Plugging Curse-Gaming.com for Showing Off Your Art
By
8baller,
Posted on: 2007-03-23 18:00 in Multi-Media Fan Creations
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Basically we'd love a site that not only competes with DA but out does them. Right now, that is NOT Curse. If they want us to endorse, support, be involved in a new site for less than similar purposes, they have to make it worth our while.
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Agreed. I'd like a FanArt section by NCSoft that replicates the good things that have drawn many of us to deviantArt in the first place.
If Lighthouse had started a thread along the lines of - "Hey, what would you like to see if we started a City of Heroes FanArt dedicated section/site?" then I believe most of us would have been more receptive and forthcoming with ideas and answers.
One of the reasons deviantArt does it for me is that you can literally stumble across talented artists who are willing to bring our characters to life in their chosen medium. And many of these are artists who don't cater to gaming industry fans. And they have little or no idea what City of Heroes and City of Villains is. You only have to look at the number of deviantArt artists who have been 'discovered' and showcased over the past months.
I will try to register and post a piece now.
I'll see how good it can be.
....
Alll righty then....
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
This really is the screen I got after I finished to fill in the registration form...
The bottom line is, Cryptic needs to have an *official*, Cryptic-supported fan-gallery that promotes the game. Having artists post art on non-official sites makes it difficult for new players to find inspirational imagery... and fan-art goes a long way towards promoting games.
COH is based entirely off the comics genre, which requires art in every single panel of every single comic - so it's never made sense to me why Cryptic doesn't capitalize on art for additional promotion by supporting fan-artists directly.
Blizzard has hundreds of pieces that draw people to the website daily. They've learned to use fan-artists to their advantage and didn't outsource them anywhere (whether it's Curse, DA, or anywhere else non-official).
I don't understand why it seems like people are getting uptight because a lot of us chose to stay with DA? Just out of curiosity, I tried to register on that site too, and I also got that wonderful error message. That doesn't exactly make me want to put stuff up there. Is DA perfect? No, but all my stuff is already there, and if you hit City of Artists you'll find a huge list of artists who use DA and play CoX.
I would much rather see a fan-art site based here on the official site, than anywhere else. But since that's not available, DA is the next best thing for me.
Yeah. DA isn't the 'holy grail' but it is what most of us have been using. We never got what we wanted from NCSOft (an 'offical fanart gallery as has been mentioned several times), so we organized for ourselves and went to DA. There are lots of other similar places to go, that could be better even, but right no DA is what was chosen and what has risen to the top.
I just made a visit to Curse Gaming's site. I clicked on Fan art, and there's only ONE page of pictures? And looks like they were all WoW related. I clicked on City of Heroes, and no 'fan art gallery' link. Where exactly are we supposed to put/view/find all these pieces? DA is much easier to work with. Why, there's even a search box that appears to work on DA. I just typed in 'City of Heroes' on Curse, and how many results? NONE. Repeat: NONE.
Nothing against Curse, or Lighthouse, and really not trying to be a 'spoiled rich kid' here, it's just a matter of too little, too late, honestly.
Hey, I'm not trying to use this time to take a stab at Lighthouse. On the contrary, I'm trying to be open here. I've been in Lighthouse's shoes on more than one occasion.
Did I mention I tried to register twice and got the wonderful message spino got (an error).
And when I say NCsoft should have a fan art section on their site that sure the heck isn't a stab at lighthouse. That's somebody elses call. Mostly likely some group of extremely overpaid guys in overpriced suits.
Fact is, Curse-gamings site is busted.
8
"Scumball in the side pocket." - 8 Baller
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I don't see why asking for NC Soft to have a real fanart section on their website is asking them to "bend over backwards" for us.
This game is about the community, and www.cityofheroes.com does not take one effort to show off their community, it just links to old news. This is what the art forum is concerned about, and giving us some off-shoot website that newcomers will have to do some serious digging to find is in no way, shape, or form what City of Heroes needs.
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I have to say something here, having *tried* to stay out of this.
This isn't about the fanart community. This is about the *ENTIRE* community. News? Go to another site first. Fanart? Who the *heck* is Curse-Gaming? I never heard of them before the I9 feature announcement. I'd be less irritated if it were a site the community, if not the gaming world in gneral, had heard of before.
My post in Suggestions and Ideas saying "Give some love to the OFFICIAL site!" - have the rednames looked? I don't know. But I have *pages* of people saying "Yeah... why isn't that being done?"
Instead, we have "News exclusive on Gamespot, on Warcry, on this than and the other!" "Artists, go over there!" "Here's a list of links to everyone else!"
I honestly expect, within two months, to have an announcement, "Guess what! Our forums are now hosted by Forums-R-Us! Go there!"
