Originally posted by sookster54

 

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Originally posted by Death1942
because we all know Xfire is the be all and end all of MMO statistics....

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XFire isn't a 100% measurement, but it does show an indication to how a game does, when there's a decline in daily activity, there's a high chance the game REALLY is losing activity outside of xfire users. It's not rocket science.

 

You can tell that the population of the game is declining.  There's a HUGE difference between launch day and now.  Not too many people log in anymore.

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Originally posted by ghost047

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Originally posted by Maelkor

The primary reason for the slide is lack of content. The Game has approximtely 1 to 2 months worth of content for the average player. After that you can try out different power sets but the content will be exactly the same as the first character you leveled. Most people quickly get tired of this and grow bored. The core game is good and is fun to play. If your thinking of spending $50 on a single player game this game would be a good alternative to that. Play it as a single player game, play out the free month or two months or whatever they are giving, then put it back on the shelf and move on. I will probably cancel my sub after I play bloodmoon unless they have something else major in the pipeline for early to mid november.

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Tell me what is the difference with any other games out there, Aion just came out and if you reroll you will have to redo the same exact quest line unless you change sides. What about WoW, same exact thing happen, the only difference is the starting area and after that is the same quest line. WAR is the same, if you want to lvl you have to run the quest if every 3 zones of your faction. So again, why everyone complain about that in CO but you have the same in every other game, seem to me like people are just looking for a reason abd can not come up with a good one. Same thing with the "it's too solo friendly" but every game out there you can max out solo, people cry when they have to group, just look at FFXI forum and you will see.
Give CO a break, it's been out for less than 2 months and they did a hell of a job adding content and fixing stuff. For people who are rubberbanding, just play with your setting and it should fix it, like removing the outline or the water effect in Lemuria, but stop complaining about the game because your PC can't run it and please spare the "I can run all the new game on max", so obviously you are doing something wrong.

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Eh, that wasn't my experience with WoW or any of those games. WoW and LotRO there are plenty of different areas you could level up in all the way up, even at release - on some characters I made a point to not level in areas I'd already done. If you wanted to group you didn't make it harder on yourself (sorry the 'I'll round up a posse!' mechanic for 3+ groups is frustratingly retarded), and there were instances you go in with a group and level off as much as you wanted from grind exp which was almost as good as quest exp. I like doing group instances so much my tank barely quested, just formed group after group for instances.

WAR you needed to do about 1.5 faction zones of the 3 zones at each tier which left about half the content untouched per side, so ~4 play-throughs to cover all the content. You could also level just as quickly off PVP grinding.

The only problem CO has with content for a release game though is that they nerfed mission XP on launch day so that there would be just enough missions to get you to 40. But if you use teleport/flight a lot you may miss too much mob exp (it adds up!) which creates a larger content gap.

Point is you should have the option to play entirely solo or entirely grouped all the way to max level if you choose, most games are balanced well for this now - WoW, WAR, LotRO, AoC, I know all handle solo and grouping perfectly well. CO is actively anti-grouping to me, though the new crossover quests will help at least a little.

Originally posted by junzo316

Originally posted by sookster54

 

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Originally posted by Death1942
because we all know Xfire is the be all and end all of MMO statistics....

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XFire isn't a 100% measurement, but it does show an indication to how a game does, when there's a decline in daily activity, there's a high chance the game REALLY is losing activity outside of xfire users. It's not rocket science.

 

You can tell that the population of the game is declining.  There's a HUGE difference between launch day and now.  Not too many people log in anymore.

Of course the population isn't the size it was at launch, its a typical trend that numbers stabilies lower.  Although there's been exceptions. 

Plenty of people were still logging on and its booming again since yesterdays event patch. 

Originally posted by grapevine

Originally posted by junzo316

Originally posted by sookster54

 

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Originally posted by Death1942
because we all know Xfire is the be all and end all of MMO statistics....

---

XFire isn't a 100% measurement, but it does show an indication to how a game does, when there's a decline in daily activity, there's a high chance the game REALLY is losing activity outside of xfire users. It's not rocket science.

 

You can tell that the population of the game is declining.  There's a HUGE difference between launch day and now.  Not too many people log in anymore.

 

Of course the population isn't the size it was at launch, its a typical trend that numbers stabilies lower.  Although there's been exceptions. 

 

Plenty of people were still logging on and its booming again since yesterdays event patch. 

