Defenestrator

That's an impressive display of wine.

For some reason I didn't have you pegged as a wine drinker, though.

Hi, everyone.

With this being the last week of City of Heroes, I wanted to post this here (and, yeah, this is a cross post from the Victory Forum because that was my home for 8+ years). I was hoping to be spending some time in the sunset of the game, but I haven't been able to. I've been very busy, and I'll get to that in a moment. (Bear with me, here.)

When they made the announcement that CoH was closing its doors, like everybody else I was stunned, shocked, sad, hurt, angry, etc. The whole gamut of emotions and feelings. I still feel the same way -- that this game didn't deserve the fate its masters at NCSoft chose for it. Part of me really wanted to log in, because I'm going to miss this. I'm going to miss Victory. I'm going to miss you. There were so many people who made Victory a great place to play, and the list is far too long to go into.

But then there was this other part of me. I have two main philosophies that I apply to business. The first one is:

A company that is not loyal to its customers is not deserving of loyalty from its customers.

Go back and read that again for a moment.

We live in a world where there are so many companies and corporations that seem to enjoy employing a scorched earth policy to their business practices. They do everything they can to maximize their profits NOW (and only now) so they look good on the quarterly profit margins so their stock prices don't take a hit. Of course, when you think only of the short term, you may very well be damaging yourself in the long term. If you went around, 50 years ago, and polled the CEOs of major corporations and asked them, "Who is the most important person in your organization?" then I would guarantee 80%+ would have said, "It's the customers." If you asked the CEOs of today's corporations that same question, their answers would likely be 80%+ answering, "Our shareholders." That's really a key difference in the way we do business, and many companies suffer for it. Does this sound familiar? NCSoft has suffered a pretty embarrassing black eye for how they've decided to handle this game by thinking in only the short term.

Since this game came out, a lot has happened in my life. I've moved from a small house to a larger house that I built, and in turn (unwillingly) became a landlord. I've had relationships with some terrific (and not-so-terrific) women that have come and gone from my life. I've had two wonderful nieces enter the family and I've been able to watch them grow up from mostly afar.

And I very nearly lost my job. Not in the sense of "You suck at work so you're fired," but in the sense of "We're letting half the department go so we can outsource everyone to India." In the end, I got to stay, but this marks the 3rd time I've basically had to interview for my current job. Let me bring up my 2nd philosophy when it comes to business:

A company that is not loyal to its employees is not deserving of loyalty from its employees.

See how that works? Employment is a two way street. If you demonstrate to your people that they are nothing but replaceable drones, they probably won't be very loyal to you as an employer. Of course, in this economy I had very little choice in doing everything I could to make sure I stayed employed, and it dawned on me that I really didn't have too much of a back up plan other than "Win the lottery" or "Fake death for tax reasons." I work in the textbook industry, and whether I want to admit it or not, my industry is changing dramatically. I've figured that my current job is probably not going to exist 10 years from now. I'm a middle-aged guy and finding a new career 10 years from now doesn't sound too appealing to me. Is this what they call a midlife crisis? I don't know. I didn't rush out and buy a red sports car of have a desire to find a 20-ish trophy wife. Isn't that what's supposed to happen in a midlife crisis?

But I did have the desire to make sure my future would have more options. I wanted to make sure that the next time my company tells my department, "We're downsizing again and sending more jobs to India. It's time for all of you to beg to stay here," that I could turn around and walk out.

So, I've taken the time and energy I would have spent in game (and then lots of extra time and energy on top of that) and over the past couple of years of near starts and roadblocks, I'm opening a combination comic book and gaming shop.

Yes, I'm going to be an entrepreneur.

I'm excited, nervous, terrified, frenzied and all of that that goes along with an endeavor like this. I'm keeping my day job, so I've found a good person to manage things during the day. Things are all finally falling into place.

So, in many ways, this is a goodbye to the Victory server and to City of Heroes. I leave with a great hope for the future. In City of Heroes, I saved the world more times than I can count. I've been to alternate dimensions, and fought a battle on the moon. None of that was as terrifying or exciting as where I'm headed.

And in some ways, this won't be a goodbye. I'll have my company's Facebook page and website active by mid-December. The store is opening on 3/1/13.

