I Burnt The Toast

Originally Posted by Scythus

It's because people are docile sheep. When large crowds come together, claiming to be fighting for something, they're all bark and no bite. The first hint of repulsion from their opponent, they scatter.

Originally Posted by Ironblade

Yeah, and their corporation mission statement, from their web site is:
To make people in this world happier.
The ultimate mission of NCSoft is to make each and every one on Earth happier. That is, to make people's lives more enjoyable.


So... I really don't put a lot of weight in their words.

Originally Posted by Ironblade

No, there's dissent and there's being a jerk. These things are quite different. We've seen both lately.

Originally Posted by Screamrr

Just had this idea today on the drive home from work. Call it silly if you wish, but maybe its just one more thing we can all try to do to save our game.

Project X-mas, a Win-Win-Win-Win plan:

The investors of NCsoft should be looking for some postive results as the company moves in to the final quarter of this calendar year. NCsoft is currently sitting on something that as far as anyone can tell they have no interest in every using again, and they have just shoved it into a box in the back of their garage so to speak. This thing does have a value, and possibly a substantial value, to someone if they would consider selling it. If it sold, this could only have a positive effect on NCsoft's financial reports. The shareholders win.

NCsoft is facing a firestorm of bad publicity from several fronts, which is only likely to intensify once December comes along. Social media is ablaze, and e-media everywhere is following and reporting on current events. So, if NCsoft were to release/sell the IP of City of Heroes Freedom as a "Christmas Gift to all those players who have lovingly and loyally followed CoH", it would allow them to both save face by being seen as generous and abate the influx of bad press. NCsoft wins.

City of Heroes was making money. Perhaps not a lot of money, but it was earning more than it was costing. In this economy, making some money sure beats making no money! So anyone that could gain the IP to City of Heroes would be in line for a positive return on their investment, so long as the rights were priced to market value. Additionally, whomever gets the IP would INSTANTLY get a large customer base of PROVEN devoted fans that I am sure would be queueing up at the press conference, waiting to hand anyone their monthly subscription fee! They would gain the adoration and support of a large client base. The new buyer wins.

And finally, if the player base can get to continue playing City of Heroes the day after November 30th, we win!!

So, why don't we send NCsoft Christmas Cards, like a letter to Santa, saying all we want for Christmas is the opportunity to continue to play the game we have come to love so dearly. Or post letters to the facebook page. Or something like that.

If anyone thinks this is another thing we could try, I defer to anyone with more/better organizational skills. Tony-V . . . where are you?? /em binoculars


Just my $.02

We are Heroes . . . this is what we do!

We are Villains . . . whats ours is ours!

We are Praetorians . . . we struggle to save our world!

Originally Posted by LadyGrimrose

I'm done with the game and the forums, but before I go I will say a few things.

1) This game meant a lot to some of us and the community has done much to help many noble causes and charities.

2) The passion I saw arise in the SaveCoH movement should carry forward with a new game once this one closes. It is doubtful NcSoft will release the IP.

3) To my friends in Whisper X (the greatest non-SG ever), to the members of the All Stars on Virtue, and to most of the community herein, hold your heads high and your hearts close. To former Paragon Studios Devs, get out there and find a new game I will follow you anywhere.

4) Lastly, good riddance to those that have come in and made some of us feel our only recourse is to leave the forums early. FACT, my mind is made up. NcSoft is dead to me. The cyber bullying I've seen the last few days here only strengthens my resolve.

"She who must not be named... signing off"

Originally Posted by JKedan

In my opinion, if it were a large enough player base to make developing a new game worth it, CoX never would have gone Freedom. Any investment team looking for a new game to bankroll is going to look at the performance of the offerings in the Super Hero MMO genre and move on.

Those members of SaveCoX who are continually spouting the 'if we don't get our way, we're just going to keep screaming at NCSoft until we hurt them forever' line are also doing a pretty good job of making sure it never happens. Strange as this may seem, companies aren't really interested in saddling themselves with a group of consumers who have been proven to make a stink at the first sign of injury, real or imagined. It just not worth getting into a position where you have to appease people who have demonstrated that they'll attack your image at every opportunity if you don't bow to their demands.



