Scarlet Shocker
-
Posts
4506 -
Joined
-
Quote:There damn well better be. It's bad enough NCSoft cancelling CoH, but deleting November 31st... that's just mean!!!!!Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
There is no November 31st... I believe you mean December 1st. -
Quote:I take your point, up to a point - but most of that stuff was a no-brainer. But often didn't work... as you say, the incentive was borked because getting new people to join often meant that the reward didn't get allocated anyhow. That happened to me more than it was successful.Originally Posted by Jack_NoMind
They did ask. They asked us to follow them on Twitter, to retweet their comments and drive up traffic, to increase their visibility on Twitch, to invite our friends to play. They asked very nicely and gave us stuff for doing this (although I never actually did get my month for referring a friend here).
If people weren't doing (enough of) this with incentives, why do you think that asking louder would have helped? A post like, "Guys, we're in dire straits" -- even if they'd known that to be true -- would have been firstly forbidden by NCSoft as a bad PR move and secondly a huge risk for almost certainly less effort than we're putting out now. I think it could have been pulled off if it had been paired with a public move like shutting down a couple servers, but on some level that would've been a dick thing to do (because shutting down two or four or even half the servers would've screwed with thousands of people but not really saved much cost-wise -- it would have simply been to convince people they were serious).
People are rising to the challenge because they see a dire situation. No dire situation -- no heroic effort. Folks just don't work that way. And frankly it's hard. I've been after my friends to play CoH for months, but other than the points I literally bought myself for one friend and a month's sub for another, I couldn't get them into the game. They were always after the newest thing. One of them finally caved and brought his Scrapper back now that it's shuttering.
I think that Dark_Respite deserves a freakin' medal for her work with CoH, though. I regret not joining every gaming community I could've to spam her videos... and all of the other great videos created by our players, for that matter.
Oh, and Black Pebble, if you have any way to manage this at all, Leandro deserves at least VIP status 'till shutdown for that crowd tech video and the Paragon "hero crowd" logo. (I'm assuming you can't get him a new car.) I tried to give him a game code (GR:CC) a week and a half ago, but he already had it.
Also remember I'm in the EU which meant that NCSoft's biggest effort in marketing was to sack the staff in 2008. The whole marketing fail in the EU still rankles with many of us - we've been treated worse than second class citizens - just ask the French and German players on Zukunft and Vilgilance.
But your response is slightly to miss the point. There was one instance where the CC team and Marketing put together a competition to design an ad for a game mag in the UK. Got a huge response and seemed to be pretty successful. It also generated some interest outside if I remember rightly.
But mostly marketing seemed to consist of "playing it safe" and "do it by rote" without any original thinking or real passion. Sure most players won't be bothered about the game (any game) because they will be here for a while then move on. But that's to miss the point and under value the impact the hard core die-hards can play in making something successful.
I'd also like to say I'm not simply picking on Black Pebble here. This isn't his fight in many ways. It's a far deeper rooted cultural problem where marketing isn't a core activity. It's almost like that film "if you build it, they will come." Sadly it doesn't work like that and NCSoft generally needed to do a lot more - had they done so things would have been very different. -
to be fair, all the GMs are outstanding and really do go the extra mile to provide a positive customer service experience (OMG! I'm speaking corpspeak... shoot me now!)
I've dealt wth many over the years and they have always, without exception been courteous, helpful, willing and have never just let things go. That in no small measure has been part of the joy of playing CoH - you always feel that calling support is not a chore.
The best GM name in my book has to go to Pulpy Orange though!
Black Pebble if you have contact with those guys, please reiterate once more my thanks to them for their collective helpage over the last few years. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Black Pebble
The main reason for it comes down to resources.
I am the marketing department. There are no legions of minions at my beck and call. It's a pretty lean operation.
Until 3 weeks ago, I spent 12+ hours each day at the studio. I could go into details, but there's a lot that needs to be done on a daily or weekly basis. Every screenshot I make means it's time spent away from doing this week's sales analysis, and truthfully, making screenshots and videos isn't really a great use of my time. It's fun, but they don't bring in a lot of revenue.
Why don't we hire someone to do that? Resources again. It's non-trivial to bring on additional marketing resources. We've all wanted additional internal resources for creative production and other projects, but that means that's one fewer designer, artist or engineer we can bring on. And Paragon is a studio that's led by the exceptional development team.
We have engaged in advertising throughout the years. We've done print ads, site takeovers, banner ads. We also regularly do less obvious things such as paid keyword searches. These all have varying degrees of effectiveness. At the end of the day though, it still comes down to a return on investment, because every expense needs to be justified.
If we spend $X producing a trailer, will it bring us $X+Y in new subscriptions and sales? If we spend $Z producing tv commercials, can we prove that those commercials bring us $Z+Y in revenues?
When you're launching a brand new game, you don't need to be as diligent about answering those questions. For an established game, however, there is far less flexibility.
Any perceived lack of advertising was never due to skepticism or a lack of desire on our part. If the resources were there, every Issue release would have been accompanied by full-age ads in every magazine and comic book. We'd have had multiple trailers and even TV buys. And there'd have been much more fanfare and hoopla.
Paragon Studio was a small studio, but we consistently produced incredible work that far larger studios couldn't even hope to match. I think an unintended consequence of that was that we gave the impression that we were much bigger than we actually were. We just managed to do a lot more with a lot less.
