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Post by Admin on Apr 20, 2011 20:32:56 GMT -5
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Post by pax on Apr 20, 2011 21:36:01 GMT -5
Auto Assault, all over again.
The game was on the ropes already, then NCSoft and NetDevil went with a server merge (which was horribly mismanaged), which was pretty much the final nail in the coffin.
AA lingered for a few months, on terminal life support. But the headstone was already engraved, the coffin waiting, and the grave dug out; all that remained to be determined was "time of death".
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Post by melkathi on Apr 21, 2011 3:16:42 GMT -5
That's a shame. Never was interested in that game, but still, never good to see people's hard work go unapreciated.
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Post by KenpoJuJitsu3 on Apr 21, 2011 4:29:28 GMT -5
I checked out the beta and promptly went back to CO. I haven't touched it since but numerous people on my friends list and in my SG filled me in independently. They all said the same things:
Balance issues, hemorrhaging subs, servers were closing due to low population and they had to move to different severs.
I have no idea how true that is but several people passed that info to me independent of one another.
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Post by melkathi on Apr 21, 2011 9:38:07 GMT -5
A shame, it seemed to have at least some interesting power ideas. If I can get it cheap I'd try the free month just to have run around with some different powerset.
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Post by KenpoJuJitsu3 on Apr 21, 2011 9:58:30 GMT -5
A shame, it seemed to have at least some interesting power ideas. If I can get it cheap I'd try the free month just to have run around with some different powerset. It had a lot of promise IMO, but for me the customization we have in CO ruined any chance of me really falling under DCUO's very limited spell. So I played the entire beta then when that ended I came back to CO. I have a sense that CO going F2P is/was definitely impacting DCUO's success, but our instance numbers are falling too...
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Post by melkathi on Apr 21, 2011 10:04:38 GMT -5
I have a sense that CO going F2P is/was definitely impacting DCUO's success, but our instance numbers are falling too... Yes, F2P was a smart move. It is a pitty that Atari didn't back it up with some much needed funding to make all the new players stick around for longer. Great buisness plan they are having Don't keep the new players, drive away the old ones...
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Post by Admin on Apr 21, 2011 10:21:34 GMT -5
I have a sense that CO going F2P is/was definitely impacting DCUO's success, but our instance numbers are falling too... Yes, F2P was a smart move. It is a pitty that Atari didn't back it up with some much needed funding to make all the new players stick around for longer. Great buisness plan they are having Don't keep the new players, drive away the old ones... If they could just get the planned Comic Series going and add the Foundry I would be a happy camper.
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Post by KenpoJuJitsu3 on Apr 21, 2011 10:31:10 GMT -5
Yes, F2P was a smart move. It is a pitty that Atari didn't back it up with some much needed funding to make all the new players stick around for longer. Great buisness plan they are having Don't keep the new players, drive away the old ones... If they could just get the planned Comic Series going and add the Foundry I would be a happy camper. Agreed. I've found myself in an interesting situation lately. I'm not short on new concepts to make but I am finally getting a bit bored running the same stuff during leveling. I may be taking a break soon, I've arealdy reduced my playtime significantly.
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Post by Admin on Apr 21, 2011 10:43:01 GMT -5
If they could just get the planned Comic Series going and add the Foundry I would be a happy camper. Agreed. I've found myself in an interesting situation lately. I'm not short on new concepts to make but I am finally getting a bit bored running the same stuff during leveling. I may be taking a break soon, I've arealdy reduced my playtime significantly. That really is the problem with a single leveling path. No matter what kind of character you create, your just doing the same things over and over again. That is why I love the Foundry so much. When it was first launched, it did not include mission xp, just the normal xp you get from kills. This was to prevent powerleveling and abuse. However, they recently started pulling any missions made for the purpose of grinding, and today they added a daily mission that gives you an assignment to play 3 Foundry missions of your choosing, and awards you mission xp, skill points, level appropriate gear, and a few other things upon completion. So now I can do this daily mission each day while leveling a new character and never play the same missions I've already played if I do not want to. Its such a great system, so I really hope Champs gets it soon.
