I pretty much only played on Villain side of things. It sounds like more people played hero side and just had a few questions I wanted to throw out to you guys.
If you didn't spend a lot of time villain side, was it just because you had established friends/cash hero side?
I preferred the archetypes of villains, did you think they were better or am I alone?
Villains seem pretty lacking in population when I quit, was this just a freedom server thing?
If CoX come back would you like to see Heroes and Villains share the same game space for the sake of population?
Bonus background on my time with CoX since this my first post:
I wasn't around for the shut down, I quit before it went FtP (I didn't know it was going FtP). I came back when I saw it was FtP to see how thing were. I didn't like not being able to use my billions of inf worth of IOs without paying so I gave all my stuff to my SG mates and never went back (they were super excited as I was super rich). Not long after that I heard the game was being shut down :'( I was sad, while I didn't play anymore, CoX was still a huge part of my life that I spent 5+ years in, hanging out with the best community I've ever seen in a game. Now that it's gone, naturally, I'm chomping at the bit to play again. I can only make so many builds in Mids :-\
I also tended to create characters in the red side, and Villains were also lacking in terms of population in comparison to heroes in Virtue.
If the game does come back, I think there won't be as many servers, so finding groups shouldn't be as much of an issue. If they do decide to allow villains in Paragon and heroes in Rogue Isles, they should at least give rogues/vigilantes some kind of advantage. But anyways, we can only hope the game will really be back in the future.
When the game comes back there is no indication that there are going to be less servers than the day it closed... let's just put that out there since this hasn't even been discussed since...well it's not official the game will be coming back.
When the game comes back and if character data is in place... I am very doubtful there will be any changes at all made to the servers. If there is no character data we MAY see a reduction in servers...heck we may see all new server names for that matter. Best bet is just to wait and see :)
When the game comes back it will be in Issue 24 mode (What was on the test server and ready to be launched to live). The new team will run CoH in maintenance mode while working on CoH2. Heroes and Villains already jointly share space (kind of)... I can make a hero mastermind or dominator if I want to and always be a hero...or a villain controller or defender for example. There will not be extra work done so that a TRUE Hero can run around Grandville or a TRUE villain run around Talos....
I actually prefer Corruptors and Brutes but almost always stayed Hero side because that's where my base was..my friends mainly played hero side..and frankly I just liked it better. I played villain side some, but yes it is less populated than hero side. In order to get full teams villain side it's always best to be in global channels...server channel..a VG etc...to help you get and stay in touch with more players :)
I like the villain ATs but red side zones were just depressing to me and there didn't seem to be as many. When side switching was introduced I played more villain ATs on hero side.
See I wasn't really around for the whole villain archetypes can play hero side thing, so right there answers a lot for me. I think issue 18 or 19 is when I stopped playing. There really would be no reason for a merge of any sorts at that point. I'd image it would a ton of work anyway or not even feasible. I should do some looking into what I missed.
As far number of servers goes, I can't image they'd need as many, judging by the numbers I see on the various forums, there'd be no need. It'd take a long time for people to come back if at all and I always considered the number of servers to be frivolous anyway (this is personal opinion and in no way founded on facts or intelligence).
And for caracter data, I can't image they will recover it, but only time will tell. I'd almost prefer they don't, but I'm bias because I gave all my money and IOs away.. Not having the data though does make the issue of scarcity a huge problem. I cant image what 5 LoTG +recharge would cost if they had to all be found again. I was a min/maxer though, so that might not be an issue for some. Any thoughts on salvage/IO scarcity if data can't be recovered?
Quote from: Fable on August 18, 2014, 05:17:56 PM
And for caracter data, I can't image they will recover it, but only time will tell. I'd almost prefer they don't, but I'm bias because I gave all my money and IOs away.. Not having the data though does make the issue of scarcity a huge problem. I cant image what 5 LoTG +recharge would cost if they had to all be found again. I was a min/maxer though, so that might not be an issue for some. Any thoughts on salvage/IO scarcity if data can't be recovered?
Well, they'd be recovered eventually, but it would indeed be costly at first. More people would go salvage-hunting for a change, and having soft-capped def/res may turn out to be something remarkable for a while.
