End Sinister

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  1. I think the community outpouring has been great; I never thought that people online would band together like this over a video game. I'll keep signing any petition that comes my way, but it looks as if NC Soft isn't changing its mind.

    I don't want to sound negative and be one of the few who drives down the energy of the Save City Of Heroes campaign, but TonyV posted exactly what I was thinking in his latest post. Talks aside, I doubt any of the development team has been or is willing to stick around and not look for a job on the slim chance NC Soft might change its mind. The biggest threat to the death of this game is already happening. I'm sure that some of the dev.'s have pretty much secured new jobs and TonyV is aware of this.

    The biggest trial will be getting a reaction from NC Soft in the next two to three weeks. The executives at NC Soft know that no sane person from Paragon Studios is going to stick around in the hope that the company might reverse its decision. My feeling is that after a month to five weeks from the date of the statement being made to sunset the game is the most integral time period. After the next two to three weeks I wouldn't put much hope into the game being saved. TonyV knows this. Furthermore, if the developers get hired elsewhere, City Of Heroes will not be the same game even if it survives under another studio's banner. TonyV is seeming more desperate and I know I am not the only one sensing this. Since he has direct contact with some of the people at Paragon Studios I would not take this as a good sign.

    In the meantime everyone should keep up the support, I will, but be very realistic that as with anything in life, nothing lasts forever and that this game had a great run of eight years. Eight years is much longer than what most MMO's stick around for nowadays and we should be happy that we got to play for this long and happy that the player base isn't taking this lying down. I do feel that NC Soft has a right to do what it wants (obviously) with its own property, but they should have given more respect to the development team and players and have given City Of Heroes a proper send off. They should have kept a small staff on to create a small end of the world event. One final assault from The Battalion let's say.

    As for emailing the top executives at NC Soft? That's something I'd refrain from doing. My father works in upper management and while it may not be a video game company he works for, I imagine that the upper management at NC Soft is very similar. I doubt that most of the executives even play video games. They are only concerned about making more money and are not entirely too concerned with an old IP that they find insignificant. Emailing the executives directly, in my mind, is a bad idea and may only serve to annoy them and reinforce their decision to shutter the game. If I know my dad and his coworkers well enough, annoyance is probably what will be the end result and make them less likely to reconsider sunsetting City Of Heroes.
  2. You know, if I were a dev. right now, no matter what happens to the game I would be very choked up with the amount of effort that thousands of players have made to preserve Paragon Studios and its employees. It is simply amazing that so many people have banded together in such a fashion and I'm glad to be a part of such a great online community.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by That_Ninja View Post
    I feel sorry for you. This game is all you have, isn't it?
    In mercykilling's defense, he doesn't have a 2,500+ post count next to his signature.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by That_Ninja View Post
    You're very melodramatic.
    Actually, he's not. If you haven't been paying attention the past 30 years, corporations have made so much money that they have more money than all of the sovereign nation's combined. The biggest economies are not countries, but corporations: They have the most capital out of any nation, even the U.S. and China.

    If you haven't been reading any of the news, there is an estimated 4 to 20 trillion, that's right, 20 trillion dollars held up in the Cayman Islands as a result of corporate greed.

    There was once a time that corporations gave a damn about their image and would bow to the pressure of their consumers. Nowadays everyone is so damned apathetic they know that they can get away with price gouging and charging way too much money on certain items and that we won't stand up to it. It's people like you who think that everything's okay in the world when it's not. The charger for people's I-Phones for instance is actually worth 2 dollars yet Apple charges 20 some odd dollars for it. And it's okay to pay that and it's okay for apple to have 1 trillion dollars in its coffers, isn't it?

    There is too much corporate greed and mercykilling's outrage is my outrage. I'm not just angry at NC Soft, what has incensed me is the greed on NC Soft's part, much like its corporate brothers and sisters, and their disloyalty to a studio that has consistently performed well. The game has made money, just not enough, which is what mercykilling's posts are all about. For corporations, there will never be enough money to be made and it's why capitalism has decimated our economy; and we're only in the beginning of it!
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brillig View Post
    You couldn't even make it this far without making **** up?

    Please tell me how you know Paragon employees didn't get a severance package.
    Brillig, I didn't intend to be presumptuous, but with such a sudden move made by NC Soft, it wouldn't surprise me if they only padded everyone's final paycheck a little bit. I didn't mean to speculate on that. I am simply angry for what they did. As for my other statement regarding NC Soft wanting to pull out of the American market, I do stand by what I said. It seems that they company has been motioning to do so for some time. They've paid no heed to even tweak the game play ever so slightly with their other Asian MMO's. That's fine to do on their part. It is disrespectful to the players and to the developers who have made them so much money thus far.
  6. You see now you bastards at NC Soft? There are even more people that have yet to sign the petition. It only took three days. Look at what you did! I hope all of you executives at NC Soft are rethinking what you did.

