Another_Fan
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Quote:Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Plan Z will be raising money for the project - there's no question of doing it as a purely volunteer effort.
You have no idea how hard I laughed.
Especially since this was right above it
Quote:Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast 
Common sense is often clouded by emotions and paranoia, but you try telling them that LOL! -
Quote:Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
So NOW Plan Z is a Nemesis plot to lead on and exploit people?
Probably not by you but you aren't making all kinds of claims that aren't able to be substantiated.
No but from the way it's going expect to see them discover they need more than volunteers and all of sudden they will be raising money. At which point it will be a simple con of overly trusting people that were sad about losing something dear to them.Quote:Plan Z (and I will be really disappointed if it doesn't involve breaking into a secret military research facility in Nevada and steal a zombie virus so they can release it on the world) is probably not going to destroy the world. Unless, of course, it really is a zombie apocalypse. -
Quote:Plan Z on its own is a harmless pipedream. Plan Z plus either delusional or amoral people, angling for personal advantage is something else entirely.Originally Posted by Slaunyeh
Hi guys.
I know senseless bickering is all the rage these days, but in case you weren't aware, there's this game some of us play that is closing down in less than three weeks. Is there any way we could stop cluttering the forums with thread after thread of little bobble heads screaming their faces off?
The past eight years on these forums have been quite pleasant. Please reconsider turning the last three weeks into a nightmare.
Thank you.
(Also:
)
It was bad enough seeing the various communities in CoH be lead on and exploited over the years. (Remember this one ? PvP is very important to us and we will be making continuous improvements.) Now it is far worse. -
Quote:Originally Posted by AvelWorldCreator
You gave a chart without citing sources.
The first chart has been widely circulated on these boards you can recreate it yourself by plugging the numbers into Excel. That you don't recognize it for what it is speaks volumes. The second chart is from MMOdata.net.
The fact that you argue not about the data or its validity but rather nitpick it's presentation is all anyone needs to realize you are pushing snake oil.
Simple Expedient and about as accurate as throwing a dart at a board.Quote:I used the simple expedient at the time of using one petition's numbers. Not a perfect source, but it still represented an strong player base with an active interest. How many of those were VIP vs F2P would have been difficult to evaluate. After that was the simple math of 15*number + maybe 1/4 of that actually using the store significantly each month. I used a figure of 10 for that monthly store number. Multiply by 12. That produces an annual gross income of 5.25 million a year. When I gave my estimate I definitely stated that it was a "rough" estimate. That means based on limited information. I notice you omitted store revenues.
If the game had less people return than signed the petition it would have earned 500k in less than 3 months. Your valuation was a token that would constitute ncsoft making a gift of the property.Quote:500k was my valuation of the IP NOW. Any company that tried to buy it at this time is going to have to hire new staff or hope the re-hire the previous one. Deal with the negative publicity this fiasco has caused and a myriad of legal issues. The game engine may have licensing issues and might require a complete rewrite. That's NRE - Non-Recoverable cost of Engineering. That's right, that cost is never recovered. The question would there be enough Return On Investment (ROI) to justify purchasing the IP in its current state at a higher price. 500k was generous. -
Quote:When I started on the internet a troll wasn't someone you disagreed with. Troll was a term for someone who exploited others sympathies and lied to them for personal gain or amusement. Your part in plan Z seems to fit that definition to a T. Your reaction to people confronting you about the B.S. you are spouting just confirms the assessmentOriginally Posted by AvelWorldCreator
That's a good question. And if it wasn't nearly 4AM here with me becoming very tired and cranky I'd try to find out. Right now I find myself actually feeding the trolls Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber.
Either way, it's pretty telling you are so insecure that you react so badly to people who disagree with you. -
Quote:I don't have evidence to weigh in on the existence of god. I am willing to wager that whatever god there is, isn't the one that anyone is selling. On the reverse, Religious people tend to be more comfortable with themselves and their relationship to society than the atheists are.Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
You mean all I need to do to prove to myself there's no god is to point a surveillance camera at my fireplace on Christmas Eve?
Why didn't I think of that?!
Oh, wait. That might just mean I'm naughty instead of nice. Nevermind. -
Quote:Just to point out the obvious.Originally Posted by AvelWorldCreator
Given that you keep slanting the story as the support ticket was the actual means used to attempt such I'm sure that's exactly the conclusion they would have reached. A lie of omission is still a lie.
I also take it you are NOT one of those alleged CEOs. I suspect that you are more of an amusing pet that brings some funny stories to them to laugh at and not one of them would even consider the possibility of you running any of those supposed billion dollar business. You might own a few shares of common stock, but I doubt it goes much deeper than that.
