NCSoft acquires City of Heroes/City of Villians from Cryptic

This is something of a surprise. And, when it comes to a game Ive been playing and loving for... years... from its first beta... surprise isnt something I like to experience. At least, not this kind of surprise.

And worse, this move comes with bribes. Clearly bribes, because NCSoft is an MMO veteran distributor and well knows that players are a fickle and superstitious lot (like me), and will jump ship on an MMO for any reason at all, including one as slight as a change of ownership. So they are bribing players, plain and simple.

CoH players can now play CoV. CoV players can now play CoH. Very nice, but of course, Ive had both games from their individual beginnings. This actually makes me, that representative of the core, loyal fan, look like a chump. Im not a fan of being a chump. Thats the whole reason I stopped hanging out with harpists. Yes she wants you to help her move that honking great (not to say expensive and fragile) thing. No, shes not going to put out because you do help. Or even show interest beyond the point where the harp reaches its destination. Or even say thank you. Thats the definition of chump. The chump carrying the harp. No, Im not bitter. Of course, all those players that couldnt be convinced to buck up for another $50 for the other side of the game now have a reason to stick around. And I understand that there are a lot of those kinds of players. So, of course, bribing that large segment to stay around is pretty smart.

So, Im feeling a little chumped. But theres more. Theres going to be a... wait for it... Debt Wipe. Meaning, at some point in the future, all your accumulated debt will be zeroed. Now, this is easily the most useless, cheesy, crass bribes Ive ever seen. Note, they are not saying they are getting rid of the debt system (a catastrophic move that would certainly signal the end, much as it did for Auto Assault. Even though Auto Assault never really had a beginning...), no, they are just saying they will zero out whatever debt you happen to have at the time this happens.

Debt, in CoX (yes, its a fun way of saying CoH/CoV. The X is a variable. The similarity in sound to a word that has a certain juvenile appeal is probably not coincidental. The PR folks for CoX never use it. Several of the Devs slip up and do though. Cause its that kind of infectious meme.) is a passing fancy. You get a little debt when you die. Die a couple of times in a row, and you'll hit the debt cap. Problem is, it only takes a few missions, maybe an hour or two of play, to clear even the debt cap. So, NCSoft is looking to keep you playing by bribing you with... an hour or two of time. In an MMO. MMOs being games defined by playing for days in a row. Im floored at their generosity. Of course, Im not a casual player. Someone with only an hour or two a day, or worse, a week, to play sees debt as a major obstacle to enjoying CoX. And of course casual players are a huge and important group for any MMO. Casual players pay the same amount of money a month as any one else, but their play habits allow for a higher number of players per server (effectively, virtualization), because they have such low resource needs. They allow for much higher returns on capital expenditure (here, the capital in an MMO is its servers and bandwidth) and are what let MMOs run at the kind of profits that they do. Bribing the casual player is pretty smart.

And finally, they will be giving Super Groups 200,000 prestige for every member at some point in the future. With the increase in the membership cap to 150, that can be a cool 1.5 mil in Prestige. This is actually a nice little bonus. For Guild Masters and those they allow to play with the Super Group base (Super Groups are, of course, CoX version of Guilds). Not that those bases are worth much besides quick transport on the CoH side (not really needed on the CoV side) and as walk through works of art. But its a nice gesture anyway. And of course its targeted squarely at the people most influential in keeping players in the game and paying their monthly fee. Guild Leaders. Super Group leaders.

Super Group leaders are the ones that recruit, cajole, and incentivize (its a word, shut up. If my boss can use it, I can) players. SG Leaders often create content of a sort, by setting up role-playing opportunities, arranging for group members to access content difficult or impossible to access solo, and by creating that most essential of qualities in an MMO: camaraderie. Having people that you know, even if only through the game, to play with, who you know arent total fools and wont lead you into a string of frustrating deaths and wasted time, is pure online gold (see my rant on Tabula Rasa for how this can affect a game in the negative). SG Leaders are the miners who unearth that gold. Bribing them directly so that they stay is just plain smart.

In fact, its all hideously, coldly, brilliant. Manipulative. My memetic defenses are screaming. I almost want to quit JUST BECAUSE I feel like Im being bribed and manipulated to play a game Ive otherwise enjoyed for 3 and a half years. Which is ridiculous. And yet there it is. Because MMO players are a fickle and superstitious lot, and Im no different.

Sadly, I think NCSoft forgot a bribe here. They forgot to bribe the hard, core, dedicated player. Ill grant, that group is probably not as large or as influential as any of the other three bribed, but its the group I belong to, and the group everyone I play with belongs to. And my cheeks (pick one, of the four) are feeling a little stung here. As if Ive been slapped. Taken for granted. Why would we quit over something so silly as a new owner? We've been playing for 3 years, why quit now? Why indeed. Of course we wont. These bribes arent about making players feel good about the new owners. These bribes are about business, pure and simple, and for some reason that sends a dark chill down my spine for the future of a game I love.

Lets hope events prove me wrong. Because I had dreams, before this, of a perfect world, where I had WAR for Fantasy, and CoX for a more modern feel, and maybe W40K MMO for some Sci Fi, and I was a happy MMO player. And those dreams just soured a little, and all over some silly bribes.