And the mask comes off.

[Keyne]

The idea that I am just another cog in a machine soured me off of these instantly.

The type of person who prefers Batman:TAS over Justice League. Do you find yourself able to still appreciate both for their merits?

[Taceus Jiwede]

That explains why when I ran iTrials I kept hearing that song from the Karate Kid in my head.

Huh, for me it was always Eye of the tiger.  Except I would sing it at the top of my lungs.

[LaughingAlex]

Yeah, the gear in other mmos felt like a burden rather than an upgrade.

I dislike gear, especially in a supers mmo.

My thoughts about ever increasing level and gear numbers, is its a carrot on a stick.  So lets say one gets to level 70, and then gets the top gear whats the purpose in playing if it was all raids?  Well, there isn't any at this point as you've done everything you could to get there.  So the developer, rather than adding stuff at that level 70, increases the cap to 80.  Then they increase the damage/armor ratings ect by a fold of 10 or so and then say new and improved.  But it's not, just higher numbers so people can increase the ego they have "Oh i got higher numbers I'm bigger better more powerful NOW HAHAHA" when in reality, they are still the same.  Even more laughable when the enemies level up with them(lookin at you, diablo 3 and reaper of souls).

(and not sayin D3 is a bad game these days but I did feel the number differences between a 60 and 70 was kind of pointless)

[BadWolf]

My thoughts about ever increasing level and gear numbers, is its a carrot on a stick.  So lets say one gets to level 70, and then gets the top gear whats the purpose in playing if it was all raids?  Well, there isn't any at this point as you've done everything you could to get there.  So the developer, rather than adding stuff at that level 70, increases the cap to 80.  Then they increase the damage/armor ratings ect by a fold of 10 or so and then say new and improved.  But it's not, just higher numbers so people can increase the ego they have "Oh i got higher numbers I'm bigger better more powerful NOW HAHAHA" when in reality, they are still the same.  Even more laughable when the enemies level up with them(lookin at you, diablo 3 and reaper of souls).

(and not sayin D3 is a bad game these days but I did feel the number differences between a 60 and 70 was kind of pointless)

I think at some point, though, this gets philosophical. All games have their carrots to get you to progress; let's face it, there's no technical reason why you can't turn off XP right away and fight bad guys in Atlas Park as a level 1. Every complaint about "bigger, better, more powerful" and "enemies level up with you" can be applied in microcosm for the journey to level 2.

I agree with you, after a while the ever-increasing cap becomes a bit transparently hamster-wheel-esque (especially with WoW, where they make a special effort to make the old gear easier to obtain so people can get to the new endgame content quickly, so the items you sweated bullets to get a year ago are now dispensed for free in crackerjack boxes), but I don't think that one should be against advancement in principle. Because some people enjoy that. I mean, I'm not a majorly grindy person, but I was horrified to find out that in 5th edition D&D, I'd still have problems with goblins at level 10. What's the fun in leveling up if you don't get to roflstomp the things that used to terrify you, dangit?

[LaughingAlex]

I think at some point, though, this gets philosophical. All games have their carrots to get you to progress; let's face it, there's no technical reason why you can't turn off XP right away and fight bad guys in Atlas Park as a level 1. Every complaint about "bigger, better, more powerful" and "enemies level up with you" can be applied in microcosm for the journey to level 2.

I agree with you, after a while the ever-increasing cap becomes a bit transparently hamster-wheel-esque (especially with WoW, where they make a special effort to make the old gear easier to obtain so people can get to the new endgame content quickly, so the items you sweated bullets to get a year ago are now dispensed for free in crackerjack boxes), but I don't think that one should be against advancement in principle. Because some people enjoy that. I mean, I'm not a majorly grindy person, but I was horrified to find out that in 5th edition D&D, I'd still have problems with goblins at level 10. What's the fun in leveling up if you don't get to roflstomp the things that used to terrify you, dangit?

 Increasing the Level cap and whatnot, and even increasin a power level is fine, but cannot be the only thing one can do, I feel.  Making a good game takes more than just level cap increasing.  New features and new maps/stories and whatnot matter a lot.  Doom 2 wouldn't for example be quite the game it is today if for example the double barrel shotgun wasn't added and new engine features weren't added to it(remember ultimate doom was enhanced by doom 2's engine).  Just setting a map and then increasing the level cap and upping the numbers is very little by itself.

I notice this in that, mmorpg developers are often, because they focus TO much on level and ever increasing gear/level is many of them become one trick ponies.  Their methods wouldn't work in other genres, and heck, proven to not work.  An example is the original developer of Diablo 3, Jay Wilson, was before that a guy who contributed to WoW.  He used the very methods that worked for WoW on diablo 3 and caused it to be compared to other blizzard titles a total disaster, in that it was an EXTREME grind fest with gear being the be-all-end all.  He probably wasn't sololy to blame, but the guy who made diablo 1 certainly felt that diablo 3 wasn't a game he'd have made or would have made it differently.  That, and Jay's response, lead to Jay resigning from Diablo 3 to move onto other projects...

