Scarlet Shocker

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I keep poping into this thread, but there never seems to be anything gnu.

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It's stoatally different. You should be able to distinguish the difference weasily

We could always change the animal in question and pun about some different creature. I reckon if we did we'd never stop herring the end of it tho

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But we also need to consider what NCWest does? It doesn't have much else other than CoX right? (I think I'm right, again caveats apply.) So they need to control it to justify their own existence.

Something has happened in the board rooms and we possibly won't ever know the actual results - but it's not looking good right now

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NCWest is ArenaNet pretty much; run by ArenaNet people, staffed by ArenaNet people. The ArenaNet people are the ones who make Guild Wars.

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That's what I mean.

GW relies purely on box shifting to make money. Potentially CoX could be more profitable than GW... but somebody's got to drive that process.

Let's consider this: ArenaNet wouldn't want to bring CoX under their control for no obvious reason. If they wanted it to die they'd have let it wither on the vine so to speak. If this is a coup (and that is speculation I admit) and they've wrested control of CoX they'd wnt to do something with it.

Maybe they'll change the business model somehow, or plug some resources into it. I can't see much other reason for them to want to do this.

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Can we say same about i14? I don't think so especially on New Player point of view. People don't get into games to build mods for a game they know nothing about. At least that is my idea.

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Depends. If it's marketed <snort> properly it could be great... "Build your own Superhero Game" and released a new pack for it. Tho with I15 meant to conicide with the 5th anniversary I'd expect (under normal circumstances) a new box release to get the game into the shops.

I14 can be really good for the game but the biggest problem with CoX is that it's never been well marketed. Hell, GW and other NC products are in the shops but CoX hardly ever is these days

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I am right, and you're very welcome

pats Khorak on the head

Now run along like a good boy

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Oh shut up you idiot, you failed entirely to grasp the point being made and even enforced my reasoning that a united UK team would, and does, perform better.

Next time I'll write a lengthy treatise in crayon with a legal advisor, to make sure it's airtight enough to absolutely guarantee some tool like you can't ignore the entire subtext and explicit meaning in order to make some meaningless nitpick constructed entirely for some masturbatory smug satisfaction.

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What a beautifully constructed counter argument.

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A couple of other things to consider.

I think we are mostly agreed that the plug was pulled on TR rather prematurely. It might never have recovered it's development costs, but it should have been able to turn a small operating profit.

The only reason I can see for axing it so suddenly is if the company desperatly needed to liquify assets to pay creditors.

Also, thier have been no posts (on anything) by deveropers/community staff on the US forums since the news broke. My inference is they are uncertain about thier own jobs.

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I agree completely. Killing TR just smacks of an urgent need for some cash, and silence from rednames in the US really DOES lend credence to something else afoot...

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Am I alone in thinking some kind of interntal coup's been pulled off by NCWest?

Are they trying to take control of CoX to either control it solely from the USA or maybe even sell it off?

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.

But we also need to consider what NCWest does? It doesn't have much else other than CoX right? (I think I'm right, again caveats apply.) So they need to control it to justify their own existence.

Something has happened in the board rooms and we possibly won't ever know the actual results - but it's not looking good right now

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I'm glad these puns are equine and not avine. Chicken puns are just fowl.

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Oh cluck off!

(j/k)

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Ummmmm that's factually incorrect. The Great Britain team had arguably it's best Olympics ever and that is a team made up of the entire UK.

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Hence the example that even Korea managed a united Olympics team. Thanks for the condescension, but I suggest you keep it to use when....y'know, you're right.

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I am right, and you're very welcome

pats Khorak on the head

Now run along like a good boy

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When he dies, he'll be laid to rest in a Nemesis Plot

/em getcoat

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Am I missing something?

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Highlights, dahling, highlights!

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Where you got that suspicion from I don't know, because what they're doing makes absolutely perfect business sense and won't have any detrimental operational effect. In fact, we would get our information at the same time as the US boards, since the command loop will be real time across the length of a desk, as opposed to a half day time difference on the other side of the planet.

If we get given a hard working community moderator, he'll be able to answer our questions not by emailing someone in the US and waiting for what we hope is the right information....he can wander over to their office.

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If this were a rational business decision (and I can see how you might think it could be) it would have been handled in a calm, rational and more importantly phased manner. There would have been a plan put in place to let the Brighton staff know what that plan was, and more importantly reassure the paying client base (ie us)

That clearly hasn't happened, and the ensuing silence from NCSoft has led to speculation and rumour-mongering amongst the media which ultimately cannot be good for any NC product. The games industry is now going to wonder about the financial solidity of a company that makes such hastily and ill-judged decisions.

