Father Xmas
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Posts
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Joined
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NCSoft corporate or NC Interactive have yet to put out a press release. Paragon Studio did because obviously work would have leaked out and it's best to find out directly from them. Also several MMO news sites have yet to pick up on this, likely because they were at PAX and it was a holiday weekend.
I suspect next week, the week after that the latest, we will here about the official plan to spin down the game and reimburse those of us who aren't going to be able to use the entire subscription we had paid for. I would prefer cash/credit rather than a GW2 code and their version of points. -
Also from ANN, the BBC series Sherlock being turned into a manga. I guess they like bishi Sherlock.
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From ANN.
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Let's see what next week brings.
I see no real reason not to allow everyone VIP status, or even access to all costume and power sets since we can't buy points anymore. -
Well it's just the NA arm of Bandai. Maybe they will be willing to license their stuff to a publisher here rather than just run the whole thing themselves. They came over here back when anime and manga was booming in late 90s early 00s, not willing to spread their IP around to the established anime and manga distributors and choose to have their own NA group.
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Thank you for creating a world that could be filled with not only orcs and elves but robots, cyborgs, pirates, ninjas, time travelers, creatures of myth, aliens and anything I'm forgetting and have them fight the good (or evil) fight.
Thank you for giving us a costume creator that could not only nearly duplicate looks of our favorite heroes and villains of comics, TV, anime, movies; but come up with so many truly unique looks. We were all individuals, not yet another Level X Male Human Wizard look 4 who has all the purple items from the current expansion.
Thank you for writing missions that were loaded with in jokes from various geek fandom (not all of us simply click by it). Honestly how many people have heard of Firesign Theatre or remember Buckaroo Banzai or know where a Wave Motion Gun is a reference from? It was a lovely acknowledgment that your target customer was the kind of person you would meet at a con or comic shop or at a cult movie festival. In a world where it seems that media caters to people who actually care about Snooki or the Kardashian sisters or teeth whitening strips your team made us geeks comfortable, one among friends.
I thank you and your team. -
I don't think any of us VIPers would mine if everyone was VIP now and all market content was unlocked (power and costume sets, emotes, etc.).
We can't buy points anymore. Not sure if VIPers will even get their stipends anymore. -
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I'm better today but some of the threads are just too much sometimes.
Feelings for this game stirs up a lot of passion. -
sigh
Okay, I think we can all agree that the vast majority of players in this game are from the North American (aka Western Hemisphere) and Europe. The Q2 earnings from these two regions is 6482 million KW or 5% of NCSoft's earnings excluding royalty income. CoH earnings was 2855 million KW. If nearly all of CoH income comes from the NA and EU regions then CoH represents 44% of the income from these regions.
Yes the game is a small fish when compared to their hugely successful games in Asia (Korea, Japan and Taiwan represent 95% of their income base) but we are a big chunk in our neck of the woods. Now perhaps NCSoft is looking at withdrawing development support from the NA and EU regions now that GW2 is done since all the one time sales of that game will bolster the income from NA and EU regions for sure in Q4.
Their major MMOs from Asia obviously aren't hitting it off here that well. Maybe they decided they simply don't grok us and write the region off, just cash in on the GW2 sales for the short term, maybe finance an expansion pack or two if sales of the core game continues strong, but if I worked for ArenaNet, I'll be worry that their owners won't be interested in another costly multiyear development cycle for a GW3.
And depending how far along Wildstar is coming along (as well as whether or not they think it'll play in Asia), they may go all Studio 38 on them as well. -
Frell
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Well David Nakayama doesn't have any thing to do anymore and probably could use the income.
Also try asking in the Multi-Media Fan Creations Forum in the For Fun! section, that's where the art folks hang out.
Edit: I remember when Doug Shuler was popular a few years back with his character illustrations. -
Quote:Yes but their breadsticks and salad were to die for. Nearly literally in my case.Originally Posted by Ironik
Also, Olive Garden? I speak for every Italian in the world when I say, "Eww." That's Russian roulette, bro.
Thanks for all the well wishes. I'm not normally a sharer (no Twitter, no Facebook or other social media presence) but the loss of this game is just one more thing I loved (pizza, fried rice, pasta, red meat, corn chips, french toast, donuts, Five Guys burgers ... you get the idea) that I've loss in recent months.
It was a minor stroke affecting my sense of touch down the left side. No real loss of muscle control or strength. It's been interesting seeing how my brain is trying to rewire around the damage. For a while it felt like I had a really bad sunburn on my left arm and the palm on my left hand felt like it had a bad case of road rash. Now it's just slightly numb or tingle. The biggest area that's weird is my left leg. My foot is still fairly numb and my lower left leg still feels like it's in an overly inflated blood pressure cuff.
Ironically my stroke likely hit while rearranging equipment in my office for a new PC and monitor I just acquired from a friend for my birthday the day before. It was gradual and it wasn't until the next morning that the slight numbness I attributed to all the strenuous lifting (CRTs are quite heavy) and a long gaming session (thought my leg simply fell asleep because I was sitting on a hard chair for a long time) was now my complete left side including my face and torso.
