Thunder Knight
-
Posts
575 -
Joined
-
Okay, I'll bite. Let's assume for a moment, that this topic is serious, and that for some reason the OP loves Naruto so much he wants to see our game turned into a Naruto game (and yet despite that great love of the show, he can't be bothered to learn how to actually spell "Naruto" and instead spells it consistently wrong every single time).
In which case, it's merely a terrible, terrible idea. It takes all CoH's freedom of ideas and character concepts and designs and replaces them with "You can be a human ninja in stereotypical Japanese clothing, and by 'ninja', I mean 'elemental mage'." Just because some of the powers are superficially similar doesn't mean that turning CoH into a bunch of orange-clad kids shrieking "BELIEVE IT!" over and over would be a good idea. -
That's what gives me the most hope. There's people out there with actual connections who love this game as much as the rest of us also don't want to see this game die.
(Not that "the rest of us" aren't important, too. We have numbers on our side)
Makes me want to re-read all my Valdemar books, but they're a continent away right now. I need to see if they have any at the sole bookstore in the area with any English books in them. -
Quote:We've clashed in the past (heck, I think everyone's clashed with you to some degree), but... this made me laugh. It was perfect.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
*flips switch*
"So, Tankers..."
I'd love to get back the days when the biggest concerns about the game were what ATs need/don't need improvements and why the latest loading screen looks/doesn't look terrible.
As for what I'll actually be doing - why, playing, of course, but also breathing a sigh of relief at avoiding what almost happened.
Until then, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed, sending out messages to who I can (even though it's hard to type with my fingers crossed), and hoping I'll get to breathe that sigh of relief. -
Quote:This, exactly this. If NC Soft had given the devs six months to finish I24 (since it was so far along) and an abbreviated I25 to tie things up, and then let the game drift into maintenance mode (still playable, just no more updates), I don't think there'd be anything even close to this level of outrage.Originally Posted by Minotaur
I think much of the upset is caused by the way the closure was handled. If NCSoft had come out and said "Guys, the game is losing money, we have to shut it down, we'll wind it down over 6 months" sure there'd have been sadness but a lot less anger. To sack all the devs with no notice and only give a 3 month sunset while the game seems to be still profitable is what caused the anger.
I am upset in that the game was improving and getting updated over the last few issues and I was looking forward to the upcoming issues. I wasn't playing as much as I have in the past but still often enough to justify the sub.
Instead, there was no warning at all. On August 21st, they released a brand-new power set, and people paid money to snap it up. On Wednesday the 29th was the usual coffee talk, full of excitement about the update. On Thursday the 30th they patched the I24 Beta. On the morning of Friday the 31st, the devs posted more pictures of the new I24 costume sets. On Friday afternoon, NC Soft put them all out of work, and said to us "The game you love will disappear forever in three months and you'll never ever be able to play it again."
THAT'S what made it sting so badly. Before that fateful Friday afternoon, there wasn't even a hint that this would happen, not for the players or the devs. In the span of minutes, we (players and devs alike) went from "having a bright future that promised years of updates and fun to come" to "game over, get out."
I don't think the closing would have garnered the reaction it did if NC Soft hadn't handled it so badly.
Yeah, I never experienced any of that. I was on Protector, which was small and quiet, and I did have trouble finding teams redside, but that's why I went Rogue with many of my villains. (Redside story arcs, Blueside teaming).Quote:The OP was suffering some of the classic Freedom problems, a change of server would have fixed them. -
Quote:I could have sworn that he (or one of the other rednames) said it last week, as part of the same post where he said there'd be no coffee talk then, but I can't find that post for the life of me.Originally Posted by Captain-Electric
Where did he state that? (Not doubting you, just asking for a link--I'm hanging on every redname's words right now and I couldn't find a post about a coffee talk in the Community Digest.
)
I don't think Toast and I could have both imagined it. -
I was so looking forward to filling out the rest of my Paragon Rewards. I'd *just* gotten the Vet Ranged power (Nemesis Staff/Blackwand) literally one day before the announcement.
... I think that's what hurts most of all. I was looking forward to making my characters even more awesome, with new abilities (vet powers, IO set changes), costumes (both in the Market and the Rewards tree), and powersets (I was planning on getting all of the Power Pools, starting with Sorcery).
Now the only thing I have to look forward to is the slim chance of hearing that the game will maybe not completely disappear forever from existence.
