Cancelled (and uncancelled, too!)

[Creole Ned]

After reading this thread (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=4500383&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1#4500383) today, I finally did what I have been mulling for some time, I cancelled the billing on my City of Heroes account.

Let me address the thread above to help provide a framework for why I've chosen to leave the game.

In City of Villains, you can share missions. If team members have the same mission, all members of the team with that mission will be prompted at the end of the mission on whether they wish to complete it and get the appropriate mission complete bonus. It's a very nice QoL feature.

Statesman, aka Jack Emmert, creative director and co-founder of Cryptic Studios, wrote on the official forums that this feature would be coming to CoH. In his words, "Yes, but not right away". Today he addressed the same subject by saying "It's never been on the schedule. I'd love to get it in." You can spin this however you choose but at the very least, he misspoke earlier or outright lied. This has been a recurring pattern with his comments and it has eroded my faith in the developers. Heck, even if they were just honest or forthcoming about changes I didn't like, that would be something.

Over the last six months, they have been micromanaging the game more and more, clamping down on powerleveling, alternate ways to complete missions (based on the notion that people are wrongly "skipping content"), introducing piles of bugs that often get pushed from the test server to live, even when they are serious and documented by other players. They have placed reductions on player characters, restrictions on what can be done, all while the once vaunted skills system that would provide an alternate to endless combat went through multiple revisions before the devs basically admitted to giving up on it.

At the same time I was starting to grow tired of the experience. I've been playing since April 2004 and given the relative shallowness of the gameplay, it actually held up quite well. There may be more tactics to combat in WoW but CoH's still feels extremely tight and solid. I'd *love* for the feel of CoH's fighting to transfer into other games. But still, burnout is inevitable. The changes they have made lately, coupled with an attitude that strikes me as both unfocused and a bit elitist, has finally pushed me off the game. It's been over a week since I even logged in. The urge, she is gone.

So it was a great ride that lasted about 19 months - pretty good, I'd say. Nothing will diminish the tremendous fun I had in the early days with QB or in the latter days with Circuit and his many beguiling robotic creations. I never say never, so I opted to cancel my billing - my account is intact, so getting back in is as easy as clicking the "reactivate" button. I don't know if or when I'll do that, so for now, it is farewell to Paragon City.

fin!

[Creole Ned]

And in this thread (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=shibboleth&Number=4501332&bodyprev=#Post4501332) Jack backs off, temporarily:

We're going to be taking out this "stealth nerf" or "nerf to stealth" or whatever...

The original intent was to prevent riskless XP gain...but I agree that the implementation caused problems as noted here on the forums.

I REALLY like the Suppression idea brought up, but that'll take some time to implement. So we're just going to take it out until we can do it right.

Tip to Jack: too late.

[Circuit]

It really has gotten sloppier and sloppier. Like you said, though, even if they continued making stupid changes, I'd be fine with it as long as they were honest about it. But not only are they just sort of haphazardly slapping bandaids over everything they suddenly decide is a problem with the game, they're horrible at communicating exactly why those things are problems.

The problem seems to be that the dev team just doesn't know what they want the game to be, or else what they want is so narrowly defined that there's no room for deviation. What they don't understand in the slightest is their own community. I understand the need to limit powerleveling, but the lengths they have gone to in order to curb it has done nothing but chase people off. Good job, it's harder to powerlevel, but it's also less fun for everyone else. Similar to some of the more obnoxious copyright schemes for software, they have succeeded only in pissing people off while the people exploiting the system just find new exploits.

There have been several changes in recent months that made me question both Jack and team's design skill and integrity. Design skill because they've changed things that have been the same since the very beginning of the game, but were suddenly considered problems for reasons that were never fully communicated and were recognized as problems by virtually none of the players, aside from the few guys who blindly support every single thing the devs do. Add to that the fact that with a lot of the changes came bugs that would sometimes take months to fix or never get fixed at all and I'm just not sure what the hell they're doing in the offices of Cryptic. I'm fine with them changing stats or tweaking powers, but they've taken it to an absolutely ridiculous level. I mean, making it so that you can't click on mission objects while stealthed? How the hell did that idea even get brought up, much less agreed upon by multiple people and coded into the game?

