped by it by any means, all games have turnovers. Using an example of a giant debt-inducing monster months after most of the badge hounds have gotten said badge isn't exactly a good one though. I have one badge toon, and other than that, if I'm on a low level toon I'm gonna be hard pressed to care to get 2 bars of debt unless there is a good turnout of players there. No 'phat lootz', just a touch of Xp and some debt, maybe a shiny SO or whatever.
I'm just not sold on the theory of the giant monster barometer for this game, and never will be. I do look at the members of Infinity Hami channel, or the badge channel, and see well over 100 people on it during prime time. Down from the 150's of a year ago, but still a lot of people there.
Server merge, hmm, that actually might not be a bad idea in all honesty though. Maybe drop the lowest 2-3 and let them recreate them on a new server; although the name thing would be a total pain to deal with. I'm mainly on infinity, and rarely go long without an invite at whatever level I'm at. Either through friends or random pickup groups, it might take 15-20 minutes. Go work on a kill badge or something while you wait it out.
This game is odd that way, as in if a team has 4 controllers already, many wont invite another controller. If a team is in a mission, odds are they aren't looking at that moment to add others on until after it ends. A lot of people flat out refuse to do pick up groups for some reason.
Others want just the right combo of AT's, and you can sit there for a while not getting an invite for no other reason then you aren't what a team is looking for at that moment. Which is too bad, but there are other toons you can hop on and try out, maybe a more populated server than champion or pinnacle or whatever. It's weird, but I've gotten a few good teammates from having them send me a tell when I'm on a team asking if they need a whatever at whatever level. It's not the most polite thing, but often times it works; give that a shot maybe?
Anyways, sorry to go on and on, but I just don't see a need to cry about the falling sky just yet. It is creeping down a bit every week though, but not so fast that I feel a need to question if the game will even be there in a year from now. I wouldn't mind a buff though, the nerfs have gotten a bit old, and then after buffing us they can go and buff the npc's too! Then buff us again! At least then we'd be overpowered then normal, overpowered then normal; not this underpowered/normal phase we're in now.
But as an emp at heart, I'm used to being underpowered. And frankly, regen is still powerful, even though it's commonly used as a yardstick of nerfage. My god, took me forever to get to level 50 as an emp, since after level 38 NO ONE NEEDED ME! This is back issue 2-3ish, but still, besides blasters, there was no one who really needed a defender unless they wanted a specific buff/debuff. At least now after i5, tanks do need a team, they can't herd the whole damn map and go afk in the dumpster for a minute while 200 wolves line up to get nuked; there is no good reason for that level of 'power' imho. It's nice to be needed, even if you're a lowly controller or defender after all!
We do. NCSoft, which publishes the game, is cutting back. Note this thread:
http://mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/82958
While you may be perfectly willing to operate on 32% less margin, apparently NCSoft is not.
So, all that said is that NCSoft is releasing (to put it gently) 70 employees. From what divisions? Didn't say. Nowhere in that article did it say that due to Cox losing subs and box sales, they were releasing personnal. Maybe they released design personnel from Cox, maybe the people were scattered across the company, ie PR, marketing, HR, the janitors, a few from each game; maybe they released the whole Cox team? We don't know, at least not from that article.
It didn't make the point you are saying it alluded to: that Cox's lack of profitability was the reason for the firings.
I used to work in restaurants when I was younger. In a lot of those stores, we had our own cleaning crew; in a few others we had a seperate company do the mainentence/floors/windows/landscaping. Maybe 10 of those 70 were janitors/mainentence men, and it's cheaper to contract that work out? Again, it didn't say where those firings were from or what caused them other than 'streamlining'; whick is a cryptic word coming from a business.
Or maybe they were from the Guild Wars team: after all, that game just had a large box come out and probably had some 'excess fat' that just wasn't needed seeing as how there is no monthly income for that division? The article alluded to maybe NCSoft lopped a few people off of the Tabula Rasa project, but who knows?
Sorry, you didn't make the point you were going for as I see it. Saying that since KFC has slumping sales and then that Pepisco has cut it's workforce DOESN'T mean that we can infer that KFC had it's workforce diminished due to slumping sales. I forget what that argument is called, the 'since we know A and B, then C is obvious' one. Transference? Ahh, whatever it's called, it's a moot point, as it's an invalid arguement to make since you havent shown that Cox is losing any personnal, as well as not showing that NCSoft is anything but happy to maintain the status quo at the Cox division.