    Keep it up everyone! We need to get every player's signature on the petition. Let's see how far we can go and stick it to the idiots in charge at NC Soft!

    This petition is not just for the players, it is also to prevent our beloved developers at Paragon Studios to go jobless in a contracting economy. This is also for every one of you developers who have put so much blood, sweat, and now tears into such an amazing video game that has become more than just your average MMO!
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by JoeKent View Post
    Buy whatever the hell you want. It's a semi free country.

    But don't tell me you love COH.

    And it IS all about revenge. I want to see NCSoft burn for this.

    I'm not delusional enough to think somehow they will see reason and sell the game to someone or give out the code. That is not their MO.

    They give a big middle finger to the COH community, I'm giving them two back.

    Go on and enjoy GW2 while it lasts. I'll be the one laughing when thewy shut it down.
    I'm with you on this. They couldn't even let the dev.'s ride out the next three months and give the game a decent send off and give Paragon Studios' employees even a small severance package.

    I want NC Soft to burn. Good luck trying to push another fantasy genre MMO onto people that no longer want to be playing that kind of game. I have a feeling that, much with Aion, Guild Wars 2 will be in the red in six months to a year.

    Fact is, NC Soft bought Paragon Studios in an attempt to really penetrate the American market with an American made MMO. Since it didn't do gangbusters in sales and because it didn't win over Korean gamers, they dropped City Of Heroes because (from what I can tell) they probably want to exit the American market. They keep making Asian style MMO's with game play that Asian's prefer, which mind you, is markedly different from what Western gamers want to play.

    Nevertheless, NC Soft should have sent one of its oldest and most successful IP's off with somewhat of a bang. It's understandable that City Of Heroes is an old game and that it has been reaching its twilight years, but this is a game that could have been put into maintenance mode and given a half decade more at least. NC Soft's move has more to do with freeing up quick cash to float the losses incurred by its most recent MMO endeavors and its failing MMO, Aion, for which they refuse to assert as a failure because of Eastern company politics (someone's head would definitely roll if and when Aion goes under).
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
    Which is why it'd be good if we could push the petiton over 10k, or close to it - that's a nice "dramatic" number that reads well in a report.
    GG, the petition is 15 signatures away from 10,000 as we speak. If we use this as ammunition while notifying various gaming outlets and possibly N.P.R. (as a few posters have mentioned), we just might be able to get something going. We could be known as the little MMO that could. Even if we can't extend the life of our beloved City Of Heroes, at least we'll make NC Soft look really bad in the process.
  9. I'm signature 9,900, just about. I don't know if the petition will do any good, but the rest of the community even got this jaded gamer in on the action. In the least, 10,000 signatures over the course of three days is enough to give NC Soft some bad publicity. Let's stick it to them! Keep on signing the petition everyone! Remember to keep on signing even if we reach our target. Let's show 'em what we're made of!

    Link below:

    http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
  10. 1.) War Witch once said that there were Easter eggs that no one has ever found in City Of Heroes. I'd like to know what these Easter eggs are so we can see them in game before it shuts down.

    2.) Obviously, what was the storyline with The Battalion supposed to be and how would it have started and ended?

    3.) Positron may have alluded to a moon base zone. Was this in the works?

    4.) Were we ever going to be able to defeat Praetorian Hamidon?

    5.) Who was the good guy, Mender Silos or The Dream Doctor? My guess would be that Nemesis was truly repentant and was genuinely working to fix his past mistakes. The Dream Doctor took on a villain into his team, I wonder if he had ulterior motives.
  11. Thank you War Witch. It was a great game. Even though I complained about it every now and then, I loved City Of Heroes to death. You were such a great team and I hope all of you find new jobs in the industry soon. Good luck to all of you and thank you again!
  12. I just want to comment on the loyalty to Paragon Studios that many players have in these forums. Many people I know will actually ban NC Soft for life and I hope it makes even the tiniest of dents into its profits.

    Loved you guys. You are a great community and I think that's what makes this parting the hardest; it's knowing that there are really good people out there, friendly people. I'm a very jaded person and the community here is why I stuck around so long, come to think of it. I get to see the best in people on here and for the most part the player base seems like good intentioned people.

