Those are excellent news guys. Thnx for the replies.

Maybe this has already been answered, but if there is only one server how are they going to control overpopulation

Originally posted by Milky

Maybe this has already been answered, but if there is only one server how are they going to control overpopulation

instancing as mentioned a few times.

Example: if theres more than 'x' people in zone 'y' then a new version of zone 'y' is created for additional players entering zone 'y'. I cannot give you exact numbers without breaking forum rules of conduct.

Originally posted by AIAG

Originally posted by Milky

Maybe this has already been answered, but if there is only one server how are they going to control overpopulation

instancing as mentioned a few times.

Example: if theres more than 'x' people in zone 'y' then a new version of zone 'y' is created for additional players entering zone 'y'. I cannot give you exact numbers without breaking forum rules of conduct.

You can't give exact numbers without breaking forum rules of conduct?

The only thing that would prevent anyone from commenting on this would be the NDA. But you've been here asking questions about the CO as if you don't know anything about it....

I think he means it's against the forum rules here to violate a NDA for any game, perhaps?

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by AIAG

Originally posted by Milky

Maybe this has already been answered, but if there is only one server how are they going to control overpopulation

instancing as mentioned a few times.

Example: if theres more than 'x' people in zone 'y' then a new version of zone 'y' is created for additional players entering zone 'y'. I cannot give you exact numbers without breaking forum rules of conduct.

You can't give exact numbers without breaking forum rules of conduct?

The only thing that would prevent anyone from commenting on this would be the NDA. But you've been here asking questions about the CO as if you don't know anything about it....

 

I only asked one question on this forum, nearly all my other posts are either linking official press releases or answering without specifics.
Anyway You could easily find the numbers of the cap of specific zones if you really want to, but they will probably be changing especially with the OB test probably having an effect on it.

About rules of conduct in regards to NDA.
NDAs
* MMORPG.com does not permit users to post information on games still under an NDA. For more information about your specific game's NDA, please visit their official website.

Basically the zone caps have not been officially released yet, so mentioning them is releasing information that is still under CO NDA.

Why not keep the old and add a bunch more to it? WOuldn't it be a little wastful to just dump all the old costumes? It's Not like they're keeping the old and adding 5 more jackets, this seems pretty huge. I for one, enjoyed my heroes and villains from CoH/CoV and it will be really cool to create them again.

Originally posted by zaylin

Only thing kinda bugging me atm is the fact that I have seen a lot of CoH/CoV costume options reused in CO. why not dump them and make all new ones{shrugs}.

Why not keep the old and add a bunch more to it? WOuldn't it be a little wastful to just dump all the old costumes? It's Not like they're keeping the old and adding 5 more jackets, this seems pretty huge. I for one, enjoyed my heroes and villains from CoH/CoV and it will be really cool to create them again.

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by Yamota

If there will be only one server then that means two things. Either the world will be HUGE (think current size of WoW times ten) or it will be HEAVILY instanced.

Seeings as CoH was heavily instanced I think it will be the second one. Anyone know for sure?

If too many players are in a particular zone, then a second instance of the entire zone is created - which is what happens in CoH.

so they have that mirrored instancing of zones like Age of Conan does ? very lame

guess cryptic doesnt pay attention to other mmo's that fail. mirrored instancing of zones was one of the chief complaints about AoC.

People want to play massive mo's not multiplayer games

Originally posted by admriker4

so they have that mirrored instancing of zones like Age of Conan does ? very lame

guess cryptic doesnt pay attention to other mmo's that fail. mirrored instancing of zones was one of the chief complaints about AoC.

People want to play massive mo's not multiplayer games

There are advantages to a setup like this, though.

Eg., look at City of Heroes. They have 8-10 servers, but only 2 of them have reasonable levels of activity on them these days. If you have characters on one of the other servers, you're kind of doomed to spend a lot of time solo'ing. And because most players know which are the two most populated servers, this is where most new characters are created.

The advantage of a single server with mirrored instancing is that no-one ever needs to worry about things like this, and it's also one big community. You'll never be in a situation where you eg. find a friend has started playing but they're on a different server, etc. etc.

Obviously a single server without instances would be better, but I'd rather mirrored instancing than lots of separate servers.

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by admriker4

so they have that mirrored instancing of zones like Age of Conan does ? very lame

guess cryptic doesnt pay attention to other mmo's that fail. mirrored instancing of zones was one of the chief complaints about AoC.

