NCSoft and Massively

Thats convenient...
All we need now is a feather...
-shoots down a seagull from outside-

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

What? Now you're Cheech Marin from "The Corsican Brothers"?

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Not sure who B_I is...

I'm not suggesting that it is moving to a model where we pay extra for content. But it irritates the heck out of me when some posters argue against a recent lack of content by stating that GR will have plenty - GR should be seen as seperate to the usual, regular content updates.

In a business, things are going to continue rolling up until the very last second. The people drawing characters for the game aren't going to be the same ones counting money and passing out paychecks. They don't necessarily know that the game is about to tank, except for maybe office rumors. They're still paid to do their jobs, in the same way that if a fast food place goes out of business, they aren't going to stand around not making food for a couple months in advance.

What ends up happening is that one person is busy working on the stuff they're paid to do (like flipping burgers), while someone else, somewhere else, looks at the books and says "This isn't working," and shuts down the operation. I'd say NC Soft did a good job of giving each of those games a fair shake and not just abandoning them at the first sign of trouble. But you have to draw the line somewhere and cut the cord if it's just not working out.

If anything, it'd be suspicious if they just stopped working on the game and did nothing for 3 months, but kept raking in dough from subscribers until they shut down. That would imply they knew stuff was going to crash and burn, but wanted to milk it. The fact that they were working right up until server shutdown shows that they were at least giving it an honest try to see if they could turn things around.

The problem with this belief is that it aims more toward the concept that NC Soft is willing to drop a game the moment it twitches an eye, but that's not the case. If the other games, or the rollercoaster that is CoH's lifespan is any indication, NC Soft cares a lot about keeping a game open if it can.

In the event of the other games, they just weren't turning a profit. It wasn't the slight disappointment of something not doing QUITE as well as you wanted it to so you canned it, it was more that it was just utterly failing. CoH isn't utterly failing, and doesn't need to be dragged out of a grave and revitalized.

Dropping CoH because its sales aren't quite as high as you hoped, despite the fact that it's still turning a profit, would be a terrible idea from just about any vantage point you could possibly look at it from.

If NC Soft really did want to kick CoH to the curb, they could've done it ages ago when we dropped to the FREEM! 15, or before it became Paragon Studios, or before they started hiring lots of new people. There was plenty of opportunity back in the day when the game was at the bottom of the slope.

Now that the game is on the upward trek of this roller coaster ride, and has an expansion just around the corner, it would be utterly insane to snub the game. Not to mention the dumbest business model imaginable.

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

So we were right on all fronts. Nice to know.

Its quite possibly true...
Given I actually forgot Perez existed until just now Oo

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

What about... Terra Volta?!

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

I'd like to see Terra Volta added to Independence Port, rather than be a separate zone - put it at one end, to make the zone smaller and easier to travel in - like the dam separates Faultline into one large area, and one smaller area.

To be honest... with as BIG as IP actually is... you probably wouldn't need to even make Terra Volta any smaller, you could probably just overlay it into the south end of the zone and take out all the other stuff, moving the contacts there to somewhere further north.


But you'd probably need a story reason to justify that.

An industrial and power supply area would be a major target for a Rikti attack - it'd would be rebuilt to be more seccure

Or it could be destroyed by one of the other factions, like Arachnos, or Nemeis - or there might even be a strike on it by Praetorians - there are plenty of ways the old reactor and it's island could be blown up, and then rebuilt on the shoreline to the south.

Why makeover PP?

The hollows has 3 major arcs for levels 5-15 (iirc) - and was punishing on many due to the hazard spawns with a very long trip from the hospital after the inevitable defeats (especially if you'd entered Hollows from Atlas and had a mission at the southern end of the Hollows).

There's no similar level of content in PP, and, tbh, it gets used a reasonable amount (compared to DA/Boom/SS) and doesn't have too long a trip from any of the surrounding city zone hospitals.

