Evil_Legacy

Read your thread over on the CO board. Good stuff. Never know, some might have already contacted Cryptic and trying to get on board. Yet, some may have looked elsewhere for other projects. Either way, I think the devs that worked on this game seemed skilled enough that they wont (i hope) have any problem finding employment even if on another project of NCSoft.

Yes.

You are not the only one not upset. It was bound to happen at some point and that is a risk with any online game. At any moment the company can say "Alright, we had enough of this. Let's bounce." Then that would be the end of it.
With that said, even after what, 8 years of this game being live or at least since I started playing in i6, I didn’t expect it to happen just yet. I guess I just did not have that emotional attachment to the game nor community so while I can see why people are upset, in a way I don’t get how people not see this coming eventually. Probably as they can’t comprehend my view and some probably can’t even understand it, but thousands of players thousands of views.
I know for some people this game was a very good enjoyable outlet, a break from the daily rat race, a place where they can meet people that share their interests. Some people even met people in game and turned it into a real life friendship. And for some of them to see all of that come to an "abrupt" end is like being in a comfortable community and getting papers saying you have to move on.

As I said in earlier posts, as a business decision, I completely understand it. On a personal level, I has to suck to have a fun job you love and them *poof* it's gone. On a gamer level, some people put in significant time here and some people been here long enough to see their ideas go from an abstract idea, to concept, to actual being in this game and now all of that is on the verge of coming to an end.

For me this is like a car that has been working fine all of sudden catch fire and watching it burn. A bit annoying at first but then life goes on like another day in the office and I buy another. Then, the old one that burned is soon just mere small table talk for laughs. Then it is soon forgotten.

In game, while majority of the people was very friendly, welcoming, warm and helpful, you have a few that was downright mean to new players, which is bad for business and probably a factor that kept the population from booming like it could have done. Some people become vets and been there for years and forget that at one point in time they too was a wide-eyed newbie trying to find their way around. Some people will ignore this and continue but some people will say "Forget this crap, I'm going somewhere else." And of course some vets will and have responded "Good, we don’t need you here anyways" followed by some insult and or expletive. Running people off just to keep the clique intact, while alienating new players, is not a good way to grow numbers in any game, especially one with a relatively small population. Although the friendly welcoming people outnumber the aforementioned rude people probably by tenfold, people that rude tend to leave 100 times greater impression than nice people. Some people don’t remember the guy from last week that they passed at 3:42pm that said "hi" to them but they sure as hell remember the guy that was cursing at them and acting a fool two months ago. Some people remember that no one uses turn signals to change lanes but overlook the people that do.

But that is just me and not in any way implying that is how people supposed to feel or wrong for feeling differently than I. And I hope the same apply for me.


I guess to sum up my overall feeling is more of the proper term of feeling indifferent to the situation. Still will play/post as normal until it's done and when it's done, it's done.

This.

I think in the
http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index....,5093.180.html, as may or may not be obvious is that the Nov. 30th shutdown will still happen, and although they opened a dedicated email address, it may mean they are truly listening or a ruse to make it look like they are listening. I believe more in the first one. The refund thing seems to be nothing unusual for them as I would hope they would hope that players from COX still believe in them and try some of their other topics so just taking the money and running probably wouldn’t be a smart thing to do if that is the goal. That is of hoping that COX players subscribe to their other offerings of the company instead of going somewhere else and lining another company's pockets.
Now the question is will or will not another company or some form of "Paragon Studios" depending on own the rights to the name and if NCSoft is willing to let that go (probably part of the negotiations) pick the game up and run with it. And depending on how much NCSoft is willing to sell or let go probably will greatly affect the reincarnation, if any, of COH in the future.

Sometimes corporations discontinue a product and or kill a product and hold on to the important rights so that no one, especially a competitor picks it up and make possibly more out of it and or do better job with said product as then it would make the company that threw it away in the first place look like idiots and of course that usually don’t sit well with stockholders. Some have no need for a product and sell it for a price and given that this game was still raking in some sort of profit, probably a hefty price. Then some others hold on to the dead product to reincarnate it later or use it for other stuff i.e. game engine, concepts, IP, and etc.

As said earlier even if the success happens for players, it probably will be a long down time before it's up again even if NCSoft just hands everything over. Of course it will be longer if NCSoft decides to hang on to other things, whether willingly or because a third part contract, then the down time will be even longer to fill in the gaps. Even something as simple if NCSoft decides to hold on to the Paragon Studio name and TM, then of course any reference to Paragon may have to remove from the game. This is just as an example. The negotiations, although not many details about what the negotiations entail that I know of, may be about a number of things. Maybe it was about the refund, maybe it was about the game engine, maybe the concept artwork, IP, who knows or even employee severance package and the ability of them to continue with the game. It may be all about the money at this point of NCSoft might be saying, "We'll think about it."

Just as they probably didn’t decide to end Paragon Studios and COX overnight, it probably will take 5-10 times as long for the negotiations with the matters that could be at hand. Even though it came as a shock to the player and stuff, I'm sure they had their bean counters weighing the pros and cons of the decision for a while now and given that most if any corporation would make a move like that without consulting the shareholders, at least the major ones, is not probable. And just getting a shareholder meeting together is something that may take a month or 6 in advance in itself.

I guess at this point the best thing to do is to wait and see and continue the efforts. The more players leave and abandon ship the less potential profits any potential buyer will see and the less likely they will jump into the project to keep this game rolling in the future. Probably will be a major announcement after the refunds are divvied out, unless something of new flash worthy changes that don’t fall under the NDA.

It is. And if the slim chance that something gets reversed and PR have to clean up a mess it usually mean someone/group high up is going home for good, albeit in the US with a nice sized Golden Parachute

Either way, you get the point. It's not that big of an issue lets not make it one.

I dont know. I dont think CO is bad. It's fast pace, dont require a team all the time to level effectively, the customization is great. They have powers and weapons that was said to "Cant happen" here in this game (i.e the jet thing, the scythe, chain whip powers,) and models of enemy that said was probably not going to happen here that was suggested as ideas, like the bear model and even dinosaur models. While the power color customization isnt as great but you can build a toon to fit what ever role you want it to. You can build a tank that blast things, or a melee/healer or anything in between with mostly imagination being the limit.

The more comic style is different, and other things but I kind of like it. Plus every little thing isnt based on luck or rolls and etc.

I think they may be counting on that so it's still a win situation for them. They walk away with the money and hope players are truely pissed and not use the vouchers. And hope that the ones that do use the vouchers, hope they get hooked after three free months and continue to subscribe.

This.

Do we have people here that can and willing to do that?

That is good stuff there. How did they do it? Did they aquire the IP and codes and go to work from there or did they just replicate it?

Yeah, kind of did that by a way of experiment. Thought about ridding it but by then, I was already level 50 and about at the end of the road with that one build so I left it in there. If I was a lower level, I would of gotten tid of the kb proc and went back to SO.

Ack! got the Sonic Hedgehog 2 game over screen stuck in my head.

yea.

Makes sense, buisness wise.
Kind of wondering what is this "secrect project" is going to be.

believe so. Guess predict doom long enough eventually it will come true.

I'm hanging it up for good. Meaning no more MMOs. I played this one game because it is one that actually kept me relativey playing and didnt care too much for dealing with other people but this community in game, I just kind of gotten used to them over the years. I'm not going through that again on another online game. I'm sticking to strictly non online none community based games now. It was fun while it lasted but time to move on soon.