Discussion: NCsoft Acquires City of Heroes!
By
AaronH,
Posted on: 2007-11-06 13:55 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
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NC Soft, want to really, really impress your customer base during the transition?
All people who had CoV before it was given away get a Patronage Reward!
Patronage Reward: Thanks for being a part of City of Heroes and City of Villains! Enjoy a big red ball and a pony! Players get to choose from one of two pet powers!
Big Red Ball - Bouncing red rubber ball follows wherever you go.
Pony - A pony follows you around, cuteness ensues.
And for all customers, to celebrate our new overlords we present: Carp Melee! Carp models have been added for the following weapons:
War Mace
Dual Blades
Axe
Broadsword
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Your making a funny, I get that. On the other hand, even something as silly as this would have been a good move. It would have shown that NCSoft ALSO cares about its most enthusiastic CoX players. The ones who bought multiple games on multiple accounts. The ones who get next to nothing out of the, lets call them "incentives" given so far.
The most valuable thing a developer or publisher can give to an MMO player isnt in game goodies. Its evidence of attention. Ill take a bouncing red ball and a pony if it means I know that somewhere, the group I belong to is noted and that groups concerns are reviewed with everyone elses.
Would I have bought CoV if it had a sticker saying it would be free some definite time down the line? No, because thats a sign of a game in decline. This is not an argument based on value. Its an argument based on the perceived change in direction for the game.
Veteran rewards where a nice, positive example of the kind of attention Im talking about. Perhaps we'll see the next Vet reward be something more dramatic than a costume piece (though I love the costume pieces, dont get me wrong), and I can then sit back and revel in how wrong I was to worry.
Till then, I worry.
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Coincidence that this was announced at the same time the released Q3 results are showing that monthly access numbers are at their lowest point in 2 years? 
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I have another question though....
With NCSoft hooking up with Sony to bring their some of thier PC titles to console, will CoH/V be making an appearance on the PS3 to be more of a competitor for Microsoft/Cryptics PC/360 release of MUO?? I'd definately like to see this happen.
Edit: OMG I HAVE TO CHANGE MY SIGNATURE NOW!!! 
lol
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Yea...I'm quotin mahself... 
I want CoX on PS3!!!
....and I still need to change my sig....hehe
Edit: Done! 
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Coincidence that this was announced at the same time the released Q3 results are showing that monthly access numbers are at their lowest point in 2 years?
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Link please. I know my monthly access numbers were at an all time low the last two months.
Be well, people of CoH.
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So does this mean that Cryptic will no longer be supporting the game?
Oh boy. no wonder the Cryptic crew would never commit to anything. They were planning on bailin'
/em worried
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I know I'm late, but the vast majority of the current coh/v crew jumped to NCSoft to continue working on coh/v. We've apparently only lost Statesman.
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I call that a bonus Bill 
Pinnacle
Langar Thurs-Katana/SR 50; Hejtmane-DM/DA 50
Rogue Spear-Spines/DA 50; Hypnosis-Ill/Rad 50
Sir Thomas Theroux-DM/SR 50; Melted Copper-Fire/Shield 50
Byzantine Warrior-DB/ELA 50;Blade Tempo-50 DB/EA
Does this mean that since cryptic has an office in Texas and they will no longer be part of the project that the tax will no longer be applied to Texas Residents 
Pinnacle
Lady Power-Elec/Elec Blaster
Stone Earth-Tanker
Death Tomato-Tanker
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And for all customers, to celebrate our new overlords we present: Carp Melee! Carp models have been added for the following weapons:
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Hey! I already suggested Fish Blast, Fish Melee, Fish Mastery, and Piscine Resonance for powersets! 
Them's my ideas!
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Does this mean that since cryptic has an office in Texas and they will no longer be part of the project that the tax will no longer be applied to Texas Residents
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Cryptic has no office in Texas. NCSoft does.
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Does this mean that since cryptic has an office in Texas and they will no longer be part of the project that the tax will no longer be applied to Texas Residents
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Similarly, does this also mean that maintenance windows will now be 8-10 PST rather than 8-10 CST? I would dare say that'll impact the player base a little more.
If so, standard maintenance windows become:
EST 11am-1pm
CST 10am-12noon
MST 9-11am
PST 8-10am
We don' need no stinkin' signatures!
I'm so damn late to the thread but all I have to say is WOOPIE! No divided loyalties, let the development roll on!
So...will we be seeing a Death of Statesman storyarc?
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Business change hands in two situations:
First, cos they are new and extremely, unexpectedly successful and a big company snaps them up.
Second, because the end of the business' lifetime is on the horizin and the original owners want to cut and run so they can pursue better things. The new owner then maintains the products until they naturally wind down.
