Champions Online: The No-NDA Merged Edition

[Kageru]

One of my treasured delusions is that MMO's are evolving into a more complex and interesting experience.

So seeing Cryptic with a business plan to shovel half-finished and derivative shit to fanboys who don't know any better and the easily amused is somewhat painful. With their only innovation being predatory billing and bait-and-switch tactics into a space where no company with any sort of soul would go.

[statisticalfool]

That's not an explanation of why people need it to be something it isn't and get all verbose about it. It's fun, play it until it's not fun, then move on.

The rest is Cryptic's concern, not the player's.

There are also the poor suckers who bought lifetime memberships, who probably make up a good chunk of the CO forum warriors, so I think it is kind of in play for them to feel like they're being screwed. These weren't people who bought lifetimes two years ago: they bought them probably a month to a few months before it launched, when Cryptic had plenty of time to let them know what they thought was going to be in and out.

It's not my game, but I'm sure most people who purchased the lifetime LOTRO sub feel like it was a fair deal, lots of support, occasional big paid expansions, constant attention. It's hard to envision anything other than laughter at Cryptic headquarters for the lifetime money.

[Malakili]

In response to a "Is CO dying thread."

http://forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php?p=1455831

DOOOOM! 

No, CO is doing alright. The dev team is the about the same size as launch, plus we're getting some extra resources right now.

What's actually really exciting is that there's a lot of cool tech built in the core Cryptic engine that we're incorporating into upcoming CO content that will allows us to create more stuff more frequently.

If there's specific things you want to see improved, we constantly monitor the boards for useful community feedback. Daeke gives us a daily report of the major concerns which we review and discuss for scheduling. Of course, we can't address everything immediately, but we try to respond as quickly as we can.

Thanks!

[UnSub]

I'll wait and see what Vibora Bay actually contains before getting excited. It's another city area, which is great, but for only 3 levels? Even end-game? Hmm. Might be more like lvl 37 - 50, but they don't want to confirm that yet just in case.

The ChampO boards are pretty bad. It's what happens when those educated on WoW forums go forth and elucidate.

The fact it is a paid expansion is, however, a call back to EverQuest's expansion plans.

[Malakili]

I'll wait and see what Vibora Bay actually contains before getting excited. It's another city area, which is great, but for only 3 levels? Even end-game? Hmm. Might be more like lvl 37 - 50, but they don't want to confirm that yet just in case.

The ChampO boards are pretty bad. It's what happens when those educated on WoW forums go forth and elucidate.

The fact it is a paid expansion is, however, a call back to EverQuest's expansion plans.

I think the main problem is even now, (and I really don't know if it is true or not), the game is seeing as being incomplete from launch.  So the playerbase seems to be upset that Cryptic would be releasing something brand new that they would have to pay for, when they feel like Cryptic has still not delivered on fixing everything that came in the box.  Granted, my guess is that a lot more has been done than people accept/realize, but I think that is the objection, more than the fact that a paid expansion/content pack/whatever is coming out.

[Typhon]

That's not an explanation of why people need it to be something it isn't and get all verbose about it. It's fun, play it until it's not fun, then move on.

I think this is an issue of emotional investment.  Look at what you've posted about the addition of pvp to EQ2 and apply your own response to it.  It's our passion for these games that takes the conversation in new and interesting directions.  It's not that we think we can actually change much.  

The statement above is a good one.  It's something we should all, as gamers, take to heart.  It's just hard to remember when we're passionate about the particular game that we happen to be playing.  We see a game getting close to our ideal and wonder why it doesn't spend more time and energy moving in that direction.  It's all part of being on the sidelines, I guess.

I guess the odd thing for me (and I think Sky) in this thread is the hateboyism.  The game isn't robot Jesus.  Clearly. 

But it is an amusing little beat-em-up that levels decently quickly and has more power and character customization than CoX.  From MY perspective, that makes it better then CoX.  I just don't get the dedicated hate that exists in this thread.

