Turjan
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Posts
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I suspect the legal doodads and jiggery pokery mean the closedown would have to be the very end of the month at the physical location of the servers or head office, i.e. Midnight on the night of the 30th. Seems logical.
Which would mean 00.00 Dec 1st PDT...or 9pm Eastern I think, or 8am BST, except BST will have gone back to GMT by then, so 7am...oh, but will US time be on daylight savings by then too? So is PDT the same as now, or...uh...maybe it---
*scratches head*
Actually, you know what? Screw it - when midnight hits west coast America on Nov 30th, that will be shutdown time. So when that deadline looms, use this site -
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
- to work out where the hell that leaves you relative to PDT on Nov 30th
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I just said you had the death sentence in twelve star systems
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Angry_Citizen y ddedfryd marwolaeth ar ddeuddeg seren systemau
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Quote:Wait, what now? The Titan Network...self-aggrandising? Pompous? Nerdrage?Originally Posted by Angry_Citizen
I'll still think TonyV and his cadre are self-aggrandizing, pompous fools who reinforce stereotypical views of nerdrage.
Oh, hang on...I know what's going on here - isn't it obvious? Angry_Citizen is actually a Praetorian Angry_Citizen and he's obviously mistaken our Primal Titan Network for its opposite Praetorian version!
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Quote:That sounds like the "depression" stage of the grief progression tree to meOriginally Posted by Angry_Citizen
I wish I could explain it. Maybe it's just the realization that ultimately it's all for naught. The communities you join, the characters you build, the missions you run, the stories you write - they're all finite. They have a shelf-life. That shelf-life isn't printed on the package, but three months from the expiration date it'll pop up and really piss in your cheerios.
One could argue that EVERYTHING is ultimately for naught simply because we're mortal. We're born, we live, we die. Woe is me.
Well, I don't know about you, but I am currently alive, and as long as that condition persists, I intend to take advantage of it by experiencing whatever is out there to experience. Along the way I may laugh, I may cry, but at least I will be LIVING!
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Quote:Very true, over dependence on a game is unhealthy - it's called addiction. But you don't have to be addicted to something for it to have meaning or be important to you.Originally Posted by Mr_True_Shot
I actually think some of this is very unhealthy. No one, that I've seen, has really talked about it-- but depending too much on an online game is just not healthy.
I've read a great many posts over the past 3 weeks both here and over at the Titan forums, and one phrase has stuck firmly in my mind. I don't recall who said it, or in which forum, but the phrase was this :
"To call City of Heroes 'just a game' is the same as saying a family is 'just a group of people'."
People invest a lot of themselves in any hobby or pastime, and if that hobby or pastime is threatened, people will react. Firsthand, I've seen ramblers chain themselves to gates and sit for hours in pouring rain to protest at the closure of a cherished footpath. I've seen angry crowds picketing a football stadium that was threatened with closure (along with termination of the football club). I've even seen mothers carrying toddlers on their shoulders and marching down the high street to protest against the closing of a children's library.
None of those things could be deemed to be 'important' in the big scheme of things - hiking? Sports? Children's books? Why kick up a fuss over things like that?
Because people have feelings. That's what it is to be human. We have emotions, we get attached to things. Other people, pets, sports...virtual worlds...
And remember, the closure of City of Heroes is not simply the switching off of a virtual world of pixellated streets and animated characters, it's also the potential destruction of a community - a community every bit as real as any you might encounter in the material world.
'Community' is not something you can put a price on, or quantify - it's a synergistic entity that transcends such limited descriptions. There is one thing you can say for certain about the CoH community though - its hub, its anchor, is the game itself. And that is what a lot of people are angry/scared/sad about.
It's very easy to say "move on" or "get over it" - but would you say that to those marching mothers? The ones afraid of losing their friendly mother & toddler community along with the library that housed it? It wasn't an addiction to the books that drove them to march in protest - sometimes there's a much wider issue at stake. -
Quote:My favourite was the nicely supportive "big man on campus" emote that I'm using on Princess Leia in this screenshotOriginally Posted by Night-Hawk07
I see what you did there....
I don't think we have it here, but SWG had a /rude emote that came up as an "unrecognized salute" or something to that effect. It was quite useful for getting your point across.
Back on the topic of stages of grief though...
Well, I never had denial - I played Tabula Rasa you see, so I know NCSoft
Didn't get angry either - large corporations are faceless mechanical entities that are prone to making bizarre and inexplicable decisions, so it's pointless getting angry with them, just as it's pointless getting angry with the rain for being wet.
