Dysmal

There has been a fair amount of "I feel ripped off" "I lost money" etc, type stuff. Perhaps not from you, but its been somewhat widespread in the various threads.

Well, for one thing, one of the huge hurdles we've been told by the developers to things like Power Customization is the way the game was built from the ground up. As well, the graphics engine, despite updates, is essentially what, four years old now?

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All of the CoX development team left Cryptic to stay with NCSoft, save Statesman. Take that as you will.

I don't see NCSoft's acquisition of risk in taking over CoX to be indicative that they are 'apathetic' toward the game, quite the opposite.

They are indicating an intent to 'double or triple' the staff, which we as players have been calling for since before the light went green on the servers.

In any case, a move was inevitable. We should all have forseen that there was no way Microsoft would allow Cryptic to develop both MUO and the only direct competition and trust them not to share resouces or knowledge IN THE SAME BUILDING!

So a move being inevitable, I'm glad NCSoft bought CoX.

Imagine what would have happened if Marvel or Micro$oft had gotten it.

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Or say, EA, who seem to the Galactus of the video game world.

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Or say SOE, who many in this community equate to the Dr. Doom of the video game world.

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Iron Man is a bigger villain than Dr. Doom these days. I like the Galactus analogy since he's a giant entity with an unending hunger for consuming things. Which seems to be how EA is treating other studios.

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I hope... for the sake of the development team, that most of them stuck with Cryptic - In 3 years CoH will be almost seven, which is a long time for any MMO, and while Cryptic would probably just move the people to a new project, I have a feeling NCSoft would just give them the axe.

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Well, since (according to Ex) only one stayed with Cryptic, I'm guessing they don't share your pessimism.

And for the record, Lineage will be 10 years old next year, and NCSoft certainly hasn't given up on that.

Think about it like this: as others have pointed out, CoX was Cryptic's only money maker. That means NCSoft must have made them quite a pretty offer for them to give it up. In addition to that, NCSoft is creating a new studio for them, and expanding their team. Businesses don't put that kind of investment into things they don't think will be around for much longer.

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Futhermore, they've already mentioned the possibility of sequels to CoH, something that just wasn't likely to happen at Cryptic with MUO on their plate.

CoH is NCSoft's North American monthly subscription money maker. They're going to want to keep it going and grow it if at all possible.

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All of the CoX development team left Cryptic to stay with NCSoft, save Statesman. Take that as you will.

I don't see NCSoft's acquisition of risk in taking over CoX to be indicative that they are 'apathetic' toward the game, quite the opposite.

They are indicating an intent to 'double or triple' the staff, which we as players have been calling for since before the light went green on the servers.

In any case, a move was inevitable. We should all have forseen that there was no way Microsoft would allow Cryptic to develop both MUO and the only direct competition and trust them not to share resouces or knowledge IN THE SAME BUILDING!

So a move being inevitable, I'm glad NCSoft bought CoX.

Imagine what would have happened if Marvel or Micro$oft had gotten it.

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Or say, EA, who seem to the Galactus of the video game world.

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Actually, here's more fuel to the flames: an UK magazine called PCZone gave away COV accounts not long ago. And now, having COH "given away", they're getting both games for free.

Cue the hysterical "It's not fair!!! I demand compensation!!!"

(Probably with lots of caps, leetspeak, and UniqueDragon's grammar.)

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Didn't we recently have a promotion here where people could make their trial accounts full accounts just by starting to make monthly fee payments and didn't even need to buy the game? I think we did.

I don't parse this sense of having lost something. No one has had anything taken away from them.

Buying something from a company doesn't give you any right to expect that the company may not sell that exact same thing for a lesser, or even non-existent, price at a latter date. If you buy a new car when the new model year comes out and pay the full price, if you go back to the dealership when they're closing out that year and selling them at a discount, they aren't going to compensate you for the difference.

You should buy things because you want them, and want them at that time. Having any expectation that those same things may not be sold for a lower price, or even given away for free, at some later date is foolish in the extreme.

Caveat Emptor.

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Greyed...

I'm not sure how many times this can be posted before the universe collapses... but how much did you pay for CoV last week?

20 bucks, right? And you got a month free, so you got 15 bucks back. You're out 5 dollars.

FIVE DOLLARS.

