Starsman

Im seriously thinking about calling in sick.

There was a raiding culture (call it subculture if you wish) since the introduction of Hamiddon to the game.

Players asked for raids for a long time, at my most active time in a super group I was one of those that begged for raid-style content.

Since this game had no end-game, the non-raiders were mostly alt-oholics. You got to 50 and you would start a new character (perhaps IO out a few characters.)

But the raiding group was sick and tired that the only two raiding things in the game were the rikti ship and Hamiddon. And darn did they still repeat the things on a daily or weekly basis anyways!

So, I guess, the devs figured that they would be able to please everyone by adding new end-game content that was intended only for raiders as long as they also kept adding new content for more alt-oholics to experience during their new characters leveling process.

For the most part I think it worked. There were a lot of f2p players that were not even allowed to take part in the incarnate content and still spent money on new power sets and costumes for their new alts.

It may not have been the best idea, I admit. But it's not an inherently bad idea. It is an idea that made sense at the time. In fact, I think only a group even smaller than the raiders voiced strongly their dislike for this raiding content locking the alternate advancement system (incarnate progression.)

But it was not a betrayal, a conspiracy, or incompetence on the devs part that got us there. It's just not possible to always predict how everything will be perceived. And there is a limit to the changes they can implement based on the outrage of a loud group. They slowly listened and reacted, Dark Astoria was a low and careful change in that direction. They may had eventually loosened thing ups further, too late to know now.

We can guess what would have happened, but that won’t take us anywhere. We can try to look at what has happened and combine those outcomes, though.

CO has been in very light development for many years and it still is alive and (I assume) profitable enough to not shut down.

CoH, despite it's competition, still had more players than either CO or DCUO, it would be very likely that had Cryptic been forced to shut down either, they would have looked at shut down CO first, and maybe even return development to CoH with a goal to modernisize the game at least visually.

Only one thing is certain: assuming the game did not die, CoH under Cryptic leadership would be drastically different from what it became under NCSoft leadership.

It may be worse, it may be better, it may balance out to be about the same but still different. Chances would point to being just stalled, though.

I think right now, many of us would rather if it simply had stalled and survived longer than having to suffer the upcoming fate.

To be fair (and this is a bit of a separate topic) F2P has been viable for much longer than we like to think. There have been F2P currency cards at Target for over 7 years, for games like Runescape, Maple Story and other Nexon games.

Actually, there is zero evidence about Cryptic having any intentions to end CoH. They would have set it back into low-maintainance mode (like they did with Champions) but I have very high doubts that they would have shut it down, ever.

Mind you: I also doubt NCSoft would have let them have their chunk back so NCSoft would have been the one forcing it closed if Cryptic had refused to sell.

What may happen is all development be taken overseas, Arena.net closed down, and somehow either keeping a skeleton translation team here or setting up an english team in Korea.

Wish list? Definitively. But I think only hardcore Controller and Blaster players may be disapointed (although keeping Manipulation sets as viable "utility" sets may be an option with sustainance.)

Utility/utility builds would no longer be possible.

APB went through about 7 months from cancelation to launch of the open beta for it's new version. The game did rather well and still is running today.

I think it would be better if they took the time to make certain improvements that have held back the game forever.

OH ane thing the game definitively would need is a new GUI. The current one, SPECIALLY the power brower, SUCK.

Hmmm I may be quoting this VERY wrong, I just heard the story in passing, but I understand that guy didn’t discover microbes; he just figured they existed without any evidence... well other than an unknown cause (not unlike today's dark matter.)

Am I right to think microbes and bacteria did not get discovered until after this guy's lifetime? (too lazy to Google this up now.)

Also: being right is not always... well, being right. I read recently some famous astronomer said Saturn had rings out of pure guess from a bad decrypting about an entirely unrelated subject. Sure, he was "right", but he was not really "right." We can't entertain any plausible idea all the way just because it sounds scientific, not without some form of evidence

Basically an insult several steps above "Fanboi" with an "i" (that in turn is a step above "Fanboy" with a "y")

I used to spend some time in Slashdot, every time anyone talked good about Microsoft or Google you would see the words Astrosurfer and shill, specially if it happened to be one of the first few posts in the article. If you manage to be the first post in a thread and also happen to talk well about the company, you got to be paid to be refreshing websites all day.

If you however manage to be the first post and troll them with a 5000 word copy-pasted rant, you are just another guy in the pack. (Unless you insult their Google, with Google the logic goes the other way around.)

Being paid to browse the web and post positive feedback or dismiss negative coverage about your employer and/or his products.

If the plug is flipped, the game goes dark and it is acquired (doubt it), I would rather they take a bit of time before bringing it back up and address a few things they would not be able to do otherwise.

Removing naming exclusivity is something I would love to see (I know about half the forum population is against the is but I think the split is not as big in-game) and potentially eliminating the idea of separate servers. Somehow cramping everyone in the same server with zone instantiating would go a HUGE way towards making the teaming experience at all levels much friendlier, but it’s something you can only pull off if you reset.

