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EA is more like this:|
Originally Posted by Solos
, EA literally hitler thing
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Just the things it's giving a thumbs down to are studios it rips the heart and soul out of.
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I'm seeing this sentiment in a few posts. If you didn't see a confirmation page ("Thank you for your email," or somesuch) it probably didn't actually send. The Captcha-style textbox seemed to cause my browser--and its operator--some confusion.
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Originally Posted by dugfromthearth
I can't tell if mine actually sent.
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Newton: I observed Mercury's perihelion moving 43 arc-seconds per century more than it should. Is this WAI? --Einstein |
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Already did that. First thing I did when coming home from work today.
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Originally Posted by RiverOcean
Agreed. If people really want to do something, we should also make sure to advise everyone to remove their contact info and credit card numbers from their NC master accounts, when it all ends.
Our email addresses are valuable marketing dollars to NCsoft. And accounts with credit card numbers already on file are even better. So yes email away but if this all goes south, don't leave your data on file with NCsoft. Remove it all. |
@True Metal
Co-leader of Callous Crew SG. Based on Union server.
[QUOTE=Quinch;4370642]I'll just leave this here.
Quinch, what is Gabe Newell's email address? I would certainly send him an email with my thoughts.
MIDIMan he has a link to the "send an email" page on the original post
it looks exactly as his screenshot really, you just select the name from dropdown list
Sent.
Does anyone have his postal address, I will send him a certified letter, if you can get it.
Sent.
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Dear Santa, What I really want for Christmas is to continue playing City of Heroes. The meanie NCSoft is taking it away from me. I've always followed and played CoH, since I was a little tyke in 2003. I've never stopped playing with this toy Santa! My mommy and daddy have spent more than $1500 to keep playing for more than 8 years. They spent more than $250 in the last year alone! All my friends play CoH with me. We think it's the best game on the playground! No matter what other game we play, we always go back to playing CoH. WE JUST LOVE IT!!! I've been a good boy all decade Santa. Please don't give me coal. :( --Jason Brannen [I'm 39, I've paid and played every month since early beta. I'm passionate about the game. The community is... *sniff* -the best any hero could ever hope to be a part of.] {{Did you hear about the dyslexic devil-worshipper? He sold his soul to Santa. :) }} |
@Cannonfodder
Victory: The Hall of Justice Virtue: The Hall of Doom
Slash Commands, Binds and Macros, Oh My!, CoV Stat Booster Accolade Cheat-Sheet, Don't Let Me Make Money Off Your Ignorance!!!, Day Job Acquisition Guide, "Tricky" TA
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The thing is, if NCSoft wanted to sell the property they probably would have done so already, or at least looked for a buyer rather than just shutting it down.
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Originally Posted by The Havoks
To the naysayers:
Remember the story of the mmo APB. That game died extremely early after launch. Some months later another company bought it, changed the business model up a little and it's been doing well since. The company who bought ABP took a risk. *IF* a company were to buy CoH it would be a lot less risky. CoH wasn't dying. It has an extremely loyal and dedicated fanbase who will be here for a long, long looooong time to come if given the opportunity. Taking a chance on CoH would be more of a sure thing than a gamble. There's hope as long as we keep hope alive. Send the e-mail to Valve. Send it to EA. Send it to anyone! Don't give up before we've even gotten started. Sure it may seem like a long shot if a small handful of people send e-mails to Gabe Newell. But if hundreds do? Thousands? Anything is possible if you try. So let's try. |
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If the reason they abruptly shut down the Paragon Team and City of Heroes over a massive red-line in their account books, there wouldn't have been consideration towards selling the IP of this game before closing the doors. Someone wanted an immediate statement made, and they made it, and they can worry about where to dump the ashes after the fire cools down.
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Originally Posted by Not_Rhino
The thing is, if NCSoft wanted to sell the property they probably would have done so already, or at least looked for a buyer rather than just shutting it down.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Warning: crazy space limit reached. Please delete some crazy and try again. |
May I also suggest Turbine as a possible buyer? They've only ever closed one of their MMOs and, to be fair, it was a failure.
They're still running the Asheron's Call servers and still putting out monthly updates for it 13 years down the line.