People want to play massive mo's not multiplayer games

There are advantages to a setup like this, though.

Eg., look at City of Heroes. They have 8-10 servers, but only 2 of them have reasonable levels of activity on them these days. If you have characters on one of the other servers, you're kind of doomed to spend a lot of time solo'ing. And because most players know which are the two most populated servers, this is where most new characters are created.

The advantage of a single server with mirrored instancing is that no-one ever needs to worry about things like this, and it's also one big community. You'll never be in a situation where you eg. find a friend has started playing but they're on a different server, etc. etc.

Obviously a single server without instances would be better, but I'd rather mirrored instancing than lots of separate servers.

i understand the advantages. However those advantages wont matter when nobody plays because they hate mirrored instancing.

I remember in AoC when word went around the chat channels in-game that we all werent in the same zone instance. Players were very upset and it was hotly debated on forums. It certainly led to many cancelled accounts.

So it might be a cheap way for a developer to allow larger populations on a cheap server but many players wont stand for it. If Eve can have 30,000 players on a single server with no mirrored instancing then we know its certainly possible.

Frankly Im tired of settling for MMO's missing features I want. And now they want me to play a multiplayer game with a monthly fee and rmt ? when did it become okay to offer less and charge more ?

When there's a cluster of players in an area in Eve Online, even there has been complaint of severe lag. And the world of Eve Online is huge and assumingly non-linear.

In games where there will be expected clustering of players in an area, this is clearly not possible. For a server, if there's n players in an area, then that requires n*(n-1) information being transferred, because each of the n players needs information from each of the other players. This puts severe stress on the network.

The problem these days is that players don't understand technology or the inner-workings. The demand for something like this is just not practical...

Originally posted by LackeyZero

When there's a cluster of players in an area in Eve Online, even there has been complaint of severe lag. And the world of Eve Online is huge and assumingly non-linear.

In games where there will be expected clustering of players in an area, this is clearly not possible. For a server, if there's n players in an area, then that requires n*(n-1) information being transferred, because each of the n players needs information from each of the other players. This puts severe stress on the network.

The problem these days is that players don't understand technology or the inner-workings. The demand for something like this is just not practical...

Amen, I wish everyone would understand this!

I don't even understand why so many care that this is being implemented?  What, you wanna see all 5,000 people in your zone?  I wouldn't...then I'd know it will be a very long day of waiting for respawns.  Another reason I appreciate 1 server with several instances at a cheaper cost, is because it allows the devs to put a full effort into the game rather being low on resources and constrained by budgets...this gives them some more "wiggle room".  The RMT is an idea I whole-heartedly support.  Let the dopes that are dumb enough to spend money on gear that drops in game feed Cryptic some more money to use towards enhancing my gaming experience....my hats are off to you :)

Originally posted by Somnulus

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by neorandom

 well in city of x games i never felt 1 bit super, even fighting level 2 cops with 9mm pistols i felt weak as a super villain who was supposed to have super stength and be nearly invulnerable.  i expected a feel of when everyones super, no one is in the pvp, or boss fights vs other super beings, i would have liked to at least feel super when fighting ordinary enemies, just make me fight hundreds of them at a time and it would feel epic =p.  maybe champs or the dc heroe game will do it right?

That feeling of super-ness definitely existed in CoH at launch.

But it's been whittled away by years of nerfing powers that started with the introduction of pvp.

Once upon a time, tanks - certain builds anyway - could pull ridiculous numbers of mobs and blasters could swoop in and aoe them. It was quite a thrill as a very squishy little blaster or controller to dive into a seething mass of mobs and fire off aoe blasts or holds - knowing that if even a tiny fraction of those mobs turned their attention away from the tank, you'd be dead before you could blink.

They nerfed that to slow down xp farming - but in the process they also killed a fair whack of the game's fun factor.

 

QFT... played CoH from beta, quit after I4 (I think) when they started the first round of idiotic nerfs (like subduing travel powers when in combat, and the dreaded BS that was Enhancement Diversification (ED). Came back briefly, but the game mechanics were unrecognizable. Slow and boring.

At release, you felt super. You could take down insane numbers of mobs.  It was great.

Too bad Jack Emmert screwed it all up by forcing the nerfs down everyone's throats.

