Save CoH - Information Masterpost

Check the second post to see ways you can help! A basic changelog is here!

Hey all! I've seen a lot of information float around and I thought it'd be nice to compile it all together. As much as I'd like to focus on being persuasive about this, I thought it'd be first to get a lot of context. Hence: Gonna make this information master post!
This first post will be updated with information, so post if there's updates, corrections and whatnot. Then, check this post! All help is GREATLY appreciated. Let's start:

Official Announcements

• Official website news: http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/n.../thank_you.php
• Official forum thread: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=295621
• Staff forum posts:http://boards.cityofheroes.com/forumdisplay.php?f=600
• More to be added! (This goes for all sections.)
  

• City of Heroes and Paragon Studios were officially shut down by NCsoft on August 31st, 2012.
• The official date the servers close will be November 30th.

Theories

• There may be several reasons for the shut down, but details have still not been fully revealed.
• It was NCsoft's decision. "In a realignment of company focus and publishing support, NCsoft has made the decision to close Paragon Studios."
• Theory: CoH was not bringing in enough money.
• Theory: To compensate, closed Paragon Studios.
• Sub-Theory: City of Heroes takes the fall for the mistake of Aion. "NCSoft loses 6 million in quarter." http://bit.ly/TFiZdc
• Theory: "NCsoft is now going in outsource, and will be moving to certain new games with new technology that sadly CoH Engine cannot support."
• Debunked! Theory: CoH needed a licensing renewal but Cryptic/Perfect World does not want to extend a competitor (as they own Champions Online).
• (cont.) The real issue is that Cryptic/PW still own the license to the CoH engine. Thus, in order to sell the game, they would have to approve.

Ideas

• Information is listed on the second post.
• We're dealing with corporate decisions, which will need more than petitions. As much as I support petitioning, there have been MANY cases where it has not worked, or rather, has not been enough.
• Contact NCsoft directly. Call their numbers, reach the CEO. Send paper letters. Go to their building and (civilly) protest.
• Contact Perfect World directly. Call their numbers too, reach their CEO. Send paper letters. Go to their building, and so on.
• Have community projects sustain the game. This means collecting money, from trying to allow private servers to even possibly convincing NCsoft to revert this.
• Contact well-known people. This ranges from celebrities to other gaming companies. The more news about this goes out, the great publicity we'll receive. The more people know about this, especially well-known people, the most likely our actions will have an effect on the business.
  

• The CoH staff came into work the morning of the 31st, unaware that this was happening. It was sudden for them as it was for the players. The studio was dissolved immediately, along with any development and marketing. This means Paragon Market, points and billing were terminated immediately.
• The official end date for all of City of Heroes is November 30th. That means the players have about three months left, although there is reason to suspect it may be closed sooner. However, this is still vague and will be updated when more details come.
• All the staff from Paragon Studios have been laid off, and are technically no longer connected to the game. However, there are a few who will be sticking around until the end. To be pedantic - they have not been fired.
• Developers and management are technically no longer around. Again, a few will be staying to help for the last few months. However, it's shaky how much power they have. The only staff group that are officially still around seems to be the server engineers.
  

Theories

• Theory: CoH was not bringing in enough money.
• Compared to other NCsoft games, CoH is the lowest percentage of their profit and popularity. (I need help in gathering numbers)
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Rubberlad Long story short: 1) Q2 2012 was the first time ever that NCsoft was operating with a significantly NEGATIVE profit margin (ouch!). 2) City of Heroes had the lowest performing game sales (even Aion was doing much better...). In a word, it wasn't Cryptic Studios withholding license renewal that doomed CoH... It wasn't NCsoft hating on American gamers... At the end of the day, NCsoft was in the red and they cut the lowest-performing IP in their stable of games (and also the one with a significant mount of unjustifiable expense) just to rescue their bottom line... Can't say I blame them from an investment perspective. Unfortunately for all of us that turned out to be City of Heroes. See for yourself by getting the 2Q 2012, August 8th unaudited earnings report here: http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/quarterly.aspx I'm sure if NCsoft had maintained a profit this quarter, we wouldn't be in the predicament we are now. But they didn't and the price of doing business in a very competitive industry right now had to be paid... Sorry folks.

