City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Put us out of our misery

Anti_Proton

By Anti_Proton,
Posted on: 2012-09-15 02:15 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter View Post
I brought this up on the Titan forums because it applied to the campaign and that there are still players out there who still don't know this is coming. It's interesting to note that if you don't do a lot of web surfing and/or don't ever come to these forums, you'd have no clue that a termination was coming. NOTHING in the NC Launcher or loading into the game (how hard would it have been for a little system message to appear at login?) gives you any indication that the game is counting down to oblivion. It's unbelievable to me that the only chance those players have at finding out is by word of mouth/keyboard.
I don't post on the forums much but I have been a player for a long time. I logged into the forums the day of the announcement just to see if there was any new news on the release of Bio Armor, which I had been saving points for. I saw the "farewell" thread but when I first saw it I thought that someone of note in Paragon Studios must be moving on and didn't click on and read the thread. It wasn't until the day after the announcement when I logged in again that I saw all the doomsday threads that I realized something was up. I had to do investigating in order to find out that it was closing. The info may have been right there in front of me, but as a casual gamer I, at the time, was only interested in one thing when I logged in and had to read into it to find out the game was closing.

 

Posted

I only knew the day of the announcement because a friend told me. I usually don't check the front page often. And the last time I read anything on the launcher was about never. I probably would've found out a day or two after by checking red posts.

Culex's resistance guide

 

Posted

Man...I was on a PuP radio mission with a character I had JUST MADE that morning when all the channels blew up around 9:30 or so. I asked the guys in the team if they had seen the chatter then I just had to quit the team and see WTF was going on... Spent the next few days protesting under Atlas. That character is still at level 4 I think...

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter View Post
NOTHING in the NC Launcher or loading into the game (how hard would it have been for a little system message to appear at login?) gives you any indication that the game is counting down to oblivion.
Check again.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by JayboH View Post
Check again.
Agreed, and infact it went up *that day* on the launcher as well if I remember correctly.

 

Posted

The top three articles under "News" in the NCLauncher (at least, the Mac version) are about Blade and Soul (dated September 13th), Guild Wars 2's launch (dated August 28th), and a Guild Wars 2 preview (dated August 27th).

You have to actually click on "City of Heroes" in the launcher to bring up the link to the "Farewell" article.

Edited to add: Moreover, even if you find the right section of the NC Launcher, the news of the closing is in tiny font at the bottom-right of the Launcher. The top half the CoH page of the Launcher is still dominated by a giant ad for Nature Affinity, and the bottom-left features a distracting animated image for Water Blast, Power Amplifiers, and Enhancement Trays. There's nothing that draws attention to the closing announcement at all, and in fact, it's designed to draw attention away from the tiny words and towards the giant brightly-colored animated pictures.

When I open City of Heroes, it loads the NC Launcher, launches the game, and then closes the Launcher. When it does this, it only shows the main News page, not the CoH-specific news, so you won't see it there.

So, yeah, the news is technically in the Launcher, but (unless the Windows version is substantially different) you really have to dig for it, and may never see it at all if you open the game like I do. (Which I imagine is fairly normal - does everyone else open the Launcher and then open CoH from inside the Launcher, pausing to read the tiny 6-point font text every single time, instead of opening the game itself?)

You'd think that closing one of their games would be important front-page news, but it's not.

 

Posted

So, I got an email back from NCsoft about refunds. What they said was this:

Quote:
Hello,


We would first like to thank you for your support of City of Heroes. It is never easy to make this kind of decision. You can read the official announcement at

http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/news_archive/thank_you.php. There is a discussion on the forums that you are free to join at http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=295621.


For refunds of unused time or unspent Paragon Points, we will be contacting those players directly with information. Please watch the website for any official updates as soon as they are available.


City of Heroes will be available for at least the next three months. We are working on something special for our VIP and Premium players. As soon as these plans are ready, they will be announced on the website and the forums.


Regards,
The City of Heroes Support Team

pohsyb: so of all people you must be most excited about the veats
Arachnos Commander: actually, I am
pohsyb: I mean you kinda were one already anyways ^_^
Arachnos Commander:

 

Posted

Quote:

City of Heroes will be available for at least the next three months.
Interesting choice of words.

Of course Nov 30th has never been officially confirmed - IGN just said that NCsoft told them they were 'aiming at' that date, so who knows. That said, the way NC are acting there's no apparent reason for them to keep the game 'alive' longer than they need to.

Still, it's interesting. I wonder what the 'something special' is. Beta access to Blade and Soul? That'd be funny, in an awful kind of way.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Commander View Post
City of Heroes will be available for at least the next three months.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightshadeLegree View Post
Interesting choice of words.

Of course Nov 30th has never been officially confirmed - IGN just said that NCsoft told them they were 'aiming at' that date, so who knows.
On the date of the announcement (Aug 31), the Nov 30th date was three months away. I'd be willing to be that the form letter that Commander received was generated on or just after the date of the announcement, and hasn't been updated since.

It is still interesting wording, especially in light of Zwillinger's recent post, which gave me pretty much the exact opposite vibe of what Commander's response gives.

@Roderick

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roderick View Post
It is still interesting wording, especially in light of Zwillinger's recent post, which gave me pretty much the exact opposite vibe of what Commander's response gives.
Agreed. Z's post came across to me as, "That which you don't want to hear you will be hearing this week."

Be well, people of CoH.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by End Sinister View Post
I think the community outpouring has been great; I never thought that people online would band together like this over a video game. I'll keep signing any petition that comes my way, but it looks as if NC Soft isn't changing its mind.

