Sylph_Knight

My thoughts exactly. But I have a permanent account there regardless. Same ol' Sylph Knight global name.

Everyone has favored themes.

My stories typically deal with how individuals that endure hardship of varying levels. They compensate for their failures and endeavor to protect others from suffering the same fate by masking their wounds with rough exteriors to pretend that they are something stronger than they really are - until it sticks. From time to time this psychological armor reveals its cracks and the character has to pull themselves back up again. I believe the trope is the Determinator.

No problem. I attempted to run a DCUO Wiki project for a while but a better alternative came up so I dropped mine. I also have a degree in web development if such a need should arise, but I'm not out to step on someone else's toes so failing technical skills I can always provide financing.

I have used HostGator ( www.hostgator.com/ ) for my web hosting needs in the past. Their service is highly reliable. I have used phpbb before to host a forum environment but I haven't kept up with the times so better alternatives may have come out since then.

Touche.

You guys are true heroes. Thank you for taking the time to make this.

So that's why they shut down the game - they couldn't have that Moonbase finally getting built. >.<

So THAT'S where everyone went to.

Everyone vanished when I went AFK for a few minutes so I thought the shot was over and left.

Ah well, thanks for setting it up Dan.

Don't tempt her.

Arcanaville, is there NOTHING you DON'T do?

Holy crap, is there nothing he doesn't know about him?!

Clearly you don't understand METAhuman psychology very well if you think we're gonna fall for that last stage.

Heroes (and Villains) never give up! Or failing that, they will remember with a vengeance.

Amen!

Excellent. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you and Jack for putting that to rest.

Now let's take our torches and pitchforks to NCSoft's doorstep!

In my defense, I'm merely working to find some sort of personal closure for this scenario and have been gathering information wherever it crops up to try and piece together the most likely cause of the shutdown. Since there was so little information available outright, my own theory has evolved and at this point I think there's a myriad of circumstances that culminated at the same time which resulted in NCSoft liquidating their assets within Paragon Studios. If any maliciousness was to be had, it was most likely out of NCSoft as we now have BaBs and Positron vouching for the financing of the engine licence as a non-factor. NCSoft has a track record of following this process even when it doesn't seem financially beneficial.

Bear in mind that NCSoft is a Publisher and not a Developer (insofar as CoX is concerned), and Publishers are like a strange combination of bank and pusher. That's not to say they're all bad, but the term Executive Meddling generally refers to changes forced by a Publisher which are intended to provide what the Publisher sees as a feature that it can market regardless of the significance to the rest of the game. I myself have always wondered exactly how much of CoX was changed from Alpha to Beta after NCSoft entered the picture all those years ago.

That said, Publishers are a necessary evil and almost always look towards the almighty dollar before any sense of integrity, and even then many of their decisions don't help their long-term revenue because there are people within the company whose bonuses are based on short-term benefits that can and will cost the company down the road.

More to the point on that subject, I want to correct something that was poorly communicated earlier: I believed that if anyone was responsible for the renewal cost of the Engine in my original theory, it would have most likely have been the Cryptic's current Publisher - Perfect World Entertainment - and not the Cryptic Studios itself (though during the time the contact was made 5 years ago they represented themselves as the Publisher). I was not trying to demonize either Developer party (Paragon or Cryptic). Again, given Positron's feedback I think it's a safe bet that Perfect World Entertainment is off the hook in regards to this knee-jerk shift with NCSoft.

Regardless, all the petitioning in the world will not save CoX within NCSoft at this stage. The best we can hope for or petition to is another Publisher and hope they contact NCSoft to purchase and inherit the assets and account data. I do not see this scenario as likely, however. Even if someone did make this attempt, Korea's business world, like much of Asia, has a very different attitude than what we're used to in America. If they are anything like companies in Japan, I would gamble to say they're more... inflexible.

Thank you everyone again for contributing to this discussion. I hope I haven't ruffled anyone's feathers too badly. It wasn't my intention to spend the final days of CoX making enemies out of colleagues. The topic is one that means much to myself and at least a good fraction of the community, so I hoped that generating this discussion might help shed more light on the situation and bring at least some closure to this frustrating scenario.