    Keep it classy guys.
  13. I'm done with gaming. I've said it a million times in the forums and I'll say it again. This is my last game. I haven't even gamed in over a decade really and City Of Heroes is really it for me. It's been time for me to move on anyway. Strange timing indeed...
  14. I know that I had the Titan Weapons cursed sword and the Staff Fighting trident added. Both were ideas that I gave Nakayama through one of his art threads. I was pretty glad my SG, The Empire Of Atlantis, got that trident in the end. Glad we got Water Blast in the end too .
  15. YES YES YES. PLEASE REMEMBER TO ASK IF I CAN'T FIND/MAKE IT TO THE FINAL REVEAL.

    Warwitch once said that there were easter eggs that players have never found. Find out what the undiscovered easter eggs were!

    Also, there needs to be a redundancy in communication in the event that the forums get shut down or else no one will be able to see the reveal.

    Another forum, Facebook page, anything?
  16. I did. My first feeling was that something wasn't right and I was concerned that they would be shutting down the game. Unfortunately, I was right. Just the fact that the dev.'s never did anything like they did today and it was just highly uncharacteristic of them. Devs, for the record, you are awesome people and thanks for trying to give us a bit of a parting gift. F U C K NC soft.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
    Okay this is just rubbing salt in the wounds. I just got this automated email.

    Hi John,

    Your City of Heroes® VIP subscription on account *********** has been cancelled. This account will no longer auto-renew, and once the current paid-for time expires, you will no longer have access to VIP features in City of Heroes Freedom but you will be able to continue to play for free.

    If you wish to avoid disruption to your VIP status, it's easy to upgrade again in-game or through My Account on the NCsoft site to continue to enjoy exclusive VIP benefits:
    • 400 Paragon Points™ per month to use in
    • the in-game Paragon Market™
    • Access to all 14 character Archetypes and over 150 power sets.
    • 12 character slots per server, plus slots that were unlocked or directly purchased.
    • One free character transfer per month, priority queuing, and access to Exalted, an exclusive VIP-only server.
    • Elite VIP content, including the Incarnate System, monthly signature story arcs, and City of Heroes Going Rogue™ expansion content, costumes and power sets for free and more!
    Thank you for supporting City of Heroes, see you back in the game soon!

    - The City of Heroes Team


    Unbelievable.
    Wow, **** them. Seriously (wondering if my swearing will even be modded at this point). That is some twisted crap. One would think that the entire game would be opened up at this point. NC Soft is full of number crunching ****** bags. Not a single cent more from me NC Soft. From what I understand they shuttered Paragon Studios today and we won't even get a proper farewell from the devs.
  18. Same here. I am never playing another NC Soft game again. I don't think I'll be gaming anymore after this, but if I were ever even curious about playing another game, NC Soft's products will not make it onto my short list.
  19. End Sinister

    To all of you...

    I'm sorry to see this M.M.O. die. I suppose it's time and time for me to move on from video games. The sad thing is that I never got to play the game at full spec.'s and I will be buying a high end computer really soon. Man, that would've been nice.

    Zwill, you guys have been great. I know I may have complained here and there, but you guys made a great product. I'll never forget being given a free C.O.H. key after a whole account debacle a few years back by one of your very kind I.T. reps. I was going through a rough time and that really made my day.

    Anyone else have a feeling that something was up with the free codes? My first thought was that this game is shutting down, there was no reason for it otherwise. Very sad. I don't want to see this game go or for the dev.'s to have to find new work. They are great, hard working people and I wish all of them the best!
  20. Wow, dev.'s, thank you you! I was actually able to get one for once! It's 9:09 A.M. Eastern and I was able to get one. There are tons still in the first post that are unused!

    Keep with it. It took me about 5 minutes of copying and pasting until I got one. Start from about the middle of the first post on down.

    Good luck everyone!
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Xzero45 View Post
    Well think about it like this, if you can't wrap your head around why someone might actually quit over consistently bad writing. There's an entire community in this game dedicated to Roleplaying and immersing their characters in the world of CoH. When that world starts getting shaken or bad plotlines are introduced, it can make some RPers lose interest in that world and want to find a new one, in a new game that treats writing with a little more respect.

    And even then, some players on these boards aren't heavy RPers at all and still bring up viable complaints against writing just because they enjoy a good story and came to CoH for one. If the writing blows, it's not like CoH is a unique MMO. May as well pack up and find a new one that has what you're looking for; better writers.
    I'm going to have to back up Zero on this one. I've tried multiple time to resist the siren song of City Of Heroes, but the proverbial spike in the chest has had its first strike toward this once C.O.H. addict's heart. Why, one might ask? A big part of my lack of desire to play has been the seemingly hashed together and piecemeal nature of not just the zones, but the story arcs and the writing itself.