[Nebu]

But it is an amusing little beat-em-up that levels decently quickly and has more power and character customization than CoX.  From MY perspective, that makes it better then CoX.  I just don't get the dedicated hate that exists in this thread.

How high did you get your toon to in this game?  I found that as I advanced a bit that the game forced me more and more into grouping.  That's where a lot of my hate stems from (though I've tried my best to temper it).

CoH rewarded grouping.  CO penalizes solo play.  It's that subtle difference that really irked me.  

[Malakili]

But it is an amusing little beat-em-up that levels decently quickly and has more power and character customization than CoX.  From MY perspective, that makes it better then CoX.  I just don't get the dedicated hate that exists in this thread.

How high did you get your toon to in this game?  I found that as I advanced a bit that the game forced me more and more into grouping.  That's where a lot of my hate stems from (though I've tried my best to temper it).

CoH rewarded grouping.  CO penalizes solo play.  It's that subtle difference that really irked me.  

I'm not sure I had the same experience as you at all.  I made it from 1-40 grouping maybe 2-3 times, and that was by choice because I wanted to see the dungeons.  And this was even prior to them adding in a ton of quests to fill in content gaps.  CO might be the least group friendly and most solo oriented MMO I have ever played.

[Nebu]

I'm not sure I had the same experience as you at all.  I made it from 1-40 grouping maybe 2-3 times, and that was by choice because I wanted to see the dungeons.  And this was even prior to them adding in a ton of quests to fill in content gaps.  CO might be the least group friendly and most solo oriented MMO I have ever played.

I'm starting to wonder if I missed some stuff.  After 25 I really felt like they were expecting me to group.  My perception could be off due to my own laziness when it came to finding more solo content. 

[Malakili]

I'm not sure I had the same experience as you at all.  I made it from 1-40 grouping maybe 2-3 times, and that was by choice because I wanted to see the dungeons.  And this was even prior to them adding in a ton of quests to fill in content gaps.  CO might be the least group friendly and most solo oriented MMO I have ever played.

I'm starting to wonder if I missed some stuff.  After 25 I really felt like they were expecting me to group.  My perception could be off due to my own laziness when it came to finding more solo content. 

If you played at launch it was more likely you were experiencing the infamous content gap, in which it was very easy to run out of content beore hitting monster island, forcing you to grind. They've since added lots of quests so that now you can easily quest solo from 1-40.  At least that is how it was last time I played.  They hosed themselves with the launch XP nerf, and it was handled really poorly. If you were to go back and play now, you shouldn't have a problem finding things to do solo.  Their intention all along was to be able to solo from 1-40, but they handled launch so poorly due to the XP nerf (which they did as a backlash because some people got to 40 during head start and they nerfed it in panic), that tons of people got about as far as you and quit for the same reasons.

[Khaldun]

I don't think I ever needed to group, really. That's part of what I didn't like about the game: paying subscription money for a mediocre super-hero game where the presence of other players was at best an occasional provisioning of atmosphere rather than a core component of gameplay.

If I ended up really disliking the game, it's because I think it's a cynical milestone in the developmental history of MMOGs/virtual worlds. It's a content-light game with very little thought given about how to give you a sense of presence and persistence in a shared world. It's basically a great character creator and a very solid combat engine in search of a game environment, pretty much quintessentially something that should be sold as a f2p model rather than a subscription one. An additional irritant for me was the clownshoes handling of smaller technical and design issues after the game went live, which I thought was pretty much a clear indicator that they'd stripped off most staff resources to try and get STO up and running.

At this point, I think there's only two legit roads for developers:

1) Go f2p with microtransactions and the base product is what it is.
2) Go subscriber and try to go live with a much larger amount of content and some ability to deliver new content and mechanics on an ongoing basis.

[Sky]

I'm a rabid altaholic, just like in CoH. Cosmo has hit 12 or 13 and I've got a few others at 8-11. Just dipping in to see what powers I like the most and play with character builds. I'll probably keep 3 or 4 of my current guys.

