NCsoft is NOT our enemy

Considering the in the Q2 reports there are no financials for Blade and Soul and Guild Wars 2, it was most likely a one quarter blip. Did this introduce a knee jerk reaction from someone up high in NCsoft?

Possibly... but from *my* interpretations of the financial quarterly loss is that it was simply that... a single quarterly loss. IF they dropped any of the other titles, it would make the *rest* of their financials look a lot worse next quarter (because in my mind, dropping Aion/Lineage/Lineage 2 would just drop them all that much closer to being permanently in the red, and nothing that CoX could do would save them in that state, because CoX *doesnt* make enough money to cover that loss in income).

The counter-point to that is to look at the profit numbers for the last 5 quarters. That graph is pretty damn discouraging.

yeah, we were on the wrong end of a corporate ragequit.

The problem with looking at overall profits is that it doesn't show the cause or which game or games or marketing strategies are responsible.

As my husband just told me - they're going to self implode eventually with what they're doing.

How is that even remotely relevant to what I said?

Well... pretty much, yes. I think they looked at the numbers and made a decision about the direction they wanted to take their company and CoH didn't fit with the plan. CoH is too small for any decision about the game to have been "essential" to the company's well-being.

Sometimes the parent company of the company where I work makes decisions about our company that I don't agree with. It doesn't mean they're stupid, or evil, or incompetent. It just means that the guys in the U.K. running a business that spans 3 continents have a different perspective and different goals from one small division in the U.S.

I suspect your replies read this way because you are trying to be "the objective one" in the group. However, I feel that in your quest for objectivity you've simply become contrarian. You imply that businesses can make self-interested investment decisions but individuals cannot. I'm tempted to start replying to you by replacing "players" with "sole proprietor businesses" to see if you pick up on the inconsistency.

Work for? No. Own. Catalyst Game Labs. I'm not a majority stakeholder, but I am one of the owners.

Most of my efforts are in convention support. Most of our developers and staffers are coastal. Our two major cons a year are in NE-Central US. Being as I'm in Chicago and in relatively close driving distance, that makes me "local". I'm normally in charge of our convention cartage (read: I'm the schmuck in the truck), uber-gopher, and supplies manager while at the con...being the only guy there with a car helps).

I'm also the lead geek wrangler for our web services and provisioning planning (basically we're the guys who decide how beefy our web server needs to be).

My regular day job is at a company up in Chicago. Even there I'm surrounded by gamers. My boss' stepfather used to run TSR, and he's in solid with the Champions RPG guys.

The first year I worked here my boss was like "You're going to GenCon and Origins this year right?".

Seeing as I'd been off work a year and working menial jobs (burning out in the nursing field SUCKS), I was like "Well, I dunno. Gotta check my finances."

"No, you're GOING to GenCon and Origins RIGHT? *NUDGE*NUDGE*"

"Uh. Yes?"

"GOOD!"

Now I have to hear the "The coolest boss EVER" stories at the con. I'm starting to get eye strain from the eye-rolling. But, it's true! My bosses are incredibly cool to work with. Getting paid to go to GenCon and Origins, outside of already getting hotel, swag and stipend just rules!

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Great response.

@Kyuu

This kind of sums up how I feel right now. If your ally attacks you, the past alliance isn't a mitigating factor. They have declared themselves to be your enemy.

Not at all. I believe the difference lies here: I don't for a second think that somewhere in NCSoft HQ there is some mustache-twirling executive gleefully cackling about how he's sticking it to the CoH community. However, we have multiple instances of users actively wishing harm on NCSoft.

If you've lost trust in NCSoft, that's fine.

If you don't want to buy NCSoft products in the future, that's also fine (although you should have a realistic appraisal of how much difference that is likely to make for NCSoft.)

When you start making statements about "wanting to see NCSoft burn," you've gone over the edge, and should probably start heading back to shore.

First laugh I've had about this.

No he hasn't!

Sorry, I was just suddenly reminded of that!

And thank you for the second laugh since this happened. (from your final line, just to be clear)

Well then, get off your collective a$$es, buy the CoH IP and keep this game going damnit!

So let me ask this, and I really want serious answers because I'm in the midst of writing releases and communications: What if NCsoft agrees to let us or someone else purchase the IP and software?

