And the mask comes off.

[Burnt Toast]

I'm sorry EXACTLY where does Positron/Matt Miller say... he HATES alts? I keep seeing this on the forums...and I don't remember him ever saying he hates alts....

[Arcana]

I'm sorry EXACTLY where does Positron/Matt Miller say... he HATES alts? I keep seeing this on the forums...and I don't remember him ever saying he hates alts....

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.troll.me%2Fimages%2Fancient-aliens-guy%2Fmy-theory-aliens.jpg

[Taceus Jiwede]

I'm sorry EXACTLY where does Positron/Matt Miller say... he HATES alts? I keep seeing this on the forums...and I don't remember him ever saying he hates alts....

I have been wondering this my self.  Did he actually say he hated alts, or that he wanted to give players more of a reason to play their main.  Because I remember devs talking about that.

[thunderforce]

I have been wondering this my self.  Did he actually say he hated alts, or that he wanted to give players more of a reason to play their main.  Because I remember devs talking about that.

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/7676/Altism.html

"Problem", describing things that subtly guide you away from creating alts as features, etc.

[Clave Dark 5]

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/7676/Altism.html

Man, somehow I want to dislike the guy now, ha ha! 

I could argue against his points, but really, why bother over a year-old article?  Besides, I think I'd be preaching to the choir here.

[Taceus Jiwede]

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/7676/Altism.html

"Problem", describing things that subtly guide you away from creating alts as features, etc.

Yes I would agree with him that it was a "problem" in the cases he brought up.  He never says he hates alting, I never even got that he was "anti-alt" from that article.  He said the problem was things such as "But this also presented a problem: Altoholism was so bad that any attempt to add an endgame to City of Heroes was going to be met with great resistance. Heck, we got resistance ANY time we EVER added ANYTHING additional you could do on your character" <---- this is true.  To this day even, the end game stuff was met with extreme resistance.  The problem was not alting, the problem was limiting the type of people that wanted to play the game.  There was virtually nothing to do after max level for a very, very longtime.  And he considered creating alts because "there is nothing to do" or "because now I want to see what this classes best power is" not a good reason.  I don't blame him for wanting more out of his game then "making new characters for the sake of making new characters"  he wanted to give people who weren't okay with continuous alting a reason to keep playing the game.  He was looking for a way to add growth to the game.  And ends it with 'Alting is fun for a lot of people, and for those who don't care at all about endgame content, alting can BE the game for those people. To that I applaud you. Many of you are what kept City of Heroes alive as long as it was."

It is clearly not an article of him saying "I hate alts" it's just him reflecting on problems that can stem from a game that promotes extreme alting but doesn't promote new content and endgame content

[ryuplaneswalker]

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.troll.me%2Fimages%2Fancient-aliens-guy%2Fmy-theory-aliens.jpg

-1,000,000 Influence for NOT having Nemesis in that Meme!

[Shadowe]

I think that what Posi was saying is that single character investment is generally a more powerful motivator for people than "and now you do the same thing all over again, just with a different character!"

This will not always be the case. Some people love alting. But I would bet that for the majority (possibly even the vast majority) of people, being able to progress a single character, because there is always something to do on that character, is preferable.

Or, to put it another way, before Inventions, how many people had "finished" the game, and quit because they didn't want to alt? Same question before Incarnates. Even CoH's legendary retention figures could have been better.

[KennonGL]

"Endgame" content, and things to keep you playing your "main" forever is certainly a good thing.

It was something that CoH definitely lacked for the longest time.  I might even argue that they really
hadn't gotten there with the Incarnate stuff.

However, focusing on "endgame" to the exclusion of a rather large segment of your existing population
(ie altoholics) is just as bad as ignoring the other segment that wants to stay with a "main".

I realize there's only so many hours in a day, and only so much can go into an issue at a time, but the
last several issues all really felt to me like the devs were (more or less) done with the "under 50"
content and focused entirely on new raids (and really ONLY raids, given the rather insulting bone being
thrown for solo/small team players who wanted to Incarnate).