Quote from: Fable on August 18, 2014, 05:17:56 PM
As far number of servers goes, I can't image they'd need as many, judging by the numbers I see on the various forums, there'd be no need. It'd take a long time for people to come back if at all and I always considered the number of servers to be frivolous anyway (this is personal opinion and in no way founded on facts or intelligence).
And for caracter data, I can't image they will recover it, but only time will tell. I'd almost prefer they don't, but I'm bias because I gave all my money and IOs away.. Not having the data though does make the issue of scarcity a huge problem. I cant image what 5 LoTG +recharge would cost if they had to all be found again. I was a min/maxer though, so that might not be an issue for some. Any thoughts on salvage/IO scarcity if data can't be recovered?
I don't think the amount of people on the CoH sites is any real indication of what might happen if the game reopened.
Considering the outcry that happened when the game closed I would say that any news stating the game was to be reopened would be on all the gaming news services at least. That would start a buzz and who knows how many might come back.
I'm not suggesting that they will need all the servers they had before. Time will tell.
As far as the cost of things on the market if we have to restart, I don't think it will be as bad as you might think. There will be those who will AE PL there way to their first 50 in a day or two. These people will be farming in short order to get back their billionaire status. Others will be spending their time recreating their bases and the like. Others will just be playing their way through doing missions/TFs and the normal.
All these people will have different amounts of time they will alot to the game and take different paths to the time they need to start IOing their characters. My guess is the market will sort itself out pretty fast.
I'd be stunned quite frankly if all the character data was/is saved. I know for me personally, my NCSoft Master Account no longer applies since I never migrated it... I never felt the need to do so since A) CoH was closing and B) I didn't play any other NCSoft games. I'd come back, but I'd be shocked if CoH came back with all the character data retained.
I tried to play Red Side one time....Everyone, even the contacts seemed mean and unkind.........
It wasn't enjoyable to me. :-X
Quote from: Ankhammon on August 18, 2014, 06:46:52 PM
I don't think the amount of people on the CoH sites is any real indication of what might happen if the game reopened.
Considering the outcry that happened when the game closed I would say that any news stating the game was to be reopened would be on all the gaming news services at least. That would start a buzz and who knows how many might come back.
I'm not suggesting that they will need all the servers they had before. Time will tell.
Point taken, I didn't really think of it that way tbh.
Quote from: MaidMercury on August 18, 2014, 11:32:38 PM
I tried to play Red Side one time....Everyone, even the contacts seemed mean and unkind.........
It wasn't enjoyable to me. :-X
Yeah, everyone was sort of villianesq, which I found weird. Granville was such a lovely place.
I tended to play vigils so I could run both sides of the game once they opened that up. Most people I teamed with did so we could run TFs/SFs and both Red and Blue Hamis. That said, I still wanted to use my base which was blue side. I tended to play brutes over tanks and scrappers and corruptors over blasters and defs unless I was in a hami raid and they needed extra emps or trollers. I also preferred MMs when solo'ing. Lil Hell Mouse (my demon/dark mm) was one nasty little rodent in boss fights. Very few elite bosses could go toe to toe with her and win.
Now I believe someone said something about coh coming back. I'm not looking to start a flame war, but it's not coming back. I wish I was wrong. I wish I could tell everyone here that NCSoft has decided to put the game back up and apologizes for the inconvenience. But, I can't. The leaders of NCSoft are too proud to admit they messed up. Only way it will come back is if it is sold to another company that wants to put it back up. The only realistic way we will get back our game is to build our own clone of it which there are a few projects attempting it. They are still a few years out but coming along nicely from what I can tell. The great thing about we the players building it is that no one can take it from us. I'm not sure the mice would return to Paragon City if NCSoft did return the game to functioning.
LV
The problem I had with Red side was that almost all of the zones were cloudy. The dreariness sapped my enthusiasm. Then there were the Arachnos mission maps, all of them were dark and cramped. Heck, regular cave maps were more pleasant. A couple of the large chambers in the Arachnos maps really, really annoyed me.