Given that NCsoft wants to focus on other efforts, how would you, the City of Heroes community, feel if they came out and said something to the effect of, "Unfortunately, City of Heroes isn't part of our future, but we understand that you still want it to be part of yours," and opened the door for the game assets to be given or sold to someone else?

Personally, if they did that I would feel much more forgiving than I do at this precise moment.

It doesn't need to make a difference.

NC is the one that will largely determine if they will burn themselves down with their remaining non-Korean playerbase, or not.

Reasonable people (not just the fanatics) who have honestly lost trust in NCSoft, aren't going to contradict that by turning back around and opening their wallets.

@Kyuu

Same here, but I know the chances of this happening are not 100%

@Kyuu

Forbin, your sig gave me a hearty laugh.

Thanks.

I would be a lot more forgiving, than I am now. A lot more relieved that our raising our voices might've actually had an impact.

I don't know if we'll ever find out for sure... but my guess is that City of Heroes has, and would have continued to be, an embarrassment for NCSoft, dragging its image down -- making them 'lose face'.

City of Heroes is an amazing game -- it did things that other MMOs copied, and things that we wish other MMOs would do -- and one that is highly amenable to the casual gamer -- you can log in, run a mission or two, and call it a night, then come back a day or two later, this time to get together with some friends to do a Task Force -- and if you fell a couple levels behind, that's what sidekicking is for.

Look at the type of MMOs that are popular in Korea. Grind. Grind. Grind. Gather materials so you can use them to grind your crafting skills. Buying from the ingame store or other players to get the gear you don't make yourself, in a constant struggle to keep from slipping behind the power curve, having to replace all your gear over and over again as it becomes trash relative to the opponents you face. Most of the world is set up so you need to go out in groups to survive. And PvP is an integral part of the game, with mechanics designed to actively push you out into the PvP areas, where the gank is the only true expression of superiority. NCSoft has brought this style of game to the Western MMO market again and again, and their track record is poor -- Auto Assault flopped, Exteel flopped, Dungeon Runner flopped, Tabula Rasa flopped, Aion's performance is 'disappointing' -- and Guild Wars deliberately took the game in a different direction to try to eliminate grinding.

The games NCSoft manages that are successful -- albeit only moderately, compared to the Asian market, which is 99% of their business -- are the ones that don't conform to the gaming style that is the core of NCSoft's game stable. And City of Heroes is almost the antithesis of this -- you're not forced into PvP, you don't have to team for the vast majority of the content (and what you do need to team for you can skip without it affecting your character), you get enough reward that you can readily advance your character, and you don't have to touch the in-game store to do it. Having City of Heroes succeed while the Asian-style MMOs that NCSoft brought to the Western market fail creates an appearance that NCSoft does not understand the Western market. And NCSoft needs to appear successful to maintain its reputation; they bought the casual-game company Ntreev in an attempt to buy the success in the casual gaming market they couldn't achieve on their own merits.

By throwing City of Heroes under the bus, NCSoft is left with a stable of MMOs all in the same vein -- even Guild Wars, and the newly-released Guild Wars 2, have enough grind in them to be 'familiar' -- which lets NCSoft look at a failing MMO and rationalize it as "The market didn't want a game about [subject]", instead of having to face the truth that the Western MMO market isn't the same as the Asian MMO market, and releasing Asian-style MMOs onto the Western market again and again in the hopes that us Westerners will finally see the superiority of the style of game [i]they[i] want us to desire won't give them the success they want.

Yes, it's a niche market, and I don't think that it could possibly ever accumulate enough subscribers to make a blip on Blizzard's radar, but City of Heroes, warts and all, did so many things right.

I'd be more forgiving, but wouldn't forget. I'd not likely be willing to buy another NCSoft product, but part of my reason for this isn't just COH it is seeing how Aion is run. Short of Aion being cancelled in the same way as COH the NA and EU Aion community have gotten the shaft. Knowing that I'd trust any other game company to take my desires as a NA player into account than NCSoft.

I think that if NCSoft were willing to do this they'd have quietly put the game up for sale before the announcement on Friday. Instead of Friday's announcement we'd have instead seen a press release like the one when Paragon Studios was formed. Friday's announcement hurt the earnings potential for the game for any company that might consider purchasing it. I saw a lot of "goodbye and thanks for everything" messages in global this weekend and compared to usual my gfriend list is about half as active as it usually is on a Monday night around this time.