• Sub-Theory: City of Heroes takes the fall for the mistake of Aion.
• http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08...6m-loss-in-q2/
• "The mega-publisher announced that its second quarter earnings were lower than expected; it posted a $6 million loss for the period."
  Revenues were down 12% from last year to $130 million, of which a vast majority came from NCsoft's online titles. The company stated that it dipped into the red due to rising labor costs, an increased marketing budget for Blade & Soul's Korean launch, and the acquisition of Ntreev. Aion was also blamed for the company's financial woes, as revenues in that title sharply decreased due to fewer microtransaction sales."
• Theory: "NCsoft is now going in outsource, and will be moving to certain new games with new technology that sadly CoH Engine cannot support."
• @SunGryphon's Tweet
  "Apparently NCSoft has decided to outsource everything. All of their games will now run on the same engine, one which CoX does not support. ... Sorry guys, all I have is that she's a former NCSoft employee, and she's offline. She's a GM elsewhere now."
• Tweet‏
  "NCsoft is now going in outsource, and will be moving to certain new games with new technology that sadly CoH Engine cannot support."
  

Offsite Coverage

• IGN: http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/...per-shuts-down
• Examiner: http://www.examiner.com/article/ncso...city-of-heroes
• The Escapist: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...City-of-Heroes
• Joystiq: http://massively.joystiq.com/category/city-of-heroes/
• MMOgrinder: http://mmogrinder.net/2012/09/02/r-i-p-city-of-heroes/
• CNN iReport: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-8373...feeds%2Flatest
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Obsidian_Light http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-8373...feeds%2Flatest Addictinginfo.org: Can Social Media Make A Real Difference? City Of Heroes Players Hope So http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/09...ing-shut-down/ (first non-gaming news coverage) It's not reported on by a CNN reporter, but if we get enough likes/recommends, etc. It could POTENTIALLY get looked at by producers. Edit because my brain is all over the place with all this sharing and information hunting: This puts the Community's activism into the light, in a positive manner. This is exactly what we want.

• Unsubject @ Wordpress: http://unsubject.wordpress.com/2012/...e-world-event/ (Numerical and graphical data; argues why NCsoft shut down Paragon)
• Eurogamer: City of Heroes and developer Paragon Studios to be closed by NCsoft
• CNN coverage, needs responses to be officially published: City of Heroes Gamers Fight to Save Their World
  
  

Rumors

• Debunked! Sony Online Entertainment and one other game publisher already made a generous bid for City of Heroes. http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=296535
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Mad_Cow_Milk Fresh from the rumor mill. I am IRL looking to get into the Game Design busness, and have had teachers who are and were in the field. They have connections. I talked with one of them a few minutes ago and this is what one of them told me they heard. About an hour after the announcement of the end to City of Heroes, SOE and one other game publisher already made a generous bid for the game...

• Facebook Group: CoHSurvivors - 766+ members as of 09/03/2012
• Facebook Group: Boycott NCsoft - + members as of 09/03/2012
• Facebook Group: The League of Extraordinary Gamers discussion group
• Server FB Group: Triumph United - City of Heroes
• Server FB Group: City Of Heroes & City Of Villains On The Exalted VIP Server
• Server FB Group: (Infinity) https://www.facebook.com/groups/extraordinarygamers
• Facebook Page: Rogue Isles, Prateorian and Paragon Refugees - 195+ Likes as of 09/03/2012
• Facebook Page: Save our City of Heroes
• Facebook Page: City of Heroes Can Not Leave
• Facebook Event: CoH Sit In (November 29 at 11:00pm until November 30 at 11:00pm in CST / Freedom Server (Everywhere))
• City of Heroes Veterans - "This is the future home for veteran players of City of Heroes to hang out, and hook up with their old friends. Please keep this site bookmarked while we get it up and running!"
• Titan Network forums
• Titan Network: Save Paragon City!
• Real World Hero: NCsoft closure of Paragon Studios and City of Heroes
• SaveCoH on Tumblr - Aggregates Tumblr posts about CoH and what to do
  

• Don't delete your characters!
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by TonyV Hey all, please don't do anything drastic with your characters. Don't delete them, don't nuke all of your stuff, don't do anything that is irreversible. I'm saying this because of two reasons. First, as has been hinted in rumor threads elsewhere and even if it weren't a rumor it would still be possible, another studio may very well pick up this game. If so, it's entirely possible that the servers won't go dark on November 30. If that happens and the game keeps chugging along, you'll be kicking yourself for doing something permanent that carries forward after November. Second, at the Titan Network, we are working on tools to export your character data in a form that, even if the servers go down November 30 but we're able to revive the game in some form, will be usable to recreate your character on alternate servers if need be. If you go deleting them or deleting all of your stuff, you'll lose the opportunity to do that and, if the servers are recreated at some point, you'll have to start from scratch instead of having your characters documented in a format that we can use to re-import them unscathed. We'll be talking more about this as we make progress on our toolset--we're not keeping it a secret, but we're still in the process of working on it at a furious pace--but in the meantime, like I said, just please don't do anything permanently bad to your stuff.

