Lambda Sector trial on deck for preview in City of Heroes

CoH must still be doing well since we haven't seen a F2P model from them yet, but I can't help but wonder how many more people would e playing should they decide to go that way.

Population is fine, at least on Champion server. I can get a TF team together in about 10mins at almost any time of day. The Global Chat system is one of their best innovations, to be honest.

Can't believe CoH and CoV is still going strong. Definitely don't consider them mainstream MMOs and yet they're apparently turning a profit.

Let's hope this one goes over better.
The reception of the first Trial, the BAF, was lukewarm at best.

It's fairly punishing compared to the rest of the game. It's no harder than the Hamidon raid that's been in the game forever that people have mastered a strategy for, but the devs seem to overlook the fact the vast majority of the population *doesn't go* on Hamidon raids.

CoH is very stratified in that there's a handful of vocal players who have expensive builds and run the harder content like the STF regularly because for them it's easy. Then there's the majority who are, for the most part, still using SOs or common IO enhancers, have never run a Hamidon in several years of playing and who's experience of the STF is that of failing spectacularly.

CoH doesn't have much of a "hardcore raid community", and there's more than a few people who are happy about that and don't want it to.

Myself, I'm not sure all this work towards content to cater to a small niche of players is a smart move. Time will tell, but by then it's too late and they'll have another Shadow Shard or PvP system on their hands.

The idea for these more difficult trials and task forces is to offer a challenge for people who are opening up the incarnate slots. The "standard" task forces aren't going to really be anything of a fight once people are fighting at levels equivalent to 53 or 54.

As a long-time player I have to say that I see this expansion of play-styles being necessary, if not for growth, then to maintain current levels. The simple fact is that while many of us long-timers have avoided other games because of these types of activities, we're not the only type of player out there. Diversifying what can be done in City of Heroes is important for the long term health of the game. Certainly, many of my SG are interested in these new trials, and have even begun playing the RWZ Mothership raid with i19, enjoying it quite a bit.

As for F2P - its no guarantee of long-term success. Certainly, significantly older games are doing fine (ie, up, running, and assumedly profitable) without moving to F2P. And, of course, its worth mentioning that even F2P games fail! F2P isn't the end-all, be-all way to do things.