New efforts!

[Vee]

The only thing that really made it grindy was the fact that CoX was such an altoholic fest. All of my alts were what eventually led to my burning out on the whole thing, along with it's making my favorite content too easy. Hell even my Arch/TA corr had tier 4 of the 4 original inc powers. But it was quite nicely done compared to endgame in other games. It didn't nullify our regular enhancements or require constant grinding for regearing, which is just great. Once an alt was done it could stay done. You might go do the newest part to add something but you weren't constantly having to trash the stuff you grinded previously the way it usually works.

Toward the end (i.e. before i went to freemium and gave up bothering with inc stuff) we would run 8 man lambdas all the time. If someone needed inc stuff we'd load up a 3 or 4 inc'd out toons that could've done it without help and drag the other teammates through lambda. Of course they were on their own with BAF, etc. but it was nice to just run one at least without having to sit around in pocket d. I just always wished it would scale to avoid that on all of them, that would've kept me around. Of course as Arcana says that wasn't possible I guess I'd be back to just waiting for the speedier solo/small team version that DA might've become given time.

[Ankhammon]

Beam is great against AVs and other single hard targets. AoE it was light, but as Arcana (& Syndrome) says, you can't have every set be great at AoE, because then none are great. Certainly, it seemed better both single-target and AoE than Psy Blast, albeit with the annoying weapon redraw.

The other thing about Beam was that (too the best of my knowledge) there never was any real data mining to determine how much aoe damage disintegrate spread added. It certainly made cutting beam a much better power. So ultimately, it was kind of guesswork as to how good at aoe it was... not that it was ever going to be an aoe noted set.


I do agree with many of the posters who said it felt slow.

I wanna give it another go... now. :)

[GenericHero05]

Ncsoft teaming up with netmarble gives them a controlling percentage of shares over nexon, so why is nexon even an issue anymore? I don't understand.

[brothermutant]

As re: Beam.  I looked at Praetoria and thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if we got all the rebel and robot plasma and beam pulse power sets into one juicy power set!?!?'  What did we get?  'Beam.'  *shakes head.  Probably the most shoddy piece of work they ever did.  They had all the juicy stuff in Prae', just re-package it as 'beam/plasma' set and 'done.'  But no...  I guess the obvious eluded them.

Oh yeah, always wanted those power moves from praetorian. LOVED the sounds and default animation/colors for them. Thought they could make it a Dom Secondary set or maybe even split it into a Blaster Primary/secondary/Epic power set.

[Void Huntress]

It depends on your point of view.  With the benefit of hindsight and a clearer picture as to what was happening at the time, it now seems apparent to me that NCSoft put Paragon in a difficult position - NCSoft had basically told PS management they were planning to eventually shut the place down.  That forced PS to look for ways to save the studio.  In retrospect, some of those things may have angered NCSoft, but at that point what difference did it make?  If PS did nothing, they would still be gone.  Some of the things PS did may have closed doors to them, but those doors were only open in the first place because of the moves PS made to try to save itself.

I have never fully articulated my theory about what went down, partially because my theory incorporates a lot of information that is not public knowledge.  But I have a suspicion that the seeds of our destruction were planted long before, in fact on the day NCSoft bought CoH from Cryptic.  I have often tossed that decision around in my head, within the context of everything I know that happened before and after.  Why buy City of Heroes?  I believe that NCSoft once believed that Cryptic was the thing that held CoH back; that Cryptic did the minimum necessary to keep development of the game alive while they spent much of the revenue NCSoft gave them to fund other development - MUO, for example, which eventually came to nothing.

When Cryptic lost MUO and all that dev costs with it, they needed cash.  NCSoft saw an opportunity to fix their perceived problem by buying City of Heroes from Cryptic, at a time when Cryptic was basically compelled to sell.  They (NCSoft) could then put their own studio in charge of CoH development and devote 100% of those funds to making the game better, with the idea that making it better would make it a far better revenue source comparable to their other more successful properties.

When that didn't happen, I believe whoever it was who championed the purchase in the first place in NCSoft lost a lot of credibility, and CoH lost major support internally.  At that point, CoH became an annoyance, something that had failed NCSoft twice in a row.  From that point on, I believe CoH, and the entire Paragon Studio's days were numbered.  I think the reason why NCSoft shot down all those ideas at PS, including very specifically anything remotely resembling a sequel, is because with every idea PS pitched that wasn't "we're going to make the next Guild Wars" NCSoft saw PS as an increasingly useless appendage.  What NCSoft wanted to hear was "here's something we can make that will make you look good on your annual report" and PS was just looking for something that would keep people employed making games at a decent profit.

One of the things that haunts me is that the clues were there to be read, if someone was looking for them.  I saw them, but didn't put them together.  But even in hindsight, I wonder if anything could have been done to change it.  I think had Paragon switched to the Freedom model in I13 instead of I21, they might have saved themselves, maybe.  But other than that, I'm really not sure.

A theory that I and my SO had was that NCSoft was canning the non-City part of the studio, and City of Heroes got caught as collateral damage in order to not be doing a partial layoff. Letting everyone at the studio save face rather than letting some people be perceived as being somehow 'deserving' of no longer being employed, and thus having trouble being employed elsewhere.

That would be the saddest story, I feel. If we lost City because of an attempt to 'help' people being fired.

[LaughingAlex]

Ncsoft teaming up with netmarble gives them a controlling percentage of shares over nexon, so why is nexon even an issue anymore? I don't understand.

I suspect that Nexon is still searching for options to move on NCSoft.

