Johnny_Velocity

City of Heroes' revamp of the Faultline zone is my vote. It turned the zone from a wasteland (population-wise) to a must-visit. It incorporated what was then new and innovative game tech, and added significantly to the lore of the game. Plus it just looked cool. Hard to beat so much win across so many categories.

I've read the two City of Heroes novels and liked them a lot. CoH does a really good job with it's backstory, and the novels added to that - I was sad they stopped doing them.

I've also read "Fatal Alliance" as SWTOR runs up to launch. I couldn't shell out for the hardbacks, though. "Fatal Alliance" was solid, and it was clear that the author was trying to get one of each character class in the book. I'd like to read the others when they reach paperback. I think the other fit more directly into the game's storyline.

Overall, it's a trend I like and support.

I would create an alternate animal version of each of my characters. I'm particularly eager to create a green tiger version of my green fire-wielding scrapper.

Brawling/gadgets/superspeed, like I had in beta.

Viva le resistance! Because, well, the uniform with the glowing pieces is really cool.

Unfortunately, most games stick with an archaic unique-naming scheme, causing some players to lose their names upon a merge. That's a deal-killer for me. If I'm ever placed in that situation, it will be time to say "cya."

Past that, I'd prefer to keep any guild affiliations (and guild names) intact and any housing intact. But those aren't necessarily dealbreakers.

I love the dimension shift costume change e-mote. It would be awesome for my super speedster!

I would also factor in the age of the game to an extent. "City of..." has been around almost 6 years. In that span of time, everything else I purchase has gone up in price - gas, food, widgets of all kinds. Even if you limit the comparison to digital entertainment, my cable/internet bill, movie prices, etc have all risen.

My MMO subscription price has stayed static.

Admittedly, MMO's have large front-end costs, but maintenance costs, especially salaries, can't be completely static. Plus, playerbase usually declines, absent a major re-investment of resources.

If the subscription price does not adjust for inflation, it's hard to complain about modest add-on packs that fit the other criteria in your article, especially if it helps sustains an aging but enjoyable game.

I find Cryptic's approach of rewarding players to test far more palatable than the other superhero MMO's approach of closed testing by their favorite players, or outright selling closed test server access (usually followed by the release of a buggy and inadequately tested product). But that has long been a pet peeve of mine with CoX. They never should have abandoned their original model of open testing.

A good response, and a comforting one to a subscriber, I suppose (even though there is no real information in it). However, I have to wonder about his claim that CoX is the most popular superhero MMO out there. This site recently suggested a 250,000 number for Champions Online, which I realize is an estimate only, but would put the newly launched CO about twice as high as CoX if accurate. NCSoft stopped putting out numbers, and Atari hasn't issued any yet, and might not. I wonder what he bases his statement on? I guess the absence of real numbers from Atari's side might be enough to continue making the claim.

NCSoft's financials are due next week or so, and for the last few quarters either bad news or reorganizational news has accompanied their financial report, give or take a few days. For gamers' sakes, I hope the trend stops this time around.