I share this assessment. I don't think there's been enough of CoX left to save since about a week after the announcement. It's just a matter of time vs consumer interest. Anything short of a complete reversal of shutting down on Nov 30th would have meant a lengthy time frame between shut down and restart, and the the majority of the player base would have (and already has) simply found something else to do.



Because to most people it was just a game that they liked playing, not some quixotic stand against corporate behavior. If there was a chance of keeping the status quo, that's worth some time and effort. When that's off the table, it's just not worth the investment. They shrugged and moved on to one of the countless other entertainment alternatives.

It doesn't help that the SaveCoX has never really had anything like a unified mission statement or measurable goals that an interested party could be directed to and identify with. Ask ten people what 'Saving CoX' means, and you'd get five different answers and five combinations of those answers. Keep NCSoft from shutting down Paragon. Get them to sell the IP. Shutter Paragon but keep the servers on. Release the code for emulators. And so on.

And sorry to say it but "Do *insert whatever my permutation of wants is here* by Nov 30th" isn't a measurable goal, it's just an ultimatum.

Take the Call to Actions. I applaud the concept, but not the execution. Which of the several definitions of 'saved' were they supposed to enable, and what measurement was used to determine how successful they were, or, just as important, weren't, at bringing those ends to pass?

Did anyone do any research on letter writing campaigns, for example, to determine what the effectiveness threshold was? Statistically, how many needed to be sent? What, historically, has been the best format? or Tone? or Content? Is it better to send them individually, or get a lot of them together and send them all as one package? Was there even an attempt to keep an accurate tally of how many were sent? And the letter writing campaign is followed up with the capes and masks attempt, which is basically the same thing. And what do you have to show for either? That the company set up an email account for you to send to directly, and speculation as to why that might be the case? So you have no idea who did what, or what it did or didn't accomplish, and nothing real to use as good or bad press.

"A bunch of people sent letters" is mumbled heresay. "We received 10,000 letters and packages from fans that we sent on to NCSoft" is a usable data point.

People and groups seriously working towards meaningful outcomes have defined and measurable goals, and systems in place to do those measurements. It's what makes them effective, because they know exactly how well something did or didn't work, and can focus their efforts appropriately.

Further, because the movement is fractured, anything short of a complete reversal of the decision to shut down Paragon/CoX (which is impossible now in any case) leaves you with a portion of the group feeling like their want wasn't catered to. That's a no-win situation for NCSoft.

And since there are still no clearly defined and measurable goals, how will you know you are successful in whatever you choose to do post-Nov 30th? How will you know your efforts had an effect on Blade and Soul, or Wildstar, or GW2? If Blade and Soul fails, for example, how will you know it's because of the negative press against NCSoft, and not because it is a crappy game, or even just a game that doesn't fit the current market? Or are you just going to take credit regardless of the truth and 'prove' it with anecdotes? Is there any consensus on when NCSoft has suffered enough? One different style game sunset? One failed game? NCSoft leaving the Western market? NCSoft going bankrupt? What's the unified end goal? When does the group think "justice" is done?

I find it highly unlikely a unified goal or a way of measuring the success of the post closure actions will suddenly emerge from the confusion. And honestly, without real focus you're going to be easily dismissed as just more random internet rage amongst the sea of it that shows up on every single comment thread ever made.

That has been the most frustrating part of the SaveCoX movement to me. I understand, respect, and agree with not wanting something you care about to go away. That is a fine and worthy sentiment. But without structure, that's all it is. Sentiment. And right now, the only thing that seems to be a unifying factor in the SaveCoX movement, at least if you go by the vocal posters, is general anger at NCSoft, and that's not really going to be an effective catalyst for change.



The loud, antagonistic, 'we will attack you if you/because you don't do what we want' crowd that currently dominates the loudest group of SaveCoXers would be what they aren't interested in, and is pretty much acting anything but sensible or mature, regardless of "(somewhat)" qualifiers.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to convince anyone not to be angry. Anger is a perfectly respectable response to what's happened and motivation to change it. I just don't think venting anger is a useful method to get what you want. I think it's the exact opposite, in fact. And if people are just waiting for Dec 1 to unleash some vaguely defined internet justice on NCSoft, that says to me that they've already given up on CoX and any potential future iterations of the Super Hero MMO that, in time, might have replaced it.

