Talionis

Oh this has a deadline, just like the NFL. One was the time before announcing the closure of CoH. The second deadline is December 1st. Once the lights are turned completely off it will be very hard to put the lights back on. They lose a lot fan base and bringing people back to the game will be very hard and probably largely unfruitful. The value of the CoH was greatly reduced at each of those spots. The quicker they announce a deal the more customers would likely be retained.

Yeah, I wouldn't accept that all sides examined the deal and decided there was no way to make it work.

My understanding is that a lot of different solutions all of which would seem reasonable were attempted and shot down.

When you walk out of a negotiation, you don't bad mouth the other side because you still hold out hope a deal will get done.

Deals can still happen after a negotiation breaks down. In fact, a broken negotiation often gives both sides a lot of information, that ultimately makes both sides come to their senses and understand what parts of the deal are actually important to both parties.

The deal isn't just about price. Its easy for us to simplify it to that. But its not just a price point negotiation. A good way to think about it is NFL negotiations with the players association. They walked away numerous times, but eventually the deal got done. In this situation, the deal might not/probably won't get done, but on the off chance the sides have a change of heart they don't say bad things. They just agree that they couldn't come to an agreement even if one side was largely the problem.

Both parties also want to be able to work in the industry again and leaking information about negotiations is a terrible thing to have on your resume.

These forums have become a really long funeral.

We are saying our goodbyes. Talking with one another. We are going through emotions.

I just don't understand why we have so many people telling us to move on and not to hate NCSoft.

We can choose to hate, dislike, not care about or still love NCSoft, any of that is ok. But this is a funeral, I'm not sure its appropriate to tell us to move on and I'm not sure why the people so intent to tell us to move on haven't just taken their own advise. Let those of us still grieving grieve.

We aren't getting nor are we likely to get a good picture of why they shut down CoH. CoH was profitable enough to stay open at least with some changes and NCSoft has chosen to close it down permanently without giving an articulate-able reason backed up by any facts. NCSoft doesn't have to give us a reason, and I don't have to like NCSoft or recommend them to others. I'm also entitled to stand on my soapbox and tell people how bad a custodian they have been for our MMO.

CoH was also the only strong Super Hero MMO in the market. We as customers do not have a quality substitute. Its similar to a cable company deciding your area doesn't make enough money to service and you as a customer loosing channels you can't get back. I believe this is actually regulated by the FCC's requiring coverage, so a law would not be out of order.

Law evolve at a very very slow speed. IP law is in its infant stage, and it would be entirely appropriate for the government to step in and create laws to protect consumers. Because when you buy/lease an intangible good, you still are supposed to get exactly what you thought you paid for. In order for a contract to exist there must be a meeting of the minds and both minds must materially think the transaction means the same thing.

NCSoft may very well have opened itself to lawsuits when it allowed its developers to put videos out that show cased new material if they knew the business was getting shut down. They advertised it as "forever" and that has meaning even if its puffery, it still has meaning and NCSoft is in a position where they control more information on the health of the game and their company. We as customers rely on them to keep the game running as long as is reasonable. NCSoft hasn't provided any proof that it was reasonable to shut down CoH. To the contrary, their own stock reports seem to show that enough money was coming in to keep Paragon Studios afloat.

IP law is so in flux, that its possible NCSoft could lose a lawsuit from CoH customers. (I don't think its likely only possible). I do foresee either the industry doing something to allow servers to run in perpetuity or a new law being created to increase customer rights. Because MMO customers want assurance their game will last a year so they feel good about their investment of time and money to help create a good community and once they create a community those customers want to have a say in maintaining the community.

In the long end, I'm hoping that better business model will be created where the MMO's can stay in existence in perpetuity.

I for one am hoping Project Z will turn into a new Project for Positron with a new Studio. Matt knows a whole lot about making a good Super Hero MMO and I'd immediately pre-buy anything Super Hero that Positron was involved in.

I don't want anything illegal. I have a terrible opinion of NCSoft, but I plan to do no more than pass on my opinion to the few gamers I am in touch with.

CoH was healthy enough and the Super Hero Genre deserves a quality MMO for all of us and future gamers.

I thought it was interesting that Positron said that CoH was the healthiest MMO ever killed.

Positron also said that most of the things we have suggested, were suggested by Paragon Studios to NCSoft and were turned down as non-solutions.

Reading between the lines, I'd say Positron thought that NCSoft was out of line in canceling CoH and that many reasonable things were not allowed to be tried by NCSoft because of NCSoft's "new focus".

One thing I will say is that the PR hit NCSoft has taken goes far beyond just the people that signed the petition or were playing the game at notice.

Many people will not actively go and get friends to sign petitions to save a video game, especially with such a small likelihood that 100,000 signatures would change NCSoft's position.

However, the number of gamers that know that NCSoft killed a viable game; especially in the strange illogical and non-transparency way that CoH has been killed, has left a stain on the entire gaming community.

All MMO's have been hurt because it slightly has eroded confidence in future IP might be sold to a company like NCSoft and they might close the game down without any significant forewarning.

NCSoft in particular has singled itself out as a company with a reputation among gamers that does not stand behind its titles. Especially a title that seemed like it was self sustaining and healthy like CoH.

There will always be doubts about any MMO that NCSoft puts out. And the CoH player base will be vocal in reminding future players to avoid NCSoft products.

I WILL HELP FUTURE GAMERS PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM NCSOFT PRODUCTS.

They should have kept CoH and its Devs around just for all the good ideas we collectively have given them that can be used in their other titles.

As I see it the closure has hurt the game and at this point reducing the number of servers may be necessary to make it easy enough to find enough people to play with.

My understand is that with current technology, the names of the servers partitions are less important than in past years. It no longer has anything to do with hardware and solely has to do with virtual partitions of resources.