I also expect pressure to be put on that we in the community DON'T know about to start "toning down" the European site. Just so we don't keep using them as examples to show what the US site *could* be like. Could, hell, SHOULD be like. I'd compare the Korean site, but not being able to read Korean, I can't say how good or bad the content there is.
The EU site looks like one done by a company that actually wants involvement with their community.
Our site looks like one thrown together, that's getting pieces thrown elsewhere because it's in a state of being dismantled.
NCSoft - not Lighthouse in particular, as mentioned, he's the messenger - should be ashamed of themselves.
Yeah its kinda nifty how the folks browbeating others the most for us to use this site don't even have any art uploaded there
*Wanders off to upload some art to Deviant Art , then Wanders off to upload some Art to the
MMO Art Forums *
Ohhhhh look almost all the forum artists are already located on DA , and Gasp MMO Forums is run by an artist that posts here regularly . And im not even going to mention the Forum Art and Art lovers Super Group A better showing of Forum community I couldn't dream of !! 
hmmmm or we could get browbeaten by someone that as soon as we didn't embrace an idea she liked , gasp continued to browbeat us .
sooo yeah if there is an official art forum for City of Heroes , then Yay expect to see us there helping to support it ! but until then we have created our own ways to showcase our art and own community to help , harrass , joke with , share , compete with , bask in awe , show off for 
And we are pretty happy with it
Sorry if my opinion isn't well liked but, oh well. First impressions matter. If NC was using this as a test to gauge this community's actual interest in doing something, well, they got their answer. Sorry if that's not a popular idea, really. Sometimes what we want isn't given to us wrapped in a pretty bow, sometimes there's just a step. I'm really sorry that asking for anyone to see this as an opputunity that might lead to more was such a bad thing of me.
And no, I have nothing at DA. Besides, other than about three things I've got sitting on my desk, I'd have to dig out my paints and actually -do- something. Which, I don't really have space right now that is sufficiently baby-proofed.
Finally, I'm sorry. Really. I saw this whole thing as a step that could be built on. Maybe three or so other people also posted something positive but that's it. The rest was "Thatnks, but no thanks. Not good enough for us." Paraphrased but that's the 'feel' of it. And with first impressions being important and all, well... I now wonder if NC will bother doing anything at all for this community ever again.
I can't say how sorry I am that so few people are seeing this. I don't think I was this upset when Cuppa left, or Alexa or Aura... This... the reactions expressed here has depressed me about this community. I can't imagine what NC will think of this community after this thread. But I'm pretty sure whatever happens, I'll be saddened even more.
Lady_A?
You saw this as a step that can be built on, you say. You can see my POV, taken overall with everything else (Myspace, news going to *other sites* first, the lack of attention given to this site) -
I see it as another step *away* from doing anything with this site, and *away* from keeping a coherent community. Again... why did they use a site I, and I'm sure many others, had never heard of before the Hami news?
If the replies here saddened you, think of what all these steps have done to me. I know you know well enough how annoyed and upset I am at NCSoft's handling of this site in general. I've said it enough here, and on the other site.
Honestly, showing "interest" there, IMHO, would do more to kill this site than the reaction that's been given.
*rolls eyes* your right first impressions count for alot , both you and NC have given the art community great first impressions so you'll excuse some of us if we don't embrace you .
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Lady_A?
You saw this as a step that can be built on, you say. You can see my POV, taken overall with everything else (Myspace, news going to *other sites* first, the lack of attention given to this site) -
I see it as another step *away* from doing anything with this site, and *away* from keeping a coherent community. Again... why did they use a site I, and I'm sure many others, had never heard of before the Hami news?
If the replies here saddened you, think of what all these steps have done to me. I know you know well enough how annoyed and upset I am at NCSoft's handling of this site in general. I've said it enough here, and on the other site.
Honestly, showing "interest" there, IMHO, would do more to kill this site than the reaction that's been given.
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Bill hits it right on the head, Lady_A.
Like you, I've been here since the beta; I can remember back when there was a weekly screenshot, where there were calls for fanart and fanfics for the comic right here; where news of the game at its happenings were related here first, and then hit the gaming sites.
Now?
Arctic Sun's Paragon Times is long dead. There hasn't been a new screenshot in years (literally). Other than Ex_Libris' and Arctic_Sun's very recent threads, there's been no calls for any kind of fan interaction in the last two years, save for when CuppaJo left.
So I have to say that this offering of Curse-Gaming is just another attempt to shoulder off what there is for community offerings to other places.
And the last time I was in an MMO that was doing this sort of thing was Earth and Beyond.
Yes, I know that CoH/V is doing much better finacially than EnB; but that's just from our end.
How do we know that NCSoft is satisfied with the game's performance, and isn't already trying to find ways to minimize costs as much as possible?
This annoucement, to me, just looks like another attempt to do just that.
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Lady_A?
