JKedan
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Posts
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Joined
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Quote:The fact that someone dismisses the number as unrealistic when presented one way, then turns around and presents the exact same number, unsupported, as fact in a way that advances their agenda doesn't raise any red flags with you at all?Originally Posted by Terwyn
The number, if real, *is* unrealistic, so GG is right there.
'If the number came from NCSoft' is a huge 'if' to base anything on, particularly since it is completely unsupported. And when the origin of the $80 million speculation can be found in the linked thread.Quote:Originally Posted by Terwyn
It may well be a true price, it may well be fraudulent.
I simply believe that the legalities of such negotiations force things to remain anonymous. I would happily confirm whether the $80 million tag is real, should I find the means to do so. As it stands, if it is the number that came from NCSoft, rather than external speculation, then the supposition that its goal is to make the appearance of being willing to sell without ever actually holding the intent to sell is quite a reasonable conclusion to make.
Personally, I'm waiting for more information.
We have examples just above that show where failed negotiations are not held in confidence. Why would they be here? If nothing else, the companies that tendered rejected offers lose nothing by announcing it. In fact, they lose out on the goodwill they would have gained from the SaveCoX community (admittedly a proven double edged sword) by trying.
Personally, I'd take less issue if the people using the $80 million asking price argument made it clear they were pulling it out of their posteriors rather than stating it as proven fact. -
Quote:This number?Originally Posted by Terwyn
Did it occur to you that the number is accurate, and the parties that made the offer are legally required to remain anonymous?
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=297932
The one a redname suggests is not worth speculating on and Golden Girl herself dismisses as unrealistic?
Of course, somehow, with no proof whatsoever, the number has morphed from being an offer to an asking price. Convenient how the new viewpoint just happens to be in line with the SaveCoX anti-NCSoft propaganda.
Given the fanatical Anti-NCSoft agenda of much of the SaveCoX movement, and lacking any proof at all in support of the number as legitimate (as an offer or an asking price), I believe it if far more likely that someone simply remembered the number and misremembered the original context, so it took on a meaning more in line with the point they wanted to make. A more cynical person might suggest that the source of the number has been intentionally misrepresented, but that never happens on the Internet. -
Quote:None was intended. There is no such thing as a 'normal' sixteen year old. The best you get in that department is degrees of deviation from a subjective ideal.Originally Posted by GreatRock
I don't think this problem will go away with time. I also do not think my thoughts are typical of a normal 16 year old.
However, you are welcome to believe what you wish. I don't take offense to this at all. -
I figured she was just being sixteen years old. It's a little harder to diagnose someone's long term stability when they are still in the 'walking hormone imbalace' stage of development.
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Quote:That's certainly an argument against any benevolent supreme being.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Transformers IV is out in 2014.
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Quote:Will it cost $80 million? We need to keep that number in use somehow, right?Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Plan Z will be raising money for the project - there's no question of doing it as a purely volunteer effort.
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Quote:The SWTOR dev team is so good at that, you'd think they hired for it. My favorite so far has been the graphics settings issue.Originally Posted by Brillig
Thus achieving the rare feat of ticking off absolutely everyone.
In Beta they had the 3 standard graphics settings, High/Medium/Low. High was almost as good as the screenshots, Medium had decent resolution characters with muddy low res gear except in cutscenes, and Low was just low res all around.
Near the end of beta, they disabled High for "optimization" and said they'd enable it again at live. No problem, that's beta.
Launch day comes and goes. 3 graphics selections in options. An increasing number of people begin to notice that Med and High look exactly the same. They wonder what's up. The beta crowd relays that it didn't used to be that way, everyone looks at the devs.
"You're absolutely right," the devs say. "Medium and High are exactly the same. We'll fix that next patch."
Next patch, people with high end machines open their graphics settings to find everything was fixed. As long as your definition of "fixed" means 'they did nothing to the graphics at all, they just removed medium from the list'. So now your options are Low and High(which used to be medium).
Now everyone is curious. "What gives? Where are the graphics used in the screenshots and videos on the official site and all press releases?"
"Oh, we only have that level enabled internally for use in marketing."
