Robbie_Redhat

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When I hear 'Pants' I think of toddlers underwear. Step AWAY from Her Majesty's English GG.

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Mmm. Somehow, I don't think Her Majesty uses the word 'pants' so much.

Frankly, this is one of those words where the American usage makes more sense than ours. 'Pants' is a shortened form of 'pantaloons', using it to mean 'trousers' is fine, perfectly logical. But shortening 'underpants' to just 'pants' is nonsense if you think about it - 'pants' means 'underpants', so by expansion, it means 'underunderunderunderunderunderunder...pants'. Madness.

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Don't even get me started on how the company fails to promote a product as effectively as Blizzard does when in this time in cinema culture when there is a massive resurgence in the SuperHero genre and fantasy is running second re:film output.

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Film popularity doesn't mean huge success even for directly related games. As Mr_Marvellous mentioned earlier, Lord of the Rings Online can't compete with WoW. It's tied in to a long-standing franchise, the movies were hugely successful, the game got decent reviews and advertising - and it's not even remotely close to WoW.

The idea that a MMO game in a particular genre should have huge potential simply because that genre is popular in other media just doesn't hold. There are other, much more significant factors.

The fact is, in terms of MMOs in general, LotRO - and CoH/V for that matter - are successful. They've done well. WoW is an exception, not the rule.

I utterly disagree with pretty much the lot of you.

You seem to have this idea that if they spent a fortune on getting boxes on shelves and advertising that the game will suddenly get tens, or hundreds, of thousands of new players.

It would, of course, get some new players but the only relevant question is would it get enough new players to justify the huge cost of doing all that?

And in the EU, I'm personally inclined to think that it would not. Many of you, apparently, think it would, but those are just opinions based on our perceptions. NCSoft, on the other hand, have actual marketing data and research. They're far more likely to be right than you, or I, are.

You do have to spend money to make money - but you have to spend it intelligently. There's a point of diminishing returns, after which spending more money does not make you money. It loses it. I would prefer to see them not doing that personally.

And that doesn't mean the game is doomed by the way.

All just IMO of course.

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Question: What's the point of increasing the marketing role of NCSoft Brighton if you're not going to market one of your core products?

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Not releasing a new box at this point does not equate to not marketing the product at all.

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Solo = "Without the presence or aid of another."
Synonyms include: "Alone"

"Alone" in Spanish even equates to "Solo" ...

It doesn't take a giant logical leap to think along the lines of "Alone" == "Lonely".

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How many people do you think actually mean to set their search status to 'alone' or 'lonely' but put 'soloing' instead? I'm willing to bet the answer is 'none'.

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(All quite aside from the usual rehashed argument of "Soloing merely states what you're doing, not what you might wish to do if asked"!

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It's not a facebook status. It's not twitter. It's a search comment. In that context, it's very much related to what you wish to do if asked.

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Isnt this thread like... a day early? It's friday tomorrow.

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If the thread hadn't started on Tuesday that would make more sense.

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Also 'soloing' as a search comment is far too vague, I accept that soloing could mean you want to stay solo (And is how I would translate it), but it equally could be a description of your current activity. I could write 'eating' in my search comment but it wouldn't mean that I was looking for an eating partner, and it would not mean that I wasn't looking for a team, it would mean that I am currently eating, probably translated as semi-afk.

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Oh come on. It's a search status, not twitter.

Why, exactly, would anyone set their search status to 'soloing' if they wanted to team? How does telling everyone who's searching for team members that you're soloing say "hey, I want to join your team"?

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I am honour bound to wait before sending any others to other players...

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No you're not. Unless you're saying "I'm holding a space just for you!" Teams fill up, spaces go to other people. If I don't reply immediately, I don't necessarily expect the space to still be there (and indeed, it often isn't).

Basically, if you send tells and expect replies, you're going to be disappointed. Polite people will reply if they're able to - but they may not be able to. And not everyone is polite.

Not getting replies is something you have to live with. If you really feel honour-bound to wait an absolute age just in case, you're going to be waiting a lot.

If you really want to keep your conscience clear, say something like "Want to join a team L X doing blah? Spaces free right now, but let me know ASAP if interested". That way the recipient is aware spaces may not be available if they take too long to reply.

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But why cant they simply manage the EU servers and player base from the USA?
This is the internet after all.

In what way does it matter where the staff are based?

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Conflicting character names/SG names, possible loss of veteran awards, loss of other things.
Because it is teh interwebs.
And time difference. They would have to pay people in the US to do night-shifts to cover EU day-time, etc etc. And all the hassle that would bring. Either that or they would only provide support during US daytime, and all the problems for EU players THAT would cause.

/answers

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Conflicting names is only an issue if they merge the servers, or at least the global namespace, rather than simply managing the EU servers as they are from over there.

Time difference isn't that much of an issue either. Paying people to do night-shifts is something they already do, what with the servers running 24/7. They might need to increase and extend it - depends on the existing level of support. But it's not something that would be particularly impractical.

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What really interested me about the financial highlights were the revenue projections. Now unless I'm reading it wrong the revenue for CoX in 2008 was 23,227m Won but the projections for 2009 fall drastically to 15,000m Won. I wonder what their analysts know that we dont.

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You are reading it wrong. Those are the GW figures. CoH/V was 24,218 and is projected to be 25,000.

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The operating metrics for COX don't look good either, it shows a steady decrease in subscibers from June 2007 to december 2008, from 26,669 active worldwide accounts to 13,823

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That's not subscribers. It's highest concurrent users, i.e. people logged on at the same time.

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If I hadnt been talking some degree of sense all the way through, we wouldnt be having this conversation now.

