Atari Earnings Statement: "Oh, by the way, we're selling off Cryptic Studios"

[luckton]

I hope Neverwinter still happens in some form by a different company.

FTFY

[UnSub]

Bah. I guess I understand their justification for not being able to play races all the way thru, but I am very unhappy with the inability to be a Romulan. That was my favorite race in the setting.

I think that Cardassians and Romulans were on the drawing board to add in (so 4 playable groups) but obviously that is highly dependent on Cryptic surviving long enough.

[Amaron]

I think that Cardassians and Romulans were on the drawing board to add in (so 4 playable groups) but obviously that is highly dependent on Cryptic surviving long enough.

I dunno about that.  If investors keep giving Cryptic money for no good reason I still don't think they'll invest any of it in STO or CO.  It's a shame since CO was at least good enough to deserve some moderate investment.

[UnSub]

Theoretically Cryptic had 2 Atari projects they were working on - Neverwinter and another unannounced title. If those titles were dumped in favour of working on Cryptic's existing titles, it could be a better ROI and make Cryptic's profit / loss look better. (Or: if Cryptic fired a lot of people and cut costs that way.)

Both ChampO and STO have improved a lot since launch, so I think there is evidence of re-investment and progression in both titles.

[Amaron]

Both ChampO and STO have improved a lot since launch, so I think there is evidence of re-investment and progression in both titles.

I haven't played ChampO since launch but I was under the impression they were basically ignoring it?   They haven't added a single power set since Celestial right?

[UnSub]

Both ChampO and STO have improved a lot since launch, so I think there is evidence of re-investment and progression in both titles.

I haven't played ChampO since launch but I was under the impression they were basically ignoring it?   They haven't added a single power set since Celestial right?

A number of powers have been pretty much reworked from the ground up. I also think there have been some more powers added like Dark, but they are sub-powers to the overall branch of (say) Magic.

There's also been the complete redesign of the early game and the extra adventure packs, of which Resistance (which I believe contains a bit where your character hotwires a mech and uses it to attack an army) has just been added.

ChampO hasn't been abandoned, but I think its lack of success means it hasn't expanded as it has needed to.

[koro]

Yeah, the power rebalancing took forever to do, and the big F2P patch further changed things in fundamental ways. Someone I know who just started playing the past couple weeks after playing in beta but never since has said the powers as they stand now are virtually unrecognizable. Whether that's a good or bad thing is debatable.

My primary problem with Champions is that less content has been added in two years than Cryptic made for CoH in its first six months. Hell, maybe even less than Paragon's made for CoH in the past six months. There's so precious little to do, and even the "revamped" low-level experience is still nearly the exact same as the old low-level experience, except a couple new missions have been added and the order you get them has been shuffled around; considering only the very early Millenium City stuff was messed with and less than half of the Desert was altered (with Canada not being touched at all), there is hardly anything "complete" about their redesign. Couple that with writing that is so bad that it sucks what little joy there is out of playing*, and you just have this absolutely dismal experience.

*

[Lantyssa]

The one cool thing about Champion's is Foxbat.  He's so over the top that he flips back around to being the only thing I can respect.  His camera bots' mez causes you to flex and strut your stuff.

Otherwise it's a tad bit better than beta, but not much.

[Malakili]

For the people who wanted to try STO, it is today's Steam sale next 20 hours or so its 3.75.

[Lantyssa]

Hmmm...  That's almost at my acceptable price point.

[Ashamanchill]

I had to pick this up. 3.75? That's like a bag of chips ffs!!!

[01101010]

God damn it...*grumbles* there goes a load of laundry this weekend since I actually have $4 in change sitting on my desk. Who wants to bet this goes f2p later this year?

[raydeen]

God damn it...*grumbles* there goes a load of laundry this weekend since I actually have $4 in change sitting on my desk. Who wants to bet this goes f2p later this year?

There are rumors that they're waiting to see how CO ultimately performs as f2p.

[luckton]

God damn it...*grumbles* there goes a load of laundry this weekend since I actually have $4 in change sitting on my desk. Who wants to bet this goes f2p later this year?

There are rumors that they're waiting to see how CO ultimately performs as f2p.

They launched the game with a cash shop.  If they don't go F2P by the end of the year I'll eat my shoe.  The only thing stopping them at this point is Atari shutting them down till they find a new owner that'll pony up the initial monies needed to make the switch.

[UnSub]

CoH/V's cash shop was highly successful in the early stages, which is why Cryptic launched with the C-Store. (Well, technically the C-Store came a bit later than ChampO's launch, but it was always planned.) As I've said elsewhere, Cryptic did learn from their previous titles, but then went out and made changes that led to new issues.

[DaZog]

Seems Perfect World is snapping up Crpytic. 

[luckton]

Seems Perfect World is snapping up Crpytic.  

This song seems like an appropriate response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc0mxOXbWIU

Edit: Is it too late for WotC to pull their Neverwinter Nights license before they turn it into "Super Awesome Forbidden Snow Online #1"?

[Tannhauser]

The Ferengi have gained control of the Federation. 

[Malakili]

Well they published Torchlight without ruining it...then again, how much damage could they really do to Cryptic's games?

[luckton]

Well they published Torchlight without ruining it...then again, how much damage could they really do to Cryptic's games?

Considering Perfect World is the Cryptic Studios of the Far East, I imagine they'll make anything and everything that one could acquire in-game available for purchase.

And that's to start.

[Stormwaltz]

The Ferengi have gained control of the Federation. 

Ay plegli ianectu flaggen, tupep like for stahn...

[Amaron]

I can't believe I missed this.

Well they published Torchlight without ruining it...then again, how much damage could they really do to Cryptic's games?

 

They could hire Bill Ro...oh wait.