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Post by Pion on Apr 21, 2011 11:03:03 GMT -5
The forums seem to be down for maintenance. Yes, F2P was a smart move. It is a pitty that Atari didn't back it up with some much needed funding to make all the new players stick around for longer. Great buisness plan they are having Don't keep the new players, drive away the old ones... Problem is Cryptic hasn't really done anything news worthy lately other than pissing off their community. MMO players are a very "what have you done for me lately" group, and it's now April. Two and a half months is too long for them to have gone without dropping anything major that's new. I honestly believe that F2P should have waited another month or two, once they had something more within their sights ready to go. The new AT's are great, but if F2P had started in March, after the new rule enforcement, released a new AT and costume set every week, the 20% off sales and Lightspeed with Rainbow Flight announced at start of April, and then Heavy Weapon and Devastator mid April followed by Resistance at the start of May (there is nothing to lead me to believe this is the case mind you) it would have been nothing but a barrage of news of pushing the game to a new level. Top that off with the looking forward calendar and they would have been golden. As it is they release something people are excited about just as they've lost momentum, and it's usually something rather basic. They're flooding the market with fluff, which is fine, but that's literally all we've seen for nearly a full quarter. Where are the ads for the badass devices we keep getting? Shrinker/Magnifier were the hottest topics for about a month and no comments on it at all. Werewolf was the shiz, and no comments on it at all except for, I believe Tiyshen, "no they are not like having a second power set." Demon device? Awesome, brought a concept of mine to life. Comments? None. Didn't even stay on the front page more than a couple of days before it got bumped for a sale nobody cared about. I get that they needed the money but whatever good will they gained from F2P is bleeding out. I think DCUO is an example of a strong start followed by shallow tapering out. I didn't think it was doing bad but I'll tell you that about a month after DCUO launched, I stopped hearing about it. It stopped being relevant. I'd only remember about it because of the occasional email sent and it very rarely had anything worth emailing about, and I say that only on the assumption that there might have been something that was worth it after I'd stopped opening the emails. As far as I know, and only from said emails, they had like 1 update since launch, and it was some two-face lair or something. Is it that bad? Nobody knows because nobody plays it. "The voice acting is great and the missions are cool." Thats the deepest information I've seen on it from players. Like mel said, I'd like to give it a shot, but it's not a game I'd pay money for. I just hope Champs doesn't go the same way. Population drops are noticeable. Sure the game is doing better now than it did at this time last year population wise, but it's still lost a good number of folks since f2p launch, and of those chatting in MC, how many are actually contributing money to the game? Maybe DCUO will go F2P also? I'd like to try it. Some of the costume pieces look neat, and I want to play a speedster.
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Post by Pion on Apr 21, 2011 11:04:40 GMT -5
Agreed. I've found myself in an interesting situation lately. I'm not short on new concepts to make but I am finally getting a bit bored running the same stuff during leveling. I may be taking a break soon, I've arealdy reduced my playtime significantly. That really is the problem with a single leveling path. No matter what kind of character you create, your just doing the same things over and over again. That is why I love the Foundry so much. When it was first launched, it did not include mission xp, just the normal xp you get from kills. This was to prevent powerleveling and abuse. However, they recently started pulling any missions made for the purpose of grinding, and today they added a daily mission that gives you an assignment to play 3 Foundry missions of your choosing, and awards you mission xp, skill points, level appropriate gear, and a few other things upon completion. So now I can do this daily mission each day while leveling a new character and never play the same missions I've already played if I do not want to. Its such a great system, so I really hope Champs gets it soon. That's actually a pretty clever way of allowing xp from foundry without it being abused.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2011 11:04:31 GMT -5
I played the DCUO beta and found it to be very good looking but unable to keep my attention for long. The ability to change out costume pieces on the go and your character's gear actually having a visual impact on the costume are ideas that I can really get behind. Combat is a bit more of an involved process but it gets old quick and it can leave you really hating your weapon choice(s).
Not at all a fan of the fact that your power choices funnel you into a predetermined group role (class).
Overall it had promise but S.O.E. will ultimately be responsible for killing Superman for good this time.
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Post by melkathi on Apr 21, 2011 11:09:47 GMT -5
The one leveling path also was problematic with the complete freedom when creating a character. The usual restrictive MMOs have it easier there. Night elves hug trees, it's what night elves do. Dwarves dig for gold and speak with a fake scottish accent, it's what dwarves do. So both races can get their own leveling path and it will work. And within each race, all characters can share a leveling path and it will work. But Furry McFluffyEars the puppy from a children's tv show who got bitten by a uranium addicted, radioactive, thermo-nuclear, mutated flea can't share a leveling path with R2P0-47 the self aware security droid and <enter japanese sounding name here> the legendary ninja come back from the grave to pay for his sins.
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Post by KenpoJuJitsu3 on Apr 21, 2011 11:34:18 GMT -5
I just hope Champs doesn't go the same way. Population drops are noticeable. Sure the game is doing better now than it did at this time last year population wise, but it's still lost a good number of folks since f2p launch, and of those chatting in MC, how many are actually contributing money to the game? I find myself thinking this as well. At one point after F2P hit I saw upwards of 80 MC instances with 6-7 Desert and Canada instances. This weekend during the Bloodmoon Event? 14 MC instances. Yesterday? 3 Desert instances and 3 Canada instances. I am concerned.
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