Evil_Legacy

yeah I read it, but in this situation unlike coke's, I think NCsoft already figured that if they close this game they can forget about many players as customers. NCSoft still probably wants customers but I wouldnt be surprised if they written this set of customers off with the game. WHile speaking on COke, yes, they responded to customers and stuff, but when it came to the drink called Surge, they wasnt as open about explaining the death of it and responding to requests to bring it back and it was left dead. Why? Some say coke's main product, those customers would have lost them a lot more than they was willing to lose. Yet Surge customers was basically a small percent and could care less if they went elsewhere. The coke situation, I could see if it was some decision if WoW was closing. Lot more customers, lot more money. Here, we are the gaming's world Surge. Good drink, well loved by the people who drink it but not enough to keep alive.

Maybe Coke's customer service practice is why Coke is the largest or one of the largest drink makers in the world and NCSoft is only another cog, a big cog, but still another cog in the game machine. You do realize that when they changed the forumla, one it wasnt over night that they changed it back, two, the customers did more than just rant and rave like lunatics. They stopped buying the products in enough numbers to make a notice. Here, what we have, a bunch of raving angry people talking so far. Now time will tell if they stick to their word and actually use their power to get noticed or end up another group of gamers that was all talk and no bite. But NCSoft cant just switch it back as easily as Coke can switch the ingredients. At this point it would be alot of work to bring it back and some assume that even if it did come back it would be the same. Remember the changes that this game went through as different people in the dev area had more say, joined the team, left the team? If we had the original 2004 team on this game, I think i24 would have been a whole lot different.

Not to mention everyone heard of Coke just about, even people who dont even drink their products. Outside a few online gaming magazines, underground blogs, a celebrity that no one outside the game/fantasy world ever heard of, no one hardly heard of NCSoft. Hell, fro mthe looks of it, most players that played this game for years didnt know anything about NCSoft (or else they would have seen their habits long ago.). So large publicity works against Coke in those cases. "NCSoft, who's NCSoft? and why should people of the greater world care? OH they shut down a game? So?" compared to "Hey you hear COke change their formula? I used to like it but the new stuff taste like crap." "What? Coke changed their formula and the customers are angry? Well that is a story."

And probably would explain the silence. If they replied to you and then word got out, then questions woud be raised of why respond to you and not this guy or that guy or that girl or that uy over there and etc. When comments that was meant to be soothing and everytime it is spoken instead makes it worse, wouldnt the bright thing, at least from what I was told, is to just be quiet? And do remember that on top of the usual buisness communication traffic, the other games, the people over on COtitan intentionally tryign to flood the communication lines, it may not be that they intentionally ignored you. They may not have the time or more important things to do. Not saying what you said isnt important but it may have just lost in the shuffle or maybe they decided to ignore anything that looked like those flame "communication" thing from COHTitan people and yours just got lumped into there.

It dont seem that anything they can say right now can "soothe" the situation and if they continued to release statements that continue to anger the customers, then instead of them complaining about the lack of talk from NCSOft they would flip it to say that it seems that NCSoft is now taunting them. I think so many people are so angry that right now, there is no way to appease them either way. So what is an entity to do? Try to appease those that cannot be appease or focus on te changes and goals of the company? I would focus on the goal of the company. And ona person level, most people wouldnt bother trying to appease to people angry. All a person have to to do is look at past post between an angry person (non-NCSoft angry post) and most people give up in one or two posts to make it better and write it off fairly quickly as "oh they dotn want to listen anyways so I'm not going to waste my time", if responding at all.

If they was to reply right now to answer the questions would you really be ready to listen? Or only ready to listen to get even more angry if they dont say what you want to hear? They already released two statements I think, and look how that turned out. Yes, it's ok to be angry, and if so, even down right pissed off. But if you truely want communication, then dont let it turn into blind rage nor take a non-response as an insult. I bet if you wrote coke a letter saying how they should change the color and asking other questions, they may not even answer. Do you reply to every single little email and virtual form of communication you recieve? Or the ones that you reconize, feel is important, or know the source? If I replied to every single email day and day out, that would take up my waking hours. Now imagine a major corporation who probably have a few bots, and a dozen or so people to deal with the amount of communication that probably result in 1,000 times more than I recieve per day. And not to mention in these times, maybe someone have already tried to send a virus to them or something else malicious. Maybe you should just call their customer service line and speak to them in person if you are looking for answers and ready for answers. Angry emails, suspicious ones, ones that I do not reconize, I delete immediately. I'm sure they ahve some sort of policy that prevents the workers from opening up every single email blindly.