Originally Posted by Golden Girl

Comment bombing articles works just as well

Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU

Does this mean that I am number 3?

*WOHOO* I got a Bronze, i got a bronze!

Originally Posted by Bad_Influence

Dear NCSoft Apologist #1 [Brillig is #2, btw]:

Hi there. Excuse my breaking into your pro-NC soliloquy, but you ain't seen nothing yet. People are just now getting ramped up; some of us are waiting to see if your besties at NC actually pull the plug on 11/30.

If they do - and they almost certainly will - what has went before will seem as nothing compared to the firestorm of sheer and utter hatred which will be unleashed upon their guilty little heads. Facebook. Twitter. Social media of all kinds. Its a gen-u-ine PR Nightmare, part 2. aND IF ITS all so very useless, 'scuse the caps, why do you even care. We're bound to fail, right?

You cannot stop it. Your opinion will mean nothing. Sorry, darlin'. You cannot save them.

Oh, we DO have the power to affect their bottom line. Believe it. This isn't like a negative review on Angie's List or something: this is people all over the world, united in outrage and making sure everyone knows who not to do business with.

When you do something bad, when you hurt people, word tends to get around. True for each one of us. True for corporations. Just ask Bank of America and Netflix, 'kay?

Have a nice day.

Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy

This is the Daily Show formula at work. When all else fails, be incredibly disingenuous and rely on humor to get uninformed juvenile voters on board with your political agenda!

Originally Posted by srmalloy

If you get extremely nitpicky about it, all devout Catholics are cannibals, because when the wine and wafers are consecrated in the Eucharist, Catholic doctrine holds that they literally become the blood and body of Christ.

Originally Posted by Schismatrix

Saying it poorly as well. ...

Well, personally i was continuously subscribed from less than a month after the game launched until the day NCsoft killed all subscriptions. So i might not be as loyal as you (hence not being as broken up* by the closing as you obviously are), but i was a somewhat loyal customer.






*Broken up is a synonym for gloatingly, condescendingly dismissive of those who actually liked the game, right? If not i'm probably using the wrong term.

Originally Posted by LadyGrimrose

8 year veteran and VIP here. I never left. I left other games, notably WoW, but my subscription here never wavered. Placing a blanket generalization that everyone in SaveCoH just happened to come back to post on the forums, etc. is grossly inaccurate. The same could be said in reverse for those defending NcSoft. But such is not the case.

Originally Posted by Infernus_Hades

How ridiculous to see people actively working for NCSoft as trolls.

If you had the sense of a gnat you would know that the Plan Z - is to reverse engineer LEGALLY a game similar to City of Heroes but not the same game.

So please continue to spew the Evil Legacy and Brillag view of truth that is very much like that seen in Iraq when watching Baghdad Bob. Please don't bother responding you 2 trolls can have this site to play in the wreckage. I have never seen 2 such pathetic children in my life.

Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker

Yes

Yes and yes and yes! Because it will be all over the press. It won't be just "NCSoft launch Wildstar" it will be "Remember NCSoft, that cancelled City of Heroes? They just launched a new game."

Positron said it best. The CoH community changed the way games are sunset.

Wildstar could be great, but it'll tank in the west because whatever $$$ they throw at marketing the twitter and facebook feed will be "@NCSoft lolwildstar"

nobody who researches MMOs is going to touch it with yours because of NCStink

Originally Posted by TerraDraconis

Yep that is why Andy is still helping to hold the Sheriff's station against the hoards of undead.

Originally Posted by Forbin_Project

No more often than not they don't even know those companies are interconnected. Fortunately NCSoft isn't that big or diversified so it's less likely that type of confusion will happen.





They don't have to give a rat's behind about CoH itself to see how abrubtly and poorly NCSoft implemented the closure, and how shabbily they treated it's loyal customers.

Originally Posted by JKedan

And will anyone not in the SaveCoX movement care?