I've grouped a few times (Ferd, etc), it's a decent game for quick PUGs at least at lower levels. I do see some Zone chat for groups that will stay together for long enough to do instances or whatever. But toward the end I learned to do Ferd after I stacked up both crisis zones xp and could solo him :)

Just bumped all the graphics to max last night to see how my creaky old computer handled it, runs good and looks great. Cryptic still pwns everyone in character creation.

Forgive my indulgence here, but I'm still honeymooning and enjoying the heck out of the game and want to share.

[statisticalfool]

That's not an explanation of why people need it to be something it isn't and get all verbose about it. It's fun, play it until it's not fun, then move on.

I think this is an issue of emotional investment.  Look at what you've posted about the addition of pvp to EQ2 and apply your own response to it.  It's our passion for these games that takes the conversation in new and interesting directions.  It's not that we think we can actually change much.  

The statement above is a good one.  It's something we should all, as gamers, take to heart.  It's just hard to remember when we're passionate about the particular game that we happen to be playing.  We see a game getting close to our ideal and wonder why it doesn't spend more time and energy moving in that direction.  It's all part of being on the sidelines, I guess.

I guess the odd thing for me (and I think Sky) in this thread is the hateboyism.  The game isn't robot Jesus.  Clearly. 

But it is an amusing little beat-em-up that levels decently quickly and has more power and character customization than CoX.  From MY perspective, that makes it better then CoX.  I just don't get the dedicated hate that exists in this thread.

Part of why I feel like the rage is pretty justified is the whole lifetime/6 month/C-store nonsense. Asking people to pay $200 for this, and chopping features left and right, putting the box sales in the bank, and then diverting your dev team to Star Trek Online while charging money for the first (presumably minor) new zone is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be singled out so this shit doesn't keep on happening.

If CO was just a diablo-alike (box + free online instanced multiplayer, maybe even just P2P, no servers other than a matchmaker), it'd be pretty much the same character creator game it is right now, and the people enjoying it would probably be having just as much fun, and it would have been a lot more honest to its customers about what they were getting.

[Nebu]

If you played at launch it was more likely you were experiencing the infamous content gap, in which it was very easy to run out of content beore hitting monster island, forcing you to grind. They've since added lots of quests so that now you can easily quest solo from 1-40. 

Thanks for that.  I may have to go back and give the game a second look.  I have resubbed to CoH about 8 times over the years as it's easily my favorite game to play alts in.  I enjoy the fast combat pace and, of course, the character generator. 

[Bandit]

It's a content-light game with very little thought given about how to give you a sense of presence and persistence in a shared world. It's basically a great character creator and a very solid combat engine in search of a game environment, pretty much quintessentially something that should be sold as a f2p model rather than a subscription one.

Well said Khaldun, I couldn't summarize it any better than that.

Cryptic has come out and basically said they have done a shitty job of communication:

Okay, here's the plan:

    * Reviving Ask Cryptic (Request for questions is live on the website right now!)
    * Biweekly "State of the Game" columns (That is, once every other week, and it'll have more details about upcoming content)
    * Return of the IRC Devchat
    * In a few weeks, a bunch of Vibora Bay Developer Diaries


This isn't everything, but I think it's an acceptable start. We've done a poor job of keeping up with the continued requests for more information and openness, and the only way to redeem ourselves is to show, not tell. So, I'm not going to hype anything up that I've listed above. I'm simply listing it, and letting you decide for yourselves how you feel about it once these things get going. Sound good?

If anyone is playing, I would be more than happy to group up.....just send a friend request to @banditox.  I have a few f13ers on my list, but no idea who they are as so many dropped out after the first month.

[Slyfeind]

Bentley Hoggenbothom, martial arts master extraordinaire. The avatar picture fails to do him justice; max height, skinny torso and arms with big feet and legs, long limbs, triangle head and more style than can be imagined. Hilarious when he is in combat flailing limbs about.

