NCsoft Brighton to Axe Dev Team

I wouldn't bet any of my money, not on something as unlikely that the people that have made these decisions are reading this post. More than likely they are involved in more high level meeting discussing the direction the company is going to take after this re-shuffle.

TBH I doubt the people that have made this decision give a damn about the people it has directly affected and least of all the player-base.

Harsh but most likely the truth.

Keeps fingers crossed for K and whishes the others all the best again and hope that you can take forward many positives from you NC expierence to new and greener pastures.

Coincidence?
Any word about Palladium or they are phasing out French and German servers in the process of cutting down expenses?

Economically, it would make a lot of sense to cut the French and German servers. They are clearly very expensive to support, with a very low population.

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Coincidence?
Any word about Palladium or they are phasing out French and German servers in the process of cutting down expenses?

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No word from Palladium as of yet besides the one I posted earlier, stating that city of is not affected by the downsize.

I haven't really been on these forums long enough to know these quite obviously well-regarded people, but I too feel for them and wish them all the very best for the future, whatever that holds. If they are responsible for the wonderful sense of community and friendliness that abounds in this forum (and it's quite evident that they are) then their axing from NCSoft is a shocking waste of great talent and experience, which I'm sure will be easily recognised and demanded by other companies even in these belt-tightening times.

I hope they all at the very least get a flippin' good redundancy package out of it too. Wish you all well, guys.

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Economically, it would make a lot of sense to cut the French and German servers. They are clearly very expensive to support, with a very low population.

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Perhaps; but due to the half <bleeped> way they chose to implement localisation, there's no way they can offer said people the game in their language without their own server.

I said at the time, the way they did it was daft!

If they'd done it the PROPER way, and had a local language file in the PIGGS, offering other languages would have been far simpler...

But what will happen to people not knowing English?
It doesn't matter how game is built, they are entitled to their own servers so they can be sure that they can use their native language in all game aspects (including communicating with others in local, broadcast, etc...) and have GMs answering to them in their language.

Are French and German GMs also forced to leave?

Of course for servers to be kept, NC West must have people translating new game elements to French and German for every patch that comes out with new/changed text and of course they should translate the official announcements.

I think this is a line that should not be crossed.

Sorry, I should have been more explicit in my post.. I was actually meaning to say that I REALLY don't think they'd close the French and German servers. At the very least, not unless they decided to close ALL the EU servers. As GR assures us these changes aren't going to affect CoH, I don't think there's anything to worry about re any servers closing.

Community staff are, however, another kettle of fish. Taking away the German or French forum mods would be a BIG mistake, IMO... But not a wholly impossible decision.

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I'm sitting here in Cologne, visiting friends who are going to be wed this weekend (I will be back in the office on Monday)...

I want to thank you all for your wonderful words and your votes for me. Saxtus: It is overwhelming - I have tears in my eyes. Thank you all!

Alas, this is the way of the world. I have a couple of days left until the final decision will be made and until then I will still be here for the City of Heroes Community.

However, if Fate decides that I have to take a different way, so be it.

Thank you all - over and over - I know now for sure that it this is something worth fighting for.

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Boo! Hope you stick around K, I always liked your bizarre interludes into threads, I remember your Reign of Terror over us fondly If fate does make you move on I know you'll find something else suitable!

And enjoy the wedding! Forget about it all until Monday and have a ball!

Update from the French boards from Palladium:

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Pour ce qui est de l'équipe communautaire ici en Europe... Il va effectivement y avoir des changements. Rockjaw et Aero risquent de nous quitter (bien qu'ils ne travaillaient pas exclusivement sur CoX, ils ont organisé pas mal d'évènements), Kerensky (CC allemand) également. GhostRaptor (CC anglais) et moi-même ne sommes pas concernés.

J'espère que cela clarifie un peu la situation.

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Regarding the CC team, here in Europe... there will indeed be changes. There is a chance that Rockjaw and Aero might leave us (even though they aren't working only on CoX, they organized many events), Kerensky as well. GhostRaptor and myself aren't concerned [by the redundancies].

eXteel has similar problems as expected...

I don't want Kerensky to leave Hes just a big bundle of entertainment!! Nor do I want any one else to leave for that matter The team makes us all feel at home and welcome and really brings the community to life, can't they fire the big bosses and let us keep our men?

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But what will happen to people not knowing English?

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Economically, they are so few that NCSoft is better off sacrificing them and saving the money.

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they are entitled to their own servers so they can be sure that they can use their native language

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No, they aren't. If French and German speakers where entitled to this, so would speakers of Irish, Welsh, Norwegen, Finish, Danish, Spanish, Portugese, Polish, Estonian, Swaheli, Elvish, Klingon etc etc etc.

I'm guessing that's the reason Guild Wars doesn't have forums, actually. There's so many different regions and languages that it'd simply be unfeasable to have a community mod for each language.

