NCsoft aquires 'City of' franchise from Cryptic

[Nevermore]

Read all about it.

The management of City of Heroes will transition fully to NCsoft.

Matt Miller stays on as lead Dev.  NCsoft will be opening their own studio to continue to develop the game.

Edit:
Another link
And another

[tazelbain]

Could it be that we will finally get a reasonable xp curve?

[HaemishM]

I'm sure this has nothing to do with Cryptic working on the Marvel MMOG.

[Nevermore]

Looks like all the current CoX devs are staying on.

Everyone from the current team signed on with NCsoft, this includes.

Sexy Jay
Ghost Widow
War Witch
BAB's
Castle
Positron
all the programmers and other design staff that are not currently under signature names.

I imagine everyone staying with Cryptic had already moved over to the MUO project.  It also means that no, it's unlikely they'll change the exp curve since Matt Miller is still the lead dev.

Edit: Hmm, I missed that part at the end of the City of Heroes link in my first post.  They'll be opening up City of Heroes and City of Villains to everyone, even if they had only purchased one of the games and were previously locked out of the other.

[Nevermore]

I'm sure this has nothing to do with Cryptic working on the Marvel MMOG.

That doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out.

The decision for Cryptic Studios to sell COH was difficult as COH/COV was the foundation of their studio. A year ago Cryptic Studios signed a deal with Microsoft to develop Marvel Universe Online, which is due to the nature and genre of the material a directly competitive product.

Ultimately this decision was the best decision for the game and the community, as there is now clearly two separate groups working on both projects.

Statesman has been involved with MUO since that deal was signed, he has had a great influence on COH/COV and the development decisions in the past but currently and moving forward those decisions have rested on the shoulders of Matt 'Positron' Miller.

And yes, MUO is competition.

It'll be strange not having Jack Emmert as the face of City of Heroes anymore.

[geldonyetich2]

Ever have I  that game.  882 recorded hours worth of "ever".  However, I've recently decided it has enabled epic failure due to lack of adequate self-perpetuating end-game activity.  This reads, "Cryptic decides to finally put City of Heroes out to pasture" for me.

Dual Blades is fun, though.  Fun enough that, when it hits the live server and months afterwards, I'm betting some obscene ratio of 80% of new Tanks, Scrappers, Stalkers, and Brutes will be using it.  (We all know how excellent my predictions are, right?)

[tazelbain]

It'll be strange not having Jack Emmert as the face of City of Heroes anymore.

That's why I am hoping that he was the one roadblocking an xp curve change.

[Hutch]

Special Thanks to Our Players

Now back to you, the players. You are the lifeblood of our game. In celebration of our new studio and our exciting plans, and in order to thank you for the fantastic community that you have built, we are pleased to announce the following.

Full Access to City of Heroes and City of Villains®
All players with City of Heroes retail* accounts will now have access to City of Villains, and all City of Villains retail* accounts will now have access to City of Heroes. Players that didn't previously have access to "the other side" will find that they do now. Just log in to check it out!

Debt Wipe
After the launch of Issue 11: A Stitch in Time this Fall, we are removing Debt from all characters and giving you a fresh start. Actual date will be announced shortly. Have fun in the mean time.

20,000 Prestige
Also after the launch of Issue 11, all Supergroups will receive an additional 20,000 Prestige per Supergroup member, meaning SGs could acquire up to 3 million Prestige based upon their Supergroup membership roster! Actual date will be announced shortly.

In the near future we will begin to share more information about our development plans. With this major reinvestment and effort ahead of us, we will take City of Heroes to new heights!

Nope. Nothing about reducing the grind.

[UnSub]

I find it interesting that the full CoH/V dev team (+1, apparently - pohsyb is also making the jump) is leaving Cryptic to stay with CoH/V.

I'll save my theories on this for the moment, but prima facie this sounds like a good thing for Cryptic, CoH/V and NCsoft.

[Nevermore]

It also paves the way for some kind of station pass with CoX, Tabula Rasa and maybe Lineage II and Guild Wars II (should it end up with a traditional monthly fee).  Personally I don't really have any interest in any of those other games (welll, maybe GWII if it ends up any good) but it's something I expect to happen at some point.

[d4rkj3di]

Could it be that we will finally get a reasonable xp curve?

From a Korean company? There's not a large enough LOL smiley available. So, I'll go with a fan favorite.

 

[cmlancas]

This just in: NCSoft sells City of franchise to EA.

You heard it here first. 