I'm going to go mope some more and shake my tiny fists at the heavens. Being alternately hopeful and downcast is exhausting -
Quote:Yeah. The "best possible gaming experience" for sunsetting a game with this pedigree and history would have been to let the devs finish up I24 and I25 (with an abbreviated version of the Battalion storyline that tied up a lot of the game's loose ends), and then letting the game drift into Eternal Maintenance Mode, with VIP activated for everyone.Originally Posted by Star Ranger 4
That... is the most creative piece of ....
ahem.
Sorry Andy. I know these guys have you in a bad place; but to force you to effectively LIE TO US? BADLY?
Gah. *throws hands up in disgust and walks away*
(btw, in specific, I am referring to anything refering directly to NC soft this and NC soft is sorry about that stuff. I can say no more about this without violating forum equitte and Zwill's been the poor guy stuck between a rock and a hard place enough since the announcement.)
Not "Attention, players! All the employees have been been laid off, the giant update all of you have been looking forward to for months - with features that many of you have been begging for for years - will never happen except as a buggy half-complete beta, and the entire game will disappear from existence forever in less than three months so you'll never ever be able to play it again!"
There is NO way to spin that into the "best possible gaming experience", no matter how good they are with refunds. Unless you define "best possible gaming experience" as "best possible experience for our bean counter brigade," which is probably what they meant.
(And, again, not directed at you, Zwill. It makes me sad that the game is closing, but it makes me angry that the game is closing like this, and I get mad all over again every time I think about it. I somehow doubt I'm alone in that. I don't think the #SaveCoH movement would have gathered this much steam if the game had been allowed to sunset gracefully instead of killed so abruptly)
I've said this before - in fact, it might have been in this very thread - but this means very little. (Other than that they apparently didn't accept Mercedes Lackey's offer)Quote:Originally Posted by Kimball
From my perspective this is both good and bad. It's good because I dropped a good chunk of change into the market after 8/24. It's bad because this thoroughly convinces me that CoX is dead. If NCSoft had any intention of letting the game live on there would be no reason to refund points purchases. They would simply inform people that they need to spend their points by a certain date. I think they heard out whoever they were going to hear out on keeping the game alive, decided not to facilitate that, and then released this refund plan.
NC Soft bringing the game back was the least likely option, the main hope has been to revive it under another publisher (or under a new company composed of former Paragon employees). And nothing has changed in that respect. NC Soft would have to refund our money before the game could be moved to a new publisher anyway. -
Quote:That's not just a snide comparison, either. It's literally Diablo with Marvel Superheroes. The development studio is headed by the creator of Diablo 1 and 2, and (because he left Blizzard a decade ago and wasn't involved with Diablo 3) he used his ideas for how he would have made Diablo 3 for this game instead.Originally Posted by BrandX
Checked it out at PAX. It's Diablo with Marvel Superheroes.
And yes, you're limited to playing as one of Marvel's superheroes, and not able to create your own :/
Though the list of which characters you could be seemed pretty high!
On the other hand, I really liked Diablo 2 and was pretty meh on Diablo 3, so maybe I'll give it a shot. If there's a Mac version. (Of course there won't be) -
Yeah, I went there looking for the dramatic music from the Keyes trial, and it wasn't there.
Most of the old (pre-GR) songs I downloaded back when they were still available on the official FTP site, but that site has been gone for a while. (I think it went down when GR came out, in fact) -
PMs are open to all, so if you want to ask questions, you can ask Zwillinger directly. (That said, most of the edge cases appear to be answered by "Contact NC Soft Support, because Zwill doesn't know")
-
Quote:I don't have any Windows discs to install from, and even if I did, I don't have the disc space to install an entirely separate OS (especially not Windows 7 - I'd have to delete my entire music collection just to squeeze that bloated 16-20 GB monstrosity in), all for one game that may not even be around in another three months, so... no, I haven't.Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
Did you try running CoH on Bootcamp? Most of the performance/stability issues with the CoH Mac client came directly from the Cider wrapper.
-
Quote:The negotiations aren't between us and NC Soft. It's between other interested parties.Originally Posted by CyberGlitch
Doesn't a negotiation require having an interested and engaged seller? What we have is a bunch of pleading, begging and toothless threats. I'm not sure that counts as a "negotiation."
The devs have said that there are discussions going on in the background between the management of Paragon and NC Soft (and "investors" - their words, not mine) that we're not privy to, at least one celebrity player has made a direct offer to NC Soft (free advertisment for at least five years if they don't shut the game down), and, to move from certainties to rumors, a major board/card game company owner (and CoH player) may have offered to buy the game outright and rehire as much of Paragon Studios as he could to continue running and developing it. This game has been around for nearly a decade and has attracted more than just kids and working stiffs as players. There are big-name players with the resources, influence, and backing to keep the game running, if NC Soft is willing to play ball.