They may be able to redefine the core of the game without huge revamping. Getting rid of ATs is an example, just making you pick a primary attack and a secondary utility set, accompanied with an inherent power that also defines your "modifiers" in similar fashion to what we have now. This is another thing that can only be viable with a reset.
How to make Range/Armor balanced against Melee/Armor? My “quickly” idea would be all melee attacks boost your armor while your ranged attack lower your armor. There are many other ways, but not easy ones to push into the current game system.

How convenient... so now you going to say you cant provide the picks to prove it happened...

(in case it's not clear: i'm joking)

(first post before and after a red name!!! he is now cornered by multiple Mes!)

Einstein said that? I was under the impression he was the one that said time travel is not only possible, but we are doing it all the time

Also: law of relativity proves we can travel into the future, although not to the past.

I also think he stated if you traveled faster than light you would go back in time, but that there are some gotchas like everything pointing at it not being possible to travel faster than light and even if you managed to make "something" travel faster than light, I doubt it will be a vessel for humans

PS: I suck at physics and never read Eisnstein’s stuff. I just love watching Cosmos and Neil Tyson’s Nova

Who gets to keep that? Did it go into the same box as all the computers?

Also, anyone got picks?

No, just correcting a blantly wrong statement

I don't think ANYONE needs more reasons to hate NCSoft. Garriot being defrauded or not is something that should only anger him and his family (maybe some close friends.) Tabula Rasa dying due to that whole thing MAY be something for some people to hate NCSoft but people already likely held that grudge with or without a verdict.

In the same way, anyone that loves NCSoft and defends them will not stop because something they did to some exec that designed an over budgeted failed game.

However, your statement was not even about the case, it was a blanket statement that, from all I know, is wrong since you can be found.

The entire thing is like presidential elections one week before election day: everyone has their minds made up already and there is no changing that. Does not mean we can't discuss side or related topics.

But you for some crazy reason either are making up some stuff on the side to bash those that are expressing their anger, or bash others just because (like your statements about certain poster being a paid chill, or anyone defending certain position being a fanboy) or deny Positron’s own statements that the studio was profitable. (We may not know a number as to how profitable it was, but it WAS profitable.)

STOP TEASING US!!!!

I was not commenting on the court documents or the specific case, but the point that "Losing a civil lawsuit doesn't make you guilty of fraud." (and technically you can be guilty of civil fraud without being guilty of criminal fraud, although I doubt that's the legalese speak for it.)

I think I noted twice in that post that I don't know enough about the case. I have read in various places that they took his community letter as a form of resignation, though, and that his lawsuit was over lost money due to having to execute or sell stock at a lower price than he otherwise would.

My list above is not a comment but taken from what is evaluated for US to consider if something is fraud and, with the bit I know of the case, see if it would have fit. If I'm wrong enough to make those things don’t fit (under US law) then feel free to correct me.

Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud.

The fact that he won the civil case pretty much makes them guilty of fraud at the civil level. Does not mean it's an automatic criminal win (no one goes to jail) but they ended up being guilty of it at a level where they had to compensate the affected party (Garriot.)

Not sure if they used the word “fraud” in the case, but even if the word was not used in the civil case you have to ignore the meaning of the word and the reason of the lawsuit to say NCSoft was not guilty of civil fraud.

In the United States, common law recognizes nine elements constituting fraud:
1. a representation of an existing fact (he was claimed to quit)
2. its materiality (he lost his job, had to execute options way too early)
3. its falsity (he didn’t quit)
4. the speaker's knowledge of its falsity (they knew he did not quit)
5. the speaker's intent that it shall be acted upon by the plaintiff (deprive him of his options)
6. the plaintiff's ignorance of its falsity (here is where the PR letter comes into place, it was just for PR but NCSoft used it as a resignation letter)
7. the plaintiff's reliance on the truth of the representation (don’t know enough of the case, guess the fact that he simply never quit in any way?)
8. the plaintiff's right to rely upon it; and (don’t know enough of the case nor legal system to know how this fit, but I guess “his right” is the fact that it was the truth.)
9. consequent damages suffered by the plaintiff (lots of millions of dollars lost)

I think Positron/Matt Miller knows the numbers and it was his statement that City of Heroes is the biggest MMO ever canceled.

If he does not bring enough people and equipment to scientifically document and back up his discovery, he will deserve being ridiculed.

This whole bit sounds sketchy to me, but mostly this:

Back Alley Brawler/TicToc said that Statesman/Jack himself said the engine was licensed, not sold, for perpetuity for use with CoH and one additional title (whatever Cryptic wanted that to be.) There is a rather large difference between this and having bought the license outright.

I would GUESS Statesman/Jack would know better than anyone that bit

This is not Korea. I'm certain the whole thing didn't go to court with a Korean lawyer either, since you [obviously] need to be a US lawyer to practice in the US.