NCSoft acquires "City of" Franchise!
By
2Negative,
Posted on: 2007-11-06 13:34 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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The game's being moved over to a better place with more money and with the entire development team still in tact, under management that promises not to meddle. If that's what makes games fail, then just what in the name of Cake makes them succeed?
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All my hopes and dreams rest with this statement. I've been playing since April of '04. I can give them a chance. 
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
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Something that keeps getting brought up that I think should be pointed out...
For all the "I bought both, I should get compensated" folks:
Yes, everybody will get access to both sides. You (and I, since I bought both games seperately as well, twice, Collectors Editions even) got to play both early. We got 12 slots early. We got guarantees SG base stuff early.
Not good enough? Still want an extra month?
*We already got it.*
Remember when you added the game to your account? Remember that free month?
They're not giving *everyone* a free month with this. Just access.
So we've already been compensated. In fact, we're ahead of the game. People who started with GVE only got ONE month free. We've gotten two - one for COH and one for COV.
You're welcome.
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Ive got no heartburn over it. 3 accounts.
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
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The game's being moved over to a better place with more money and with the entire development team still in tact, under management that promises not to meddle. If that's what makes games fail, then just what in the name of Cake makes them succeed?
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Being developed by Blizzard. *rimshot*
Seriously, though, I think the game's gonna be fine. Now devs, how 'bout that Galaxy of Heroes that everyone's talking about all of a sudden?
BackAlleyBrawler: I can't facepalm this post hard enough.
ShoNuff: If sophisticated = bro-mantically emo-tastic, then I'm going to keep to my Shonen loving simplicity dammit.
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Perhaps Jack just meant that he was one of the first hires?
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Well, the quote from the Statesman that keeps ringing in my head is "Positron founded Cryptic with me." though I honestly have no real evidence other than rotten memory to back this up.
And I WAS pretty close to Rick Dakan's name, wasn't I?
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Positron was around a long time before CoH launched. There's a reason he was given Lead Dev status once Statesman moved to a different role within Cryptic.
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If hired, you will be working on a wide variety of characters, creatures, vehicles and props. Effective communication with engineers and designers is critical.
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I wouldn't get your hopes up too high. While it's possible vehicles will come to City, it's unlikely.
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There are already vehicles in CoX. They run me down everytime I stand in the street. Just because they have a vehicle designer, it doesn't mean they're giving vehicles to the players.
As for the Big News...
I've had a rocky relationship with CoX and the developers. I'm certainly willing to shout 'DOOOOOM' when things look doomish, and I've shown that I'm willing to cancel my subscription if I really think the management of the game is being bungled. I don't see much to be concerned about, here. NCSoft loves the game enough to pour money into it; the devs love the game enough to stick with it. At *worst*, I predict some chaos as people move and new servers are tested and things change behind the scenes. But the direction, the vision, the commitment to making this a great game, all feel firmer now.
Kudos to all involved. This looks like promising news.
(Although things can always go wrong, so we'd appreciate it if you don't get cocky and slouch off on your responsibilities. )
...
New Webcomic -- Genocide Man
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
So, let me get this straight from a badge earners standpoint.. does this debt wipe apply to the debt recovery badges?
So say, I have none of the debt badges on a toon. I rack up debt to the 550k cap, then when this wipe is put in place, I login and get the Unwavering (100k recovered) and Unyeilding (400k recovered) badges right away?
Founder and Leader of Hot Sexy Chicks, Violent Femmes and The Order Super Groups.
Proud Leader of Fusion Force
"A witty saying proves nothing"
-Voltaire
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We've been told Power Customization simply because it would mean a huge amount of work. They will have more employees soon. It's not unreasonable to think it might be on the table again.
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It is much more involved than just that. The huge amount of time is one factor but if that had been all they would have moved forward on doing power customization. The cold hard reality is that the games core engine doesn't support it. And to make it support it requires a major rewrite of portions of the system.
Now that said there is nothing preventing NCSoft Norcal from hiring a team specifically to redesign and rewrite the games core engine. But even if they did that I wouldn't expect to see results from it before mid 2009 if that soon.
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If they are going to re-write the entire core engine (or at least large portions of it) I would expect to see that in Co*2, when it eventually comes out (I think that it's pretty much a given that it eventually will). That scale of an overhaul seems unlikely for an existing game. A completely new game engine would seem, to me, to be something you'd slate for a new game.
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So, let me get this straight from a badge earners standpoint.. does this debt wipe apply to the debt recovery badges?