Out of the millions of companies out there, have any of them actually followed this guide with everything they do? I mean hell half the time by the time a person found out they changed an ingredient in a food product is when someone gets sick, ill, or have some crazy allergic reaction.

The thing about this, is that they probably told someone all that information about and I think that is maybe what Freedom was suppose to do in what is suggested to be done with i24. To be honest, they might have been trying to get the game to grow for a long time now and each issue, each change, was another trying to make it work. IT probably just got to the line. As I mentioned in a previous post, why stop with i24 why not i25, no wait maybe i26 will bring growth no? Then try i27, yeah that will definately do it... It sound liek a set up to never close down and just continue to throw parts at it.

It woud be nice to know everything about this but on the other hand, they dont have to answer anything to us. It would be nice, sure, but not a requirement of them. They answer to their investors, and by investors, I mean those people that actually put substantial amount of money into that company, some probably put more into that company per day more than the most dedicated player put into the game thier entire time since 2004. Those are the people they may have to answer to. If we wanted those type of answers, should have invested in the company. Right now, all we need to know is it is due to realignment of the company. Plus I dont think anything they say would be taken as "Oh ok, they explained why." I think it will be more like what it is now. Angry about the answer, angry about the reason and calling it bs because they dont believe it, or for soem it's nto what they want to hear. So really why should they waste they time trying to explain themselves? Even here, people barely listen to each other on a good day, but expect them when they are emotionally scared, some a little seemignly unstable, to the company that is viewed to be that pain? If I was NCSoft, I wouldnt bother and just let it die off.


No matter when they ended this game there would have always be "what could be" whether it's about i24 or about i25 or i26 and so on. Either way even if COX ended on the best note with all of that, there would still be many who would be pissed at the game closing, still would say that GW2 is not COX and thus sucks, and about the same amount of people that have switched over would still switch over.


I think NCSOft already gave a reason. It's up to the person whether or not they believe it or not. The thing is that person do not seem to realize is that it is probably not on their high priority list to try to convince people of something they wouldnt beleive even if they said, growth and the costs are rising. Just go over to the debate section of where posters talked about the growth of COX and see there of how many say it wasnt the case. I think if NCSoft said it was because of growth and rising costs, people still would call BS anyways and still be asking for the "real" why. It might be BS, but so far we have no other evidence that it's a lie, but many assume because it's not what they want to hear, it cant be the real reason. People make realignments all the time in their lives so why is such a crazy concept for a company to do it? In real life, do people tell their boss "hey, I'm leaving in six months." and what if the boss asked why and you state a reason and the boss said that is bullcrap they want the real reason. Most people probably would not take too kindly to it, especially if the continue on with how you are being selfish and tearing the team apart and they will make sure to sully your name.

And may have to be careful of what you ask for as the real reason may not be what you are prepared to hear. Hell, some people get upset when calling it a buisness decision now how you think that is going to go over well and peachy when the actual buisness, the experts at looking at it from buisness perspective put it into buisness talk their reason? I think NCSoft given us enough information for what many have shown to be ready to take. Which seems like many are just angry and there is no way to appease that anger besides flipping back time and making COX the way it was prior tp Aug 31st, which is not going to happen and thus silence. Why hsould they just add more fuel to the fire even if the fire is asking for it?


But no worries, with Plan Z, it is suppose to be the perfetc game, ran by people who only care about the players and their ideas, and soon they will be a multi million dollar company but they never will have to make "buisness decisions" and survive on making ones that are pure emotional and everyone is happy and in the year 3492, the game still still be running, whether it's losing money or not and even if it's only 17 people playing. Hey, dont want to rip a community apart, kill a perfectly good game and have to make calculated buisness decisions. Not to mention releasing every single detail of what is going on and why those decisions were made. Hmmm speaking of which, I dont think they have been around here doing that. Yet we demand that NCSoft does it.

yep.

Never got what is wrong with someone NOT being emotional. Been alot of

"Oh you're not emotional. We get it. state your point and move on." Yet, they keep saying how emotional they are about it over and over and over and over. Cant even get a dicussion on the buisness aspect, in this thread or others without someone coming in saying how emotional they are and how anyone who look at this from a buisness stand point is an (insert insult). I think the emotional and the ones that may not invested their entire heart into the game can coexist, but ying/yang. If they feel the right to express how evil NCSoft is and how emotional they are and etc, then we have as much right to post how we look at teh situation just as much as when we post how we feel about the situation, they post about how evil NCSOft is and anyone that dont how evil NCSOft is an employee of them and trolling because they invested emotions and NCSOft took it all away."