It's funny, because despite what Emmert did to CoH, I was actually considering trying Champions. However, with the recent announcement of the combination sub / cash shop, forget it.

When I pay a sub, I get it all, up front. If I'm playing for free, I'm willing to pay for the extras when I choose.

Not both.

Pity. I wish I could say good luck to them with this payment model, just in the interest of not seeing yet another MMORPG go down in flames.

However, to be perfectly honest, I would like to see Champions crash and burn as an example to other developers. If sub / cash shop becomes the wave of the future for MMORPGs, I will stop playing them altogether.

 

 

Quoted for the Nontruth.

Played CoH since Beta, been on the boards since Rhyno and Macarthur was on.  The nerfed what needed to be done.  One of the biggest complaints was due to people feeling useless.  ED was probable the best thing they could of done.  At release certain characters felt SUPER.  Most characters felt useless.  I know so many people DIDN"T quit because of ED.  Yes some stupid people couldn't get it through there heads and quit.  20k to be exact.  Easily in the long run it saved the game.

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Originally posted by admriker4

Originally posted by green13

Originally posted by admriker4

so they have that mirrored instancing of zones like Age of Conan does ? very lame

guess cryptic doesnt pay attention to other mmo's that fail. mirrored instancing of zones was one of the chief complaints about AoC.

People want to play massive mo's not multiplayer games

There are advantages to a setup like this, though.

Eg., look at City of Heroes. They have 8-10 servers, but only 2 of them have reasonable levels of activity on them these days. If you have characters on one of the other servers, you're kind of doomed to spend a lot of time solo'ing. And because most players know which are the two most populated servers, this is where most new characters are created.

The advantage of a single server with mirrored instancing is that no-one ever needs to worry about things like this, and it's also one big community. You'll never be in a situation where you eg. find a friend has started playing but they're on a different server, etc. etc.

Obviously a single server without instances would be better, but I'd rather mirrored instancing than lots of separate servers.

 

i understand the advantages. However those advantages wont matter when nobody plays because they hate mirrored instancing.

I remember in AoC when word went around the chat channels in-game that we all werent in the same zone instance. Players were very upset and it was hotly debated on forums. It certainly led to many cancelled accounts.

So it might be a cheap way for a developer to allow larger populations on a cheap server but many players wont stand for it. If Eve can have 30,000 players on a single server with no mirrored instancing then we know its certainly possible.

Frankly Im tired of settling for MMO's missing features I want. And now they want me to play a multiplayer game with a monthly fee and rmt ? when did it become okay to offer less and charge more ?

The biggest difference is AOC didn't Tell anyone about this feature and there were Multiple Servers to choose from thus Further spreading the population apart.  Also AOC had alot of techincal issues due to a crappy yet pretty engine thus causing the limitation (like Everquest 2).    Their need for zone instances was purely due to bad design.  Their games shouldn't of needed zone instanting if their engines weren't terrible. 

Champions atleast is due to wanting to put everyone on 1 server thus limiting player overly spreading out.

Champions Online zone instancing is not being hidden and they're only putting up 1 Server for everyone, that could seriously help keep players from overly spreading out.  Its not an infinite amount of space like an outer space game such as EvE some sort of control to limit lag is going to be needed.  They had a choice choose hundreds of servers or 1 server with server controlled Zone Instances.  Personally I prefer the zone instances since I wont have to change servers dozens of times to find one that has people in it and thus recreate my character over and over again and  I'll always know how and where to find my friends. 

I can understand for those that like 'perfect' immersion but for me the immersion breaks are fine it reminds me to go the restroom, feed my cat, or feed myself while everyone gathers and zones.   Honestly it makes little sense to have thousands of heros in one portion of the city and its far more immersion breaking then going to City Instance 2 to meet up with my friends.  Hopefully they have a better implimentation of zone instance control then EQ2 or AoC where you could end up in an instance basically alone.

Originally posted by admriker4

i understand the advantages. However those advantages wont matter when nobody plays because they hate mirrored instancing.

I remember in AoC when word went around the chat channels in-game that we all werent in the same zone instance. Players were very upset and it was hotly debated on forums. It certainly led to many cancelled accounts.

So it might be a cheap way for a developer to allow larger populations on a cheap server but many players wont stand for it. If Eve can have 30,000 players on a single server with no mirrored instancing then we know its certainly possible.