As I've said before, we, the players, are not the Big Guns in this whole thing. We're the ammunition that the Big Guns can use against NC Soft, to help convince them to play ball. -
It's nice to finally hear something about refunds. I'll keep an eye on my bank account to see if/when it goes through.
All you people worried that this means the game is dead or that the "Save CoH" attempts have all failed - nothing has changed. NC Soft changing their mind was always the least likely occurence. The main chance the game has had since then is that NC Soft will allow another publisher (or the former Paragon employees themselves as a new company) to buy the game (IP, software, and all) and continue it under that new publisher's banner.
And that hope has not changed by NC Soft finally offering refunds, because NC Soft would not be involved in the "new" CoH.
Keep up the fight. -
Quote:Oh, wanted to note this too - they never said 8,000 Marvel characters would be playable, they said that they have Marvel's stable of approximately 8,000 characters to draw from. I'd be shocked if there's even 100 characters to choose from when all is said and done. (I'd be even more shocked if the two characters I mentioned earlier were among them)Originally Posted by SteelRat
Ive read rumours that 8,000 Marvel characters are going to be included as playable. Sounds good to me.
And, no, this isn't their idea of a WoW-killer. I don't think anyone seriously thinks any MMO is going to be a WoW-killer anymore. Instead, MH development is being headed by the same guy who created Diablo 1 and 2 (which is why the playstyle is similar), and is trying to move into that territory rather than competing with WoW. -
I have a Mac, but I have an older Mac that I bought in 2009 (and it wasn't top-of-the-line even then). Even CoH, an eight-year-old game, struggles on it. The specs required to run the GW2 Mac Beta are far above the specs of my machine.
So thanks for nothing, NC Soft. -
Quote:Okay, how it's not the same thing is here:
That's not what I'm arguing. Not even close. I'm asking HOW it's not the same thing, and you keep tripping over yourself to assume me that, no, really, it's not the same thing. Do you honestly expect me to throw my hands in the air and go "Welp, you said it enough times, I concede!" It's not a discussion if you just restate your position, it's "IS NOT! IS TOO!"
The difference between an Electric Melee attack and a Martial Arts attack that has an electric graphic overlay on it is damage types. An actual Electric Melee attack does Energy Damage in addition to (or, depending on the power, instead of) Smashing, a Martial Arts attack does only Smashing, regardless of how many Electric auras I throw on the character's arms and/or legs.
In other words, when I say I want Electric Melee, I mean I want to actually do electric-type damage (whatever the game considers that to be - Energy in CoH, Electric in CO) with my melee attacks, not just have an electric-looking visual on a physical-type (Smashing in CoH, Crushing in CO) attack.
If there was a way to change damage type along with the visual effect, sure, that'd be the same thing. But you can't. Just the visual. And I don't want just the visual. -
I remember reading somewhere that multiple people could play the same character on a single team with no issues. (Other than maybe the players getting confused who is who if neither one is using an alternate costume)
Edited to add:
Ah, there's the article: http://www.gamezone.com/products/mar...nds-on-preview
Quote:I also asked whether it's possible to team up with five other friends and all play as the same character. The answer was a resounding yes, which means if you want to make an army of Iron Men, you have that option. To keep things not only interesting, but also to easily distinguish yourself from another player with the same hero, there will be a myriad of costumes that will all completely alter the look of your hero, and many will be pulled directly from the Marvel lore. -
Quote:Ah, I see. So you feel that when BABs and Beastyle (for example) left, the studio was completely unchanged, but if Tunnel Rat or Zwillinger (for example) don't come back, then it's a completely different studio unrelated to anything that has come before. And you don't see any contradiction there, and refuse to even discuss it. Just "The studio must have exactly the same employees that it had on August 31, 2012 - not 50%, not 80%, not 99%, 100% the same - otherwise it's a completely different studio", and that's that.Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane
I am not getting into a grandfather's axe argument over this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
Paragon Studios is no more and will never again be; that is how I feel.
Okay, then. But refusing to discuss it doesn't make you right. -
NCSoft has never sold one of their IPs before, but they've also never been $6 million in the red before, either. Circumstances are different, so we can keep our fingers crossed.
