Father Xmas
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First let's ignore the fact that the surge was likely due to Guild Wars 2 with one million pre-sales launching a few days before our announcement. Second the closure of City of Heroes simply wasn't reported in Korea, on NCSoft's corporate web site or even their game site (unlike the rejection notice last week) or on Korean MMO gaming sites or investor news sites. Our closer was a non-event in the eyes of the Korean investment community.
Yes, there should be a minor mention in the next quarterly report, buried among the footnotes compared to the highlighting of Guild Wars 2 sales which brings that quarter back to profitability. We are small fish. We are a coral atoll while their other games are continental land masses. The loss of our little island will be overshadowed by the newly discovered land of Guild Wars 2.
As for who else owns NCSoft, that's public record. First only 28% is owned by foreign investors. 10% is own my management, which is the founder/CEO/Director (he had 25% but sold 15% to Nexon); 9% by the national pension, 15% by domestic institutions, 13% by individuals and the remaining 9% the company is sitting on. So sure we might through some mutual fund in our 401K own a fraction of NCSoft, but we aren't Warren Buffet and don't own enough of anything to actually influence anyone. -
Funny thing about the Black Panther series is that I have seen in on BET, really late/early (3am) but it's on.
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Don't the fairly successful games Borderlands and Borderlands 2 also use a cel-shader with outlines style? So somebody must like it or choose to ignore it.
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Toonami is returning to a 6 hour run instead of two 3 hour sequences where the 2nd is a repeat of the first. The first two hours is the same with Bleach, Samurai 7, Cashern Sins and Eureka 7. Then oddly they are running Sym-Bionic Titan (which should have had a 2nd season IMO) and Thundercats, which I don't really consider as anime. They are rapping up the remaining 3 hours with 2 episodes each of FMA: Brotherhood, GitS and the 300th replay of Cowbow Bebop (they must have gotten that license in perpetuity).
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It's brought to you by the people who did the PotC films. I almost thought it was another Tim Burton film when I saw HBC in the trailer.
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Now I haven't played many MMOs, very few actually, does any other MMO have short term self buffs that drop frequently? While Greens and Blues are analogous to health and mana potions and wakies are analogous to "rez at current location" are the others just tied to closely to our attack system to be duplicated anywhere else?
I was just trying to think of something truly unique about this game beyond the obvious and even though I never learned to use them frequently, they have come in handy from time to time, besides healing, recovery and rezing. -
That was great.
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Quote:This is one part I can't get behind. Remember this chart I did ...
At this point, I feel that I have to point out that this profit from City of Heroes is part of what has made NCsoft's other titles such as Aion and Guild Wars 2 possible by funding their development. Hopefully you can understand the anger and disappointment we felt when a mere three days after Guild Wars 2 launched--a game that our money funded--NCsoft in essence kicked us to the curb and has now repeatedly denied us the basic dignity of continuing to exist as a community. While the money we have invested may not give us any legal standing from an ownership perspective, I believe that it does put an ethical onus on NCsoft to do whatever it can to allow the game to remain active.
This shows the total revenue of both CoH (blue) and GW (red) over the previous four quarters. Think of it as a running yearly revenue for each game. This way seasonal variations tend to be dampened out and you can see an overall trend. The thing is Guild Wars had still earned over it's lifespan up the Q2 2012 around $15 million dollars more than CoH in roughly a year's less time.
This was done without monthly subscriptions, falling back on a traditional PC gaming model that Blizzard North and several other companies had used in the late 90s and early 00s. Release a game, release expansions that require the original game or combo editions containing both, take the revenues generated and develop the next game.
The last GW expansion was in 2007. GW2 was announced in 2007. That's what the majority of their devs had been doing all that time while the majority of our devs cranked out content upgrades every few months over that same time.
Yes they were probably running deficits over the last couple of years but they already banked a lot more revenue than we had and showed that their game could earn a lot more in a shorter period of time. Companies like to see that kind of quick return. -
Quote:Knowing it's coming doesn't make it any less of a surprise when it happens. I'm one of the people who did pay attention to NCSoft's quarterly reports and bothered to convert the numbers into USD to adjust for flux in the exchange rate. On one hand I knew that a Freedom was the last attempt to revive the game's revenues. But on the surface, via Paragon's devs talking to the community about the beta for Issue 24, showing off various features, talking about what comes after it, gave everyone the impression that Freedom worked well enough to green light the game for at least another year. That's why it felt like a sucker punch.Originally Posted by Brillig
And my counter-point is that it wasn't a shocking surprise to all of us, and in fact should have been a surprise to none of us (if we were paying attention). Sales were flat or trending downwards, the launch of Freedom brought a very brief bump, but had no real positive effect on sales.
