City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

WRITE-IN CAAMPAIGN: "Never Give Up - Never Surrender!"

Artic Keeper

By Artic Keeper,
Posted on: 2012-09-01 10:58 in Champion

 

Posted

Fellow players:

When I started our supergroup. "The GUARDIANS", way back in May of 2004, I chose as our motto the phrase "Never give up - Never surrender!", a line from one of my favorite movies, "GalaxyQuest".

I liked the phrase because it was kitschy yet sincere, and it came from a story whose basic message was that no matter how trivil we may think our efforts are, to someone, somewhere, what we do has merit.

I never dreamed then that our SG's motto would be so appropriate a rallying cry, but here we are.

Based on the announcement from City of Heroes, I believe that we as players, fans and consumers should make a responsible attempt to convince NCsoft to reverse its decision in this matter.

Therefore, we are mounting a campaign of letter-writing to make a personal appeal to Mr. Taek Jin Kim, CEO of NCsoft, to reconsider the decision to shut down Paragon Studioes, and instead keep this excellent Management and Development Team intact and keep City of Heroes alive.

We invite all players who have enjoyed this game to join us in this effort. Many players have already drafted petitions, and we urge all players to support these efforts and sign them, and encourage anyone who has ever played the game to do so as well.

Most important, we want to get physical letters onto Mr. Kim's desk. E-mails make a forceful statement, but the impact of receiving 2,000 e-mails is not nearly as great as the impact of having 2,000 physical letters sitting on one's desk. Nothing impresses a CEO like a piece of paper with a name on it, because it is a tangible reminder that there is an actual paying customer behind it.

When you write to Mr. Kim, it is important to follow some simple but crucial guidelines:

1. Be polite. I cannot stress this enough. A letter which begins with criticism and outrage ends in the wastebasket. Hostility toward a shutdown only validates the decision to be rid of such customers. BE POLITE.

2. Being polite does NOT mean being deferential. As a customer, you are entitled to certain considerations, and it is not at all improper to request that your expectation of those considerations be met. Write as an equal, as one gamer to another, and make it clear that your devotion to the game represents your devotion to the NCsoft as a continuing customer. Threatening never to buy another NCsoft game is counter-productive, but asserting your continued commitment to subscribing to or purchasing items in-game from "City of Heroes" cannot hurt our case.

3. Be brief. One paragraph is all you will need. "One page: read, two pages: dead." Remember that you are writing to the CEO of a major corporation. It is not reasonable to assume he will have the time to read every letter through and through, but knowing that the first ten letters say the same thing as the next 990 will make an impact.

4. Put a Subject line before the text of your appeal. A single line that says something like "Please do not end my subscription to City of Heroes!" gets your point across and reminds him that you and the thousands of other letter writers are part of his profits.

5. Send letters to both the US and Korean offices of NCsoft. We can't know for sure where Mr. Kim will be at any given time, but knowing that he has stacks of mail waiting for him at either office is part of the message we want to send.

6. Send all letters via "Certified Mail/Addressee’s Signature Required/Return Receipt Requested". This takes a little more effort and costs a little more, but it is well worth it. According to US Federal postal laws, a letter so marked must be signed for by the address or their legal representative, which in the case of CEOs is usually their personal administrative assistants; usually it's not the receptionist or security guards. This is your best shot at getting your letters directly to where they will do the most good.

7.Don't stop at one letter! If you can mail a letter every day, that would be great! But try to send at least one every week. Keep the flood of letters going. They are expecting an initial surge of appeals. What we want to show them is an ongoing commitment to saving the game.

All letters should be addressed to Mr., Taek Jin Kim, CEO, at the two main offices of NCsoft:

In the United States:

Mr. Taek Jin Kim, Chief Executive Officer
NCsoft Corporation
1501 4th Avenue, Suite 2050
Seattle, WA 98101
UNITED STATES

In Korea:

Mr. Taek Jin Kim, Chief Executive Officer
NCsoft Corporation
157-37 Samsung-dong
Kangnamu-gu, Seoul 135-090
KOREA

These are the corporate offices. Writing to any other addresses will reach NCsoft facilities, but may not reach Mr. Kim in time, or at all.

Please get involved!

We already KNOW that the game will be GONE if we do NOTHING.

If we do SOMETHING, we may have a chance to save it!

Good luck to all of us, and start getting those letters out!

Sincerely,

DASHER

HELP SAVE THIS GAME!
If we can save this game, I promise I will never complain about Travel Power Suppression again! You have my word on it!
"The customer is always right."

 

Posted

Will most definitely be trying to send my letter sometime today thank you for giving us some hope.

EVERYONE Send out your letters!!!!!!

 

Posted

every thing helps and also shows any possible new investor that there is a strong fallowing here ill be writing shortly
ty

 

Posted

i have played this game since beta and this game means alot to me because of all the friends i have made and when i have had ups and downs in my life my friends in this game have been there for me. im not ready to loose all this and i feel what we have here is a very unique enviornment and i dont think we will be able to find this anywhere else... i see alot of people leave and say they will never come back to this game and before you know it they are back and i think its because they found out what i already know and that this game is one of a kind. everone please take the time and fill out those petitions and send in those letters because this game is worth saving.


every letter counts...
Burns
@you got map served

 

Posted

Thanks for the address; will put it to good use

Marut, 50 FF/Rad/Power Defender - Champion
Leader of The Earthguard
Leader of The Galactic Empire

 

Posted

How much is the postage to each destination? I want to make sure my letters get there. And will the letter to Korea get there if the destination is written in English?

 

Posted

Hi i have been playing for 5+ years and put a lot of time and money into this game. It is still one of my favorite mmos out there and would very much like to continue to play it. I think that it is very cruel to shut it down.