Needless to say, that answer didn't go over very well. People were somewhat miffed that the level of quality used to promote the game was literally impossible to achieve in said game, regardless of how powerful a rig you owned. I suspect the people who bought new computers specifically for SWTOR were particularly irritated.
As might be expected, it wasn't long before people asked "We had High in beta. You said you were going to re-enable it for live. What happened?"
This led to what may be one of my all time favorite stupid developer answer. "We are worried that people with low end machines might select the High graphics setting and be disappointed when it negatively effects their game performance, so we removed it."
Do I even need to describe what kind of response that got from the community?
So you can see marketing screenshots and videos with high res textures, but you can't actually ever achieve that level of graphics with your retail copy regardless of what rig you own, because they didn't want to give people with older machines the option to pick High. (Or they did something to break it near the end of beta and could never figure out how to fix it. You pick which seems more likely.) To be fair, I think they did finally get shadows to the point that they don't look like they're made of Legos.
It's possible they re-enabled High since I stopped playing, but judging from a quick perusal of the forums, I suspect not. -
Quote:Darn right. I never liked that guy. Always so smug and cryptic. "I have always been here" my foot.Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven
I suddenly imagined you as the Gaim, when Sheridan was trying to convince the League of non-aligned worlds to combine their forces against the growing darkness. Sheridan had to force Kosh to launch a Vorlon fleet directly against the Shadows and he was killed in retaliation.
And now Kosh is dead! I hope you're happy!
Well, except for that whole "If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die" line. That one didn't leave a whole lot of room for interpretation. And, admittedly, he was pretty spot on. -
Quote:Thanks, Pebblebrook. I find comparing the thread you linked with current statements to be an interesting illustration of why I was looking for proof to begin with.Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
It was mentioned as a rumor that was born from misreading a quote.
But in that version, $80 million was the bid price offerred to NCSoft and now $80 million is the NCSoft asking price.
$80 million must be an interesting number, it keeps showing up in one form or another.
When someone goes from dismissing a rumored amount to presenting the exact same number as though it were accepted fact, while flipping the alleged originator of said number, is it really a surprise that people might be concerned about accuracy and interested in seeing some proof? -
Quote:You realize this is just a reworded 'I know a guy who knows a guy...', right?Originally Posted by AvelWorldCreator
I have a possible confirmation, but it was in a PM (on these boards, not Titan).
The person was very specific about the source and its nature. I can't say anymore. Sorry. Specific numbers weren't actually used, but it was implied they were unusually large.
The situation is that we are discussing an emotionally charged issue on the Internet. A culture pone to hyperbole (or worse) to avoid being seen as wrong over even trivial matters. In this case we have an antagonistic group, SaveCoX, with a repeatedly declared vested interest in making their chosen target, NCSoft, look as bad as possible. A group who's members have made claims in the past that were, as pointed out, demonstrably mistaken.
Given this state, along with the fact that the burden of proof generally rests with those making a claim, I don't think it is unreasonable to require more than faith to accept certain claims as fact.
Are there verified public statements from Valve, Trion, or Sony that they made a bid? Has any developer or group come forth with a statement taking credit for the alleged $80M offer?
Is there any proof from unbiased sources at all that reasonable offers were made by anyone except the former Paragon staff? -
Quote:You'll forgive me if I don't take 'maybe' when applied to an 'I know a guy' post as grounds for acceptance as fact. Particularly given this is just one of several unsupported rumors regarding attempts to purchase the IP that some posters seem to present as provable truth.Originally Posted by Terwyn
That could be very well because the source was one of the investors themselves, who preferred to remain anonymous.
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Quote:The first instance I've been able to find is over on the Titan boards, and it's the "I know a guy..." post. If there was later confirmation, I missed it.Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven
Run a search on these boards? See when the first instance of that $80 million figure first appeared. Who made that post and in what context?
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Quote:I'm really curious where the number came from, and why anyone should accept it as fact.Originally Posted by Coyote_Seven
I doubt we ever would get proof, assuming it really happened. Someone would have had to have known beforehand, and bugged the meeting rooms.
