And the mask comes off.

[Zombie Hustler]

I don't know... I just feel like a lot of people don't realize that if they wish for QoL enhancements to get taken away, or fewer options, or nerfs, they're most likely ruining someone else's favorite experience. The immediate reaction of MOST people with this "I don't like it so it shouldn't be there" attitude always seems to be "if you don't like it, you can always leave."

No, I get your point (and I'm certainly not taking offense). I do like that there were a myriad of travel options available in the game to get from point A to B. One of the reasons I preferred the Rogue Isles and Praetoria were because the designers by that point had learned that gigantic zones filled with (largely) unused, unoccupied territory you had to slog through to get to your missions wasn't really great design. I think when they made the trams "All Access" rather than having separate Blue and Green lines (or whatever the colors were), that was a good choice.

I do still think they went somewhat overboard at the end, though. When you have portals sitting right next to the Tramlines that fulfill the same function as the tramlines (plus give you even greater access to zones those trams don't reach), it makes having those trams redundant.

And I liked the trams. I felt that was a really cool touch that just added that depth of immersion to the world and made it feel more like a "real" place.

So, it's more a question of what was IMO excess, rather than access.

EDIT: Or what Arcana said in more eloquent fashion. lol!

[Dr. Bad Guy]

There was a loony called @Electric_Eddie or similar who for several years on Freedom ran all the shard TFs over all the US 3 day holiday weekends, he was a kin, my granite was his tank of choice for several of them.

Eddie had all kinds of alts and they all were Eddies. Entangled,Electric and so on. Good guy and friend. He kind dropped outa sight. We figured he got a girlfriend or something.

[Dr. Bad Guy]

Edit: Look at it this way. Creating a Mickey Mouse character in Unreal and making a game around it, even if you didn't directly get it from somewhere, still violates Disney's copyright.

And Disney will hammer you so hard that there will be no evidence that you ever existed in this dimension(or any others that they have access to).

[Kistulot]

Adding options can cost you players in exactly the same way removing them can.  Keep this firmly in mind: the kind of gameplay that City of Heroes encouraged by virtue of dev, well, to put it bluntly, incompetence, was one in which Holy Trinity gameplay was devalued, role-based teaming was not enforced, and players were far more able to solo than in any previous (and in nearly all successive) MMOs.  Sounds great now, but at the time those additional options for gameplay *cost* City of Heroes a lot of players.  The devs were getting a lot of feedback that the game was too easy, that Tankers were useless and therefore not fun to play, that too many players were soloing and not joining teams, making those that wanted teamed play less able to find teams on a consistent basis for harder content.  A lot of players don't remember or were not around to read these same comments on the forums.  I think most people today would say the price of losing those players was unfortunate, but better for the game in the long run.

Just remember what we're saying when we say its always good to add options because you never want to turn away players, when the only way we got those options was by losing players.  There's no such thing as bloodless MMO design.

Devaluing the trinity, every AT able to solo content... that kind of thing is what made CoH fun to me, and I know a lot of other people agreed. What you call incompetence, I call people being able to play the game in mathematically suboptimal ways while still succeeding. Sure people didnt need to play just their role, but if you wanted a team, it wasn't "hey, support looking for team" and waiting for a team with support open... it was looking for a team with an open slot.

These things made CoH good - not bad - and the fact that you cant find that just anywhere else is why I miss the game so much.

[blacksly]

What you call incompetence, I call people being able to play the game in mathematically suboptimal ways while still succeeding.

Actually, I think Arcana's comment about incompetence was meant to imply that it was incompetent because it happened by accident, rather than via design. If the devs had designed all the ATs to solo deliberately, it would have been good design. But since the devs wanted Controllers to be a teaming AT, then having Fire/Kins soloing the way they did, was poor design.

Their design was that Scrappers were to be used for soloing, and everyone else should have problems. And Tankers and Controllers should be desired on teams (but more than 1-2 usually was not that desirable). Since things didn't turn out as they wanted, they clearly did not achieve what they wanted.

That what they got instead turned out to be good is more of a happy accident than competent design.

[Phaetan]

I'm pretty sure that Arcana wasn't calling these things bad.  Merely that many of the defining and endearing features of CoH were unintended consequences of dev decisions and not acts of commission.

