New efforts!

[Relitner]

I was thinking mainly from PWE's perspective it would have been a good business move.  Anyways,  doesn't Matt "Positron" Miller work for PWE now?  They could just put him in charge of the aquired CoH.

He tweeted some time ago that he was contracting with STO. Not sure what he's doing now. Leveraging to make a major purchase ...perhaps?

[Serpine]

Don't know where Matt's working, but gah, if they actually put him on perfect world, he must be tearing his beard out.

As best as I can tell, he is now a "Content Designer" for STO, hence my comment above.

(Also there needs to be a "Send in the clowns" power.)

A little car would pull up and they would come barreling out making whoop whoop and honk noises and unleashing volleys of fish and seltzer water at any enemy (and randomly a few allies but for no damage) in range. It would be epic.

[MWRuger]

The same thing could be said of what happened to Deus Ex: Invisible War.  Both CO and Deus Ex Invisible war could easily be seen in the same light from an objective stand point.  Both had rocky development cycles, both were very glitchy but still neat games.  You could say a lot of problems came from publishers meddling, easily, as well.  Both games would recieve alot of negative attention.  I will not lie, Deus Ex invisible war isn't a bad game but many people really hated it and felt it was dumbed down to much and was far to easy compared to the original deus ex.  CO had the same problem, dumbed down alot.  It used to be hard, now it's so casual it's laughable(I know someone here complained about sappers but I'll tell you this, losing energy only deleys an inevitable win as any CC the mobs use on a freeform just deleys the inevitable). 

There is a lot of things that run in parallel when you look at CO and deus ex invisible war.  Both games predecessors were harder for some of the right reasons, both games were most the time to easy, both games had to many bugs, both games had rocky development.  Both games were made by the same development studio as their predecessor.

Mainly because Deus Ex Invisible War was developed with a console controller in mind, meaning that the depth that you could do with a mouse and keyboard wasn't there. In addition the remote guidable missile on a controller might be balanced just because of the off handed difficulty in controlling it. On the PC it was so overpowered that once you get it, you seldom see combat again.

I liked it, but it really wasn't as deep as the first one.

[blacksly]

Which is why the owners of CO should have bought out CoH.  Tha would have been the smart business move IMHO.

A thought would be that they might not pass NCSoft's vetting system, if they would just want to buy CoH in order to bury it so it would never compete with CO again.

I recall a very good paper RP system called Dragonquest... it was bought by TSR long ago in order to kill it so AD&D would have one less competitor.

[Acanous]

TSR is kind of a case study for how to be ruthless, before Wizards/Hasbro bought them out, anyhow.

[MWRuger]

A thought would be that they might not pass NCSoft's vetting system, if they would just want to buy CoH in order to bury it so it would never compete with CO again.

I recall a very good paper RP system called Dragonquest... it was bought by TSR long ago in order to kill it so AD&D would have one less competitor.

It was a very good RPG. A little math and stat heavy, to be expected from a rpg designed by SPI, the same company that brought you rules for Italian troops in North Africa campaign requiring more water for their pasta. (seriously, you basically couldn't play without an 4 man team on each side as you needed one for just for logistics, one for Air support, one for ground and one to coordinate. Never saw a game actually finished)

Dragonquest was a nice mix of conanesque fantasy and modern fantasy with just a little Tolkien sprinkled in. Just one of many from the era. Avalon Hill also had one called Powers and Perils that meet the same fate.

[LaughingAlex]

I was thinking mainly from PWE's perspective it would have been a good business move.  Anyways,  doesn't Matt "Positron" Miller work for PWE now?  They could just put him in charge of the aquired CoH.

I believe he works for Cryptic on NWO and STO.  I can tell from the changes made none of the CoH devs work on CO, clearly.

[MWRuger]

TSR is kind of a case study for how to be ruthless, before Wizards/Hasbro bought them out, anyhow.

They still are. They are on the 4th different version since they took over, with expensive new hardcovers every time. 5th Edition Player's Handbook is retail 49.95. so basically the three main rule books will set you back 150 dollars. TSR would be proud!

[Acanous]

Not to mention the THINGS they did to players and retailers through 4e.
Glad I swapped to Pathfinder, there.

[Serpine]

I recall a very good paper RP system called Dragonquest... it was bought by TSR long ago in order to kill it so AD&D would have one less competitor.

