[COH] Conspiracy theory.

[Chikahiro]

I was talking to someone a little while ago about how great the incoming competition is in the super hero MMO niche. COH will soon be greeting Champions Online and DC Universe Online. Awesomeness, right? Especially with Power Customization (to whatever depth it is) finally coming to COH - the legendary, "too much work to be a priority" feature. Cryptic and NCSoft parting ways seems to have done wonders for COH and frees up Cryptic to do as they please without dancing around possible conflicts of interests (particularly when they were still working on Marvel Universe Onlne).

While going through the COH boards I saw this. Now, mind you, this is speculation:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=Dev&Number=13658457&Searchpage=1&Main=13647533&Words=+Armsman&topic=&Search=true#Post13658457

What changed?
When they said it wasn't possible, there were 15 developers working on the game. When NCSoft bought the game, that number slowly tripled. You can do a lot of things that were previously impossible with three times the manpower. Even if they're also making Going Rogue at the same time.
I don't think so. The fact is Jack Emrett was trying to get another superhero MMO dev deal where he could OWN more of the game (wereas he was just a 'contractor' for NCSoft, who owned CoH - and during this time, it was when he kept saying 'not possible' to A LOT of things because he efectively wanted to save them for 'his' superhero MMO).

He was negotiating with Microoft to do Marvel Universe On-Line; and that when that deal was signed he took Cryptic and left. When the MUO deal fizzled, he went looking and was able to acquire the MMO IP rights to Champions - and lo and behold, all the items that weren't possibe in CoH became major selling point for Champions On-Line.

CoH began to DRASTICALLY improve once Jack 'split' because Positron and the rest who decided to remain with NCSoft weren't hamstrung by a developer who was looking to 'jump ship' for nearly a year and didn't want to implement any of these ideas because he was looking to make a new MMO with a different deal. Hell, it's WELL KNOW that the 'Nemesis' System (a HIGHLY TOUTED 'feature' of CO was first proposed and outlined by Positron for CoH soon after it's release but struck down by Jack as 'not possible').

And yes, CooH was originally going to be way more like the Champions Pen&Paper RPG; and was fairly far al;ong in development when it was thought the potential for unintentiONAL 'player gimping' was too great; so NCSoft gacve Cryptic another 14 months to re-tool. (And hell, if you follow the CO boards, Jack was indeed woried about this in the new CO, and WANTED archtypes again in that game, but was told 'no' by both the players and the financiers; and wasn't all that happy about being overruled their either).

But the evidence is pretty clear that Jack was indeed sacrificing new features in CoH during his tenure because he was looking for a better deal somewhere else; and it showed.

I can't verify this guy's claims, but its interesting to think about. Can any long-timers give some feedback?

edit: And if anyone in the CO beta can comment without breaking NDA...
edit 2: And I already see one factual error concerning who owned COH.

[Monkey King]

I think it's just people who have an axe to grind. For whatever reason, there's lingering resentment towards Jack Emerett for all the earth-shaking rebalancing that was necessary in the early days of the game. There were nerfs left and right, and people took it personally, like they were being told by Jack how they should play the game. The players hated the man, because he took away their invincible Regen scrappers and Burn tanks. His communication skills weren't/aren't that great either, which exacerbated the issue.

On the other hand, I think the bad blood really started to sink in around the time Marvel Universe Online was coming up. Jack set himself up to be the game's figurehead, but he wasn't prepared for just how much shit was going to get slung at him for offenses real and imagines, and the feeling started to become mutual.

I think he stayed mum about Enhancement Diversification on purpose to try to defray the public outcry (which didn't work), and... well, he flat out lied about Cryptic continuing to support City of Heroes while MUO was in development. You don't knock a dev team down to 15 people unless you're trying to kill the game off, and at that point, I imagine he was more than happy to wash his hands of the whole business and start over again with a fresh game.

[dreamfarer]

It sounds more like someone with a hate on for Jack rather than a supportable theory actually. Some counter points:

- CoH was jointly owned between NCSoft and Cryptic. NCSoft bought out Cryptic's stake in CoH, they didn't own it entirely to begin with.

- The CoH devs never said "it's impossible to add customization in", they've always said "it's more work than it's worth given other features we could be working on."

- CO's feature list reading like a CoH wishlist isn't surprising, when you start from the ground up it is a lot easier to incorporate new features into the design. They'd be crazy to have ignored the feedback they got from CoH players.

- Given that every issue we've gotten has had new and interesting content, including things like Invasions, Inventions (best. loot. system. evar.) and Flashback, saying that the CoH team was "held back" while under Cryptic is ignoring history.

[Chikahiro]

Danke. Very sensible replies.