He was attacking your "FACTS", that you brought to the discussion. You are attacking him personally, with completely fabricated material that you have no way of knowing one way or an other.
At the very least you have branded yourself a liar with that post. -
Quote:What you have is more and more people adopting MMOs as their entertainment choice. You look at the charts on MMOdata.net and you will see there are games that grew with the phenomenon and those that failed.Originally Posted by Tenzhi
The total MMO subs data as provided doesn't seem to prove anything relative to CoX's subs. Given that more and more MMOs have been cropping up year by year (with F2P becoming more common as well) those stats could be made up largely of games with 50K players or less.
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Quote:LOL. You haven't presented your methodology and anyone can spot obvious flaws. I will point out your valuation numbers are off the wall based purely on revenue. 500k is an insane low number as even with 1/5th the subscriber base pre announcement it would earn it back in 6 months without even being able to release I24 and the new superpackOriginally Posted by AvelWorldCreator
That's the reporter I mentioned earlier in the thread.
She got it direct. I just "read between the lines".
Oh. And for those of you who wonder why I read so much into what seems so little? Try arguing committing millions of dollars of your company's credit to something that has the slightest hint of being shaky. And on top of that I'd have to show to any potential VC people that there was no cause for alarm. I was authorized to make inquiries ONLY. I do my job, and I do it well. There's only one or two people in this thread who have the necessary qualifications to fully criticize my methodology and not one of them has attacked my competence. -
Quote:There was advertising. I remember walking into bestbuy or maybe gamestop and seeing architect edition nicely featured. I remember seeing going rogue adds on web sites.Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
No advertising = no sales.
If you want a pithy soundbite, Failure to execute = lack of corporate support.
I have no idea what kind of crazy logic may prevail in the gaming industry but in most companies you don't get to use corporate funds without justifying the expenditure. Fail to deliver what you promise and you get the heave ho.
Paragon studios had several big initiatives not only did they fall flat they failed to actually follow through once they were inflicted on the playerbase. Is it any wonder that NCsoft looked at the company looked at the company and decided to shut it down ?
I'll admit that at first I was astounded at their decision not to sell, but after thinking about it, I realized that any sale would involve transferring information about customer spending habits and behavior in the MMO environment. I can't place a proper value on that information. -
Quote:Originally Posted by AvelWorldCreator
I estimated at the time the IP was earning at minimum a rate of 5 mill a year. No less than 10 mil and no more than 15. My original estimate seems to have been pretty close as I found out later. Now, with the loss of Paragon Studios, its senior staff, and player accounts (among other things)... The IP is now probably worth at most 500k. NCSoft doesn't even own the engine. That still belongs to Cryptic Studios. We weren't after the IP. We were after the studio and player accounts. Those were the real assets.The absolute max active subs CoH had before closure was 50k. That figure implies no one bought anything from the shop.Quote:Originally Posted by Brillig
CoH was pulling in about ~$10M in sales per year. (Slowly declining). That's an easily verifiable fact from their quarterly filings.
Paragon Studios employed roughly 80 people.
Then consider expense for servers, bandwidth and support, which were all provided outside Paragon Studios.
At this point, you can either do the math to figure out what a reasonable estimate for the profitability of Paragon is, or you can't. You can choose to look at CoH in isolation, or look at Paragon as a whole, but the net is far under what a lot of people are positing.
It's much more likely that the real number was around 30k-40k subs.
That's just the math to understand how poorly the game was doing lets look at two charts.
and
The MMO data chart is a little misleading because it is capturing subscriptions in a market that has embraced other forms of payment and it captures just the games MMO data charts, in a market that has seen endless proliferation in the time period.
You look at the two charts and it's no trouble to understand why NCsoft closed CoH. While the MMO market was exploding CoH failed to thrive. -
Quote:You are thick. You asked your question as if you were doing a design spec of CoH. Matter of fact it was so damn specific previous versions of CoH might not have met the spec and I24 might not have.Originally Posted by Thunder Knight
I see. First you condescendingly tell me that games better than CoH exist, and I should try one of those. Then I ask you what games you're talking about. Then you ignore me for days and finally only respond by calling me names and belittling me some more. And even then, you still didn't bother to answer the question I actually asked.
But I'm the "punk".
How does that work again?
No, don't answer that.