Doing some general research, it looks like the entire company that published Dragonquest (and a number of titles, mostly wargames) was acquired by TSR because they (SPI) defaulted on a huge loan that TSR had floated them. And a 3rd edition of Dragonquest was apparently published under TSR after they owned it (which may not have sold well enough to justify further releases). So if this is the case it is not as clear-cut as an acquisition with intent to scuttle.

They are on the 4th different version since they took over, with expensive new hardcovers every time. 5th Edition Player's Handbook is retail 49.95. so basically the three main rule books will set you back 150 dollars. TSR would be proud!

In their defense, Essentials and now 5th probably wouldn't have happened so soon if 4e/Essentials didn't perform relatively poorly and loose so much market share to Pathfinder. 4e was actually a pretty good experiment as a tactical game based loosely on D&D, but just strayed to far from the original product line to be considered a successor. 5th doesn't make that mistake and based on the playtest and initial releases I think will be worthwhile.

As to the price tag of the upcoming edition, the recently released Basic rules are a free 110 page PDF which will be expanded (and still free) with more content (including monsters and such) over time. And a lot of modern tabletop gamebooks are pretty terrifying pricewise unless they are made of very low-grade materials or have a low page count.

[MWRuger]

Doing some general research, it looks like the entire company that published Dragonquest (and a number of titles, mostly wargames) was acquired by TSR because they (SPI) defaulted on a huge loan that TSR had floated them. And a 3rd edition of Dragonquest was apparently published under TSR after they owned it (which may not have sold well enough to justify further releases). So if this is the case it is not as clear-cut as an acquisition with intent to scuttle.

It really wasn't that they wanted to scuttle any particular product. That deal and the one where they bought Avalon Hill helped scuttle company by acquiring massive debt. The only reason they made the original loan was because they loved the wargame part of the company. They actually produced several pretty decent ones under the SPI brand name and reprinted some high demand oldies. But I promise, they did almost nothing to market Dragonquest. If I recall, most of the work was done when they made the acquisition.

Avalon Hill was so close to the end that they almost got nothing from the deal. Again did because so much of the management had fond memories of those old board games. They reccomended in the Whitebox original D&D that you use Outdoor Survival from Avalon Hill as wilderness campaign. First time I ever played that was the one I was on. great fun.

[Brightfires]

Not to mention the THINGS they did to players and retailers through 4e.
Glad I swapped to Pathfinder, there.

We went with 13th Age over here. 'No regrets at all.  8)

[Felderburg]

Don't know where Matt's working, but gah, if they actually put him on perfect world, he must be tearing his beard out.

Why is that? From his column (http://www.mmorpg.com/features.cfm/view/columns/show/45_Matt-Miller) I got the vibe his opinions and theirs might work well together.

Mainly because Deus Ex Invisible War was developed with a console controller in mind...

So was Champions Online.

[Scendera]

I hope no one wonders why CO doesn't like CoH people.

We don't have a problem with the players, generally speaking. Most of us didn't even start out with a problem with the game. I LOVED CO as it was in open beta and the first year or so.

We dislike the changes made that made it less fun. That's all.

[Angel Phoenix77]

We don't have a problem with the players, generally speaking. Most of us didn't even start out with a problem with the game. I LOVED CO as it was in open beta and the first year or so.

We dislike the changes made that made it less fun. That's all.

The reason I have quit, is I was I tired of seeing sto and now get content and co was left to rot.

[Nitekilla]

One of several possible reasons we probably will not see Clown Summoning in Star Trek Online...

Yeah and I read somewhere that Matt is involved on the Klingon side.  Can you imagine Klingons summoning clowns ?

[Nyghtshade]

Maybe they summon Klingon Clowns?  *Now trying the scrub the image of Klingon Clowns OUT of my brain.....:   :o

[LaughingAlex]

The reason I have quit, is I was I tired of seeing sto and now get content and co was left to rot.

CO isn't even under cryptic anymore it's under cryptic north and they continue to let it rot.  Cryptic is not Cryptic North.  I'm not defending cryptic here currently, but will say that yeah, they seriously neglected CO.  But I didn't see anything from CN.

[PsiBug]

Maybe they summon Klingon Clowns?  *Now trying the scrub the image of Klingon Clowns OUT of my brain.....:   :o

"KLOWNONS"... "KLOWNGONS".. ."KLINGOWNS"?

[FloatingFatMan]

"KLOWNONS"... "KLOWNGONS".. ."KLINGOWNS"?

...Killer Klowns?

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=home.swipnet.se%2F%7Ew-28870%2Fmainkill.jpg