How the game SHOULD have ended

Going to be rambling a bit and be very opinionated too. Mostly it comes down to two ways I look at things..as a Good Move...or a Richard Move (think of what richard is short for).

The servers are STILL up.
Yes, I know, it is not really a great thing. But compared to how NC could have been utter Richard's, as opposed to 99% Richards, and just flat out nuked the servers...getting 3 more months is a Not-as-bad-as-a-kick-to-the-temple-almost-Good Move.

Nature Affinity should have been FREE.
Yes, the richards made us pay for it, a week before the kick in the face. I refuse to believe that NO one at NC has no idea this was going to happen. Maybe people at Paragon did too, but that is hardly their fault. Still, someone SHOULD have said..'yo guys, we are telling our customers to bend over in a week..lets give em a treat?' Richard Move.

Refunds for August should have been given.
I understand it is a business, wanting to make money. But surely there is a difference between making money, and LETTING people fork out cash, when your planning to announce the game is dead? See above..Richard Move.

ANNOUNCE the DAMN game is going to close.
Seriously, how hard is it? We got emails about Going Rogue..so why not this? Surely it is..you know..a little important? Email all past and present accounts, saying why it happened (which, afaik, still has not come out, aside from theories players are floating) and most most important..saying SORRY. 8 years..no sorry. GJ guys. Total Richard Move

Upgrade ALL accounts to 'vip' status, after announcement.
Yep, even free ones. Cancel all the subs and billing, charge everyone, even frees, say..5 bucks. Five bucks for 3 months at vip, getting all content. Even knowing the game is going to die, who wont pay that? And if they dont..see what actually happened..they dont CARE if we are still playing. This would have stopped all those people who werent vip at that exact time, getting shafted. Richard Move.

Merge teh servers.
I know, finally! And people always asked..what would it take to get a merge? Well..this. The game closed due to profits right..yet..they are RUNNING all the servers for an extra 3 months, without any income? Um..guys..not a business man but..retarded much? Merge the servers..the 3 ex-EU ones with exalted, and Freedom and Virtue with an equal portion of the rest. Any current or active toon name takes precedent over an unused one. ANd hey..who cares? Why worry about names, when the games dying. Richard Move possibly done due to time needed.

Update Live with all the i24 Beta Stuff.
Seriously, are they retarded? Not only would it be a GREAT reward for us, the players..8 years, here have our last shiny content! But..because they are NOT doing it, it just shafts the devs even more, who worked hard on all that stuff, and then dont get to see it played. Almost unthinkable Richard Move.

Unlock the Store for the last 2/1 Months.
Sure, it would unbalance the game, but who cares? It is dying. Give people the chance to MAKE that uber build they could never afford, someone who could never get purples a chance to use em. Just like Beta is, all free points at the store, free merits of all kinds from the oro vendors, money never vanishing. They might do this, and I might suddenly grow a second head two. SO going to put this down as a Future Richard Move.

Have the devs (bless em) working on a Offline Cox.
Yes, private servers would be swell, but lets be realistic. Offline is much more likely. Remove ALL the TF/Sf starting conditions, so you can kick em off alone. Use the AE npc making code to generate team member style NPCs, with rough mastermind controls, so you can at least have SOME help. Release for 50 bucks. Make one last profit (you know NC..the thing the game wasnt doing?) Possible Future Richard Move, maybe saved by the Titan guys etc.

Topic :

Slowly, two or three years from now, with a couple servers still running despite the sequel being out.

"Nature Affinity should have been FREE."
Had they made Nature Affinity free then people would have started wondering why. Also, the people who made the decision to shut down Paragon almost certainly weren't even aware that Nature Affinity had just gone live. They don't concern themselves with the details of individual games, just with the business side of things.

And while some people at NCSoft knew they were going to shut Paragon down at the end of August, the people at Paragon most certainly didn't know that. The entire point behind a surprise announcement like they did is to prevent information (or perhaps code) from leaking.

"Refunds for August should have been given."
Why? The people who payed in August were able to play in August. Why should anyone get a refund?

"ANNOUNCE the DAMN game is going to close."
They did. In fact, they announced it 90 days in advance. Right here.

"Upgrade ALL accounts to 'vip' status, after announcement."
Zwillinger has said they're trying to see if they can do this.

"Merge teh servers."
What would this take? How about a ton of new code and more money poured into the game. NCSoft doesn't want to do that. They're shutting the game down in order to save money.

"Update Live with all the i24 Beta Stuff."
No, they're not retarded. We've been told, by developers, that the Issue 24 build is too buggy to go to the live servers and they don't have the resources or man-power to push it to live.

"Unlock the Store for the last 2/1 Months."
Zwillinger said that they don't want to do this: "Just in case." Just in case of what? I don't know. Perhaps it has something to do with the talks that former Paragon management is in with NCSoft investors.

"Have the devs (bless em) working on a Offline Cox."
Once again NCSoft is closing CoH because they don't want to spend more money on it. You really can't expect them to put more time and money into a project that they're cancelling in order to save money.

I'd love to see them get a server emulator up and running. Or some code that would allow me to run the game as a stand-alone on my own computer. Either way, it's going to be a fan project. The former Paragon developers almost certainly won't be involved in it.