Well xfire does show CO being very flat this week so I think you are right people are logging in to try out BloodMoon.  That said the feedback on the forums isn't looking that good.  I was thinking about checking it out but after reading some of the treads on the cryptic forums I'm not that excited.  This thread is a pretty good one the guy posting seems to have some content and actually has played it.  forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php  Not all threads are bad there are a few but they seem to be mostly anticipation and hope. 

Anyway, it doesn't look like this patch is gonna turn things around.

Haven't played bloodmoon and free or not I can't face returning to the game but Its curious that the quoted thread regarding the newly released content is a carbon copy of the complaints that persisted throughout alpha/beta...

It's almost as though Cryptic are only able to comprehend one solitary approach to challenges and quests, time and again its the exact same simplistic mechanic with a quick and dirty reskin on the opposition, no imagination whatsoever! There is a desperate need to infuse the game with a wider variety of world mechanics and some (any) player choice just so they can offer some or any variety at all in the levelling journey. But they just don't seem to even want to try =/

Originally posted by ethion

Well xfire does show CO being very flat this week so I think you are right people are logging in to try out BloodMoon.  That said the feedback on the forums isn't looking that good.  I was thinking about checking it out but after reading some of the treads on the cryptic forums I'm not that excited.  This thread is a pretty good one the guy posting seems to have some content and actually has played it.  forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php  Not all threads are bad there are a few but they seem to be mostly anticipation and hope. 

Anyway, it doesn't look like this patch is gonna turn things around.

To keep things in context.  That thread is about one piece of content that was added, not the full BloodMoon.  Although granted content wise the rest is mostly PvP focused.  In that thread they are referring to the Celestiral power unlock missions (Dawn of the Undead Heroes) that are geared around level 20.  So yeah, a higher level is going to find them a walk in the park.  The poster does however have a valid point about bosses mostly being tank and spank and it would be nice to see more complex strategies being introduced.

In addition to fixes and introducing new mechanics for missions sharing, BloodMoon consists of: -

* New Power Set: Celestial! Our first new power set being added to Champions Online, Celestial is a support and healing based set with dual-purpose abilities.
* Dawn of the Undead Heroes! Takofanes has trapped the souls of the Heroes who fell during the Battle of Detroit and are commanding them to spread ruin across Millennium City! Players who can save all 13 Undead Heroes will unlock the Celestial power set two weeks before anyone else!
* BITE! Players will have the chance to join the Wolf Hunters and rid the land of the abominable Werewolves. However, falling to one of the beasts will force you to rise under the curse and become one yourself.
* Rise of Takofanes! The Undying Lord has risen, and is appearing throughout Millennium City. Those who are strong enough to defeat his retinue will receive unique perks and rewards only available during the Blood Moon event.
* Zombie Apocalypse! A brand new PvP map is here to stay! Survive as long as you can as endless waves of zombies approach, but beware, because those defeated will rise as a zombie and become the enemy.

Other content has been trickling in since launch and there will be another event orientated patch around Christmas.  The major content patch is being scheduled for early 2010, while the trickle feeding continues.

Originally posted by feste

I went with the 6 month subscription, and can't even play anymore as I suddenly started rubber-banding non-stop and no one at Cryptic seems very concerned.

 

Guess I learned my lesson about going greater than month to month. There's absolutely nothing I can do, even though the game is currently unplayable for me.

 

Lol thats what i had after 10 minutes of gameplay.

Logging out did not work neither.

Got the game working again by picking up a desk and walking with it :)

I wonder if there were people in Tabula Rasa screaming all the while that no one could prove that the game was dying?

I was thinking bout resubbing for the crossover missions but it sounds like its pretty low xp. Was hoping you could share quests like you could in city of heroes but alas, Cryptic decided to get cheap with the xp. Granted, its easy as hell to level in Champs so i can see why they wanna slow it down. My Electric was just mowing down mobs & it was a fun set to play. But on the flip like I keep saying my Claws + Lightning reflex was a pain to level.

There are still people complaining bout content gaps bigtime which is a little scary. But less scary if you pvp (xp is kinda decent if you dont mind getting pwned by exploited builds here and there)

At least some good news is that some of the pvpers like the new Zombie Apoc.

Still tempted to return but really put off they fubared the crossover mission rewards. Was hoping they'd approach PVE like in CoH and award great xp to everyone that helps but nope.... kinda stupid if you ask me.

Sigh.... Really frustrating they have a game with so much potential it just needed a competent lead designer / management to polish the rough edges.