One 5-shot latte

Lunch at a fast food joint with no upsizing.

15 minutes of work at my current low payscale.

Now there's something I should be asking for....

Hey NCSoft! Where's my $165,000 for all the free tech support I've given you over the last three years?!?!!?!

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Hell, at current exchange rates, I can probably spare a couple of loonies to cover the five bucks US.

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From the interview:

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At this time, we’re not quite ready to disclose longer term plans. We’ll have the usual slate of announcements when we’re ready to reveal our plans. But, what I can say is that we’re building this new studio not just to maintain the status quo. We’re looking beyond the normal slate of free Issues for City of Heroes.

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Here's hoping that isn't "we're looking past the free issues to the paid expansions."

I'd pay a certain amount, but not an extra $15 or whatever every 3 months.

Also... How about people who bought both games getting extra slots for chars?

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I think you should read that as "we're looking at doing extra stuff in addition to the free issues."

Remember. Doubled or trippled Dev team = more people doing more stuff.

I believe they say as much in the Stratics article or in one of the various FAQs on the NCSoft site.

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There are two Garriots.

One is Lord British, he who pwnz noobz in Tabula Rasa.

The other is the NCSoft bossman.

The More You Know

[/ QUOTE ]actually general british is a ingame avatar of richard garriot, as was lord british for the ultima series. all one man, none of which being kaiser soze

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Robert and Richard Gariott are brothers.

Robert is CEO of NCSOFT North America

Richard Gariot is Lord/General British is the Ultima and Tabula Rasa guy.

Two different people. According to NCSoft's website, the brothers collectively own 4.2% of NCSoft stock.

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For those interested in gainful gaming employment, check out the NCsoft North America Jobs Listing. Positions for "Mountain View" would be in our newly formed NCsoft NorCal Studio.

Ex

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*BOGGLE* ...why would they need a 2D/Concept, and "Powers Designer"? Those 2 alone implies ambitions for a lot more New-New content than we've gotten in years. The list taken as a whole is staggering and I have a hard time believing all those resources would be going to Co(X).

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Paid expansion? Yeah, I think so.

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It's possible that NorCal will become the site of development of new NCSoft products. Most development studios have several irons in the fire.

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Given that the Stratics article (see Community Digest for linkage) mentions that the development team for City Of will be doubled or tripled I think a paid expansion (say, City of Spies, Galaxy of Heroes, etc) of some kind is the most likely path.

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For those interested in gainful gaming employment, check out the NCsoft North America Jobs Listing. Positions for "Mountain View" would be in our newly formed NCsoft NorCal Studio.

Ex

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*BOGGLE* ...why would they need a 2D/Concept, and "Powers Designer"? Those 2 alone implies ambitions for a lot more New-New content than we've gotten in years. The list taken as a whole is staggering and I have a hard time believing all those resources would be going to Co(X).

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Paid expansion? Yeah, I think so.

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Tripling the size of the development team? Wow. Maybe we'll see power customization within a reasonable time-frame (i.e., keeping with the 3 issues a year formula) after all.

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This sounds like nothing but pure win to me. I understand change makes people nervous but still.

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Considering the most common reason we've heard for a wide range of requested features not happening has essentially been staff limitations (animation time, not enough code time, etc), this certainly sounds like some potentially awesome things could happen.

Of course, it will be a ways down the road since they'll have to go through the hiring process and get people trained on how to work with their client and so on, which I would assume isn't something that you pick up in a day or two.

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I keep seeing people laud the last year of development. I am not seeing it. Where are the new zones for the core user base of PVE people. Where is the new content for people like myself that actually LIKE the last 10 levels of the game? I have seen the biggest changes to this game in the form of:

loot
pvp
raiding (Bases and Hamidon)

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Rikti War Zone. LRSF, STF, Lady Grey SF. One zone and three task forces that work in the late game.

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This pretty much seems to clear the way for CoH on XBox 360.

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Fixed that for you. The Live Marketplace on the 360 offers the opportunity for people to (in theory) pay for their MMO subscriptions with Microsoft Points ... which means, they could buy prepaid cards at any video game or computer outlet ... no credit card required. Make it a 1200-point fee, that's $16 - enough that even after MicroSoft's inevitable cut, there's still probably a nearly-full, standard MMO fee left for NCSoft.

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This pretty much seems to clear the way for CoH on PS3.