Frankly Im tired of settling for MMO's missing features I want. And now they want me to play a multiplayer game with a monthly fee and rmt ? when did it become okay to offer less and charge more ?

I can appreciate your point. To be honest the only game I've played that had mirrored instancing was guild wars (not really an mmo) and I didn't like it, but at least when I played it there were lots of players in each instance, so the game world still felt 'full'.

There was some an in development a few years ago - which sadly seems to have dropped off the market - which claimed it was developing dynamic server resource allocation software that would theoretically allow for an entirely uninstanced game where all players could gather in the same location without any slow down in performance. It was supposed to track player locations and re-allocate server resources accordingly - i.e. it would literally turn off empty areas of the game and re-assign those resources to more crowded ones. It was a sci-fi title and the only other thing that I can remember about it was they were going to offer some very unusual classes - including allowing players to play an energy being that could possess mobs and hack computers in-game.

And yes, CO has those sparkly little microtransactions.... and who knows what other surprises may be in store?

Originally posted by Manchine

Originally posted by Somnulus

QFT... played CoH from beta, quit after I4 (I think) when they started the first round of idiotic nerfs (like subduing travel powers when in combat, and the dreaded BS that was Enhancement Diversification (ED). Came back briefly, but the game mechanics were unrecognizable. Slow and boring.

At release, you felt super. You could take down insane numbers of mobs.  It was great.

Too bad Jack Emmert screwed it all up by forcing the nerfs down everyone's throats.

It's funny, because despite what Emmert did to CoH, I was actually considering trying Champions. However, with the recent announcement of the combination sub / cash shop, forget it.

When I pay a sub, I get it all, up front. If I'm playing for free, I'm willing to pay for the extras when I choose.

Not both.

Pity. I wish I could say good luck to them with this payment model, just in the interest of not seeing yet another MMORPG go down in flames.

However, to be perfectly honest, I would like to see Champions crash and burn as an example to other developers. If sub / cash shop becomes the wave of the future for MMORPGs, I will stop playing them altogether.

Quoted for the Nontruth.

Played CoH since Beta, been on the boards since Rhyno and Macarthur was on.  The nerfed what needed to be done.  One of the biggest complaints was due to people feeling useless.  ED was probable the best thing they could of done.  At release certain characters felt SUPER.  Most characters felt useless.  I know so many people DIDN"T quit because of ED.  Yes some stupid people couldn't get it through there heads and quit.  20k to be exact.  Easily in the long run it saved the game.

Only 20k you say, like that's a small thing...

It was an exodus (chart) that they took a long time to recover from.

I don't know anyone who felt "useless" pre ED other than some toons with 'defence' based defences. So I don't know how you can say "most characters felt useless". Everyone in my SG loved CoH until ED - and then a near unanimous decision was made to up and leave after it. I stayed on a little bit longer but... ED really robbed fun factor.

The actual nerf part of I4 (making characters weaker) was stupid and they paid for it - and even now the game is less fun than it used to be. Once upon a time I'd happily go up against +4 or 5 con groups including bosses with a decent chance of winning - but one little mistake or bit of bad luck and I'd be dead. There was more risk and excitement than there is now, and that was fun.

The encouraging players to slot enhancements in more powers (i.e. enhancement diversification) was the good part of I4, not the nerfing.

Age of Conan was about land control, clan structure building, immersion and warfare. Persistent strategy. No wonder the layers sucked.

Guildwars was just basically empty everywhere except the hubs so that sucked.

I don't think Champions will be comparable. I think it'll be like playing a light hearted action game on a "server" and when that "server" becomes too empty or has the wrong crowd, I can cross over to another "server" and it will be a good thing.

Unless I see something much more on actual depth and game content.. I will be passing on this title. Every interview/review i see of this game talks at length about setting up how your character looks, and how their powers will look.. and then... what?

I see no depth in this game, no reason to log in and play at length, or often. Comparing this to current MMO's, this game appears (so far, and I'd love to be proved wrong) to be a 2/10 on the depth scale.. whereas Eve/WoW/EQ are hovering around an 8+.

To me, this game looks like CoX redux, slightly better look, more character options/more power options..and that's it.

Someone make me feel better about this game, because all the previews I see now from gamers I trust tell me to steer clear, this game is devoid of content.