You did have a legion of minions at your beck and call, ready to do your bidding. You only needed to ask for volunteers. They are called "Players"
Wouldn't work huh? Tell that to Titan! -
Quote:Originally Posted by mereman
I still like flying into the pub signs and watch them swing.
mate, we're talking about the stuff in game. Not your walk home from your local! -
Citizens with rocks
-
The forum login bug.
-
Take care and I wish for you everything you wish for yourself. Good luck in your future
-
great article.
Having interviewed Melissa myself I know exactly what he means by her enthusiasm! -
Quote:Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Please stay the hell away from the Save CoH efforts.
This.
This thread offers nothing productive -
I believe that if you sign into the game right now, you will have to agree to the EULA.
Therefore it's still in place and enforceable and were any NCSoft employees to learn of any activities contravening the EULA they are required to take action -
I tried CoH because it's superheroes. That was my main impetus but I've never found a game that works as well as this mechanically.
-
Quote:Originally Posted by Bookkeeper_Jay
Finally solo the LGTF on my Necro/Dark Mastermind. It's been far too long.
hmmmm I might try that on my dark/poison troller -
Quote:I can dig that!Originally Posted by houtex
Right on. I don't even freakin' *OWN* a shovel.
It's like saying a word that rhymes with pluck, but starts with an f, when you've got a mouth full of flegmQuote:Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
Fething? -
Quote:Originally Posted by Anti_Proton
...where I can be the hero! Is that too much to ask?
Yes. Yes it is. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Fire Man
Ewww.
I don't think I've ever managed a FPARN before. -
Am I missing something? I don't think I've seen an official "Lights Out" announcement confirming that 30th November is the last day.
But... this really doesn't look hopeful. -
Quote:Originally Posted by MisterD
QUOTE=Dr Harmony;4397372]
Gale is..not to mince words, shite. You CAN get good use from it, with a wall handy, but mostly it just annoys people and the damage is trash. The problem is its the t1 power..which sucks. But if it was swapped with O2..then the set has the same problem of poison..you HAVE to take a crappy st heal.
I'd completely disagree. Gale is excellent even at high level if you know when to use it, and used in the right situations stops just about anyone attacking you. And O2 Boost isn't really a heal. It's an excellent buff with a small healing component. That's why it remains an ST power. -
In no particular order:
Levelling Scarlet to 50 with 3 full teams in the map - this was before leagues had ever been thought of. You could invite somebody to the team, they'd quit and form a 2nd team. That would have been back in 2006 I think.
Soloing the ITF on my Huntsman
Three Man Statesman TF
The "Be Vewy Vewy Quiet, We're Hunting... Cows" Thread in the old EU forums.
2 Man LGTF -
Looking for easy single factors is silly.
That's like saying "Oh noes, they killed Statesman now the game's dead!"
The reality it's probably a combination of things - a tanking western economy, too many zones - Praetoria was mostly a graveyard for tubleweed, and only two servers ever really got past the "almost thinking about the possibility of wondering if we need to consider capacity"
Epic marketing fail: outside of the fan base, learning about CoH became difficult. Unless you were interested in MMOs and kept up with the big sites there seemed to be no external advertising. Great for those in the superhero bubble. Crap for those outside it.
Backroom discussions by person(s) unknown. Clearly CoH, whilst making a profit wasn't making enough profit and probably wasn't ever likely to repay the investment NCSoft had made in it quickly enough to satisfy the shareholders. This, above all else, is the overriding reason. -
Quote:Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Not saying you can't.
Honestly, I have exactly zero power to make people STFU, short of finding out where you live and focusing the killsat.
I'm just asking, as civilly as possible, to try and stay positive about our situation.
However, if you quite simply can't stand to not go up in a ball of nuclear fire, again, I can't stop you. I'm simply saying that it's not productive at this time.
Understandable? Sure! The abrupt nature of this is aggravating as hell. Especially when we've had so much open communication from Paragon in the past.
But hulking out (verbally or physically) and finding the nearest NCSoft exec to play "Puny God" with, while emotionally gratifying, isn't productive or helpful.
I wouldn't agree with much of what you've said here bud.
I know you're trying to lighten the mood, a bit of brevity goes a long way and I get where you're coming from but if you really are angry/upset/annoyed and feel the need to vent, then here is probably the best place on the planet to do exactly that.
Get it out of your system amongst people who understand you, who get it, who sympathize (sometimes) and who share that pain. That's part of the grieving process, and you know, it's perfectly ok for people to do that if it works for them.
I'd argue it's FAR BETTER doing it here, in a relatively safe environment amongst your peers and colleagues than to rant elsewhere where one might be in danger of sounding a tad strange.
How unhelpful is it really gonna be? If NCSoft are monitoring these boards, then that's great - and they will see the strength of the ire against them. But I'd frankly be amazed if they are so it's behind closed doors.
Let the anger out and then get on with being productive. Hindering that process is only going to make things worse -
QR
Anger, hurt and pain are all understandable and justifiable reactions to the way NCSoft has gone about "refocusing" it's business objectives at our expense.
If we cannot express those emotions here, on the official boards of the game we love so much, what does it really say about our community?
Just asking. -
Shareholders and golden handshakes
-
interesting perspective from an engineer.
But it does kind of reinforce a point that I've been chomping around in the old grey matter: NCSoft are effectively telling its shareholders "You're taking a 2% pay cut because we can't be arsed" -
So they've made 80 odd of their 200 redundancies here then.