I question their integrity because, as Ned pointed out, they're just simply two-faced and/or dishonest about so many of the things that get done to the game. It's just really unprofessional and, in many cases, insulting. I put up with it for so long because the game was fun, but since their game vision seems to completely revolve around the whole "risk vs. reward" shit they spout off about after every change is made, I guess I should move on. Just because something's not difficult doesn't mean it's not fun and they just don't have the capacity to recognize that.

The fact that they do thiss stuff with the reasoning that they don't like people skipping content confuses me even further because, holy shit, the content is the worst part about the game. They try to force people to experience what's there instead of making it more compelling. Have they never stopped to think about why people are skipping content? Is it really necessary to do literally hundreds of "find the glowing objects" missions that are nearly, and sometimes completely, identical? Then consider that the dev team has said they don't like people zooming through those missions quickly because it allows players to get quick XP. That makes me think they have clearly lost their damn minds. Also, if they're so concerned about people experiencing the game's story, maybe they could put forth just a teensy bit of effort to fix the fucking grammatical errors.

I know this all makes me sound a little bitter, but I'm really not. Well, maybe a little. But it's just a bit sad that a game I used to want to play more than anything else has turned into one that I have little to no desire to touch. I did have some really good times playing, though, but combining the fact that I was starting to get burnt out already with the treatment the community's been getting from the devs in the past several months and it's just too much. I'm sure I'll resub a few months from now as a larf and probably a little out of curiosity, but WoW is definitely filling my gaming needs at the moment and I can't see quitting any time soon. And, yes, I do feel a little dirty saying that. It's like I'm living out a CoH forum cliche. :)

[Creole Ned]

Heh, it is an odd coincidence, but it seems like Jack has heard the beating of the war drums or something. He just posted this:

First...I confirm that we're working on right now (as in pohsyb in the next room) to add CoV costume parts into CoH if you own both games....

Then we repeal the hated stealth nerf. The reason why: many well reasoned posts. It's that simple. You guys pointed out the problems.

AND now...we're changing the way Archvillains spawn. A ton of forum goers disliked adding so many AV's into missions a while back...so we've come up with a solution. If the team size and mission difficulty are ABOVE a certain level, an Archvillain spawns. Below that, players will face only an Elite Boss. If the mission is set on the first two levels of difficulty, it takes 4 heroes or more to spawn an Arch Villain. On the third level, 3 heroes or more. On the fourth level, 2 heroes. On the highest (Invincible), a solo hero will spawn an AV. Note this works in BOTH City of Heroes and Villains.

In order to incentivize larger teams, Positron is going to add a bonus to AV rewards!
All of these are nice changes, particularly the AV one, which was a *major* beef for me in CoV. I'm not going to suddenly reactivate now, but it does give me some small hope that maybe they will steer the game in a better direction in the future.

[Creole Ned]

And further, Jack clarifies his comments about the shared missions:

OOOOPPPSSSS. You're entirely right. That feature is definitely on the schedule. For some unknown reason, I thought the original post was asking about secondary mission objectives. In other words, if you finish the mission in a certain time period, you get extra XP - or if you explore every room - or if you find a particular extra object.
There is a certain irony in cancelling my billing just hours before they go into damage control mode. :)

[Circuit]

Well, the fact that they seemingly had no idea that these changes were stupid before reading the "well reasoned posts" doesn't give me a whole lot of faith in the team. :) I don't play anymore anyway, so I may as well not keep sending my money. The recent bumblings just makes it easier to justify quitting something I was already a little bored with. All my characters will still be there when I decide to come back.

[Tai]

Heh, where's the cancellation page?

[Harka]

I went through a period of canceling, mainly canceled to save money since I didint really play it anymore and they screwed my tanker with the dinking with powers.

I then reupped my subscription and mainly keep it around now as a diversion from WoW when I need a break and my son really digs the super hero thing. At age 4 there is nothing cooler for him than to go around and womped bad guys with me. I sit and control the hero while he does all the fighting. Good times.

but I must say that if COH was my only game I would be as burned out as you guys and tired of the bullshit from the devs with power leveling concerns etc...

