B&S seems not to safe NCSoft

[Mistress Urd]

Because City of Heroes had something. I can't put my finger on it. Put aside the fact that CoH has the greatest gaming community in the history of mankind; other games are online, other games have chat systems, other games have character creators, other games have super heroes, etc. Of course, no other game did these things quite as well as City of Heroes, but they still have these things.

Except for the PvP, which I was never really a fan of, as video games go; City of Heroes was the most elegant tool I have come across.

There is a pile of NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, DS, PSOne, PS2, PS3 and PC games currently at my feet that is a testament to the notion that no other game in the world can provide for me what CoH did in a single package and I don't think I'm the only one feeling this. At some point during development, CoH was going to be a success pretty much no matter what. It could have been a WoW killer; the only thing Warcraft has is that the gameplay itself is addictive, besides that the game is utter garbage (That's a character creator?! Ha!). I'm of the opinion that NCSoft thoroughly failed City of Heroes as a publisher and I've seen enough that I can't be swayed from that opinion even at gunpoint. I'd rather take the bullet than say that NCSoft knew what they were doing. City of Heroes has everything you could want in an MMO. I can't say the same of any other game I know of.

However, the most likely reason why I excluded City of Heroes is because;

It's home.

I miss it. Besides CoH, there's only one other thing in the world that miss more and nothing is making it okay.


It's been a very long 60 days. (yes, I've been counting them.)

Yep, I certainly miss CoH too. Its not that City of Heroes was the best at everything (its easy to find games that did 1 or 2 things better) but it did so many things well. The community in CoH was generally very good and helpful.

I know I won't be buying any games from that 6 letter company and I will tell people to avoid them until us CoH fans can have a BBQ celebrating the 6 letter company bankruptcy.

[Twisted Toon]

Yep, I certainly miss CoH too. Its not that City of Heroes was the best at everything (its easy to find games that did 1 or 2 things better) but it did so many things well. The community in CoH was generally very good and helpful.

I know I won't be buying any games from that 6 letter company and I will tell people to avoid them until us CoH fans can have a BBQ celebrating the 6 letter company bankruptcy.

So, what you're saying is that CoH was the Duct Tape of the MMO world. It did pretty much everything adequately (except, maybe, PvP), but was a master of none.
Taken as a whole, though, the game was better than most, if not all, of the others out there.

Excuse me while I go make a lean-to, a hammock, and a canoe from Duct Tape. 

[Knight Light]

So, what you're saying is that CoH was the Duct Tape of the MMO world. It did pretty much everything adequately (except, maybe, PvP), but was a master of none.
Taken as a whole, though, the game was better than most, if not all, of the others out there.

Oh no, City of Heroes was certainly master of a few things. Didn't win 6 Guinness World Records for nothing, don'tcha know.

Right off the top of my head; capes. No other game in the world has done the phenomenon of capes as well as City of Heroes did, they were a spectacle. The capes in DC Universe Online aren't terrible, but the game as a whole is a crime against programming. Champions Online capes are hideous to fugly degrees.

The friends list and Global system, it was as intuitive as it was elegant. DC's is a joke and Champions is so stupid that they messed up something as simple as "Hide". When a character was hidden in CoH and logged out as hidden, it would give no indication of the character coming online when logging back in. In Champions, every time you log in, every person on your friends list receives a notification across their screen that "so and so" has logged in and again when you log out. If you hide a character, when you log it back, the system still sends the notification to your friends list but then immediately sends the notification of logging out, essentially defeating the purpose. It's not really hiding if everyone knows you're hiding. This is the digital equivalent of a large person standing behind a thin tree..

City of Heroes as an application was incredibly versatile and adaptable. Throughout my 8 years living in Paragon City, I played the game the entire time using a Playstation 2 gamepad, the only thing I needed the mouse for was insps. You could map any function to just about anything very easily. I believe most people don't even know that it was possible for players to make custom right-click menus with any powers you wanted, essentially giving you nearly infinite power tray space. In Champions, when I attempted to change an Alt trigger button on my gamepad into a "Next Target" button, I was told there was no way to do it from in game, I would have to dive into the system files and change it by messing around in there.