Bargaining? See "angry" above
Depression...not really. Sadness though, oh yes indeed, a lot of sadness.
Acceptance - I accepted it from day one really...so I guess I've gone from stage 5 to stage 4 and then back to stage 5. With a trip back to stage 4 before returning to stage 5 again.
And now acceptance to the point where I can post a screenshot from my second favourite (deceased) MMO and still smile about it
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It's my belief the decision to cut CoH from the NCSoft stable was motivated more by potential shareholder response to NCSoft dipping $6million into the red in Q2 2012 than by any profitability (or otherwise) of Paragon Studios and CoH itself.
NCSoft invested heavily - and by heavily I mean HEAVILY -in Blade & Soul, particularly in marketing for its launch in Korea. On top of that, Aion has stopped pulling in the megabucks it used to, but the game still does have about 2.5million subscribers (though that has been declining steadily since its peak in mid 2009 of 4million) so ticking them off might not be a clever move...
So what options does that leave the bosses of NCSoft? Profits had been declining in pretty much a straight line from $39million profit in Q2 2011 down to a LOSS of $6.6million in Q2 2012. Loss in big business means push the panic button. Fast.
Axe Aion? No can do - too many subscribers, especially in the domestic market, and it is still at least vaguely profitable - besides, they're a little precious about Aion considering it was the flagship product that saw their profits soar in 2009 by a reported 836%...
Check out this graph -
-from this article published on August 8th 2012, just 3 weeks before the announcement of CoH's closure
http://mmofallout.com/2012/08/08/ncs...wn-revenue-up/
You can see from that graph that the line right at the bottom is Guild Wars - but axing Guild Wars was out of the question with its sequel just around the corner. CoH had effectively bottomed out - in profit/loss terms, it wasn't going to lose them any money, but it was extremely unlikely to bring them in more than it was currently doing.
In order to boost shareholder confidence the axe had to fall somewhere - and where better than half a world away? CoH looked stagnant on the graphs, and they wanted to send a clear message that their eyes were fixed solidly on the future. The dip in profits was a glitch, GW2 sales would recover those...but that would only show in the next quarter's results. Action was required NOW!
And so the axe fell on us.
Where does this leave the "future" of the game - or more precisely the IP? Well now there's the interesting thing...previously when NCSoft has canned a game (Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault) it came as no surprise, and no-one expected to see any trace of them again once they'd been scuttled and sent to the watery depths of Davy Jones' MMO locker. But CoH is a different matter...
Don't forget that NCSoft have steadfastly supported the franchise for 8 years now, through many ups and downs, including the acquisition from Cryptic. The same cannot be said of any other title they've canned. There is no question that the game will close on Nov 30th, the servers will be switched off, and CoH as we know it will have come to an end. But that doesn't necessarily the end of CoH itself.
NCSoft WILL make up the profits they lost this year - GW2 is such a success there's no doubt of that. So at the end of the day, I don't believe the decision to close CoH was a simple case of profit v loss, it was a decision motivated by fear of share prices falling.
Which means NCSoft never lost confidence in CoH at all.
Bizarre, no?
But that's business.
So if they didn't lose confidence in CoH there's no reason to suppose they don't still consider it an asset. Now, given that their declared intention is "not to support the franchise in future" because the company is taking "a different direction", there's every reason to suppose they'd be interested in selling said franchise on, seeing as their future direction is away from the genre.
Will they sell though?
TBH I have no idea. All we can do is wait to see what NCSoft do. And in the mean time, I will be spending what time we have left patrolling the streets of Paragon City
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An interesting point you make, however I do feel compelled to make a couple of "Hmm, yes, but..." comments.
First off, that article is, as you say, from 2004. That's as long ago as CoH has been in existence, which is to say quite a long time, especailly in the realm of tech/telecoms/MMOs. Many things can change in 8 years. As a 'for instance', at the time of that article, Yoon Song-yee had not yet married Kim Taek-jin, the head of NCSoft (they married in 2007).
Another thing to remember is that Yoon Song-lee herself is something of a celebrity in Korea, being an extremely high profile female executive in a very much male dominated culture. Like that article says, she got her engineering doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology at 24, and is certainly well enough in the public eye in Korea that her marriage to Kim Taek-jin actually took place in secret in part to avoid a media circus.
My point is, it's very difficult (and indeed unwise) to attempt to pigeonhole Dr.Yoon because she actually is an exceptional individual. Not to mention an extremely intelligent one (a lot of articles I've read tend to refer to her as the 'genius girl'). While that WSJ article does sort of make her sound like she is "...strictly motivated by innovations in science and technology more than anything else" that most certainly is not the extent of her personality - the article itself also points out her love of calligraphy and painting.
