Shenku, you make pretty good sense to me. While I have nothing against an MMO being ported to a smart phone or a tablet - I just don't see it being practical - certainly not for CoH in the overall scheme of things.
Although, I suppose it's possible to log in, check the market and log out, probably without too much difficulty. And of course, some do like to get the costumes on their new characters in their free time...heck, why not? How many controls would we need for that?
there are a lot of good ideas for mobile MMOs but the problem comes in the software section. iOS has really crappy publishing standards, like; they actually mandate that only half-rate games can be published on iOS, I touched on this before a bit;
iOS's game market is owned and operated by Apple, they approve or deny developer applications, getting a game onto their download page requires you to conform to their standards. in their opinion Apple believes;
Mobile games are the future, mobile gamers have erratic attention spans and can only stare at something for 2 to 5 minutes per go.
for that reason they mandate that to get a game on their download page it needs to be mobile market friendly and not be complex or require attention spans of over 5 minutes.
for this reason Final Fantasy iOS version will probably be a "Go" button tapper, you tap the button and the server tells you the outcome and presents another Go button to press when you return from your "mobile gamer lack of attention phase". there will be no dedicated chat system, instead you can type short messages on other players 'walls', this seems to be the format of iOS games.
There may be some 3D stuff but typically the camera angle is fixed or the 3D graphics are pre-rendered not real-time. the screens are not that big either so they will want you zoomed in on your character, there may be very little compensation for other players avatars on your screen, the cheap way I've seen it done is grayed out outlines or even worse, just a player name hovering over a shadow.
To me this whole expedition to mobile systems seems like an ancient Aztec ritual where they send their old people out from the city never to return in search of a mythical city of prosperity, naturally they get eaten in the jungle by jungle animals or die from starvation or old age, there is no city of prosperity.
well I guess FF is making it's Final Pilgramage.
The other option for publishing to iOS other than apple's page is... oh that's right they have a lock-out for any application not downloaded from their download page that attempts to open a GUI or use the touch screen...: viruses? Yes!, Indie games? No!
Apple "no one should be allowed to make money off a game on our hardware unless we approve it!"
this is why I'm so opposed to the direction windows has taken with windows 8, it's only a matter of time before the only programs that run on windows 8 are mobile style programs downloaded only from microsoft's official download page. that would be the death of main stream gaming, it would lock-off another medium for average developers.
that's what they want, they want total control over what games are on the market so it can go back to the system where only big name companies can make and publish games and the rest of us developers are entirely at their mercy, can;t start rival companies, and can't get professional experience in game dev without their acceptance.
rant and projections aside, this was a really bad idea for FF, I actually heard about this a long while back from some adamant FF fans who have stated "I'm not going to play it"
as for Coh on mobile, you could have the best game idea and interface possible, then you have to submit it to apple for their approval or disapproval, they are going to turn around and say "your game is too complex for mobile users( it's over our standard mobile game button limit), and as such at this time we will not be placing your title on our download page, you may make revisions and re-submit it to us, but keep in mind once accepted we own ##% of it and it's profits."
Honestly they have a worse third party developer agreement system than nintendo or sony. I have absolutely no idea why the FF devs would throw away their less invasive licenses with nintendo and sony for a more invasive license for mobile systems.