These and so many other reasons are why City of Heroes is above the bar by which all games should be measured.

[FatherXmas]

Almost makes it sound like they were just trying to make a quick buck off CoH. Buy the game, tweak it as little as possible, and essentially, launch a new game in Korea with no development cost. And when they realized they'd have to alter more to get it to work, decided it wasn't worth the cost or time.

NCsoft hadn't bought the game yet.  It was still Cryptic's baby but I suppose NCsoft asked Cryptic to knock off an adaptation for the Asian market and that was what was delivered for beta testing (plus the standalone CC to create some buzz).

[Osborn]

Or more likely the feedback from the beta indicated that the players in Korea didn't enjoy the game. 

Do you blame them, from the bait and switch of the promo video that showed a sword/pistol combo and Mirror Spirit moving about by turning to liquid?  Tact on the lack of Asian faces in the CC as well as Mirror Spirit's missing dual side split coat as a costume piece, I wouldn't be all that excited either.

Also our outfits never looked that good relative to the video.  Most of ours at the time (remember 2006, just after CoV came out) were fairly flat and simply looked painted on.  This was before ultra mode or any of the "traditional" Asian outfit fair that came along much, much later.

Our ad videos were more or less taken from the game, though stylized like an anime action cartoon with flourishes, but you could point out to anything done and tell what power set it was from, for the most part. Even if super strength could never punch a Tank Swiper 30 feet into a wall.

In our Villains trailer, we had the random Asian guy from the City of Hero trailer but instead of him having gun + sword with lightning and liquid teleports, he had martial arts with the same sound effects used in the game when he kicks an Arachnos soldier in the skull. That's something you could do in the game.

Heck, even Synapse's super speed had the same 'yellow orange firey blur on my feet' thing in the US trailer.

The City of Hero Korean trailer lied about the game, straight up. There was basically nothing in that whole trailer that was actually IN the game, except Statesman.

[FatherXmas]

"Oh boy, new scantily clad women to ogle."

Ohkay, show of hands... if that image turned up on your work computer, would you get fired?

Oops.  Mental note, don't link to the first interesting picture when you Google ArcheAge and click on images.  Even though I found that picture in the ArcheAge screenshot page at MMORPG.COM, it's actually a shot from an MMORPG called Continent of the Ninth Seal (also called C9 or C9S).

Mea culpa.

However the game is still rated 19+ in Korea.

[JaguarX]

Our ad videos were more or less taken from the game, though stylized like an anime action cartoon with flourishes, but you could point out to anything done and tell what power set it was from, for the most part. Even if super strength could never punch a Tank Swiper 30 feet into a wall.

In our Villains trailer, we had the random Asian guy from the City of Hero trailer but instead of him having gun + sword with lightning and liquid teleports, he had martial arts with the same sound effects used in the game when he kicks an Arachnos soldier in the skull. That's something you could do in the game.

Heck, even Synapse's super speed had the same 'yellow orange firey blur on my feet' thing in the US trailer.

The City of Hero Korean trailer lied about the game, straight up. There was basically nothing in that whole trailer that was actually IN the game, except Statesman.

Hmmm, it seems both trailers took some liberty about the stuff.The Asian trailer is little bit "interesting" to say the least. In the end though, a little lie or a total lie is still a lie. Neither trailer was totally truthful about the content or game play (the trailers from 2006 Korean version and one of 2007 US version. So this is like someone that told a small lie (US trailer) saying how horrible the other one is for lying (Korean trailer) when in the end they both are liars.  Although I did find one trailer from 2004 that seemed to be taken directly from game play.

[Mistress Urd]

Oh no, City of Heroes was certainly master of a few things. Didn't win 6 Guinness World Records for nothing, don'tcha know.

Right off the top of my head; capes. No other game in the world has done the phenomenon of capes as well as City of Heroes did, they were a spectacle. The capes in DC Universe Online aren't terrible, but the game as a whole is a crime against programming. Champions Online capes are hideous to fugly degrees.

