Turjan

Ah no, there's the weird thing see? Nexon have a long standing tradition of buying developers and then marketing their games (because Nexon's record with inhouse games is less than stellar). So to me, it would make far more sense for NCSoft to simply hand over CoH intact to be run by Nexon as a going concern. Nexon are, after all, the pioneers in the west of the F2P microtransaction business model...a model that was introduced to CoH 6 months before the Nexon/NCSoft share deal. And in a recent interview for Forbes, the CEO of Nexon US basically says to the US MMO market "bring it on!" :-
...so when NCSoft have an active IP with a built in playerbase of the very 'core gamers' Nexon is after, why would either of the two companies want it killed off? Like I say, I don't think the reason is one of business, I suspect it's image. CoH is old and not shiny enough for either Nexon or NCSoft any more.

Nope, if TJKim's a puppet, it's only because he's willingly made himself into one, which I doubt. But make no mistake, this is a polite merger of the two companies (if anything corporate can be called 'polite'). They come from different backgrounds (NCSoft is primarily a creator of long development MMOs...with, as many would agree, woeful communication skills, and Nexon excels at marketing and publishing, primarily other company's games) so the two believe they can work synergistically on future projects centred mainly around smartphones.

Yep, bang on right - as recently as Oct 1st, Nexon announced their acquisition of 'gloops' a Japanese mobile game developer. And as you say, they want to come up with a winning formula together.

It's still a puzzle though...the more I read about Nexon and NCSoft's endeavours over the last couple of years, the more logic I can see for keeping City of Heroes alive rather than killing it off - which is why I say the only logical reason I can find for closing our game is "it's yesterday man, we're all about TOMORROW!" ...which is kinda sad really, not to mention insulting to us all.

Back in 2005, NCSoft CEO and founder Taek-jin Kim gave away 3.84% of his stock to his then wife for agreeing to a divorce. He still owned 24.69% of his company's stock in June 2012 when he elected to sell 14.7% at below market price to Nexon. This leaves him with just 9.9% of his own company's stock, meaning Nexon's CEO has a greater say in NCSoft's affairs than Taek-jin Kim now does.

So you can understand why Korean business news refers to this as a takeover of NCSoft by Nexon. Basically, by selling 2/3 of his own say in NCSoft's affairs to his largest rival, Kim has (in the eyes of the Korean business world) effectively handed over the reins of NCSoft to Nexon.

Remember, you're talking about a nation here where there are two currencies : cash, and 'face'. How much face do you lose by selling 2/3 of your power to a rival I wonder? It all depends on what you believe your company will gain in return. If you've gambled correctly, you haven't lost face - you've gained it instead.

This goes beyond simple graphs and numbers on a balance sheet. We're talking here about two companies who've joined forces to pursue a new dream of 'Teh Shiny', the next big thing, online gaming on smartphones funded by microtransactions, etc etc. And I'm afraid an 8 year old subscription PC game (albeit a still profitable one) just didn't fit into that hand-in-hand corporate giant honeymoon future world view.

Basically, we're just collateral damage to them. We're the past. Something to be buried and remembered only by a handful of selected photos in a joint corporate photo album.

I believe it was never their intention to sell the IP. If the IP for CoH was in someone else's hands, that would put a smear on their happy photo album of Glories Past. And now they want everything to stay quiet until Nov 30th, because the sooner CoH is buried, the sooner they can leave flowers on its grave, take one final photo for the Happy Corporate Album, and then skip happily into their i-device future together.

A crazy notion?
I guess time will tell on that one...

I think the Tabula Rasa issue is slightly different though.

The history of Tabula Rasa right from CEO Kim forking over a boatload of cash in hand to get the Garriott brothers onboard...the complete 180 on game design after the initial unicorns and spells style the game was to have...the i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-y long development time (and hence cost) of the revised sci-fi version of Tabula Rasa...and then the whole business with the Texas court case NCSoft lost against Richard Garriott...

