After things went dark, articles especially on specific site started to spring up about the shutdown and the usual whys, whats, rumors, "I heard that my friend heard from his dog walker that he heard from the mailman..." stuff, and other things. I havent come across too many of what can we take from this for the next game. I cant recall if this article was covered or not or would I have to guess the secret search words and zombify it, but here it is.
http://games.on.net/2012/11/ten-lessons-that-other-mmo-developers-must-learn-from-the-death-of-city-of-heroes/I think there are things to take away from this closing and it shouldnt mean the end of the super hero mmo. But we have a couple in the works, but public wise, there are at least one and seems like thye miss, again, what made COX great.
1) chracter creator- This is a deal or no deal for me. If I have to pick Wolverine number 56,962, I'm not playing period. COX, I could create a hero, my hero. Or villain with it's own back story none of that story from some Marvel employee with bighouse on the Hollywood hill idea of what is a great background for a hero.
2) One line of missions for entry level- COX did this early on especially villian side as the article says. Snakes again? And this is what CO does. How many times am I expected to beat up Poe? Top level is great and having content for high level is great but remember people have to get there and eventually that top level stuff will be done and if people have to slog through the same old Poe or Snake missions over and over and over each toon, then it kills the vibe of trying out the tons of other power combinations for those that have it and might just leave. AKA retention, very important. Rather have the graph look like an earthquake people coming and coming instead of a downward hill.
3) Travel powers-COX did this proper, although the SJ was obvious Hulk rip off down to the animation and even more apparent on huge set. But small niggle detail. COX got it 100% proper here. And the travel powers were not some overpriced wait until near max level stuff. Nope, it was 14 at first, but eventually level 4. Take note. Unless the scenery in the game is the most absolute gorgeous thing and no constant mob aggro from much higher level enemies, travel powers. Not everyone like speed of COX walk across a map the size of IP just to pick up an item to bring it back to contact just so they can give you a real mission, a real mission killing 10 rats, lol. Really, travel powers FTW.
4) Free to Play- Sigh, COX, as the article state did hold out long time. Recently it is said one of the reason WoW lost a small percentage of players but COX never had that much players to buffer. But when it did go free to play, I think it would still be rocking if given the chance but...there was one common problem...
5) Many people came back to find their toon locked because while they played paid for years, and account laspe, they either had t o pay tyo unlock that AT or build anew. Come on, WTF. That is or was annoying for returning players looking to see what changed and many just shrugged and exited stage right again. Maybe it should have been even if free to play if thye had account for x amount of years, then their toons would not get locked.
6) Physics-hm well, I guess this is another one of personal taste. There was a physic engine and teh ragdoll effect was funny as hell but sometimes it looked...awkward to say the least. Too much ragdoll. I think technology have advanced enough to have a little bit more realistic. And dont forget collision physics. It's 2013 and seems that many games still cant keep mobs and players from getting stuck in walls and objects. I mean come on, I dont think even Doom in 1993 or 1994 had that problem and that engine is ancient.
7) Bases! Wonderful stuff- but I think next time take it next step further than COX and make them fill some sort of purpose. Yeah at first COX had base raids, but when that went belly up, bases were like something to do on the side and maybe take a screen shot or two and that's it. Not much purpose. Have nemesis or villains or heroes invade here and there and make it some sort of event to protect the base. Oh, and of course build the base building code if available with some sense, organization, and a way for others in the group to work on if and when someone leave. Common planning stuff. Employees come and go but the game doesnt stop. Too much cant fix it because no knew the code and the only guy on the planet that did is gone and any attempts just break it. Seriously? Sounds like QC was sleeping on the job.
Be careful of the map objects. People will make everything and anything sexual. Hey, ERP was popular in COX, so dirty minds abound. Cant help that. Just build cool maps. The catgirls will find someway to make it sexual.
9) User generated content-It can be wonderful but it shouldnt be obvious gift drop to farmers. While it is said farmers play the most spend the most (dubious. They just farm stuff.), and long time players, I doubt majority of gamers especially in casual setting are farmers. There were alot of them in COX, but not sure if majority. Yeah farmers will farm anythign and find a way to farm anything but with user generated content, maybe create a way that a person dont have to shift through a bunch of farm crap to find a good arc and the rating system in COX for AE was bootleg. Although i have no idea how to stop that besides removing it, which may create issues of it's own. Too many good arcs got bad ratings simply because they was not farms and many got good ratings because they was farm which made the rating system a bit moot. And yeah they fixed that and for some reason, AE fell out of favor quicker than the Titanic sank. Hmm, guess COX had mroe farmers than I thought.
10) We have CO, DCUO and... think that is it for now. Now how many Fantasy games? Hundreds if not thousand or so. The market is wide open. Way back when the automobile was made, it was said that the automobile is not a marketable invention. It was loud crude, unreliable, and dangerous and the horse was the way to go for short trips but the horse was falling out of favor it was the train that was supposed to take over. In the late 1800s many viewed automobiles as nothing more than a hobby niche thing that rich people did. Then came autoracing, then came Ford and the factory mass produced assembly line, and the automobile caught on. Before cars were ran on gasoline, in the time even in the Model T days gas could only be purchased from the factory it was rare (and ironically still not as expensive as it is today. Another time another story). There was electric cars and there were steamers. Gasoline is the like the WoW. It caught on. The Electric car is like COX. It was ahead of it's time and although it didnt get a major following like gasoline cars, it still was good. Eventually electric cars were unheard of in the 1920s-late 1900s. But soon they came back, bigger, better, and actually marketed. That is what these projects should be aiming to do. Yes the original electric car is gone, but now we can make something bigger and better. Without the IP directly from the source. Believe it or not, the company that held the patent for the first electric car still have it and never sold it even though that company is now defunct now and is in government hands but new electric cars foudn a way without having to use anything from the original patent besides using electricity, which no one have patent on per se. This is what the phoenix projects should be to NCSoft holding on to the COX IP. Compare electric car today to those in late 1800s and no one would argue it's not even a comparison besides they are electric cars. Is gasoline cras still the 900lb gorillas of automotive industry? yes, of course, but 900lb gorillas never stopped innovators or else we would still be horse and buggy. Get it in, Phoenix project, the super mmo genre depends on it.