The friends list and Global system, it was as intuitive as it was elegant. DC's is a joke and Champions is so stupid that they messed up something as simple as "Hide". When a character was hidden in CoH and logged out as hidden, it would give no indication of the character coming online when logging back in. In Champions, every time you log in, every person on your friends list receives a notification across their screen that "so and so" has logged in and again when you log out. If you hide a character, when you log it back, the system still sends the notification to your friends list but then immediately sends the notification of logging out, essentially defeating the purpose. It's not really hiding if everyone knows you're hiding. This is the digital equivalent of a large person standing behind a thin tree..

City of Heroes as an application was incredibly versatile and adaptable. Throughout my 8 years living in Paragon City, I played the game the entire time using a Playstation 2 gamepad, the only thing I needed the mouse for was insps. You could map any function to just about anything very easily. I believe most people don't even know that it was possible for players to make custom right-click menus with any powers you wanted, essentially giving you nearly infinite power tray space. In Champions, when I attempted to change an Alt trigger button on my gamepad into a "Next Target" button, I was told there was no way to do it from in game, I would have to dive into the system files and change it by messing around in there.

These and so many other reasons are why City of Heroes is above the bar by which all games should be measured.

No question CoH did the superhero Genre very well. However, the costume creator despite some things which you couldn't do, was quite versatile. I saw more than my share of anime characters, RL people, Fantasy and some creative costumes which made me go "how the heck did he do that?"

I don't know if duct tape would be a good description of CoH, I would probably describe CoH as the "Front Wheel Drive" of MMORPGs.

When you play other games and chase the "next great MMO" you will find that its just hard to beat CoH in the end. The new stuff looks shiny but so many nice design considerations you took for granted in CoH simply doesn't exist elsewhere. Was there room for improvement in CoH? Absolutely! We could go a several hundred page tangent of things that would make the CoH experience better.

At least I can go back over some old screen caps and listen to the music that is still on paragon wiki.

[General Idiot]

Oops.  Mental note, don't link to the first interesting picture when you Google ArcheAge and click on images.  Even though I found that picture in the ArcheAge screenshot page at MMORPG.COM, it's actually a shot from an MMORPG called Continent of the Ninth Seal (also called C9 or C9S).

Mea culpa.

However the game is still rated 19+ in Korea.

The fact that neither you nor anyone else here noticed that it was from a different game entirely is pretty telling, though. Korean fantasy MMOs really are that generic.

[Twisted Toon]

I don't know if duct tape would be a good description of CoH, I would probably describe CoH as the "Front Wheel Drive" of MMORPGs.

The reason I used Duct Tape was because of a Myth Busters episode where they were put on a island (Gilligan Island style) with a pallet of Duct Tape as their only item.

From that Duct Tape, they made:
beds
Shelter
water containers
chairs
netting to catch food
a fishing spear
an outrigger with paddles
clothing
a devise to start a fire
bags to carry supplies

They determined that Duct Tape was the single best item to have. Although there are other items that do specific jobs better, Duct Tape does pretty much everything well enough that it is, overall, the better item to have with you. Much like CoH.

There are other programs that do chat better. I like the smilies in The Realm Online, CoH doesn't have that.
there are some parts of the costume creator in CO that I like better than CoH. Although, I like CoH's graphics better.
The Secret World has better graphics than CoH, except for the fingers. Those guys have some freaky looking fingers.

Those are just a few of the things that, in my opinion, other games go better than CoH. However, taking each game as a whole, I prefer CoH over all the rest.

Now, there are a few things that I think CoH did better than any other game out there, that I've played. Such as Teaming, and the global friends list.

[johnrobey]

Of course the point of the story is that in January, a "New Challenger Appears" with ArcheAge, which is also rated like B&S as 19+.


 
Oh boy, new scantily clad women to ogle.                
Also note that after ArcheAge, the next three MMORPGs are Lineage, B&S and Aion.  So while we may not enjoy Lineage or Aion, both those games are top tier in Korea.

Thanks as always FatherXmas and yes, Colette, had that image appeared on my computer at work (where, duh, we were expected to be working, not goofing off) I would have at least gotten in trouble and rec'd a verbal warning or had something put into my personnel file, if not terminated by my employer.

I guess the move forward(?) for MMORPGs is for the industry, as in the jpg image above to embrace a Penthouse or Playboy magazine sensibility.  I can only imagine a Hustler magazine MMORPG sensibility (though honestly I would rather not.)  Guess it's okay now that NCSoft killed my joy in gaming.   Peace.