Boomtown is a pain in the behind to get back to from Steel hospital - but there's very little reason to go there, certainly no major chunks of arcs set in Boom (not that I can recall anyway).

DA has it's own hospital, but even less reason to go there unless badge hunting.

I'd say Perez sits well - and not least because there should be a 10-15 level zone with decent sized spawns (the one thing I disliked about the hollows makeover was the reduction in spawn sizes).

Admittedly Perez could do with a zone arc or two to help explain the history of Perez and the gangs there.. but the same could be said for most of the city zones IMO.

Y'know, I don't remember any of the rah-rah crowd complaining about this same author when he blew the whistle on Cryptic trying to recruit CoX SG leaders into CO beta. (Which, as we all know, is the greatest sin of all time, next to being Jack Emmert hizownself. ::rollseyes:: )

He calls it as he sees it, and IMO he got more right than wrong. He certainly got a response, which speaks volumes.

Instead of attacking the author, your energy might be better spent helping to shape the GR expansion. Even if it isn't as financially important as UnSub thinks, its probably the best opportunity for growth we will see for a while.

Of all the many, many, many delusional, detached-from-reality proclamations you've made on these forums Ryu, I think I love this one the best.

<3

1: good to know I was right in characterizing the author as a low-information outsider with nothing to offer but speculation. And this is not meant as an insult- I'd apply the same definition to myself on this particular topic.
Of course, I'm just spinning my wheels here on the forums, not writing articles for gaming web sites....

2: If you want a generally better public perception of your work, do better work.

My guess is that if subscription numbers are exactly what they are now six months after Going Rogue releases, that will be disappointing but will not affect staffing levels at Paragon Studios in any way.

Contrawise, if they are even a little higher at that point, but not dramatically so, Paragon and NCSoft will probably be a lot happier than you will think they have any right to be.

sadly, i knew and was unsurprised. i would not call you a jerk, in fact you used to be soemone who was significantly constructive to the community, you have become very much a toxic poster lately, and the fact that your blog is given some degree of credibility adds to the amount you can hurt the game because of some post issue 14 vendetta really worries me. lets be honest, as someone who's stated opinion of the coh team during a timing issue for Australian players that the developers resolved was i find that hard to reconcile with your statement that you would love to see the game going for several years. Maybe that was a rough day, but nothing in yoru posting since then has really changed that tone any.

Look, nothing you said was anything people didnt already figure out, goro needs to sell, both to existing players and to get new guys in, or nc will likely cut staffing for something more profitable. nobody is pretending it doesn't but your continued sounding of panic bells that if it does not draw in an ambiguous but always implied to be quite high number, then the game goes in maintained mode does nothing but make the game seem immediately imperiled to a prospective player who may be reading these forums to see what the feel of the game is before playing it. And guess what that payer will feel if he/she reads that we are dead unless we hit some arbitrary number theorized by a blogger? He's not going to waste his cash because apparently the game is already on its last legs. And unlike people like evilryu who nobody listens to anyhow, you have enough credibility to be actually harmful. so if you wanted to personalize the issue by your post, then that's the response, i wish you still did enjoy the game, and werent currently whacking it with a hammer but as the sig says, we have to deal with the uncomfortable realities, which only become worse when people magnify because of personal vendettas.

IF they were to remake PP, I'd much rather see them go forward with the "more zone events" that they hinted at in HeroCon, instead of arc and instanced content. I think a cycling back and forth battle between the Hellions and Skulls, with players helping the PPD hold crucial spots would be fun. Heck, even let Rogues and Vigilantes (if not Villains themselves) work to Help one or the other gangs (on the logic that someone with questionable morals wouldn't be opposed to helping one bad guy knock out the other, or be in it for the money).

The middle areas of the zone could either remain close to what they are now, or be changed to a kind of Clockwork versus Hydra battle of competing infestations, culminating in the spawning of the Clockwork King himself, or the Kraken. It would be neat to see Recluse's Victory tech applied such that things got Junky or Slimy depending on who was ahead.

