Tocharon

I’m not too surprised by their response,
I would question just how serious they were about selling, what was their valuation if the sell( assuming they actually talked with any of the would be buyers), and the timing( that is, if they talked with any potential buyers, was it before or after they made the announcement). My suspicion is that if they did talk to any potential buyers, they over valuated the property, and the timing is important in that the minute they made the announcement to close and started laying off Paragon Studios staff, that would’ve caused even more devaluation of the property, especially as it gets closer to Nov. 30.
While I don’t agree with the decision to close CoX, I do understand why.

The last Angel sent them back to the 19th Century. Truthfully the way it was set up, I do think the pair could easily brought back any number of ways.
-In a spin off Steam Punk Drama featuring the pair.
-At this point, bypass the fixed time thing, the same way the Doctor did, cheat, the Doctor goes back in time to that point, buys the a couple plots, erects the tomb stones, and they move on their way, or varations there of.
-The Doctor goes back to their time period to visit them.
I think their time as companions is over, but I could see any number of ways in which they could be brought back latter on.
As far as endings, I kind of thought it was blah. The only reason why their trapped in the 19th Century is b/c Rory paused for a moment, when he should have just joined the others in the TARDIS.
-To me a more interesting ending would have been, Rory sacrificing himself in a rather heroic fashion,
And Amy regenerates into Madame Vastra, vowing vengeance against the Doctor for Rory’s death.

I think the story goes beyond CoX,
-A general decline in sales that matches with the period of the Recession

-strangely enough their lead MMO is Lineage, and it was the real winner of last quarter, and over long term seems to have done a better job of holding steady

-I say stange above, b/c Lineage II has been in second place for a while and has been doing less well than the original for a while, and seems to be in a slight decline

-Aion, looking at last quarter and previous quarters, this looks like where their real problem is, while it still has stronger sales than CoX by a huge margin, based on how they have been doing, its just a matter of time

those three games account for something like 85% of their sales, with CoX, GW, and Misc. for the rest.

-Compared to to their other games, CoX seems to have stable sales, with only a very small decline, and with spikes, averaging at $10 million in sales/yr, last Q it only had something like 1.2% decrease in sales( both Lineage II and Aion had a greater decrease both in % and $).

If you look at their different regions, its pretty obvious the vast majority of their sales is in Asia, but whats more interesting here, it looks like last Q sales litterly died in Europe, prior to that it was doing about the same as North America.

-In terms of costs, last Q spiked in two areas. One area looked like it was the costs related to launching Guild Wars 2. The more troubling part was the 25% increase in labor costs last quarter.

While I am sure there other factors related in their decision tree, it really looked like they were in position based on last Q's performance where they had to prove to their investors that they were doing something, and to be blunt it wasn't going to be the big three( although Aion looks like it really does need some corrective action before things get to bad there)
so it was going to be either CoX or GW

Here CoX has two major disadvantages, its never been strong in asia for whatever reasons
, and didn't have a new version about to be launched( GW 2), and I imagine there is some hope that GW 2 will have some legs in Asia.

Honestly the part I am not understanding is their reluctance to sale, CoX might not be WoW, but in terms of North American MMO's its not a bad property, and there are a lot of other MMO's out there still going with weaker sales and subs.

while it is true NcSoft has never before sold a game, they have traditionally preferred to close down a MMO

However,
-CoX is to my knowledge will be the biggest MMO to be shotting down, and not entirelly because its a money pit either
-NcSoft never before had a quarter in the red, so they may be more inclined to sell off an asset, if a reasonable offer was made.
-Whatever criticisms SOE may have, I should mention EQ Classic and Vanguard is running over there

Assuming there was a reasonable offer for CoX, the biggest arguements against selling CoX may actually be moot.
-the entire creating your competition thing may be moot, NcSoft seems to be refocusing in Asia, CoX's base is primarily in the US
-I assume if they sold the game, so would the rights to whatever sequals would go with it(CoX 2)
, but then again if their refocusing in Asia, it won't matter

Now that the Devs may be a little more free to talk, I'd interested to know their perspective on how this never ending Recession may have impacted the MMO market in general( both on existing MMO's and the launch of new ones), as well their opinion of how the MMO market has changed over the years.

I've played since launch, and in that time have had many great memories, and have met many great people here,
-back in the day hydra hunting in PP
-the original winter lord event
-the old hami raids
-going through various task forces for the various TF's and SF's for the very first time
-the first time I made 50 on one of my ALts
-the first time my Plant/Thorn Dom took Carrion Creepers, and was overwealmed by its awesome sauce, I had no idea what it did, or even if it was effective at the time, but man it looked impressive
-going through the rogue islands, and falling in love with the Red Side

Question: we find out that the hacker girl was converted into a Dalek by the nanites after all, but didn't realize it.
She displayed a very impressive level of hacking ability
So granted it would have worked against the story, if the nanites were able to convert her into a dalek, couldn't she have hacked them to reverse the process???

