Captain-Electric

I heard Gabe Newell isn't even afraid of Chuck Norris.

Well, I don't know. Maybe you can make the Titan Network and ML's redname friends stop and listen to reason, if you just keep flinging poo at them. Never give up! Heroes never quit!

That was sarcasm. This isn't: do more and do better to save City of Heroes than the Titan Network has done and is doing, and I'll jump ship in an instant. My respect, loyalty and cooperation will be yours to beckon. Until then, I can't take you seriously.

Cool vid, I smiled at some of those costumes and well-timed dance emotes. But that War-Bash guy...OMG...CANNOT UNSEE

They'll put it back up, it's because maintenance happened.

If you register over there, the first thing you ought to prepare yourself for is nothing, absolutely nothing being about you. Bear in mind, all of the chitter chatter about ML is happening here, not there.

Over there, they're all concerned with saving City of Heroes. I read up over there every day, and that's all I see.

So going in there and being yourself will probably not go over well if you're not dedicated to the united effort to save City of Heroes. If you try to engage anyone in a protracted debate over personality issues and conflicts, you'll be shut down and good riddance in my opinion. We already have a place for petty bickering. These forums. (Which have never been heavily moderated enough in my opinion.)

The last time this happened to my favorite MMO, me and a whole lot of other players boycotted the publisher, and joined together as a community that was unwilling to let their game die. And it wasn't just talk. It took eight years, but Earth and Beyond is now in a feature complete beta state, faithful to the original game; and also chalk-full of new updates, features, art and story content made by, and funded by the players, and implemented by a professional dev team who has worked together for years-- to achieve a quality free service, and to right a wrong that was done to their fans.

Hundreds of players are exploring the stars at any moment, thanks to two things especially: community and determination. EA hasn't so much as attempted to write a cease and desist letter because they know the Earth and Beyond community will decentralize in response, and just like the Ultima Online emulator community did years before, there would be dozens of professionally run servers (and thousands of, ahem, other sorts) for them to fuss with their lawyers over--something that would cost them much money and effort for very few results as a reward.

A few years ago, a new CEO at EA finally bowed to pressure and bad PR, and publicly admitted that EA's strategy of killing their competition by buying them out and shutting them down over the years had been, perhaps, not well-thought out. Meanwhile, Earth and Beyond's old producer recently said he's amazed and thrilled by what his [destroyed] studio's fans have done. Or rather, what they didn't do: give up.

I'd love to read comments like that from Brian Clayton or Matt Miller some day, years from now, which is why I'm admittedly disappointed by the news that the Titan Network has decided not to get behind a City of Heroes emulator. Bowing to legal fears and concerns doesn't impress someone who's been there, done that, and is still a member of two emulator communities, both very successful for years now, where many MMO players have sworn off big publishers as a matter of principle (and, perhaps, the wisdom of experience).

The Earth and Beyond emulator team is reportedly gearing up to start their own real-deal studio after the emulator hits the "Live" stage and they release all server code to the public. After nearly a decade of surmounting every single speed bump and Mount Everest in their way, they've proven to themselves, to their fans, and to the MMO development community, that they can achieve the seemingly impossible.

The Titan Network's Plan Z, on the other hand, is also admirable, and achievable. But it is also extraordinarily awesome in scope, and would be even for an already established studio. The idea that a group of players--some who couldn't agree on the most basic gameplay mechanics during their years on these forums--could get together and...eesh, it's a heavy order, even for an Optimism Incarnate like me.

You just don't slap an MMO together, not if you want it to deserve the moniker of City of Heroes' spiritual successor. MMO designers who make great games have years of experience behind them, and that's only half of the equation. The other half is the ability to work well together, and working well together ALWAYS, INEVITABLY means saying "yes sir" to the programming lead, or content lead, or art lead, or assistant lead, or team lead, or whoever it is you're under. Even when you hate their idea with all your heart. THAT is what working together truly means, and if you can't do it, you can't make a good game. This is why I brought up the Earth and Beyond team: because they're sitting on a success right now that has earned more respect than ire in their industry, and it's allowed some of them (who previously had little or no experience) to cut their teeth on game design and learn from experience. Some of these guys and gals wouldn't be prepared to start their own studio and make their own game if they hadn't brought their old game back to life first.

Sorry for rambling. Thanks for reading, if you did.

Of course I'm not going to refute them. I'm not her, I'm not her internet bodyguard, and I'm already wasting a ridiculous amount of time on this stupid thread. I did make a post pointing out that Positron and Zwillinger have both made similar mistakes in predicting NCSoft's plans or intentions, but I'm not holding it against them, either. Guess you didn't read it, oh well, forums.

NCSoft's unpredictability has been the problem here, since August 31, not ML or anyone else who has lifted a finger to help us. You seem to think my motivations for posting here ought to revolve around winning an internet argument with you, and maybe this is the part where I'm supposed to go digging out six month-old quarterly earnings and have a nerd off with you about them. But, hold up, there. My only point during that part of this quickly devolving playground argument was to get people to understand that ML has had a good word from the devs. That's all. Closing your ears based on a couple times she was wrong about a couple of details early on, it just seems petty at this point, now that we know she's closer to the devs ears and mouths than most of us are. If you want to take the discussion there, great, here's your Internet winner trophy, I'm not having it.

This.

I had no idea what he was...wow. Access to peoples personal information? Sometimes I just expect people to be reasonable, like when I'm having every day ordinary conversations with people off the internet.

Aaand, maybe not so many cool points, after all.

I am not a member of the Titan Network and the idea that they collect a ton of personal information is straight out of Brillig's mind, who has no idea what he's talking about.

Actually, Legacy? I can't speak for anyone else, but I think you've got the right idea here. Do whatever you can do, and whatever you feel right about doing. I think that's the main thing, here. Just for what it's worth, most of what I've done at this point for the whole SaveCoH thing wasn't stuff I heard from the Titan Network. My main rule of thumb has just been to keep most of my "SaveCoH activity" OFF these forums and off the Titan Network forums. People get stuck on forums and it's a horrible idea to do that. Forums posts don't accomplish much in a circumstance like this. One thing I have done though, is post my open letter to NCSoft in comment sections beneath CoH-related articles in the gaming press, especially when I could get in quick and have it be near the top. It's not much, but where's it more likely to be read, there or here? Heck I don't even know how many pages back my letter has scrolled here on the forums now.

You've just earned a ton of cool points from me, for what it's worth. Hey, you're a villain! What's yours is yours!

Hey, knucklehead, I'm not a member of the Titan Network, and even if I was, I'd have no clue who all sent in their masks and capes unless they posted publicly about it on the Titan Network boards.

But, yes. You're welcome to quote me, and sue me while you're at it. Have a splash, you're on my ignore list.

So the serious part of the conversation is done. Got it.

See ya round the boards, and enjoy your internet arguments here while you still can.