New efforts!

[LaughingAlex]

That's essentially what CoX when it comes back is going to be (a zombie.) More than likely i23 in maintenance mode with little to no development. Unlike a zombie, it dose have a soul and the beating heart of CoX community.

The fact that it has a loyal community not ludicrously prone to torture its remains...as i said, coh is the man wrongfully imprisoned, not dead, unlike someone else.

[Codewalker]

unlike someone else.

/rolleyes

You just can't help yourself, can you?

[Felderburg]

But when dead things come back it is usually zombies :(

Not superheroes.

If it eases your mine...

I usually use rail cars, drills, and a parakeet, but ok.

[MM3squints]

So...that would mean CoH, when it returns, would be in a Life Supported coma?

The game itself will be this
https://images.weserv.nl/?url=img4.wikia.nocookie.net%2F__cb20130609182339%2Fsouthpark%2Fes%2Fimages%2F2%2F26%2FBest-friends-forever_528_poster.jpg

But the people who are playing CoX will feel more like this

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=images.lazygamer.net%2F2012%2F08%2FBestFriendsForever.jpg

I usually use rail cars, drills, and a parakeet, but ok.

That's cheating. When you can move earth with sheer will power, sorrow, and no tools, you can achieve anything in this world.

[darkgob]

But when dead things come back it is usually zombies :(

Not superheroes.

https://i.imgur.com/hNTBBcK.jpg

[MM3squints]

Not superheroes.


https://i.imgur.com/hNTBBcK.jpg

Nightmare Fuel rated T+. Outstanding xD

[Arcana]

I always assumed mids was made to specifically not calculate full battle statistics but only to give the player notice about what their build would be like without interference or with general interference when it comes to grouping and only for the sake of powers that are affected by mob numbers.

Mids was originally written by one guy, and then it was handed off to someone else.  I can't speak for either of them in terms of specific intentions, but I do know that the general intent was to give the player as much information as possible about their build, and that was a moving target.  First, it was just about slotting enhancements.  Then it was about calculating bonuses.  Over time they added secondary calculations and PvP diminishing returns calculations.  I think if they could have put in attack chain calculators they would have, but that is a complex thing to stick in there.  Basically, Mids does whatever the developers felt they could stick in there.

One of the things I was specifically thinking about when it came to potentially misleading calculations were the DPS bars per attack.  I understand why its there, and I always assumed it was more of a placeholder until something better came along, but single attack DPS metrics over cycle time are somewhat misleading because of the complexities of attack chain math.  It is actually mathematically possible for one powerset to have every single attack have a higher DPS bar than the corresponding attacks in another set, and yet the second one beat the first one on actual attack chains.  But that's not Mids' fault, that's just the problem with attack chain complexity.

[Arcana]

I usually use rail cars, drills, and a parakeet, but ok.

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.cityoflafayettega.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F06%2Fdouble_facepalm.jpg

[psquared007]

Arcana,

Thanks a bunch!  Very helpful explanation.  One day soon, or maybe not so soon, I hope to try some of my builds out in CoH. : )

Take care.

[LaughingAlex]

/rolleyes

You just can't help yourself, can you?

I actually dislike seeing the term zombie to describe coh very intensively.  It reminds me instantly of a good number of real zombie games that are endlessly exploited.  I dont believe we as a community intend to do that.

A franchise zombie is a franchise thats well past its prime and exists only for its care takers to milk it for what its worth until it dies, ultimately.  You could say CoD is a franchise zombie; even with a ton of sales its still a zombie, as its effectively just the same game being re-released over and over again, no real new stuff.  But lets think of how many mmorpgs out there also do that in there own way.  They get milked for every little bit until they die and the developers even try to sabotage there own games remaining lifespan.  Which can happen for a good number of reasons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhz9OXy86a0 - describes free to play games that ultimately turn into zombies very well.  In the first case, the game is milked for what it's worth when revenue stops coming in.  It's kept running, but everyone knows it makes almost no money so it gets a content update every 5-6 months with about thirty minutes to 2 hours of content.  Sound familiar?  The later fails and meets the same fate, eventually, even after it made a huge amount of money at first, so it's content development also falls flat eventually but you end up with a bunch of ultra rich players and resentfully poor players.  Sound familiar to?  Not just the game that ticks me off beyond reckoning, but think about a lot of free to play games.  They all end up zombies or shut down, shuffling along for the wrong reasons :/.

