NC Soft: My patience is almost exhausted

Fix'd

It's 106 miles to Grandville, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing faceless helmets

... Hit it ...

Well done, you demonstrated to me that you didn't read any of what I wrote, apart from the bits you chose to take personal issue with.

I'm not insulting the efforts made to save the game, I applaud them.

I'm not insulting the people who poured their hearts and souls into the game, I have been equally touched by them, and to some degree or another have been affected by it the same way myself.

Why are you on the offensive, claiming that just because I am suggesting people keep their feet on the ground about this that I'm some kind of twisted idiot who takes delight in other peoples misery? Why do you make snide little "We don't care about what you say" remarks in attempt to belittle my view point? If that isn't a classic case of denial, I don't know what is.

Yes it's bull. Yes it's a travesty of fairness. Thing is chum, that's life. Crying about it doesn't change anything. The point is, you can justify this game as a support network for people that are disabled or socially inept, but the internet has plenty of other mediums designed for that purpose. This, despite what you want to believe to the contrary, is a computer game. A computer game that has its centre in a space controlled by the purse strings of a company whose only interest is how much money it makes them. If it doesn't make enough money for them, or they want to change the portfolio of which games they want to offer to people, then it gets pulled.

It might be more than a game to the people that play it, unfortunately to the people that we buy it from, it's a product. Products have a life span. This ones life span is up (at least according to them). That's the simple fact of it. That will not change. Shouting and screaming about it, or directing your anger about the unfairness of it at someone who is merely pointing that situation to someone who cannot or will not accept it won't change it either.

So what are you left with? Taking the positive from it, enjoying the memories of the time you had with it and moving on.

TL;DR - I get it's more than a game to some. Point is, the people who make the decision don't, and even if they did still wouldn't care. Like it or not, "getting over it" is what we're going to have to do sooner or later.

Exactly! http://mecha-eng.com/308/

There's a lot of truth in what you're saying here. Partly because of piracy and partly because that the PC platform is such a difficult one to develop on because every single machine out there is subtley different to the next one, PC games are going to become a niche market. Games for less varied platforms like phones, browsers and consoles are going to become more and more popular because they're more mainstream, more throwaway and fit with todays society.

You're spot on about the "have a hook and will draw people like crack" in the environment of todays consumerism. If you make something that appeals to someone enough for them to think "Hey it's only a few bucks, what have I got to lose", if they only play it for a week then junk it, from a business point of view, everybody wins.

I had a look on MMORPG.com this afternoon and it saddened me to see that every Super Hero "MMO" in development is browser based and looked like just another tacky, throw away bit of tat.

CoH is THE best MMO there has ever been in terms of its depth, lore and customisation possibilities, but it's unfortunate that it represents what is becoming a bygone era. Just like the music and film business, it's a timeless classic that is being replaced with shallow, quick buck rubbish designed to make money rather than really entertain for any length of time.

Well aren't you a clever one

*Couldn't care less*

Could care less means they have to care at all in order to care less.

I think it's pretty obvious that they're not concerned about the opinions of 100% of their customer base. We were all playing the game. They decided to shut down the game. Of course we're unhappy. They knew that going in. Us being unhappy isn't going to surprise or dissuade them. Maybe something else will (although I'm not holding my breath) but it won't be the shocking realization that their customers wanted to actually continue playing the game they were already paying for.

That isn't what I said, why don't you NOT lump me in with that $hit.

^^^

This x1000

It's trolling plain and simple. If you really are just being 'realistic' then you would stay out of these threads. The ONLY reason to keep harping on the same point is that you're trying to antagonize people.

True and I apologize for not expanding my post a bit. What you did was compare them to children throwing tantrums. I was just jumping on the overall theme of responding to people who are being passionate with something that will not only not change their mind but will just make them angrier.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Don't like the posts, don't read them. The subject made it clear what it was before you got there so reading it was your choice.

And I have directed my message at NC Soft, both privately and now publicly. Don't like how I'm doing it? Tough.

As I said in the post to which you responded, that was not specifically directed at you but rather in consideration of the kind of hecklers we've had in the major gaming sites.

In other words, your attitude reminded me of those hecklers, even though you indicated you don't want to see City of Heroes go.

"The polarised attitiude of people like me," huh? Welp, considering this is where the rest of your post gets incredibly haughty, maybe I should just rescind my statements that separated you from the hecklers. I mean, it didn't matter to you anyway--you still took issue as if I was directly calling you a heckler (which makes your statement that rabble such as me have a "polarised attitude" really funny!). And if you're going to take the whole "City of Children" tone with me, why should I bother differentiating you from them?

Hmm. I wonder what exactly gave you the impression that I viewed myself as having the clout to either save City of Heroes by myself, or to break NCSoft if they won't react to the Save Paragon City campaign. Because I certainly said nothing of the sort in my post, nor did I so much as imply that I thought that way.

So where'd this one come from, SteelRat?

Not necessarily, but that delves into topics better left discussed elsewhere. That, and when you say things like this or "all the campaigns and shouting, jumping and name calling isn't going to change the bottom line," it's hard to take you seriously when you say you support Save Paragon City and want it to succeed. Putting aside angry, impatient folks like the OP here, is that really how you perceive all of the player base's efforts? The Unity Rally? The write-in campaigns? Showing our gratitude toward Paragon's former employees by treating them to a meal?

There's no need to "get used" to something when it's possible to take one's money to other services, products, and companies they find worth supporting. And frankly, with cloud computing? I've done just fine without it relying on it so far, and I will continue to avoid it ever since I saw how the Megaupload fiasco screwed over the people who used that service for legitimate reasons. But again, that's beyond the scope of this back-and-forth.