I only made three villain archetypes and I switched them over to heroes side. The Villains Side in my mind had a lot more helpful players that had a lot more knowledge and who preferred soloing, however the missions in my opinion were so...boring.
I only played hero side, I did have a few villains however, unlike heroes I could not just get into playing villains. I always thought of myself as a hero player. So after they introduced side switching I made sure to switch my villains to heroes, by the time the game closed I had my ninja mm a hero and was working on my night widow and only had 10 more missions to make them a hero.
I had made a few villains, but then came the time I did the Vendetti story arc, where you have to deal with the "traitor", Niles Worthington. When I found out that Vendetti was going to have Worthington's niece cured so that he could get her killed using her against the Council, I couldn't play redside for a couple of months after that, and, when I did, I realized that I'm not wired to play villains; I have to be the good guy, and help people. I even made a hero character whose bio read:
"I was stupid. I wanted to be a greater mob enforcer than my father, and I thought I was capable of doing whatever was necessary to achieve that. But I'm just not cold-blooded enough. When Angelo Vendetti told me to hurt the "traitor", Niles Worthington [a real redside story arc], I readily did so. Then I learned that Worthington's niece had a medical condition, and that the treatments cost more than Vendetti was willing to help him with. So, Worthington had asked Vendetti's enemies, the Council, for help. As his revenge, Vendetti planned to have the niece cured, and then use her as a weapon against the Council. An innocent was to die fighting his enemies. The thought so sickened me that I felt as if my soul had been poisoned. Pure evil of this sort must be fought, and now, I have to help. Nothing can ever make up for my past. But, as a hero, maybe I can give someone a future - like Janice should have had."
I really wish that there had been a way to stop Vendetti and save Janice. I'm just not villain material.
It was fun sometimes to play the villain. They really made the missions more villainous. It was all about robbing a place or giving someone a beat down who disrespected you so if you liked to read the mission text it definitely gave a different feel. Different music too. It just a bit gloomy after a while for me and I just preferred the hero side.
Quote from: Fable on August 18, 2014, 03:15:18 PM
I pretty much only played on Villain side of things. It sounds like more people played hero side and just had a few questions I wanted to throw out to you guys.
If you didn't spend a lot of time villain side, was it just because you had established friends/cash hero side?
I preferred the archetypes of villains, did you think they were better or am I alone?
Villains seem pretty lacking in population when I quit, was this just a freedom server thing?
If CoX come back would you like to see Heroes and Villains share the same game space for the sake of population?
Bonus background on my time with CoX since this my first post:
I wasn't around for the shut down, I quit before it went FtP (I didn't know it was going FtP). I came back when I saw it was FtP to see how thing were. I didn't like not being able to use my billions of inf worth of IOs without paying so I gave all my stuff to my SG mates and never went back (they were super excited as I was super rich). Not long after that I heard the game was being shut down :'( I was sad, while I didn't play anymore, CoX was still a huge part of my life that I spent 5+ years in, hanging out with the best community I've ever seen in a game. Now that it's gone, naturally, I'm chomping at the bit to play again. I can only make so many builds in Mids :-\
I played mainly blue side. It was comfortable, familiar and well...heroic.
I tried some red side. I had quite a few red side 50's, but I never really got into the groove like I did with blue.
I can't say friends kept me blue side, cuz none of my friends would be caught dead playing an interwebs game. (well nearly none :) )
The influence/infamy was not a barrier either.
Each AT had its place in the sun, so really it wasn't that.
Not a lot of villain side activity on Virtue, my home server. Though that could be a factor of when I tended to play rather than actual server count.
I guess I just didn't understand the ATs well enough, the badges/temp powers paths as much as I knew hero side.
I suppose it really had to do with how much time I was willing to invest.
Granted when the game comes back, I plan to spend more time red side if only because I didn't first time around.
I definitely preferred all the red-side version AT's, except the epics. However, I hated being a villain, so when I begrudgingly made them they were always "under cover" in the back of my mind. They also always took Scirocco as a patron, since there were noble aspects to him, and I never went through his arc to the point you have to betray him.
the red-side epics usually offered something different and maybe more potent for the average build. I particularly like the spread offered by Leviathan line.