Is franchise zombie what we want?  I'd say we really, really shouldn't just get the game back and exploit it that way, it'd be wrong to do so.  Seriously.  It'd anger me beyond belief at you guys if you were to somehow get the game back but then completely disrupt say, atlas park revival or even disrupt city of titans development.  I do not want another game where we end up with a ghost town because everyone enraged the newcomers and an acidic rep as a community.  I do not want another game that ended up milked for the last few cents until it finally died a slow and painful death, follow me?

Edit:  To answer that question, I try to hold back, but words like zombie or talk of us doing negative things seriously reminds me of the crap I had to put up with for about three years before I finally had enough when I saw moral lines crossed and then ever increasing new lows were witnessed.  Heck, I still check upcoming changes and whatnot and still see new lows being reached.

[darkgob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhz9OXy86a0 - describes free to play games that ultimately turn into zombies very well.  In the first case, the game is milked for what it's worth when revenue stops coming in.  It's kept running, but everyone knows it makes almost no money so it gets a content update every 5-6 months with about thirty minutes to 2 hours of content.

Um, I got bad news for you, a revived CoH will probably see zero content updates.  From what we know about the negotiations only a server image of I23 is likely to be involved, no actual code base to update.  New content would only be seen in APR.  So yes, "zombie" is the appropriate word here.  Not dead, but not really living either.  And honestly, once APR is fully active, I would definitely expect legacy CoH to die.  Sure, there will be people who simply refuse to accept any change (we've seen some of them active in this thread), but I think most folks will be ready to move on to an actively developed game.

That, or the CoH franchise has already faded into irrelevancy and both projects are doomed to failure even if negotiations with NCSoft do succeed.  Honestly I'm not sure I would necessarily discount that possibility either, but that will depend heavily on how it's managed and promoted by Our New Overlords.  Given the astoundingly low bar historically set by NCSoft, they could hardly do worse than when CoH was actually running.

[LaughingAlex]

Um, I got bad news for you, a revived CoH will probably see zero content updates.  From what we know about the negotiations only a server image of I23 is likely to be involved, no actual code base to update.  New content would only be seen in APR.  So yes, "zombie" is the appropriate word here.  Not dead, but not really living either.  And honestly, once APR is fully active, I would definitely expect legacy CoH to die.  Sure, there will be people who simply refuse to accept any change (we've seen some of them active in this thread), but I think most folks will be ready to move on to an actively developed game.

That, or the CoH franchise has already faded into irrelevancy and both projects are doomed to failure even if negotiations with NCSoft do succeed.  Honestly I'm not sure I would necessarily discount that possibility either, but that will depend heavily on how it's managed and promoted by Our New Overlords.  Given the astoundingly low bar historically set by NCSoft, they could hardly do worse than when CoH was actually running.

I speak of the franchise as a whole and the successors when I speak of you guys ruining the entire thing.  Notice I say "you guys" in this.  It takes a community to keep a game alive and keep it going.  But a games community can also murder it and all chances for anything new to happen.  But a franchise zombie is one which even every successor is ruined from overall bad management and has no interest in it.  If city of titans fails(like some assholes out there do want), if VO fails(the same who want CoT to fail want VO to fail, to), if Atlas park revival never succeeds, it'll be because we as a community did everything in our power to make them all fail.  We have to be the ones to make them really succeed.

I believe we as a community can succeed in bringing CoH(and spiritual successors) into the current generation and beyond, but I also am terrified of any prospect that everything just falls apart and we end up like every other mmorpg title out there.  Or even worst, I don't want a repeat of the last three years I had in online gaming.  I do not want to, four or five years from now, be screaming at the top of my lungs in text at how morally sickening the community became because of a pessimistic attitude that spiraled out of control and resulted in a slide in which the community was not only hated by others, but everyone in the community itself hated one another.  It leads to ghost towns and it leads to rapid stagnation.  It also RESULTS from stagnation, to.

