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That is...interesting, and puts some more detail about their process on laying everyone off...

The 'become a VIP' button won't load, but the Shop button (both in-game an on the character select screen) is working just fine for me on the beta server.

It's better than nothing. At the least I'm looking forward to being able to run the signature story arcs, as well as unlocking inventions, Night Ward, and the newer power sets. And given that none of my unlocked characters on the live servers are above lvl 20, I'm glad that I've been able to transfer over a 50 to beta to experience some higher level content.

[*]If fans could raise enough funds, could CoH be saved? Unknown, ask the folks in Korea.

I hate having to read tea leaves, so Let's read some tea leaves!

That seems to be corporate-ese for "the guys at NcSoft have zero interest in saving or selling the game". Am I reading that right?

Oh, how interesting, they (NcSoft) literally have no interest in selling off the studio then, they just want to cut, run and shut it down.

I am sure there are a few within NCSoft's ranks that want the game to keep on going. Same way I think the game has been under the axe for a long time, not due to performance but due to it being a "waste of time and resources" on the mind of way too many at NCSoft. Those few that believed in the game, kept it alive. They may also be right now the ones making sure there are talks.

But I doubt there is any actual interest in the game in any way from the main Korean side. The way I think it is, and this is purely speculative, they feel about the same way a restaurant feels about the bums feeding of their garbage cans. They lose nothing, but they still don’t really like it either, even if the bums were to toss a few pennies the restaurant way.

Thankfully, for now, a few in the restaurant do have sympathy for the homeless.

To be honest, with large layoff off the development team this seems to be fairly normal.

I know that Bioware did it when a lot of the SW:TOR team was laid off (including Rockjaw (ex EU Community/Creative Concepts person)).

So it isn't all that strange.

Any deal may take months to solidify. NCSoft is not going to keep the developers in the payroll in case that happens. It would be actually a dikish thing to do not to help employees find a job.

It also may all be tied to the NDA. Sign the NDA: you get severance package and we help you find a job. Don't sign the NDA, you get nothing and are on your own, we will make sure to spread word about you not being a team-player.

No. If vicariously being a hero has taught me anything, it's that it's not over until it's over. It doesn't look good, but that just means we have to try harder for any hope at all. Take heart, and don't stop fighting the good fight.

Newton: I observed Mercury's perihelion moving 43 arc-seconds per century more than it should. Is this WAI? --Einstein

We're not done yet.

Okay, now the store is working. I want the VIP status on Beta (heck, I want to be able to get it back on Live!) but at least I can get the SSA2, which I haven't seen, and Night Ward, which I haven't seen, and the powers I haven't been able to try.

This is a number's game. NCSoft is on the ropes and making a bold play with GW2.
As stated in GH's other thread.. the game management is in discussions with high level entities within NCSoft. My bet? The game's producers are making a play at acquiring the game's rights and branching off as an independent studio.

I say its time we really make our voices heard by quite literally putting our money where our mouths are. If and when the call comes down, I'll gladly throw in most, if not all, of my annual tax return to their cause and would encourage others to consider doing the same.

Big companies like big money.. let's show them our's. It's not just a 'video game' here, people. It's a living, breathing community with life and fire in it worth saving. It's 80+ American jobs that are being salvaged. It's 80+ families that will rest easier.

So when that time comes, I hope most of you will join me in -really- making our voices heard.

They've showed us their's... Let's show them -our's-.

Except they may be losing future customers. Now, to be fair they may could care less about their reputation in the western market. I know there are HUB people who have not played CoX in years that are stating they will never touch an NCSoft product again.

I think social media has really changed the effect of waves by closing a game. Gamers are an odd lot (I am included in this) the fall of one game has a way of being offensive even to those who don't play that game. I am not going to say I understand it, but my lack of understanding doesn't make it less true.

This was a bad PR move on NCSoft's part. There really is no way around at this point. How long ago did Flagship close? People are STILL talking about Flagship and HGL. Gaming as a whole has developed a much larger culture thanks to the internet.