Also wondering what sort of long term effects will impact the Doctor and Amy

Simply put, Dominators are my favorite AT, since we're closing here, where can I find the closest match elsewhere that gives the same feel?

from what I hear Secret World would be a strong contender, but discovered the hard way my poor 1 1/2 yr old med range lap top can't handle it after downloading the three day trial( although the next time I get a new one, i'll try it again)

So I am still shoping for a new home

-what burned me on CO and DCOU was how both games were developed for console, and seemed to make some sacrifices of PC functionality doing so, but of the two, DCOU is better done( but still not CoX)

Things I'm looking for
-Instanced missions, CoX has a great mix and variety here, I hate go hunt 20 x in zone y missions

-PUG friendly

-good variety of possible builds

-Not much if any sacrifices made for console functionality

I’ve played this game since its launch with occasional breaks, but I’ve always come back, every other MMO I have tried, just didn’t do it for me. I know people have said this game is dated, but IMO it has really aged well, and stuff done since Freedom I’ve liked overall.
So where will I go? Most likely real life, none of the other MMO’s I have seen have done it for me like here. The sad part here is that had this game been owned by Funcom or Sony, this game would’ve likely not been cancelled.
If I do decide on an MMO
-CO most definitely not, I hated it
-DCOU would be the most likely candidate, I might give it a second chance
-Secret World a possibility
-WOW it was ok, I might give it another try
-Star Wars the Old Republic, is possible
What is for sure, there will not be another MMO I have enjoyed half as much as this one

Praying for a last minute save from somewhere, maybe another company might be interested in buying CoX and Paragon Studios?

I know its unrealistic to wish, but I half hope some hacker somehow got admin rights and is playing a joke

My impression was since the switch to freedom, CoX was definitely in the black. And to be honest it may well be, you have to consider the following:
-We all know there are some corperate leaders who by their measure, if its not as successful as WoW, , its not successful, which honestly is an unrealistic expectation
-its possible DCUO with its more well known brand, crowded out the market for Superheroes, lowering what would be considered acceptable profit and market share
My wishes for the future?
-someone with some extra $ makes an offer the game
-this is a joke
-the leaders at NcSoft change their minds

the OP has pretty much fair comparison,
But I will add
WP is a great set if your not too fond of clicky powers, is a fairly solid set, and does allow some flexibility. There are other live sets that may outperform WP in specific instances, but by the same token, its not bad in a specific instances either, over all a very solid set, basically its the work horse set of defensive sets

BIO
for one thing, I don't believe its live yet, but as mentioned, while it can offer more than WP, if you want it, it can be a slot monster, and does pretty much require you to take everything to get that full potential, and does have clicky powers if your less inclined to clicky powers

since they removed the damage buff from domination and increased the damage modifier in the assault sets, I don't think there has been any major changes directly in domination itself

Other things they've done since then, that may explain what your seeing
-Purple Sets & ATO's( I think purples came after, diffinitely ATO's), made building a perma-dom much easier
-not too long ago they did rebalance some of the assault sets, for example, Psi Assault used to have all of its damage concentrated in Psychic Shockwave, with its other attacks having weak damage, now its other attacks are much more consistant with damage from compariable attacks from other assaults, with Psychic Shockwave toned down( its still the #1 Dominator PBAE, but no longer the fast recharging mini-nuke it used to be)
-Doms now get epic sets which do have some nice AEs in them( I don't think I've ever seen a good comparison of the Dom Patron Sets vs the Dom Epic Sets), but I would say Doms were one of the winners of redside ATs getting Epic Sets.

Ok as a long time Dominator player,
-Set Bonus to shoot for, Recharge, many doms shoot for this in order to become Perma-Doms. Even before becoming a perma-Dom this does have beneifits, it increases the availibility of various AE control powers and Domination, and helps stacking mez on a mob

-Primary wise, really any of the control primaries are fine for the most part, although I'd stay away from Gravity for a first time Dom, the problem with Grav is that you have to wait until 28 to get your soft AE control power( Wormhole), much less slotted. Unfortunately you'll need AE soft control well before then. People do tend to favor Plant due to getting Seeds at 8, but really the other sets are fine.

-Seconary wise, at this point all of the assault sets are fine, it just depends on what you want here, and your concept. You want melee? Try Earth Assault, it hits like a freight train in melee, but comes up short with ranged. You want AE damage? try Fire, Thorns, or Psi

I enjoyed it , I'd give the movie an a+

Bane - I understand the Bane criticisms, but simple question to the Bane critics, would you rather have Joel Shumacher's version of Bane? While there were differences here, I think this Bane was fairly close to the comic version.

Catwoman - w/o a doubt, Anne Hathaway is the diffinitive Catwoman

John Blake - the name obviously meant as a curve ball, but JGL would make a crediable Robin and successor to Batman. Despite being a pastashio of at least three Robins, came off as very crediable, overall I liked John Blake, if they continue the iteration with JGL, I could see him as either Nightwing or Batman II( its clear he'll succede Bats, buts not clear under what identity

Miranda - there were some hints about her, so that part wasn't a complete suprise. What dissappointed me here was with all the build up, with her being the kid who escaped the whole, I would've expected someone tougher.

Ending, overall I liked the ending

Bruce and Selina together makes sense in a way the end with Bruce being presumed dead and everything mirrors how the first movie began, I also have no doubt he had made arrangements for just such situation, and isn't living in the poor house.

on the bright side, the franchis has no where to go but up.
the original movie was decent, and the TV series also pretty decent
but the movie franchise got worse and worse, well beyond the point you would think they would make yet another movie.

I can't help imagining Martin's mind right now, that he has a little bit more pressure to get books 6 and 7 out now( there was a 6 year wait between books 4 & 5)