So say, I have none of the debt badges on a toon. I rack up debt to the 550k cap, then when this wipe is put in place, I login and get the Unwavering (100k recovered) and Unyeilding (400k recovered) badges right away?
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It would be good to hear from the devs on this. My gut reaction is that it would not impact the badges because they are for paying off the debt and are probably coded in the reward process. If they do impact the badges, the debt cap prevents it from scoring too much on them.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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...
we've still got Posi, Bab's, Castle, WW, GW, et at
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Now I feel responsible for causing people to call Back Alley Brawler "Babs"
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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we've still got Posi, Bab's, Castle, WW, GW, et at
...
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Now I feel responsible for causing people to call Back Alley Brawler "Babs"
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Don't since you are not
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The game's being moved over to a better place with more money and with the entire development team still in tact, under management that promises not to meddle. If that's what makes games fail, then just what in the name of Cake makes them succeed?
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All my hopes and dreams rest with this statement. I've been playing since April of '04. I can give them a chance.
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QFT.
Synergy Lvl 50 Def FF/Electric/Psy - Protector
Cimarron - Protector Mascot
My DA Page
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So, let me get this straight from a badge earners standpoint.. does this debt wipe apply to the debt recovery badges?
So say, I have none of the debt badges on a toon. I rack up debt to the 550k cap, then when this wipe is put in place, I login and get the Unwavering (100k recovered) and Unyeilding (400k recovered) badges right away?
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The debt wipe will not count toward debt badges. Why would it?
On the one hand, this is worrisome. I'm not keen on NCSoft having total control, as I think in general their priorities don't match with the priorities we've seen in the game in the past.
However, mostly I feel positive. CoX is finally getting some investment! We'll see what we've always wanted but what has so far been out of the question due to a lack of resources and development time.
I'd like to say a big thanks to Cryptic for creating the game and maintaining it in such a generally excellent fashion.
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I'm not keen on NCSoft having total control, as I think in general their priorities don't match with the priorities we've seen in the game in the past.
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I'm curious. Where have you seen a conflict between NC Soft and Cryptic in the past?
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Maybe that means we'll get more stuff for free with each Issue. Though I just fear it means either a CoH 2 or another paid expansion, meaning we still won't get much more per Issue. And if the expansion adds as much as CoV did, then that, my friends, is a bum deal.
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Ok Samuel_Tow, rather than state my utter, complete and incredulous disagreement with that statement (oops... too late), I will instead ask you to explain how you come to it. I can't recall another paid expansion to any MMORPG ever offering even a portion of the new content that came with CoV.
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I'm not keen on NCSoft having total control, as I think in general their priorities don't match with the priorities we've seen in the game in the past.
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I'm curious. Where have you seen a conflict between NC Soft and Cryptic in the past?
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They don't have their discussions in public, so naturally I haven't. However, I have noticed how much the community reps have pushed PvP, and I think NCSoft generally - due to its experience mostly being in East Asian grindfests - favours PvP, grind and phat lewt.
I'm not saying that I think we'll soon be City of Lineage but I do worry about there being a paradigm shift in where development is centered. I'm reserving judgement really though.
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Now devs, how 'bout that Galaxy of Heroes that everyone's talking about all of a sudden?
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To be honest, when I made that suggestion 400 or so posts ago, it was a bit in jest. However, the idea does have merit, and it would fit thematically with CoX. Anyone for zero-G PvP? Or arena matches in a variable G map? Imagine some of the maps that could be created. Alien vistas, orbital stations, and even zero-G mission maps. Cool possibilities...
Grizz
PS- Happy Birthday Bitt_Player
"When Chuck Norris can't go on, Petra Majdič perseveres!"
Oooh. I just thought of something.
Is the prohibition on the dissemination of powers data (meaning hard numbers) something that's internal to the studio folks who've come to NCNC, or is there any chance that got left behind?
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Were looking beyond the normal slate of free Issues for City of Heroes. We want to use City of Heroes as a focal point and really build on this franchise. We absolutely value the City of Heroes IP with its unique focus on the superhero genre, were really thrilled at the opportunities that full ownership brings to the table, and we cant wait for the City of community to see all that we have in store for them.
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read:
BEND OVER FOR ADVERTISING AND PAID EXPANSIONS!
=P
If they keep up the momentum of the last few issues and don't stick me with ads this is good news.
