[MUD-Dev] MMORPG Cancellations: The sky is falling?

[Sean Howard]

"cruise" <cruise at casual-tempest.net> wrote:

> I have to agree - "shallow" seems to be the major complaint
> against CoH - but it's simplicity is the point - you don't have to
> spend hours camping a mob for that incredibly rare item, or run
> around levelling up all your equipment each time you level. In
> other words, you can just go out and /play the game/, without
> stopping for than a minute.

Why not release it as a single player game? Get your 50 hours of
gameplay out of the way without the $15 a month price tag. For a
game you have to continually rebuy each month, having an unchanging
experience with only superficial variety, depth, and social aspects
is hardly a recommendation to pay $180 a year to play (not to
mention the initial $50 purchase).

Recently, I feel like I've done nothing but bag on CoH. I even made
a comic taking a sly swipe at those other gaming webcomics which
seem obsessed with the game. But that's not how I feel. I think it
is an extremely polished relatively bug-free game that is a lot of
fun to play (for a while). I think Cryptic has a beautiful starting
point for a one day brilliant game, especially if their City of
Villians is half the game they say it will be. And with even just a
few minor modifications to the existing systems, they could create
an incredibly deep and rewarding game.

(One could argue that it is better to start from a solid, but
simple, foundation and build up complexity than it is to reach for
the stars and spend the first two years with bug fixes and gameplay
balances).

It's just that CoH has become the poster child for quality shallow
gameplay and that irritates me. "Shallow" is NOT the same as "pick
up and play". Go takes a "moment to learn, a lifetime to
master". CoH is like Tic Tac Toe. The more I see people praise the
gameplay, the more I want to argue and defend depth. I don't hate
CoH in any way, but the wasted potential frustrates me.

- Sean Howard
www.squidi.net
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