...Diablo 3 improved many fold since he left in ways that actually made it a good game that wasn't so ludicrously grindy(still a grind but no where near as bad or fake difficulty ridden).

Edit: Course, not all mmorpg developers are that way, paragon studios certainly wasn't a one trick pony, quite the opposite.

Another Edit: Heres a link about the guy. http://www.diablowiki.net/Jay_Wilson

Edit: corrected some things.

[silvers1]

CoT has always been, and will always be, a spiritual successor, not a sequel. It has always been a separate game.

Ok, so we're having the same company maintaining the true successor to CoH and the "spiritual" successor... does anyone else
see a conflict of interest here.  I'd hate to see COH2 go into slow maintenance mode while CoT gets the lions share of development time.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

Ok, so we're having the same company maintaining the true successor to CoH and the "spiritual" successor... does anyone else
see a conflict of interest here.  I'd hate to see COH2 go into slow maintenance mode while CoT gets the lions share of development time.

Because it's not true. Nate/downix was involved with getting the negotiations started, but will not be a part of the holding company that would be formed to manage the IP. In any event Nate became involved with the latest negotiations as an individual. Missing Worlds Media does not and never has had anything to do with the current team looking to buy the game other than Nate being involved with both. Again, Nate helped get the ball rolling, but at no time has MWM itself been a part of the efforts.

This has been covered a couple times in this thread in posts by downix and others. Do a search for all posts by him or just read the thread. It pops up pretty early on...
Considering that the only mentions about MWM involvement in this thread explicitly lay out that MWM is not involved in the negotiations i'm not entirely sure where you got the idea that they are involved.

[opprime2828]

Ok, so we're having the same company maintaining the true successor to CoH and the "spiritual" successor... does anyone else
see a conflict of interest here.  I'd hate to see COH2 go into slow maintenance mode while CoT gets the lions share of development time.

 
I think part of your confusion is from the fact that there actually are no plans for a "CoH 2." There will be CoH and then the successors.  For the time being, CoH will be just issue 23 running in maintenance mode. Eventually, "CoH" will be migrated to the Unreal Engine by Atlas Park Revival, where it will likely get new updates, etc.  but will still be, in all ways possible, CoH as we knew and loved it. The truth is, however, with Atlas Park Revival being a VERY small group effort (one person at this point) it may very well be that City of Titans ends up released before City of Heroes is fully rebuilt in Unreal.  We just don't know.
 
The closest you'll get to a CoH 2 will be the successors like City of Titans.  These will be new games, in new worlds, with new features and mechanics, but inspired by City of Heroes.  And in time, for those who wish to stick with the "old game", they will be able to see it continued on in the Unreal version created by Atlas Park Revival. 
 

[ivanhedgehog]

Ok, so we're having the same company maintaining the true successor to CoH and the "spiritual" successor... does anyone else
see a conflict of interest here.  I'd hate to see COH2 go into slow maintenance mode while CoT gets the lions share of development time.

i see a pattern of you not reading. Id hate to see the messages where nate said he would NOT be running coh maint or coh replacement

[silvers1]

[Aggelakis]

MWM has nothing to do with this. Nate Downes is handling the negotiations, not MWM.

[FloatingFatMan]

Since MWM is handling the negotiation/arrangements, I was assuming this licensing company would be a subsidiary.  If not, my misunderstanding.
I wasn't aware APR was a completely separate entity.   But since they said they were using a "CoT build", I assumed a closer relationship.

And no, I haven't read all 1000 pages of both threads, nor do I intend to.  I appreciate the prior two comments, which helped much.   This sardonic response, not so much.

If you're not going to bother to read the information that's contained in the first bleedin' post, what else do you expect when people take you to task?

[Remaugen]

Since MWM is handling the negotiation/arrangements, I was assuming this licensing company would be a subsidiary.  If not, my misunderstanding.

And no, I haven't read all 1000 pages of both threads, nor do I intend to.  I appreciate the prior two comments, which helped much.   This sardonic response, not so much.

Nate Downes is handling the negotiations, NOT MWM. And if you had actually read the FIRST post in the thread you would have pretty much gotten the whole story.

[opprime2828]

Seriously, guys, its kind of an easy mistake to make.  Nate Downs is a "face" of MWM, and so when someone sees that he is the one "under the mask" it is a natural assumption to make that he's acting as a member of MWM.  Should people probably not "skim" and then post "concerns"?  Yeah, in a perfect world.  But we're all busy, and sometimes we do things in a less than perfect manner.
 
Lets face it, not all of us are as plugged in and have been following this as long as others. 
 
