[MUD-Dev] CoH (was: MMORPG Cancellations: The sky is falling?)

[Douglas Goodall]

Scott Macmillan wrote:

> IMO, Cryptic managed to keep focused to deliver a relatively
> "shallow" but extremely rewarding game.  It allows non-hardcore
> players to enjoy it without the frustration of having to take part
> in 9-hour raids.  I am assuming from what I have read, they are
> endeavoring to now make the game "deeper".  The alternative would
> have been to try to jam that depth in at the start, and probably
> do a mediocre job of it.  Given the realities of finite resources
> and time, I'm glad they polished a lower number of features,
> instead of half-assing a bunch.

> As a note, I'm curious if the people reported to come right back
> to EQ and DAoC from CoH are hardcore or casual MMO players.  My
> hunch is that most of them are the more hardcore types.  Can CoH
> do well with a game that may not appeal to the hardcore?  I don't
> know.  I'm interested in seeing if their updates and expansions
> address the concerns on depth, and if they do it fast enough for
> CoH to not lose too many people.

That is my opinion as well, and I think it's a good strategy. I am
more of a hard-core gamer, at least when I get the chance to play. I
loved CoH for about 3 weeks or 2 characters to level 20, depending
on how you measure such things. I went back to my usual game
(Anarchy Online), not because I disliked CoH, but because I only
have time for one game.

That said, it was hard to go back. CoH wasn't particularly hard to
leave--one disadvantage of the extremely casual play is that, by not
requiring lots of time, I had less sense of investment and
ownership. But even though CoH may be a "bare bones" game, the few
features they have *work*. This cannot be said of AO or EQ or most
PC games for that matter. After playing such a well polished game,
it was hard to re-adjust to non-functionality such as "click three
of four times to pick things up." Even the pathing in CoH almost
worked some of the time.

The only area where I felt CoH could use improvement was how
contacts and missions are distributed. I couldn't find a balance
between running out of missions for my level, getting missions with
orange/red bosses that required me to gain levels, and levelling too
fast which cut off several plots. I eventually decided it was a
design flaw rather than a personal failing, and this was a key
factor when choosing between CoH and AO (which gives unlimited--if
somewhat uninspired--missions and lets you choose their difficulty).
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