I did that with one character, called him "Stretch" and gave him super-jump as a travel power. He's long and skinny, flailing arms and legs like you describe, but when he super-jumps he uses a different model; short and fat. He's a big round bouncy ball.

I wanted to go acrobatics, and hoped he would backflip across town like Elastigirl from the Incredibles. He does, but only when going backwards. Going forwards is just a super-run. Sadf.

[Typhon]

How high did you get your toon to in this game?  I found that as I advanced a bit that the game forced me more and more into grouping.  That's where a lot of my hate stems from (though I've tried my best to temper it).

CoH rewarded grouping.  CO penalizes solo play.  It's that subtle difference that really irked me.  

High thirties for the highest.  I have 7 toons now, all are in the mid twenties.  I didn't experience the gap you are talking about, but I wasn't in beta until late, so maybe I didn't expect there to be a gap so I went looking?  (not sure, just guessing).

(not at Nebu): Ok, so mostly people are pissed about the business model.  I agree that it's out of touch with the times.  But, in their defense, the "times" are changing pretty rapidly as businesses try out different models.

[Malakili]

(not at Nebu): Ok, so mostly people are pissed about the business model.  I agree that it's out of touch with the times.  But, in their defense, the "times" are changing pretty rapidly as businesses try out different models.

While a lot of the rage gets aimed at the business model, I'm not convinced its actually the main thing people are angry about. With this Vibora Bay announcement  it seems to me, from reading the forums, that a lot of people are more angry about the fact that they are charging for a new bit of content when they feel like the game still needs to be fixed up and polished from launch.    I think people feel like Cryptic has still not earned their box price for the game, and because of it, charging money for something brand new seems like a bad idea.   

This is only compounded by the fact that given the level range it seems like Vibora Bay is supposed to be an alternative (more like replacement), to Lemuria, which has been an unmitigated disaster ever since launch, and it seems like Cryptic is effectively charging its players extra now to fix things that were wrong with the base game.

[Typhon]

The game being content light is valid.

That said, I guess I just don't see a greedy studio.  I see a newbie studio wanting to be the captains of their own destiny breaking off from a publisher and discovering that business isn't as easy as they thought.

They had to launch in a content-light state to avoid pulling a Flagship and now they are desperately trying to monetize anything they can to keep afloat.

I'm 95% sure I won't be buying the new content, but it doesn't make me hate them that they are charging.

[UnSub]

Interestingly, Lemuria got a big thumbs up from a lot of closed beta testers. They recognised its problems, but there was a lot of praise for doing something different and very comic book.

[Sky]

I'm not sure the STO bitching stuff is valid or not, but it's ridiculous to bitch about a small company pouring resources into a game that already has a million accounts (per the STO thread, was that beta numbers?). The true irony is that even if they did pull resources to finish STO, the revenue of STO will pour back into CO, which directly benefits lifetime sub members. If I had a lifetime sub, I'd be cheering STO on like mad.

Beyond that point, I guess Typhon sums it up pretty well.

It took WoW three years to put out an expansion, and you still need to shell out $75 to get the game + expansions. That's not counting Cataclysm, which you will also have to shell out for, putting the total to get into the full WoW experience at $115! EQ2 is putting out its sixth expansion in the same timeframe and for the whole enchilada (all expansions and adventures), it's $37 (as every expansion box includes all other content).

We could talk shitty business models all day, if it were the business model that made or broke companies, SOE would be bajillionaires.

Oh, wait....BOOO they also have a cash shop!  

[Kageru]

... I must have missed Lemuria being lauded. Underwater zones have been hellish since EQ and this one was no better. The tactic of hiding mission objectives down long funnels whose opening could be some distance away, at many possible Z levels, and is largely invisible was particularly brilliant.