No real need for Missions and Arcs in that case, just an homage to the old school outdoor street sweeping days, with a twist.

Ideally though, if somewhere is going to get revamped, it ought to be a higher level area like the Abandoned Sewers. I think it would make a great PvE competition zone (not direct PvP). Villains work to smuggle Arachnos Supplies under the city, and when they earn enough credit they can access a revamped Sewer Trial. Heroes work to bolster the Longbow or Hero Corps or PPD forces that are tasked with trying to stop them. Not only could the existing spawns largely remain, there could be choke points and ambush spots (think the emplaced robot miniguns blocking the tunnel in Aliens, or Longbow pouring out side doors as you go by, or all the Iris Doors in a Junction slam shut and a bunch of Longbow Spec Ops all uncloak at once, like that spawn in St Martial).

As for the actual topic of this thread? I have no real comment on largely baseless speculation. I think it's much more productive to spit out ideas for making the game better than it is to look for cracks that signify doom. Sure NCSoft has cancelled a lot of games. By and large, those games were losers that had been unable to turn around poor launches within 12-24 months. Trying to apply those rules to a game that's been profitable for the company for 5+ years is specious at best.

You're presuming that the overhead is automatically more than it was when NCSoft was paying Cryptic under the terms of their contract. If NC was paying them a lot of money, but only part of it was being funneled by Cryptic back into CoH, then sure, overhead is about the same, and costs would have gone up now that they're bigger. However if like me, you think that Cryptic reinvested a pittance back into this game, then there's a very definite economic advantage to taking over the game, moving staff to a new consolidated home, streamlining operations between PS and NC, etc etc etc. That leaves a lot of room for growth without increasing costs appreciably.

I was under the impression that there was a relatively recent and significant ramp-up of of 30 or so professional staff. I'd hardly call that a pittance. But perhaps my information is wrong. It's possible. But I think my opinion is closer to the truth than yours.

If you think NCSoft can produce an expansion at roughly the same cost as using Cryptic as a development studio and letting them produce "issue" updates, while at the same time continuing to produce "issue" updates...well, I just don't find that believable.

Besides, our developers have repeatedly referenced the fact that NCSoft is reinvesting in the franchise. I think that more than implies additional money being spent.

The way I read it, several PlayNC games tanked, games they'd invested not insignificant amount of money in. City of Heroes, by comparison, had been chugging along just fine on what amounted to severance pay and proved to be a game that, while it didn't have staggering numbers, wasn't going to keel over and die on them. As such, they invested in a stable game because it was a stable game.

As far as I understand it, the only way for disaster, doom and gloom to occur is if the game bleeds subscriptions badly, not if it doesn't expand.

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.

Any idiot can post something inflammatory and get a response.

And here's mine!


Yeah. I'll get right back to my new job at Paragon Studios for that. Do you even READ the stuff you type?

And, for the record, disagreeing with the author is not an "attack". I know rhetoric 101 is tough, but stick with it. You'll learn something. Eventually.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

As it's an expansion, it'll probably depend almost entirely on how many copies of GR fly off the shelves, as opposed to how it affects overall sub rates.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Lemur Lad is pointing out that when NCSoft and Cryptic shared ownership of the property, Cryptic was almost certainly getting more revenue from that ownership than the 15 devs cost - otherwise Cryptic would have had no money to fund MUO.

In fact, what Cryptic was getting from CoH was enough to fund the CoH 15, plus a couple of years of MUO development, *plus* there was enough money left over to development on CO without revenue from CoX until the Atari deal.

This suggests that, separate from the cash NCSoft had to pay to buy Cryptic out, the revenue that NCSoft no longer has to pay Cryptic is probably enough to pay for a lot of the additional developers. Perhaps not all 45, but a substantial number of them, possibly most of them.

You clearly don't understand the somewhat unique rules the Doomsters operate by, Sam.

=P