Champions Online: The No-NDA Merged Edition

[Kageru]

The Xbox360 release went from planned, to showing up as cancelled on the Atari home page to that page vanishing in total. Any bugs involved in gaming with the 360 controller were dismissed with "not supported" throughout late beta. I believe they will do a 360 port if the game is really successful on the PC, but I doubt it will be. They've got to be deep in star trek development if it's going into beta later this year.

I do agree that those who most liked the CoH mechanics will be the least pleased. Playing the beta actually motivated me to re-subscribe to CoH and despite its age I do consider it to have superior mechanics and ambience. Which is sort of sad really, a new game should be advancing the genre at least a little.

The 7 power change was a poor example of communication. They promised to explain the game design behind that fairly arbitrary limit but never actually did. Then suddenly really late in beta it suddenly changes. Firstly they should have explained what they were working towards so people could have tried it in that context, secondly they should have changed it early enough to allow iteration.

However I think the CO developers were doing their very best. There were a number of times they'd say something like "I'd love to look at that system but I have to design 2000 achievements". What was absent were the lead designers. Roper and Emmert should have been the ones discussing why game mechanic X would lead to interesting gameplay so that the assertion could be tested in play. I don't believe either of them posted anything of the sort or even followed beta test feedback. It was also obvious that when they delayed release they moved a lot of resources off CO, presumably onto star trek.

Which is odd really, because I would have thought Roper especially would have been really keen not to have another under-performing game on his CV.

[fuser]

Yeah, cryptic, you may not want to download ONE FILE AT A GODDAMNED TIME off what amounts to a torrent client as shitty as Blizzard's initial one.

[slog]

Concurrently, our installer had an error where it placed certain file types to an incorrect directory. When the patcher ran, it didn’t find those already downloaded files where they were expected to be. This caused the 3.6 GB patch to occur.

This says to me "WE VALUE QA LOTS, except when they have to test stuff"

Anyone who buys this game deserves what they get.

[Margalis]

I'd wager a significant amount of money that no console version will ever be released, especially not a 360 version.

Which is odd really, because I would have thought Roper especially would have been really keen not to have another under-performing game on his CV.

Roper earned his rep at Blizzard but we all know that Blizzard's way of doing things is rooted in the company rather than a few key individuals. They've lost plenty of high-profile employees over the years without missing a beat. It seems fair to speculate that Roper on his own isn't great at the production side of development.

[UnSub]

No-one remembers the first lead designer of ChampO.

Emmert really handed over to Roper and then appeared to have only minor input on certain systems. But I agree that their seemed to be a lack of overall thought about how everything would fit together. It was is a flaw that lots of betas are guilty of in putting out systems to test without having their supporting systems in place. Such as putting out all these powers to test without having stats in place (leading to comments like 'powers are underpowered!').

However, I think ChampO is going to get more than 100k subs, which is going to make it profitable. If Cryptic is in as much financial trouble as some are proclaiming, that is what they want at this point.

[kildorn]

Concurrently, our installer had an error where it placed certain file types to an incorrect directory. When the patcher ran, it didn’t find those already downloaded files where they were expected to be. This caused the 3.6 GB patch to occur.

This says to me "WE VALUE QA LOTS, except when they have to test stuff"

Anyone who buys this game deserves what they get.

"this build doesn't need a QA pass, I only changed two files!"

[kildorn]

Any MMOG that releases right now with enough advertising will get enough box sales that any company involved will call it a success for a couple months. That is not an accurate way to gauge the quality or monetary perforamnce of an MMOG.

Pretty much. I'm fighting with the damned patcher for something being heralded as AoC-release worthy, entirely because it's this, or go run some instances in WoW again.

[Montague]

Ok, maybe this stuff goes beyond the regular beta clusterfuckery. A post on the forums states that they tied in the patch updater to the same web server the ChampO forums are on.

I'll let that sink in.  