Ned, if you want to transfer control of the Martian Cartel over to me I will keep it alive until your return, hehe. But it is my experience that eve if we all quit and come back I beleive the super group will still be intact. I think thats what happened with the Insomniacs on Pinnacle, unless Tai was still active, but all the leaders had quit and the super group was still there when I resubscribed.

[Harka]

Tai,

They make it real hard to cancel. I cant remember how now, I purged it from my memory.

[Tai]

I have kept the account active since I first started playing as far as I can recall, so it might have been me that kept the Insomniacs alive. Although I thought Bug Lightning was always on too.

[Harka]

Yea but he split and joined another group. the damn traitor! hehe We revoked his no sleep license.

[Tai]

That'll teach him!! Having said that, I've found that lately I'm starting to need 6 hours :(

[Creole Ned]

Just go to www.cityofheroes.com and click Account, log in and then look for the link that says "Cancel billing". This suspends payment on your account. You can play until the next billing date. If you click on "Deactivate" next to the name of the game, it closes the account altogether. Only do this if you have no plans to ever return. I just cancelled.

Previously there was no consequence in taking time off. They have changed the name policy now so that any account that is inactive for 90 days will have all of the names on characters that are below level 35 freed up for others. If you logged back in, you'd have to choose a new name to any sub-35 hero/villain. AFAIK, things like supergroups have never been affected.

I have three characters that would be safe from any name changes - Angry Carrot, Johnny Saturn and Indigo Bolt.

[Tai]

Thanks Ned. I think DU will be okay because anyone who uses that name would put a space in it now :)

[Harka]

I guess I need to get Taterman up 5 levels before I ever deactivate.

[Tai]

grin, I can't remember my login, so can't cancel =P

[bridude]

Tai do you get dressed in the morning all by yourself?

[Tai]

partially.

[Harka]

I think the beer goblins help him.

[Creole Ned]

Well, I actually cancelled my cancellation - the day my billing was due to lapse. Why? Some reasons:

1. A new patch went to the test server that features a revamped Paragon Dance Party. This used to an abandoned warehouse map with a few disco lights that was hard to find and pretty much empty. The test patch revamps this into the Pocket D, a completely new zone that appears to be a portal for new missions and may allow teaming between heroes and villains (both can enter the zone, but no PvP there). It shows the kind of care in design that make zones like Striga fun to be in. Encouraging.

2. The devs have shown a willingness to rethink what are frankly stupid and petty decisions. Maybe they are finally realizing that players are getting tired of the micromanaging and will focus on fixing bugs and making content, not trying to close off every means of advantage a player can find, no matter how trivial the benefit might be.

3. The same test server patch has removed the fog from Dark Astoria. Probably just a bug but I had to see what it looked like.

4. I don't have to pay a fee for WoW until May, so this isn't costing me extra money.

5. I can change my mind next month.

6. I still like popping in and zipping around from time to time.

7. If I'm cynical about everything, there's no balance and I'll wobble and fall over. I may as well see what happens if I decide to give the devs the benefit of the doubt - for now.

8. They probably got ascared when I had cancelled for three weeks, haha!

9. Insert your own reason here.

[Circuit]

I'll probably renew when I7 comes out, but for now WoW's keeping me busy. Even when my CoH subscription was active for the last few months, I never played it anyway. $15 isn't a lot of money, but it will at least get me like a gallon of gas.

[Tai]

I know this will come as a suprise, but my account is still active...

[Harka]

Tai makes me laugh. :bg:


Mine is still active too although I find I am only playing now when my son wants to go in and smash things with the tank we created for him.

[Tick]

I finally remembered to cancel my CoH and SWG accounts the other day. Yay for 30 bucks a month that I get back.

[Q]

Sounds like Tick is in a prime position to play a certain other MMO ;).

Come play Wow with us, Tick, we miss you!

[Tick]

I've been thinking about it, but I'm honestly just bored with MMOs.

I'd love a good pen and paper game, tho...

[Q]

I'd love a good pen and paper game, tho...
I do miss playing those, but unfortunately it seems like no one ever has time for them any more.

[Medic]

I'd love a good pen and paper game, tho...


http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/6001/game1dv.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

I'll start.

[Circuit]

I suspect you used neither a pen nor paper for that, sir. I think that means you automatically lose.