NCsoft Brighton to Axe Dev Team
By
Aero_,
Posted on: 2008-09-10 13:53 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
To think I almost got a job there! 
This sucks big time does this mean there wont be any more Brighton meet ups? 
And I just finished making my Superman costume! 
May the shwartz be with you guys at Brighton! 
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City of Heroes isn't going to flop is it?
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No - it's one of the titles NCSoft want to concentrate on.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
x a trillion.
Ouch. Serious, serious ouch.
Massive sympathy to those who have lost their jobs. Those of you who Ive met have been absolutely stand up guys who've been tremendous fun to share a pint with. Bridgers reaction to England getting knocked out of the world cup in that scary, scary pub in south west London is a memory I still treasure, as is the somewhat drunken conversation with Rockjaw in a pub in Brighton that for reasons I cant quite remember ended up with a mass migration to the pub quiz machine where War Witch proved to be very good at the film questions.
Best of luck for the future. Don't let the drokkers grind you down.
Dead Calm's Defender Manifesto
Hey guys. This'll be quick mostly as my battery is dying, it's 2:20am, and I don't want to go blundering around in the dark waking the missus up looking for a charger. 
I am truly touched, and honoured, to read some of the stuff you guys have said here, both about - er - me, and also about us, being my team (who pretty much ran shows) and the rest of the Community guys.
Just to clarify a couple of things: despite my tendency to hang out here, I don't officially work on COH (Oops: didn't) and truly, never did, at least not solely. I worked on all NCsoft products. However, as (I can't believe I'm saying this) Golden Girl correctly said, COH was the entire reason I came to work here in the first place - so yeah, special place, all that.
Second: GhostRaptor's still here, and I'm sure when he wakes up he'll be in this thread. COH is fine right now. I have every confidence NCNC will keep on rockin' that game. Like Aero, maybe I'll have time to play now.
I don't want to talk about much else here right now, as it might not be prudent to. However my blog's linked in the sig (hint... such a linkwhore) and maybe I'll see you there.
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Golden Girl correctly said
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You're going out in style 
But seriously - and I'm sure everyone else - would like to thank you for all the work and effort you've put in to help make CoH a success, and wish you success and happiness in whatever future work you do.
Oh, and if you're in-game, don't forget the there are free wings for those who join Defiant server
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
ROCKY! *hug*
Incidentally, Lighthouse is picking up on this Stateside and confirms what you said:
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While the news of reorganization can be scary (anytime change is involved, it generally is); NCsoft NorCal is full steam ahead. We are adding more to our staff and have open positions that we are aggressively hiring for. City of Heroes is a strong contributor to NCsoft's success and we are working hard to build on that success, all of which translate to great things for the game.
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NCNorCal are still going to be based out of Nerd Central... er, I mean the Valley, aren't moving and are, in fact, hiring.
The Bay can get hella cold from this time of year on, but it's beautiful. I'm sure some of your lot would be shoo-ins for L-1 specialist knowledge visas (hell, how much more specialist can you get than Superhero Powers Designer?)
EDIT: just found the full title of the O-1 visa is "Aliens with Extraordinary Ability Visa".
That's definitely you, Rocky 
Is it time for the dance of joy yet?
On behalf of No Such Agency, S.I.N.I.S.T.E.R. and Network members past and present I'd like to offer a sad farewell and best wishes for the future o>
Really sorry to hear this news, Rockjaw
Best of luck for the future, Rockjaw. And same to you Aero, and to anyone else who lost their jobs (Bridger? Wasn't he working on the unannounced MMO that got cancelled?).
Damn it.
Sympathies to you guys losing your jobs, especially Rockjaw and Aero.
Anybody got Richard Garriot's address so I can [censored] on his doorstep?
[url=http://vox-doom.deviantart.com]Take A Gander At This.[/url]
Jirgs, thats Bad News, Il Hope best for all of you Guys, you made my Playtime an expirience.
Braddack
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The Bay can get hella cold from this time of year on, but it's beautiful. I'm sure some of your lot would be shoo-ins for L-1 specialist knowledge visas (hell, how much more specialist can you get than Superhero Powers Designer?)
EDIT: just found the full title of the O-1 visa is "Aliens with Extraordinary Ability Visa".
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Rockjaw's really from Krypton?
Evil alien interloper or not, best wishes to you and the rest of the dev team on this RJ. May you all land on your feet, and finish up with both a higher paid role and a pleasantly large departing gift from NCSoft!
Rockjaw, all my rabbits and hares salute you.
/em carrotsalute
Best wishes for you and all the team members, especially those who now will be looking for a new occupation. Thanks for all you did over the years guys and hang in there.
