Savior spelled = SOE?

If SOE did this, they would receive a full pardon from me for past crimes.

Just saying.

If the choice is between another publisher and a player effort, then of course we'll support the publisher option - but we can't rely on there being one, so we've got to organize now for the possibility that we're the only ones who can try and save something from the game.

****REDACTED - See below***

Folks;

I received an email back from Mr. Smedley within a few minutes of the email that I sent him. Color me surprised and just a bit impressed that he's that on the ball personally on a holiday evening, no less.

I have requested his permission to post the contents here, but I can tell you that the SOE rumor is false. They have not made an offer and do not intend to.

I'm sorry. I was really hoping that bone would have some meat on it.

Well, that's why they call them rumors. Pity, though.

And yet, despite this rumor being proved false, we can at least be patient with our other attempts to save the game.

Oh crap.

I tried to avoid getting my hopes up, but I couldn't help it.

I am on such an emotional roller-coaster right now. I was playing with my wife and son earlier and looking around Talos, thinking "how can it be that this will soon be gone? How can my characters cease to exist?"

So, yeah, I guess it's really done, but I still don't want to believe it.

Kinda funny really. I've not been playing much lately (kept the sub up though). I'm actually more down about it now than I was Friday. When it hit Friday, I was resigned. Dec 1... gone. Period.

For some reason, I got a little perk of hope today when I read this. It made just enough sense to be something to hold to.

Now, I'm back to my default position. It's dead, and will not be saved. I just feel worse about it. *sigh*

That was actually a good idea to PM John Smedley. Even though the rumor was proved false (unless the dude who claims he PM'd him is trolling/lying for some reason), I still hope a seasoned publisher buys out CoH and fast.

And I'm still going to play my toons exactly as I would have, a little of this, a little of that, bringing on whomever I please, right until the final hour.

And I still want to follow Paragon Studios and see where they wind up if CoH really does go down. You know, there's one thing we haven't thought of: If they can approach a publisher as a team and get the green light for a new MMO project, just think of what they could accomplish with all this experience under their belts!

I doubt NCSoft would allow CoH2, but hey, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning by Big Huge Games wasn't originally Amalur at all when they were owned by THQ. It was only revamped to reflect that world and lore once 38 Studios rescued them from bankruptcy and closure. I know 38 went bust, that isn't my point; my thought is that whatever technology Paragon was working on for CoH2 (if they were actually working on a sequel to CoH), well, maybe they could revamp those ideas into another world altogether and go from there.

I'll bet they always had dreams of things they couldn't do with CoH due to engine and lore limitations, etc. Maybe they could do those things now, with proper backing.

And I still think pitching to Valve, and writing to other publishers (with links to this forum and the petitions) can't hurt. Don't give up until the fat lady sings as they say!

Could we maybe get a second confirmation and I mean, we could still try and see if we can convince them to go for buying it... Please...

Also, do we have any clues on what the second company is?

I did a lot of thinking about why NCSoft would just close down Paragon Studios without any warning. But if you really think about it, maybe there *was* a warning.

When Apple released Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) in mid July, a warning was posted by Zwillinger to the Mac Users forum that the NCSoft Launcher crashes on some Macs running it. Since then, nobody has been able to contact NCSoft to get a fix for it. It's like the people working on the Launcher for Mac just vanished. As it turns out, they probably did.

That clue leads me to believe that in the two months since then, NCSoft has been letting people go because it's so low on cash, it can't make payroll, and can't get a loan to fill the gap. When this past weekend came along, they made the sudden decision that to save the company (NCSoft) and be able to pays its workers, it had to take the money out of the pot feeding Paragon Studios and City of Heroes. Meaning they were all fired, and the game was to be shut down immediately.

I can only speculate from that point, somewhat gratefully perhaps, that someone working at Paragon may have begged for leniency for us players, so we would be able to have a chance to say goodbye, and talked NCSoft into giving us 3 months.


Some other semi-random thoughts I have about the contents of this thread, some good and some bad:

- SOE making a bid for City of Heroes on a holiday weekend sounds more than a little suspiciously like a wishful thinking rumor. If it's real, however, the way it plays out could be interesting.

- I would also prefer a smaller studio who would appreciate the smaller profits, or an independent Paragon Studios, but when the ship is sinking, you don't say no to any rescue.

- SOE, if it is indeed making a bid, would not spend several million to bury the City of Heroes IP when it's as good as dead already. They could just let NCSoft kill it and bury it for free.

- City of Heroes is more likely to be sold by NCSoft than any other title they killed, because it is not originally an NCSoft property, and they don't really want it. They bought it from Cryptic. That means there is no reason for them to try and protect the IP unless they already have a sequel in the works.

I'm not nearly so convinced that NCSoft is making this as a panic move. They had a bad quarter to be sure... but on the other hand, if you look at their results, their operating profit over the previous 3 quarters was 9x as much as their loss was in Q2. A company with a generally strong and profitable bottom line does not die after one weak quarter unless they get burnt on a short term cash flow crunch (which, considering how much cash Nexon pumped in 2 months ago, seems unlikely).

I still hold to my original thought. They looked at CoH's numbers, saw that it wasn't growing, and decided that made it expendable. I still don't get why they handled it the way they did (the clearing of the offices in one day), but I don't especially expect to hear of NCSoft going bankrupt any time soon.