Matt Miller (Positron) on Altitis (MMORPG Article)

[corvus1970]

Those are made of win.

[healix]

[srmalloy]

Uggh. See, if a game actively makes me want to stop playing it, then in my mind it loses any other fun it did have. In fact if something's not fun, to me it no longer even qualifies as a game. That's the point where I "Stop, Drop, and Roll." Stop playing, Drop it like a hot potato, and Roll on down the road.

SWTOR has never gotten to the point that Aion did, where the entire game became a pain in the ass to play because of the open-world unrestricted PvP and the way that the percentage of the content that required grouping to complete ramped up to where it became effectively impossible to advance without being in a group for 90% of the game.

Had I started with some other MMO, rather than CoH, I probably wouldn't have the issues that I do with SWTOR; the biggest problem that I have -- and the one that ultimately keeps the game from pulling me in -- is that it's not CoH. CoH has set the standard that I judge other MMOs by, and while there are some things that other games have done better -- the level of detail in the worlds, for example (mostly an artifact of the limitations of the CoH game engine) -- it's the accumulation as I play of things that CoH did better that pull me out of immersion. On the other hand, having it happen that way does keep me taking regular breaks so that get up out of the computer chair at regular intervals.

[Richpur]

In today's environment where cookie cutter levels and reams of unvoiced text are considered increasingly out of place in an A list game the sort of redundancy CoH/V had involves far more up front production cost and time than a single linear plot without any short term payback.

Even then to make people want to replay a different set of missions in your game rather than merely moving on to another game entirely you have to give them a different enough playstyle to prevent the new character feeling like more of the same, but similar enough to let the player feel at home. The different ATs and myriad combinations of powersets in CoX did this brilliantly but were a nightmare to balance and involved a great deal more coding, animation and fx work.

If designing a game for longevity that plot redundancy and character complexity is the way to go; and longevity is good for a subscription based game. "Free to Play" economics mean that you have to continually convince players that they need new stuff, this is easier to do if there is less prior content.

I am ignoring the common tactic of repeatedly selling players the same consumables as this has no production overhead thus does not require the continued employment of a development staff and is clearly not in the interests of the developers to implement. 

Edit: "Lifetime" Subs are a quick way to claw back initial development costs but prevent subscriptions from your most loyal players from being a reliable source of future income. This option should only be taken if longevity of the game is not a concern.

[Optimus Dex]

Alts were the reason I played for 8 years and still would be playing. Alts is the reason I spent so much money on the game. If I would have been only able to play one character with one set of powers   I would have quit early.

[IzzySoft2]

The way i see it... if your MAIN was able to fill the roles of others (RIFT maybe), Team play would drop allot. And anyways, i always felt really good when my AT was sought out for a team... kinda made me feel needed. and we all want that. I guess thats why some didnt mind playing a Defender.

[Captain Electric]

I was pretty much half-and-half between solo and team play. When I just wanted to self out, I'd type /hideall and often that meant I would be spending the evening on one of my tanks, or maybe a higher level blaster or controller, just enjoying the stories and some "head canon". (Side tangent--a couple of friends who knew me well enough would send me /tells during my normal play-times even when I was hidden--I never thought I would miss that; boy was I wrong). I was just warming up to scrappers when the game closed, which was hilarious because it made me realize how much time I'd spent making a couple of my tanks "scrappy".

But when I was feeling social? I LOVED defenders. I used my tanks on teams as well, but unlike their versatility, I had long since given up soloing with defenders. I often heard rumors of solo-capable (and FUN to solo) defender set combos. I never personally discovered one of those combos. But on all of my defenders, at least one thing was for sure: whether in the light or from the shadows, I was contributing...I was sometimes contributing in a big way (depending on the powers and slots)...and my contributions always felt worthwhile.