That narrative did seem to play out multiple times by what I've read of the development of the game over the years.

[LaughingAlex]

Devaluing the trinity, every AT able to solo content... that kind of thing is what made CoH fun to me, and I know a lot of other people agreed. What you call incompetence, I call people being able to play the game in mathematically suboptimal ways while still succeeding. Sure people didnt need to play just their role, but if you wanted a team, it wasn't "hey, support looking for team" and waiting for a team with support open... it was looking for a team with an open slot.

These things made CoH good - not bad - and the fact that you cant find that just anywhere else is why I miss the game so much.

Indeed, I remember CO recently added a mission that forced players to bring the healer along, and man I was so miserable for it.  Anytime teams were forming they'd spend thirty minutes to an hour forming the "perfect" team to do the mission.  Now I feel for those who get obsoleted, somewhat, but it's more pity than anything.  Times change, but I feel mmorpg players have let themselves be stuck so far in the past that everyone else moved forward and is still having fun, while fun to an mmorpg player these days has become "I got the item YES YES! preceeded by miserable "God damnit give me the item already!".

It's not the trinity itself, but more that mmorpgs never ever change.  If they do something, it's a very mideocre effort because they are to scared to move forward and branch out, or dig deeper layers of depth for themselves.  City of heroes actually had depth in spades, it had enough depth that it'd have a hard time climbing out of that depth.

I honestly blame the players, in the case of those who moved on over being useless because their over specialied attackless buffless healer was useless and not needed, or their taunt-only attackless tanker was useless, rather than the game, because the reality was, they weren't adapting.  They wanted a game that played exactly like every single other game to the bone with only a graphical/style carpet over it.  Which, defeats the purpose of designing any game to begin with.  A game should be identifiable among the others of it's genre, city of heroes was known as city of heroes, not everquest clone #30.

My personal favorite quote of all time came from Warren Specter, about game developers.  "We need to show them that they are lame, no matter how much money they make."  He was refering to the huge amount of modern developers who just make generic games, because they really aren't true game developers.  There are so many counter strike/halo clones(modern military shooters) and in the mmorpg scene, there are what many people call WoW clones that truely are WoW clones, though everquest clone should probably be the better term :/.

[LaughingAlex]

The post i made above, i'd even say City of heroes was, because you had countless ways of playing it, it was the fallout of mmorpgs in a way.  Fallout was an rpg where you could manipulate the environment in so many ways, people who like it will frequently say that it's a game that if you picked any skill set, you'd probably still be able to beat it.  In city of heroes case, you could do well with any archtype/powerset combination.  You don't see that in other mmorpgs.

[AlienOne]

Thanks for not taking offense. I like to start dialogue, and all of your input is exactly what I was hoping for. Arcana posting on it was a huge bonus, because she brings a ton of experience and knowledge to the discussion.

Devaluing the trinity, every AT able to solo content... that kind of thing is what made CoH fun to me, and I know a lot of other people agreed. What you call incompetence, I call people being able to play the game in mathematically suboptimal ways while still succeeding. Sure people didnt need to play just their role, but if you wanted a team, it wasn't "hey, support looking for team" and waiting for a team with support open... it was looking for a team with an open slot.

These things made CoH good - not bad - and the fact that you cant find that just anywhere else is why I miss the game so much.

Absolutely agreed.

The post i made above, i'd even say City of heroes was, because you had countless ways of playing it, it was the fallout of mmorpgs in a way.  Fallout was an rpg where you could manipulate the environment in so many ways, people who like it will frequently say that it's a game that if you picked any skill set, you'd probably still be able to beat it.  In city of heroes case, you could do well with any archtype/powerset combination.  You don't see that in other mmorpgs.