Reducing staff, rumors about the end, all would lead to one thing. Even fewer sales. In a situation like this, the most rational thing is to end things immediately once you've made the decision to end it. Letting things linger just keeps the costs running while the revenue goes to zero. -
Quote:I think the point being made was the how the announcement was a shocking surprise to us all. No rumor, no steady downsizing of the developer or reduction of new content that hints the end is coming, just BAM!Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
Wow. Good going with trivializing the Dec. 7 1941 Pearl Harbor event where merely only 2,300 people died. Yeah, the end of a game is on that level.
Supplies! -
Word to the wise, don't go try to solo the Ghost Ship spawns until you're about +2 to them, they can be brutal.
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No but then again I don't use Office. Well I don't use Microsoft Office, I use LibreOffice.
And when was Office classified as a game? Flightsim in Excel doesn't count. -
If you can accept that someone else can take away a game you bought and in the case of RPGs, MMO or otherwise, your characters, then good for you. The problem now extends to always online required games, even ones with decent solo modes, can also go dark once their publishers decide to shut down the servers. Unless the patch the game before they throw the switch of course.
We are becoming more renters than owners and we just aren't noticing it. -
Is anyone else reading that as John McCain?
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Quote:As the original review of CoH at Eurogamer said about those two points ...Originally Posted by UberGuy
Here's what CoH had for me.
- In game dynamics that made me enjoy just playing the game, solo or teamed. I just enjoyed firing it up and fighting stuff. This game's focus is incredibly narrow - basically all you do is fight. That such a game lasted more than eight years has to be a statement about how amazingly fun it was to fight stuff here.
- The aforementioned character customization. I've commented in other threads that the rich costume creator was clearly a very intentional feature of the game, but I suspect the blank text input field for character description was accidental genius. I find it hard to imagine whoever added that feature realized just how deep a sense of character investment that little text box would eventually provide for some of us.
it concludes withQuote:City of Heroes is about this: hitting people in the face.
And also this: looking really good.
So, ultimately: hitting people in the face, while looking really good.
It cuts to the chase. None of something like - say - Star Wars Galaxies meandering around trying to find a bar. Within minutes of creating your character, you'll be biffing someone on the nose for justice. And it's immediately fun. "Immediately Fun" is a rare trait in an MMO, and more than anything else has kept an audience.
Quote:Cynics may suspect that all this sounds a little rose-tinted. Cynics probably have a point. But then Cynics probably haven't noticed that its primary faults have been well signposted, just not condemned.
Fundamentally, if cynics want an MMO game to be about more than just hitting people in the face and looking great, this isn't the game for them. Of course, I don't really care what cynics think. Some of us have a planet to save.
For the fourth time today. -
Quote:You don't understand how Boards of Directors work now do you? Stock holders elect the BoD and then the BoD acts as the representatives of all the stock holders. Even a large stockholder can't simply demand the BoD to do their biding without controlling the majority of shares or getting members on the board.Originally Posted by DarkCurrent
Nexon owns the largest chunk of NCSoft shares. That gives them the largest voting block for decisions made in the boardroom. They can swing votes in their favor such as who the chairman is or is not.
We don't know what they've said or done internally as their controlling interest only developed about 3 months ago. Nor do we know what their meeting schedule is like.
What we do know is 2 months after they became the loudest voice at the table, Paragon was closed. A 180 swing from what NCSoft was doing before the announcement.
People want to say that this was just one bad quarter and not some panic button. Okay, then why pull the trigger on paragon and 'refocus' your corporation's direction if that's true?
I think there's a connection. I think Nexon could very well have said to NCSoft 'Hey you're losing money and you need to do something. Trim the fat or we'll find a CEO who will.'
Do you think Nexon is happy that they've lost 70 million in NCSoft stock value since they bought their shares? If it was you, and you had the largest share percentage, would you just sit there and tell yourself it's just one bad quarter?
Even back at the end of 2009, there's been mumbling about NCSoft pulling out of the western markets when NCSoft Europe was gutted and the NA were restructured. However they aren't going to terminate any projects until they get their money back. NCSoft owns ArenaNet since 2002 and NCSoft announced Carbine Studios in 2007. Now GW2 is as stylistically pretty as any NCSoft modern Asian title it may do alright in NCSoft's bread and butter markets. WildStar looks a lot like a number of Asian MMOs as well. But CoH simply didn't work there. Pretty sure they felt CoH's well was drying up so they packed it in and walked away. -
Quote:Well publicly it's less shameful to "voluntarily" resign than be fired. While in reality everyone knows that one means the other, I guess it's considered a way to retain your family honor.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
I did find it interesting when rereading the order that on appeal NCSoft argued that Richard Garriott's resignation should be considered voluntary because demanding his resignation or face termination is considered a voluntary resignation under Korean law as long as intimidation or coercion is used. I find it interested because a) its interesting to me that "resign or be fired" isn't considered coercion by NCSoft, and b) the appellate court found that Korean law doesn't even say that.
