Why does this guy constantly talk smack about the game I like so much?

guild wars was heavily advertised initially as a pvp centric game. now it doesnt have real "subscription" numbers, but it sold really well and was profitable. now it has a number of other differentiating factors, primarily the lack of a sub fee, but pvp was a heavy part of the game's launch.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Jack is 100% correct in what he is saying. I think everyone who is dissenting is forgetting that after CoV we were knocked down to 15 devs. That wasn't Jack doing it, that was NCsoft saying "you don't make enough for us to pay you" and cut the funding.

CoH did not do well enough and it suffered for it. The whole point he is saying is that adding things does not do bring players in, and it has been proven by having their team being cut after they came out with an entire expansion.

Adding stuff makes the players who are already there happier, but it does not guarantee that more people will show up.

CoH survived in spite of NCsoft and probably due entirely to the tenacity of Jack and the other 15 devs.

Ah, Jack....funny man, funny funny man *smirk*

What a flippin' moron...

Oh, sorry, did I think that out loud? Damn these inner monologues

Quote:

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.

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

Put me on board with the crowd that dislikes his design philosophy, but has no interest/opinion on him as a man. His statements may be fact, but I disagree with his conclusion(s).

That said, it's pretty darn cool that Paragon Studios could release an expansion that prominently vilifies the in game persona of their ex-boss!*

*completely tongue-in-cheek here.

Didn't really see much talking smack in that OP quote, just someone saying he has made mistakes and learned from them. And, really... first impressions making a difference is quite true.

However, Jack has talked smack in some interviews. Though I think most of those were when he was touting Champions Online, and I think he did that just to show how CO was better and different. Still, I didn't take kindly to it. I think he could have touted CO without being down on CoH. I haven't heard anyone at Paragon studios say anything close to what he did about another game in an official interview like he did, and I think that speaks a lot to why I like our current set of devs and Paragon Studios more than him.

I like that he's enthusiastic, that's great... but I don't like how he designs a lot of things or how he sells them. Some of his unpopular decisions at CoH were needed (ED and the like), but how he sold them was terrible. He's so hit or miss on everything that I find myself always distrusting him and not really liking him, either. I'm sure we could have fun chatting about a lot of things as he seems fairly nice, but on games and PR, we're in much different corners.

Jman, i think i see where you're going with this, and it makes total sense.

So your premise is that NCsoft told Cryptic to stop supporting CoX and go find something else (not tied to NCsoft) to go work on? "Hey, that game you made for us? It sucks, so why don't you go find something else to do while we wait and see if it goes belly up with minimal support. Maybe you should go see about making a directly competing product for a company that sued us the other year."

Sure, totally plausible. Certainly more plausible than Microsoft and Marvel thinking about hiring a company that had already made a successful superhero themed MMO to create a product for them. Edit: It certainly would have nothing to do with Emmert stating in interviews that he envisions Cryptic as an MMO factory that keeps cranking out new MMOs.

The fact that some time afterward NCsoft bought the rights to CoX and hired the skeletal team that had been left to work on it away from Cryptic and then proceeded to more than quadruple the Dev team certainly lends credence to the theory that NCsoft had demanded Emmert pull most of the staff off of CoX because they had panicked at the thought of having a successful Western MMO that was making them money and wanted to kill it before the revenue tempted them too much. Obviously by that point it was too late and despite their desire to avoid profitability they succumbed to the mysterious mindwarping effect of CoX and resigned themselves to investing in and getting money from it.

Also you know... kinda funny thing... that is not how game companies work and NCsoft is a publisher with subsidiary (is that the right word) developing companies. Cryptic was never part of NCsoft and would have had no way to "cut funding" as NCsoft would be contractually obligated to only give Cryptic x amount of money when Cryptic reached x goal and obviously they split the profits from the game according to contractual agreements.

When NCsoft found out about MUO NCsoft bought out the trademark which gave them full right to the CoH game, code, characters, and obviously all the profit. Cryptic needing their engine for their next game obviously held onto that which is why Cryptic's logo is still on here and the deal was either "forever" or for a limited time, perhaps 5-10 years. Now if it's the former doesn't really matter, but if it's the latter it explains the CoH2 thing as I doubt that NCsoft wants Cryptic's logo on there if they don't have to.

NCsoft also hired and set up a new subsidiary company/studio which is now called Paragon Studios which is directly funded by NCsoft which is quite a bit more convenient for a developer probably because they have access to more resources and it's a lot easier to go to a company that your profit is directly related to and ask for more money for something.

As far as the suit goes, Marvel sued both companies. And after words realized that hey we could get a game out of these guys. Marvel probably cut NCsoft from this idea because #1 Korean company, #2 likely had a deal with MS already in place and/or #3 MS might have asked for less of the profit margin than NCsoft would have (this would have been easily figured out because this type of thing would have had to have been brought up in court to figure out what and who owes what if anything). NCsoft had at least 1 good reason to do what they did to Cryptic (Cryptic was bad business) and like 3-4 others. I would even go so far as to say that Marvel/Microsoft likely pulled out for that exact reason, they saw Cryptic's practices with CoH, probably discussed with them their future plans after CoH was sold, and they realized that it was just really stupid to be in bed with Cryptic. CO they had to buy to get to make that game and STO they got out of luck and the fact it was already dragged through the mud...and let's not go into Atari v.v

It should be noted that Jack is right in the regard that an MMO's success can be weighed at how successful it is at it's release. No amount of life support and bandaging can truly repair the damage caused by a bad launch, as official reviews and word of mouth rarely change from the first impression and tend to linger for farther longer than they are relevant. Even WoW as successful as it is can't escape the harmful effect of bad press, even if the issues people found distasteful at it's release were already resolved.