Losing a large chuck of people? 70 our of 300 is a huge number, but again I won't say the sky is falling around them at Cox at least until I see something that points in that direction.
Didn't have to. It's implied. If you have a product that's losing money, you can't continue to offer the same level of staff, support and development you were when it was making money.
Auto Assault has been a disaster, too.
I fully expect the Q2 IR on CoH/V to be a greater disappointment than Q1's report. December 05's Issue 7 spike has already begun wearing off. I'm looking for the tend to continue and even accelerate as Cryptic drags it's feet on content while still trying to address balance issues. (Expect more nerfs in I8 because that's all the devs there know how to do).
When the only tool you have in your toolbox is a hammer (nerfs), every problem starts to look like a nail. That's been Emmert's approach thus far, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
Still waiting on something that says Cox will lose staff or funding though. You have infered that Cox is a part of NCSoft's woes, I still think they expected revenues to drop as the stop selling so many high priced boxsets of the game and have moved to a monthly sub income. Again I ask wonder how much Wow's revenues have fallen in the past year as well? Not expecting a drop is foolhardy at best; it's enivetable. Now how much of that is from lost subs too is up for debate.
Anyhow, I get the sense you were a tank or a scrapper, 2 pretty overpowered AT's from my experience. I'm sorry they need to bring squishy's with them now to fight large spawns. Actually, no I'm not sorry, if they want to be solo artists they can play at the lowest diff and never need a def/controller. My tank/scrappers all do just fine, and even better when I'm teamed. Sorry, guess we need to agree to disagree on this point as well.
AS well as the Cox future, as you infer an awful lot. I'm sure you're an insightful person, but I will now head to work ( on a friggin saturday
) and be content in knowing that just because NCSoft has cut employees to streamline their business doesn't mean Cox is getting the same treatment until I actually see something that states it. Not just allude, infer, reading tea leaves, etc; I mean something concrete. Something that actually states Cox is losing any of those 70 people and will be hampered by a smaller budget for dev or lessened staffing for their art teams/coders etc, when the cuts may all have been employees who are now replaced by contracted workers (they are cheaper, no insurance, no SS taxes to pay for them, etc...).
Again I say who knows? Have a good one serling.
All my character's (ranging in solo-ability from a lowly Emp Defender to a Scrapper) can complete missions on the third difficulty and some even higher.
They were ill-timed and the devs didn't communicate well enough but they were needed.
Before the nerfs a Tank (and some other characters) could literally solo an Invincible mission spawned for 8. Were the nerfs harsh and ill-timed? Of course.
Were they needed to balance the game? Definitely.
The game balance was crap!
All a team needed was a Tank and they'd eliminate almost 100% of the risk.
And I'm sorry but herding was not fun.
Even as a Tank it got tedious after a while since there was little risk of dying.
Basically the rest of the team just stood around, while the herder played connect the dots.
No skill required and it was boring as heck.
Anyway, they've already stated that I5/ED was required to bring characters back to their intended 'baseline' and that there would be fewer nerfs in the future...
Suprise suprise, there are very few nerfs in I7 and the buff list is very long this time...
The only notable nerfs...
- - Stealth and Phase Shift Powers will suppress (for self buffs or toggles) or cancel (for external buffs) when a player interacts with Interactive Objects.
Mainly to discourage people farming 'click-item' newspaper missions.Not needed with the defense scaling changes.
Not needed since player defenses were low enough already.
- - Arch Villains/Heroes and Giant Monsters have been significantly boosted. They should now require more people in order for them to be defeated, especially at higher levels.
(The significant boost was scaled back to a minor boost.)I can understand why you'd be bitter Serling...
I also though back -to-back Issues of nerfs was crap, but if you looked beyond your characters and at the overall game balance, they were needed.
The devs didn't communicate well and their implementation was shite but they did it to improve the game and have since let go of their nerf-happy ways...
Isn't it time you let go too?
Written like a dev or fanboy. Which one are you again?
"The game balance was crap!"
Have you not heard? Game balance for pve is irrelevant. If you think so, then either you are not really a pve player or there is something wrong with you...*
*Note: Sorry, just having a little carry-over fun from another thread here...
http://wuyausu.com
Who stopped payment on my reality check?
Yac,
Could you please list some buffs? I have not seen any significant differences in my toons of which the most I play are my Fire tanker, SS/Fire Brute and Dominator. The only buff I remember reading about was to the domination bar filling quicker in PvP and I think it recharges quicker after use in PvE and PvP.