And I understand the whole reason for Atlas Park Revival and the spiritual successors and I support them.  And because of that I don't see the whole thing as a zombie.  CoH, the original game, yeah it wouldn't be played anywhere near as much but it'd be a symbol and the inspiration for it's successors.  A zombie inspires nothing.  A zombie has nothing to look forward to.  Because it's community has destroyed itself.  THAT is why I dislike the speak of the word zombie and even more-so why it reminds me of my past three years of online gaming.  I don't like to talk of it here, but the talk of CoH being a zombie gets to me.  Because if it was truely a zombie it'd have nothing to look forward to.

Everquest is not a zombie, it as a series has things to look forward to.  Doom isn't a zombie for the same reason, it has things to look forward to, even without the newest doom release it still has modders breathing new life into it.  The elder scrolls series is not a zombie.  Hell Skyrim still has mods being made for it and will continue until the Elder scrolls VI comes about.  But what separates them from a franchise zombie is they aren't being milked for what they're worth, to.  We don't see a new release of a game every year that is only made to milk more money in those franchises.  We see quality, or big attempts at it.  Likewise you don't see abandonment and cheap "get rich quick schemes" coming from those games, in which the content is minimal, poorly tested, and lasts only 30 minutes or so that still only comes out once every six months.

You see sequels, successors and mods.  Which is better, really?  A game which gets a sequel or spiritual successor, or a new game every four or five years or so when major improvements can be made, and allows for mods to mature for it, or a game with no mod support, no successors/sequels to look forward to, and a tendency to make changes to price gouge it's remaining fan-base?  Or even a game franchise that overkills it on sequels and uses sequels as a price gouging measure?  Thought so.

[MM3squints]

I speak of the franchise as a whole and the successors when I speak of you guys ruining the entire thing.  Notice I say "you guys" in this.  It takes a community to keep a game alive and keep it going.  But a games community can also murder it and all chances for anything new to happen.  But a franchise zombie is one which even every successor is ruined from overall bad management and has no interest in it.  If city of titans fails(like some assholes out there do want), if VO fails(the same who want CoT to fail want VO to fail, to), if Atlas park revival never succeeds, it'll be because we as a community did everything in our power to make them all fail.  We have to be the ones to make them really succeed.

By zombie I mean the actual CoX i23 that has been road mapped so far with the information given where it was stated it would be in maintenance mode and the source code will probably not be given due to other assist still being held by NC Soft and other parties. That has nothing to do with the community not doing anything to make CoX fail, it is just the limitation of what is given. I was not talking about any spiritual successors, squeals, prequels or any variations of CoX when I made that statement, I was talking about the actual i23 CoX from the deal being a zombie. When CoX is restored people can make all the fan fic, host all the events in the world, and keep the spirit up, but to my understanding, actual new content (unless the deal also includes the AE tool) for CoX will remain static.

[darkgob]

LaughingAlex, I am sincerely uncertain what you're reacting to, but I think you're Chicken Little-ing pretty hard right now.  Honestly you may want to just step away for a bit because you seem a little over-emotionally invested in, well, everything.  If you're screaming at the top of your lungs about moral decay in a video game community, that means it's time to go outside.

[LaughingAlex]

I'd say, a better word for CoH maintenance mode would be a retired game, not a zombie.  A zombie is a terrible word.  Nor would it fit CoH in maintenance mode.  Because as the spiritual successors take over, CoH isn't going to be in it for the money anymore, we all get that.  A zombie however, is after money.  Thats why zombies are zombies; the people in charge of them aren't working on them anymore yet someone else is developing them and manipulating them to ultimately squeeze whatever dollars out of them for a company they work for.  I don't like to use TV tropes for this but, this is what i think of when I hear of a piece of media being a zombie:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FranchiseZombie

No, I'd say CoH was retired, and is living it's days in peace.  It's a game that passes the reigns to someone else.  Sure, people could still play it, but if they want new stuff they'd be better looking towards the successors/revival.  I wouldn't call it dead, or a zombie, because it has successors and it wasn't over monetizing itself to the extremes.

And likewise, some examples of franchise zombies(two of which came out of it).

Mortal Kombat until the 2011 release.  Every subsequent game saw a sharp drop in quality until the developer finally switched to a different publisher and became a new company.
Tomb Raider - How many bad games were under this title that were ultimately stale until it had some very recently good games?
Sonic the Hedgehog - Lets face it, the blue hedgehog, as much as we love him, constantly has to battle bad games in his line of work more often then Dr. Eggman.