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There isn't anyone from Nexon employee sitting on their BoD or anyone in common and there hasn't been any changes to the high end management of NCSoft since Nexon bought in.
The aren't merged. Nexon doesn't control NCSoft. Take off the tin foil hats.
NCSoft had all of one negative quarter, their first one in over 8 years of records, and not all that negative, only $6 million. The stock first came off it's high when the quarterly reports first showed that Aion isn't growing anymore. Now combine that with consolidation in the industry in Korea, NCSoft acquiring multiple companies over the last year in the mobile and casual game space means there's going to be some "digestion issues" which always has a negative impact in financial statements. -
How many people know how to build a wood/coal fire kiln from scratch? My friend's wife has a kiln, big electrical one for firing pottery. It's not really adaptable for a different heat source. How many people or places do you know of that have detailed instructions about building preindustrial devices for manufacturing using only preindustrial tools to do so?
I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying a lot of this knowledge isn't the easiest to find locally and it helps if you have someone with actual practical knowledge about how to do it. How many traditional blacksmiths do you know of in your area that eschew from using any current technology to assist? -
I've played both and I enjoy SJ a lot more. While staff has some nice animations there is something about kneeing a Council Vampire in it's junk that's more viscerally satisfying.
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I would like to point out the my antivirus triggered when I went to www.quiteunlikely.net, a javascript one. The PNG file is fine however.
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Quote:But still up 320% over 5 years and 150% in the last 3 years. True it's down about 40% from it's all time and yearly high but that's more of the result of a much needed correction from an overenthusiastic run up in price.Originally Posted by Rubberlad
1) Stock History - NCsoft's stock value has TANKED...
-- Source, Bloomberg Market Snapshot: http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/036570:KS
-- Source, Bloomberg Market History Graph: http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/036570:KS/chart
-- Source, Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/finance/stock...mbol=036570.KS
In comparison EA is down 50% over it's yearly high and down over 75% over 5 years. Activition Blizzard is down over 20% this year and around down 40% over 5 years. -
Yes but I would imagine 15 years out that the existing supplies have been scavenged or used during the early days of chaos. And while human life is "cheap" in a pre-industrialized society, you really don't want to blow up your chemists or experienced workers, which happened a lot when mercury fulminate was first produced. They don't use that today as primers in modern ammo but it is the easiest to produce.
Built a smelter from scratch recently? Know of a lot with in walking distance of a major city? Got plenty of fuel to heat one up? A lot of problems to overcome because in the last 50-100 years we've built up an infrastructure that is now useless without electrical power and combustion engines.
We've gotten all the easy coal, gas and oil that could have been reached with late 19th century techniques. Our manufacturing facilities are scaled for economy of scale, designed to make things in large batches not small or tiny. Plus I imagine that world would be a lot like Civilization. So-and-so controls the only X facility in a hundred miles and we need that to prosper, so invasion.
When you take the supply of large amounts of energy out of the picture, most of our manufacturing capability goes bye-bye. Or do you know where we've kept all our 19th century manufacturing facilities in storage so they could go get them and at least get back to a post-agrarian society? -
Quote:Thanks, needed that.Originally Posted by Arcanaville
When you play an NCSoft game, you get attached.
When you get attached, they cancel the game.
When they cancel the game, you get angry.
When you get angry, you want to fight injustice.
When you want to fight injustice, you dress like Blue Steel.
When you dress like Blue Steel, Chuck Norris tests your skills.
And when Chuck Norris tests your skills, you end up in a wheelchair with one bad wheel.
Don't end up in a wheelchair with one bad wheel. Get rid of NCSoft and upgrade to anything else.
Actually I imagine that NCSoft decided it would cost too much just to determine a fair price for the game's assets and database. Also in Asian business culture they rarely if every say no during negotiations, it's considered impolite, so they sound noncommittal even when they already decided to turn you down. This can give a western business man the wrong idea, thinking things are going fine right up to the point that they publicly announce that they are rejecting your proposition.
Also I believe so low man on the totem pole in Korea was assigned to our game, since it was making so little money. Sort of like how the new guy gets all the small accounts. He probably gets all the work everyone else doesn't want to do and that's why it was mishandled as badly as it was. -
I can see the court case now when someone decided to skip patching their car and then something bad happens.