I think it's safe to say that there was a fair amount of bad blood by the time Tabula Rasa was closed, so it's easy to understand NCSoft aggressively hunting down TR emulators. They wanted that product dead, dead, DEAD!

Whether they'd be as driven when it comes to the niche gaming anomaly that is CoH though...who can say?

Indeed it was - the old fella's been coaching and guiding Felix Baumgartner for a fair while as I understand it, and no doubt said "Your helmet's visor's fogged and the heater's not working? Meh, don't worry about it Felix, just go go go!"

No, more like The Matrix and Zion...



Exceedingly efficient they may be, but every Architect has his Neo, just as every Napoleon has his Waterloo

This worries and saddens me

People think it's great leaders that change history for the better. They are wrong. What changes history for the better is countless small acts of kindness.

Apologising with a smile if you bump into someone in the street. Waiting at a junction to let another motorist or pedestrian out with a wave of the hand. Stopping to pick up and return something that a struggling burdened shopper has dropped.

You cannot put a price on such acts, and here's the best part - they're contagious. It costs you nothing to stop and help in a small way, but the person you're helping will remember. Maybe their day has been utterly awful to that point, but out of the blue this one small act of kindness by a stranger lifts them up just a little.

So they go off with that in their heart and, if you're lucky, they pay that kindness forward themself, and so it spreads.

But here's the bad part - the FLIPSIDE is also true. If you're mean, cruel or even indifferent to someone, then they will remember that and begin to believe that everyone is mean, cruel or indifferent.

I happen to know that society is full of good people. Sure, the scaremongering news media would have you believe otherwise, but it's always wise to remember that something only make the news if it's aberrant. The everyday isn't 'news'. So yes, society is actually full of good people. The reason I know this for a certainty is because society is still here. If society was made up entirely of bad people, none of us would be here having this conversation now.

So logically, the balance is in favour of good over bad. And for my part, I intend to keep pushing society towards good, one small act of kindness at a time.

If someone insults me, it may have nothing to do with me at all. It may be because they've had a bad day - or even that someone insulted them earlier. I don't want to be in the position where an insult I give to someone finds itself transferred to some other poor person later, so I don't insult people. I can't possibly know anything about that person, or what life they have to put up with, or why they may be in a foul mood that day...but what I can do is not make their day worse. And if I can make their day better, then maybe - just maybe - that will help the world to be better. Eventually.

The meek won't inherit the Earth - they already own it, they're just too polite and unassuming to say so

Most interesting indeed. So technically he approved and signed a statement saying he would no longer be working for NCSoft, but he did not sign a statement saying he had resigned.

If he had signed such a letter of course, the Texas court case might have gone somewhat differently. Unless he could've proved his arm was being twisted as he signed. Except coercion wasn't deemed a legally mandatory requirement for dispute under Korean law, as opposed to NCSoft's claim that it was.

Or something.

When it comes to law, you could probably write my knowledge on the back of a postage stamp, but even with that teeny degree of knowledge I can see that employment law is as complicated as copyright law, something I have always taken to be so complicated that it was obviously created by thinktank-brained space aliens and not humans at all.

*nods*

So, back to the OP's request...I'm afraid we can't fire the execs of NCSoft today anyway - Korean companies like to have their firings done on a Friday evening, you see. Not that they ARE firings of course, they're merely resignations by signature justifiable proxy.

Well, look at Lineage when its successor arrived on the scene. While Lineage is still running in Korea, they closed the US Lineage servers in 2011. I see no reason why they shouldn't follow exactly the same path with GW.

Except I imagine GW won't be given the same run out time that Lineage had in the US. From what I've seen, for a year or so now NCSoft has been getting more and more erratic (yes, even more than before!), and the recent acquisition of 15% of their stock by rival Nexon (becoming their largest shareholder) has made them twitchier still.

It's like paranoia is becoming a disease at NCSoft HQ, so whenever there's the smallest noise from shareholders thinking of selling, they whip out the +2 Axe of Trust Us, We're Looking To The Future, See? and hack frantically at any overseas company asset over a year old.

