Author Topic: Cryptic/Perfect World  (Read 2963 times)

Xev

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Cryptic/Perfect World
« on: April 22, 2022, 12:05:29 AM »
I've not been playing a Cryptic game (whichever) as much as normal since before last Christmas (just having a very rare mmo break) and this news slipped right past me until I saw the name of Gearbox Publishing on the Neverwinter login page and did a google:

Quote
Did Cryptic sell neverwinter?
The Embracer Group – Deep Silver, Gearbox, THQ etc – have delved in to their seemingly bottomless pockets once more and purchased Perfect World Entertainment, who in turn own Cryptic Studios, creators of Neverwinter and Star Trek Online. Dec 21, 2021

Alarm bells rang at first until I realized that this isn't any kind of first for Cryptic. If you've been playing any Cryptic games since Perfect World took over (whatever their role was, exactly), you probably won't miss them.

Perfect World still has their name plastered on a startup screen, the login screen, and I dunno where else.

It looks like Gearbox is sticking with Arc (sarcastic "yay") for support/forums/patch notes - it says "Gearbox" in Neverwinter's Arc at least. Not Perfect World.
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Xev

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Re: Cryptic/Perfect World
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2022, 07:39:34 PM »
Quote
Patch Notes: Version: NW.135.20220328a.11
By Nitocris | Wed 27 Apr 2022 06:34:23 PM PDT


...


Publisher Update

Publisher iconography has been updated to Gearbox Publishing.



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Angel Phoenix77

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Re: Cryptic/Perfect World
« Reply #2 on: May 28, 2022, 07:12:07 PM »
Not suprised. I have read the press release and I saw something. they listed Star Trek and Neverwinter. Yet left champions out of the press release. I have never seen a mmo business show so much contempt for one of their games. While champions deservers so much of their bashing. It's not the games fault for how it became. It's cryptics fault for not putting money and resources into making any better. And now gearbox owns them, champions could very well shutdown. And it should.
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Xev

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Re: Cryptic/Perfect World
« Reply #3 on: May 29, 2022, 05:51:36 PM »
I don't get how this whole thing with video game developers and publishers works. I mean, I was going to say that Gearbox doesn't actually own Cryptic but then I got to thinking that NCLimpSoft was only a publisher for Cryptic, once, but yet was able to shut down CoH.

However it works I'm thinking that this isn't a step down for Cryptic. May be a step up. Gearbox is a 'merican company with a parent company that has over 100 studios under it. Some further googling also revealed they seem partial to preserving classic games. I read something that said they own Dark Horse comics, too.

Wiki says this about Gearbox's parent company, Embracer "At an early age, Swedish entrepreneur Lars Wingefors (edit:Head Dude at Embracer) began successfully selling a diverse range of products, including Christmas magazines and plastic bags, and when he was 13 years old, he founded LW Comics, a company that sold second-hand comic books.[5][6]"

Whereas Perfect World is (was?) a China based company that didn't really seem very invested in Cryptic.

Embracer seems to have the cash, too.. (also from Wiki) "In December 2021, Embracer launched its intent to acquire Asmodee for €2.75 billion, as to incorporate it wholly as Embracer's ninth operational group and allowing Embracer to expand into the board game market.[52] That same month, Embracer also acquired Perfect World Entertainment, including its publishing arm and Cryptic Studios, from the Perfect World holding group and Perfect World Europe, for $103 million. Once approved, Perfect World Entertainment would become part of the Gearbox division.[53] It further acquired Dark Horse Media, the parent company for Dark Horse Comics and Dark Horse Entertainment, establishing Dark Horse as its tenth operating division.

Oh wait, what was that about Perfect World...?

So, yeah. May be a step up for Cryptic.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2022, 06:08:21 PM by Xev »
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Re: Cryptic/Perfect World
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2022, 03:53:38 AM »
Well, right before PWE left Cryptic, pretty much the entire NW queue system, which is where I've lived (queues in general) since they started becoming a thing in games, was, pretty much, entirely.. rendered unfun. So much so that I stopped playing NW for a browser game.. Now that's saying something.

I don't know if Gearbox has anything to do with anything, but, since they started stamping their name everywhere in place of PWE, the queue system has not only been fixed in a simple intelligent way - it's been enhanced. The game's fun again. There's new loot and the way to get it.. the queue system. So now you don't 'just' get diamonds for queueing up you can also progress in a campaign and earn some of the best loot in the game by joining dragon hunts of varying difficulty with a loot system all their own.

CoH started the queue system for me and I've been hooked ever since. They were just starting to do a lot of really great things in CoH when it got shut down. That's what got me about the shutdown, is, CoH was on top of their game with new ideas and enticements when they got shutdown. They were not in any kind of decline, they were at the top of their game when they got shutdown. As I recall, they were pioneers with player queues and I wish they could have carried on with what they were doing.

Anyway, to me it feels like someone who has a brain looked at the NW queue system recently and said "duh" *brushstroke brushstroke* and the next thing you know the damage that was done to it was reversed. Whether Gearbox gets any credit for that or not I dunno.
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eabrace

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Re: Cryptic/Perfect World
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2022, 02:20:05 PM »
I haven't played in a long time, but it's good to see that the game's progressing in a positive direction.
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Re: Cryptic/Perfect World
« Reply #6 on: July 10, 2022, 09:39:29 PM »
I'm like that with Star Trek online. Sometimes I wish I'd never have gotten into NW because I was totally fine with playing STO and then I got into NW (a new version of the first online graphical mmo ever that I couldn't download for over a year due to my now ex-metered Internet account) and never went back to it. I hope they're still doing good. They probably are.

NW does seem to be going in a positive direction.

What I wonder, is... if PWE had anything at all to do with NW going nowhere but downhill in their last days together. Right before PWE left not only were the queues ... ruined, half our gear was wiped out! I logged in one day to find half my gear (weapon/armor/gear enchantments..) in my mailbox with a note saying "you can't use this shiz anymore, welcome to the newest Mod".

You know how much time/effort it took to accrue those enchantments...?

The only way to get my gear back to the level it was before was with a year's worth of farming or a decent sum of RL money.

Ruined gear and ruined queues pretty much ruined my 2 main reasons for logging in.

Then I logged in one day for some reason (I forget why..) and saw Gearbox plastered everywhere PWE used to be and noticed there was a path to getting new gear that was fun and noticed that they not only fixed the queues in a simple yet intelligent and thoughtful way but expanded them.

PWE/Gearbox are "just" publishers. But what does that mean, really.. NCLimpSoft is just a publisher but they managed to shutdown CoH.

So anyway, yeah. Things in NW look better than they have since PWE's last days but what that's due to I have no idea. I do feel that PWE wasn't doing anything noticeably positive for any of the Cryptic 3 with possible exception to STO which has by far the most innovative/positive development of the 3 the last I knew.

That's not to say that NW hasn't had plenty of development. They've had plenty. But with every mod or 2 the main fruit of their labor was getting us to re-gear and re-learn basic game mechanics that would completely change - something you normally see in brand new games, not 9 year old (in 10 days!) ones..

Having the best gear in NW has meant very little long-term due to in a mod or 2 they make it obsolete with rule/gear changes. But this last mod is the first one that wiped me out as much as it did and the queues were NEVER so bad as they were right before PWE left.

*shrug*




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