I don't want to sound negative and be one of the few who drives down the energy of the Save City Of Heroes campaign, but TonyV posted exactly what I was thinking in his latest post. Talks aside, I doubt any of the development team has been or is willing to stick around and not look for a job on the slim chance NC Soft might change its mind. The biggest threat to the death of this game is already happening. I'm sure that some of the dev.'s have pretty much secured new jobs and TonyV is aware of this.

The biggest trial will be getting a reaction from NC Soft in the next two to three weeks. The executives at NC Soft know that no sane person from Paragon Studios is going to stick around in the hope that the company might reverse its decision. My feeling is that after a month to five weeks from the date of the statement being made to sunset the game is the most integral time period. After the next two to three weeks I wouldn't put much hope into the game being saved. TonyV knows this. Furthermore, if the developers get hired elsewhere, City Of Heroes will not be the same game even if it survives under another studio's banner. TonyV is seeming more desperate and I know I am not the only one sensing this. Since he has direct contact with some of the people at Paragon Studios I would not take this as a good sign.

In the meantime everyone should keep up the support, I will, but be very realistic that as with anything in life, nothing lasts forever and that this game had a great run of eight years. Eight years is much longer than what most MMO's stick around for nowadays and we should be happy that we got to play for this long and happy that the player base isn't taking this lying down. I do feel that NC Soft has a right to do what it wants (obviously) with its own property, but they should have given more respect to the development team and players and have given City Of Heroes a proper send off. They should have kept a small staff on to create a small end of the world event. One final assault from The Battalion let's say.

As for emailing the top executives at NC Soft? That's something I'd refrain from doing. My father works in upper management and while it may not be a video game company he works for, I imagine that the upper management at NC Soft is very similar. I doubt that most of the executives even play video games. They are only concerned about making more money and are not entirely too concerned with an old IP that they find insignificant. Emailing the executives directly, in my mind, is a bad idea and may only serve to annoy them and reinforce their decision to shutter the game. If I know my dad and his coworkers well enough, annoyance is probably what will be the end result and make them less likely to reconsider sunsetting City Of Heroes.
This.

-Female Player-
Quote:
Originally Posted by mauk2 View Post
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks."
I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

 

Posted

This just occurred to me reading the "something special" announcement. It seems to me that NC Soft reconfirmed the date of closure for City Of Heroes. I am seriously thinking that management is considering giving us a voucher for another game, possibly Guild Wars 2 to shut us up. They really don't have anything to lose since many of us wouldn't have normally bought it anyway and there is potential room to make extra revenue from microtransactions despite the loss of a sale (they otherwise would not get). I honestly think that is the surprise and that it is unrelated to City Of Heroes.

The community is going to be pissed if this is the case.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by End Sinister View Post
This just occurred to me reading the "something special" announcement. It seems to me that NC Soft reconfirmed the date of closure for City Of Heroes. I am seriously thinking that management is considering giving us a voucher for another game, possibly Guild Wars 2 to shut us up. They really don't have anything to lose since many of us wouldn't have normally bought it anyway and there is potential room to make extra revenue from microtransactions despite the loss of a sale (they otherwise would not get). I honestly think that is the surprise and that it is unrelated to City Of Heroes.

The community is going to be pissed if this is the case.
Of course, they could just refund you any subscription fee that you are owed and leave it at that.

Side note: Previous reimbursement package from the closure of Tabula Rasa was:

City of Heroes +3 months sub
Lineage 2 + 3 months sub
Aion Collectors Edition when released.

Sure, you dont have accept that lot... there is *nothing* that says that you have to accept it. If you dont want it, dont use it.


*edit* I Would like to state that this was on top of any refunds/reimbursements for unused subscriptions as well.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by End Sinister View Post
This just occurred to me reading the "something special" announcement. It seems to me that NC Soft reconfirmed the date of closure for City Of Heroes. I am seriously thinking that management is considering giving us a voucher for another game, possibly Guild Wars 2 to shut us up. They really don't have anything to lose since many of us wouldn't have normally bought it anyway and there is potential room to make extra revenue from microtransactions despite the loss of a sale (they otherwise would not get). I honestly think that is the surprise and that it is unrelated to City Of Heroes.

The community is going to be pissed if this is the case.
I think they may be counting on that so it's still a win situation for them. They walk away with the money and hope players are truely pissed and not use the vouchers. And hope that the ones that do use the vouchers, hope they get hooked after three free months and continue to subscribe.

-Female Player-
Quote:
Originally Posted by mauk2 View Post
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks."
I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunder Knight View Post
... does everyone else open the Launcher and then open CoH from inside the Launcher, pausing to read the tiny 6-point font text every single time, instead of opening the game itself?)
I wasn't aware that opening "the game itself" would run the launcher/updater any more, so no, I haven't run it that way since the common launcher was introduced. And after clicking the button to launch CoH, I usually glance at the news headlines on my way to closing the launcher while CoH takes its own sweet time opening a window.

Sure, the notice could be more obvious, but opening the game in the sanctioned, supported, and recommended way gives everybody plenty of opportunity to see the headline. I suppose they could put the notice at the top of the EULA and be more covered, since everybody has to acknowledge that every time they log in...

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny_Butane View Post
Two little mice fell into a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned, but the second mouse, he struggled so hard that he eventually churned that cream into butter and he walked out.
Obviously, this proves Tankers need a buff.

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Posted

Because tankers, no matter how hard they struggle, cannot make cream.