The power of CoX was always in its global community as opposed to the game itself. The game brought us together and captured our imaginations, but it was ultimately the quality of its base that made the game what it is. Even now, there are players organizing efforts to sustain and organize the mass of us ( http://www.facebook.com/groups/438489949523705/ for example).

That aside, I haven't a doubt in my mind that NCSoft will not err from the direction they've taken this. Disbanding Paragon Studios was a clear indication of such. They have committed to this decision.

QFT

I think I've got NCSoft figured out.

Notice that none of the games they've shut down (with the exception of the archaic, original Lineage) were developed outside of Korea. Even if their games are hemorrhagic, for so long as they're of Korean origin they will get a free pass while American games get the ax. I don't know if this is based on nationalistic roots or has something to do with how licences are handled, but it's clear to see that they're favoring Korean IPs even when they no longer turn a profit.

In the business world, there is something called Churn. The idea is that if your customer grows weary of one of your products, you want them to migrate to one of your other services to keep the cash influx steady and avoid Churn (which is when a customer moves to a competitive company for their service). It is easier to maintain a customer than it is to make a new one.

It appears that while NCSoft understands what Churn is, they do not grasp how to properly deal with it.

That said, NCSoft has "coincidentally" created a new incentive program for one of the factions in Aion this week. I have no doubt this is a ploy to avoid Churn. But, what NCSoft doesn't realize is that the CoX community are among the most intelligent, and vindictive, lot of internet users in the world. They will NOT get a free pass on Churn like they did with Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, and Exteel. A majority of us grew up with City of Heroes. They are going to lose an enormous sum because they have violated a sacred trust - keep the money coming and they keep the game operating. I doubt anything but a small fraction of players here will offer them even one cent after today.

And that is how it should be.

I confess the information I had was based on some conjecture, so I definitely stand corrected on the status of the IP and the country of origin for PW (it's Chinese). In addition, it was not really my intention to blacklist Champions Online or Cryptic (in itself a Developer company) in particular and apologize if this is what others took from my statement. I simply wouldn't put it past rival -Publishers- (in this case, NC and PW) to pull such a stunt.

However, I fully realize that finding whatever was responsible changes nothing in the end, and yet, knowing why would definitely provide some closure to what one might associate with the sudden announcement of terminal illness in a longtime friend.


I do commission-based projects for a company which localizes Japanese Anime called Anime Midstream, and our dealings with a certain original studio do reflect this kind of shaky attitude. The terms of our licence and whether or not we will maintain it or see the studio invoke Original Studio Rights to reclaim exclusive publication ownership are grounded largely on who currently makes up the executive ladder. Regular changes in the guard happen every few months and negotiations have resulted in more delays of our shows' release than any production gaffe could hope for. Bear in mind that this same company recently shifted their distribution strategy and recalled nearly all of their licences to focus on digital distribution earlier this year, which made the very same kind of shockwaves this concern is raising. As such, this theory is also sound.

And that's precisely why I started looking at these factors. Besides a complete and immediate termination of services, I cannot recall a period when a company has simply taken a staff from full-on production and removed them prior to completing the sunset process. Even Tabula Rasa, which was dropped on its head after being NCSoft's 800-pound Gorilla for several years, received the aforementioned benefit of retaining its staff until the closing process was completed.

EDIT:

Well now, THIS is interesting...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...st-holder.html

But this theory stands to question precisely what the heck would Nexon have to gain from shuttering CoX? They don't have a product in the same genre of MMO.

EDIT 2:

And it just gets better. Apparently, someone at NCSoft would rather ax an American studio for short-term gains to recoup for bad projects overseas in Korea.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08...6m-loss-in-q2/

Arcanaville might be right - this is likely not an informed decision but rather the work of someone in management who is doing this based on personal preferences. I'm sure the Nexon deal is involved in this somehow with the financial blunder motive (though their participation in the actual decision of CoX's shutdown is unlikely) as shutting down CoX will recoup some losses very quickly but at a loss of long-term capitol. If the ideology followed by the banks involved in the financial crisis and recession are any indicator, corporate executives don't look twice at long-term gains due to their shortsighted personal goals.

In that case, you can bet I won't be giving NCSoft one more cent, ever.

The licence for the Game Engine was also likely a factor. Instead of spending money to make money, NCSoft decided to let that ship sink as soon as it came time to renew. This scenario was very likely premeditated with all the above topics playing some role.