To a certain degree we already have consolidated servers when we get Atlas 5 because of the number of toons in one area on the same server.

I know people have good reasons to really like the non-populated servers, but even with my weak computer, I like the more populated servers where its easier to find a PUG. I play in spurts, so often when I come back my old SG's are different.

I don't mind renaming Toons.

I would hope that we got a lot more slots for Toons on each server because I have a lot of Toons I'd like to keep and I'd want room to make more.

Anything is better than losing the game.

I am very disappointed in NCSoft's handling of the closure of CoX.

In CoX they have a unique niche game for the MMO community. CoX is the best Super Hero MMO in the market. I have argued that DCUO is more action that MMO and CO is less developed, smaller, and in general less interesting than CoX. As customers we really do not have a viable substitute game to go to.

NCSoft has a right to shut the game down, but we have a right to be terribly disappointed and protest in all the legal avenues we have. Having the right to do something does not make it the right thing to do. The right thing to do is an ethical determination.

Other MMO providers have kept far smaller customer bases happy by keeping their MMO worlds alive and open in at least a maintenance mode. DDO seems like an excellent example, but since CoX is the only MMO I personally play I'm sure other people have more examples.

MMO's thrive on the trust that the online world will continue to be there for a substantial time in the future. NCSoft is breaching this trusted compact by closing down a game that every customer had all reason to believe was healthy. Breaching trust makes a company a poor choice to do future business with.

We as customers didn't pick NCSoft as a custodian for CoX. NCSoft purchased CoX after almost all of us started playing and were well invested in the game. We had no control over NCSoft as a choice for custodian.

Customers with a "Video Game Mentality" maybe more okay emotionally with the thought of CoX closing. But MMO's create online worlds. Customers with a "MMO Mentality" expect these worlds to last for a very long time and have a high expectation for a company to actually do everything in their power to keep that online world around as long as practical. NCSoft clearly has not done everything in its power to keep the CoX world around.

Additionally, no one seems to dispute that CoX is still profitable. If CoX isn't profitable it would seem that costs associated with other projects have been lumped into the maintenance of CoX. Even if this is not the case, no measures were done to reduce the costs of CoX to make it more profitable. Most games don't have whole new issues scrapped just days before release. As games become less profitable, generally additional content comes at a slower pace, but in CoX's we have seen an increase in new content in the last two years not a reduction. Customer have no clue why CoX now seems like a bad investment for NCSoft because we haven't had any transparency, but it also seems that even NCSoft won't say CoX is unprofitable.

If NCSoft isn't going to keep CoX open, then they have an ethical obligation to find a replacement custodian. Yes, they have the right to just close it, but again it doesn't make it the right thing to do. As for the attempt to sell CoX, I find it laughable to say they were unable to sell it. Generally when you want to sell something at auction, you find a buyer for the product. You may not be happy with the sales price, but you get the most you can get for the product. Either the price was too high or the stipulations were too large for NCSoft to find a buyer. But that means NCSoft didn't really try to find a buyer. Heck I'll offer right now to buy it for $1,000 and that is more than zero. I know I can find a company in the business that will buy it from me for a lot more than a hundred dollars, I'll make a huge profit. I might even try to set it up as a community owned project where dollars taken in on subscriptions would be used to maintain servers and if enough people stayed I could hire developers with the funds to do updates.

NCSoft isn't telling us the whole story. Most likely they have screwed up on other games and closing down CoX gives them a tax benefit larger than they can get someone to buy the franchise. Its sad that a profitable game is getting closed because it makes tax sense. But this is the only rational explanation I can find.

To sum it up, we are getting a raw deal. NCSoft is closing the only decent Super Hero MMO in the market and we as customers have no where else to go and are losing the investments (in time, emotion, and money) we have made in City of Heroes. NCSoft has clearly not tried to make the game profitable with cost reductions. NCSoft also has not really searched for a buyer for the game either because they have asked too much or put too many strings on the purchase. We as customers have a right to protest, to whine, and to be unhappy with the quality of service we are receiving from NCSoft.

Also just like Murder, I think ending an MMO should be illegal.

I know its not illegal. I know we are at best renting space.

But the whole idea of a MMO, is that we, the customers, create Intellectual Property and put it in a virtual universe. NCSoft has the toons, I created and controls the network via which I keep in touch with a subset of my friends.

I do have other means to stay in touch with friends, but I can't keep my toons once they turn the servers off. As it gets cheaper and cheaper to keep and maintain servers it seems like we should have some right for them to keep the lights on in maintenance mode.

I can't tell you the number of games with much smaller audiences that still have servers to play on. I'm baffled.

I don't see how any rational customer of CoX would buy or use products from NCSoft after the way CoX has been closed. NCSoft is simply deluding itself.

Maybe NCSoft cannot make as much in a sale as they can get in a tax right off. If that is the case we live in a sad sad country.

Honestly, while we do not currently have any protection from this kind of game closure. I'm not sure we shouldn't. We all signed the contract, so don't misread me that I think NCSoft isn't playing by the rules. I'm simply saying THE RULES STINK for how MMO contracts run.

With the amount of energy put into an MMO by the customers, it would be nice for them to be able to keep their investment. An analogy would be that we have changed the law and now phone numbers can be transferred from one company to another. Contract law could be changed too.

The other alternative would seem to me to be a collective where the customers own the property. For MMO's this would seem to make more sense. So that we can see what the prices are and we can close the game down only when it really is no longer profitable or makes any practical sense to keep open.

Right now we are getting closed down because they don't forsee CoX making billions for guys in Korea. Millions isn't enough. But for a collective, we could keep a game like CoX going in perpetuity with revenues like we have.