New efforts!

[RGladden]

ENOUGH of this idle chit-chat.  I want some NEWS...dimmit.   >:(

[Biz]

ENOUGH of this idle chit-chat.  I want some NEWS...dimmit.   >:(

Ask and you shall receive. Take your pick!

http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/news-websites

[LaughingAlex]

ENOUGH of this idle chit-chat.  I want some NEWS...dimmit.   >:(

Here is some news.  I hope this is great news worthdimming.  After All i would hate to dissappoint the importance of this news.This news is unimportant, worthy of dimming its brightness.

Really, there was no news in this post.

[Arcana]

The game has been gone for so long now I even miss the Dr Q TF despite its number of missions.

Though when the game returns I would consider streamlining it a bit as I think some of the missions were repeats.  Also I'd make sure that ALL TF and SF contacts give their number right away so you can call them from a distance, especially DR Q :)

It brings to mind the oft discussed issue of how MMO contacts work, and how often they are lazily shoehorned into the requirements of gating.  We don't get to call them because that's a benefit you want the players to work to unlock.  So you make that unlock by doing the missions of the contact.  But that creates the perverse situation where when you can talk to them easily they don't have anything more for you to do.  It violates a core gameplay idea that what you do now should help you later: the benefits of your activity now should have a benefit for what you will eventually be doing later.  If you have to do something for a very long time it does make sense if doing it for a while causes you to get better at that same thing, because you will still have to do that thing for a long time to come.  The benefit gets to be enjoyed for longer than it took to earn.  Contact unlock usually does the opposite.

Having contacts send you on strange convoluted journeys is another one of those things that would be interesting if done rarely and for specific purpose, but not when its an obvious time gate.  Dr. Q was, in my opinion, an embarrassingly transparent busy work time gate.  If it was an MA arc I would have submitted it to Venture just to watch him zero-star it with extreme prejudice.

[Vee]

Time sink? You mean you don't enjoy multiple 'kill X number of grey conned enemy' missions?

[kaaduu1280]

ENOUGH of this idle chit-chat.  I want some NEWS...dimmit.   >:(

I'm right with you on this one. We need an update here soon. Everything has been silent for far too long now.

[tumbleweedgamer]

We need to mission impossible this stuff complete with music.  Break into Evilsoft HQ da da da da suspended on wires down into the vault to rescue the source code.  What? It could happen.

[Arcana]

Time sink? You mean you don't enjoy multiple 'kill X number of grey conned enemy' missions?

I see the invisible smiley, and there is a lot of subjectivity to this, but repetition alone isn't the problem.  I was running Incarnate trial after Incarnate trial near the end, and there was only half a dozen of those so repetition was par for the course.  I probably ran literally hundreds of ITFs, and those don't change after the first hundred.  But there's a certain level of engagement with that content that simply doesn't exist in Dr. Q. 

MMO reward systems are designed around rewarding time investments, and that's not a problem either: that's what I think the correct way to design reward systems in MMOs actually is.  But I think in a sense the gameplay itself has to be part of the reward.  There has to be some intrinsic "accomplishment" for completing the tasks that ultimately lead to the rewards.  Not everyone will taste the same degree of accomplishment for every task because that is subjective, but it should still be there.  For those that enjoyed the combat, running Incarnate trials offered that feedback: one component of the "reward" for running them was enjoying the level of combat in them that was higher than in most content.  Same with ITF.  There is no part of Dr. Q. that seems to me to be designed for anyone to enjoy any part of anything going on.  Some people think running Incarnate trials was just a chore to get shards, but I can't imagine anyone thinking any of the tasks in Dr. Q. was anything other than a meaningless chore.

Millions of people run marathons, and I suspect that far more have run them on actual 26 mile courses than have run around a basketball court 476 times.  Its the same distance, and the latter is more convenient than the former.  But the difference between the two is the difference between repetitive content people want to play and repetitive content people hate to play.

[MWRuger]

I think that is exactly right, Arcana!

I loved running the ITF. It was just a lot of fun to play. Even before incarnate starnds were attached I would run it with my main level 50 because I enjoyed it. It didn't feel like a grind. I think it was the story. I liked doing the arcs on Striga, Croatoa and Faultline. Great stories and arcs. The hallows not as much. I would usually run up through Frostfire and then go elsewhere.

[rhett52]

Glad to see the amazing COH community i remember is still here and fighting for our game NCsoft is keeping away. Are there any new updates on the battle versus NCsoft? Please let me know, Thanks! :)

[ukaserex]

Time sink? You mean you don't enjoy multiple 'kill X number of grey conned enemy' missions?

Not sure about the grey conned enemies - but I named a fire/fire brute "Time Fritter" - as there was not much more fun than frittering time away farming for salvage, purples, prestige and inf.

The intrinsic value of the game play itself - that wasn't too high on my list until they announced the closure of the game. Then, all of sudden, it became rather important.

[kiario]

In a parallell universe the game was never shut down, i like to think that iam sitting there and playing

[Twisted Toon]

In a parallell universe the game was never shut down, i like to think that iam sitting there and playing

I'm sure that there's a parallel Universe where you're made of Jelly Beans...and sitting there playing CoH.

[Codewalker]

Made of jelly beans? That sounds unpleasant. Why couldn't it have been a relatively harmless parallel universe, like the world without shrimp?

[Tahquitz]

I liked the universe where everyone's talking furniture. 

[Arcana]

Made of jelly beans? That sounds unpleasant. Why couldn't it have been a relatively harmless parallel universe, like the world without shrimp?

I wonder where we exist, on the shrimp/no-shrimp scale.  That would seem to depend on the limits of the shrimp universe.  A universe with nothing but shrimp has limits on the amount of shrimp that can exist, before shrimp ignite into stars or collapse into black holes (both of which are not shrimp).

[pinballdave]

I still crave fleshing out the nuances of nature's affinity in all the group and raid permutations.

[Vee]

I still crave fleshing out the nuances of nature's affinity in all the group and raid permutations.

That sounds vaguely filthy.

[Arcana]

That sounds vaguely filthy.

I suppose that depends on what sound you're imagining while reading that.

[Paragon Avenger]

Weekly Update:

Has it been a week?  Who cares?

Anyway we are under a NDA so we can't tell you that talks have stalled over the use of Pied Piper's Compression platform.  NCSoft wants to use a product by Hooli, but The THeM sees something in Pied Piper.  Nope, I can't tell you any of that.  So keep hoping for the relauch of CoH and use PC until then.

Oh, and we love you.