Gangrel_EU

Yep, and in those games, you *cannot* disable it.

Yes and no. There are (at least in the EU) some *very* specific conditions that you have to meet to justify reverse engineering software. If you don't meet these requirements, you can be sunk.
Wikipedia. I am not entirely sure about what it is in the US, but I would imagine that there are similar limitations in place (even if not exactly, that at least a "clean room" procedure is used). Google Vs Oracle is a notable recent court case where the "reverse engineering is illegal" came into play, and once again it is *how* you go about it all that is most important.

This is why I am saying that it is and isn't illegal. It all depends on how you go about it. The general *concept* isn't necessary illegal, but to make sure that it isn't you have to be *very careful* about how you do it.

for me, it would put it down as "trying to work out the contents of a black box". You can work from the inputs and out puts of the box, but you are not allowed to look inside the box to see actually *how* it does this (this is an example of "clean room").

Side note: Computer software is also covered by copyright law as well.

Following excerpt is from http://www.jenkins.eu/articles-gener...neering.asp#a9

Side note: There has been a discussion similar to this already taken place on the Titan Network forums. I believe that this discussion (if you choose to continue it) is better taken over there. Oh, and reverse engineering does not mean that you are allowed to use the IP of another company without repurcussions.

Read my post, I said that I had contested it (or corrected it). I was just listing the *original* facts, and not listing the corrected facts.

Side note: The last EU player meet for CoX was a week after the Closure Announcement, and to be fair NCSoft were about as much use as a chocolate fire guard in helping us. If anything, they were a waste of time (we initially started planning the event in February 2012, but didnt get everything finalised until August 2012... and that was after several months of waiting for NCsoft to get their fingers out of their rear ends and in the end say that they are unable to help out in any way shape or form).

Here is a list that I have contested (or clarfied) in the past few weeks from both sets of forums

• The game was making $800,000 profit per month (have seen it quoted both here and on Titan Network forums).
• Richard Garriotts resignation letter was forged (Both here and on Titan Network forums).
• The game had 100,000 subscribers at the time of closure (comment on Toms Hardware, it was made by a CoX player)
• That City of Heroes is the 1st game that NCsoft have voluntarily given refunds for (both over here and on Titan network forums)
• That in the initial announcement the forums were due to be closed on September 1st (Titan network)
• There are others if i can be *arsed* to drag them up from my post history.

*edit* Just to make sure you read this part: ALL OF THE STUFF I HAVE JUST LISTED IS INCORRECT. THERE IS NO EVIDENCE THERE TO SUPPORT THESE!

I have however tried to correct them when I initially read the posts.

So, am i biased? Or would I rather have substantiated evidence to help *you guys* make your choices.

Sure, it does appear that I am defending NCsoft, but that is because people are saying untrue things about NCsoft.

If someone says something untrue about City of Heroes, I will correct them (for better or for worse).

Hell, it doesn't actually matter what the subject matter is, as long as i can get the correct information (or enough preponderance of evidence to back up what I am going to say) then I will correct people.

If someone corrects me, I will try to see where they are coming from, but I will always ask for *their* evidence as well.

No one is *perfect*, but i try to make sure that what I am saying is correct (and I do always welcome corrections!).

Btw, Brillig is next up to be accused of working for NCsoft...

3 times in 3 days!

Must be some kind of record.

No, I don't work for Ncsoft, have never worked for NCsoft, although I have helped out in the past with an NCsoft ran event, and also helped organize the past 3 EU CoX player meets (these 3 were organised by a player).

I have also ran a set of forums for Tabula Rasa in the past.

So, am I affiliated with NCsoft or not?

If i could have posted in the announcement comment thread, I would have suggested that people do this *anyway*, especially if you bought your points before the shut off date. Will it work? Well, no harm in trying... and it looks like it did work.

In fact, I believe that something along those lines has been suggested in the past on these forums (so talk to support to get the refund *before* you start hassling your bank to help sort it out).

You can add to that a few of the old EU GM's, James "Spaff" Spafford (who was with Rockjaw and Aero in creative concepts), Volker, Martin "Snowstorm" Kerstein, Matt Keller (he took all the photos at events), Martin "Amboss" Rabl.