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Quote:I keep seeing this, or stories like this, with the $80 M price tag referenced, but never any link to actual proof. Invariably, the trail leads to an "I know a guy who knows a guy, and I'll say more when I have confirmation" style post.Originally Posted by Golden Girl
There have been a number of offers from others, including a group of Paragon devs with quite substantial backing - that's what the 80 million price tag was for - to make sure reasonable offers wouldn't be able to match it, allowing NCsoft to claim that they'd "tried" to sell it, but couldn't find a buyer.
I'd really like to see actual proof that this is more than heresay so often repeated that adherents have accepted it as fact, preferably from the party or parties who made the offers. -
Quote:There's a difference between 'I won't play it, but you have fun' and 'I will do everything I can to make sure your fun dies like mine did'.Originally Posted by Ogi
Voting with our wallets (a very third party vote, sadly) is the only way to show our displeasure of NCSoft's actions. Money given to GW2 goes to NCSoft, so if we don't want NCSoft to get our money, GW2 can't have it either.
Your puppy still has time to run away to an animal shelter before it gets sent off to a nice farm where it can run* just before a new shiny puppy arrives.
*I shot the dog and tossed its carcass in the slough -
Quote:Very well said.Originally Posted by Feycat
This is probably going to be my last post on this forum, for what it's worth. The atmosphere has become completely poisonous. And the sad part is, the poison that's driving me away is coming from the direction I had the most hope in. So I hope the Titan folks are still reading.
This is what I'm talking about. The fact that the SaveCOH movement is now mostly focused on a boycot NCsoft movement. It's mostly about bashing NCSoft - and by extension, a lot of that focuses on GW2, since it is a very successful (yup, I said it) recent NCSoft product.
But the hypocrisy is frankly staggering.
You hear a lot about how "this is our fifth dead MMO, we've become exceedingly good at it." FIVE.
And yet, all of you felt fine playing COH - until it was YOUR game that got shut down.
And now that YOUR game is being shut down, now suddenly NO ONE should be playing any NCSoft game ever again, and you do your best to get another MMO shut down. I've seen folks literally posting - some of them prominent Titan/SaveCOH/PlanZ people - that the failure of GW2 and Wildstar will be a victory for them, that it will be justice for what happened to COH.
Are you listening to yourselves? You're all bursting with how much it hurt when YOUR game got shut down, and yet you are ACTIVELY working toward getting ANOTHER MMO shut down! You are working toward inflicting the pain you are now suffering on other people - and too bad, they're just collateral damage and should have known better than to trust NCSoft.
Oh, really? If that's the case? SO SHOULD YOU.
If the ArenaNet devs deserve no sympathy and no support - neither did the Paragon devs. And if the GW2 players deserve no sympathy and to be able to play their game in peace - neither did the COH players. Because this is the FIFTH MMO shutdown, right? Is 5 some mystical number? 4 MMOs ago, you were still playing COH and that was fine, but 5 MMOs means that no one else should be playing an NCSoft game without being labelled a traitor and a moron.
Think about it.
I hope Plan Z succeeds, I really do. But I went from being an enthusiastic supporter of all things Titan to making my way out the back door now. I've been playing this game for 8 years. Since i0. I remember when costume slots were added, the fight to get capes in the game, rubberbanding across entire zones. I've been here since the beginning. I'm not some new person who just waltzed in - I'm a veteran, I earned my stripes. And apparently, the fact that I choose to continue to do exactly what all of us were doing until August, I am now a pariah, and people I considered my community are actively working to make sure that what I lost in August, I lose again very soon.
GW2 has been around in beta for YEARS. Some of us have loved and been invested in it for a long time. And aren't going to simply drop it, anymore than any of US dropped COH when Auto Assault or Tabula Rasa or any of those games were shuttered.
You've taken something that was a positive movement and turned it into something negative and poisonous. Your vengeance won't fix what happened with COH. It'll just repeat the process.
Oh, and as for Terwyn's points:
The hacking wasn't internal. It was external. It was stupid people using their same password/username combo on internet websites that they did as game logins, or as game logins in other games like SWTOR and WoW. That wasn't GW2 or Anet's fault. That was user stupidity.
The game is not more riddled with bugs than any other MMO - and less than most. And I say that having played COH, LOTRO, SWTOR and WAR from launch. GW2's launch was extremely smooth, the gameplay continues to be smooth, and bugs are being fixed at a good clip.