I don't see this'potential being realised, the problems with CO are pretty unique in that they don't seem to arise from the usual mmo vices like compromises forced by time/money or technological limitations, its actually the core creative concept that is at fault which has the consequence of a total lack of variety in the game engine. The requirement is for a vast input of imagination and ingenuity to compensate for the superficial and pedestrain approach to every other aspect outside the avatar creator.

Originally posted by PatchDay

I was thinking bout resubbing for the crossover missions but it sounds like its pretty low xp. Was hoping you could share quests like you could in city of heroes but alas, Cryptic decided to get cheap with the xp. Granted, its easy as hell to level in Champs so i can see why they wanna slow it down. My Electric was just mowing down mobs & it was a fun set to play. But on the flip like I keep saying my Claws + Lightning reflex was a pain to level.

There are still people complaining bout content gaps bigtime which is a little scary. But less scary if you pvp (xp is kinda decent if you dont mind getting pwned by exploited builds here and there)

At least some good news is that some of the pvpers like the new Zombie Apoc.

 

Still tempted to return but really put off they fubared the crossover mission rewards. Was hoping they'd approach PVE like in CoH and award great xp to everyone that helps but nope.... kinda stupid if you ask me.

 

Sigh.... Really frustrating they have a game with so much potential it just needed a competent lead designer / management to polish the rough edges.

As always, some are not happy with the amount of Xp you get from sharing, my friends and I never had a problem with leveling. 

As for your second link (not sure if it's a mistake or you just want to spread lies) atleast look at the date of the thread when you share a link, 1st post August 31 and last page September 14 which is a month and a half old and the last post is yesterday about a guy who says he's 29 and still didn't go to Monster Island which is good, you should get there at lvl 30.

Originally posted by ghost047

Originally posted by PatchDay

I was thinking bout resubbing for the crossover missions but it sounds like its pretty low xp. Was hoping you could share quests like you could in city of heroes but alas, Cryptic decided to get cheap with the xp. Granted, its easy as hell to level in Champs so i can see why they wanna slow it down. My Electric was just mowing down mobs & it was a fun set to play. But on the flip like I keep saying my Claws + Lightning reflex was a pain to level.

There are still people complaining bout content gaps bigtime which is a little scary. But less scary if you pvp (xp is kinda decent if you dont mind getting pwned by exploited builds here and there)

At least some good news is that some of the pvpers like the new Zombie Apoc.

 

Still tempted to return but really put off they fubared the crossover mission rewards. Was hoping they'd approach PVE like in CoH and award great xp to everyone that helps but nope.... kinda stupid if you ask me.

 

Sigh.... Really frustrating they have a game with so much potential it just needed a competent lead designer / management to polish the rough edges.

As always, some are not happy with the amount of Xp you get from sharing, my friends and I never had a problem with leveling. 

As for your second link (not sure if it's a mistake or you just want to spread lies) atleast look at the date of the thread when you share a link, 1st post August 31 and last page September 14 which is a month and a half old and the last post is yesterday about a guy who says he's 29 and still didn't go to Monster Island which is good, you should get there at lvl 30.

Why would I want to spread lies? I care not if people want to play the game or not. That is true it appears someone bumped a thread that is a *whole month old* but if you search the rest of the forums you can still see complaints about severe lack of content. But granted, as long as you dont mean farming the repeatable slay 150 mobs quests over and over you can probably do fine.

Originally posted by razcalking

I wonder if there were people in Tabula Rasa screaming all the while that no one could prove that the game was dying?

I was in cb of TR.

Later after getting bored (again) with CoV i bought the game with a time card.

After installing it i found out that the game was F2P now and was ending the next month.

After emailing nc about it i got somthing like "To bad asshole thanx for spending 39 euro's on a now FREE game that has ended"

Doh.. last time i ever played an NC game....

Originally posted by breadm1x

Originally posted by razcalking

I wonder if there were people in Tabula Rasa screaming all the while that no one could prove that the game was dying?

 

I was in cb of TR.

Later after getting bored (again) with CoV i bought the game with a time card.

After installing it i found out that the game was F2P now and was ending the next month.

After emailing nc about it i got somthing like "To bad asshole thanx for spending 39 euro's on a now FREE game that has ended"

Doh.. last time i ever played an NC game....

 

What's funny is, all the Best Buy in my area still sell Tabula Rasa and Matrix Online.