If you have GW toons, I'd suggest saying your goodbyes now while you still have the chance.

Well someone had to say it

Ahem...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQtU_fYe6gE

meme stuff, see - Teh Interwebs is full of it

Y'know, I've heard that argument a lot, but I've never bought it because there are only 2 other superhero MMOs out there, and one of them was effectively fostered by NCSoft when they bought the IP for City of Heroes from Cryptic who immediately left to make Champions Online. And NCSoft (like just about every other MMO publisher out there) subscribes to the "fantasy games make up 85% of the MMO market so any other genre ain't worth spit" mindset.
Ah, now THAT'S an argument I can whoelheartedly get behind. NCSoft (like no other publisher out there) seem to have this utterly bizarre "scorched earth" policy when it comes to MMOs. Hell, even SOE keeps an ancient game like Everquest going, with updates still!

NCSoft have always come across to me like the wannabe kid in the playground - they big themselves up, but when something doesn't go their way, they act like whatever it is never happened, because if it never happened it can't make them look bad, right?

Wrong...

Actually...no - that's exactly what they'll be expecting us to do!

So I won't give them the satisfaction. They tried to wait us out - we didn't give up. They folded their hand first.

Why should we react now? Looks like they didn't like being outwaited. So I say we outwait them some more

Tish and pish I say - I made a new one just the other day! Now is the THE time to make new toons and check out combos you haven't tried before. I'd never made a Sonic toon before, so Gin and Sonic was born! He may have a short life, but that's still better than no life at all



Electricity however definitely IS one I've tried before
I've noticed a lack of electric Defenders mentioned in this thread, so I present you with Dr Turjan's TEA MkI !



Dr.T is a Rad/Elec and the only Defender I've ever had who can stride up to Elite Bosses solo in supreme confidence then laugh in their faces as he debuffs the crap out of them and drains all their blue. Because the only thing better than a sapped enemy is one that still couldn't hit you even if he did manage to scrape a bit of blue back

I still grumble and snarl a bit when I think of what the Combat Upgrade and laughably titled New Game Experience did to Star Wars Galaxies. But I take some comfort in the change of direction and mindset SOE have undergone since 2007. Boss of SOE, John Smedley even had this to say when quizzed in an interview about SWG :-

On a side note...those Planetside patch notes remind of the public address announcements you used to hear at Foreas Base in Tabula Rasa -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1XXRDHVWGg

- which were, of course, in turn inspired by the base announcements in the film M.A.S.H.

*gets ear trumpet*

Whut? Whut's that ye say? Nine? Bah...mere whippersnappers the lot of ye! I was older than that when Star Wars came out!

Don't get off my lawn...mow it while you're there instead. There's a shiny sixpence in it for you kids!

Indeed - kinda makes you wonder who might be starting these rumours doesn't it?

*sigh*

If TonyV had sent out a message saying "WTF do you think you're doing? I run this show, so it's MY way or the HIGHWAY kiddo!"

...then maybe your somewhat excessive reaction might have merit.

However, in the time since Aug 31 and all the threads I've read here by TonyV and over at Titan, I can honestly say that your perception of him as some sort of Machievellian self-serving egotistical political schemer is...baffling to say the least.

I can only assume that there's some sort of cross communication going on here, because from your posts, I can tell you're not a crazed tyrant wannabe, and from HIS posts, I can see that TonyV isn't one either.

The only thing I've seen TonyV say that could remotely be interpreted as critical is his stance that it's better to have a single co-ordinated front working towards set goals than to have countless scattered campaigns singing from different song sheets. Which isn't ciriticism so much as an obvious fact.

I can see from your posts that you want to help save the community - but I'm confused by the way you mention helping the community, and then immediately follow that comment with one saying the community isn't a community, it's a gaggle of trolls.

I'm still betting this is a case of crossed wires, mistakes in communication rather than ill intent on any side. No cause is served by division. Tolerance and patience are the watchwords here if there's going to be any accord.