Maybe don't boycott NCSoft
Thanks for the info, BaBs. Good to have you peeling back the curtain.
Edit - I should add, that while Power Customization may not have made new money, it sure kept me playing longer. So, NC probably got several hundred dollars extra from us, due to being able to realize so many more characters. |
So from me, thank you greatly, BaB. Here's one person it DID affect, who DID throw money at your feet for it
![Smile](images/smilies/smile.gif)
Buy whatever the hell you want. It's a semi free country.
But don't tell me you love COH. And it IS all about revenge. I want to see NCSoft burn for this. I'm not delusional enough to think somehow they will see reason and sell the game to someone or give out the code. That is not their MO. They give a big middle finger to the COH community, I'm giving them two back. Go on and enjoy GW2 while it lasts. I'll be the one laughing when thewy shut it down. |
I mourn its passing and am actively trying to save it.
I love GW2 and I'm playing it.
You go ahead and don't play GW2. I'm glad to not have you there.
As the person who got power customization implemented in CoH, this post is full of crap.
Jack never said nuffin about power-customization. It was probably me that said something about it and probably before the switch from working for Cryptic to working for Paragon (or shortly after). At the time, it was impossible. We didn't have the code to support it and it would require rebuilding every single player power effect, something that just wasn't feasible for one person who was the sole animator and VFX artist on the project at the time. |
Other players starting quoting you as saying it was impossible, and *I* said, repeatedly, that a) you did not say it was impossible and b) you were probably wrong about the engine not being able to support it (it would still take a ton of work). And somewhere I have a copy of the post where you said that in fact, as you were not a programmer, your guess as to what the engine could support was just that: a guess.
People invent the narrative they want regardless of the facts. Its a subject I discussed with BaBs during his time here, in fact.
And I cannot stress this enough. Jack had his failings as a game designer, but without his vision, there would be no City of Heroes. Jack's vision is why we have a game at all, and not distant memories of a vaporware superhero game from 2003.
Every design lead and every designer has a vision: an internal compass that tells them that within the parameters they are allowed to work in, this is what they think the game should be. Every developer at Paragon Studios I've talked to from Jack to Positron to Castle to even BaB has shared with me their creative vision. Without that creative vision, you're a monkey with an accordion.
And while we're at it, however angry players are at NCSoft, and there is probably very good reason to be, the other thing that just doesn't fit into easy narratives is that it wasn't the design team turning over that allowed us to get all the things Jack "refused" to give us. It was NCSoft, and more importantly NCSoft's money that did that. NCSoft was willing to invest more in the game than Cryptic could afford to, and that's why there's an explosion of development after the buyout.
The real world does not have many villains that twirl mustaches. Without Jack, there would be no game. But Jack was not the best details guy, and he frankly was less interested in supporting games than launching them. In the short run, CoH needed his vision and focus. In the long run, we needed people like Positron to guide the game over the long haul. Without Cryptic's ability to support the game on a shoestring, the game might have died soon after launch. We needed that Spartan mentality, when only a Spartan mentality would have worked. But the game flourished in terms of development when a company like NCSoft gained the opportunity to take it and run with it, while Cryptic went off and did what it was better suited to do: design, create, and launch smaller MMO titles (I'm the singular originator of the Jack seeing himself as Johnny Appleseed theory as far as I know anywhere in print). Without NCSoft, we would not have much of the game we're now cursing them for destroying. If they had decided to pass on buying us, where do you think we'd be now?
The truth is nothing and no one was perfectly good for the game or perfectly bad for the game. The truth is complicated and messy and full of different people with different agendas and different viewpoints. The truth is hard to determine and appreciate.
Which is no excuse for replacing it with an easy fiction.
Companies are bad at keeping secrets for long. If Perfect World decided to sink City of Heroes, that story would come out. Hell, there would be no reason for NCSoft not to deflect blame from themselves by trumpeting that fact. The fact that they are not doing so strongly suggests to me that theory is a hallucination. In the meantime, there may be good reason to hate NCSoft as a corporate entity, bearing in mind 99.99% of its employees had nothing to do with this decision. But if you have to alter or ignore the facts just to create a comfortable narrative, then you're no longer fighting the good fight. You're just this guy:
![](http://www.daveware.co.uk/hannah/blog/files/aliens-meme.jpg)
God, it's nice to not be a redname anymore. I can say things like metric ****-ton! |
Still, that's one reason why I don't have a red name either.
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#1. I'm not back, just smirking a little.
#2. I don't see why people think that NCsoft would just drop an IP into oblivion. Has none of you considered a restructuring and such for an upcoming new title that will bring in a new audience and new money with a CoH2 since really the only reason this game has low sub compared to a number of other games is because of its age.
#3. Everything I said about the Comic Culture section seems to have been right. It's barely active from what I can see.
#4. Everyone is welcome to come post on my forums at http://durakkenstudios.com
ps. Oh I just noticed... My post count is over 9000 :P
Buy whatever the hell you want. It's a semi free country.
But don't tell me you love COH. And it IS all about revenge. I want to see NCSoft burn for this. I'm not delusional enough to think somehow they will see reason and sell the game to someone or give out the code. That is not their MO. They give a big middle finger to the COH community, I'm giving them two back. Go on and enjoy GW2 while it lasts. I'll be the one laughing when thewy shut it down. |
I want NC Soft to burn. Good luck trying to push another fantasy genre MMO onto people that no longer want to be playing that kind of game. I have a feeling that, much with Aion, Guild Wars 2 will be in the red in six months to a year.
Fact is, NC Soft bought Paragon Studios in an attempt to really penetrate the American market with an American made MMO. Since it didn't do gangbusters in sales and because it didn't win over Korean gamers, they dropped City Of Heroes because (from what I can tell) they probably want to exit the American market. They keep making Asian style MMO's with game play that Asian's prefer, which mind you, is markedly different from what Western gamers want to play.
