Slashdot Log In
City of Heroes Purchased By NCsoft
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Nov 07, 2007 11:15 AM
from the wait-wait-no-need-to-fly-off dept.
from the wait-wait-no-need-to-fly-off dept.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun comments on the big news from late last night: NCsoft has announced that it has purchased City of Heroes/Villains from Cryptic Studios, the Massive game's original developer. Everyone on the team has been offered a new position with the newly formed NCsoft NorCal studio, and many of them have accepted. As far as the players are concerned, NCsoft only intends for them to see freebies as a result of this deal: "Now back to you, the players. You are the lifeblood of our game. In celebration of our new studio and our exciting plans, and in order to thank you for the fantastic community that you have built, we are pleased to announce the following: All players with City of Heroes retail accounts will now have access to City of Villains, and all City of Villains retail accounts will now have access to City of Heroes. Players that didn't previously have access to "the other side" will find that they do now. Just log in to check it out! After the launch of Issue 11: A Stitch in Time this Fall, we are removing Debt from all characters and giving you a fresh start ... Also after the launch of Issue 11, all Supergroups will receive an additional 20,000 Prestige per Supergroup member."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Huh, what do ya know (Score:2)
I've had a CoV account a while back and stopped playing... I may have to start again if all this is more than a rumor.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, it's the same game (Score:2)
The only difference between COH, COV or both, was your account. If the account says you only paid for COV, then their server will only let you play on the COV side. But, again, you already had both.
And yeah, "both" were published by NCS
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
However, they're officially merging the two games into one soon, according to this announcement: http://www.cityofheroes.com/press/a_new_age.html [cityofheroes.com]. Then there's the expansions and sequels referred to in this announcement: http://www.plaync.com/us/news/2007/11/ncsoft_announce_23.html [plaync.com]
Both were written by Cryptic and published by NCSoft, and IP was owned 5
No Free Lunch (Score:2)
Maybe it's not the same, but in the games I play online, I hate to see this kind of virtual pandering.
Re:No Free Lunch (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, and there's a debt penalty cap, so there's a limit to how much benefit could be realized (per character) from this relief.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
So there isn't much abuse possible, it's more a "wipe the slate clean" dea
Interesting (Score:2)
Still, not sure how that would really help anyone. Bad players will likely still be bad players.
Debt was already capped (Score:3, Informative)
And running an xp debt on purpose is a bad idea anyway.
1. It means running up a lot of death, which means a lot of running back to your corpse instead of doing quests and killing NPCs. Plus, it's demoralizing for most people. It's associated with a failure, no matter how minor.
2. Until NCSoft forgives it, you'll get half xp, as the other half goes to paying
Re:Debt was already capped (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see some people running up debt on their idle 50's, in order to get a sliver further into the various XP debt badges, but overall this seems to be nothing more than a nice (if kind of empty) gesture.
I'm definitely turning 'ignore Supergroup invites' on for my unaffiliated characters, though. Random pubbie invites were common enough before; the prospect of signing bonuses is going to whip them into a frenzy.
Parent
Yes, yes, you get the idea (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So now look at the GGP post or so, claiming that people will abuse that debt forgiving. What's the worst that can happen there? That a couple of frus
Te debt badges don't work that way (Score:2)
Heh. The debt badges don't work that way. They don't count debt incurred, they count debt repaid. So if you were after that badge, heh, being fo
Free Lunch (that was part of the plan) (Score:2)
On the official forums, the moderators have stated that they're going to tell exactly when the debt eradication will happen, as in a time and date. They have explicitly said that one of the purposes of doing so is specifically so day/night/whatever before, people can do something they're not really used to being able to do because it's a PITA to work off the debt: go out and go nuts.
Want to take on the hardest über-mission that people normally don't work on because they know that they'll spend the n
Re: (Score:2)
It's strange behavior, but then it's an unusual game that caters to people who like thinking outside the kryptonite box.
Re: (Score:2)
"and many of them have accepted" (Score:2, Informative)
As an avid player... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not even mentioning that the majority of the dev team will remain the same, and it's only an ownership change.
That's in the past. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's right -- Statesman no longer worked with City of Heroes/Villains, and he was no longer driving the game toward the Lineage PvP template that he admired so much.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't play my old characters anymore, because of how they were affected by the nerfs. I made new characters, who feel very powerful under the new rules. I think they've made a lot of progress and improvements on the game, but you're right that for some people, some actions in the past will never be forgotten nor forgiv
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Unlike WoW, the only real 'drops' in CoX are enhancements - tokens that you can drop into the six slots that can be created (one at a time, at level-up time) in every power in order to improve its effectiveness. Enhancements do things like boost attack damage and accuracy, increase the rate at which powers recharge, reduce the am
You're forgetting something (Score:3, Informative)
Perma-hasten wasn't an exploit. It was the officially allowed possibility, with Cryptic's blessing.