There are others out there, whose names I am forgetting (just trying to help you out here!)

Hell, most of them (if not all) are in the Quest for GC series of videos that NCsoft Europe did all the way back in 2008.

VIP rate for City of Heroes: $15/£8.99/€12.99

Sub to The Secret World: $15/£11.49/€14.99

Nope, I believe that it is only the US market that pays the same price between both games.

Side note: World of Warcraft is the same price as City of Heroes.

In fact, *most* other MMO's are the same price as City of Heroes (Champions Online being a notable exception, costing $15/£10.79/€14.56. Eve Online is also another exception of $14.95/£9.99/€14.95). The rest that i can find either just charge in *one* currency or they tend to stick to the same rate as CoX (Lord of the Rings Online, DDO, Star Wars: The Old Republic).

*shrugs* Make of that what you will.

Oh, don't worry about the link, it was actually *your* link to Gamasutra that put me onto the correct path for finding the court documents (rather surprisingly, my original searches were coming up fruitless!), but hey ho, at least we got that little problem resolved.

The Secret World is also more expensive in the EU though compared to VIP for CoX.

Then again, so is Champions Online.

No worries I was kinda of surprised that you called me up on this one, but at least everyone know now how to get the information up if need be (which reminds me, will add a link to the financials *page* as well)

Actually, you can get the financials from here (Linkage to Ncsoft Financials page, where you can download different quarter/end of year reports if you desire)

You will need to unzip it 1st, and the you are looking for IR_ Consolidated FactSheet_ENG(2QFY12)-public.xls (yeah long name i know). The important information is on the Game Sales tab of that spreadsheet (it is listed in Millions of Korean Won, so you will need to get your currency conversion out here).

What I did, was take the Q2 results (2,855,000,000 Won) and just go to xe.com and use the currency conversion there.

2,855,000,000 Won = $2,570,678 for the Quarter (3 month period).
$2,570,678/3 = $856,892 per month

This is *revenue* and not profit. This does not take into consideration *any* expenditure from NCsoft/Paragon Studios. It doesn't need to take them into consideration as i never mentioned anything concerning profit.

Well, I am just using the same system as Father Xmas (and other posters) have used in the past, and actually using the relevent documents as well. Now, if we are *not* allowed to use these documents as evidence, then surely the fact that NCsoft lost roughly $7million last quarter *cannot* be used either, as they come from the same sources (well in this case, other files in the zip file i linked to). Infact, you know that nice graph that gets posted up every now and then showing revenue and "number of subscribers"? The information that it used to be generated was *from* the same set of reports.

So, do you believe me now? Or are you going to dispute everything that has been put up to support the game in the past?

Well, CoX was bringing in roughly $800K/month revenue according to their financial releases. It is peanuts compared to all of the other titles (ok, Guild Wars 2 brings in roughly 1/2 the amount, but lets see what this quarters financial statements say to actually make judgement on it... side note: GW1 has brought in roughly $30million more than CoX over their respective lifetimes).

You can also use ingame money to buy gems, and then use those gems to unlock more character slots (or what ever else you want from the cash shop). Hell, you could even spend 2000 gems to upgrade your account to the Collectors edition if you wanted.


It is just as much an MMO as City of Heroes is. So, is CoX an MMO or isnt it?

*edit* Yeah, i skipped on this one, because there is an *easy* solution to it, but there were names that were reserved at the start due to them being from GW1 players reserving their character names. Also on top of that, your *global* identifier *can* change (infact, it changed for me when I linked my GW1 account to my already established GW2 account). *side note* You can actually friend/whisper/invite people to your guild just by knowing their Character name across *all* servers in the game (EU and US). No need for the account identifier (which as i have stated previously can change).

There is less overflowing now. The main overflowing was during the initial opening period of the game, and has declined *incredibly* since then.

There is no free trial yet, but I am certain that it will come. More than likely they wanted to see what the server populations would be like *before* they open them to the unpaying masses.

And yet you can still use ingame currency to buy those items. It is only if you want to buy gems with real world money that you pay "over the odds".