[url=http://vox-doom.deviantart.com]Take A Gander At This.[/url]
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Then they don't understand this game's playerbase at all.|
Originally Posted by RiverOcean
I'm not going to pull the wings off a butterfly in front of you. But most of the speculation I've seen posted on gaming news sites, is very similar. NCsoft has a track-record of not selling rights to it's discontinued titles. They were also willing to pull the plug on a moderately successful enterprise in hopes of gaining more profits elsewhere.
NCsoft already knows how much money CoH makes and that there are 60k loyal subscribers to the game. They have no intention of selling it (and our valuable email addresses) to a competitor. It would be much more profitable to attempt to convert us into playing their other games. Now, I'm not saying don't email Valve. If you think it might work go for it. But Valve (or anyone else) can't buy what NCsoft isn't going to sell them. And the fact that they chose to shut down a modest money maker rather than sell it, sort of tells us all they have no intention of giving 60k loyal fans to anyone else. They want us for themselves, but they want us to play Aion and Guld Wars. :/ But hey if this works, I'll eat crow on this. So have at it! |
The people left are the ones who didn't want to go somewhere else, we wanted THIS game. They're just not going to get the people paying to be dynamic superheroes to be interested in their lackluster, grindy fantasy rehashes,
[url=http://vox-doom.deviantart.com]Take A Gander At This.[/url]
Iv thrown my email in
I sent an email as well. "If it's a choice between slim and none, I'll take slim any day."
Shot mine off to Gabe as well.
Same subject line as Quinch:
Body as follows.
By now, you're probably being whacked upside the head with a bunch of e-mails from desperate City of Heroes players.
And yes, this is another one of them writing to you now. So please bear with me.
As has already been pointed out to you, NCSoft has shuttered the studio (Paragon) responsible for City of Heroes and has declared a sunset date of November 30th for the game itself. Needless to say this took the community (and indeed the staff at Paragon) by complete surprise. Apparently NCSoft's new direction doesn't include THE premier Superhero game in the world.
What causes City of Heroes to stand above the rest?
Depth of content.
The game is over eight years (and 23 "Issues") old. There isn't another Superhero MMO out there with even one THIRD of the available content. And, the fact that it has maintained many key staff for most of its 10+ year development and life time, it is marvelously consistent.
VAST options in character creation.
Unlike the various "gear quests" of other MMOs, character creation is completely separate from gear. This has freed the the development of the costume creator to the point where it's THE benchmark in the industry. While not QUITE infinite, NO player would ever be able to do more than scratch the surface of the character creator in terms of costume creation. Literally every character is unique. Through choices of costume pieces, coloration, and power animation and coloration.
In addition, there are 14 classes, with literally THOUSANDS of unique power combinations. The enhancement system on top of that allows an incredible level of actual combat customization.
The community.
Every game or pass-time attracts a community of die hards. CoH is a community of 187,000+ players and tens of thousands of die-hards. Moreover, due to the care and passion the development team at Paragon Studios lavished on their game, they've had a remarkably open and direct relationship with the community. This is a game that's turned people who didn't even LIKE computer games or the pay-to-play concept and made rabid, years-long, multiple-account-supporting PAYING SUBSCRIBERS from.
On top of that, the addition, last year, of the cash shop (Paragon Market) gave these players an outlet to funnel even MORE money into the game, resulting in a HUGE increase in development in the game (in addition to a boom in profitability).
Note: You may think that many of them will move on to other games and be done with it. And you're right. Many will. But a surprising portion of them ONLY played this game. And they won't be playing others after this one leaves the scene.
As others have asked you. Please consider the possibility of acquiring the City of Heroes franchise. While Valve doesn't do MMOs, it has a proven track record of taking excellent care of its properties. What's more, with Steam and your infrastructure, you're perfectly placed to support a game such as this.
Also, keep in mind that City of Heroes has been paid for. Even with ongoing development, production, etc costs, it has been running as pure profit for NCSoft for years now. It isn't some "tens of millions a quarter" Triple A MMO. It earned NCSoft about 6 million last quarter. But it's been a steady earner for the company for it's entire lifespan, and the switch to the hybrid (free, freemium, and subscriber) model did nothing but boost the bottom line.
So I ask you to consider the possibility of acquiring this property. Or, if that's outside of your company's scope, consider offering a helping hand to other groups, such as the people at the Titan Network (a long-time CoH community resource site) to aid them in doing so themselves.