TBH, I think we need to hold fire on this speculation, lest it run out of control.

GhostRaptor told us that CoH is not going to be affected by these redundancies; therefore we should make the assumption that NOTHING is going to change as far as the French or German servers are concerned, and that they will continue to provide both support and forum moderation in those languages.

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No, they aren't. If French and German speakers where entitled to this, so would speakers of Irish, Welsh, Norwegen, Finish, Danish, Spanish, Portugese, Polish, Estonian, Swaheli, Elvish, Klingon etc etc etc.

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I don't know where you are basing this, probably you're an English speaker and you don't want to understand all the angles of this, but let me tell you where I am basing it:
They were offered their own localized environment when they bought the product.
It was part of the deal to make the buy.

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Economically, they are so few that NCSoft is better off sacrificing them and saving the money.

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While I am not directly affected by it, I don't understand why you say all that.
Ok, life is unfair, bad things happen, it's tough and all that, but you seem to like this situation...
Like you're eager for this to happen...

Post deleted by FloatingFatMan

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I don't know where you are basing this, probably you're an English speaker and you don't want to understand all the angles of this, but let me tell you where I am basing it:
They were offered their own localized environment when they bought the product.
It was part of the deal to make the buy.


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Unfortunately I think you're wrong here; if you check the current terms and conditions you'll find it doesn't promise any specific number of servers or languages at all, and even if it did/had it has this bail out option:

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(b) Amendments. The Publisher may amend this Agreement or modify the Rules of Conduct at any time in its sole discretion by posting on the Official website (a) the amended Agreement or (b) the modified Rules of Conduct. When logging onto the Service, the Customer will be asked to confirm his acceptance to any such revised terms and conditions. If he does not agree to the revised terms and conditions, he should contact the Publisher immediately to discuss closure of his Account.

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So even though the service had various servers with different languages available at the time you signed up, NCSoft's not obliged to keep them going.


All of that said, I hope they don't remove any servers!

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While I am not directly affected by it, I don't understand why you say all that.


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One person != All.

[/ QUOTE ]Why you say all that != Why you all say that

Stupid forum software! I canceled posting that!

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They were offered their own localized environment when they bought the product.
It was part of the deal to make the buy.


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Unfortunately I think you're wrong here; if you check the current terms and conditions you'll find it doesn't promise any specific number of servers or languages at all, and even if it did/had it has this bail out option {...}
So even though the service had various servers with different languages available at the time you signed up, NCSoft's not obliged to keep them going.

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Ok, word "entitled" at previous post of mine was in wrong use then, but still this is a deal breaker.
Allow me to want to support consumer's side and not company's side.

Although we don't know for sure if Kerensky leaves (we don't know his choices and it isn't our job to judge them anyway), we also don't know if non-English GMs/CC people will be forced to leave (it's hard for me to believe that entire German staff was one-man's-show). If this happen, will lead to degradation anyway...

I don't know any of the Community team, I've never been able to get to a player meet or any of the conventions but hearing that any company is faced with compulsory redundancies is bad. I would however like to add my sympathies to those already posted.

Rockjaw, _Aero, Bridger (and possibly Kerensky) you've done a fantastic job, and deserve much kudos. I'd like to wish you all the best with whatever direction your life takes you.

Oh wow, more redundancies
Seems like they're happening everywhere.


Dropping the guys who do the marketing at events seems to be a pretty dumb idea, but then I've never seen a batch of redundancies yet where they don't get rid of at least one good team member (not that i'm saying anyone in NC is a slacker, mind :P)

Fingers crossed, here, for the lot of you.
You guys are the greatest MMO community liaison team i seem, even better than your US-side counterparts. NCsoft reps are always more part of the community than just moderators/faq answerers that many others are.

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Rockjaw, _Aero, Bridger (and possibly Kerensky) you've done a fantastic job, and deserve much kudos. I'd like to wish you all the best with whatever direction your life takes you.

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I missed episodes, Bridger is leaving too?

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They were offered their own localized environment when they bought the product.
It was part of the deal to make the buy.

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People who bought Auto Assault where offered a game to play... (There are still Auto Assault boxes on sale in shops)

The made a localised Korean version, but axed it when the game proved unpopular. Korean players where given a transfer to the US, but the don't get korean language support any more.

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While I am not directly affected by it, I don't understand why you say all that.


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You gotta pay extra developers to do the translation, you gotta pay the GMs, you gotta pay the forum moderators, you have to pay for the server, you have to pay for the electricity the server uses, you have to pay for the techs who keep the server running. That probably adds up to employing more people than are actually playing on the French and German servers!

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While I am not directly affected by it, I don't understand why you say all that.
Ok, life is unfair, bad things happen, it's tough and all that, but you seem to like this situation...
Like you're eager for this to happen...

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A company that can't take tough buissiness decisions is a company that isn't going to suvive.