If anything I'd say our own "VV" is admirably qualified to make her pitch in her own inimitable way, being as she is...shall we say, a not entirely unrecognised woman of intelligence and creativity herself, I'm sure she actually has a lot more in common with Dr.Yoon than any of us has!
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I have CO, played it in beta, stuck with it a month or two live, got a couple of toons to 40...then let it lapse and came back home to the familiar comfort of CoH. I do keep popping in to CO from time to time, as a silver player now, but I'm finding the issues that annoyed me about the game even as far back as beta are still there, and a lot of new ones have been added on top of them too
I try to like the game, I really do...but it's just too irritating. The rubber faces of the character models, the derivative and knockoff storylines and NPCs, long missions that start out with decent difficulty and then suddenly turn impossible during the console-esque 'locked in the room' final boss fight, the way when you block your hero loses all dignity as they're forced to sidle along like a demented crab...etc etc
About the only thing that draws me back every now and then is the fact you can have glowy eyes in a mask, classic comicbook hero style. Always wanted CoH to have that.
Other than that though, those long unfixed bugs and gameplay issues (especially with melee toons) are just too much for me. That, and (in the words of my girlfriend when she first saw Champions) "Oh my gawd, it looks like City of Heroes done by chavs!"
So yeah, you may see me in Millennium City from time to time, but you're far more likely to see me in STO, mucking about with my Vice Admiral in his Voyager Refit. Either way, I'll keep an eye on the CoX channel
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The Abandoned Sewer entrances at Atlas Park and Boomtown share a piece of funky guitar music - and it's not the one listed on the Paragon Wiki for those zones either. The Wiki lists the Sewer and Abandoned Sewer tracks as being the same...but they ain't
I was exploring places I'd never really had a proper look at, and I happened across that music. I'd simply never stopped there long enough to notice it before. It's kinda jazz funk, and I'm guessing pretty old because it's not quite the same feel as more current music in the game.
Go on, head there and have a listen. Remember, not the normal sewer entrance music, go through the side door to the Abandoned Sewer
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Quote:And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is community in action. You simply cannot BUY that level of unity and support - no matter how hard a corporation may try. It's a lesson NCSoft (and indeed all of today's large games corporations) would do well to consider when they try the "never mind what's in that hand, look what I've got in this one!" trick.Originally Posted by shadow35
Comically enough, I was standing in line at the supermarket and a mom and apparently her teenager were discussing THIS VERY GAME'S SHUTDOWN, lol. When they mentioned Atlas Park 33, I jumped in, and we discussed all the things that are being done to raise awareness so we can possibly get another publisher. Then it was like we'd known each other for years.
It's the little things, the seemingly taken for granted things, that can have the biggest impact. Remember the old "For want of a nail" proverb?
Well here's my updated version of it...
For want of a share price, CoH was lost.
For want of CoH the community was lost.
For want of a community the foreign market was lost.
For want of a foreign market the new MMO was lost.
For want of a new MMO the investment was lost.
For want of investment the corporation was lost.
And all for the want of a shareholder price. -
Bit of a story attached to my first toon...
The Christmas after CoH launched, an American friend came to stay with me in the UK for the holidays, and he brought his copy of CoH along for me to see.
I was smitten, and created Sword of Albion, a broadsword/regen scrapper and played him over the Christmas Event where the lakes of Paragon were all turned to ice...
When my friend returned to the US, I had to wave goodbye to Sword of Albion - at least until the European launch of City of Heroes, when the first thing I did with my shiny new EU install of the game was to remake him.
The costume I made was nearly identical to the original (the US version is on the left in this picture, the EU version in the middle, and his most current costume on the right)
The keen eyed among you may have spotted the US toon is standing in current Atlas Park...that's because I recently asked my US friend if the original toon was still alive. He said he was, and in fact hadn't been touched since I left him all those years ago! And he went and dug him out so I could see him again for old time's sake
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If someone from Paragon Studios is now working with Cryptic on STO, then well done them I say!
Don't forget Cryptic still has numerous ex-CoH staff already, what with being the game's original developer and all. If this ex-Paragon employee has landed among old friends then I have nothing but good wishes for them, as I do for all our beloved Paragon team
As for this spelling any kind of death knell for the game, that's a non-issue I'd say. We all know that if CoH continues after Nov 30th in any form at all, it most likely will have little to do with any of the Paragon dev team, so this news really is of zero relevance to that matter. -
Quote:Daaamn...I'd actually forgotten those restrictions - now you mention them, the memories come flooding backOriginally Posted by Megajoule
* Finding a high-level character for every low-level that wanted to come along.