Because bearing in mind I have tried to put forward why I think the game has never hit its potential, and you lot have constantly knocked my theories and suggestions,then clearly the game should be doing fab business right now.

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Eh? Knocking back your theories and suggestions isn't mutually exclusive with the game not doing fab business now.

Put it like this, if someone had suggested the game was doomed because they weren't targeting pensioners, the game not doing well now wouldn't mean they were correct.

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If I've understood what I've been looking at, with TR having been executed so suddenly, CoX is their lowest performing MMO... by some margin. It's probably viable, but when compared to L1 and L2 and GW and Aion, it looks like the mutant runt of the litter now.

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Actually, CoH/V is bringing in more income than GW. Total sales for 2008 was 24,218 Kr Mn Won (which is just under 12 million GBP, for CoH/V, and 23,227 Kr Mn Won for GW. The trend is towards CoH/V as well - that figure is actually a slight increase from 2007.

Obviously it's also outperforming Aion at the moment, but that will likely change unless Aion is a complete flop.

Still, it's only really the Lineage games that are bigger right now.

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Short, what does NCwest/Europe/NorCal contribute to NCasia? Problems, failed games and region issues. So maybe they are better off with only their Asia region.

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I think this is a bit premature. If you check the last earnings report, their investment in NC Interactive is still showing gains. The big losses are in NC Europe and Arenanet (and to an extent you'd expect Arenanet to show losses before GW2).

For Europe as a whole, the key thing to look at is the Equity Method Gain/Loss Breakdown.

NC Europe, first quarter 2008, up 80 Kr Mn Won. Hurrah! But then, second quarter it's down 1,060, and then down 2,629 in the third quarter, and then in the fourth quarter it drops even more, down 3,496... 2008 overall, it's down 7,105. (7,105 million korean won is about 3.5 million pounds).

There's a similar trend in quarterly sales - 8,891 in 1Q, then 5,251, 4,955, 3,358 over the following quarters.

For comparison, NC Interactive were up 1,416 Kr Mn Won in the fourth quarter and up 3,623 in 2008.

So basically, sales, and the value of the parent's investment in NC Europe appears to be dropping alarmingly at an increasing rate. D'oh.

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Either way, 13,823 concurrent users for US/EU combined is rubbish.

Games sales are, however, up. From 5,416 in Q1 to 6,865 in Q4, increasing steadily throughout the year.

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And the key monthly access figures are... missing. They've stopped publishing them.

That doesn't necessarily mean they're plummeting, but...

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Interestingly, the report for the last quarter should be out any day now...

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Independent sources indicate that it's within the next 4 days. Or is it today?

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Just been checking it out, and it looks like it's definitely tomorrow. The Investor Relations part of the NCSoft website has the '4Q FY 2008 Earnings Conference Call' event listed for tomorrow morning.

So, sudden and apparently unexpected cuts in staff, days before an earnings report released on Friday 13th. I don't think it's going out on a limb to predict that it might not be a good earnings report...

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(although Kudos on the last one Mumsie. How the hell did you come up with that)

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At a guess, either by googling 'top ten puns' or similar or by getting the email that was going around with them on. And then changing the name.

Everyone knows jokes aren't invented, only repeated.

Sorry to hear that GR. Good luck with whatever you do next!

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But it could also be the frantic efforts of a business about to go under to stave off liquidation.

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Mmm... well, NCSoft's last quarterly earnings report wasn't exactly a picture of booming success - to say the least - but it wasn't a picture of imminent total collapse either.

Interestingly, the report for the last quarter should be out any day now...

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This speculation is getting more and more far fetched...

Lets just stop, breathe slowly and await the official word on what will happen.

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If you give people a choice between doing nothing, or speculating wildly and making dramatic statements about what they'll do if their wild speculations turn out to be accurate, they're going to speculate wildly every time I'm afraid.

And if NCSoft West do come around to my house and steal my washing, I'll be very put out!

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This is why you can't pick VRs from a pool. Everyone would take this at 3 months.

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That assumes the hypothetical pool system would only have one pool. It could have multiple pools and this could be in the (e.g.) yearly pool. Or some rewards could count as two rewards. Etc., etc. This isn't a reason for not having a pool system.

This reward is a good illustration of the problem of not having a pool system though. This is a nice reward. New players might like it. They're unlikely to ever get it, unless there's an alternative means of getting it.

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And if they didn't then it's already been discussed at length in Suggestions (though it was a while ago, possibly 18+ months back).

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Heck, it was suggested before the rewards scheme was even introduced.

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I think, rather than customer loyalty scheme, the rewards are more like a few shiny, trinkets to say thanks. Heck - if they really were a proper customer loyalty scheme then I'd expect them to announce the rewards at least a year in advance of them being needed - i.e. we'd have heard about the 60 month reward early last year.

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Nah. The promise of a gift, even if you don't know what it is, is still an incentive. Sometimes even more so for not knowing what it is.

It certainly is a proper customer loyalty scheme. It's just not a very good one.

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As they stand they are already effectively useless for keeping players subcribed.

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No argument there.

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Pool system = good from the players POV, but very very bad from the devs POV.

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I disagree.

Your argument about the current system is entirely dependent on there being something in the future rewards that's good enough for the player to want but not so far away as to not be an incentive. Otherwise, there's no incentive. In practice, as the period covered gets longer it becomes impossible to do. It's bad from both the players' and the devs' POV.

Whereas with a pool system, so long as there is anything left in the pools a player wants, there's an incentive. What's more, with a pool system, a great reward could be added now without the problem of it being effectively unobtainable for new players, so it's much easier to ensure there's usually something people want. The number of rewards would also not necessarily be limited to how long the game has been around. Good for the players, easier for the devs to keep an incentive, so good for the devs too.