The store name will be Nostalgia Ink and we'll be in Mason, Ohio. (Please don't confuse us for the Nostalgia Ink in Jackson, MI.) I've named the place after a store that I worked at in Bangor, ME and frequented during my college years (they didn't survive the 90s implosion). Please feel free to like us on Facebook (in a few weeks) and stay in touch. If you're in the Mason, OH area, feel free to stop in and say hi. (I should be there in the evening and on weekends.)

Good bye, and good luck in whatever you decide to do.

Hi, everyone.

With this being the last week of City of Heroes, I wanted to post this here (and, yeah, I'm going to crosspost in the main forum, but this is going here first because Victory was my home for 8+ years). I was hoping to be spending some time in the sunset of the game, but I haven't been able to. I've been very busy, and I'll get to that in a moment. (Bear with me, here.)

When they made the announcement that CoH was closing its doors, like everybody else I was stunned, shocked, sad, hurt, angry, etc. The whole gamut of emotions and feelings. I still feel the same way -- that this game didn't deserve the fate its masters at NCSoft chose for it. Part of me really wanted to log in, because I'm going to miss this. I'm going to miss Victory. I'm going to miss you. There were so many people who made Victory a great place to play, and the list is far too long to go into.

But then there was this other part of me. I have two main philosophies that I apply to business. The first one is:

A company that is not loyal to its customers is not deserving of loyalty from its customers.

Go back and read that again for a moment.

We live in a world where there are so many companies and corporations that seem to enjoy employing a scorched earth policy to their business practices. They do everything they can to maximize their profits NOW (and only now) so they look good on the quarterly profit margins so their stock prices don't take a hit. Of course, when you think only of the short term, you may very well be damaging yourself in the long term. If you went around, 50 years ago, and polled the CEOs of major corporations and asked them, "Who is the most important person in your organization?" then I would guarantee 80%+ would have said, "It's the customers." If you asked the CEOs of today's corporations that same question, their answers would likely be 80%+ answering, "Our shareholders." That's really a key difference in the way we do business, and many companies suffer for it. Does this sound familiar? NCSoft has suffered a pretty embarrassing black eye for how they've decided to handle this game by thinking in only the short term.

Since this game came out, a lot has happened in my life. I've moved from a small house to a larger house that I built, and in turn (unwillingly) became a landlord. I've had relationships with some terrific (and not-so-terrific) women that have come and gone from my life. I've had two wonderful nieces enter the family and I've been able to watch them grow up from mostly afar.

And I very nearly lost my job. Not in the sense of "You suck at work so you're fired," but in the sense of "We're letting half the department go so we can outsource everyone to India." In the end, I got to stay, but this marks the 3rd time I've basically had to interview for my current job. Let me bring up my 2nd philosophy when it comes to business:

A company that is not loyal to its employees is not deserving of loyalty from its employees.

See how that works? Employment is a two way street. If you demonstrate to your people that they are nothing but replaceable drones, they probably won't be very loyal to you was an employer. Of course, in this economy I had very little choice in doing everything I could to make sure I stayed employed, and it dawned on me that I really didn't have too much of a back up plan other than "Win the lottery" or "Fake death for tax reasons." I work in the textbook industry, and whether I want to admit it or not, my industry is changing dramatically. I've figured that my current job is probably not going to exist 10 years from now. I'm a middle-aged guy and finding a new career 10 years from now doesn't sound too appealing to me. Is this what they call a midlife crisis? I don't know. I didn't rush out and buy a red sports car of have a desire to find a 20-ish trophy wife. Isn't that what's supposed to happen in a midlife crisis?

But I did have the desire to make sure my future would have more options. I wanted to make sure that the next time my company tells my department, "We're downsizing again and sending more jobs to India. It's time for all of you to beg to stay here," that I could turn around and walk out.

So, I've taken the time and energy I would have spent in game (and then lots of extra time and energy on top of that) and over the past couple of years of near starts and roadblocks, I'm opening a combination comic book and gaming shop.

Yes, I'm going to be an entrepreneur.