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Horses can swim quite well

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Not when they've got a fat nerd weighing them down.

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A big horse could

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Relative to the fatness of the nerd I guess

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Very true. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the other hand...

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....are even worse, and the increasingly pathetic insistence on all having national teams prevents a unified United Kingdom team in any sporting endeavour from having at least a vague chance on the world scene.

Even ****ing Korea managed to get together a unified Olympics team, that's how petty the UK is.

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Ummmmm that's factually incorrect. The Great Britain team had arguably it's best Olympics ever and that is a team made up of the entire UK.

It's a fact that the servers have experienced considerably more player activity since I13 landed.

My gut feeling tells me that the populations in the EU, whilst maybe not record breaking, were healthy enough, despite what some of the more sceptical population of the fora might wish you to believe.

I'm happy to concede there were no records broken here, but I have seen no hard evidence to suggest that the English speaking servers in the EU were significantly underperforming US servers. Were that not to be the case, I am convinced that NCSoft would not have hesitated to pull the plug the moment they thought the EU servers were not paying their way. (Also worth considering that whilst the US$ increases in strength vs the Euro, the TCO in the EU becomes lower.)

If I have to weight the major factors in the decision making process that led to this situation, based on what I know and can extrapolate I'd guestimate something along the lines of:

Panic due to Global Finacial Crisis: 30%
Slight concern regarding EU revenue: 15%
Internal politics at NC Soft: 45%
Other Factors: 10%
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Borked: 100%

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All the best for you and your colleagues. May your future be brighter.

On a personal note, I'm getting sick of having to say goodbye to people I like: first was Bridger, then Kerensky and Rockjaw and now Ghostraptor. Either NCNC stops swinging their axe or I stop caring...

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To be fair, Bridger went because of choice.

I think that the need to get their own [censored] together before they start telling us anything. Personally I can wait a couple of days.

I do however have a sneaking suspicion that somebody at NCWest is gonna wake up and smell the coffee and go "[censored] WTFidun?"

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The question Now What?

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Wait

and

See

Ace, gratz to all winners. Some excellent stuff there

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Not really, his team are being beaten by the Kiwis, and we suck at cricket.

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They have levelled the series against NZ and we have no answer to accurate bowling. The Aussies may be less than they were but we're a lot worse than we can be

I cannot see England winning the Ashes this summer, sadly.

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[Insert tumbleweed & ambient cricket noise sfx here]

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please don't mention cricket. The 2nd Test starts tomorrow

Still at least GR will have something to smile about this summer

One of Dr Creed's worst experiments resulted in him cloning himself.

Initially he was very pleased with his simulcrum, which was perfect in every way except for being blessed with the foulest mouth and bluest vocabulary imaginable.

He was encouraged to present his clone at various technical seminars in the Rogue Isles, including Dr Aeon's symposium on metahumans where his clone embarrassed everyone by telling Lord Recluse exactly what he could do with those extra limbs.

In despair Dr Aeon felt compelled to rid himself of his doppleganger, and resorted to throwing him from the highest building in the Nerva Archipelago, where the clone plumetted to its death.

Since the clone technically was him, and he was alive, he was not charged with murder but was happy to plead guilty to the lesser charge of making an obscene clone fall.

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Your dads not Giant Haystacks is he?

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Ok that's a scary thought: FFM is the illicit lovechild of Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks.

Pass the mindbleach NOW!!!!!

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Great, now I'm thinking of some kind of internal coup/junta, complete with office workers wielding machine guns.

"Subscriptionist scum, your methods are old and of the past, the Microtransactionists are the way fowards!"

"NEVER! I'll die before I pay for vanity items and character bonuses!"

"Yes, you will! *Ratatatatatatata*"

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My god, you were there!!!!

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To be honest, and this is NOT a dig at GR at all, but I find it REALLY REALLY hard to believe that they'd take the decision to downsize (gut) the Brighton offices without also decided what to do regarding the EU community.

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Unless an internal division's making a powerplay

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So, as nature abhors a vacuum, it's speculation time!

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untrue! I have never heard of a hoover factory being hit by a natural disaster!

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The Sinclair C5!

Dr Vazhilok's Favourite Song:

"Leprosy, I'm not half the man I used to be,
Bits keep falling off of me,
Since I went down,
With Leprosy

Why I lost my toe I don't know
It wouldn't stay.
I lost something long,
Now it's gone,
to Leprosy