[kildorn]

Ok, maybe this stuff goes beyond the regular beta clusterfuckery. A post on the forums states that they tied in the patch updater to the same web server the ChampO forums are on.

I'll let that sink in.  

That doesn't seem THAT uncommon. Both from the "we need to share roles and this totally won't get hit hard" aspect, and the "the forums won't take THAT much power" aspect.

I wouldn't even blink to find out that half the release servers are still in boxes and the nightly downtime will be new system deployment for release ;)

[UnSub]

Any MMOG that releases right now with enough advertising will get enough box sales that any company involved will call it a success for a couple months. That is not an accurate way to gauge the quality or monetary perforamnce of an MMOG.

I agree. But the alternative is "Cryptic collapses in a ball of flame, we roast our marshmellows on the embers". I'd rather see a more deserving studio collapse, like CME.

Plus I wouldn't be able to go back to the CoH/V forums for the motherfucking smugness of some of the posters there if Cryptic fell over.

[Margalis]

Is Roper even a designer? Looking at his Wikipedia page he appears to be a producer who specializes in voice work and Pardo has always been the public-facing Blizzard design guy. (I admit I often get them confused)

[Triforcer]

Ok, maybe this stuff goes beyond the regular beta clusterfuckery. A post on the forums states that they tied in the patch updater to the same web server the ChampO forums are on.

I'll let that sink in.  

If they can harness the board's power of limitless retardation, they can power the game and a few Earth continents forever.  So maybe it was a good move.  

EDIT:  In other news, my computer won't even GET to the patch installer screen.  When I click on "launch" on the Fileplanet download manager screen, my computer just does nothing (even for 30 minutes or an hour- but after that time, if I click on launch again, it says "product is already being launched, please wait"). 

My computer is fairly good for a laptop- 2.4ghz core duo, pretty good NVIDIA card, etc.  But apparently God doesn't want me to play this game. 

[Hawkbit]

I keep getting server down messages when trying to patch.  Not really sure if they are or not because the CO forums are a steaming shitpile of crying fuckasses.  Oh, and Cryptic seems to have their thumbs up their asses about fixing stuff.  They need to get on the ball about announcing what the hell is going on. 

I realize this shit is complex.  But it's not like BT tech is brand-fucking-new.  It's also not like this is the first beta to launch, even by their own company. 

These companies spend tons of cash in advertising, making sure they get space in the stores and online to pimp their new products.  They cry when launch dates are broken because it supports piracy and detracts from the sales hype.  But more often than not they promptly fuckup getting their most diehard players into their game.  Damn near every MMO launched in the last five years has the same problems.  It's almost as if Full Sail needs a new MMO tech teacher. 

It's pretty fucking simple:  Treat Open Beta just like a game launch.  By this point we're customers, not testers.  Especially when your testers are primarily chosen by their ability to pay Fileplanet money.

[squirrel]

So this thing is mostly uninspired shit with a broken installer and patcher. Yes I read everything, sounds like some things are ok but damn, this wasn't my robot jesus but I was holding out hope for a fun distraction. Will try it when it hits trial status I suppose.

[Modern Angel]

At this point it's become an obsession and I didn't even have it 12 hours ago. It's like when you get a weird itch to reread a book you can't find so you go apeshit looking for it because of the chase, not the result.

But I seriously don't recall an open beta this close to release where I couldn't even get past the patcher. I really don't.

[Triforcer]

At this point it's become an obsession and I didn't even have it 12 hours ago. It's like when you get a weird itch to reread a book you can't find so you go apeshit looking for it because of the chase, not the result.

But I seriously don't recall an open beta this close to release where I couldn't even get past the patcher. I really don't.

Same here.  I am using my lunchbreak to go home and try to start the patcher again.  Even if the whole process pisses me off so much that I never play, BY GOD I am going to log into this fucking beta. 

[squirrel]

At this point it's become an obsession and I didn't even have it 12 hours ago. It's like when you get a weird itch to reread a book you can't find so you go apeshit looking for it because of the chase, not the result.