You saw this as a step that can be built on, you say. You can see my POV, taken overall with everything else (Myspace, news going to *other sites* first, the lack of attention given to this site) -
I see it as another step *away* from doing anything with this site, and *away* from keeping a coherent community. Again... why did they use a site I, and I'm sure many others, had never heard of before the Hami news?
If the replies here saddened you, think of what all these steps have done to me. I know you know well enough how annoyed and upset I am at NCSoft's handling of this site in general. I've said it enough here, and on the other site.
Honestly, showing "interest" there, IMHO, would do more to kill this site than the reaction that's been given.
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I don't know anymore... I just... I don't know and I'm not really sure why I cared. I've told you elsewhere, we are slowly losing what made us a small niche. That's probably what gets me the most.
Whatever. the first impression is already done and over with. Like most things, I'm just beating my head against the wrong wall... I should be used to it by now but it still surprises me sometimes.
Good luck ya'll.
*huggles*
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Lady_A?
You saw this as a step that can be built on, you say. You can see my POV, taken overall with everything else (Myspace, news going to *other sites* first, the lack of attention given to this site) -
I see it as another step *away* from doing anything with this site, and *away* from keeping a coherent community. Again... why did they use a site I, and I'm sure many others, had never heard of before the Hami news?
If the replies here saddened you, think of what all these steps have done to me. I know you know well enough how annoyed and upset I am at NCSoft's handling of this site in general. I've said it enough here, and on the other site.
Honestly, showing "interest" there, IMHO, would do more to kill this site than the reaction that's been given.
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I don't know anymore... I just... I don't know and I'm not really sure why I cared. I've told you elsewhere, we are slowly losing what made us a small niche. That's probably what gets me the most.
Whatever. the first impression is already done and over with. Like most things, I'm just beating my head against the wrong wall... I should be used to it by now but it still surprises me sometimes.
Good luck ya'll.
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Well, if they'd done this when they started, so our expectations were *set* that X was the "official art" site, Y was the "official news" site, it would have far less of a "Yeah, well, here, go over there and quit bugging me" feel to it.
.. .but again, we see the Euro site, then we see ours...
...
The Paragon Times was Gilgamesh's baby...
"A good Defender is the battle hardened Corpsman who will kill a Nazi with a tongue depressor while putting a splint on your leg, then hand you a fresh clip of ammo." ~Jock_Thompson
Repeat Offenders, TNT Profile, My little hero
I'm with everyone else in seeing this not as a step in the right direction, but a step in the completely wrong direction. I just don't see how more outsourcing will result in improving the homepage.
And if you'll notice, most people here want the homepage improved to improve the community, I don't see how that makes us selfish or bad people.
I've uploaded two images, and they are just here, like micro-thumbnails next to a bunch of WOW images.
Honestly, I don't like it and I wonder if anyone will be able to find them when WOW players will upload more.
It would be nice to have some sortation option and to preview only thumbnails from one game.
I tried it, but I believe that's all, some other site has a much better environment.
Kinda didn't bode well that you had so much trouble registering and uplaoding your artwork yesterday
Goodbye, I guess.
@Lord_Nightblade in Champions/Star Trek Online
nightblade7295@gmail.com if you want to stay in touch
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I don't know anymore... I just... I don't know and I'm not really sure why I cared. I've told you elsewhere, we are slowly losing what made us a small niche. That's probably what gets me the most.
Whatever. the first impression is already done and over with. Like most things, I'm just beating my head against the wrong wall... I should be used to it by now but it still surprises me sometimes.
Good luck ya'll.
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First off, if I could take a hazard to guess, I'd say you cared because you care about this community, which is why you were for LH's idea in the first place.
But for many of us, we've watched our attempts to build this community, and to make the focal point of that community (which is the official website), get diminished more and more, even as new information about the game is given to other sites well before we're given anything here. I don't count links as information, either; to me, that's like trying to teach someone to drive over the phone.
This is an MMO based off of comic books; artwork and writing are two of the most important elements of comic books, and yet to find examples of such that are created by the community, NCSoft wants us to go elsewhere?
Talk about unwelcoming.
I'll agree that NCSoft and Cryptic need to do something different. Or more. Or better. But, after reading this thread, I don't see why they would bother. Nothing they do will ever be good enough to make up for whatever slights or ills the majority of this community feels has been done them. I'm picturing kids throwing temper tantrums for not getting their way. Kicking, screaming, crying and checking to see if anyone is watching.
your = Belonging to you.
you're = Contraction meaning "You are."
Ur = The name of an ancient Mesopotamian city.
ur = This is not a word.
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DA's a great site. But this is, at least, a step in a good direction, yes?
Maybe they'll do something with DA in the future, but they're doing -something-.
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You have something brown on your nose.
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You're an [censored].