Well off to the gym for my 1.5 mile quick walk. -
Math doesn't work that way. They would lose 5 million on the revenue side of the balance sheet and 4 million on the cost side. Now they could show that they were reducing costs while white washing over the loss of revenue. After all our revenue was small potatoes compared to their big three MMOs and likely GW2 over the short term.
It may have been other metrics like player retention, # of new players, average $ per active player, average number of players on the servers per quarter. Something like that. -
Quote:They only shut down Lineage I in NA and maybe the EU. Lineage I accounted for 45% of NCSoft's revenue while Lineage II was only 13% and Aion 28% in their second quarter of this year. It's their leading revenue source. It was their WoW.Originally Posted by Sylph_Knight
I think I've got NCSoft figured out.
Notice that none of the games they've shut down (with the exception of the archaic, original Lineage) were developed outside of Korea.
Now NCSoft thought Aion was going to be have the same long and active success that Lineage had but it's numbers have been on a steady down slope since it's huge debut. It just doesn't have the same legs, and that might have to do with it's higher hardware requirements. -
Yes I was CuppaXmas. This was my coffee Avatar then
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Quote:As well as NCSoft being their outright owner. However unlike Paragon Studios, which they also own, ArenaNet is afforded the classification as a full overseas subsidiary. I believe Paragon Studios full under the NC Interactive subsidiary. This isn't a case like in the beginning when Cryptic was an independent studio and NCSoft merely the publisher. NCSoft has owned ArenaNet long before the first GW came out, since 2002.Originally Posted by AzureSkyCiel
1. GW2 is developed by ArenaNet who, much like Paragon Studios, are WESTERN (they actually operate in Washington State) MMO developers in the same position with NCsoft being their publisher.
I agree the notion that our demise is part of some plan to drive us toward NCSoft's other games is downright silly, but don't paint ArenaNet as some independent third party with only a contractual relationship with NCSoft. They are as much part of NCSoft as Maxis is with EA. -
Yea, I fell of the proverbial wagon last night. Not alcohol but the strict diet I've been on since my stroke back in June. I was diagnosed as with Type 2 Diabetes as well as high blood pressure so I was on a low carb, low salt, low fat diet. It meant that pretty much all the food I use to eat over the past decade was a no-no. Upside, I lost 15 pounds so far, my blood sugar is down and my BP is nearly normal. Downside, I will never be able to eat unlimited breadsticks at Olive Garden or pasta in any Italian restaurant every again (portion size is much to large and I'm not paying $13 and only eat a 1/4 of the plate).
But last night I sought solace in the comfort foods I've haven't have since mid June. A pint of Ben and Jerry's, and entire bag of Smartfood, a large size Stouffer's Meat Lasagna. This morning my blood sugar was over 200, my BP high enough trigger the headaches I use to get regularly because of my high BP. So it's a hangover of sorts. Back on my diet this morning, going to the gym shortly, hopefully bring everything back under control in a few days. -
I never met him in game but there was a player who posted regulerly on the Comics and Hero/Villain Culture board who had the forum handle Lord_of_Time (obvious Doctor Who fan) passed around a 18 months. Turgenev's post on his passing.
So maybe a passing shot of the Police Public Call Box in the Night Ward. -
I'm sure they are going to keep your money. They did it with all the previous games they've closed. What they offered in the past was free time on one of their other games, however since all of those, except for GW2, are now free to play so I'm not sure what they will think of.
I just renewed for 14 months, 5 weeks ago so if the end is November 30, I will be owed around $90 of compensation. -
Getting the server hosting software is just a tiny part of the game. If we get it by one means or another and we spring for enough bucks to get a server cluster up on line, this isn't like web hosting servers, we will still not have our characters unless they are willing to give us the entire player database. I'm not sure I would be interested in playing if I have to start all my characters from scratch.
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I would imagine that there are a handful of former Paragon Studio employees who are now on a short term "consultant" contract with NCSoft but the bulk of the artists, animators, programmers, management are now gone. Probably below the FREEM 15 number but not yet zero.
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Quote:No that was Blade and Soul, a different MMO.Originally Posted by Tenzhi
My understanding was that a significant part of the six million or so dollars NCSoft was under for Q2 was due to gratuitous marketing expenditures for Guild Wars 2.
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A long time ago I worked at a company that had a number of wholly own subsidiaries. The subsidiary that I worked for, even though it didn't earn the most revenue in dollars, did produce the most profits dollars. So much so that if we had a bad year, the company had a bad year. Of course this meant we were the ones that suffered the staff cuts when the company's profits were down since we were their only profit center.
It doesn't have to make sense. Tax laws don't help it. We once destroyed a whole lot of consumables that customers used in our products (and we were the sole source) because we made more money on paper that way than by having a sale to flush the excess and perhaps garner some customer goodwill. -
Personally I don't think Tony or anyone will be able to pull this off. I wish him the best of luck but corporations rarely sell IP that they own.
I do hope he keeps the Titan forums up for a year or two post destruction as a place where we can stay in contact with each other and perhaps continue topics like those found on the Comics Hero/Villain Culture forums, since the rest of the boards here would be kind of pointless without a game.