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I'm sorry to contradict you, but what you say is simply not accurate. Healthy business units change hands all the time.
Even if the unit is making plenty of money, a commercial entity may feel that it will find greater utility in the goods being offered for the unit that it current gets from said unit. This may be for a variety of reasons: the unit's function may be outside of the current focus of the larger entity; a vendor of a critical supply may have ceased operation; internal restructuring of the larger entity may make supporting the unit untenable... The list goes on and on.
On the flipside, the acquiring entity feels that greater utility can be had from the business unit being acquired than from the goods it offers in exchange. Perhaps the unit's core function would mesh well with the larger entity's focus and overall business plan; maybe the unit creates something that the entity already uses internally (vertical integration). Again, the list goes on and on.
This sort of commercial activity indicates to me that the MMO business is maturing. It still has a long way to go. Heck, MMO companies are still just throwing everything they can think of at the wall to see what sticks. But we've come a long way from MUDs and chatrooms.
This post brought to you by the Thunderfire Campaign to Out-Weird the Internet.
Score so far: Thunderfire-0, Internet-157893678
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Coincidence that this was announced at the same time the released Q3 results are showing that monthly access numbers are at their lowest point in 2 years?
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Link please. I know my monthly access numbers were at an all time low the last two months.
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same place as always Bill
www.NCSOFT.com.
the last time the monthly access was this low was March 2005 when we were still rebounding from the WOW launch.
Tthis year has been funny, we dropped about 20K with the launch of Burning Crusade, and then have fluctuated up and down by a further ~10K.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
As long as the team continues to crankl out quality issues like it has since I9, I could care less who owns the franchise. Just have to wait and see what happens. (heck even I8 was pretty danged good, it has just been a steady rise in quality lately, I just hope they keep going that way)
I'm a bit stunned...
happy for ncsoft, sad for cryptic.
so........
cryptic- MUO...
ncsoft- CoH/CoV...
now rivals????
I'm going to my underground bunker/bomb shelter (base) till the smoke clears...<haha>.
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Receiving the TR updates filled with language like "let's go soldiers! on your feet marines! attennnnnnSHUN!" just made me cringe and drift off. I didn't wanna be a soldier
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Heh, this I can agree with. I already did 6 years in the US Navy, and while I'm proud to have served... I don't wanna go through that again.
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Ditto. Army.
Not feeling so bad now about never getting around to cashing in that beta invite to TR.
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But it was FUN!!! And I'm not a 'soldier' type either....
Cat, I can't find the reports. Can you direct link or direct me?
Be well, people of CoH.
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Cat, I can't find the reports. Can you direct link or direct me?
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You looking for this?
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That article was full of stupid.
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I'm with BillZ on this one, though I wouldn't call it an article; it's an opinion piece, a blog. No publisher of anything that could remotely be described as "articles" would have published that as anything but "From the Mailbag."
Don't get me wrong; the author and others that share his PoV are entitled to their opinion, and they are entitled to state it. The lowering of the barriers to publication and the democratization of public information is hands down the best thing the Internet has done for us as a civilization.
Conversely, others have the same right to reply with a resounding "You're so full of it, your eyes are brown!" I could wish that neither side would resort to Shut Up posts, but given how easily Internet discussions descend into idiots jousting with words they barely understand*, I expect we're a long way from ubiquitous Socratic discourse.
*DISLAIMER: I don't think anyone in this thread has descended to this level. The DOOMCON and overall barbarity of this discussion are remarkably low.
This post brought to you by the Thunderfire Campaign to Out-Weird the Internet.
Score so far: Thunderfire-0, Internet-157893678
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Cat, I can't find the reports. Can you direct link or direct me?
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They are on this page, but I don't think they've uploaded them yet. They just released today.
The City of Heroes Community is a special one and I will always look fondly on my times arguing, discussing and playing with you all. Thanks and thanks to the developers for a special experience.
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Does this mean that there will be a bigger development team working on COX or a smaller one? The presants are cool and all but are we losing anything in this deal?
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Everything Ex and LH have said lead me to believe that they're planning to expand the team. It looks like NCSoft is renewing it's commitment to this game, and planning to nurture it's further growth.
Edit: Plus, just look at NCsoft's job page, and how many programming openings they have at the Mountain View location. (CoX's new home) Definately a good sign, as far as I'm concerned.
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That is them either expanding the team or filling the positions of the people who do not want to move to NorCal?!?! Unless their current studio is already around that area...
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Ex said (somewhere) that the new studio's only a few miles from the old one. There's definately evidence, both in the job postings and the press releases, that NCSoft wants to expand the dev team for the game.