In fact, don't bother to respond at all. I'm done with you and your imaginary list of "better than CoH" games. -
Quote:Take a look at the titan boards.Originally Posted by Iron_Emerald
Certainly it would be silly if people were completely overcome with grief over the game ending. Or if people were so overboard with hope that they were utterly convinced they could keep playing the game as it is in December. But as far as I can see nobody is saying that, it's just a convenient construct to pretend that others are being that silly so somebody can feel good about being the 'voice of reason'. -
Quote:Here is the relatively quick list hope it puts you on your way. From the sound of your posts, you came out of RPING back when it was young.Originally Posted by GadgetDon
Actually, I think that, for the most part, CoH did fulfill those needs. As for #3 - Both with the original content, and if you follow the hero path (and don't go into First Ward/Night Ward which did force grey upon your character), you rarely had to choose between two not-good choices - at most it was "you can't save everyone". Yes, Praetoria was filled with them, one reason I don't have any Praetorians in my long list of characters.
And as for matters - I don't mean changes the gameworld. I mean, within the story, I was breaking up plots to do terrible things, I was rescuing people who had been kidnapped. Even on the streets, when street sweeping, I'm stopping burglaries or the Vahz from preparing to rip people apart and such.
Did CoH live up 100% of the time to my wants? No. The KIR and MOM trials are far too twitchy for me ("hey, there are these colored areas on the ground you can't step in or you die. Yes, we're using lots of superpowers that cause a light show so you may not be able to see them until it's too late, but you can't step in them. Oh, you're melee and the archvillain is in the middle of one of those. Well... file your nails or something.") First ward is too gray for my tastes. And I remember nerfs to powers because they were overpowered for PVP.
So I'm not expecting 100% consistency on my list from any game. But they need to be part of the design, what the game tries to do, even if they don't always live up to it. CO, for example, has a lot of the items on my list. I'd wish for more instancing, the ability to set a flag that says "automatically reject any request to duel". The main things it falls apart on is the community building tools, mostly in the forums and moderation - there needs to be a moderator watching Millenium City zone chat with ban hammer in hand.
Right now I'm looking at CO and SWTOR as the closest. And while there are some aspects of SWTOR that make me say "I wish CoH had that" (and maybe a few in CO though there's a lot more I find lacking), I find more "I wish this had stuff from CoH".
GW2
If you can live with Swords Sorcery aspect GW2 is really very good. It has solid character customization. They have nearly completely got rid of the gather 500 rat tails B.S. They have solid character customization and the story line puts you in the center of things in ways CoH never did.
I am not sure about PvP yet but so far I haven't noticed it.
TSW
The character customization could be better. But after that everything else is incredible. The story telling takes CoH's picks it up, crumples it and throws it in a wastebasket. It is just that good. Nothing you do is unimportant.
You can team with anyone in the game but it doesn't amplify or shrink your abilities. On the other hand it doesn't matter the way things did here. You can get to 10 (max level) on your starting skills in a few days then how effective you are depends on your gear more than anything else.
It is also twitchy but as I alluded to you can take steps to fix that and you absolutely should. Once you don't have to manually fire your attacks it becomes much more strategically oriented.
Second Life.
It does everything you ask for but maybe not in the way you want. There are many roleplaying gamer communities in SL that run their campaigns within the context of the larger setting. SL lets them run their own combat system and relatively easily build their settings.
It's character customization quite frankly blows every other game's out of the water. Except maybe APB. The downside you will have to explore second life for people doing what you want.
Here is a Starter list
http://secondlife.com/destinations/roleplay -
Quote:He asked it a hell of a lot nicer than you did. Have you thought that maybe no one wanted to help you ? Seriously you come off as some punk that wants to prove a point and no one will satisfy. GadgetDon comes off as someone who is genuinely looking for a game and someone I can empathize with because my own physical afflictions have been getting in the way of my life long passion for golf.Originally Posted by Thunder Knight
Given that I asked this same question days ago (granted, with more items on the list), and have asked it of you twice more since, I'm starting to suspect there is no "list of possibilities".
If that's the case, then just admit it.
If that's not the case, then just write the darn list.
But enough of this "Oh, I'll tell you all the games that are just like CoH (but better) later" crap. -
Quote:I'll give you a list of possiblities later. I did want to point out now that CoH as things stand didn't measure up to 3 and 3A. You also may be forgetful of CoH's shortcomings in meeting other items on your list. Many games give you those things but in their own way.Originally Posted by GadgetDon
OK, here's what I want out of an MMO.
#3 I need to be able to be unquestionably the hero. Yes, in real life things are rarely black and white, lots of grey in most decision. I play games to avoid real life, I want to be the hero.
#3a From the start, in game terms, what I do must matter. I.E. a minimum of "hey, you know these things there are hundreds around, go slaughter five of them"
From the start in COH nothing you did mattered. I could arrest every villain in atlas and before you completed your circuit of the zone they would be back doing exactly what you stopped from doing 5 minutes ago. You didn't even get feedback on how well or poorly you were doing.