Is this a good thing, or a bad thing in the grand scheme of things?

[UnSub]

IMO: good thing. NCsoft buys CoH/V IP and it's entire dev team. There has to be some serious sweetners for an entire dev team to up and move to a new studio.

Things could go bad, but it appears that NCsoft wants to expand the City Of ... franchise further, which wasn't happening at Cryptic. MUO and Cryptic's one or two other sekret projects were taking away the time required for that to happen.

Some forum people are linking together NCsoft's recent agreement with Sony to suggest a PS3 version of CoH/V could come out. I think that's a bridge too far right now, but it's a bigger possibility than it used to be.

[bhodi]

Until they expand it to "City of Alts-without-grinding-them-up", I'm passing. I loved this game, I gave it *3* fucking chances -- I told them all 3 times the reason for quitting is that for a game that is so centered around trying new builds and creating new characters, they sure do have an unreasonable expectation of people who are willing to grind to the 'fun' parts.

[geldonyetich2]

The grind is different there.  300 hours from 1 to 50 is about on par with any casual MMORPG.  The power acquisition slows down way too quickly at about the level 14-32 point.  It's not until 32 that some builds will have enough powers to have a perpetually entertaining hero/villain.  At that point, the rest of the game goes quick as lightning.  If I were Cryptic NCSoft's Latest Acquisition, that level 14-32 range is where I would look into eliminating the suck.

The real shock, however, is yet to come.  Come level 50, the things you can do fall into the following categories:

• One-time things you could have done already. (Collect Badges, Task Forces, Do the missions you missed (Issue 11's Flashback System)).
• Things you need connections with a high-end Supergroup to do.  (Raids.)
• Things that are poorly balanced or simply broken to the point of not being implemented. (Shadow Shard, Superbase Artifact Aquisition)

So, yeah, despite City of Heroes being a fun game while it lasts, and despite all the paper trail of all these "issues" they've made, it's kinda interesting how Cryptic hasn't bothered to put in an end game.

Don't knock alting, it's apparently the only entertaining thing for a level 50 player to do in CoH right now.

[bhodi]

Boy did you ever miss my point. Sharp as ever, I see.

Everyone alts. Everyone. Obviously. It's a major feature of the game. It's why they have such a lavish character customization and creation system. You'd think they would have made it easier and reduced the completely un-fun grind-until-you-get-some-cool-abilities for your new character somewhere in your mid 20s. They can do this by increasing the XP for people to level to the good parts faster. Is that clear enough for you?

300 hours from 1 to 50? One character? What the fuck? On par? How many casuals spend 300 hours in ANY game before moving onto the next? Almost none. You're looking at a year and a half, at least, to rack up that amount of time. That's batshit insane territory. How many people do you see running around with the nemesis staff? Not a whole lot, and it considers your subscription, aka all your characters together, not just a single one with time played. People ask what it is and where you got it all the time.

What's with the 2 anyway? Self-Banned once and back again? Oh goodie for us.

[geldonyetich2]

I really wasn't in any disagreement with you about the alting.  That last barb was just a disparaging word about the level 50 game: it's only good for alting right now, IMLTHO.  In saying that I would attack the 14-32 range, I think I'm in agreement that reducing the experience needed at those levels would be a good solution.

As for 300 hours from 1 to 50 being "batshit insane" territory, well, last I heard that's World of Warcraft.  Am I wrong?

[Merusk]

You're not wrong. 300 hours is 12 days.  That's about the length of time it takes to level a character 1-60 in wow.. If you're a noob on a new server, and with no support network such as friends/ guildmates.   

And even then: 1) Blizzard is reducing it to make it go faster. 2) WoW doesn't have such a deep customization that everyone WANTS to try out 4-5 characters/ specs.  Only the hardcore/ addicts do that, and most folks have one, MAYBE 2 at the cap that they play with regularity.

[shiznitz]

A TR/CoX pass for $19 might just work.

[Murgos]

300 hours can easily be a year though.  2 hours a night 3 times a week doesn't seem unreasonably high or low to me and yet that still is 50 weeks of gaming.

[geldonyetich2]

I'm not so bothered it might take a casual player a year to max out their character.  The real question is: Can the game keep them entertained for that period of time?

Bhodi and Merusk bring up a good point that City of Heroes is a game that makes alting fun.  Consequently, the pace of leveling should really support it more.  1 to 50 in 300 hours works for Blizzard because people are unlikely to need to roll an alt.  If we allow for the idea that there's likely going to be 3 heroes worth of alts per player, cutting that grind down to 100 hours per character achieves the same goal.  If I could counter that all, it might be to say that if players could get to level 50 that easily, maybe they wouldn't be so tempted to alt in City of Heroes.