-
That is semantics. People were coming and going from Paragon all the time. Many (not all, of course, but many) of the people who were working there when the announcement hit on August 31st had been there less than two years, Zwillinger included.
Was the company somehow not Paragon Studios when Castle was in charge of powers? Was it not Paragon when EMPulse or Beastyle were community manager? Was it not Paragon Studios when BAB was lead animator? Was it not Paragon when Sexy Jay was making costumes?
Of course it still was. And of course it still would be again if the new lineup wasn't 100% the same as the old lineup.
Only Positron and War Witch have really been there for the game's entire existence, and even they had many different roles up and down the entire design hierarchy. (WW started as an office manager, doing data entry and filing, for goodness sake!)
Getting 100% of them back would be ideal (for them as well as us), but as far as I'm concerned, even most of Paragon is still Paragon (even under another name). -
The only class I'd really be interested in - Summoner - is both (a) touted (and therefore stigmatized) as the "beginner's" class, even though Pet classes are usually considered more difficult in most games (including CoH); and (b) restricted to the bunny-girl race, adding a dose of "easy mode mockery" on top of the "newbie class" stigmatization.
... if I'd had any interest at all, it'd be gone. -
I think the main problem is that the whole thing was not logical.
The logical thing to do with a game this old and with this much history behind it (and one which was still under active development) would be to say to the devs "okay, guys. We're going to start sunsetting the game. We're giving you six months to push out the update you're working on, and then one more to wind everything down. Finish anything under active development, scrap the ones you're planning." Then actually let them go at the end of February, after they've had time to give the game a fitting "end" to its main stories, and then close the game entirely at the end of May.
Yeah, it means the whole "Coming Storm" Storyline would have to be cut very short (or even dropped altogether), and we'd still not have gotten all the Incarnate slots most likely, but it'd be a respectful way to close the game.
What they did, however, was say to the devs "You're all fired. Get out." and say to the players "we'll give you your money back for things you bought in the past week or two - you know, when you thought the game would be around for a long time to come - when you pry it out of our cold, dead hands. Thanks for the free cash, suckers!"
What's the logic there? -
The top three articles under "News" in the NCLauncher (at least, the Mac version) are about Blade and Soul (dated September 13th), Guild Wars 2's launch (dated August 28th), and a Guild Wars 2 preview (dated August 27th).
You have to actually click on "City of Heroes" in the launcher to bring up the link to the "Farewell" article.
Edited to add: Moreover, even if you find the right section of the NC Launcher, the news of the closing is in tiny font at the bottom-right of the Launcher. The top half the CoH page of the Launcher is still dominated by a giant ad for Nature Affinity, and the bottom-left features a distracting animated image for Water Blast, Power Amplifiers, and Enhancement Trays. There's nothing that draws attention to the closing announcement at all, and in fact, it's designed to draw attention away from the tiny words and towards the giant brightly-colored animated pictures.
When I open City of Heroes, it loads the NC Launcher, launches the game, and then closes the Launcher. When it does this, it only shows the main News page, not the CoH-specific news, so you won't see it there.
So, yeah, the news is technically in the Launcher, but (unless the Windows version is substantially different) you really have to dig for it, and may never see it at all if you open the game like I do. (Which I imagine is fairly normal - does everyone else open the Launcher and then open CoH from inside the Launcher, pausing to read the tiny 6-point font text every single time, instead of opening the game itself?)
You'd think that closing one of their games would be important front-page news, but it's not. -
Quote:Simple. They go "Character X is cool!" (regardless of who "character X" is), followed by "I want people to think of me as being as cool as Character X!", followed by "I'll make a clone of Character X!"Originally Posted by Lord_Nightblade
I've always found it interesting, if puzzling, that if you give players a nigh unlimited amount of customization options, there will inevitably be a sizable chunk of people who just try to copy an existing character. You give them the ability to make anything they want, with any name they want, and tell a story where they're the star of the action, and they just go with Ir0n M4n or Wolferine.
I mean, what is that? Is it laziness? Apathy? Is it just too hard for them to put any thought into creating a unique costume?
Or, alternately, "I want to see how Character X would fare in this world!" - fanfiction of sorts.
As for the Marvel game, I'm hoping that the inclusion of Squirrel Girl means it'll have a healthy dose of C-list and D-list characters. I'll try it if Razorback or Captain Ultra are playable. -
It looks interesting, and if it's browser-based then that means it'll be more or less independent of OS.
But since it doesn't appear to actually be open yet, for me it's just something to keep in mind for the future, rather than something to get excited about now.