As the game was launched, you could make Hasten permanent with IIRC 2 SOs. Or maybe 3? I can't really remember. At any rate, you could not only make it "perma", you could have it stack with itself most the time.
Statesman seemed to be genui
ah, citation needed stupidity (Score:2)
In a nutshell, the game already been nerfed twice in a row, especially the tanks and a smaller nerf to regen. (Regens had been nerfed in each patch since I1, so we were already used to that.)
And by "nerf" I don't mean the small tweaks you see on WoW. CoH under Statesman had never discovered fine tweaks. The COH kind of balance tweaks were the kind where one class went from God Mode to nobody, and another class was buffed into being God Mode.
I'm mildly curious at the motivation (Score:2)
I met & interviewed Jack Emmert at E3 the year before CoH released - if there's anyone who was developing a game as a labor of love, it was him. He was almost a caricature of the Simpsons' comic book guy, but it was in a charming way because he was so genuine. I agree with his characterization of comic books as 'modern day mythology' and while I can't quite yet personally consider them quite 'literature', there are some fantastic
Re: (Score:2)
From this deal, Cryptic gets cash and the ability to do MUO with no conflict of interest. Win-win.
NCSoft gets a very loyal playerbase, a larger share of the CoX revenue stream, and a critically acclaimed game franchise. Win-win.
The players get to keep the same devs,
Re: (Score:2)
Best Designed Game Evah! (Score:2)
Sure, its a niche market, its not for everyone, and its got a narrow focus. I admit its limits. But in my opinion no other MMORPG out there (past or present) can hold a candle to
I'm surprised anyone cares anymore. (Score:2)
Because we no longer felt heroic. We had run every taskforce (Including the first from that portal realm - 11 HOUR MARATHON), done everything - we knew the game, constantly created new characters
The characters we had planned out
Re: (Score:2)
Heroes are meant to be challenged, not unassailable gods with perfect morals.
Re: (Score:2)
Bzzt, wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Superman, for example, started with no vulnerability whatsoever. The whole "kryptonite" thing was invented as a tongue-in-cheek explanation when they had to skip an episode or two for the radio version later, for example because the actor was on vacation. And even there it wasn't actually used _in_ any story line. Superman didn't have to battle anyone wielding kryptonite at that point.
Mind you, if you're going to say that that's not (necessarily) much fun in a game, we can even aggree quickly.
But that's a limitation of video games, not a limitation of super-heroes. Literary or comic book characters can be as god-like as the author wants, and still be fun and popular.
Heck, you don't even have to look only at superhero comics. Take Terry Prattchett's Diskworld books, for example. Cohen the barbarian is, for example, so good at dodging that in Interesting Times he even dodges a cannonball from a gun that got teleported right in front of him and fired. Rincewind is comically incompetent except he always ends up on top, even if by sheer luck and without fully realizing what he's done. The witches are just short of god-like in their own right, and can pretty much get what they want even from Death himself. Wossname the monk learned from yetis how to "save and reload" IRL, so he just comes back after being beheaded. Etc, etc, etc. Almost every single major character in those books has some kind of super-power that makes him completely invincible and unstoppable, even by the whole freakin' army of China (or the DW equivalent of it.)
Does that make the books any less fun to read? Nope.
Think action movies. Rambo can stand tall with a machinegun in front of a whole tank division, or get in a pissing... err... shooting contest with a gunship and come out on top. Jedi in SW movies are just about gods that can only kill each other. But they're way out of the league of mortal soldiers or drones, even when those are in brigade-sized formations and with AT-AT and air support. Etc.
And you know what? I dare say that that's actually good character design. People want to be told a nice story where the hero overcomes everything, and everything ends with a happy ending.
Not many people want to be told a tale where the hero thought he could fly circles around the Death Star, but the laws of firepower always beat the rules of literature. Or not many want to be told the story of the guy who thought he could jump in front of the enemy company with a pistol, and was riddled with bullets before he even finished the clip. Those are depressing stories of failure. They're not fun.
We want to be told stories where one determined guy changes the world for the better, and nothing whatsoever can stay in his way. Not one where he fails in the first 15 minutes.
But, again, I can see how that doesn't translate into a fun video game. We just have to accept that it's simply different media, with different rules.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you ever wonder why that only happened in early comics? Has the possibility crossed your mind that the reason modern comics feature almost exclusively complex, flawed heroes is that comics about flawed heroes are more popular than comics about unassailable gods with perfect morals?