Back to the first paragraph again, lets say the game could be entertaining for 900 hours where WoW manages 300.  In that case, 300 hours per character would achieve the same goal and net a lot more green.

That sounds really unlikely, but quantifying fun is tricky.  I can only play the best Legend of Zelda game for 40 hours until it's done.  Does this mean it's not able to produce as much fun as WoW?  I don't think so.  That being the case, what's the relation to time and fun anyway?

[Glazius]

Until they expand it to "City of Alts-without-grinding-them-up", I'm passing. I loved this game, I gave it *3* fucking chances -- I told them all 3 times the reason for quitting is that for a game that is so centered around trying new builds and creating new characters, they sure do have an unreasonable expectation of people who are willing to grind to the 'fun' parts.

But they're all fun parts, as long as you don't turn everything after level 10 into a grindfest in pursuit of travel and stamina. You don't need a travel power at 14 with the jetpack and jump pack from safeguard/mayhem missions, and by the time you need stamina you have three powers you can drop to respec into it.

[BigBlack]

The grind is different there.  300 hours from 1 to 50 is about on par with any casual MMORPG.  The power acquisition slows down way too quickly at about the level 14-32 point.  It's not until 32 that some builds will have enough powers to have a perpetually entertaining hero/villain.  At that point, the rest of the game goes quick as lightning.  If I were Cryptic NCSoft's Latest Acquisition, that level 14-32 range is where I would look into eliminating the suck.

The real shock, however, is yet to come.  Come level 50, the things you can do fall into the following categories:

• One-time things you could have done already. (Collect Badges, Task Forces, Do the missions you missed (Issue 11's Flashback System)).
• Things you need connections with a high-end Supergroup to do.  (Raids.)
• Things that are poorly balanced or simply broken to the point of not being implemented. (Shadow Shard, Superbase Artifact Aquisition)

So, yeah, despite City of Heroes being a fun game while it lasts, and despite all the paper trail of all these "issues" they've made, it's kinda interesting how Cryptic hasn't bothered to put in an end game.

Don't knock alting, it's apparently the only entertaining thing for a level 50 player to do in CoH right now.

...PvP?

[Nevermore]

...PvP?

...utterly sucks in CoX.  This coming from someone who likes pvp in general and likes CoX for the most part.  But PvP in CoX needs a whole lot of fixin'.

[geldonyetich2]

Seconded, that.  The trouble with PvP in City of Heroes/Villain seems to be:

• Given the freedom players have at customizing their character, not all heroes/villains are created equal, and in the vast majority of cases there's somebody playing who is unable to be consistently beaten by you.
• "Rock/Paper/Scissors" PvP design emphasizes this more.  No, you cannot beat Rock, you are Scissors.
• It's fast.  To play a "Squishy" (low RES, low hitpoints) archetype, you can expect to be instantly killed by some guy you never saw coming regularly.

It's a pity, really - Cryptic put a lot of work into all these fancy PvP zones that are much more dynamic and interesting than the other zones.  (Take a visit to Siren's Call, check out what's going on.)  However, most people don't bother because the PvP is broken on the most fundamental aspect of the game.

This is why PvE games should avoid trying to diversify into PvP.

[UnSub]

As a long time Blaster player, specialising in the uber-gimpy Assault Rifle / Devices powerset combo, I can say with certainty I will never ever be able to PvP effectively. Stalkers two-shot me and the only valid PvP tactic I have is laying out 10 trip mines out and teleport foe an opponent on top of them.

I don't mind dabbling in PvP, but my AT is so far off the pace that it will never catch up. CoH/V needs to include PvP as an option for players, but unless that discrepency between the top and the bottom is addressed, then the team focus of PvP will never see CoH/V's PvP system flourish.

[jdun]

You're not wrong. 300 hours is 12 days.  That's about the length of time it takes to level a character 1-60 in wow.. If you're a noob on a new server, and with no support network such as friends/ guildmates.   

And even then: 1) Blizzard is reducing it to make it go faster. 2) WoW doesn't have such a deep customization that everyone WANTS to try out 4-5 characters/ specs.  Only the hardcore/ addicts do that, and most folks have one, MAYBE 2 at the cap that they play with regularity.

