Father Xmas

Believe it or not it's a comic book movie. Sorry, graphic novel.

I didn't think it was a bad film, just an OK one. And yes, it's a film dealing with avatars that people "pilot". They don't need to look like themselves, or even an idealized version of themselves which can allow people to experience life as someone else.

But the sudden shut down was more of a "life without risk isn't a life worth living" message. It was a comment about how a technology that was meant to allow the minority among us who can't go out and interact with others due to injury/age/disease becomes corrupted so the rest of normal active society can choose to become shut-ins never leaving home. It's a voluntary Matrix because you rather have a risk free life through a proxy than direct physical contact with another human being.

Oops, forgot to report back, yep they are old Jumps at my Library.

I don't have a problem here. Remember it (may) not be the same username/password as your game account.

Don't remember which Atlas Park I was in but here are the pics.

Thank you. That was awesome.

Fortunately I was right in the back row and was in camera for a good long time.

This wasn't what I expected. I was expecting an event that ends up on a "news of the weird" segment about a group of people dressed as superheroes doing a sit in at a game company in Seattle.

Yes but the numbers were flat leading up to Q2 2009, there wasn't a bump. While it was a box edition, I don't think it sold as well as a true expansion, like CoV or GR.

Here's a chart from the MMO Blog Vicarious Existence. Apologies if it's too large.

I was thinking more of a Google Maps Street View style walk through. Maybe using something like Microsoft Photosynth.

Something happened in between Q2 2009 and Q4 2009. If you look at the revenue numbers the game went from at least $5 million per quarter before that to around $2.5 - 3 million after that. Issues 14 (Architect), 15 (Anniversary) and 16 (Power Spectrum) came out during that time period.

Well in the MMO space, both Aion and Champions came out then. Maybe some other interesting MMOs went F2P/Hybrid, I don't know, didn't follow the industry that closely. Maybe some good console games?

Whatever it was, players left and didn't come back. Posi did have his little outburst back then over MA but I didn't think it poisoned the well enough to cause a 40% drop in revenue over 6 months.

It peaked out at 33 Atlas Parks as far as I could tell. Definitely north of 2000 players logged in.

Sure. I solo mostly anyways cause the rest of you are zombies (Heinlein joke).

This ftp link seems to work.

I'm talking brick and mortar stores. I'm sure you can find it online. You can buy/download the Platinum version (game and last expansion) from NCSoft. Not sure about places like Steam.

Okay, checked Amazon. There is one seller of the complete collection (game + 3 expansions) for $43.50 with free shipping. Amazon itself sells the Trilogy version (game + first 2 expansions) for $30 and the last expansion separately for $30. Amazon also sells the digital download of Platinum version (game plus last expansion) for only $20. Don't forget, if you ordering a box edition (versus a download), get it new for an unused serial code.

I did make my Trill in STO look Santa like. I'm still in the tutorial.

/em fingersnap

Didn't own one but played on my friend's who got one after we graduated college. His roommate (another college buddy) and I would backseat play Bard's Tale, Ultima IV, Loom when he played and took turns when he let us have a chance. We were all Atari 800 geeks in college.

Nice machine for the time.

Very nice.

Guild Wars generated $15 million (US dollars) more revenue in a year's less time than CoH.

While our game used their money to crank out free content upgrades, ArenaNet used the money to develop the GW1 expansions (which kept the money coming in) and GW2.

November 2010's NCSoft's investor presentation had revenue projections of 700 Billion KrW for 2010, 850 Billion KrW for 2011 and 1 Trillion KrW for 2012. They only hit 656 Billion in 2010 and 609 Billion in 2011. They expected Aion to continue it's explosive growth and Blade and Soul and Guild Wars 2 to come out in 2011. It's the kind of fairy tail revenue projections that management make in every company that reality can rarely if ever deliver on which then gives management the excuse to restructure to make investors happy.

North American and EU region revenues have been shrinking since FY 2009, down 60% in 2011 from 2009 numbers. Guild Wars 2 will probably give it a nice kick in the pants for the rest of this year. They already pulled Lineage I out of NA due to lack of acceptable subscription revenue in their eyes.

You could think of the original Guild Wars as a first person, online only, Diablo II. There were content expansions, no subscription, you can play with others.

The complete collection box I think is only $30 if you can find it. It's not like stores carry old PC games or that many new PC games anymore.

Left hand meet right hand, right hand meet left hand.

It's obvious that Paragon Studio wasn't the only ones who were surprised by last Friday. So is anybody that has anything to do with the game's web presence on NCSoft's other sites. But that's a page redesign, we have to do a prototype and then get management to approve it and then get the one guy with publishing privileges to get around to it. Also no press releases from NCSoft acknowledging the closure, I guess they are relying on the Paragon Studio one.

Father Xmas sent.

Is it wrong that every time I see the phrase "TriState area" I hear Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz?