It's Live

[rain]

And rain likes his new difficulty slider.

[Carravaggio]

Accursed bandwidth cap! I'd give up my next month of CO to get this right now!

[BlueBard]

Woo-Hoo!

I gots some recoloring to do.  But probably not until tomorrow night

[BlueBard]

I lied.

I came, I saw, I recolored.

The new issue seems to have a few minor glitches, like the locations of out-of-zone team members flipping wildly, and the auto-reminder to auto-sidekick is more than a little auto-annoying.  I'll have to have a look at the options and see whether auto-accepting the auto-sidekick is a good idea or not.  Jury's still out on super-sidekicking.  It works, but it's going to take some getting used to.

I had to restart the game once to fix a weird graphical glitch in the costume/power customization screens, and my computer blue screened once -- but I think that had as much to do with a scheduled virus scan starting up in the middle of my session as anything else.

Another annoying glitch is how the tailor automatically alters your costume for you, won't reset it back, and then has the nerve to charge you to change it back the way it was.  Free tailor tokens to the rescue...

Overall, though, it really does make a difference when you can recolor powers to fit your character's theme instead of the other way around.

BlueBard's mental domination powers now look more "sonic-y" as they should.

Rezzonate's radiation and electric powers now match his glowiness better.  (And Choking Cloud looks awesome in purple and blue!)

GeoFire no longer has to put up with those stupid light blue-green crystals sticking out of his supposedly molten hide.  I'll have to double-check to see how the various power colorations stack, but I'm enormously happy being able to recolor those ugly crystals.

National Defender now has a few punches mixed in to his martial arts routine and he looks like more of a street fighter in combat.

It's important to note that you do have to recolor powers for each costume slot separately.  I recommend saving your power customizations.  I suspect I have found a way to use up all those free tailor tokens.

Sadly, my attempt to create a "bubblegum bubbler" didn't work as well as I'd hoped.  You can color force fields pink, but they still look more like soap bubbles.  Ah, well.

[Tortuga]

I made California Hustle 200% more disco!

[BlueBard]

I made California Hustle 200% more disco!

Groovy!  Right on, man!

[electro]

Going to be fun to revisit CoX again

[Stopman]

Ooh! Lookit all the pretty colors!

[Carravaggio]

I'm saddened that I'm so underwhlemed by this. Its very well implemented, I just think I would have been bowled over by this six months ago. Now its just 'kinda cool'.
Hope everyone else is enjoying it.

[BlueBard]

I'm saddened that I'm so underwhlemed by this. Its very well implemented, I just think I would have been bowled over by this six months ago. Now its just 'kinda cool'.
Hope everyone else is enjoying it.

I understand.  There were no new missions, no new killer features aside from the new difficulty settings and the power coloring, no new powersets, and the power proliferation was okay but didn't create in me a burning need to roll another alt.  More balancing, which this ish did a lot of, doesn't turn the heart a-quivering.

But I can't run CO and CoH continues to advance, so I'm still in for now.

[Ephemeris]

I understand.  There were no new missions, no new killer features aside from the new difficulty settings and the power coloring, no new powersets, and the power proliferation was okay but didn't create in me a burning need to roll another alt.  More balancing, which this ish did a lot of, doesn't turn the heart a-quivering.

But I can't run CO and CoH continues to advance, so I'm still in for now.

The only thing I don't agree with is the 'no new powersets.'  Dominators got Earth Assault which, plays differently than any other dominator secondary I've ever played.  This one powerset has already inspired an alt and I'm thinking about rerolling my avatar (currently a level 35 tank) as a dominator.

[BlueBard]

Y'know... I forgot all about Earth Assault.  But I don't play red side much, so that's probably why I missed it.  I stand corrected 

[Marmeille]

I like the customization, I made a dark/dark corruptor called Crazy Cotton Candy and I must say it's really fun to shoot pink stuff that really looks like cotton candy hehe. I also like the no FXs option for the Super Reflexes toggles.

[electro]

I'm having fun visiting the City again but, you can here the crickets chirping on these servers - I wish they'ed mash them all together now - If there are new players & they don't know to go to the more populated servers then theyed assume the game was almost dead & probably stop playing - What PlayNC really needs to do is Release CoX on Xbox 360 & PS3 with slightly enchanced graphics & make this sucker 5 bucks to play - Then start work on CoH2

[BlueBard]

The one thing that's really cut my desire to play (aside from lack of time) is the fact that I got a hero to 50.  I didn't think that would cause me to lose interest -- I've got lots of other toons that aren't anywhere near 50 -- but it did.  I took some mild interest in the Kheldian storylines, but I really don't want to play a Kheld right now.

I don't want to totally quit CoH but I might need to take a breather for awhile.  Maybe if anyone who's left would like to start a regular group, that might be fun???

[77]

What I think has happened is this. AE came out and at first it was hailed as an innovation, great piece of MMOing. But then it got abused people got 50's in a day. Now the die hard long time vet didn't like this, "took me months to get to 50 it should take you months too " the same die hard vets complained about it, on the boards to devs anywhere people were they complained. The fix didn't happen fast enough and the vets stared quitting "If I can't have it my way I quit!" The fix came in I16 but by this point most of the people that were left were the new players, that enjoyed the power leveling/farming. Not having any real voice on the boards or to the devs they felt betrayed, and quit. So who does that leave? Yep the left overs.