It has as much endgame as COH ever did. Raids are not automatically endgame - the lack of raids doesn't equal a lack of endgame. Some of us hate raids and felt it seriously damaged COH when they were added.
It is very easy to go and find something you haven't done yet. I've got 8 characters, from top to bottom of the game, and I've been playing since beta - there are still zones I've never done. Still events I've never played. Dungeons I've never done. Jumping puzzles I haven't gotten to. Crafts I haven't touched. And I play multiple hours a day. Any attempt to claim there's nothing to do - or in any way LESS to do than COH - is just false.
One of the things I actually love about GW2 is that it feels a lot like pre-incarnate COH. I can jump on whatever character I feel like PLAYING, and play them. I don't have to worry about which one I NEED to grind something on. It's not that kind of game. It's much better.
TL;DR - stop trying to kill someone else's puppy, just because someone killed yours. It won't bring yours back. And you should know better than to wish that on other people. -
Quote:I thought that was everyone, BZB.Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
It has been truly interesting watching this forum melt down so completely.
It's also been amusing to learn just how many people I'd like to watch die in fires.
At least you finally got rid of that CDN_Guardian jackass a few years back. If anyone deserved a ban, it was him. -
Welcome to the ruins of our once proud civilization, Avel.
Enjoy your stay. -
Quote:Aha, I did misunderstand. I don't really know enough about NCSoft's internal organization to speak on it the way someone like Father Xmas can, but my impression is that NCSoft treats Arenanet differently than they do NC West, which Paragon Studios was a part of.Originally Posted by Terwyn
You misunderstand. I am saying that I will believe that GW2 will be a success if it demonstrates that NCSoft can actually be trusted to deliver on its promises.
It won't be able to reverse the financial fortunes of NCSoft, but what it can do, however, is lead to a change in the way NCSoft is perceived as a company.
To really get an idea of a change in corporate handling, it will take a larger data set. For example, how Wildstar performs and how they treat the property and Carbine based on that.
To make a comparison, my impression is that NCSoft treats Anet as Activision/Blizzard treats Blizzard, and everyone else the way EA treated Westwood.
It will be interesting to see where Carbine falls. -
Quote:That's an invalid criteria for success. What you are trying to say is that GW2 is only a success if it performs so well that it makes up for any lack of success in every other product NCSoft makes. You're judging GW2's success on NCSoft's portfolio performance rather than its own financial merits.Originally Posted by Terwyn
I'm not painting GW2 as a failure. I'm simply not painting it as a success yet. There is a difference. If I were painting it as a failure, I'd be quite clearly predicting a time frame for its shut down. The difference between a successful launch and a successful product can be very easily illustrated: Research In Motion vs. Apple. In one corner, we have a company that created a market, and in the other we have a company that usurped dominance of that same market.
I will believe that GW2 is a success when it manages to reverse the fortunes of its publisher. Going by NCSoft's current stock performance, I have reasons to maintain my doubts.
Frankly, that's absurd. You might as well say the Corvette is a failed model of automobile, or Cadillac a failed brand, because they didn't keep GM out of bankruptcy singlehandedly. -
Quote:If I were to guess, I'd suspect anything less than GW2 lasting 8 years, regardless of market conditions, overall earnings or sequel planning, will be seen as GW2 failing by comparison to CoX and proof that NCSoft doesn't understand the western market. In the eyes of some, at least.Originally Posted by JayboH
Uh, not that I want to get in the middle of this, but is there a specific date where you will acknowledge the massive sales of GW2?
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Quote:Curse you.Originally Posted by Black Zot
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Quote:Did you just suggest that NCSoft making a business decision to close CoX was an action representative of an entire culture?Originally Posted by Terwyn
And what of the fact that your culture apparently degrades our community?
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Quote:You made my head reboot. Now I've lost my unsaved trains of thought.Originally Posted by VoodooGirl
Automated Kitten Thread Destresser -
Quote:You'll just be the Titan forums community then, not the City of community. The City of community will be dead, and a relative handfull of refugees with memories of better times won't change that.Originally Posted by VoodooGirl
The Community dies if the Community wishes to die. If the Community wishes to endure, it will.
So for you, the community dies when the server shuts off. For others it will endure on the Titan Forums and with Plan Z.