jdotmi | (no subject)

Another Monday, another day of fun and excitement. And if you believe that...

Apparently, this is the month of company downsizings. They let people go here at my employer this month, and apparently NCSoft, the company that publishes City of Heroes let go a huge chunk of their office staff. Great month to be employed. Or not, as the case may now be.

Speaking of work... I have over 1/4 of the open cases for my team in my name. Of course, over 1/2 of the cases on my team's list are in the group that I'm assigned to, so that's not really a surprise. I guess that's why there's technically three of us assigned to the group. Four if one of the people we've loaned to another department comes back anytime soon. Of course, there are only six people on our team total...

Had some sleep deprivation problems this weekend. I'm still getting used to this weird new schedule of mine. I didn't wind up getting to go nap Friday night as early as I would like (details below), so I was a total zombie at work on Saturday. Got everything done without issue, just was not particularly wanting to be awake. Got home, stayed up for about an hour, then went to bed and got woken up at 4:30. x_x I tried to go back to sleep, but that just didn't happen. So I stayed up, played some WoW, then went to work.

Got home Sunday morning and immediately took a nap. Planned on getting up at 12:30. Turned the alarm off at that point and then had a dream that I woke up and was calling my full time job to let them know that I was awake if they needed my help with anything and it was

winterlady who answered the phone.

Which was really funny because that dream woke me up at 2pm and I went on WoW and learned that

winterlady had called in. :-p I was very amused. As was she, I think.

I think I may be playing slightly too much WoW of late. Well,

satyr_mi at least thinks I have. :-p Really not wanting to burn myself out on it. Need to socialize with people that aren't on the other end of a computer screen/ventrillo chat server. I got my warlock, Kalleesta, to 20 and proceeded to send her Tailoring skyrocketing. Now she needs to hit 35 to continue. o_o Need to get her run through the Deadmines and then pick up the quests for Blackfathom Deeps so she can do those quests and get her nifty lil Warlock staff out of it. My druid, Letalli, hit 39 and is almost ready to do a Scarlet Monastery run with the guild. (Note to self, get

satyr_mi set up on the website. :-p) I've definitely spent way too much of my free time playing. Need to spend more of it cleaning. x_x

Well, it's time to get back to work and get some of that huge pile o' cases out of what's left of my hair.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Maybe if CoX didn't leak bored subscribers like my roof in the winter, NCSoft wouldn't have to lay people off ;)

CoX subscriber numbers are the same as or higher than they've been since launch. This leaky rumor that's floated around the net is just whining from people who want everything in the game to go their way and when it doesn't they go OMGIQUITFUCKYOU!!!11!1ELEVENTYONE! They releae their subscriber numbers quarterly on NCSoft's website.

Auto Assault tanked, however, and the people they let go were almost entirely from the Auto Assault team.

Well, I suspect that the subscriber numbers, while superficially the same, include a lot of turnover. Probably 80% of the people I've talked to who played CoX have left out of boredom with the game (especially lack of high end content or increase of the level cap beyond 50). Probably 10% have canceled their accounts, then gone back, sometimes multiple times. Me, I'm in that 80% ;)

Think of it this way. The people who you talk to about it are probably part of a larger social group who have migrated from one game to another more or less together. To be honest, most of the people who I've ever talked to about CoH left less than three months after release because Issue 1 (and the level 50 cap) didn't come out fast enough for them and they powerelevelled to 40 in seven and a half minutes and were OMGSOBORED and moved on to, and promptly left, the next best thing in two months time. Yes, I used to play with people who make Ritalin seem like a weak and pathetic substance, why do you ask?

But then you get to the people who aren't as involved in things like LiveJournal and the official forums and OMGMUSTHAVEITNOW and what have you who don't go around talking to everyone in the world about it who have been playing steadily with a group of 5 to 70 people since launch. They've stuck around and nobody knows because they aren't the ones that are being vocal and in your face about it. They aren't leaving to some other game and going "OMG guys you have to check this out!! It's so cool!"

That's the way it is with all of the games in this genre. They all have a high turnover rate, yes, but it's not nearly as high as the people who got bored and left make it out to be. I've gotten bored and stopped playing for months at a time, but I make no claims that it means the game is dying or bleeding customers like a head-shot.

Well, I was exaggerating in my original comment, in an attempt to be amusing. Guess I failed *g*

Yeah, some of the people I've known who left CoX have bounced from game to game, powerleveling or no. But then there are other people, like me, who got bored with the CoX game mechanics (and I never even got to 50...my highest hero stalled at 45. I was playing regularly for over a year too, starting at launch) and moved on to another game and have been there since :)

I don't denigrate anyone for still enjoying the game. I honestly wish I did. If I had a regular group of friends who still played, I might be too. For me, without a good regular group to play with, the game by itself couldn't keep my interest.

Eh, humor is lost on the internet. ;) Besides, after watching dozens of retards go "OMGCOXHASNOSUBSCRIBERS" on every other forum out there, well, ya pushed a button. :-p

The LiveJournal channel is what keeps me going in it. Heh. I much prefer to solo in any game I play anyway. The only reason I'm playing WoW so much now in a group setting is that I have a regular group of people that I play with (almost all of whom are co-workers or former co-workers).

I originally got into COH because of my old EQ Guild (the ritalin crowd) who jumped ship so fast (some made 40 in two months, back when everyone was still a noob and Regen was considered to be the weakest set EVAR) and after that I decided I wasn't going to jump to a new game for any of them. They did suck me into EQ2 for about a minute before my deeply ingrained loathing for all that is SOE drove me away. :-p

Wow is one of those games where it is very easily to get lost in it, in terms of time spent, and then suddenly find yourself totally burned out on it. I've been fighting that burnout for the past six to eight months now.

Most online games are like that, I've found. Having played more than my fair share of them. :-p Heh.