* Not being able to go into hazard zones with the rest of the team, even if sidekicked.
* Being summarily kicked from a TF if the person you were exemplared to disconnected, however briefly. Bad luck if it was original Posi, aka "the Positron Marathon."
* Getting no experience (only inf) if exemplared, even if it was just one or two levels.
Three years ago this month, Issue 16 fixed all of these, as well as giving us power customization. Thank you again, Paragon Studios!
Thankfully I was never on either end of the Posi phenomenon! -
"You're one of the good ones, man" - Ren Hoek
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Quote:Oh, but you don't have to miss that! Just head over to Champions Online, it's still alive and well thereOriginally Posted by Megajoule
* (From the old days) "I'm getting too far from my mentor!" Often followed by "My mentor is no longer assisting me", everything suddenly turning deep purple, and a faceplant.
My list?
Well, I'd have to second the layer cake cave but also add Council Pool Room
What else now...
* Missions that say "defeat Boss X" which (after defeating him) turn out to be "defeat alls" after all.
* "Prevent 30 Fir Bolg from escaping"
* Defuse multiple bombs simultaneously missions that don't explicitly say how many players you'll need
* Oh, on the topic of defusing bombs, "Defuse" being spelled "Diffuse" in the description, navigation, and interaction bar - Nemesis mission, you know who you are!
* Using Aim and a sniper attack on a mob armed with a pistol 150ft away, missing...and the mob immediately fires back at you over 150ft with his 80ft range pistol - and hits you!
* Streakbreaker and the "to hit" mechanic. I need to explain my grievance on that a little more...
I actually got so irritated once by repeated misses on my main that for a few missions I actually noted down every hit/miss just to see if it tallied with the 95% cap mechanic. That means statistically 1 miss in 20 attacks, if your character's to hit is capped. Being at that cap also means every miss is immediately followed by an autohit from Streakbreaker.
I had a sequence once with 5 consecutive misses (alternating Miss and Streakbreaker for 10 attacks). I'll leave you to work out what the probability of that is, lol
I also ended up believing that the nearer a toon is to level 50, the more often you see a roll over 95% on the Combat tab...
I can't really believe the devs fibbed to us of course, and the numbers for hit/miss and Streakbreaker must be straight up. Any run I had must surely have been just probability.
Mustn't it?
Regardless, having a superhero who's purportedly on the path to becoming a demi-god via the Well of Furies and still seeing "MISS!" when I've just used Build Up while Focused Accuracy is running...no, that at least I won't miss
But like everyone else here of course, the mere fact that I CAN put together a list of things I WON'T miss, while I couldn't even begin to compile a list of things I WILL miss, speaks volumes about our beloved game. -
Quote:lol, all true - Swann invented the lightbulb, Friese-Greene the movie camera, and of course it's Tesla's electrical system that powers our homes today, not Edison's. Edison does have a legitimate claim to the phonograph though. PossiblyOriginally Posted by Johnny_Butane
He wasn't a good inventor. He didn't even invent the light bulb. He was a pancake who took credit for other people's work, figured out ways to sell that work for profit and tried establish a total monopoly. When other people could outdo him for less, he attempted to destroy them. And your reward for working with him was you got to have both arms amputated and die from cancer.
It is a mystery to me why history hasn't turned on him yet tbh - even if only for electrocuting an elephant and filming it as a publicity stunt.
Perhaps instead I could've said "HP Lovecraft was an arrogant racist, but that doesn't diminish the literary impact of his iconic creation of the Cthulhu mythos" ...even if his writing style is cumbersome and dry. But hey, I still like his stories despite that
But back on topic though...
If it's not CO, DCUO, Diabl-- uh, I mean Marvel Heroes, then really that is it for superhero MMOs. There simply is nothing else out there
And as far as sandbox space games go, the field's pretty thin there too. If Firefall isn't to folks' taste (for either literary, moral, or "Raahhh!" community issues) then that kinda starts shutting down the scifi options too. I play STO and find msyelf liking the Trekness and ship combat, but grumbling about ground combat and the bizarre ingame currency systems (why would a Vice Admiral be hand mining dilithium or running around Starfleet Academy collecting 'exotic particles' to swap for moar dilithium?).
Sad truth is, fantasy MMOs make up 85% of the total out there, and most of them are so similar in mood and feel that they all blur into one huge elf-covered ball released by marketing execs to simply roll over every other literary concept out there.