Not saying I used them all the time, but they usually gave a different kind of look.
I personally tried to balance my Redside and Blueside guys. Even after the morality system came out, none of my characters strayed from being Heroes or Villains, though I did have plans to turn at least one into a Rogue and another into a Vigilante.
I did consider making Little David, my flagship Hero, a Vigilante at one point, since it seemed naturally appropriate for an Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster. However, I decided against it for two reasons: He's my flagship hero, and I liked the story angle of a hero having to deal with the stereotype that people who use guns can't be superheroes or allies of justice, even if their guns aren't loaded with lethal ammo.
(Also, the idea that Little David, as a Technology origin Hero, would have all kinds of fancy non-lethal bullets at his disposal for dealing with common criminals was tantalizing.)
Redside, though, was something of a lonely existence on Guardian. Most people played heroes there, and when it came to villain content, you were mostly on your own. This was bad news for any zone events that required a critical mass. Most of my heroes had no problems getting zone event badges and goodies, but rarely did any of my villains get them.
Call it a personality disorder if you like, but for me, in real life, I was never a very nice person. I've changed my ways since 2008, but I've seen and done enough evil to last me a lifetime. Pretending to cross those lines for badges was almost too close for comfort for me.
I have to give the CoH dev team credit. Aside from the silly spider bit with "Arachnos" and all that, redside was never red for me, but very, very dark and creepy. The music was perfect for it. The snake/lizard things, pretty much all of the non-humanoid NPCs were creepy to me. In short, it just wasn't fun there for me.
As for the ATs - I certainly think, after playing several tanks and scrappers to incarnate levels, (50+3), that the brutes were vastly superior to both.
The dominator - well, I was trying to get the hang of mine, called Osmosis, an electric/electric dominator - but I was probably playing her too much like a controller and not enough like a dominator - whatever that playstyle would be. For me, there were attacks that were awesome, but even with domination, the damage was too little, too slow. I never took the chance to play different powersets with it, probably because I wasn't having that much fun with the first run through with electric.
I got the beast mastery MM - he was undefeated at level 19, I think. Just never finished playing him because of the shut down, and because I enjoyed the incarnate content more than the lower level stuff. The MM is certainly worthy of note. With an intelligent player who knows about keybindings and such, I suspect the MM can be an incredible amount of fun and a lot of power. But, I can't fully express an intelligent opinion with only a level 19 under my belt.
As for the Fortunata and the crab/spider thingy - I hadn't been able to figure out a proper origin for either of those to consider trying them.
The Corruptor - a very interesting AT. If one of those had been around when I first started playing, a blaster with buffs - that's a nice combo. Stronger than a defender, weaker than a blaster as far as damage goes, but with enough buff potential to sort of even the odds. For a player like me, a Corruptor is a much better choice than a defender, and for sub-level 35, a better choice than a blaster. After level 35, though, a blaster can have sufficient defense to not really need those heals and buffs as much. Obviously, different players will have differing opinions and experiences. For me though, a blaster is better.
When the game returns, if we don't have to start from square one, I'll be playing the dominator and the corruptor and MM primarily because of my limited experience with them and want to learn more about them.
But, if we're back at square one, it'll be the blaster or brute for me, or maybe a controller.
Well I liked Melee characters in COH and I played a lot of scrappers I tried the Brute but the furry mechanic sucked I hated having to build up my furry to get the damage I wanted. Yes yes it was easy to build after a while and all but sometimes when I soloed I have to stop and go do something and then have to start all over just freakin annoying so I hated playing Brute.
I was never much of a melee player, I had a couple Tanks, but never leveled a Scrapper out of single digits. That said, I did like the Brute. Fury was meshed in with my play style of speed and efficiency.
I had issues with my (lone) Dominator. I couldn't get into a groove with its mixed melee and ranged attacks. What finally resolved it for me was remembering my initial impression of its archetype, i.e. a Dominator was the Dev's twisted answer to the Blaster community's request for some crowd control capabilities to improve Blaster survivability. With that, I ditched most of the melee attacks (just kept a couple of big hitters) and concentrated on ranged attacks and ranged controls slotted for damage, and played accordingly: as a Blaster.