Rabbits & Hares:Blue (Mind/Emp Controller)Maroon (Rad/Thermal Corruptor)and one of each AT all at 50
MA Arcs: Apples of Contention - 3184; Zen & Relaxation - 35392; Tears of Leviathan - 121733 | All posts are rated "R" for "R-r-rrrrr, baby!"|Now, and this is very important... do you want a hug? COH Faces @Blue Rabbit
I would like to add my sympathies to those loosing thier jobs. I hope you can finds something great soon.
It's pretty clear from the news on the US forums that NCSoft are having a major reorganisation. I'm not all that suprised, since I think the whole organisation made mistake in trying to apply a Korean buisiness model to western markets. MMOs where never going to be as widely popular, or played for such long hours in the west, so a buiseness model based soely on MMOs wasn't a good idea.
It seems NCSoft have been publishing MMO after MMO in the hope that they would get lucky and one of them would be a massive hit, when in fact they simply ended up competing with themselves.
There recient change to consolidating existing successful products would seem to be a good direction to go in from a buisiness standpoint, but harsh for the staff. In the long term, they really need to diversify into growth areas such as hand helds, family games, and mobile phone games.
I really should do something about this signature.
Really is a damn shame to lose part of a pretty damn good customer service team. Shame that the game market is relatively niche as I'd have thought you should walk into the next jobs available if merit, capability and experience count.
Hopefully in (a reasonably short) time this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise - until then hope you're all well and pull through this as well as you can.
Best wishes for the future and thanks for all you've done for the community here.
RJ/Aero - if ever you get chance to do (and could face) a player meet as a player, then I don't think you'd need to be sober if you didn't want to... beer's a great way to say thanks and I'm pretty sure you'd be thanked by many.
By my mohawk shall ye know me!
my toons
Funny: Ee-Ai-Ee-Ai-Oh! #3662 * The foul-mouthed Handyman! #1076 * City of Norms #132944
Serious: To Save A Single World (#83744) * Marketing Opportunity (#83747)
Aero, RJ, Bridger (I guess?) and anyone else sorry to see you go. Thanks for all you've done, you've been great cultivating this community. Hopefully ye'll just fly into other positions.
I will be interested to see what this reorg means for us though and if the servers will go through a similiar shake-up.
Lousy news for many of you
Hope you get new super exciting jobs super fast.
My MA IDs:
Fiend Space: 211464
why don't we band together and Employ them as our Lackies? It could work I tells ya!!!!
Bad way to starting the day, when I, as usual, read the forums and find a piece of news like this one. Really sorry to hearing what's happened to Rockjaw, Aero and who knows who else:
Kotaku:
<<A total of 12 of the 250 to 260 positions in Austin are being cut to prepare for the move. NCsoft will continue to have a sizable presence in Austin, Reid said.
In Europe, he said, there are 58 positions in product development that have been identified for possible cuts. The final decision about how many of those positions to cut has not yet been made. Reid said the cuts in Europe would come from an unannounced title and not affect any of the games the company has already announced they are working on.
Reid said the move to Seattle is to make it more effective for the company to work with publishers on the West Coast and easier for executives to travel between the U.S., Korea and the U.K.>>
As we say here, "bon vent i barca nova" (good wind and new boat would be the litteral translation, but it's used to say "Best of luck for the future!").
Proud Coleader of: Fuerza Letal (H), Liga de las Sombras (V), Legion del Fenix (H), Infernal Justice (H), and a happy member of GammaForce (H) and D.O.A. (V).
My alts: http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/13494
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Best of luck for the future, Rockjaw. And same to you Aero, and to anyone else who lost their jobs (Bridger? Wasn't he working on the unannounced MMO that got cancelled?).
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The same goes from me and the rest of OV. Thanks for your efforts over the years.
Octavian Vanguard
@ohmsEU and @ohms 2
Badging character: Bimble on the Union server, Badgehunter.com and City Info Tracker.
It sounds like Dungeon Runners may be facing the axe.
I really should do something about this signature.
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Best of luck for the future, Rockjaw. And same to you Aero, and to anyone else who lost their jobs (Bridger? Wasn't he working on the unannounced MMO that got cancelled?).
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The same goes from me and the rest of OV. Thanks for your efforts over the years.
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from me as well
and from the entire Titan Network team !
Best of luck to those losing their jobs, I know I hate it when I'm job hunting.
We'll see what this means for the rest of us, I'm still optimistic about this where it concerns me. This could mean merger with the US boards, which I would like and going in the same server list as the US servers, kind of like the way it was when I played SWG, you have the EU servers in europe, but EU players and US players can play anywhere.
However I do hope that more people don't lose their jobs over this.
PS: wistful thinking aside I do realise that all this means for now is that people are losing their jobs and a game that was in development is getting axed.
Shadowplay - Scrapper DM/DA SL 50
Doctor Storm- Brute SS/Elec SL 50
"speed boosts someone in the face" - Cognito
Good luck to everyone affected, hope it all works out well after the bad times are over.
City of Heroes isn't going to flop is it?
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