Bad_Influence

I am trying very hard to be hopeful as I sit here literally in tears. I am so sad for everyone who lost or is losing their job, and for all of us.... I have been critical of this game over there years, but that was because I loved it and cared about it so much. This is the end of an era & Im not taking it well

And there's the money shot.

its like hearing this news for the first time, all over again.

.....Ditto.

What has been done once, can be done again.

I'm not giving NCSoft a free pass just because my decision to spend money elsewhere might somehow "hurt my [future] interests." What they did wasn't very nice, and I think they know that. I doubt they were expecting the amount of push-back this has generated though.

If CoX can be saved, of course I will continue to play, and be grateful for the chance to do so. However this whole mess has been a harsh lesson to me: don't invest too much emotional energy in a thing controlled by someone else.

NCSoft can go ASSASSIN STRIKE! someone else next time. I think once is enough for me.... fool me once and all that. Their actions over the next week or so will strongly determine when and if I decide to play even another company's games, much less theirs.

Trust is earned. Right now, my trust is feeling pretty broken.

I'd be thrilled and delighted, and my opinion of NCSoft would rise 100 points over what it is now. I believe this is the best-case scenario that we can realistically hope for. I would be willing to pay actual money to help make it happen.

I hope NCSoft is really thinking about how many eyes are watching them right now, and how many opinions are waiting to be fully formed. I have a feelign they're not, that they think they're in a little corporate bubble of their own..... I sincerely hope I am wrong.

How they handle this will be the dealbreaker. Or maker.

First, I'm a she.

Second, that is exactly correct: I spent money with a company until their "scorched earth" policies impacted something I care a great deal about.

I am not some corporate do-gooder, riding around on a white horse and only dispersing my cash amongst those companies who remain "politically" correct. To even attempt to do so would be futile in this day and age, and I believe this to be a straw-man argument.

Yes, guilty as charged: I stayed with NCSoft even after they shut down TR. This does not make me a bad person, it makes me a pragmatist. I also think its not worth arguing about. If you think this is a moral failure on my part, that's fine. I play many villains, after all.

Perhaps so, but I never played TR and so was not really aware of what was going on. My presence on these forums is pretty sporadic.

NCSoft tossed this game and that one out the window; I was willing to ignore as long as they didn't touch one of their foundation cash-cows: CoX.

It still seems crazy to me to outright trash a game that was still making money - and NCSoft seems literally desperate for money at the moment, perhaps I am misreading the situation - but what do I know. Stupider business decisions are made every day.

Good for you; its your money and you are free to spend it with a company that seems to embody "scorched earth policy": I'd call what they are doing now pretty damned scorched-earth.

Me, I tend to spend mine with companies which are a tidge more sensitive to the consumer's feelings.

I am waiting impatiently to find out what happens next. If we do indeed find out that NCSoft is not going to sell the property OR release the code, that's when my anger will truly become volcanic.

Now, will NCSoft care about my anger? Of course not. But I'm not the only one mad here, and this whole SORRY MESS!!! [because that is what it is! a sorry MESS] is not exactly gilding NCSoft's lily. They're getting bad press about this, even from people who dont play the game. Word's getting around, and if they refuse to play nice, it'll get around all the faster.

I would not trust them to run any game I cared about, ever again, if they withhold that code from the playerbase or don't at least sell it to a third party. I don't intend to reward such behavior with my cash.

If they play nice, we'll see. About the only way they could salvage this situation other than the two ways listed above, is to announce COH 2. Right now would be an excellent time to pull that rabbit out of that hat. [Not gonna happen, just sayin'.]

Just told the Spousal Unit about this. Keep in mind, he is not a gamer and is not the slightest bit interested in MMOs.

SU: "Is the game owned by Koreans?"

me: "Yup."

SU: *laughs* "There you go. You knew one day this was gonna happen, 'cause that's how they roll. They're notorious for it."

He then went on to say that he knew I could face a new challenge [a new game], but this does not make me one bit happier over my main [especially] dying. My alts dying is like having to watch pets be euthanized.

You are not alone.

So, NCSOft had a rough fourth quarter in 2011. I daresay there are not many companies who could say otherwise, the economy being what it is. So, for that reason they are pulling the plug and alienating thousands of paying customers. Good way to consider the long-term view.

Or in my case, I probably wont go near them ever.

Incredibly naive and foolish on their parts. "Let's kill the playerbase's characters, many of whom they have had and nurtured for years! Yes, and then they will simply move over to New Property X. Great idea! They' won't be the least bit upset about that, I just know it."

Yep, that's gonna work........

Yes, stay classy NCSoft. Just like you're doing right this minute.

I'm not the one whose all "the devs are ignoring their own canon, O NOES!" but... whatevs. I'm a pragmatist.

I have better things to angst about, trust me. They're gonna do what they're gonna do, if we like it great. If we don't like it: great.

The thing being discussed here is developer responsiveness to canon, not developer responsiveness to quality-of-life requests. These are completely different subjects, but feel free to list away.

Perhaps, but this makes it not one whit less true.

Plainly you have never spent time on Superhero Hype or any other comics-themed message-boards! Allow me to reiterate that the canon-themed complaining on such boards is epic on a scale that makes Thanos look like Charlie Brown. Or Charlie Brown look like Thanos, whichever. Severe fights between members, pleas to comics-creators, boycott threats, tears, wails of anguish and other such histrionics are every day fare on comics message boards. Do the people at DC, Marvel etc care? I assure you: THEY COULD NOT POSSIBLY CARE LESS ABOUT READER OPINION THAN THEY DO RIGHT NOW. Therefore I view Techbot's complain-for-change campaign re this game's lore as tilting at windmills. Those developers don't care, and I get the distinct impression that the developers here are not overly worried about this issue either.

Not to mention, I dont recall even seeing a letters page in the most recent comics I've read.

Not one of them is surprised, I assure you. Mad maybe, but surprised.... not so much.

Good luck with your one-man crusade, Techbot! :thumbsup: