Brillig
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If you frame the conversation as one side winning and the other side losing, then NCSoft is always going to win.
If you actually want to save CoH, you're going to have to find a way to do so that allows NCSoft to win as well.
If, as the thread title suggests, you're focused on NCSoft not winning - well, enjoy whatever the hell it is you're doing, but it won't be saving CoH. -
There are a lot of problems with that statement.
In no particular order:
1. Of course "exhausted all options" means "exhausted all reasonable options." Do we really expect NCSoft to consider a leveraged buyout from Lord Xenu? And there's no indication that the Save CoH community actually understands what a reasonable option is. J.Random.Person sending an email to NCSoft saying that they want to buy CoH isn't a reasonable option for NCSoft. For it to be worth NCSoft's time to even evaluate an offer (even just an offer to talk), it needs to be credible. Aside from the talks with the former Paragoners, I haven't heard of anything that could be considered a credible offer. TonyV reaching out to NCSoft isn't a credible offer. If you're going to walk in off the street and expect to be able to sit down and talk, you're going to need a business plan and financial backing. And legal counsel in very short order.
2. He keeps going on and on that CoH was profitable. I've yet to see any proof of that, but even conceding the point, there's no way that CoH was significantly profitable. The idea that CoH was a part of what made Aion and GW2 possible is pretty ludicrous. Saying that GW2 was made possible by CoH profits is a joke. If CoH never existed, GW2 would still have been made. On the face of the numbers, it appears that the profit from CoH was what was sustaining new products development at Paragon. New products development at Paragon didn't actually produce any new products.
3. The community hasn't invested money in CoH. Paying for a service is not an investment. There is no "ethical onus" on NCSoft to deliver anything to us just because we paid subscription fees in the past. Paying for lunch at McDonalds doesn't make you an investor. And no matter how many McRib sandwiches you buy, there's no "ethical onus" on McDonalds to continue to provide them after the limited offer time expires.
Quote:4. Yeah. Reverse engineering is illegal. Tell me again why NCSoft should listen to anything coming out of Save CoH? On the one hand, you're supporting an effort to steal their work, and then you're complaining they they don't want to talk with you?I have always said and will continue to say that I will be intolerant of any illegal activities.
From the beginning, TonyV and Save CoH have done a great job of mobilizing the community and reaching out to the media, and a terrible job of pretty much everything else. Or to put it another way, you can be a businessman or a revolutionary, but you can't be both. -
Quote:You can, but the influence you gain is tied to the server. So each server would have its own distinct guild improvements, you couldn't use the same guild bank, etc...Originally Posted by Slaunyeh
You can join guilds cross-server, can't you? -
Quote:There you go again.Originally Posted by Rubberlad
They developed 6 multi-million dollar turkeys, killed the 7th multi-million dollar turkey while it was still profitable AND spent at least half a million on litigation versus Richard Garriott and ultimately lost because they forged documentation... If we count the eight unknown turkey that Paragon Studios was working on alongside City of Heroes...
Well, it's about a billion lost on dead end development projects, lawsuits and City of Heroes which was still turning a profit. And it all happened in 5 years under Mr. Kim's watch while he and his wife, Dr. Toon pocketed millions on the side. Again, that is a statement made in the Korean Times article I linked (towards the bottom).
As Mercedes Lackey pointed out elsewhere, NCsoft lost all credibility the minute they forged documentation. It's not worth trying to pretend they are legitimate now.
You add six "multi-millions" together and somehow magically get a billion? (We won't mention your retreat from billions to billion.) Then you pile on the assumption that CoH was profitable. You keep pointing at a five year old news article while failing to understand the distinction between won and dollars. The 'scandalous' amount that Dr. Yoon was being paid for being on the board? 100 million Won? That's $100,000. Not millions, and quite frankly, picayune compared to what Directors in the US make.
NCSoft may have lost credibility. You and Mercedes Lackey aren't doing so well either. I especially like the part where she compares NCSoft to murderers.
It's. A. Game. -
It certainly wasn't CoH 2.
Have a read: http://unsubject.wordpress.com/2012/...v-2-0-because/
While this is unattributed, it's partially corroborated by Arcanaville. It sounds like they tried multiple things, none of which NCSoft liked. But it was definitely not CoH2 that was being worked on. -
Quote:Maybe the reason was they were tired of waiting for Paragon to develop a second game?Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
Then they close it? Without a reason?
What if they didn't? What if Nexon told them to? -
Quote:Actually, the GW2 release is too recent to be reflected in last quarter's results. We'll have to wait for the next set of earnings to see the impact.Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
But it's down after a major release of its number one product GW 2. And not just down a little bit. It's approaching its lowest in the last year.
You all can point out what happened great in the past. But it's today that matters to shareholders. They're losing money. Nexon (it's major shareholder) cannot be happy with these losses since they bought in back in early June. You think they care about last year? 3 yrs ago? 5 yrs ago?
Anyway, the last bunch of MMO releases have been followed by drops in their parent companies' stock prices. There's a reason why "buy the rumor; sell the news" is a Wall Street aphorism. -
Quote:Actually, I'm the majority shareholder of Nexon.Originally Posted by Rubberlad
Speaking of which, both of you have gone out of your way to spew frothy negativity in defense of NCsoft across various threads... Are you being paid to do so or do you answer to NCsoft directly?
(I mean, as long as you're making stupid **** up, I might as well be rich).
And I'm not spouting frothing negativity. You've cornered the market on that. What I'm doing is called 'being rational'. -
Quote:It's really unsporting of you to bring actual facts into a rant thread...Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
Ok, going from just the Q4 PDF of each year. I am using the same sources as some people (not necessarily you, but others) have used as an argument for how the loss of $7million (ish) for Q2.
- Auto Assault: NCsoft were profitable through all of 2007
- Dungeon runners: NCsoft were profitable all through 2009
- Dragonica: Still up and running at least in the western market (Dragonica for EU, Dragon Saga for US). You are correct in that NCsoft closed down their Korean server for it, but it is back up under Gravity Corporation. Make of that what you will.
- Exteel: NCsoft were profitable all though 2010
- Point Blank: NCsoft closed the Korean server for it (the region they held the license for). Once again, NCsoft were profitable all through 2011 (although it was an up and down year for them).
- Tabula Rasa: NCsoft were profitable through all of 2008 (actually more so at the end of the year, than the previous 2 quarters).
They lost *billions of dollars*?
Can you please site your sources for this.
In *every single quarter* from at least 2007 up till Q1 of 2012, they have made a profit.
So, how can they *lose* billions of dollars?
Heh. -
Quote:Well, let's be fair. The man may have been a total jerk to work with, but that doesn't necessarily make his decisions bad. Steve Jobs was no savory rose garden either. NCSoft's financial results have, in general, been very good.Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
I'd like to add some small information here: The bad decisions did not begin with TJ Kim. They were omnipresent under Jae Ho Lee. I witnessed how it was to work with the man first hand. It was not pretty. In fact, it was awful. He had no respect for his Western coworkers and made no effort to conceal it.
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Quote:You're right. Massive DUH on my part.Originally Posted by Xieveral
I'm thinking the staff got to keep their rednames regardless of their status. If you check the list of people online, there's several of them on as I am posting, Zwill included.
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Quote:I don't believe that's his work. It's just an image link from a webcomic site.Originally Posted by kangaroo120y
Saved and uploaded to my own server for personal use
(unless told otherwise) . -
Quote:Two people independently reported hearing the rumor:Originally Posted by Arcanaville
False. One person mentioned it, one person suggested it was possible, everyone else correctly stated that if nothing else the number was wildly unlikely.
Quote:Originally Posted by Reply#99Anyone's guess if this is true, but I just read in-game that Trion offered NC 80mil for CoH.Will that suffice, your pedanticness?Quote:Originally Posted by Reply#105I've heard this rumor, too, but I haven't seen any evidence to support it. -
Quote:All I know is that prices in the market have been changed without a release, which means that there's some sort of tool to do so. Hell, there's probably a web UI. It's not like he's going to have to release I24.Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
Community reps generally don't get access to the inner workings of the product, yo.
And honestly, at this point I'm guessing he's no longer technically a Paragon Studios employee. If anything, I imagine he's considered a temporary NCSoft employee... or worse, he may just be doing this out of the goodness of his heart and a lack of other things to do while he looks for another job.
As for HitStreak's status, I really don't think he's volunteering. Because he still has a redname, I think he probably has some official NCSoft status still. Maybe they've put him on contract for a certain number of hours a week. -
Quote:Is Hit Streak not a Paragon Studios employee?Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
What it requires is a Paragon Studios employee to do it, and all of them have been laid off.
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Quote:Really? You think it took 5 weeks to do that?Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
I think the argument is that Zwill worked his *** off for the game, and the NCSoft PR person takes 5 weeks to write a single paragraph saying "Sorry we ****** your game (but not really)."