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Earlier in the thread either Ex or Lighthouse stated that the Mountain View job listings are all for the newly established NorCal CoH/V studio. Also earlier in the thread it was clearly stated that only one person out of the entire Cryptic team assigned to CoH/V hadn't [edited for typo] accepted the NCSoft offer and will be moving to the new studio with the game.
This means that the positions listed on the NCSoft job listings page are additions to the team that's been working on CoH/V at Cryptic. More developers, more programmers, more animation specialists ... That sounds like a committment, at least for now, to the future of the franchise.
And, as an aside to those who are feeling cheated: as some have pointed out, there have been allusions to further "rewards" coming in the near future. I purchased both games at a cost of about $50 or so (I honestly don't remember exactly how much I paid) and then specifically drove 30 miles to the only WalMart anywhere in driving distance to me that had the GvE edition just so I could get a newer boxed version (up through I7, I believe). I got trial time, and either 2 or 3 free months from the deal... <shrug> that's good enough for me... and I really do think that being upset about money you spent in the past is kind of ... silly. I'm betting if many of you looked at some of the things you actually spent money on every month, you'd find places where you might as well have flushed it down the toilet based on what it is you got for it... at least with this game, you had the enjoyment of playing it all *right now*.
Storm
Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm ...
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*DISLAIMER: I don't think anyone in this thread has descended to this level. The DOOMCON and overall barbarity of this discussion are remarkably low.
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lol
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Earlier in the thread either Ex or Lighthouse stated that the Mountain View job listings are all for the newly established NorCal CoH/V studio. Also earlier in the thread it was clearly stated that only one person out of the entire Cryptic team assigned to CoH/V had accepted the NCSoft offer and will be moving to the new studio with the game.
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Read it again. Only one person hasn't accepted. The popular speculation is that that person is Jack Emmert, but we haven't seen anything explicitly stating this AFAIK. It's possible that Jack wasn't offered a job for one reason or another and someone else said no.
This post brought to you by the Thunderfire Campaign to Out-Weird the Internet.
Score so far: Thunderfire-0, Internet-157893678
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That article was full of stupid.
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I'm with BillZ on this one, though I wouldn't call it an article; it's an opinion piece, a blog. No publisher of anything that could remotely be described as "articles" would have published that as anything but "From the Mailbag."
Don't get me wrong; the author and others that share his PoV are entitled to their opinion, and they are entitled to state it. The lowering of the barriers to publication and the democratization of public information is hands down the best thing the Internet has done for us as a civilization.
Conversely, others have the same right to reply with a resounding "You're so full of it, your eyes are brown!" I could wish that neither side would resort to Shut Up posts, but given how easily Internet discussions descend into idiots jousting with words they barely understand*, I expect we're a long way from ubiquitous Socratic discourse.
*DISLAIMER: I don't think anyone in this thread has descended to this level. The DOOMCON and overall barbarity of this discussion are remarkably low.
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Its definitely a blog. Says so right there in the URL. Not sure where that controversy comes from.
And I, for one, am not telling BIllZ or anyone else to shut up. Just mouthing off with the rest of you on this topic. But I stand by what Ive said. Everytime Ive gotten a "gift for valued X customers" from NCSoft email, that game has been on the way out.
I dont want CoX to be on the way out. I dont want NCSoft to TREAT it like its on the way out. Id have been just fine with this announcement if it HADNT included gifts to valued customers.
But it did include gifts, and those gifts are aimed at just about everyone else who plays CoX. And then I go back and look at my Auto Assault gifts, and my Tabula Rasa gifts, and I shudder.
In the end, I really dont want gifts from NCSoft on a game I love. It just doesnt bode well.
Im happy to be proven wrong.
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CoH 45% ???
CoV 20% ???
CoX 25% ???
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You think the split is like that? Really, I'd have thought at least 80-90% would have both games. This is a minor thing which allows them to know that everyone has both games - which they already know if anyone buys them at retail now.
Personally, I love this news. Bodes very well for the future, I think.
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Somewhere in an earlier post, Ex (I believe) stated that this particular "freebie" will affect far fewer people than we might think. I'd go with 80% plus already owning both games. I am one of those who owns both but rarely plays redside.
Storm
Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm ...
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Seriously this would be like them giving away all the collectors edition and good vs evil stuff that people paid for.
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See vet rewards. They already did.
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Vet rewards were not stuff we paid for. For those prestige sprints that came with the pre-order codes the price of the pre-order is applied to your game so that doesnt count.
Bump and Grind Bane/SoA
Kenja No Ishi Earth/Empathy Controller
Legendary Sannin Ninja/Pain Mastermind
Entoxicated Ninja/PSN Mastermind
Ninja Ryukenden Kat/WP Scrapper
Hellish Thoughts Fire/PSI Dominator
Thank You Devs for Merits!!!!