Nevertheless, NC Soft should have sent one of its oldest and most successful IP's off with somewhat of a bang. It's understandable that City Of Heroes is an old game and that it has been reaching its twilight years, but this is a game that could have been put into maintenance mode and given a half decade more at least. NC Soft's move has more to do with freeing up quick cash to float the losses incurred by its most recent MMO endeavors and its failing MMO, Aion, for which they refuse to assert as a failure because of Eastern company politics (someone's head would definitely roll if and when Aion goes under).
I'm with you on this. They couldn't even let the dev.'s ride out the next three months and give the game a decent send off and give Paragon Studios' employees even a small severance package.
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Please tell me how you know Paragon employees didn't get a severance package.
Fact: Guild Wars /is/ an NCSoft product. Here. Advertising doesn't lie. http://us.ncsoft.com/en/
Fact: NCSoft gave Paragon Studios -one day's- notice to clear out. http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/n.../thank_you.php
Fact: If you've purchased and still play /any/ of NCSoft's products you're actively supporting the people that did this.
Fact: I for one, will never buy another NCSoft product again. Don't care if ArenaNet buys it off the company, royalties trickle down. Besides...the one true way to make your voice heard as a consumer to a corporation is to hit them where it hurts. In the wallet.
Fact: If you disagree....*points at signature* Go back to NCSoft and tell them your PR tactics are failing. And tell them to make their peace. All their base are belong to us. We're setting them up the bomb.
![](http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcd8t3hizL1qeh80v.gif)
![](http://images.didioffendyou.com/1/1074fe21c7d8ae9e.jpg)
If NCSoft are not prepared to play ball over CoH, then they'll be getting more than just a boycott.
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
The reason CoH failed was because it didn't rake in enough revenue, meaning it had a low population of players. So if all those players boycotted NCsoft, it wouldn't amount to anything. The only real way to hurt NCsoft financially was to keep CoH running.
I was out of town and my wife and I were about to sit down and have lunch at my favorite pizza place with my ex-wife and her current boyfriend. So, take me at a comfortable place that I have eat at all my life (37 years), in an uncomfortable situation, and dump a text on my that a game I love is shutting down, and people I have come to care about over the years are losing their job. Wow that sucked.
Over the weekend I have really considered giving up on MMOs all together. There just seems to be no security anywhere except WoW. Even if I do decide to keep playing them, there seems to be even less security with NCSoft.
I get closings, the first LARP system I created went out of business last month. Table Top games I helped test and write are no longer in print. Life goes on though, I am ow writing a new system, and working on another degree to become a counselor.
Even with life going on, it hits me that I will no longer see names and people I have become comfortable with. I will no longer be able to create costumes when I get ideas for new heroes (I can't draw for crap). I will no longer to revisit characters who are as comfortable as a well worn glove. For that I blame NCSoft. I would not feel safe investing my money, or emotion in another one of their products.
Arcanaville, thanks for giving me another perspective on Jack, and on NCSoft buying the game. I needed that. It still can't change how hurt I am over this though. I have been stumbling around all weekend wanting to say more, and only having my mother's slow *** connection in rural VA.
Types of Swords
My Portfolio
The reason CoH failed was because it didn't rake in enough revenue, meaning it had a low population of players. So if all those players boycotted NCsoft, it wouldn't amount to anything. The only real way to hurt NCsoft financially was to keep CoH running.
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Hey, dips*h*i*t......http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsde7laPkI1qg1qm5.gif
![](http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcd8t3hizL1qeh80v.gif)
![](http://images.didioffendyou.com/1/1074fe21c7d8ae9e.jpg)
Hey, dips*h*i*t......http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsde7laPkI1qg1qm5.gif
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I have only this to say:
Thanks again, BaB, for everything. Especially the "impossible."
My characters at Virtueverse
Faces of the City
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This is what 3700 heroes in a single zone looks like.
Thanks to @EnsonsDeath for the GVE code that made me VIP again!
I have no intention of boycotting NCSoft.
Don't agree with their choice at all. It sucks. It really just sucks.
Maybe Durakken is right and they have plans to make a CoH2. Keep the IP, and I bet they could come up with a CoH2 that keeps to the superhero CoH theme, but becomes more Asian friendly.
I, however, kinda doubt that theory.
That said, while I have no intention of boycotting NCSoft, NCSoft doesn't currently have any game in the American market that I want to play.
Blade & Soul, I've wanted to check out since I first heard of it. Seeing how it hasnt made it to America yet, I can't really jump ship to it either, and GW never appealed to me, so if I did pick it up, it would only because I knew enough people playing it already to make it worth while.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
The BrandX Collection
Fact: NCSoft gave Paragon Studios -one day's- notice to clear out. http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/n.../thank_you.php
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Fact: That's how every company on the planet does layoffs. You don't tell them they're being laid off and them given them a change to dump the databases. Or come back with a gun.
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It's true.
It's also been my complaint with companies in general, but it's how it goes.
Want to quit? Give us 2 weeks notice.
We want to lay you off? We'll give you a days notice.
Most I ever had on a layoff was 1 day notice that turned into a two day notice "Oh. We need you for one more day, so we're going to lay you off in two days instead of tomorrow."
They do this because workers (generally) will slack off once they know they're being laid off. They'll be to busy fretting about a new job, sulking, just not caring anymore, and some if they have the ability, will use those paid sick days.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
The BrandX Collection
Edit - I should add, that while Power Customization may not have made new money, it sure kept me playing longer. So, NC probably got several hundred dollars extra from us, due to being able to realize so many more characters.
Formerly "Back Alley Brawler"