Quote from: SerialBeggar on August 19, 2014, 09:00:58 PM
I was never much of a melee player, I had a couple Tanks, but never leveled a Scrapper out of single digits. That said, I did like the Brute. Fury was meshed in with my play style of speed and efficiency.
I had issues with my (lone) Dominator. I couldn't get into a groove with its mixed melee and ranged attacks. What finally resolved it for me was remembering my initial impression of its archetype, i.e. a Dominator was the Dev's twisted answer to the Blaster community's request for some crowd control capabilities to improve Blaster survivability. With that, I ditched most of the melee attacks (just kept a couple of big hitters) and concentrated on ranged attacks and ranged controls slotted for damage, and played accordingly: as a Blaster.
this was how I played my first year, I could not get into melee, so I had all of the types of blasters. Than one day I was like lets try a scrapper after a few months I fell in love with it, and made more.
Quote from: SerialBeggar on August 19, 2014, 09:00:58 PM
I was never much of a melee player, I had a couple Tanks, but never leveled a Scrapper out of single digits. That said, I did like the Brute. Fury was meshed in with my play style of speed and efficiency.
I had issues with my (lone) Dominator. I couldn't get into a groove with its mixed melee and ranged attacks. What finally resolved it for me was remembering my initial impression of its archetype, i.e. a Dominator was the Dev's twisted answer to the Blaster community's request for some crowd control capabilities to improve Blaster survivability. With that, I ditched most of the melee attacks (just kept a couple of big hitters) and concentrated on ranged attacks and ranged controls slotted for damage, and played accordingly: as a Blaster.
As a (mostly) soloist, that's what I like about Dominators. The "root 'em and shoot 'em" combination works pretty well to keep most of my targets at a respectful distance, which reduces the melee damage that I take. It's kind of like using Hover to stay out of melee range.
Villain side was too dark dreary and depressing.. the maps were way too dark.. I liked a lot of the AT's especially Brutes and Dominators.. when GR came out I turned all my villains into Rogues so I could play both sides.. and team with whoever I wanted and whenever I wanted..
I only ever had a couple of villain characters, I always felt bad having to do villainous things and never much enjoyed it. :P
Though I did enjoy playing my warmace brute and one of my most memorable moments in the game was gradually working her through the morality missions. I really enjoyed moving from doing 'iffy' things to more and more outright heroic things, and it ended up timing perfectly to switch to hero side in the very last week of the game.
I prefer playing Hero archetypes better. I do play the hero side more than the villain side. When the alignment system was introduced I was bringing my heroes to the dark side. I don't like playing Villain archetypes. I tried playing a Mastermind and it didn't work out for me. I do enjoy playing the villain side but, sometimes it gets complicated.
I bleed red... ;) Honestly though it was because I preferred the vill side At's in PvP, I had plans to bring my MM over to blue just because like most of you have stated, the population was lacking. The maps redside were very poorly designed, even mercy was extremely difficult to get used to when CoV first came out. None the less I can say I spent a solid 85-90% of my time vill side once it was available. I had always wanted a pet based class, having the one controller pet at 32 just didn't really cut it for me, it sucked even more that gravity was so unpowered because the singularity looked sooo gorgeous to me. I wished vill side had more themed areas rather than "let's just make it cloudy with brown/tan colors." I loved it all don't get me wrong, but these were some of my "first world problems". Any who that's my two cents.
I rolled most of my toons redside. I liked the missions better there. When the morality system hit I went rogue with most of them, though, so I could hang out in the blueside zones and do mishes there.
Personally, I just enjoyed Hero side more. It seemed like everything on the Villain side had to be twisted and grungy in a very put-on way.
Also, I'm not sure if the devs lost a zone designer around that time or what, but it seemed like when CoV came out the maps got less interesting.
Atlas Park *felt* different from Steel Canyon, Galaxy City, Kings Row and every other Hero zone. In fact, in most of the original hero zones, you could just spin around and know immediately where you were. Each zone had its own personality.
Everywhere in CoV felt to me like a Victorian junkyard where goth spaceships had landed.