I'm excited, nervous, terrified, frenzied and all of that that goes along with an endeavor like this. I'm keeping my day job, so I've found a good person to manage things during the day. Things are all finally falling into place.

So, in many ways, this is a goodbye to the Victory server and to City of Heroes. I leave with a great hope for the future. In City of Heroes, I saved the world more times than I can count. I've been to alternate dimensions, and fought a battle on the moon. None of that was as terrifying or exciting as where I'm headed.

And in some ways, this won't be a goodbye. I'll have my company's Facebook page and website active by mid-December. The store is opening on 3/1/13.

The store name will be Nostalgia Ink and we'll be in Mason, Ohio. (Please don't confuse us for the Nostalgia Ink in Jackson, MI.) I've named the place after a store that I worked at in Bangor, ME and frequented during my college years (they didn't survive the 90s implosion). Please feel free to like us on Facebook (in a few weeks) and stay in touch. If you're in the Mason, OH area, feel free to stop in and say hi. (I should be there in the evenings and on weekends.)

Good bye, and good luck in whatever you decide to do.

We all sneak into their Korean corporate HQ and FLUSH ALL THE TOILETS AT THE SAME TIME!

Things will go all higgledy-piggledy.

The people at Paragon Studios do not strike me as the type of people who would just lay down and give up something that has been a huge part of their lives for 10 years. I hope this works out for them.

If you know anything about corporations, those things all usually come behind "make oodles of money at any cost."

Pick a day and time, and I'll be there.

Would also suggest RWZ since it's most-easily accessible.

If SOE did this, they would receive a full pardon from me for past crimes.

Just saying.

Despite everyone saying I was crazy, a small group of players, including myself, helped the dev team track down a bug that was affecting the drop rates of salvage and recipes. Apparently it had been in the game since those elements existed, but for some reason one of the Issue releases (I forget which one) caused it to go all higgledy-piggledy.

We persisted in collecting data from the live servers and they found the bug.

Also -- I really wanted stores in Kings Row, which eventually got added.

And I suggested a "Prison Break" task force or event from the Zig about two months into the game, which almost got added.

I've been here since the beta, and there's no way I can put everything in writing right now, as I'm simply stunned.

The fact is, there has never been an MMO that has innovated the way City of Heroes has.

Sidekicking so you can play with your high level friends? CoH did it first.

Flying? CoH did it first.

An unparalleled character creation engine with millions of combinations? CoH.

User created content? CoH did it first (I think, if not first, certainly best.)

Those are just a few examples, and it's hard to think of more because many standards that found their way into other games started here.

We're living in an industry where MMOs have become bland and derivative of each other. Everybody seems to be copying WoW as much as possible (hence my dislike for new games) but City of Heroes stood away from the pack.

That's a credit to the people who tirelessly worked on it.

And as someone who was looking at the prospect of being laid off last year (fortunately, I got to stay on), I can empathize with how everyone feels right now. Getting news like that is like getting kneed in the stomach. Repeatedly. By a 300 pound Samoan. I remember going through shock, despair, sadness, anger, (over the course of several weeks) and finally resolve to make the best of the situation. Hopefully everyone at Paragon makes it to Resolve as fast as they can.

If I don't get the chance to say it over the next four months, to everyone who contributed to this game: it was the best in its class. Thank you.

Well, this really sucks.

I've been here since beta, and I reckon I'll be here until the lights go out, but part of me really doesn't want to put real effort into a game that's going to be gone in 4 months.

There are literally no MMOs on the market that I have any interest in as they all seem to be pretty derivative of WoW (which I disliked). I guess this means I'll have more time to work on the novel and movie scripts I've been trying to write.

I'll keep an eye on things and be back for the closing events just to see how everything wraps up.

In the meantime -- I can be found over at Fark.com as Dog Welder, and if anyone wants to keep in touch, PM me and I'll give out some contact info.

I've not found another MMO that lives up to this one, dated as COH might be. This is pretty horrible news.

The rumor that I've heard is WB is basically going to hand the keys over to Nolan to work on tooling a JL movie to work. He won't direct, but he will be a guiding hand in the movie, much in the same way he is with the new Superman movie.

Nolan has yet to put his name on anything that was bad, so there the movie would have that going for it.