Yes! I know saying "good game design" and "bad game design" is completely subjective (just like saying "good art" and "bad art"), but this--what CoH did--is what I see as good game design--regardless of whether or not it happened via accident. Getting halfway through a game and then realizing you'd picked the "wrong" skillset isn't what I'd call very good design. Then again, there ARE games out there that appeal to the demographic that likes that kind of punishing gameplay. Path of Exile is a great example of this. I personally financially supported that game primarily because of the fact that I like that dev team and their transparency, hard work, dedication, and approachability. However, I can't seem to get past level 40 because the game is so inexorably in-depth and complex that you literally have to study it to make any sense of what works and what doesn't. You can actually get up to a very high level (say, level 70) only to realize that you made some wrong choices in your passive skill tree a while back, and it's too late. Your character can advance no further. It's either delete and make another character (after hundreds of hours invested), or hope for another major game update in a few months that gives you a free respec. Although I'm glad that games like that exist for people that have the time (and fortitude) to invest in them, I'm certainly thankful CoH didn't have that philosophy. And, I'm positive that, if it did, the type of community that philosophy would have produced would have been entirely different.

I haven't finished my Master's in Game Design yet (halfway done but taking a break), but as you can see, I can talk about design philosophy all year long. I believe design philosophy is closely related to understanding psychology. Every game designed is an exploration into exactly who and what is drawn to it and who clings to it. This is why I say the design philosophy for Path of Exile produces an entirely different kind of community that it maintains. Read the Diablo 3 forums...then read the Mass Effect forums....then read the archived CoH forums... Each entirely different game with entirely different design philosophies produced a different community (as a whole) that embraces it.

[Harpospoke]

By in large I was a strong supporter of expansive gameplay options in City of Heroes.  And there is a lot of truth to the statement that many people were very cavalier about advocating the removal of gameplay options that other players felt were important to their enjoyment of the game.  But I think there is a significant amount of truth to the reverse that people were completely blind to, and that is that it is not necessarily true that all gameplay additions were "free" in the sense of not intrinsically removing others.

My canonical example was to note how so many people stated that the archetype system was one of CoH's most unnecessary gameplay restrictions, and that allowing players to just pick whatever powers they wanted was the best option.  If people *wanted* to play under more restrictions, they could just do that, so the idea went.  How could adding more options possibly devalue the existing ones?  Champions Online was a godsend in this respect, because it allowed to me stop arguing the hypothetical, and just point.  Champions Online, by allowing ranged combat and high end defenses to be freely mixed, basically destroyed the melee fighter option.  It was simply illogical to deliberately handicap yourself by neglecting to take ranged attacks, and doing so put you at an incredible disadvantage to other players, at least at launch and for a long time afterward.  Simply put, by adding one option - ranged scrappers - they destroyed another as a practical matter if not technically - the melee fighter.  In City of Heroes, there are actually *more* distinct power combination options precisely because the archetype lanes create pockets of valid powerset combinations separated by some distance.

The practical aspect of this change was that CO had far less replay value than CoH did, and even the devs had to acknowledge that moving from the hypothetical framework system they had kicked around in beta to the more open one had actually removed replayability - thus the F2P option was more restricted in powerset combinations.  In essence, they brought archetypes back.

Its not always obvious what you give up when to get something else, and I saw just as many players see no problem with adding options that devalued other ones as I did players seeing no problem with taking options away.  There is very often a balancing act when  new options are added, and its not easy to know when a new option is a genuinely free option to add (i.e. it has no undesireable side effects).

Good thing to consider for sure.

But it seems like any QoL improvement was met with the "doom" response from some on the old boards.   I used to have a list in my head of all the things which were "never going to happen" which ended up happening.   Power customization, server transfers, and changing back and forth from heroside to villainside were some of them.

I wonder if some of those people blamed the shutdown on us getting all those various QoL improvements?   

[Blondeshell]

[...] Arcana [...] she [...]

Fix'd! 

[AlienOne]

Fix'd! 

Ah, my apologies. I modified my original post to reflect that.

[Shard]

Of course, as someone with an extensive background in writing, I wholeheartedly disagree with your comments on super hero dialogue.  Have you ever watched ANY of the current Marvel Universe cartoons on Disney?  Or any of the JLU series? The reason that dialogue is "good" while the 1980 Superfriends dialogue is "bad" has nothing to do with the medium itself, it has to do with expectations. 

Sadly, I don't write, so I cannot possibly take that viewpoint. What I can say, having just started a rewatching kick on Young Justice is - um - yes. It is.  The quality and delivery is better, but it's still corny - and at at least a power of ten beyond the budget.  Your ability to let it slide is a personal thing - just like I can gleefully sit through "Gordon Lives!"
 