[dwturducken]

I never got that Posi hated altoholics from that article. The column was about the insiders perspective on creating MMOs. I can definitely see where the people who are putting all the work into creating all that content, from level 1 to the level cap, and trying to make sure that all of it is of the same quality are going to be a little irked when the bulk of the players are spending the majority of their time in the pre-lvl20 areas. It may have played into their thinking on changing the tutorial and beginning contacts and missions. I know that there are games that I play where it just isn't all that fun to repeat content until I'm into the teens or low 20s. Doesn't exactly encourage me to roll up a different kind of character and see how it handles the missions/quests.

That said, if you're developing a game, you want to keep your community in mind, once you see a trend, while developing follow on content. Obviously, keeping everyone happy is impossible, but Paragon did a pretty good job, overall, of giving us what we liked. Everyone's going to have missteps, but they kept us happy, or we wouldn't be here, now, nearly two years after the game shut down!

[Hobgoblin Steve]

I'll never forget the guy who played a character called "Killer Whale", it was a invul/ss tank and he rp'd it perfectly. I only remember seeing him for the first six months or so of coh, I remember there were lots of rumours of him being banned for erp or something along those lines. I also hazily remember something being said of him confronting the devs on the forum about a major issue with the game that also may have lead to his banning. If anyone remembers or knows what actually happened PLEASE let me know, I'd love to hear about that just to put my misinformed nostalgia at ease.

Also yes Panda people existed, although the cat people definitely won the numbers game. Holy yiff balls were there always a lot of car rp'rs...

how does one RP a whale?

[KennonGL]

how does one RP a whale?

VERY Carefully

[Shadowe]

I wonder how many cat girls mistakenly took the whale for a fish, and tried to eat him...

You know what? I DON'T want to know.

[Hobgoblin Steve]

I wonder how many cat girls mistakenly took the whale for a fish, and tried to eat him...

You know what? I DON'T want to know.

Mammal.


(whatever!)

[Waffles]

VERY Carefully

Pretend to be Mako's mother.

HIYOOOOOOOOOOO

[FloatingFatMan]

how does one RP a whale?

Well, judging by the psychic whale incident shortly after the EU/US communities merged, you RP it as far away as possible from certain players! (Unless you want a sword through the head...)

[BadWolf]

how does one RP a whale?

I don't know, but I did spend a lot of mental time trying to figure out what kinds of superpowers a half-man, half-seacow would have, so I could make the story of Subject O, an experiment in creating animal/human hybrids. He was going to be O--the Humanatee!

...please don't hurt me.

[AlienOne]

Never had a single problem with Vista. Ran just fine on my ancient Pentium3 (Northwood) 3ghz CPU with 4 gig ram and an old Radeon 8500.  To steal from Apple (who know all about doing that), everything -just worked- :p

Did you buy a "pre-made" system? Just wondering, because I built all my desktop systems for about 10 years (and had to hope that the latest version of Windows allowed for all of those components) up to about 4 years ago when I ultimately decided to use Laptops from then on.

[FloatingFatMan]

Did you buy a "pre-made" system? Just wondering, because I built all my desktop systems for about 10 years (and had to hope that the latest version of Windows allowed for all of those components) up to about 4 years ago when I ultimately decided to use Laptops from then on.

I wouldn't have a pre-built if you gave it to me.  I build my own, always have post-Amiga days. Hell, I built my first in 1980, the Sinclair ZX80 DIY kit. A bag of components, a circuit board, some instructions, and a soldering iron! ;)

Those where the days when building your own REALLY meant, building your own! :p

[Power Gamer]

Well, judging by the psychic whale incident shortly after the EU/US communities merged, you RP it as far away as possible from certain players! (Unless you want a sword through the head...)

I must have been otherwise occupied during the 'psychic whale incident'.

Do tell!