You can level up to 60 in less the 48 hours solo in WoW. 24 hours or less was the record, IIRC. With the the latest patch the grind will be reduce up to 50%, I believe.

CoX grind is epic. It is on par with most free Korean MMOG out there but with less contents.

[geldonyetich2]

You'll have to divulge this amazing technique for getting level 60 in 48 hours in WoW.  I get the feeling it's not on the level.

CoX's grind is too long, not only because of the original level 14-35 drag I referred to before, but also because of the good point that rolling alts is something the game should support.  However, it's going over the line saying your average free Korean MMOG has more content.

[geldonyetich2]

Actually, never mind divulging the WoW technique.  I found it and wasn't impressed.  Truth of the matter is, if enjoyment-free, raw grinding speed runs are what we're talking about, City of Heroes clocks in just fine. 

[Hutch]

However, it's going over the line saying your average free Korean MMOG has more content.

There doesn't seem to be a <hyperbole> tag in this internets.

When he said free KMMOs have more content than CoH/V, he was either engaging in hyperbole, or else he's bought into it.

Either way. It's an exaggeration. CoH has plenty of content; if it seems light, it may be that one has rolled up a few too many alts.

It's true that there isn't enough content to avoid repeating at least some of it by your 3rd alt or so.

[jdun]

Here. It's not hard. Just a bunch of herding. You can find more videos on how to fast grind and what location is best per minute exp.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-903331917281359369&hl=en

The first person that reached lvl 60 took three days playing WoW IIRC. I think it was done by a Rouge, not sure tho been such a long time. WoW while it has grind it was design to be easy to level by casual players.

BTW I use to herd in CoH. In fact I probably power leveled half of the 50s characters in CoH while I was active on my server. Instead of making contents the developers nerfed and nerfed until the game wasn't enjoyable. Only SWG made a bigger mistake then CoH. Developers needs to understand that the more nerf and grind you put in the less subscriptions they will get. You look at WoW one of the fastest if not the fastest leveling MMOG out there and they are reaching 10 millions. So they must be doing something right.

[geldonyetich2]

I said never mind, but you know, I have to thank you.  That is, by far, the most entertaining video portraying absolute mind numbing tedium I have ever seen.

So, you're one of those guys with the "Cryptic nerfed my ability to pull entire maps and have AOE kill everything" chip on the shoulder, eh?  Well, you'll be happy to know that the members of your dubious brood that you've left behind have evolved to the added challenge that brought and are getting along just fine.

[geldonyetich2]

Although, I can see why you feel that way and we do partly agree.  There's at least two big nerfs that became problematic for CoH:

• The second (chronologically) was the one you mentioned: a Tank can't reliably hold the aggro of entire maps anymore (AOE only affects up to 16 targets at a time, at best).
• The first (way back near release) was when they severely hampered peoples' ability to hit or damage mobs about 4 or 5 levels or above.

In both cases, the intent was to plug power leveling loopholes, but the unfortunate side effect was that it reduced the challenge to the players.  They forced the players to confront less mobs and to confront mobs that are lower level.  In a "City of Heroes", that was a mistake, reduced challenge is reduce fun for the players who need it.

However, if leveling fast is all you care about, ways have nonetheless been found.  It's sort of a universal MMOG design rule that the shortest path to the cheese will inevitably be found, shared, and break the developers' intended balance.

[Llava]

Back just before they nerfed herding, I was getting ready to quit the game.  Every damn group was a herding group.  It was fun for the first few days, but jesus h. christ did that ever get boring fast.

I see your anecdotal evidence and raise you a smiley. 

[jdun]

What is there to CoH? Nothing other then fight and fight. That's it. When I left that's all we had. That's why people herd because it was fun and have a change of pace. When they nerfed all the character classes, most people start leaving for WoW. I'm sure you weren't at the being of the game. When CoH started you have to wait in line to just get a train ride to the other zone. When I left the even the most popular zone was empty. Only SWG made bigger mistakes then CoH.

When WoW released it has four times the contents then CoH had at for six months. WoW do a great job on patch were they keep adding contents. On the other hand what CoH saw was nerfs after nerfs. All the fanboys back then keep saying that CoH contents were free but you know what so did WoW and other MMOG.

CoH try to put a PvP model that is clearly base on a PvE system. You do not put a PvP around a PvE core. It never work and that's the reason why CoX fail at PvP. I do not understand why developers keep trying to put PvP into a PvE core. If you're going put PvP into your game make sure the core system is PvP and not PvE.

Leveling is boring. Grinding is boring.