[Zombie Hustler]

Thanks for not taking offense. I like to start dialogue, and all of your input is exactly what I was hoping for. Arcana posting on it was a huge bonus, because she brings a ton of experience and knowledge to the discussion.

I think my initial post might have been polarizing due to my use of the word "restricted" in mentioning the many ways to reach new zones, when that wasn't so much the intent. It was more the idea that it rendered other means redundant, and I think it could have been equally achieved via a different means, and one that was more in keeping with the content of the game.

In fact, it was really just that one specific type of zoning that came with i23- the TUNNEL system- that turned me off. Most of the other increased travel types were welcome by me, and I had no problem with the teleports and options that people could acquire.

But again, some of the comments made here were also points of view I hadn't considered, so of course, open dialogue is great.

And speaking of archetypes- I always thought they were fairly well done, and the power proliferation I think helped in keeping the options as open as possible while still maintaining a semblance of game balance as opposed to a "free for all" like people mention with CO.

IIRC, there was a "ranged striker" in the works, so I'm not sure if that would have mucked things up or not (Arcana mentioned that kind of minimizing some of the melee options in CO).

I still wish there had been more done with the various Origins, though.

[simonthezealot]

I hate to be negative, but I'm honestly worried that NCSoft might throw the whole deal out of the window because MWM might be asking for too much. I personally think there's definitely a reason NCSoft has been sitting on the City of Heroes rights as hard as they have; they probably plan on making a City of Heroes 2 at some point in the future. Even if it's not for another decade or more. I truly hope that they don't throw the whole deal out because of the attempt to try to get City of Heroes licensing for the various other superhero MMO projects going on. I, personally, have no interest in the successors to City of Heroes, and I hope MWM considers attempting to reopen negotiations if things fall through, but only with the request to run i23 City of Heroes servers.

I might be speaking too soon, but I definitely wanted to voice my concern ahead of time. I still absolutely appreciate and applaud what the group is doing.

[ivanhedgehog]

Disclaimer (I should probably preface all my posts with this....lol):

This is not a personal attack against anyone quoted below--I am simply quoting them to give reference for what I am about to say. I have no fight with anyone here. I actually believe that we're a great community and everyone here who is a friend of the effort to get the game back is a friend of mine. This is simply a little statement/rant about what I've observed about gaming wants/expectations over the past few decades.

And you have a great memory to share of those times because of it.

There are those of us out here in the world that actually prefer to learn by experience than being "throttled" or "forced" into doing something. I'd rather pull an "oops, guess that death means I wasn't supposed to be there yet!" than find out via some kind of message "NO. YOU CANNOT ENTER THIS AREA." On top of this, an open world allows for various challenges ("let's see... I wonder if I enhance with this and choose this and this power, can I go up against an enemy 5 levels higher than me when I'm level 15....") I maintain that more options is better.

If you can't tell, I don't like the "linear story/combat" experience. It suggests there is only "one way to play." And if you make a game that only allows for "one way to play," you really cut down on the amount of people it will appeal to. A truly well-made game (as we all well know since we've all played CoH) is one that allows many personalities and many demographics and many walks of life play it in their own way and have their own experience. Like to travel? Great, we've got it for you. Like to skip the travel? Great, there's options for that as well. Like to do story-based short missions? We've got it. Rather do a longer-term series of missions? We have task forces. You're a PvP person? We've got several zones that are for nothing but that. Interested in just dressing up and RP'ing? You can do that too.

Most other modern games (even in the MMO genre) have very limited costume options, extremely limited ways you can play, and--if you're not the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, or Grand Theft Auto--sometimes even limit where you can go. It's as if most developers out there aren't really interested in selling their game. They're more interested in creating something they themselves would play their own way. That's fine in a sense (why wouldn't you design a game you wanted to play?), but then comes the question of sustainability. If you don't have more options to appeal to more people built into the game, you can guarantee there will be a flood of people who will try your game, not like it, and move on.

However, if you build a TON of options in a game like CoH did, you grab a very wide audience that stays loyal to the game because they're allowed to play it how they want to.

What about the people who did nothing but build their base all day? What if they were pigeon-holed into something else and prevented from doing that? What do you think would happen to them? They'd move on and find a game that allowed them to express themselves the way they wanted. Can you imagine what it would be like if you couldn't adjust your UI to exactly how you preferred it? Or put your powers where you wanted?