[johnrobey]

The reason I used Duct Tape was because of a Myth Busters episode where they were put on a island (Gilligan Island style) with a pallet of Duct Tape as their only item.

From that Duct Tape, they made:
beds
Shelter
water containers
chairs
netting to catch food
a fishing spear
an outrigger with paddles
clothing
a devise to start a fire
bags to carry supplies

They determined that Duct Tape was the single best item to have. Although there are other items that do specific jobs better, Duct Tape does pretty much everything well enough that it is, overall, the better item to have with you. Much like CoH.

There are other programs that do chat better. I like the smilies in The Realm Online, CoH doesn't have that.
there are some parts of the costume creator in CO that I like better than CoH. Although, I like CoH's graphics better.
The Secret World has better graphics than CoH, except for the fingers. Those guys have some freaky looking fingers.

Those are just a few of the things that, in my opinion, other games go better than CoH. However, taking each game as a whole, I prefer CoH over all the rest.

Now, there are a few things that I think CoH did better than any other game out there, that I've played. Such as Teaming, and the global friends list.

As has been noted by others long before me, Duct Tape and the Force have much in common; i.e. they both have a light and a dark side!   

[Codewalker]

...and Mirror Spirit moving about by turning to liquid?

That one actually wasn't a lie. Mirror Spirit had that power in game. It was functionally a teleport with custom graphics, and was exceptionally rare to see. Mostly because Mirror Spirit only appeared as a combat NPC in one or two missions fairly off the beaten path (Scirroco's arc according to the wiki), and even then since it's not an attack power she didn't use it very often.

[johnrobey]

(Wondering aloud in print) So would it be a fair characterization to say that NCSoft top executives did not even know How to effectively market CoH in Korea??

P.S. I always thought Mirror Spirit was one of the cooler NPC Signature Characters, but other than Agent Nance's arc where one talks to her, I knew the character of Mirror Spirit only as a hero trainer in one of my favorite zones!  (The Hollows and Faultline zones and arcs were always fun imo!)  I'd never gotten around to Scirocco's arc yet 'cause I mostly played Blue and Gold.

[Codewalker]

(Wondering aloud in print) So would it be a fair characterization to say that NCSoft top executives did not even know How to effectively market CoH in Korea??

I get the distinct impression that the effort that Cryptic put into helping the Korean localization team with City of Hero is about on par with the amount of effort NCSoft put into localizing Aion for the western market. As in, not much.

That and superheroes just aren't very popular in Korean culture. I'm not sure whose idea it was to greenlight that project.

[DarkCurrent]

That one actually wasn't a lie. Mirror Spirit had that power in game. It was functionally a teleport with custom graphics, and was exceptionally rare to see. Mostly because Mirror Spirit only appeared as a combat NPC in one or two missions fairly off the beaten path (Scirroco's arc according to the wiki), and even then since it's not an attack power she didn't use it very often.

She tp'd all over the place with that damned power.  Orenbaga map to boot.  Are you kidding me?  Hated that mission. 

[herostar]

Super heroes may just be something they're not into. They mostly want to play games with little chicks who are all eyes and boobs and carry an oversized swords, mixed in with martial arts.

[JaguarX]

Super heroes may just be something they're not into. They mostly want to play games with little chicks who are all eyes and boobs and carry an oversized swords, mixed in with martial arts.

Now wait a minute now. That statement is not totally true. Oversized swords are not required. 

[johnrobey]

Now wait a minute now. That statement is not totally true. Oversized swords are not required. 

Are you telling me a 4 to 5 inch sword is okay?  And that the only thing that matters is how one wields one's sword?  (HHOK)   

[FatherXmas]

That one actually wasn't a lie. Mirror Spirit had that power in game. It was functionally a teleport with custom graphics, and was exceptionally rare to see. Mostly because Mirror Spirit only appeared as a combat NPC in one or two missions fairly off the beaten path (Scirroco's arc according to the wiki), and even then since it's not an attack power she didn't use it very often.

But it's not a power you can get.  At least that version of t-port.