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I would LOVE to see another box expansion, as long as it is development IN ADDITION to issues and not INSTEAD OF issues. I think box expansions get the game back into the public eye with their shelf space. (And then that can be milked again with an "all in one" pack like GvE)
Paid ads I'm also okay with, but if I'm not the majority, then they better avoid them. I figure SOME paid ads add to verisimilitude. In our Champions campaign, we had a brick named Blockbuster; and he ended up with a sponsorship deal from, Blockbuster. He was saving the world while wearing a "Be Kind, Rewind" t-shirt. Anyhow, I like the flavor of Paragon City ads, like Paragon Pizza Pie and the Hero-Accident ambulance chaser, but mixing in some percentage of real ads would be fine by me, as long as we're talking terrain/billboards/etc and nothing that's in my face. (The day they implement a minimum 10 second load screen with a pepsi ad, I'm unsubbing 
)
Huh, I guess I was never clear on where the ownership was to start with...I doubt it will really affect me, I'll react the same as always - if the game starts to suck, quit.
Hopefully this means we'll get some sweet new toys like an overhauled graphics engine (to appeal to the current crop of new hardware users) or something. Maybe even 2 separate engines so the folks on old machines aren't left out - didn't DAoC run 2 separate gfx engines for a while?
Guides: Dark Armor and IOs | SS/DA | Crabbing | Fortunata
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Maybe that means we'll get more stuff for free with each Issue. Though I just fear it means either a CoH 2 or another paid expansion, meaning we still won't get much more per Issue. And if the expansion adds as much as CoV did, then that, my friends, is a bum deal.
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Ok Samuel_Tow, rather than state my utter, complete and incredulous disagreement with that statement (oops... too late), I will instead ask you to explain how you come to it. I can't recall another paid expansion to any MMORPG ever offering even a portion of the new content that came with CoV.
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I'm not saying CoV did less than other MMOs have with their expansions and obvious I felt it was good enough to buy it. But it was billed as a standalone game which shipped with not a third of the content the original CoH had at Launch, to say nothing of had when CoV actually came out. That's why you see villain players continually complaining that they don't have as much as heroes do - because it's true. And a "less is more" philosophy doesn't quite cut it when the game quite honestly has barely enough for one go, where the idea was to have so much you could never do it all with a single character.
And that was supposed to be treated as a standalone game. Pshaw! That's why it's a bum deal - because it was an exercise in penny-pinching and design shortcuts. I'd rather see them focus on Issues that add more things or things that have been deemed harder than work on paid expansions. Frankly, for the money they cost, paid expansions aren't all that much bang for the buck.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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pvp content
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I know this hasn't been posted in this thread but here is a link to the newly updated hiring page for NCsoft. For the COH/COV project check out the Mountain View location.
There are 19 positions that were just announced.
For those interested in gainful gaming employment, check out the NCsoft North America Jobs Listing. Positions for "Mountain View" would be in our newly formed NCsoft NorCal Studio.
Ex
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Doh! I see one. How about a DFW or KC office?
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This pretty much seems to clear the way for CoH on XBox 360.
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Fixed that for you. The Live Marketplace on the 360 offers the opportunity for people to (in theory) pay for their MMO subscriptions with Microsoft Points ... which means, they could buy prepaid cards at any video game or computer outlet ... no credit card required. Make it a 1200-point fee, that's $16 - enough that even after MicroSoft's inevitable cut, there's still probably a nearly-full, standard MMO fee left for NCSoft.
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If they play with a 360, how could they go to PI and type "PL MEH"?
Lots of 50's yada yada. still finding fun things to do.
Cthulhu loves you, better start running
I�! I�! Gg�gorsch�a�bha egurtsa�ar�ug d� Dalhor! Cthluhu fthagn! Cthluhu fthagn!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages
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They cut Rick Dakan loose (didn't he pre-date Jack?) and they also completely changed the AT system from design to go-live, so in the past they've shown that they are willing to make big directional changes. Be interesting to see where they go in the future and how successful they are.
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True, they have, but from what I've understood, it's always been for the good of their creations. Abandoning City of Heroes to other people (which is what this is) still strikes me as a something more than a big decision. I know it may well be better for the game AND better for Cryptic's other projects at the same time, but it still strikes me as going a little too far in looking for success.
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Yes and no; it's true that Cryptic is losing a voice, but NCSoft has been influencing things for as long as the game's been around, and the people who control the real, day to day changes in the game aren't going anywhere; we've still got Posi, Bab's, Castle, WW, GW, et al, and I don't think they're going to suddenly change their vision of the game just because their paychecks have a different signature.