I can completely understand if something is game-breaking. Or, imbalanced. Or overpowered. I'm not talking about those things. Remember all the people who complained about the new graphics? They still could play the game on their old machines in the resolution they always could, but because there was a new "option" for people who could take advantage of it, they complained. Because they didn't (or couldn't) use it.

I don't know... I just feel like a lot of people don't realize that if they wish for QoL enhancements to get taken away, or fewer options, or nerfs, they're most likely ruining someone else's favorite experience. The immediate reaction of MOST people with this "I don't like it so it shouldn't be there" attitude always seems to be "if you don't like it, you can always leave."

Fine. So, let's say a huge chunk of people decide to leave because they start to get aggravated that they're not allowed to travel like they want to. Or, they don't have as much of an "open world" as they'd like. Then there are not enough people there to support the game you told them to leave. And....suddenly there isn't a whole lot of people to play with...or, even worse, it gets shut down. Would you be happy with the results of "if you don't like it, leave" in an MMO world?

Maybe I should have been a Producer.

you just described SWTOR perfectly

[ivanhedgehog]

Certainly a good point, and one I hadn't thought about (probably because I'm primarily a solo player, but when I did team, this was definitely a useful feature).

I was largely thinking of how it impacted story elements (particularly at the end; I can go to Praetoria right after completing the Newbie Intro mission? Cool! What the heck is Praetoria, again?)

Then again, that was always a problem inasfar as new content went in other areas as well- losing a sense of cohesion and continuity. So not strictly a "ubiquitous travel" dilemma.

I can't help but think there could be some more middle ground here, but I definitely grant you this point.

I think people for get that a newbie is only level 1 and a newbie for a short time, but everyone is there for a long time.  nerfing someone to buffer their newbieness will only help for a very short period, but removing options will effect a much larger group for a very long time.

[Surelle]

I hate to be negative, but I'm honestly worried that NCSoft might throw the whole deal out of the window because MWM might be asking for too much. I personally think there's definitely a reason NCSoft has been sitting on the City of Heroes rights as hard as they have; they probably plan on making a City of Heroes 2 at some point in the future. Even if it's not for another decade or more. I truly hope that they don't throw the whole deal out because of the attempt to try to get City of Heroes licensing for the various other superhero MMO projects going on. I, personally, have no interest in the successors to City of Heroes, and I hope MWM considers attempting to reopen negotiations if things fall through, but only with the request to run i23 City of Heroes servers.

I might be speaking too soon, but I definitely wanted to voice my concern ahead of time. I still absolutely appreciate and applaud what the group is doing.

Actually, the whole thing went the opposite way of that:  MWM was ONLY asking to buy the IP, so all the successor games could reference CoX without, ya know, getting their arses sued off.  It was reportedly NCSoft themselves who said, "And hey, we've got this backup of the servers the night the game shut down, so do you guys want that too?"  to which Nate and the others said, "Hell yeah!"     We still don't know, NCSoft could back out at any point, but it was actually their idea to get CoX running again.

[simonthezealot]

Actually, the whole thing went the opposite way of that:  MWM was ONLY asking to buy the IP, so all the successor games could reference CoX without, ya know, getting their arses sued off.  It was reportedly NCSoft themselves who said, "And hey, we've got this backup of the servers the night the game shut down, so do you guys want that too?"  to which Nate and the others said, "Hell yeah!"     We still don't know, NCSoft could back out at any point, but it was actually their idea to get CoX running again.

This is definitely good to hear, but where did you see this? It's not in the original post, so I'm just curious.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Actually, the whole thing went the opposite way of that:  MWM was ONLY asking to buy the IP, so all the successor games could reference CoX without, ya know, getting their arses sued off.  It was reportedly NCSoft themselves who said, "And hey, we've got this backup of the servers the night the game shut down, so do you guys want that too?"  to which Nate and the others said, "Hell yeah!"     We still don't know, NCSoft could back out at any point, but it was actually their idea to get CoX running again.

I keep forgetting about that tidbit. If memory serves, you're correct. NCSoft brought up the I23 server during negotiations, as far as I understand.