Yes, I am an insider from NCsoft.

/sarcasm.

Actually, this is the 2nd time that i have been accused of working for NCsoft... If only, I would be getting paid far far more than what I am currently earning. (here is a hint: I am actually paid less than the minimum wage here in the UK).

Side note: My household is still waiting for a refund on a 6month sub that was paid on 14th August.

Nope, I remember hearing about it, never really paid much attention to it.

And on top of that they should also refund all subscriptions from *last year* as well.

/sarcasm

However, the one that he signed and approved was the one that was shown to the player base.

He never did sign the *internal* resignation letter which was the basis for the court case and so was instrumental into when he was able to excise his stock options, which was actually the whole reason for the court case in the 1st place.

I can actually confirm this one 100%, for I have indeed found the magic website.

It is actually from the Garriott Vs NCsoft court case.

Taken from Findlaw.com

So whilst NCsoft *did* write the letter, Garriott himself approved and signed it. He didn't however sign his resignation letter to NCsoft (which they had drafted for him)

Soooo......

I play games that I enjoy, it just so happens that City of Heroes was my 1st mmo, and one that I did enjoy to pick up and play every now and then.

Yes, I knew from previous experience that NCsoft could kill a title, but i went into MMO playing from the very outset that nothing lasts forever.

I just kept my expectations "low" as to how long a title would last, just to prevent myself from becoming too attached to a game (I have loved and lost over the years, including the death of an ex fiancee). So since then, I treated every day as something semi special.

Ok, to be fair, pretty much ALL MMO's will cost a few million to develop, however, lets get this a bit more accurate shall we?

NCSoft *DID NOT* develop Point Blank (developed by Zepetto) *NOR* Dragonica (Barunson Interactive), they licensed them. In fact, both of those titles have *multiple* publishers, some even in the same same regions as NCsoft operates in. So that is 2 of the titles that you are citing out of the window. Dragonica is *still* active right now Wiki page, you need to go down to Development, and you can see it there. Hell, it is still active in the US and EU markets.

• Auto Assault: no idea how much it cost to develop, but it wasn't profitable.
• Exteel: according to wikipedia (so take that as you will), was apparently closed down due to a lack of *stable* financial income and waning interest from players.
• Dungeon Runners: Was never a "big budget" MMO, and according to wikipedia (again!) the developers themselves said:
  
  Quote:

  "Dungeon Runners just isn't cutting the mustard," Nichols said on an announcement on the Dungeon Runners forum. "If she were a ship, she'd be taking on water. Yeah, she's been taking on water for a long time now. Are my cryptic references too hard to decipher? The game just isn't profitable. And, the first rule of business is to be profitable!"

• Tabula Rasa: Cost a bomb, didn't make a penny back really.

But if you are saying that someone is lacking credibility, then that *doesn't* mean that everything you say against them is true. That is what I am trying to correct here.

Some little fact checking along the line is always handy.

Side note: How profitable was City of Heroes by the way? I await your answer and how you got to that figure as well.

And yet, you find that all of the controversies totally valid?

As i said, I would give you one of them (the Richard Garriot one), but the other 2 are *not* valid claims to hate upon NCsoft. Hell, if anything, the patent case one is interesting in its own right, because City of Heroes was actually *cited* in the court documents as infringing on patents.

I *DID* read link 5, infact I used that as a basis for the everything. I couldn't find anything that referred to "Billions of dollars" *at all*. In fact, dollars gets mentioned in just 2 paragraphs. One the cost of development for TR (apparently $100million), and then in the following paragraph where it goes into the hiring of the Garriot brothers ($17 million in cash, roughly $50million for 1.5million in share options).

So, once again, please *clarify* where is states that they lost "Billions of dollars".

I will accept "millions", even "a couple hundred million in developing a turkey and bringing in the Garriots" (although they were also responsible for getting NCsoft into the US market in the 1st place)

But once again, there is *no* mention of "Billions of dollars".

Strangely enough, that is about a similar percentage drop for Apple since the launch of the iPhone5... wonder what caused it to drop so fast...