Kitsune Knight

Does this qualify as being Rick Roll'd? I mean us, not Recluse.

And it's also not like we can't try to work towards both happening. Hedge our bets, so to speak.

And in case someone wants to bring up the Cryptic engine situation: We've had Zwill say it's merely a rumor multiple times, Ghost Widow (she's still around???) speak out against it, BaB (now with Cryptic) speak strongly against the idea, and a STO Community Manage say the entire idea is 'insane'... so it's extremely unlikely that's the cause.

The financials do seem reasonable, as NCSoft was in the red last quarter (for the first time ever, apparently), by $6 million. They're likely to make a huge amount of money from Guild Wars 2 very soon, so long term they don't need to worry about, but it's the short term... by killing Paragon Studios and CoH right now, they'd be able to do a short term fix of their financials to appease the shareholders (CoH and GW are the two smallest revenue sources... killing GW would be suicide at this point, as it'd cause a massive firestorm around GW2). It hurts them a bit long term, but GW2 will make that unnoticeable.


The most likely situation is that CoH/Paragon happened to, unfortunately, be in the wrong place at the wrong time when NCSoft went into the red. With any luck, the Devs will be able to find new home(s) deserving of their talents, and our CoH will be able to be reborn with a new publisher that can be to NCSoft what NCSoft was to Cryptic (i.e. "buy the game, then back a dump truck up to the Devs and tell them to go wild"). If we're double lucky, the publisher will try to hire our former Dev team.


(when I say our 'Devs', I'm also including people like Zwill that technically aren't developers... it's just easier to say that )

I bet they could do a good episode about it... but considering the turn around? It'd probably be closer to a year before anyone saw it. Plus, I would wonder if people just assumed it was a game the creators made up... Although, if things are still in the air by then, it'd probably be very effective.

Generally, it actually works out that longer sub periods are better for the companies, that's why they offer a discount on them (because even with the discount they're better). They get all the money up front (so there's no questions about it), which means they can invest it sooner, and there's a longer period before they know you might stop giving them money.

Plus, it's good for charts to say X% is really dedicated! Win-win for everyone involved (except the credit card companies, since they usually make money for every transaction).

Dual Pistol Man is the character Dr. Aeon was playing with. It took me a moment before I realized when watching the clip

Fortunately for me, I don't have Flashplayer installed on this browser! Only one of the three that didn't support HTML5 videos.

LET IT FOREVER BE KNOWN THAT I DID MY ONE SELFLESS ACT!


There's some sort of cash reward for that, right?

I'm saying such a backstory will make people take you less seriously than when they see a picture of this guy:



Interpret my intent however makes you feel best.

There is zero evidence that this was the actual reason- this coming from one of the first people to bring up the licensing angle. A community manager for STO has explicitly shot it down on their boards (but, personally, I wouldn't put a huge amount of stock in that), BaBs (who currently works for Cryptic) has said that to the best of his knowledge the license wasn't up for renewal or anything (in multiple posts now), and Zwill has bothered to go out of his way at least twice now to say it's only a rumor and nothing more. At this point we can only make guesses- poor ones at that.

I don't see how looking who to burn, when we still have a chance to save the game is at all productive. If you want to burn someone, wait until CoH's fate is already set in stone. As long as we have a chance to save it, however slim, put the pitchforks down, and focus on saving it, not counterproductive personal vengeance that can only serve to make yourself feel a tiny bit better, while accomplishing nothing in practice. But I'm sure I'll have someone reply to this saying I don't care for CoH because I'm not squandering the little time we have to make a difference with revenge.

Edit: Oo, another BaBs quote I'd not seen... so at least three

You should have seen him in the anime thread right before the announcement. He has serious issues.

It's not shocking at all that he's trying to exploit this event to further his hatred.

That's Japan, not Korea.


Edit: Wow, these boards haven't sucked this bad in years!

Of the total MMOs they've killed, this is their 5th... although the first that wasn't completely bombing. But, when you're in the red, your priorities change a bit.

Earth and Beyond was EA, not NCSoft.