Refixed

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This pretty much seems to clear the way for CoH on Macs.

Refixed

(Hey, a guy can hope, can't he?)

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Hell, doesn't the Mac OS ship with Bootcamp now? I don't see the incentive for a new version for Mac.

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I would guess that each of us, without exception*, has a favorite axe to grind and hopes it gets more attention with a larger dev team.

*OK, maybe not EvilGeko.

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There's always MoG.

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Tal, you DO know that they also run Lineage, Lineage II and other games, not just Tabula Rasa and COH?

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And you DO know those other games (with the exception of Guild Wars) haven't exactly been well received by western audiences, right?

This article from the Korea Times might be worth reading.

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Maybe that has something to do with the fact that they weren't developed for western audiences.

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And CoH didnt exactly go over well in Asia, given that the Korean version died. Different strokes for different markets and all.

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Just wow...

1. Devs have lives, homes, and roots in their current communities so there is no guarentees they will move with the project.
2. If enough designers dont move this could mean sad news for the project.
3. The move for cryptic makes perfect sense from a buisness sense to me at least.
4. Depending on how corporate NCSoft makes things and who if any dont come to the new studio will determine if I stay subscribed.

I am patient and can wait but not forever.

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Read closer - the City of Franchise development team has moved with the game in majority (Minus Statesman).

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I will believe it when I see it. I have been with to many software companies that have been gobbled up both other. I am far to pesimistic and know better than believe a press release on its face value.

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Yes but we already have the answers to these questions from Lighthouse and Ex Libris who are right there on site.

1. The new studio is 15 miles from the old one. What moving, angst etc?
2. They both posted a list of named devs who are going with the move. LH mentioned all but one of the current COX staff took the job offer.
3. of course it makes good sense.
4. NCSoft has already been in charge of COX development since the games alpha days. second all but one of the staff appear to have moved to the new office. I'm not seeing the negative side here.

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Basically, change is scary!

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Here is a very important question...

Since Ex_lib and the other community people are actually already NCSoft employees (right?), does that mean that they now have seniority on the Devs, who will in effect become the new guys? In that case, will the Devs have to assume the traditional new guy duties such as being sent out to pick up their dry cleaning or to go feed the parking meter for the community staff or other things of that nature?

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Actually all the employees that were on the Cryptic team have been brought over to NCsoft with their seniority. So other than me being one of the noobies, we have two others on the Cryptic team that started after me.

Otherwise War Witch PWNZ us all on the seniority scale.

Ex

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Did you just call War Witch old?

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Lastly: Compensation - meh. A badge though to mark the event would be cool.

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Decipherer - you have helped make things in Paragon City less Cryptic.

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hahaha perfect!

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Win!

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This pretty much seems to clear the way for CoH on XBox 360.

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Fixed that for you. The Live Marketplace on the 360 offers the opportunity for people to (in theory) pay for their MMO subscriptions with Microsoft Points ... which means, they could buy prepaid cards at any video game or computer outlet ... no credit card required. Make it a 1200-point fee, that's $16 - enough that even after MicroSoft's inevitable cut, there's still probably a nearly-full, standard MMO fee left for NCSoft.

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Microsoft is partly behind MUO. I don't see them letting a competiting super-hero MMO on their service.

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Ex, any news of a Multi-Pass type plan for NCSoft games?

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From here:

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At this time, we’re not quite ready to disclose longer term plans. We’ll have the usual slate of announcements when we’re ready to reveal our plans.

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You'll just have to hang tight.

Oh, in other news, we patched to the Training Room today with a new version of Issue 11 beta. Notes found here.

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I'll take that as a "yes, but we can't say yet"

Ex, any news of a Multi-Pass type plan for NCSoft games?

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So cryptic dumped City of, in favor of MUO?
Is that what happend?

Is Statesman still with City of? or is he now just an MUO person?

MUO is still the competition right?

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Basically, it seems like Cryptic decided that they like other peoples intellectual property (ie: Marvel's) more then they did their own. Jack, as Creative Director for Cryptic or whatever his title is, is certainly going to be staying with Cryptic.

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So does this mean that Cryptic will no longer be supporting the game?

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Well, yeah. The new NCSoft internal studio, staffed by current Cryptic Devs is going to take over, from my reading of the news.