And there ya go.

I do too, I think the game had a lot of potential. With the advent of DLC and patching, potential has become something very important to me. There were whole years that I stayed subbed to CoX not because of what it had, but because of it's potential.

Hellgate? That was bought by HanbitSoft and brought back online.

I tried it. It was the same game...but not. The whole feel of the game was different. The text had been translated, and then re translated. The hairstyles and NPC locations were different. It has been heavily altered to fit the Asian market. So, not really the same game.

Just goes to show how much attention people pay to some stuff.

For one, they were very aware how it would impact their future customer retention and their current one. They, more than anyone, know how many customers are lost at the closure of a game, and how many actually transfer to another title.

It's not like they closed down World of Warcraft, CoH, profitable and all, was not a huge game and we already heard from other players in these forums that are very happy with Guild Wars 2 and won’t do any boycott.

It is easy for us to overstate the negative impact to NCSoft's reputation based on this, because for us, CoH is huge. But from the outside, it's barely a drop of water in the rain.

We will never be able to convince NCSoft to do anything based off negative backlash, reputation, or future customer loss. These were things that were likely quantified before they did the announcement.

The only ones that can do anything are those involved in talks right now. Hopefully the few people interested in keeping CoH alive can make enough push within NCSoft, and an appealing case, plus come up with the money, to make a sale happen.

For now, we know there are talks going on. They are just talks, but they are going on. Zwillinger seems to think there is hope, he is trying to keep expectations down, but they also refuse to zero out everything in the market for live servers in case something may actually go through. That’s enough hope, I think. If they turn everything down to zero sometime at the start of November, then we know all hope is lost.

BTW, what is Flagship? and HGL?

Possible but their calculations are going to be way more accurate than ours. They have actual subscriber numbers. They did also for previously canceled games. By now, with at least 4 titles canceled (Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, Exsteel, Dungeon Runners) they likely know how many just move on to a different title within the company and how many never return (percentage wise.)

Numbers will perhaps be larger, but likely the percentage will be about the same. They also know how many already subscribe to multiple of their games and are extremely unlikely to give up on their other games just because this one is being removed.

I don't want to be gloomy, I just want to be realistic on the expectation of any efforts. Aquisition efforts are likely if anyone in the company thinks it's worth their time to even sit down to discuss it. Chances for NCSoft to change their mind due to backlash are next to zero.

Flagship was the dev studio for Hellgate London (the 3rd person RPG shooter with sub fees/free to play option). You still had to *buy* the game in the 1st place.

Your guess is as good as mine; that bullet point is almost verbatim from Zwill.

If I had to take a stab, I'd say that maybe Zwill was alluding to someone taking the property off of NCSoft's hands (perhaps even a pittance) to run a legal private server. That is, if no offers from other publishers came up or interested them.

In regards to other publishers, it would probably depend on NCSoft's asking price; if there was even a chance at this point on "getting the band back together" (reforming the studio), or having another studio continue development; and if the game would even be profitable after the above two conditions. Publishers might see opportunity or consider the game in it's current state as a "toxic asset", what with the studio already being dissolved.

As far as a private server is concerned, it could be done legally if purchased from NCSoft, but I couldn't accurately tell anyone what the asking price would be, yet alone the architecture needed to run it, possibly having to transfer data assets from the current server farm to another host, etc. And even if it is done, it's doubtful that new development would occur beyond possibly pushing out a debugged Issue 24, assuming there are volunteers with the know-how to accomplish this.

Either two conditions would hinge upon if NCSoft considers the CoH data assets a trade secret or not. If it is, then there's not much of a chance of purchase by another publisher or someone (like the Titan Network) trying to make a private server.

I'm not trying to be pessimistic, mind you, just a realist. The best bet would be for another publisher to scoop up the game and re-hire as many Paragon Studio members as possible, or for the studio to reopen and relaunch the game at a lower operating cost. But I can't calculate those odds.