Originally posted by PatchDay

Originally posted by ghost047

Originally posted by PatchDay

I was thinking bout resubbing for the crossover missions but it sounds like its pretty low xp. Was hoping you could share quests like you could in city of heroes but alas, Cryptic decided to get cheap with the xp. Granted, its easy as hell to level in Champs so i can see why they wanna slow it down. My Electric was just mowing down mobs & it was a fun set to play. But on the flip like I keep saying my Claws + Lightning reflex was a pain to level.

There are still people complaining bout content gaps bigtime which is a little scary. But less scary if you pvp (xp is kinda decent if you dont mind getting pwned by exploited builds here and there)

At least some good news is that some of the pvpers like the new Zombie Apoc.

 

Still tempted to return but really put off they fubared the crossover mission rewards. Was hoping they'd approach PVE like in CoH and award great xp to everyone that helps but nope.... kinda stupid if you ask me.

 

Sigh.... Really frustrating they have a game with so much potential it just needed a competent lead designer / management to polish the rough edges.

As always, some are not happy with the amount of Xp you get from sharing, my friends and I never had a problem with leveling. 

As for your second link (not sure if it's a mistake or you just want to spread lies) atleast look at the date of the thread when you share a link, 1st post August 31 and last page September 14 which is a month and a half old and the last post is yesterday about a guy who says he's 29 and still didn't go to Monster Island which is good, you should get there at lvl 30.

 

Why would I want to spread lies? I care not if people want to play the game or not. That is true it appears someone bumped a thread that is a *whole month old* but if you search the rest of the forums you can still see complaints about severe lack of content. But granted, as long as you dont mean farming the repeatable slay 150 mobs quests over and over you can probably do fine.

 

You do not need to farm anything to get to max. level and that includes repeatable missions.  You are still confusing lack of PvE content diversity with gaps.

I just resubbed cause I wanted to level up my main a little closer to cap now that they've added a bit more content. I like the zombie apoc scenario its been a lot of fun so far. Initially I thought it was juts gonna be deathmatch you know like the UTC cage arena and BASH. But really, zombie apoc seems to have a lot of forethought and the design of it is not bad.

I'm gonna give it 2 thumbs up.

The XP can be fairly good if your team lasts long etc as well.

And I'm surprised my Electric has been left untouched so far. I guess Cryptic management must've finally put down the hammer and told the balance team to just stop nerfing the crap out of everyone and take their time. Even though somethings are still overpowered, it still makes the game fun for the time being if you follow.

The pve missions still feel vary bland like most any other MMO.

But unfortunately I still gotta ding them when it comes to grouping. If crossover woulda granted 100% XP I believe you'd see ppl group more.

I probably will just try to maxout my main or get it fairly close to the cap and might still take a break.

I must say though if they were to add just bit more objective based pvp maps for 1-30 I think they can retain more subs. And take their time with the nerfs like they are. Just maybe this game can improve more and more.

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I am concerned bout the population though. For instance in ZA (zombie apoc) I just see the same faces over and over. It appears there is only 1 ZA map running for 20-30 group (one of my characters is L27).

The zones also seem less now. But I'm not playing at prime times or on the weekend yet. So maybe the pop is relatively the same for all I know.

but for a 1 server setup I'd expect to see a lot more pvp/pve scenarios like ZA running.

Ouch really sad looking numbers on xfire.  Looks like it is destine to fall below city of heros in ranking in a couple of days or if you add city of heros and city of villians I guess CO has already dropped below...

For anyone playing the game how many people are still playing say in the desert zone?  100?  200?

Originally posted by ethion

Ouch really sad looking numbers on xfire.  Looks like it is destine to fall below city of heros in ranking in a couple of days or if you add city of heros and city of villians I guess CO has already dropped below...

For anyone playing the game how many people are still playing say in the desert zone?  100?  200?

that may well be because week end play is buged alota times from some or a few or all depending on the threads you read.servers can be down an theirs fan bois that claim they can log in an play./shrug atm their haveing a no shard found problem this week end an acording to this thread forums.champions-online.com/showthread.php their haveing to fix it one acount at a time!

tho if you read the thread some had this done an then found they had same problem again.i feel sorry for roper,the co players atm . an almost feel sorry for cryptic.but the down time they have weekly an weekends would afect co x fire numbers .

I still have the box unopened on my desk.

The longer i leave it, the more likely I am to get a 3 weeks gameplay out of it.