That is fine and dandy, but just as must as they are tired of the grind in the face over it we are tired of them doing it to us. Like I said, We get it, you're still feel like someone shot your favorite dog, set you house on fire, killed your entire family in front of you and ate their liver because NCSoft killed the game. But as they love to state that not everyone feel like us, not everyone feels like them.

It's almost like I want to send them a case of Everclear with a note saying, here drink your sorrows away for christ sakes.

What you said should apply both ways, as you said.

In this case I dont think the end result would have changed one single bit. Still would of been protests, still angry people, still devs out of a job, and etc. So if the end result will be the same all that is left is to chose the best way to get it done. Since the i24 and probably the issue after that probably began long time ago, I wouldnt be surprised if early March or prior late last year, then that would have been a factor.

If they just halted production... well they kind of did at the same time of shutting down, just in the last steps of production.

I really think that they picked a perfect time line. If they would of announced it early, players would have jumped ship, still would have the angry people, even though they probably would have created and or nit picked a reason to be angry if it wasnt for the same reasons now, paragon studios probably would start losing employees. If you think of the potential effects of if they announced it earlier, it probably would be worse off than it is now. We have i24 beta. If it was announced earlier, I would imagine that with the devs finding new jobs and or just leaving, then there would have been delays and thus by this time it probably wouldnt even be on beta and thus we wouldnt even been able to get the glimpse we have now. And guess what, that would make the angry players more angry again now they would be angry about i24 not being on beta. And within that time, i24 slowdowns and less devs and employees, more players would leave. Assuming that billing have continued say in June and the announcement made in March, then that would be even less money. Then while the second announcement they made in actuality stated they confirmed the shutdown, if they would have announced the shutdown earlier, the game may have been costing them money and they have to shut down earlier than expected and thus instead of orignal date of Nov. 30th, lights out end up being June 30th. And thus the same reaction. Different day same reaction. Just for example. One may ask of if they announced it earlier and they lose money isnt they losing money now? Maybe, but there is a huge difference between losing money for 90 days and 180 days. If you had to lose money, which one would you choose? 90 days or 180 days? I would pick the 90 days thank you very much.

basically

this is true.

Well I wouldnt call it "Korean gaming model" per say as seeing that Blizzard is American that been around since 1991 and been making games that seemed to have been labeled the Korean gaming model and even their grindfest is hugely popular. It's almost the eptiome of grindfest yet huge player base in the US.

When looking at numbers and compare the "grind games" numbers compared to casual, especially the superheroMMO with the largest peaking at 180,000 or so and considered an excellent game, rave reviews especially from 2004, yet, it remained small. This is before NCSoft got it hands on COH. When looking at the numbers it looks like the Korean gaming models are the money makers, and thus probably why there are many of them and for them to make any type of money with that type of stiff competition is remarkable to break even. But on the other end of the stick with the likes of COX, the competition is nearly nill for what seems to be the playerbase. Yet, only 180,000 peak players and the rest of the games in that category even less? Either, the COX model is not very popular to begin with, something happened, grindfest IS truely what most gamers want and we are a small minority, or some other factor.

Remember COH hit before WoW, thanks for that info as informed from a poster and here and it checks out, so the 900lb gorilla wasnt around. YetI think COH opened with 125,000 players or so and hit 180,000 players. By that time WoW, even being released after COH was in the millions.

Realignment focus, really though if you look at NCSOft game lineup, there is one that doesnt seem to fit with the rest of the games. COH. I think NCSOft is about tired of their games peaking at 180,000 or so and want a larger piece of the pie. Some people said that maybe more advertising would have worked but remember that advertising costs money which had to be generated. Like a circle. We want to advertise but they are not making enough money to leave room for it but they cant make money because there is no advertising. While Blizzard seems to have advertising here down packed must remember Blizzard is local while NCSOft is overseas. Although I do wonder why didnt just give Paragon Studios an Advertising budget and or send a marketing person to that office. Onthe other hand those very frequent updates couldnt have been cheap to produce. Might have nothing left. It even could have been that there wasa marketing person there and apparently they wasnt doing the job good. In the land of marketing, no money is not an excuse. You work with what you have, especially if you want more money. Most companies will not spend more money on advertising if there wasnt signs of results prior. Or it could be someone just plained boloed.