I guess it all comes down to motive. However cryptic knew the game was shallower than a rain puddle and performed a number of actions to hide that from the user base. A very limited beta with wipes, "limited availability" lifetime subscriptions that had to be purchased before the game was even released, promising STO beta for long term subscriptions, playing games with billing (first MMO with sub + cash-shop + paid DLC?). They found it easier to screw the player-base than actually fix their shit or even admit the game was weak. And, in all honesty, I think CO was just a cost recovery exercise so they'd at least make some box sales ahead of the far more lucrative STO. And then they did pretty much the exact same thing with STO.

Cryptic's business model is shovel-ware MMO's. Build them fast, cheap and shiny (with massive asset re-use) and always have another one in development for when the novelty wears off.

[Malakili]

Interestingly, Lemuria got a big thumbs up from a lot of closed beta testers. They recognised its problems, but there was a lot of praise for doing something different and very comic book.

I didn't ever play it in Beta, but at least in live it was plagued by 1) horrible lag (hence the name Lagmuria) 2) rubberbanding, see 1 3) your travel power doesn't work normally there, which is a defining feature for many characters 2) it was hard to tell what was happening near your, and you often got attacked and couldn't figure out from where.

Basically, every nightmare I had about underwater zones in games in general, let alone an MMO, came true.

[Sky]

They tried to hide the game is shallow? Did you play CoX? CO is exactly what I expected it to be, and I'm having a great time. I'll play for a while, then I'll get tired of it and go play the bajillion things I got on steam sale. Maybe I'll jump back into CO this autumn. JUST LIKE COX.

First mmo with sub+cash shop+ $DLC?   Bzzt.

[Kageru]

Yes, I have played CoX. Far better game mechanics but starved by a company happy to let it stagnate... wow, sounds familiar. I can't see how that matters though.

The fact you are enjoying CO says a bit about you and very little about CO.

[Bandit]

Cryptic's business model is shovel-ware MMO's. Build them fast, cheap and shiny (with massive asset re-use) and always have another one in development for when the novelty wears off.

or, on a more positive outlook, they are getting a stable of MMO's together under the same engine.  Thus improvements, engine upgrades, asset library and mechanic development would be more efficient and deployed across all their games.  Not sure I would term it shovel-ware myself - but to each their own.

In respect to Lagmuria, the recent update has improved the performance in this Zone considerably - from my short time there anyways.  Melee is still nightmarish in Lemuria though.

[Malakili]

[ Melee is still nightmarish in Lemuria though.

This could be my problem.  The only character I ever took to lemuria was Might.

[Kageru]

or, on a more positive outlook, they are getting a stable of MMO's together under the same engine.  Thus improvements, engine upgrades, asset library and mechanic development would be more efficient and deployed across all their games.  Not sure I would term it shovel-ware myself - but to each their own.

Asset re-use done well is good. Asset re-use done half-arsed is bad. I wonder which Cryptic will go for?

From Current Live Issues

I'm convinced that some of the current batch of bugs are directly from folding in STO engine changes without proper QA. The changes in flight that aren't bugs (like the way flight no longer dives towards the ground, or the pivot point that appears to be further back) suggest starship travel.

[caladein]

It took WoW three years to put out an expansion, and you still need to shell out $75 to get the game + expansions. That's not counting Cataclysm, which you will also have to shell out for, putting the total to get into the full WoW experience at $115! EQ2 is putting out its sixth expansion in the same timeframe and for the whole enchilada (all expansions and adventures), it's $37 (as every expansion box includes all other content).

Really now?  You're assuming someone will buy Sentinel's Fate, in the future, but you're cool with adding in an expansion that doesn't even have a release date into the total-cost-of-play.  That's the best case scenario for how much it takes to keep up with Everquest II expansions.

The WoW Battle Chest and Latest EQ2 Expansion When New are both $40 and get you playing.  That's what matters, even if you want to ignore that Everquest II gets boxed expansions twice as fast as World of Warcraft does.

[Sky]

I was just looking at the cost of getting both games running with all released content as soon as the new expansions for each comes out. I made the same assumption on both sides. The numbers still stack in EQ2's favor if you run numbers for all current expansions or for just core game.