But I seriously don't recall an open beta this close to release where I couldn't even get past the patcher. I really don't.

Same here.  I am using my lunchbreak to go home and try to start the patcher again.  Even if the whole process pisses me off so much that I never play, BY GOD I am going to log into this fucking beta. 

Forgive me - but I have this vision of you finally conquering the Patcher boss, loggin in and after 20 minutes going. "meh, fuck it". Let me know if that's the case, it's what I'm trying to avoid.

[Ghambit]

At this point it's become an obsession and I didn't even have it 12 hours ago. It's like when you get a weird itch to reread a book you can't find so you go apeshit looking for it because of the chase, not the result.

But I seriously don't recall an open beta this close to release where I couldn't even get past the patcher. I really don't.

Same here.  I am using my lunchbreak to go home and try to start the patcher again.  Even if the whole process pisses me off so much that I never play, BY GOD I am going to log into this fucking beta. 

Forgive me - but I have this vision of you finally conquering the Patcher boss, loggin in and after 20 minutes going. "meh, fuck it". Let me know if that's the case, it's what I'm trying to avoid.

Someone should start a thottbot for betas.  Complete with interactive maps on file location, links to torrenting sites, and min-max settings for routers.
Hmmm, matter of fact.  Might make an interesting game design.

[taolurker]

At this point it's become an obsession and I didn't even have it 12 hours ago. It's like when you get a weird itch to reread a book you can't find so you go apeshit looking for it because of the chase, not the result.

But I seriously don't recall an open beta this close to release where I couldn't even get past the patcher. I really don't.

I am determined to download this, not only because of obsession or determination, but because of sheer boredom. I sure as hell am less likely to buy a game at release when the Open Beta is shit, but if I can't even get past the patcher when I am supposed to be testing or playing? There is no way that company sees my money.

I cannot remember any beta stage where there was such a clusterfuck with the patch server, and the response from Cryptic has been absolute shit. The first two hours when there were issues they should've been kissing ass and explaining to frustrated pre-order people what was going on. If I had needed to subscribe to Fileplanet or pre-order for this shit, I would've been extremely pissed, but as it stands now my desire to even try this game and interest in it is waning because of a day spent dealing with a patch.

Considering I started the download AGAIN from Fileplanet over 2 hours ago for the "new" file and spent nearly all day watching numbers go nearly backwards, it's no surprise that the 32 minute wait in line to download this still shows 38 minutes before I reach my place in line.

If I'm not able to patch this game before Open Beta closes I am seriously considering finding devs of this game IRL to punch in the face.

[UnSub]

Given that it is well known that open beta will see servers pounded, a staggered open beta would seem to be the best way to go. Also perhaps not pushing patches on open beta day.

However, I do think it is a bit excessive to be crying about not getting into the ChampO open beta.

[Nonentity]

I'm down to the last 35 meg. It is quite the stubborn bastard.

[Margalis]

I haven't followed CoX very much, what is it that people don't like about Emmert? (Opening the floodgates here?)

[Kageru]

I'm just waiting to see how the servers handle the load when everyone eventually gets on.

They did this really amusing testing where a small number of immortal but idiotic bots were introduced into the servers to simulate load. The idea that these bots actually simulated real human load to any reasonable extent seemed outlandish to me. I'm fascinated to see if I was right and they were as half-assed with their server infrastructure as I suspect.

In other words I expect today to be complaining about the patcher and tomorrow is for complaining about memory leaks and lag.

[Modern Angel]

They did this really amusing testing where a small number of immortal but idiotic bots were introduced into the servers to simulate load.

what

[taolurker]

ROFL That's the funniest thing I've ever heard. A stress test using bots to simulate load? LOL

This game is doomed, and from the way this is shaping up I'd say they tanked the Open Beta on purpose because they knew at launch things would go in the shitter and were trying to drive people away.