90 days is a long time for soemthign to happen. Imagine some one gets pissed because of the layoff and next thing you know, the game kicks bucket every day at 10pm for the rest of the night. As simple as that is, imagine how much more [pissed the players would be? and think they are going to listen if NCSoft say, "we are sorry, some rogue dev did it." Like the way the rest of their statements seem to have been taken, those people will think it's a load of crap automatically. And you think it's right to go into an office and say, Alright people we are shutting down. All of you can stay till Nov.30th. Well except Bob, Rick and Amy, uhm, they look emotional so we are going ask them to leave today." Yeah then if the layoff didnt do it, then now you have a disgruntled employee because his friend Bob got singled out to leave immediately even though he have three kids, a wife, a sick grandma, and been working for NCSoft for the past 15 years. So to avoid that, rid of them all since they will get paid anyways for a while just cant work, 60 days I think. What's the problem? Paid to stay at home. I dont see the problem.


I think it would be worse if they kept silent and waited until i24 was done, the devs finished up, then on release day of i24 you get two messages of "I24 is live!" followed by the announcement of all devs and paragon studios is immediately fired. Sure I'm sure the players would be happy as hell and probably wouldnt give two craps about the devs then because they have i24 and beta i25. But as an employee I would imagine that would be a big thumb in the eye. To work hard on something and finally finish to have the boss basically say "Good job, kid. This is excellent work for the company and our customers will love it. But you're fired."

Depends.

COX as we know it may be dead but it doesnt mean that in the future that they may or may not need the things in that IP. We might see pieces of COX IP stuff in other future games. I.E, we might see the icons, fighting style, in one game. IN another, the wentworth market, in another game might be the same costumes, in another game see the HUD display. Or see Warshades and Peacebringers in a future space game. And more.


Being able to use those features when ever you please without having to tip toe around it because some short sighted exec sold the IP for a quick buck.

Remember how people say that COX does this the best does that the best, I like the way this or that is set up, or the way you can solo or team or the TFs sorylines and such? They would be a fool to sell all of that to someone when they can basically take it and put bits and pieces into new games as features that are well liked and or make a new game using the IP but with a different look.

Sometimes you have a choice in the matter to go to war, sometimes you dont have a choice to not be hit by terrorist attack and usually dont have a choice to not get robbed.

But you do have a choice whether to partake in that buisness or not. So yea it is just buisness. And shutting down a game is not like none of the above and a bit insulting to trivialize terrorism and war compared to a buisness decision to shut down a game when I seen people missing limbs from stepping on a land mine, or see the pile of rubble when terrorist ran planes into the two towers full of people on board, seem pieces of people from Afganistan, some not even over the age of 19 have to be identified by a few pieces of flesh and teeth because the rest of him could not be recovered. Ever smelled burnt flesh? No where near the level of shutting down a game.

It's just buisness and if their buisness practice was so damaging then should not have gave them a penny at all. If you chose to then that's your fault. No one said you had to invest so much money that it felt like a "terrorist" attack when they made a simple buisness decision to close the game. If you didnt know what they was about before I guess it's safe to assume that now you know and have no more excuse to spend life savings into something that someone else owns. I alwasy thought that was common sense but doesnt seem to be the case.

yeah

ah. i see.

and that is where I think consumer responsibility should kick in to decide whether or not it's worth it to spend money on a game thst may be gone at any moments time compared to paying more upfront for more security.

Yet I think we are on tow different topics. I'm talking about more of the range of someone making money off the works of others. aka. say, in the realm of this law, that someone picks up the "IP" and runs with it. Where or when or how is the original owners and or the creators or people that have bought and or invested inthe license of said property is to be properly copentsated for their work or is it use it or lose it type deal that only benefit the players with nothing in benefits for the company?

true but that is why one, those games tend to cost more, and why NCSoft and others chose to make online games instead of those console games.

Once those games are sold, the console ones, they dont have to worry about trying to keep customers happy with bunch of updates, keeping server running, paying a full time dev and bug killing team, and etc. They just make it release it and move on. Thus those games go for about 60 a pop now?