    Maybe at the ripe old age of twenty eight I'm finally growing up and out of video games. I tried buying an X Box, lost interest in that, and I still came back to City Of Heroes. That says something about this wonderful game and a testament of what the dev.'s have gotten right all these years. I have said C.O.H. will be my last video game numerous times in numerous threads; and at this point it's true. The problem is that Paragon is simply making that transition out of playing video games much easier because they simply aren't putting in as much care as they used to. Well, they certainly reflected that attitude back onto me and I definitely care less about this game. Most of the new content is almost unplayable because of all the erroneously spelled words and horrible takes on accents (now) too. The stories themselves are becoming more and more trite as time goes on.

    Night Ward's Fireball arc and the bulk of the other Night Ward content left a bitter taste in my mouth. The terrible plots I could see in a video game, but the grammar itself and the spelling errors made me unable to finish out Night Ward. I already hated the duplicate zone of First Ward and I found the whole zone and content update wholly unprofessional and lacking the polish that Paragon Studios was once dedicated to up until this past issue's point. The stories were disjointed and many were completely pointless endeavors.

    The dev.'s are smart people and know how to deliver; Nature Affinity, I'm looking at you! I just don't understand the inconsistency in delivered content. Paragon needs to reprioritize certain things and bump quality assurance up a peg or two because I for one can't tolerate traipsing through poorly constructed sentence after poorly constructed sentence. For instance, I cannot believe that the whole "Shark Week" fan fiction made it past Q.A. and onto the main page. That was terrible writing and an unprofessional breach between customer and content provider. It totally dismantled any facade of professionalism that this game has for me. It was like reading some teenager's fan fiction on a web log or something. Not to mention that it is the very same writing that is seeping into the game lore itself. Furthermore, the dev.'s have made it clear they don't give a damn about inconsistencies: the time frame of zones and level progression is all a jumbled mess at this point because of certain story arcs ending before they begin (Praetoria and the Praetorians seeking sanctuary on earth).

    I'm getting the feeling that Paragon Studios is getting ready to bid adieu to City Of Heroes because of its blatant attitude of "screw it" that we've been seeing lately. If this isn't the case, get your stuff together guys, the writing is making the game nearly unplayable at this point.

    P.S. Nalrok_AthZim, I'm one of Zero's former S.G. mates in a pretty longstanding S.G. that is now more or less defunct. I am one of those people that rarely plays at this point because of the writing.
  22. End Sinister

    I24 Preview!

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Goliath Bird Eater View Post
    As an aside, I wonder just how many people are going to take the "Fix Everything" meme too far and be really disappointed when I24 does not, in fact, fix everything.
    It's not going to. Bases are for the most part broken and there are other things out there that probably aren't getting looked at like fixing the numerous spelling errors in this game. I think that the dev.'s are trying to fix what problems they can and fix which problems may be most visible. I believe this issue is thinking of the future of this game more than anything.

    Look, the economy's crap, M.M.O.'s all across the board are losing players simply because the main demographic for them has grown up, and the dev.'s know that a nearly ten year old game can only last for so long. They're probably putting through as many fixes they can this issue so it can last much longer on life support than it normally would. I applaud them for this issue and for doing what they can to polish off as many systems in the game as they can before they eventually have to downsize in the coming years.

    They're giving us most of the fixes and customization options that we've been requesting for years in the coming issue. Good on them for pulling through. In my opinion, it's probably one of the best issues they'll be coming out with in some time.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
    Precisely. I've also gone through the same cycle myself to find quite a few already taken and I'm sure quite a few people here have as well.

    It's also easier now with the "check name" function.
    By the way, wasn't the check name function broken for a time? I remember a while back that it didn't even properly search or something. Yes, it's nice that it's working now.

    I am so surprised that Ray, Payback, Nightstick, and Chance we're not taken. Good job on those.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scythus View Post
    Excuse me, but have you forgotten what kind of game we're playing? "Made up compound words" as names are pretty much the rule in superhero settings.
    Scythus, I didn't mean to come down on anyone's names. I wasn't saying that they were bad, just that, to me, they didn't seem like they would have been that difficult to land.
  25. To be honest, many of the people posting in this thread just seem to be posting their favorite names and what they think was a catch. Really though, it isn't much of a surprise that people got most of their names. Many of them are made up compound words. Unless the character name is a common single or compound word, more than likely you'll get the name. The only names I found surprising in this thread were Alloy, Pocket Watch, Transform, Rosetta Stone, Cremator, Mangler, Roman Candle, Mr. Science, Mother, Epilepsy, and Avarice, to name a few.

    The only somewhat surprising name that I ever put in was on my blaster, Dreamist. And even then that's somewhat of a stretch.