Do we really need to spend our energy "piling on" instead of just spending that energy clarifying?  In the end, we're all hoping we get our game back.   
 
I'd be willing to bet all of us have done something on the internet at least as "annoying" or whatever as this.  Probably more than once.
 
 
And also...I'd hate to see our conversation about how under powered blasters were in the incarnate trials due to altitis making voice overs too expensive get sidelined. :-P

[ryuplaneswalker]

I also think the devs partially oversold incarnate abilities, although that wasn't entirely their fault.  Most of what players expected story-wise and power-wise out of incarnate abilities were rumors driven by players passing on made-up information.  Incarnates were never supposed to be "cosmicly powered beings" like Galactus or even the Silver Surfer, say.  They were supposed to be sort of the next step up in evolution, but not the last step.  Keep in mind that the down-the-road enemies for us were going to be (among other options) the True Rikti, which on the fictional power scale were probably like a cross between the Wraith (physically) and the Asguardians (technologically) in Stargate SG-1.  Not omnipotent beings per se.

I partially disagree here, especially post power colorization and depending on the character.

on Ryu the A huge blast of Black flames, that ignite my foes felt...very Planeswalkerish to me, and the endurance alpha let me run Cloak of Fear thus causing minions who get too close to me to either cower in fear or...whatever oppressive gloom did to stun people.

My Earth/Empathy controller did not get a great deal out of any of the slots..until Hybrid..that 120 seconds of +1 Mag to mezzes let her do hilariously sickening things

My Crab spider loved Lore, because it was 2 more additions to the giant arachnos army that he was.

Really the only thing I ever felt was bad about the incarnate system was the fact we did not have more Lore powers to choose from (I wanted Halloween Zombies Dagnabit!)

[AlienOne]

Increasing the Level cap and whatnot, and even increasin a power level is fine, but cannot be the only thing one can do, I feel.  Making a good game takes more than just level cap increasing.  New features and new maps/stories and whatnot matter a lot.  Doom 2 wouldn't for example be quite the game it is today if for example the double barrel shotgun wasn't added and new engine features weren't added to it(remember ultimate doom was enhanced by doom 2's engine).  Just setting a map and then increasing the level cap and upping the numbers is very little by itself.

I notice this in that, mmorpg developers are often, because they focus TO much on level and ever increasing gear/level is many of them become one trick ponies.  Their methods wouldn't work in other genres, and heck, proven to not work.  An example is the original developer of Diablo 3, Jay Wilson, was before that a guy who contributed to WoW.  He used the very methods that worked for WoW on diablo 3 and caused it to be compared to other blizzard titles a total disaster, in that it was an EXTREME grind fest with gear being the be-all-end all.  He probably wasn't sololy to blame, but the guy who made diablo 1 certainly felt that diablo 3 wasn't a game he'd have made or would have made it differently.  That, and Jay's response, lead to Jay resigning from Diablo 3 to move onto other projects...

...Diablo 3 improved many fold since he left in ways that actually made it a good game that wasn't so ludicrously grindy(still a grind but no where near as bad or fake difficulty ridden).

Edit: Course, not all mmorpg developers are that way, paragon studios certainly wasn't a one trick pony, quite the opposite.

Another Edit: Heres a link about the guy. http://www.diablowiki.net/Jay_Wilson

Edit: corrected some things.

This is one of the reasons I loved the fact that CoH didn't increase their level cap and instead focused on other ways to "improve" your character. Considering how many alts most people had, increasing a level cap would only serve to invalidate all the work people had put into a LOT of characters (and divide the playerbase, as not everyone has the same amount of time to go ahead and bump up all their characters to the next level cap)..."what do you need for this task force? A tank? Ok, let me go ahead and switch over to my....oh wait. He hasn't been bumped up to the next level cap yet. :/"

Interesting you guys should use the Diablo series as a comparison... Gear is an important part of the Diablo games...it's not for City of Heroes... In fact, for any aRPG of that style (Dungeon Siege I, II, III, Titan Quest, The Adventures of Van Helsing, Torchlight I, II, Grim Dawn, Path of Exile, etc.) it's about the gear. That's an expected element for those games--so Diablo 3 being "all about the gear" wasn't such a surprise to me--especially since I'd played the other Diablo games and all the other titles I mentioned since 1999. I don't mind a "dangling carrot" gear game, but as someone else pointed out earlier, I agree that it's not something that should be in a superhero game--unless of course it's a very tiny part of it (as in maybe the tech-based heroes that don't actually have supernatural powers and have to use *gear* to pull off their amazing feats...I'm sure having gear-based heroes and non-gear-based heroes in the same game would be a nightmare to balance though).