[Brigadine]

So am I the only one who didn't like the new login screen and character screens(including creation)? I love the older ones, the new ones felt kinda out of place.

[Suspicious Package]

So am I the only one who didn't like the new login screen and character screens(including creation)? I love the older ones, the new ones felt kinda out of place.

I liked the older ones too, but chalked it up to my being old and resistant to change.

[umber]

So am I the only one who didn't like the new login screen and character screens(including creation)? I love the older ones, the new ones felt kinda out of place.

I didn't mind the idea of the login screen being more topical in nature but the content needed to be rotated more often than what I recall the devs performing.  Clean up your July 4th barbeque remnants before the next snowfall.

I might be forgetting some of the official login screens over time, aggravated by now and then putting a custom screen in place.

[Codewalker]

I liked the idea of changing it out with each issue release, but wasn't too fond of the either the 'Penny rarrrrgh!' or the 'Marauder's pervy grin' loading screens. The I24 especially I don't like because it's just a photoshopped screenshot instead of original art like the others were.

[RGladden]

Somebody PLEASE get the lead out.  I'll be 62 my next birthday...so I haven't got a lot of TIME left... ;)

[Brigadine]

I liked the idea of changing it out with each issue release, but wasn't too fond of the either the 'Penny rarrrrgh!' or the 'Marauder's pervy grin' loading screens. The I24 especially I don't like because it's just a photoshopped screenshot instead of original art like the others were.

I noticed that. They looked cartoony too...

[GenericHero05]

[

So am I the only one who didn't like the new login screen and character screens(including creation)? I love the older ones, the new ones felt kinda out of place.

I didn't like it either. It kind of reminded me of the drawings that that kid in high school (who thought he could draw) would come up with. Looked very amateurish.

Right now, I would settle for two stick figures and a pony if it meant I was logging into the game.

[duane]

Ncsoft teaming up with netmarble gives them a controlling percentage of shares over nexon, so why is nexon even an issue anymore? I don't understand.

I think it's like having the obnoxious relative you offered to stay at your house and he won't leave. 

[Tubbius]

[
I didn't like it either. It kind of reminded me of the drawings that that kid in high school (who thought he could draw) would come up with. Looked very amateurish.

Right now, I would settle for two stick figures and a pony if it meant I was logging into the game.

I knew that kid.  He and I would sit out of gym class sometimes playing a Star Wars RPG.

[CrimsonCapacitor]

I liked the idea of changing it out with each issue release, but wasn't too fond of the either the 'Penny rarrrrgh!' or the 'Marauder's pervy grin' loading screens. The I24 especially I don't like because it's just a photoshopped screenshot instead of original art like the others were.

To be fair, that I24 login screen was ONLY on the test server's login.  Do we know if it would have been changed/updated had I24 gone live?

I'm just wondering if that actually was a bad photoshop job as a placeholder until it went live....

[Joshex]

I suspect that Nexon is still searching for options to move on NCSoft.

it's a money game.

NCSoft knows that netmarble supplies temporary security, but their combined share ownership could dwindle given situations that NCSoft is anticipating.

options;

1: It would take a lot of money for Nexon to take the lead, but if they wanted to they could. it all depends on how much they think the assets NCSoft has are worth and if it is more than the cost of spending the extra dough. Naturally a sub effect nexon could be considering is doing this then raising prices of subscriptions and game tokens for those assets in order to compensate.

2: partner, again similar to the above, they could get a partner with more money and then raise prices.

3: NCSoft or Netmarble make a bad decision (hey it happens) this decision costs them too much money and they end up loosing too many shares because they have to pull funds from the Nexon battle to stay afloat. This could even be engineered by Nexon through sly business practices which would seem to be legit but end up as a loss. NCSoft is most likely anticipating this or something like this.

4: Generic losses, because people leave and go places in the summer, no players means no money, means potential losses, and that goes for any season not just summer. there's also player preference factors, NCSoft knows it's current games don't hold much sway in players minds, where as Nexon's titles have been around long enough to gain fandoms. NCsoft fears this because it could cause thier players to migrate and cause losses.


lots of stuff could effect this situation, so NCSoft is playing it extra careful, trying to control the situation. but in the end they know it's a risky gamble.

[Ironwolf]

What if Netmarble changes heart and decides Nexon has a better deal?

It's just business - nothing personal.

[Arcana]

A theory that I and my SO had was that NCSoft was canning the non-City part of the studio, and City of Heroes got caught as collateral damage in order to not be doing a partial layoff. Letting everyone at the studio save face rather than letting some people be perceived as being somehow 'deserving' of no longer being employed, and thus having trouble being employed elsewhere.

That would be the saddest story, I feel. If we lost City because of an attempt to 'help' people being fired.

I don't think that is likely, given NCSoft and Paragon Studios were perfectly willing to layoff core CoH devs before the shutdown.  Furthermore, if NCSoft wanted Paragon Studios to focus exclusively on City of Heroes itself, why were they willing to consistently approve Paragon hires that were obviously not for CoH?  The impression I got was that NCSoft had to sign off on Paragon hires, as they were in fact all NCSoft employees.

[Arcana]

I liked the idea of changing it out with each issue release, but wasn't too fond of the either the 'Penny rarrrrgh!' or the 'Marauder's pervy grin' loading screens. The I24 especially I don't like because it's just a photoshopped screenshot instead of original art like the others were.

At one time PS was interested in having players contribute to the load screens, like the tips that showed on them.  I don't know if that fell by the wayside, or if not enough players were interested in contributing or what, but I thought that would have been a good way to keep those fresh.

I also wish they were a lot more context sensitive.