Battlechest doesn't include the Lich King expansion. So core + 2 for $75 vs core + 5 for $10. Or to just get into the game without worrying about buying expansions: core for $20 vs core + 5 for $10.

[Kageru]

The more popular the game the less it has to be discounted... film at 11. Though not sure how that relates to cryptic.

While surfing though I saw someone had cut bits out of Atari/cryptics strategy:

"a high-performance online platform: the acquisition of Cryptic provides Atari with high-performance, multi-game server-side technology architecture that can be used to develop a range of titles. When combined with a sophisticated customer service infrastructure, it offers very high productivity-per-employee and industry-leading client/server performance and creates MMO games at reasonable cost in 18 to 24-month cycles;"

Oh, and they canned Daeke I see. I guess the fact that Vibora Bay was paid content was meant to be a surprise.

[Malakili]

The more popular the game the less it has to be discounted... film at 11. Though not sure how that relates to cryptic.

While surfing though I saw someone had cut bits out of Atari/cryptics strategy:

"a high-performance online platform: the acquisition of Cryptic provides Atari with high-performance, multi-game server-side technology architecture that can be used to develop a range of titles. When combined with a sophisticated customer service infrastructure, it offers very high productivity-per-employee and industry-leading client/server performance and creates MMO games at reasonable cost in 18 to 24-month cycles;"

Well, if you look at the biggest problem most people have had with these games, its that the content just isn't good enough, and the games are generally not as feature rich as people want.  Its  not surprising at all that these are the problem, give the 1-2 year dev cycle.   Cryptic seems to provide games that people generally find fun for a bit, but don't have staying power.  If they can get all their systems running at full for one title, you could see them hitting a home run at some point, but the problem is, they have such a small margin for error, that I just think it'll ever happen.  Hell, even with the experience of Champions being pretty "meh" for most people on these boards, Star Trek still attracted a bunch of people from here, even though most say they are just there for a month.

Any, I think that was coherent, but its a little borderline now that I look at it.  In summary:  Cryptic might be making mediocre MMO games, but they seem to be succeeding at their business model.

[Kageru]

I think it makes good sense from Atari's point of view. They believe they have a stockpile of valuable IP that could be converted into MMO properties and make box + subscription + micro-payment cash for them.

[UnSub]

By my rough count that makes about 7 community people that ChampO has ground through, starting with Sporkfire. Some have moved off internally into Cryptic and others have disappeared entirely, but being the ChampO community mod is a high fatality position.

[Bandit]

Personally, I felt that Daeke was a piss poor community manager.  It may have not been his fault directly, but there was little to no communication or even 'fluff' CO shit like lore articles, dev interviews etc.

I don't read straight up MMO forums.  They make me sad about society in general, and that is wasted time you can't get back.  However,  I do read Community posts and Developer posts when i have time.  The CO dev tracker and community posts are pretty sparse compared to other games. Even their development tracker is flawed, its full of german and french technical support posts.

The CO website is a mess as well.  Some of the fansites they have listed are horrible user created blogspot sites that haven't updated since mid-September (from a September release).  They don't have even have all the powersets listed on their own fucking site. But yet they release half-baked ideas like a mobile phone application which doesn't work very well and a comic book creator application that nobody has paid attention to.

Cryptic are just taking on more then the can chew right now.  I think most agree that both Champions and Star Trek are mildly interesting and engaging from a gameplay point of view, but for a maximum of two or three weeks.  Their engine as a whole appears to be more than adequate to produce a well-balanced MMO.

It's just sloppy development at the moment, with CO being sloppy seconds to Star Trek. I just think they realize they need an injection of cash to realize this business plan of theirs, hence the onslaught of Cryptic Store releases and paid expansions.

I am guilty of supporting this, but I still generally get more dollar for dollar value in CO than I do single player games (which I also buy). I am also hoping all you damn trekkies support STO, so they can fix my game as well.