The AE farming nerf and the super sidekicking really hurt this game. Before the nerf I never had a problem getting team either AE or a taskforce. After the I16 I've done 1 tf and that was with the FR peeps. I felt that AE babies were to the point of wanting to explore new things.

I personally enjoyed the farming, I enjoyed getting a toon in the mid 20's in a single run, just to explore power sets and stuff, if I didn't like it was no big deal to delete and try again. Let's not forget the tickets OR the influ, I was making influ hand over fist. What bugs me the most is people are happy the AE farms are gone, then turn around run to PI and start farming BM again....Why would you trade a farm that netted you 10 mill for a farm that would only give 1-2 mill? it's stupid. Anyways thats how I feel about it, I realized today that I haven't even bother to log onto most of my toons in over a week, maybe I should just quit too, I'm not really having fun anymore.

[BlueBard]

I just need to hit content I've never done before with a group that can have fun together.  I have yet to ever do a single TF, supposing that I really don't have the time to run one and often worry about having to drop off due to kids, etc.  I haven't run through all of Cimerora, never done a Hami, and haven't explored the Ouroboros content to the full extent.

Maybe that's what I need to do for awhile.

[Lionheart]

I'm having fun visiting the City again but, you can here the crickets chirping on these servers - I wish they'ed mash them all together now - If there are new players & they don't know to go to the more populated servers then theyed assume the game was almost dead & probably stop playing - What PlayNC really needs to do is Release CoX on Xbox 360 & PS3 with slightly enchanced graphics & make this sucker 5 bucks to play - Then start work on CoH2

Experience may vary. I've yet to enter a zone on any server where there haven't been dozens of player characters about. The population is spread back out a little more since AE farming isn't as prevalent now, but I don't see any great drop-off in player numbers myself. Seems quite a bit more populated than a year ago.

Things to consider at this point for any MMO: School has started back up and a couple of new MMOs have released so people are going to check out the new kids on the block. Some will be back, some will stay with the new games.

CoH seems very healthy to me right now. Overall, I like that there are some heavily populated servers and some smaller servers; it gives variety for those who like full groups and those who like to run solo/small group with less lag on older machines.

So I fall on the other side of the fence; I dislike the notion of server merges and don't think they're necessary at this point.

[BlueBard]

And don't forget what a server merge would mean in terms of character names...

[electro]

I just don't want this amazing game to go to waste - I feel it's time for it to go to consoles & get an even bigger audiance - Threw that I could play it another couple years but on the PC I think it's getting near the end

[Verfall]

I just don't want this amazing game to go to waste - I feel it's time for it to go to consoles & get an even bigger audiance - Threw that I could play it another couple years but on the PC I think it's getting near the end

Or more likely it'll be around for another 5-10 years, or till COH2. The game has an incredibly loyal playerbase. EVE is about the only other game I can think of that compares in that regard. So long as they can keep it going in the 50-100k player range, they should be fine.

[Kommando]

I just don't want this amazing game to go to waste - I feel it's time for it to go to consoles & get an even bigger audiance - Threw that I could play it another couple years but on the PC I think it's getting near the end

Personally, I'm waiting for the Going Rogue expansion and I think a lot of others are too.

[BlueBard]

I just don't want this amazing game to go to waste - I feel it's time for it to go to consoles & get an even bigger audiance - Threw that I could play it another couple years but on the PC I think it's getting near the end

Personally, I'm waiting for the Going Rogue expansion and I think a lot of others are too.

I personally have three redeemed villain concepts on the back burner, just waiting...  I also think you'll see a lot of heroes switching to the dark side, just based on evil-looking names and costumes.

[electro]

I'm still right here with you guys & will be till the bitter end - Rouge expansion might pump some new blood in here - Hope so because i need some Multiplay action - Tired of missions - Keep fighting Heroes

[Stopman]

I just don't want this amazing game to go to waste - I feel it's time for it to go to consoles & get an even bigger audiance - Threw that I could play it another couple years but on the PC I think it's getting near the end

Or more likely it'll be around for another 5-10 years, or till COH2. The game has an incredibly loyal playerbase. EVE is about the only other game I can think of that compares in that regard. So long as they can keep it going in the 50-100k player range, they should be fine.

MMOG Charts is a interesting site with some fairly good data on subscription numbers.

[Verfall]

I just don't want this amazing game to go to waste - I feel it's time for it to go to consoles & get an even bigger audiance - Threw that I could play it another couple years but on the PC I think it's getting near the end

Or more likely it'll be around for another 5-10 years, or till COH2. The game has an incredibly loyal playerbase. EVE is about the only other game I can think of that compares in that regard. So long as they can keep it going in the 50-100k player range, they should be fine.

MMOG Charts is a interesting site with some fairly good data on subscription numbers.

Going by that website COH is nearly a top 5 North American MMOG. Most of the above 200k games have Korean influence. Considering plenty of MMOG's survive on 50k players, and COH is still over the 100k mark and has a box expansion coming, I'd say it's sitting pretty healthy and profitable.

[Tortuga]

Am I missing something?  The latest update on that site seemed to be April 2008.  I'd love to see some recent subscription numbers.

[BlueBard]

Am I missing something?  The latest update on that site seemed to be April 2008.  I'd love to see some recent subscription numbers.

Reading the analysis, it sounds like NCSoft made their numbers relatively public in comparison to other companies.  If we can figure out the source he used, we should be able to find the current numbers (?)