So. When you deride people who have sworn off paying for or playing any of NCSoft's products as short-sighted idiotic attempts to "stick it to the man," just who all are you implicating? Because this kind of thing oozes with that "City of Children" tone I talked about, and if it's a sweeping generalization of the motives of anyone who says they won't touch NCSoft titles after City of Heroes goes down, weeeeell then we have a problem.

Nah, no barrel jokes from me, I'm just basking in the glow your haughty aura. Gimme some more of dat so-called!

Whoa-hoah, and he plays the insignificance card again! Tell 'em what he's won, Angry_Citizen!

First, anything in this universe can be made to look insignificant or not worthy of caring about just by pulling back on the scope. Playing the "there's more significant things so you're foolish for caring about this" card is a specious argument. These things are significant to us in the scope and span of our lives. Sure, it's a big deal to me that the MMO genre is needlessly transient compared to other video games. Telling me that the sun's eventually going to blow up and vaporize all those copies of Super Mario Bros. anyway is irrelevant to what I said.

Or to put it your way: It. Doesn't. Matter. If. Nothing. Lasts. Forever. That's. Not. The. Point.

Second, caring about this game does not preclude someone from caring about issues of more importance. You are, after all, participating in the same community that has held its own charity drive for three years. I find it really silly that so many hecklers and naysayers are deriding people trying to save this game for being children who are wasting time on something "ultimately unimportant" when this game, and this community, has inspired things such as Real World Hero.

Oh, and while I'm at it, in response to something you said to Vauluur:

I could just point up at everything I quoted. Or, I could just point to something you wrote in response to Vauluur:

There's being realistic, and then there's this. The more I read over your posts, the more you come off as a heckler in denial than someone who's supportive of the cause while keeping their expectations in check. You spend more of your time belittling people involved in the Save Paragon City efforts more than you do showing support for those same efforts.

Because it is. And it's not passionate - it's destructive, and counter-productive.

If people want COH not to die, they need to FIGHT. Yelling at NCsoft on a forum they do not read is slacktivism at its finest. It makes them feel like they DID SOMETHING, they cussed NCsoft out, they vented. But really, they did nothing but fill this forum with more negativity, more defeatism, and makes it less likely that those people - and people who read their posts - will actually do something productive.

It's a very uphill climb from here. It's very steep. The chances are very small. Stuff like this just weighs everyone down and drags the entire tone down, tires people out. It's not just not helpful, it's ANTI-helpful.

So yeah, I have a problem with it. I want this game to be saved. I want everyone with REAL passion for the game to get up, answer the calls to action, be ready to do what needs to be done if the team that's actually in talks with NCsoft NEEDS something from us.

And there are already a bunch of "omg I hate NCsoft!" threads out there. If venting must be done, add to one of them. Don't fill up the whole forum with it.

This is a lot more helpful to the cause than calling people childish.

Though honestly, I don't see what's so bad about the OP keeping his rage and impatience contained here while actively participating in other calls to action. I mean, better I think it's better that he seethe, vent and get the pointy-sounding words out here, then trying to use them directly on the NCSoft heads.

I just don't see why everyone needs to make a new thread about it. It just feels like it's pushing everything else off the front page, do we really need 10 different "I hate you, NCSoft!!" threads? Can't we all hate them in one place?

I hate to come off as a heckler. But this needs saying.

No. No you haven't been "patient". It's been two weeks. This is the blink of an eye.

Multi-million dollar companies quite simply do NOT move this rapidly.

Nor do many of them directly engage in extensive social media campaigns.

It only seems like a long time because the Internet is so good at supplying instant gratification for informational and recreational purposes. People so used to this "now" culture have a skewed outlook that anything that doesn't happen within the framework of the Internet Attention Span is a mark of apathy or lack of care/respect.

It's nothing of the sort.

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

Dunno. They pulled the plug pretty quickly. And unless it took them two weeks to put together the "you're all fired" announcement, I'm pretty sure they could have put together a public statement in the meantime too.

We found out about them pulling the plug very suddenly, that doesn't mean the decision came suddenly. I woud be very surprised if they just woke up one morning and decided to cancel City of Heroes. I'm sure they had been thinking about this for quite some time before we (or indeed Paragon) ever heard about it.

Do you know everything I'm doing to fight against the closing of the game? No. You don't. I, however, do know what you're doing in response to the actions of some people who are fighting the closing of the game - you're being a dick. So, pure and simple, if you don't like my "slacktivism" - if you don't approve of this one course of action that I'm taking to stand against NC Soft's treatment of their customers, then feel free to move on and read other threads. Feel free to stuff your comments and insults. You don't know anything of what I'm doing so feel free to take your commentary on my activities elsewhere.

You want to talk about "destructive, and counter-productive" - I do believe _YOU_ are being destructive and counter-productive. You don't see me coming on the boards and insulting the actions of other gamers but I see you doing exactly that.

Hypocrite.

How long does it take to figure "we aren't offering the service people paid for so we need to refund them the money for the time we aren't giving them"? I would imagine it takes less time than it took me to write that question. So, yes, I have been patient. They were able to take enough time to decide to cancel the game therefor they had enough time to contemplate how to deal with customers who weren't going to get what they paid for.

That's a possibility, but reconciling it with the fact that they funded ongoing game development right up to the point where they pulled the plug involves either an unhealthy obsession with secrecy or staggering amounts of poor coordination.