But then again, it's a pretty ******* unjust world we live in.
I think it was dropped on his desk this afternoon and he was told to make it look nice and get it out right away. -
Quote:Actually, I don't think it would go beyond a cease and desist order. It just wouldn't be worth their lawyers' time to go after people who couldn't pay a million dollar judgement anyway.Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
Well meaning but dont think it sanked in with the difference between reality and "ideal" for them yet. I hope they realize before going to on thier way with a good amount of cash and a good idea to being hundreds of thousands if not millions in the hole .If they lucky they get off with a simple cease and desist order.
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Quote:No, I would never say that Z contributed to the decline. However, I would say that Z was in more of a position to try to do positive things to improve CoH's position (and he did do a lot of things, they just didn't happen to work on a big scale) than an NCSoft PR person. That NCSoft person really had no impact on CoH one way or the other.Originally Posted by Kyuuen
Did he contribute to the decline? I'm leaning 'No, that's a terrible thing to say.', but the case could be made for it, I suppose.
So while I think it's very unfortunate that the people of Paragon are having to find new jobs, I don't think it's particularly unjust that an NCSoft PR person still has their job. -
Quote:Because "we" claim to be better than "them?"Originally Posted by Paul Orts
NCSoft has engaged in legally dubious activities before. It's likely they don't abide by their own agreements, why should we?
Also, as a result of those activities, NCSoft had to pay $26 million in damages. Are you willing to pay an equivalent amount for using the emulator? -
Quote:One thing that might be possible is for them to set the price of everything in the market to zero though. That one doesn't require dev work.Originally Posted by Aggelakis
There are no developers left to fix this.
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Quote:We'll let the "every thread" part go as hyperbole.Originally Posted by RosaQuartz
So... you're not a sock puppet? You just think it's A-OK to stop by every thread talking about this and tell everyone their wasting their time?
I promise you, I will not follow you around to every thread.
I'm not particularly hopeful at all. But there's nothing wrong with people that are. They're choosing to spend their time trying different things. I see nothing wrong with that.
And there's folks that spend their time trying to tell everyone else that they're wasting their time. Nothing wrong with that either, except they go to every single thread to say it. And that makes them look like a jack.
I still don't see why you think I've told anyone that they're wasting their time.
The closest I've come to it today was when I said that Kickstarting a new MMO development studio wouldn't work. And I'll come right out and say that one plainly, that *is* a waste of time. You know what else? Any sane person would agree with me - you can't raise the kind of money you need on Kickstarter.
If Clayton and Co want to start a new studio, more power to them, but they won't be getting their startup funds from Kickstarter. -
Quote:Not sure what it has to do with anything, but yes, I played on Virtue. Casual RPer. In no way a grinder, less than a dozen 50's. Been around from the beginning as you can see from my forum reg date.Originally Posted by Kyuuen
You play on Virtue, man?
Who are you?
Really. I just want to know what you play. You roleplay? Grind?
This is an honest attempt to reach out even though I don't really like the job NC did.
Regarding what NC did, I'm of the camp that believes that the main decision NC made was to close Paragon. They did so because they didn't believe that the secret project Paragon was working on was going to be successful. Once the decision was made to shut down the secret project, it made no sense to keep part (half?) the studio just to run CoH.
As in many situations, it's misleading to think that NCSoft are the black hats here. They may have been the ones pulling the plug in the end, but it's the result of numerous factors, which also include Paragon's inability to build up CoH (no matter how much you love it, the game was in a slow decline) and Paragon's inability to succeed in making a second game that fit NCSoft's requirements. NCSoft is no doubt complicit in both those failures. But to say that Paragon is blameless is both naive and, in a way, insulting to Paragon. -
Quote:Yeah.Originally Posted by RosaQuartz
Nothing wrong with my community spirit, it's a serious question. What do you have to gain from spreading negativity into every. single. thread. people post about their reaction to this?
I guess you could just be trolling, but I actually hope you're getting paid for this.
"Sock puppet." "Serious question."
You're the troll here. -
Quote:Ah yes, there's more of that wonderful CoH community spirit everyone talks about.Originally Posted by RosaQuartz
Are you an NCSoft sock-puppet?
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Quote:Huh. After seeing all the vitriol being flung their way, I'm not finding any of that loyalty you seem to think exists.Originally Posted by Kyuuen
I'm not suggesting at all that an incentive be a substitute for what they did, a little more could have been done as a nod to our loyalty. Just saying.
I'm glad that people with huge balances probably got refunded, though.