• Global meet and greet!
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by TonyV Hey all, so I'm working on our next Call to Action item, this one hopefully fun. Before I make it all official, I wanted to get some input and put some feelers out for interest. The idea is to have the First Annual (that's right, I plan on having MORE!) City of Heroes Save The World Meet-and-Greet. Via our Titan Network forum, we will get a bunch of volunteers in and around major cities around the world to choose venues, and all on the same night (probably a weekend in October), we hold a get-together of massive proportions. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people all getting together with fellow players to hang out and have some fun. Hopefully we'll get people who can record the events, maybe even put together something like Google Hangouts so that we can talk to people at events in other cities and/or people who can't make it can tune in. The goals, as it relates to our Save Paragon City! effort, are as follows...

• CoH Bucket List
  

• This is all an elaborate marketing ploy. - No, 80 people were laid off and this has been confirmed through many sources. We sure wish it was a joke though.
• This means City of Heroes 2 is going to come out! - Although the trademark for CoH2 was filed by NCsoft in 2010, there has been no development. It's also illogical that Paragon Studios would be pushed out of any of its development.
• The devs hate us! - Heck no. They're upset and surprised too. Check out their threads on the forums!
• NCsoft just hates City of Heroes. - It's known that they might not understand our genre so much, but dumping an entire studio out of sheer distaste would be silly.
• This is all a ploy to get us to play Guild Wars 2/Champions Online/DCUO... - NCsoft does want to have more funds to work on their other games, but City of Heroes was still making a profit.
• Cryptic did this! They're withholding the license!/It's been five years, we need a renewal but they won't give it to us! - As far as we know, no other companies besides NCsoft contributed to these actions. However, Cryptic still owns the license, and so any sale of CoH would need their permission as well. As far as we know, there was no five year limit.
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Leo_G Quote: Originally Posted by Come Undone 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 Thunder Knight 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. From what I've read of late posts, Zwill and BaBs posts simply say that they haven't heard anything that supports that rumor and that it was most likely just a rumor.

  From BaB:
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by Tic-Toc Cross-post: Ironically, Champions Online celebrated its 3rd year anniversary today and we had a quick company-wide meeting that where last Friday's bombshell about City of Heroes/Paragon came up. During Q&A time with Jack, I pont-blank asked him if there was any truth to the rumors about expired licensing agreement with Cryptic's COH engine. He was taken aback about this, unaware of such rumors going around. His response was that NCSoft has the license to use the CoH engine "in perpituity" for both "City of Heroes/City of Villains" as well as a 2nd game. I asked him if there was going to be any official response to this rumor concerning Cryptic/PWE and it's not something we plan on doing. We obviously can't be aware of or comment on every rumor floating around on the internet he wasn't sure of what they could say about this particular scenario if they wanted to. So whatever reasons NCSoft had for shuttering Paragon, it had absolutely nothing to do with the IP, which they own, or the engine, which they had a license to use indefinitely. That's about all I can do to quell this rumor. Take it as you will. Again, thoughts go out to all my friends, former co-workers, and recent friendly rivals who've been released into the wild. I hope to see many of them here in the halls of Cryptic very soon. :P

  From Star Trek Online forums: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/sh...1&postcount=93
  
  Quote:

  Hi Captains, I'm still at PAX, actually on the floor as I write this, but I had to stop by to check in on this thread with a few comments. First and foremost, our (PWE and Cryptic) thoughts go out to the entire team at Paragon and everyone who is/ was involved with CoH/ CoV. We really wish the best for the team and hope to see their work again on other projects very, very soon. Much of the Cryptic team was actually involved with the project originally; we are all truly and deeply saddened to hear this news. Second, the rumor that we were involved in anyway in this decision is just insane. I'm not sure where the rumor originated from but I can confirm that it completely false. Hope that clears that up. Cheers, Brandon =/\=

• SOE made an offer to purchase CoH from NCsoft - Sadly, this was debunked twice by John Smedley through e-mail and Twitter.
  
  Quote:

  Originally Posted by SlickRiptide I see a few responses along the lines of "they wouldn't want to queer the deal by telling the truth" so I wanted to be clear. The reason I don't just paste the email verbatim is that I nrver received explicit permission. However, the relevant quote would be "Never been discussed never going to be discussed." That IS verbatim. There was no question of hedging. In fact, I exchanged a few emails wiyh Mister Smedley and he was surprisingly forthcoming about his own experiences having to shut down Matrix Online and EQOA. He also expressed his great respect for both City of Heroes and Paragon Studios. Bottom line: SOE is not in the picture. At all.

  Tweet:
  https://twitter.com/j_smedley/status/242813132425293824
  
  Quote:

  John Smedley ‏@j_smedley someone started a rumor we were buying City of Heroes. NO we are absolutely 100% not. That's a great game though. sorry to hear its fate