My impressions. (Score:5, Insightful)
I got into the game on the recommendation of my brother and another friend of ours. I played Everquest years earlier for a few months, shortly after the first expansion. The demanding nature of that game, including the reliance on grouping burned me out quickly. What attracted me to CoH was the ability to solo and lack of reliance on gear. It was kind of like a socialist MMO.
What really hooked me was the pace of combat. The game gets really exciting during a fight; I don't think there's been another MMO yet that matches the pace of that game. It's as close to direct, active control as I've seen thus far. Apparently a new powerset is being introduced which even allows for combos.
Additionally, a lone hero could face a group of upwards of 5 foes and emerge victorious, depending on the class. It was fun to jump into the midst of some villains and beat the hell out of them all. So in that regard, it was a very satisfying game.
The pace of leveling was fairly quick but, like all other MMOs it still had considerable grind. And that's really where things broke down. There was nothing else to do but fight. Every single thing in the game revolve around beating up badguys. There were conditions for some missions, like clicking on glowing items, but even then it required getting past hordes of villains. Story was presented in dialog boxes; at the time there were no cutscenes. Alternative skills, comparable to blacksmithing in fantasy MMOs were finally introduced a few months ago. This was after years of promising they were coming soon.
Apparently the skill system was completely redesigned at least 3 times over because it was deemed to not be fun enough. I haven't played what was finally implemented but from what I've read I'm not impressed. It looks like it's merely an adaptation of the supergroup base item building feature.
The character customization is excellent, and probably still surpasses what's available in most other MMOs. Beyond that, however, there's only one way to improve a character. And that's through enhancements which is comparable to stats for other games. Basically, enemies "drop" these enhancements which are then applied to a character's powers. So a player can boost damage, or the power's secondary debuff effect. That was all well and good until the developers decided they didn't want people focusing on a single aspect of any given power. So, every power has 5 slots, if I remember correctly, but using more than two slots for the same boost was essentially a waste. This was supposed to encourage enhancement diversity but I think it resulted in standard ideal templates for specific powers.
There was also the incessant complaining by those who had chosen classes that were less effective solo who felt it was unfair that other classes could solo so effective. Nevermind the fact that the best solo builds weren't always well-suited for groups. So a lot of work went into addressing that with mixed results and to, I feel, the general detriment of the game.
Another problem I came to find with the game was the excessive reliance on templates for environmental design. Basically, upon entering a zone the first time a player had a good sense for how the rest of the zone looked. And many of those features were reused in most other zones. So where other MMOs have a varied and dynamic landscape City of Hero's was a bit contrived. It was tiring running through the same laboratory with a random, nonsensical layout for the 5th time in a few hours. Despite that, the art style was great. It was a lot of fun traveling amongst those skyscrapers. The game simply could have benefited from more variety.
One thing that was good about CoH/CoV was how Cryptic has maintained a close relationship with the players. They've n
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Did you only play at 3:00am on a low-population server or something? Whenever I'm around, there are plenty of other people. Hell, half of the complaints on the official forums are people griping about all of the broadcast clutter and blind invites.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm talking people purposefully buying it, not getting it with a new computer whether they like it or not, or getting a free copy from their school or any of a myriad number of ways that MS has artificially inflated the sales figures on Vista.
I can not back this up with numbers, as number are very hard to get on this subject; the only things available are fuzzy percentages.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm curious, which version did you buy? was there any primary underlying reason? I have heard a couple of reasons I can't argue with, like better integrated tablet PC support and a requirement for robust DRM (long story).
Re: (Score:2)
MacOSX is such a superior c
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Captial F, capital U, capital D. (Score:2)
Where is that WoW native Linux client? Oh yeah, there isn't one.
City of Heroes is built on OpenGL also, go figure. However, the graphics aren't the only thing to a game client does, and the non-graphics part of City of Heroes is built for Windows only. This wasn't a malicious decision, it was a practical one. NCsoft isn't as big as Blizzard, it never has been. Hopefully, as demand for the game grows, they'll be able to g
Can you read? (Score:3, Informative)
Dude, I've run CoH on Linux using Cedega. There are no "glitches," it runs perfectly well. Like I said, it's officially supported by Cedega, just like World of Warcraft. The only thing that I would consider a glitch is that some of the higher-end graphics rendering functions, such as depth-of-field effects and such, don't work because the video driver that Cedega reports to the app claims to not have those capabilities (even if the card does).
The game not only works, it is actually a lot faster running
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
This is a MMOG we're talking about here