New efforts!

[Kelltick]

I thought that was just Sony Online's new name, when they turned themselves into an independent company from Sony?

Nope, Sony sold the entirety of Sony Online Entertainment to a venture capital firm from Russia named Columbus Nova, who in turn re-branded SOE as Daybreak Games, and in turn fired/laid-off the bulk of the employees (including Dave Georgeson and Smedly), leading to the inevitable cancellation of Everquest Next.

Other than the launch of Landmark (previously Everquest: Landmark) coming this Spring, they don't appear to have much in the way of publicly known "in-development" titles.  They still run and develop both EQ and EQII, H1Z1, and a handful of other titles, however.

[Mistress Urd]

It's too quiet around here.


That means you guys are up to something...

Been playing Destiny the last 3 months. Its not CoH, but its the first game that makes me forget how fun CoH was.

[JoshexProxy]

I usually tried to spam this thread at least once a day. it got quiet most likely due to my and a few others absence leading to there being not much to respond to or drive arguments at least.

I was away for bad reasons as per a thread just posted in the general section here. I could use some help if anyone here with advanced computer knowledge would be willing to help.

[hurple]

Been playing Destiny the last 3 months. Its not CoH, but its the first game that makes me forget how fun CoH was.

I've recently gotten hooked on Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. 

I essentially a collectible card game type app, but the way you build a team, level them up and improve their abilities is sure scratching that "create a character" itch that CoX used to fill so nicely.   No other MMO I've found yet let's you build your toons with as much freedom as CoX.  This one comes close, though.  But, only because you have the dynamics of toon level, stars, devices, and team synergy all interacting to create the final product.

[Baaleos]

I've recently gotten hooked on Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. 

I essentially a collectible card game type app, but the way you build a team, level them up and improve their abilities is sure scratching that "create a character" itch that CoX used to fill so nicely.   No other MMO I've found yet let's you build your toons with as much freedom as CoX.  This one comes close, though.  But, only because you have the dynamics of toon level, stars, devices, and team synergy all interacting to create the final product.

I think I have stopped loving gaming and started to love programming FOR gaming more.
I spend more time developing game-system/frameworks for Neverwinter nights 1 - which I then commit to svn, gets built by jenkins, deployed to a linux server, then I run a few unit tests, to see how well it works, then I turn the server off, code some more, then repeat over and over.
I don't even need to login!!

[Taceus Jiwede]

Been playing Destiny the last 3 months. Its not CoH, but its the first game that makes me forget how fun CoH was.

I played Destiny for a while.  It can be fun if you have friends to play it with.  This isn't Other Games so i'll keep it short but I recommend trying The Division if you get bored of Destiny. It's good stuff.

Back on to one of the topic's! RIP EQNext. 

[Thunder Glove]

My wife's been playing a lot of The Division.  I can't get into it.

... frankly, I think I've been spoiled by Borderlands 2 as far as shooters go.  In every other game, I miss my Casual Swordsplosion.

[Surelle]

My wife's been playing a lot of The Division.  I can't get into it.

... frankly, I think I've been spoiled by Borderlands 2 as far as shooters go.  In every other game, I miss my Casual Swordsplosion.

I played The Division's beta, but found it too meh and repetitive.  My kids and I got bitten by the Destiny:  The Taken King bug.  We're on a couple months, off a couple, on again once the new content hits.  It's not CoH, and it doesn't have the breadth of content that a full-fledged MMORPG does, but with Daybreak poised to fold these days (we were Everquest 2 players from launch til this year), we've got to move on.

I doubt EQNext's cancellation was a surprise to anyone inside of Daybreak, or SOE for that matter, back before Sony, Japan sold them off to Russian investment firm Columbus Nova.  They shut the EQNext forums down over a year ago.   Domino, who formerly oversaw All Things Crafting in EQ2, had at first been moved over to EQNext and promoted, but she returned to EQ2 oh, probably 6-9 months ago now.  That's when I heard the death knell for EQNext.   :P 

Storybricks (who tried to buy SOE before CN got it) folded a year ago; that was another big sign.  That voxel-based emergent AI technology was one of EQNext's biggest features. Rumor has it, Storybricks tech was more smoke and mirrors than anything, and the Daybreak devs couldn't get it to actually function on their own.

It's pretty horrifying to see Daybreak hiring bigwigs (one from EA) these days, in support of what they themselves term "their new flagship franchise, H1Z1."  Clearly, the 15 devs left working on EQ2 (5 of whom double up and work on EQ1 as well) had better be looking for jobs!  CN is going to sell off EQ1 and EQ2 to some third-rate publisher soon, that's pretty obvious.  EQ2 has been shuttering servers left and right, and they closed down their EQ2 mobile app.  It appears that their Legends of Norrath card game is getting shut down soon.  EU Landmark's servers have already been cancelled, too, even though Landmark hasn't even launched yet, and they are selling Landmark for a paltry $9.99 when it does launch, not even including it in their station pass.  Making it require a sub would imply continued development for that title.  That's obviously not going to happen.