[Triforcer]

watching all the files install that end in "Hogg" makes me want a Dukes of Hazzard MMO.  So the installer is entertaining me in a way. 

[kildorn]

Man, this downloader is hilarious. It's now downloaded every file to 98.7%, and has them all sitting there. Seriously, what?

[UnSub]

I haven't followed CoX very much, what is it that people don't like about Emmert? (Opening the floodgates here?)

He got CoH launched and was the lead dev when a number of unpopular (but I'd argue mostly correct) design decisions came down the pipe. Sometimes his comments on the forum were blunt and / or open to interpretation. He would talk about features that were never implemented.

He's become the focus for every unpopular decision around CoH/V and a punching bag I'm sure the current dev team is happy (at times) is there.

[Modern Angel]

No, seriously. What? You can't DO that! You can't just put bots on there to simulate concurrency! That's not even some theoretical stuff. It's not even running a simulation. That's lunacy.

[squirrel]

From Qt3 - apparently the patcher is borken.


IF YOU SEE THAT THE LAUNCHER IS TRYING TO PATCH 3.6GB THEN YOUR INSTALLER PUT FILES IN THE WRONG PLACE. YOU CAN REDUCE IT TO A 950 MB DOWNLOAD

To fix this shut down the launcher, then go to your Champions directory. In the /Live folder there will be a bunch of .hogg files. Simply move those to the /Live/piggs folder, overwriting old files when prompted, then restart the launcher.

Details: http://launcher.champions-online.com/node/172959

[kildorn]

Still doesn't matter, the patcher cannot download the last 10 megs of data it needs. There's some post about the devs being aware and working on it. Updates Soon(tm)

Essentially the last 31 megs will be repeated over and over again because it locks on the same 20ish files last 5%s.

[NiX]

 

[kildorn]

Yep, exact same block of the same files, downloader goes into WAIT_DATA on everything, the patch client proceeds to say "I'M NOT GETTING DATA THE CLIENT MUST BE BROKEN" and stops trying.

Brilliant design. And added bonus:

crypticError.exe     WAIT_FINGERPRINTS     0/456 blocks  0.0%

[Big Gulp]

Indeed, sir.  Indeed.

Margalis, Emmert ripped the overpowered, superheroic, chaotic soul out of CoH in favor of turning it into just another DIKU grind.  "Balance" in a superhero game is a laughable concept at best, in a game like CoH with limited content where the end game is building an alt and starting over cockblocking your players and increasing the grind is unforgivable.  He also touched my butthole, so there's that.

[Kageru]

No, seriously. What? You can't DO that! You can't just put bots on there to simulate concurrency! That's not even some theoretical stuff. It's not even running a simulation. That's lunacy.

They did. I got to observe one of them in action, a humanoid in a grey leotard (default outfit is blue leotard) happily running into walls and firing off his one attack. I even used it as a tank for a while because it would infinitely respawn on death. There were even some quite amusing posts on the beta forums complaining about the bots being players "hacking the game". I'd be fascinated to know what feedback they got out of it.

I'd also love to know what their retention rate was for the closed beta. There didn't really seem to be all that many who stayed with it which contributed even further to fairly light testing.

Oh, and if anyone wants an over-powered combination of powers then Toxic nanites (next attack also gives a powerful DoT) and Lead Tempest (5 target PBAoE) was my answer for trivializing all the content on the way to 40. Naturally you must buy one of two useful defensive passives (regeneration, invulnerability) unless they really nerfed them hard in the last week. I couldn't do the last week of beta because it finished at 7:00am Australian time and choosing between sleep and testing CO was a no-brainer. Combine this with ego sprites for even more AoE DoT goodness. You get to pick two stats and those become your +damage stats (So if you pick intelligence it will add to melee damage) and scale with level. One of them should almost certainly be constitution for a massive hitpoint advantage and enhanced defence while endurance (bigger power pool) seemed a reasonable second choice.