Hmm, that reminds me...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxFKDzW0qdg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESE-QzPpZ50
That was the launch concept for Global Agenda - here's their site now :
https://account.hirezstudios.com/globalagendagame/
Got a few things going for it - it's scifi, you can fly(ish), has no elves...
There is Wildstar of course...but oh no, hang on - I know who their publisher is, and Carbine Studios are based out of California, so I think the writing's on the wall for that one before it's even released... -
Now that is a quality piece of work!
Emotive, and captures the feel of the game world perfectly - top job!
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Quote:Do you use products made by Thomas Edison? Lightbulbs, that kind of thing? Yes? Well that must mean you support the electrocution of elephants then. Because Edison electrocuted an elephant in 1903 in a marketing endeavour to prove Tesla's AC current system was dangerous (his plan was to get everyone to adopt his own DC system).Originally Posted by Ironik
Are you also a homophobe like Card?
Edison also electrocuted dogs, cats, and horses as part of the same marketing campaign. Are you in favour of electrocuting animals to try and sell a product?
I'm guessing...no.
My point? Yes, I do disagree with Card's politics, just as I disagree with Edison electrocuting animals as part of a selfish failed marketing strategy. However, neither of my disagreements take away from the fact Edison was a good inventor, and Card is a good author. -
Quote:Well, as to that, all I can say is if you regard Nebula Award winning novels such as "Ender's Game" to be 'fail' then I only wish I had a writing career with that level of fail in it!Originally Posted by Ironik
Firefall has Orson Scott Card writing for it. Automatic fail. Firefail.
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Quote:Traveller...man, that takes me back! When I got my first starship in Star Trek Online I immediately renamed it to the USS Kinunir because of TravellerOriginally Posted by Gaming_Glen
I'd love to play in a science-fiction setting that's more sandbox oriented, as well as person and not SHIP (e.g., Eve) oriented. Maybe I'll give STO a try sometime after November. My other option, although I suck at being a game master, is running a pen & paper scifi RPG (fav: Traveller).
Alas, there's no Traveller online - and no Tabula Rasa of course (damn, I still miss that game...) - but there is Firefall. Or will be soon at least. It's currently in beta, due for release in 2013
http://www.firefallthegame.com
F2P, and the classes are gear based, so technically one character can be all classes, they just have to swap the battleframe they're wearing for one from another 'class'. -
Quote:I have a screenie of the Atlas NPCs from Nov 2006 - here you goOriginally Posted by srmalloy
You still can see NPCs in the Portal Corps building (the one at the base of the 'U' behind Tina McIntyre) walk out of a wall, across the lobby, and through a wall on the other side. For a while after the addition of Recluse's Victory, NPCs in City Hall would do it downstairs, too, sometimes walking across in mid-air.
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Quote:I honestly doubt that's the case. Remember that CoH Freedom was launched in September 2011 - exactly one year ago. If you're looking for a non-coincidental timing issue, then that's a better candidate in a sort of "we gave CoH one year to make us a gazillion won with the new F2P model" kinda way.Originally Posted by deusinterfector
This for me is the main issue I have with how it's all happened so abruptly. We got one of the most anticipated sets since the points system came in (Nature Affinity) along with bio armor (another one many people were desperate to get) just around the corner only one week before the news was revealed & apparently 3 days after its release is the cut off for purchased points. This stinks of one last money grabbing scheme as I highly doubt the timing is just a coincidence. I know plenty of people who bought a lot of points for these 2 sets alone.
Besides, from what I've read of NCSoft's east-west communications record over the last 5 years, I'd be surprised if anyone in the "Close CoH" Department over in Korea was even aware of the existence of either Nature Affinity or Bio-Armor...
To Zwill - cheers for the update, and thanks to everyone who's still beavering away at the Paragon offices. You guys have delivered a stellar product to the gaming community - the first, best, and (IMO) still unparalleled superhero MMO. No matter what happens with CoH come December 1st, no-one can take that away from you. Just as no-one can take away the community spirit and the memories this game has brought each and every one of us. -
Quote:I just logged in to Beta on an old Premium account that hadn't been to Beta before, and it could indeed access Masterminds to create as a new character. And the powersets listed as buyable for MMs could be bought for 0 points.Originally Posted by Xieveral
I wish they'd flip the VIP switch.
All my husband ever played was masterminds but his account expired and since billing is gone, he can't renew to play those masterminds either.
So much unresolved RP...
Can a non-VIP account access masterminds in beta?
Now I do recall something about a minimum requirement as a Premium player to unlock MMs, but alas I don't recall what the requirement was. The account I used did have access to MMs long ago from before Freedom was launched, but I doubt that would make a difference.
Hope that helps!