So sad, that whole thing.  EQNext's ideas could have been revolutionary-- a constantly evolving world that changes whether you are online or off.  That could have put Daybreak (who is really just SOE with 40% of their dev force canned by Columbus Nova a year ago, at the time of the takeover) back at the forefront of MMO development.

I hope somebody else with the proper funding can actually do something big with emergent AI.  All this 3D Goggle stuff isn't taking game play anywhere it already hasn't been for decades; much like 3D TV, it's nothing more than an expensive, tacky fad.  Emergent AI and interactive, changing worlds could change everything.

[Dr. Bad Guy]

  In every other game, I miss my Casual Swordsplosion.

Isn't that SWORDSPLOSION!!!!!!!!?

[Thunder Glove]

Well, SWORDSPLOSION!!!, technically....

But I'm not Mister Torgue.  I can't pull off constantly shouting like he does.

[Dr. Bad Guy]

Not sure anybody can.

[Vee]

Lately, though, I've been buying the generic brand of waxed beans. You know I rip off the label, I can hardly tell the difference.

[darkgob]

So let's just cut this off at the pass.

Today is April Fool's Day.  The deal is not settled.  City of Heroes is not back.  All the awesome things you hear today are not real.

As you were.

[Ulysses Dare]

So let's just cut this off at the pass.

Today is April Fool's Day.  The deal is not settled.  City of Heroes is not back.  All the awesome things you hear today are not real.

As you were.

A noble effort, though one sadly doomed I fear.

[Tubbius]

This means that if the deal DOES go through today and the buyer tries to announce it, no one will believe the truth.  This is sad.

[blue storm]

Been wandering through Dungeons & Dragons Online, Champions Online and Star Trek Online. Nothing really worked for me until I stumbled on EVE online... This is the only game where I found a community and I did not feel like I was playing alone....

EVE will do the job for me until we get our City back!

[Super Firebug]

So let's just cut this off at the pass.

Today is April Fool's Day.  The deal is not settled.  City of Heroes is not back.  All the awesome things you hear today are not real.

As you were.

All right; very funny. "April Fool!" Now, when is the re-launch date?? :)

[Void Huntress]

Been wandering through Dungeons & Dragons Online, Champions Online and Star Trek Online. Nothing really worked for me until I stumbled on EVE online... This is the only game where I found a community and I did not feel like I was playing alone....

EVE will do the job for me until we get our City back!

EVE is one of the most hostile player communities I've ever seen in a 'healthy'** MMO environment. There is a substantial portion which chooses to organize events for the explicit purpose of hunting down miners for the dire offense of daring to play the game in any fashion that doesn't directly involve combat with other players by default.

Setting aside that lovely element, just about every corporation has to be excessively paranoid with their hiring practices, because ANY prospective member might be an infiltrator of some kind.

I mean, if you can get something out of that, more power to you, but the culture at work basically means eventually something bad happens to you or someone around you. If this doesn't happen naturally, eventually someone will decide that you're unfortunate for having so little hostility in your life, and seek to 'help' you with the lack.

** Healthy as in 'in approximately a good space from a fiscal perspective'. There are so many pathologies in EVE, in CCP, and in the surrounding community elements, that I couldn't begin to enumerate.


EDIT: Someone else suggested this might be a joke that I'm responding to. I thought on it. Mused. It's possible. If so, however, it's a fairly weak one, because I've had this conversation quite a few times with other people, so 'meant it seriously' seemed far more plausible to me. Hell, I actually had people leave City for EVE while City was still running citing 'community'. So I dunno.

[Arcana]

EVE is one of the most hostile player communities I've ever seen in a 'healthy'** MMO environment.

Eve is an odd bird.  I don't think the player community isn't actually explicitly hostile. To be precise, it is locally inviting but globally problematic.  That's something that would be jarring to a City of Heroes player.  In City of Heroes, there's your friends, your team, your group, your SG, your channel members, and then The Community - the nebulous player community at large.  The Community was relatively tame and usually inviting in City.  That hierarchy doesn't exist in Eve in the same way.  In Eve Online, there are many out of band player communities that are very inviting to new and existing players.  They exist out of game and help players in a meta way: teach them about the game so they can be more successful in-game.  But in-game, its a dog eat dog world where your experience is driven by the corporate culture of your corporation (guild).  Some are casual, many are not.  The largest tend to function very seriously, and casual anything is not encouraged, because of the gaming experience.

I know people who play Eve who are in small groups that have no problems with efficiency or back stabbing.  But if you are looking for some casual fun and want to be surrounded by like-minded individuals, Eve's not that.  Eve players can be very helpful, but there's always the presumption that what you want to do is play Eve as intended: they will help you become strong, efficient, and fit into the corporate structure.  They won't help you if you decide they are doing it wrong and/or you have the right to play the game any way you want.  That attitude will get you a "good luck to you" and leave you to your fate.  That's just how it is.

If you want structure, you want tightly integrated group play, you want people willing to help you pursue efficient and integrated play, Eve's community is very helpful overall.  If you don't, "you can have it your way" is not their motto.  So some people find the community very inviting and helpful, and others don't.  The difference is you have to want what they want.

[Arcana]

Yay Canada:

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/news/Pages/2016/acquisition-records-supersoldier-james-howlett.aspx