Eventually I learned how to solo blasters at lower levels. This was no small feat, being a tanker at heart. Low-level controllers on the other hand--for my purposes--those were just another kind of defender. In teams they made REALLY effective defensive comrades, even at lower levels. Controlling the battlefield like it was a game of Chess, a game of Chess in which you could cheat the rules by all sorts of advantages for your team and disadvantages for the bad guys. Around level 30 or so, things always seemed to open up for my controllers and I would suddenly have access to one or two game-changing powers that allowed them to take the world by storm, with or without a team.

Of course, these are the ruminations of a "casual" player. I have to use the air quotes there because I played an awful lot. But unlike the hardcore types, I only ever cared about the journey, and my gut was my build-planner. A lot of people were surprised to hear that, especially those who fought alongside Captain-Electric or my tank the Sapien Spider. I think the reason my builds turned out well was because I fine-tuned them along the way, always looking ahead at the larger picture, and the way was long, leveling slowly or often XP-less through story content, and becoming familiar with each and every level to 50. Of course I don't think I had anything special on the min-maxers, but I could keep up with them and that's pretty cool. Anyone who played the way I did no doubt knows what I'm talking about. Over time you developed a feel for things, and you learned to trust your gut.

[JaguarX]

I was pretty much half-and-half between solo and team play. When I just wanted to self out, I'd type /hideall and often that meant I would be spending the evening on one of my tanks, or maybe a higher level blaster or controller, just enjoying the stories and some "head canon". (Side tangent--a couple of friends who knew me well enough would send me /tells during my normal play-times even when I was hidden--I never thought I would miss that; boy was I wrong). I was just warming up to scrappers when the game closed, which was hilarious because it made me realize how much time I'd spent making a couple of my tanks "scrappy".

But when I was feeling social? I LOVED defenders. I used my tanks on teams as well, but unlike their versatility, I had long since given up soloing with defenders. I often heard rumors of solo-capable (and FUN to solo) defender set combos. I never personally discovered one of those combos. But on all of my defenders, at least one thing was for sure: whether in the light or from the shadows, I was contributing...I was sometimes contributing in a big way (depending on the powers and slots)...and my contributions always felt worthwhile.

Eventually I learned how to solo blasters at lower levels. This was no small feat, being a tanker at heart. Low-level controllers on the other hand--for my purposes--those were just another kind of defender. In teams they made REALLY effective defensive comrades, even at lower levels. Controlling the battlefield like it was a game of Chess, a game of Chess in which you could cheat the rules by all sorts of advantages for your team and disadvantages for the bad guys. Around level 30 or so, things always seemed to open up for my controllers and I would suddenly have access to one or two game-changing powers that allowed them to take the world by storm, with or without a team.

Of course, these are the ruminations of a "casual" player. I have to use the air quotes there because I played an awful lot. But unlike the hardcore types, I only ever cared about the journey, and my gut was my build-planner. A lot of people were surprised to hear that, especially those who fought alongside Captain-Electric or my tank the Sapien Spider. I think the reason my builds turned out well was because I fine-tuned them along the way, always looking ahead at the larger picture, and the way was long, leveling slowly or often XP-less through story content, and becoming familiar with each and every level to 50. Of course I don't think I had anything special on the min-maxers, but I could keep up with them and that's pretty cool. Anyone who played the way I did no doubt knows what I'm talking about. Over time you developed a feel for things, and you learned to trust your gut.

hear hear.


Yeah never used build planners, build advice, or anything. Each one was customized to my playstyle and to their storyline. In the hands of another, they would find them broken. In my hands, I'm last man standing, taking on the entire map solo and killing off agro so the defender that followed the overzealous blaster can revive and awake the blaster. 

[MaidMercury]

I started out with 1 character....Played awhile, then created alts like most people.
I liked alts, they allowed you to explore powers, hero types....Some were just not enjoyable to play, I ended up deleting.

I tended to play one char for a few months before rotating.

But eventually I discovered a particular alt to began to take on a life of their own.
I ended up playing this one 1 character 90% of the time until the game ended because she was such a fun Empath
( to me) and got invites as well....CoH was not the typical MMO game in my opinion.