The first two games saw a large drop in quality from publishers wanting more and more and more.  Until finally they got into a situation where the developer could take more time to focus on quality over quantity, and the games saw a sharp improvement.  It wasn't about the money anymore, but putting out a good game again.  The third game likewise, suffers from toxic community syndrome; it's developers are to busy trying to please to many different perspectives at the same time, or even if they focus on one, they get chastised for it and bad word of mouth.  AND they have to deal with rushed development periodically, resulting in disasters such as Sonic 06 and the Sonic Boom games(not counting the tv show sonic boom, which is actually quite clever although they do often repeat the same basic story here and there).

[Arcana]

If I23 is a movie, it is not a zombie movie.  Maybe:

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.titanicuniverse.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F12%2Fraise-the-titanic2.png

Or given the player community:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bd/EncinoMan.jpg

Or if you believe what some people around here are saying about dealing with Koreans:

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.motherjones.com%2Ffiles%2Fred-dawn-2012-poster.jpg

Let's hope to eventually get this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/Star_Trek_The_Motion_Picture_poster.png

And pray we don't get this:

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=ecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F519RixNQ%252BmL._AC_UL320_SR230%2C320_.jpg

[MM3squints]

Honestly at this point, you are just trying to justify not calling it a zombie or to prove a pointless point. Ok, sure, my point was just say when CoX is restored, for all intensive purposes unless AE is enabled, with the information given so far, there won't be any new content added the CoX i23 we are given. You can call it retired, decommission, zombie, mothballed, or any by any other mean, it's the same thing it more than likely with the information of the deal on hand (course that is always subject to change when more information is given) CoX will not have new content.

[LaughingAlex]

LaughingAlex, I am sincerely uncertain what you're reacting to, but I think you're Chicken Little-ing pretty hard right now.  Honestly you may want to just step away for a bit because you seem a little over-emotionally invested in, well, everything.  If you're screaming at the top of your lungs about moral decay in a video game community, that means it's time to go outside.

I was speaking of my reactions to another community, actually, about a year ago.  Of which I don't even post in the forums anymore.  But until a spiritual successor comes along or something those negative experiences will be a bit fresher than I'd like them to be.  Heck Paragon Chat wasn't out for a year yet, even, and I still get word of the things happening to the other game I used to actually enjoy.  I wasn't so much as reacting as voicing concerns that with the whole zombie discussion attitude that we'd be heading in the same bad direction.

I mean couldn't we be talking about new ideas for the spiritual successors or atlas park revival here to?  If this is a general thread at this point with constant derailment, at least we can think of cool ideas.  Or even just talk of more interesting games.  Speaking of which.

So I installed a mod for fallout 4 which lets me change the caliber of the guns in the game, even letting me use .44 in the original 10mm pistol(renamed to the fallout original N99).  Can't wait to get my super perception ninja high enough to use such a high caliber with a silencer.  Any mods people use?

[LaughingAlex]

Honestly at this point, you are just trying to justify not calling it a zombie or to prove a pointless point. Ok, sure, my point was just say when CoX is restored, for all intensive purposes unless AE is enabled, with the information given so far, there won't be any new content added the CoX i23 we are given. You can call it retired, decommission, zombie, mothballed, or any by any other mean, it's the same thing it more than likely with the information of the deal on hand (course that is always subject to change when more information is given) CoX will not have new content.

Zombie is a negative term though, horribly negative.  Think about what the word does for people joining our community for the first time in say CoT or actually, more likely to be an issue, Issue 23.  They'd get the impression that we don't plan to do anything until we bring up atlas park revival or city of titans.  But then they'd not be happy in CoH I23.  By using more positive terminology you help reinforce morale with people, they get to feel more positive that hey, something is coming up and it's very much there.  By calling it a zombie, it'd be like your trying to exploit in their heads.

Edit: Another way to think of it: If your selling someone a sirloin or wanting to buy a sirloin for a dinner and someone asks "how tough is it?", you use the word that it's "firm" rather than "tough".  You also mention how much flavor the meat has, and how packed it is.  You use positive words rather than negative ones and you have a better shot at success.

[worldweary]

I still had power combinations to try and missions I never ran so for me there are still new things to do when
CoH comes back.It will be many many years before the game "gets old" for me.To the people wanting to move on to new games no one is trying to convince you to stay.Go and have fun.