I'm an old hand with Crytic. I know the score. Play the default month that comes with the box and then move on with good memories.

I put zero stock in Xfire personally, to me it smacks too much of being told in High School what I should like by the Cheerleaders...and IMHO, whoever allows their opinion to be manipulated in that fashion is their own worst enemy.  That said;

It is a crying shame what CO turned out to be.  I had hopes for it initially, but as I saw what it was developing into, I had a sinking suspicioun that Cryptic would drop the ball and do the usual thing that the vast majority of MMOs are guilty of, rushed release date, and treadmill play.  Yet, I was willing to give it a chance, I bought the game, and played for about a week before uninstalling it, I didn't need to reach level 40 to see what was in store for me, and as proponents of "give a game a chance" are likely to accuse me of a short attention span, let me just say that after having played enough of these linear MMOs, you don't have to expose yourself to the grind to recognize it for what it is.

Now if you enjoy the game, fine, enjoy it.  Nothing wrong with that, I'm not going to look down my nose at you or label you as anything inferior to me for your tastes.  I however, will not fund their coffers with my $$s for more of what I have already expierenced in over a dozen other games.  I am not very tolerant of buggy launches or lack of content, there was a time when the market was slim and we were forced to endure that, these days, the market isn't that lean and we have choices.  The fact that most studies think they can get away with that business model is offensive, and for that you should indeed be offended and demand more than what you're getting.

The other thing that I find appalling and have grown extremely weary of, is the omnipresent treadmill design.  MMOs have not evolved very much since the days of EQ, and I don't know if that says something sad about the Devs or the population that supports the treadmill design in which you chase levels then gear in a static envoirnment.  Obviously, I favor sandbox design, and it can be done if studios step away from the lure of fast cash and knuckle down to do something worth while.

Originally posted by ethion

Ouch really sad looking numbers on xfire.  Looks like it is destine to fall below city of heros in ranking in a couple of days or if you add city of heros and city of villians I guess CO has already dropped below...

For anyone playing the game how many people are still playing say in the desert zone?  100?  200?

ING VID SCR City of Heroes 753 #152 Cryptic Studios NCsoft
ING VID SCR Champions Online 732 #153 Cryptic Studios Atari

Originally posted by Gweyr

Originally posted by ethion

Ouch really sad looking numbers on xfire.  Looks like it is destine to fall below city of heros in ranking in a couple of days or if you add city of heros and city of villians I guess CO has already dropped below...

For anyone playing the game how many people are still playing say in the desert zone?  100?  200?

 

ING VID SCR City of Heroes 753 #152 Cryptic Studios NCsoft
ING VID SCR Champions Online 732 #153 Cryptic Studios Atari

Looks like CO has held its position and COX has dropped some.  Is this game getting better?  Have they added anything since blood moon?

Champions Online 776 #148 Cryptic Studios Atari

City of Heroes 636 #165 Cryptic Studios NCsoft
City of Villains 88 #406 Cryptic Studios NCsoft

^{I have been playing the game since beta.  I am not a typical mmo player and this is not typical mmo.  I would say numbers have stayed pretty steady after they settled down after free month trial or went to Aion.  I also did Aion since beta, own it and havn't played more than an hour since CO went retail.  Played coh/v too,  TR, MCO (motor city online), Planetside I was disapointed but Only because they hyped is completely different and changed the last year prior release.  But CO is Pure Fun for me.  No bows and arrows, riding camels or mutant rhinosisouris around.  Just big Blasting Power blowing mobs over buildings.  Uh, sorry I exagerated a little :).  But I swear last time I played I thought about an add on annimation pulling a tape measure the lenth of terrain you blew or threw the mob.  Was hitting a group on sidewalk sending them accross 4 lanes almost onto the roof accross highway.   It is not the usual mmo and playing them since they evolved from text (zork, etc.).   Give me a modern arsenal full of rocket launchers, chainguns, atomic arrows (I lied there are bows and arrows in CO) or some mega blasting eye poping powers over a whack a mole mallet, club any day of the week.  I cant wait till APB releases.  Sounds like it has all the above and just plain ass nasty to boot.   K, gonna see if CO servers are back up.  It is a good game,  Really,  I wish it sucked, then maybe I would have a life again.  Well it does keep me off the streets so everyone else in town is happy.   I will never forget when Carmegeddon was out.  Neither will the neighborhood I played it in.  That would be the ultimate mmo if you think about it.  Not like auto assault but the adult version.}