I think what causes people to bring up Diablo 3 in these kinds of discussions (even though it belongs in an entirely different genre) is because of (like you mentioned) Jay Wilson... He basically tried making Diablo 3 a "partial" MMO. The other two Diablo games (and certainly not ANY of the other aRPG titles except for Path of Exile) require you to be online ALL the time. There were a ton of elements in Diablo 3 that carried directly over from WoW, and although WoW is certainly a success story in terms of MMOs, the Diablo audience (speaking from experience) is NOT the audience that is impressed with WoW game mechanics--or graphics for that matter. I've played D3 since it was released, and I still to this day use the "DarkD3" mod to alter the graphics to be more D2-like. It just doesn't pay to try and make a game that appeals to a certain audience completely different to appeal to another audience. The only reason they got away with it is because they're Blizzard and because D3 was a hugely anticipated title. If you recall, there were a LOT of features announced when D3 was announced that were similar to D2 that didn't make it into the actual released product--which pissed off a LOT of people (check out the Metacritic user scores for reference). This is not even mentioning the whole overhaul to the power/rune/stat system that everyone was used to in D1 & D2. He changed basically everything--powers, game mechanics, mood, graphics, story/lore, and even killed off everyone's favorite character within the first act of a five-act game. Really the only reason I'm still playing is because a new group of people got put in charge of the game and have slowly been moving things towards Diablo 2 territory and making it playable. I'm still pissed about the story though...

If Jay Wilson were to take over the City of Heroes franchise in the same manner he made Diablo 3, he'd be making City of Heroes 2 look like Minecraft and play like the Call of Duty games. Would that appeal to the City of Heroes core audience? Hell no. I am all about "innovation," but when you totally change EVERYTHING (and market it like not much has changed), you're going to turn a LOT of people off.

[Surelle]

Ok, so we're having the same company maintaining the true successor to CoH and the "spiritual" successor... does anyone else
see a conflict of interest here.  I'd hate to see COH2 go into slow maintenance mode while CoT gets the lions share of development time.

CoH2 is...nothing and no one.  City of Titans is its own game run by Nate and MWM.  Nate is not making CoH2 in any form.  The deal with NCSoft for CoX involves bringing back a zombie version of CoX, the final snapshot of the servers as they were the night of the closure with nothing else, running in perpetual maintenance mode.  There are no tools, no code, and no former accounts or character info coming in this zombie rez of CoX.  There is no future development, no CoH2.

If the NCSoft deal on the table goes through, and CoX in maintenance mode comes back, there will also be a leasing company (made up of whom?  we don't yet know) leasing out the IP of CoX.  At that point, Irish_Girl is planning on moving the original CoX game, model by model, building by building, piece by piece via Blender into the Unreal 4 engine.  She has some preliminary pics of Atlas Park and peripheral work on a few other zones up on her Atlas Park Revival site.  There is no official team for APR at this time, nor is there fundraising.  It is really known as CoH1.5 because it will be the same game, just moved into Unreal 4 so it can someday be added to and patched, unlike CoX zombie mode.  But neither of those things is possible if NCSoft turns down Team Hail Mary's offer to run the snapshot of CoX and buy out the IP so it can be re-leased for future projects built around the same lore.

But I repeat-- there is NO CoH2 in the works.  So I don't know what you're even talking about.  You're whining into the wind about nothing.

[KennonGL]

And also...I'd hate to see our conversation about how under powered blasters were in the incarnate trials due to altitis making voice overs too expensive get sidelined. :-P

+1 points for you!  Give this man a cookie

[Ironwolf]

 
I think part of your confusion is from the fact that there actually are no plans for a "CoH 2." There will be CoH and then the successors.  For the time being, CoH will be just issue 23 running in maintenance mode. Eventually, "CoH" will be migrated to the Unreal Engine by Atlas Park Revival, where it will likely get new updates, etc.  but will still be, in all ways possible, CoH as we knew and loved it. The truth is, however, with Atlas Park Revival being a VERY small group effort (one person at this point) it may very well be that City of Titans ends up released before City of Heroes is fully rebuilt in Unreal.  We just don't know.
 
The closest you'll get to a CoH 2 will be the successors like City of Titans.  These will be new games, in new worlds, with new features and mechanics, but inspired by City of Heroes.  And in time, for those who wish to stick with the "old game", they will be able to see it continued on in the Unreal version created by Atlas Park Revival.

APR is only small at the moment because in all honesty until the deal is sealed there is nothing that can be done. I am taking the time to learn UnReal4 engine and a lot of the others are doing the same, learning new skills. Since much of the game is planned to be a direct port - at the beginning a lot of the work is simple grunt stuff. I know that i am working on new maps - one of the main complaints I heard from players was how boring it was to do the same maps over and over.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

I'm curious what distinction people are looking for between what makes Revival "CoH 1.5" and no "CoH 2"?

I'm curious, because I've heard people on both sides... saying basically "Revival is CoH2" and "Revival is 1.5. Not 2".
What do you guys think makes something a true "CoH 2"?