Hopefully,
Charles Borner
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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The majority of MMOs never even break 100k. Considering that CoH broke it and stayed there for nearly a decade is remarkable. The fact that it didn't go down below half of that on VIP subscriber numbers when it went F2P is amazing. The MMOs that break even 500k are a rarity. 60k is an easily sustainable and profitable subscriber base, especially when bolstered with a cash market. Hell, there are MMOs still being maintained on less than 10k.
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Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
I never expect an MMO to hit "WoW" numbers again... at least not as subscription only.
However, in my view, it is definitely low for an existing MMO with a dedicated player-base. |
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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Yeah, the "Gabe is the patron saint of gaming" may be a bit much ( though, Valve IS a fantastic gaming company in how it treats its people, I will say that. And has great customer relations policies as well ), but the EA=Hitler thing, that's being insulting. To Hitler.
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Originally Posted by Techbot Alpha
Not to Godw- Ok, to hell with it, TOTALLY Godwinning the thread and I don't care;
Wholesale destruction? Consuming other companies indiscriminatingly? Massive marketing spin? Unethical treatment of companies and consumers? Kills off and discards said companies when bled dry? Tells everyone who doesn't like it where to shove it? If that's NOT like a media-world Hitler, then I don't know what the hell is. |
Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
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You haven't followed NCSoft's history with games all that closely, have you?
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Originally Posted by Not_Rhino
The thing is, if NCSoft wanted to sell the property they probably would have done so already, or at least looked for a buyer rather than just shutting it down.
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Virtue Server
Avatar art by Daggerpoint
Well I shot an email to both Ryan Sohmer of Gutters and Tycho Brahe (I know it's not his real name) of Penny Arcade in the hopes of spreading the word about what happened to our game, and at least making sure this gets more media coverage.
Whether or not they respond or decide to do a comic based on these events will remain to be seen. But it's better than nothing. I'm going to try emailing the creator of PvP next since he actually wrote a mission architect arc for City of Heroes in the past.
My email:
Mr. Newell,
You've probably seen lots of news about City of Heroes being shuttered, and a few of the players of the game have mentioned that they think it would be a GREAT idea if Valve were to somehow take over the reigns of the game from NCSoft.
CoH has a great, LOYAL playerbase, tons of content, more customization options than any other MMO on the market, and is the 8th most popular MMO. In a world where World of Warcraft reigns supreme, that's pretty darn good.
If Valve were to pick up City of Heroes, you would have in me personally a loyal, paying customer for however long the game continued development.
Please make this happen, Mr. Newell. City of Heroes needs a... hero. You're one of our best hopes.
I spent the last 30 minutes and wrote my email to VALVE instead of getting decent sleep.
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Who needs sleep anyway?
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Originally Posted by fieroxl5
I spent the last 30 minutes and wrote my email to VALVE instead of getting decent sleep.
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I've written to Alve also, I know it's a long shot, but it's better then not trying anything @ all. As the saying goes it's better to have tried & failed, then to never have tried & just Be a failure. Even knowing it may have no more hope then then a Snowflake's chance in a volcanic eruption, at least there are those of us whom have made the effort to try and do something. Who knows even if Valve doesn't pick up the Actual CoX Franchise, this may inspire them to make something of their own along similar lines, especially if any of them take the time to check it out now b4 the servers are silenced by NCSoft forever.
*Zen Hugz* to all you wonderful people whom have made the past 7+ years the wonderful trip is has been.
Confusion is Lord & Chaos is my Best Friend!! Shall I introduce you??
MArc# 5232 Bastet's Unleashing *a Solo-able arc*
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Sekmet's Fel Blood- lvl 50 Rad/Ther/GW Corr
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That was my first reaction. |
Originally Posted by Not_Rhino
The thing is, if NCSoft wanted to sell the property they probably would have done so already, or at least looked for a buyer rather than just shutting it down.
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But thinking about this, the decision to cast CoH aside seems to be pretty knee-jerk. The only people to to know about it were those who took the decision to pull the plug, until they dropped the bombshell on Friday.
If they can see a way to making some real $$$ they would be legally bound to seriously look at it, because they are required to make money for their shareholders - if I understand things aright.
They may not sell, but they would have to go through the due process and justify any decision not to sell to their shareholders and explain why not making money on the IP is a better long term investment.
Thelonious Monk
I added my e-mail. CoH may be a moderately-sized fish in the big MMO pond, but that just makes Paragon Studios--with its focus on community and ideas--an even better fit in what I believe to be the Valve "people over products" business paradigm.
--Einstein