Rumors on the closing

My brother who plays CoH and DCUO noticed this on a forum for DCUO. I figured since NC Soft isn't speaking on what the deal is, maybe this might shine light on it.

Again, only a rumor:

I'm a long time CoH Vet, but the announcement doesn't completely shock me, especially with Cryptic/Perfect World (not Atari, as they sold Cryptic months ago) owning the engine CoH used (Cryptic only sold the City of Heroes I.P. to NCSoft, the engine was licensed to NCSoft), and the license supposedly coming up for renewal at the 5 year mark (of which it now is).

Rumors that Perfect World might have upped the fee enough that NCSoft (which lost $6 million in revenue last quarter, down to $130 million) might have felt the fee was just too high, sound right. No official word on that, however. Many at Paragon seem surprised by the move (I had two friends there) as they really were working on new content to release soon.

Alas, no more. Development has ceased 100%, and the studio is gone like** that**-- some 80+ people now laid off.

Graphics aside, I still felt it was the best superhero MMO out there. Sorry DCUO hardcore fans, but that's how I've always felt. Though I like DCUO, it is just too much a console game (fittingly so, given that 70% of the playerbase is PS3 side), and nowhere near creative-freedom enough to represent superheroes as well. Champions Online, though having a great character creator and the freeform power building (for subscribers) is just very bland when it comes to storylines and even the villain groups (CoH had great villains-- and I will always miss the Vahzoliks and Clockwork).

Well, at least I still have all of the Blue King City of Heroes comic book run (the one us subscribers used to get in the mail from Cryptic every month during the first launch year, before they made the massive mistep of letting Image touch the I.P. in comics), and can always revisit the setting there-- cheesy/corny jokes and all.

Despite the dated engine and graphics, City of Heroes always understood superheroes. The creator, the powers, the villains, the storylines, the events-- they made me feel like playing in a comic book world. I'll miss it. In that aspect, I never felt CO and DCUO were nearly as good.

Petty...office...politics...BS!


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This rumor was started when someone on this very forum simply speculated on that idea, and other people ran with it and spiraled it out of control.

And, yes, there has been "official word" - Zwilliger said it's false.

Babs, under his player title Tic-Toc (Posi confirmed it was him) squelched that rumor. He currently works at Cryptic and asked Jack himself, who denied that there were any negotiations or revocation of rights going on now or any time recently. This is all on NCsoft's head according to any of the confirmed facts thus far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler That...was a Herocon 09 exclusive easter egg. The powerset will not have doves associated with it. Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with.

I think the question is whether any such talks would even be at a level where they'd know. Although it seems like they ought to know, so I guess that theory fails.

I am sort of partial to the "big investors pressure ncsoft to Do Something, ncsoft does the most dramatic/smallest-economic-change thing on offer, even though it actually makes things worse" theory.

OK good I feel better about preordering Torchlight 2 now.