City of Heroes

i just noticed backalleybrawler's sig on the official forums:

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Senior Animator/Visual Effects Artist
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Call us lazy or stupid...welcome to ignore. Don't blow your opportunity to be heard.
 

the only thing he forgot was the "cancel your account, we don't need your money anyways".

stupid... lazy... dunno, but one new issue every 5-12 months speaks volumes for what they are and are not. especially when they put little content having tiny issues back to back.

Always amazes me when MMO developers show more attitude than Cox tech support, when they belong to the one kind of company that bellies up year-around due to mass cancellations over the most frivolous things.

Not to overexaggerate that guy though, just in general.

The CoX devs are the most open, fan friendly devs in the industry.  People calling them stupid or lazy has no basis in fact, and it's not the least bit constructive.  Those people should be ignored.  The people with good ideas, laid out in insult-free posts?  Those people should be listened to.  And they are.

As to Issues coming out slowly, you do realize that for years the entire CoX team consisted of just 15 people, right?  They have been recently ramping up from that after they got bought by NCSoft (or more accurately left cryptic and joined NCSoft), but making new hires and integrating them into the existing team and getting them all up to speed is non-trivial to say the least.  It's very time consuming doing that.

And as to cancellations, the City of Heroes franchise has what is arguably the best retention of any MMO.  This is because it provides a (currently) unique, quality game.

About that uniqueness, Champions Online is looking every bit like repeating many of the same mistakes of CoX (hiding numbers, no villains at launch).  But DC Online is looking like a real contender.

Originally posted by OSF8759

As to Issues coming out slowly, you do realize that for years the entire CoX team consisted of just 15 people, right?  They have been recently ramping up from that after they got bought by NCSoft (or more accurately left cryptic and joined NCSoft), but making new hires and integrating them into the existing team and getting them all up to speed is non-trivial to say the least.  It's very time consuming doing that.

issues 1-5 came out pretty quickly (every 3 months?).  i6 might've taken a little extra time than the previous ones, but it DID introduce cov, which was quite a bit more added on.

and that was with that smaller group, wasn't it?

Originally posted by damian7

Originally posted by OSF8759

As to Issues coming out slowly, you do realize that for years the entire CoX team consisted of just 15 people, right?  They have been recently ramping up from that after they got bought by NCSoft (or more accurately left cryptic and joined NCSoft), but making new hires and integrating them into the existing team and getting them all up to speed is non-trivial to say the least.  It's very time consuming doing that.

 

issues 1-5 came out pretty quickly (every 3 months?).  i6 might've taken a little extra time than the previous ones, but it DID introduce cov, which was quite a bit more added on.

and that was with that smaller group, wasn't it?

 

 

Actuallu no, they had a whole extra teams worth to work on CoV. That way they could get CoV done and still put out more content at the same time.

It also helped back then that Jack wasn't willing to work on anything very difficult. Since the NCSoft buyout they have started working on more ambitious things, like Mission Archetect and shields, which recquired new animations for most of the melee sets. Not to mention Weapon custumisation which recquired new animations for some of the weapon sets.

Acting as a rep and spokesperson doesnt make you a sitting duck for every loose cannon that comes along. Most peeps would consider such a signature right in keeping with Brawler's personnae. =)