The only place your actions actually mattered one way or another was Recluce's victory and then they mattered for all of 6 minutes.
The post I18 story line did not leave me feeling like a hero at all. I remember someone in league chat describing the B.A.F. as "Oh Great we are stopping prisoners fleeing from a concentration camp". The magisterium left me feeling completely unheroic. Wonderful our actions have managed to not only destroy a civilization but a civilization that at the time was full of people sympathetic to our cause.
Oh just a P.S. I am old as well with physical conditions that make even CoH painful to play in the manner described in the EULA. PM me and I can give you links to programs that take much of the twitch out of twitch gaming. -
Quote:In order of preferenceOriginally Posted by JayboH
1. Looking back, considering everything, which was your favorite archetype in the game?
Soldier of Arachnos Crab
Soldier of Arachnos Widow
Stalker post update
Blaster pre I24 changes Post I24 changes it would have been something better but lacking the charm blasters had. Poor job on the fix Arbiter Hawk. Blasters didn't need to be made into a clone of some other games DPS class. While I am sure you are a very creative individual sometimes the real test of artistry is knowing when to dial it down.
I was really upset that the SOAs were not accessible to me pre side switching due to low pop levels redside and the poor nature of the market. Failure on the devs part to recognize they screwed the pooch in segmenting the population and then not fixing it yesterday when it became blindingly apparent.
Absolute favorite was my Fortunata but that just may have been the case of finally having a build I was happy with and running the heck out of the character before the end.Quote:2. In possible contrast, when it comes to your favorite character, what kind was it? List AT and the two main sets.
Crab would have topped the list if it weren't for the damn legs. WTG again making an unforced error and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Masterminds. Unfortunately when they borked the pet AI in I18 it killed the AT for me again.Quote:3. What AT did you evolve to enjoy over the years that you disliked initially? -
Quote:Bingo give the man a prize.Originally Posted by SteelRat
If the community of City of Heroes is as incredible as you claim, then that community aspect should be able to transfer to OTHER GAMES as well. If it can't, then maybe it wasn't so great in the first place.
For some people it wasn't "The Community" but that they were big fish in a really tiny pond. -
Quote:It's one thing to build a building or sculpt a statue knowing an earthquake might destroy it sometime. It's another thing entirely to build a sandcastle at the low tide line and expect it to be around tomorrow.Originally Posted by Tenzhi
If we never invested ourselves into anything for the simple fear that it might be gone tomorrow where would that leave us?
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Quote:As far as I can tell he isn't and even though I have often disagreed with his positions I have never felt they weren't reasoned or his own.Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
And he probably still thinks he's not a troll.
If you want an example of a Troll, that would be someone who posts on these boards making out and out false and misleading statements without disclosing they are being paid by NCsoft/Paragon studios. We had just such a person who made a very long habit of getting people to believe that yes the Paragon Studio people were on the ball and their problems would be addressed shortly.
In the end we learned that while the devs in a perfect world would have liked to address the issues, in this world they had no intention of doing so. -
Quote:Originally Posted by JayboH
That link doesn't disprove what he said whatsoever. I read it carefully.
It's spacewar that you can download and play right now. The game never went away. If you want server based multiplayer games their are all kinds of Trek still around.
CoH never was destined for a short life. It took people who cared more about putting their imprint on things more than they cared about the game to kill it. -
Quote:LOL fair is fair, The Obama joke manages to hold office.Originally Posted by Angry_Citizen
To be fair, I'm pretty sure anything Golden Girl says is about as reliable as something Mitt Romney would say.
And no, the Romney jokes aren't going away. -
Quote:Seeing as you added to this and it's pretty obvious you don't get that there are people in the Titan network's crosshairs.Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
Some folks in here are way too obsessed with trying to prove everyone whose opinion they don't like has a mental disorder.
And: B&S is not a party. Not by that definition anyhow.
The people who play and like blade and soul have the right to enjoy their game. I might not like it but that is just my taste. The same goes for GW2. I am not going to play it but I would be really pathetic if I got any joy from seeing the people who enjoy a harmless pastime deprived of it. -
Quote:ROFL. The one person I would never feel the need "Prove they have a mental disorder" is golden girl.Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
Some folks in here are way too obsessed with trying to prove everyone whose opinion they don't like has a mental disorder.
50,000 + of her posts telling everyone who disagreed with what the devs were doing to get stuffed, at the very least demonstrates O.C.D. -
Quote:Collective retribution against uninvolved parties is considered a War Crime.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Well, any NCsoft product is a target in the campaign to get them to hand over the IP and server code.
In more pedestrian situations, trying to make random strangers unhappy because you can't get to the target of your anger is a good sign of insanity.