While COX cost about half that for the box, and 15 a month to pay for the work that goes into running it and the risk of players staying or leaving. And when it reaches a point that they feel is not worth it, they have to pull plug, which naturally seems to piss the players off regardless of how, when, why, etc. of how they do it.
This is not a worry with console games. But I dont think they give up the IP and stuff for console games just because they are done producing it so why would MMO game makers have to? I bet if someone madea Madden 95 right now, and game maker may not be too happy especially if the person is making money off of it and even though the game maker probably have no intention of making another Madden 95. (Of course Madden is still running but insert any console game is the point is about the same.)

lmao

Didnt "Mc" start in Scotland? lol.

yeah.


I see. So it's not to force a company to continue producing/supporting/low level maintence and any other term that may be used that requires the company to still put anything more than half a cent into keeping it running, a product until it basically sinks them just for the sake of players that still want to play that game. But more so for those that own it, has a way to still use the product? hmmm I see.

So sounds like the game code and IP would have to be not protected anymore. How would this afford protection of companies and their IP rights? And or what compensation will they recieve for the loss of property due to this law? Or is the goal is to lessen the grip on those rights? Sounds like run the game or else give up the property type of thing. And under this theory of proposed law, what would stop someone from making money off this IP that the company would lose because they no longer want to run it and given that it isnt their work, even abandoned buildings usually cost money to purchase, and here, looks like someone could pick it up for free, and then make millions off work they had no hand in creating nor purchased the rights to. Or would any IP picked up this way be required to only be free with no financial compensation?

Better yet, in the mean time, isnt there already a way to do this, called reverse engineering? As many in the past have said, some in a "vigorous" manner, it's perfectly legal. If that is the case, why would the law even be needed besides to basically say "run the game or lose all claims to the IP." I dont see how any of this benefits the owners of IP at all. Sounds like something to punish them.


True. But remember unless it's outright fraud and unsavory practices (not bad customer service) then probably not much to benefit the consumer. Remember the ones that make these laws are the same ones that run buisnesses. But I dont think the consumer is voiceless. Yet, I dont think things like this will go anywhere with "Since I brought your product that means I should have lifetime access to everything you own." slant.

So the main question is what is in it for a company to make any games if when they to trim it, they lose all rights to that property?

People feel hurt for a game, yet want a company to lose a game they may have invested millions, created artwork, storylines, concepts, layout for just for free, just like that?

Property-Think about how many things you sue everyday. Now think about the stuff that havent been used. Why is it there collecting dust? Should you be forced by law to give it away to the homeless man on the corner or to Goodwill? Then why should a company be forced to give up their property?

+1

Isnt there an emulator, legal one, in the works for that?

If being able to shutdown a game isnt right, then the best thing to do is stop giving them money. As long as they make money, they will keep on doing it. I dont see a reason for a law to force a game company to keep a game running. I think consumers have to make better choices with the buisnesses they choose to give their money too and what they "invest" in. You pay you get a service. They own the game, they invested in making it, and they invested in keeping it running. They own the "rides", we just was renting access to get on the ride.

True but even then it's not always forever. While MBZ still make parts for every model they made, some companies like GM dont even make the parts for their platform that the Impala/Caprice/Fleetwood/Roadmaster is built on from the mid 90s.

I'm talking about the theoritical law being discussed that would prevent game companies from shutting down a game on thw whim. I'm saying that a law like that probably cant just be made for game companies when any company can stop a product on the whim.

Yeah true, this isnt a physical product. Yet, since it wasnt a physical product, and basically paying for something intangible like "fun" and stuff, did you get your money worth? Which makes it even more of a question why should they be forced to keep it running. When it shuts down, you dont have to sink money into again, so there is no loss. I guess the better analogy would have been a them park. You pay to get in to ride the rides and go home only to come back next weekend with the money in hand to get in to buy the fun again, to find out it's closed. Should the park operator be forced to maintain opening for the park by law beause some people been going there for years, spent ton of money on food, candy and drinks while they was there, and people still want to go there for fun? Difference here is that instead of actual games, this is virtual game but when a park of that type closes, then like here, there no longer access to that park or the rides although just like in games, you can find similar things/rides elsewhere but wont always be the same, i.e this particluar park had the best Twiple Twist Roller coaster and while other parks have roller coasters, they dont have the one you enjoy.

Never said there was no right to be angry or it wasnt a crappy move. Anything can be considered a crappy move or anger can happen with any product that is discontinued. But just because people are angry and a buisness made a "crappy" move, should there be a law against companies having angry customers? If that was the case, then I dont think any buisness open today or the past would be within that law.

With the play forever ad, then maybe that may be a lawsuit for false advertising if ya feel ripped off. Best to talk to a lawyer to see if you have a case. There are already laws for that in place.