Dear Devs, can you PLEASE throw us a bone here?

Okay, please do me and everyone (including yourselves) a favor and stop for a second.
Read this, calmly, from your friendly neighborhood Electric-Knight.

There was a complete malfunction of what was actually being said and some people turned it into something completely different and/or to a greatly different extreme.

Regarding the current negotiations, someone said that the person relaying the news was a questionable source because they were a fantasy writer.

That was being disputed.

Then others came in to say that celebrities have no greater credibility than anyone else (no duh!). No one was saying otherwise. Her celebrity has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that she used whatever status she has to make our situation public.

She already knew and has had dealings with the people at Paragon and that is how she has been getting and relaying information.

That's it. End of that story.
Believe her. Don't believe her. That's fine.

If some people take issue with her because she got some other things wrong... so be it.

Not a single person was here saying that she does or can do no wrong.
They simply said that she was a trusted source with an inside contact within the negotiations. She's not been getting details... just friendly messages that the talks are going on, haven't ended, still going on, so on and so forth.

If her failings in any other instances make you mistrust her ability to relay simple messages from involved parties, then you don't have to trust her one bit. And no one here says that she is a celebrity and therefore is perfect!

So, there was a mix up of miscommunication going on in here.

It happens a lot.

Someone say something stupid (and often his name is Johnny... haha)...
People refute the stupid remark...
People come in and argue against an argument no one is making...
The refuters continue to refute the stupid remark...
Nitpicks are thrown around, past the opposition, because people are not talking to each other... they are talking at, or past each other.

So, stop.

People, including some red names, are looking to this source for little bits of information when she gets them.
There is no other leak right now.
And we all just have to wait and see what happens with the current negotiations... and then, what comes afterward.

Whether or not you think any particular person is trustworthy, superb, irrelevant or an assassin/spy is really pretty much irrelevant and not an opinion anyone else is going to be forced to share.

So... we have but one source currently relaying information. Do what you will with it. So far, nothing has contradicted the information we have received.
However, when there is actual news, we will all hear about it from clear and open channels.
If you don't trust the initial drips of leaked information... don't worry about it. When there is real, solid news that will give us actual information about what specifically is going to happen... we will know about it.


And, to be fair... this particular novelist does have one thing in her favor above any random community member. Her own personal/public identity is on the line. Unlike most everyone else here.
She's stood up and doing what she is doing for our shared cause and love of CoH. If she messes up in any way, it's her real name and Influence spent.

Now... let's all back off a bit and enjoy the fact that there are negotiations (other red names have said as such) and that a bunch of the developers are out having dinner together tonight!

Long live Paragon City (yeah, and the Rogue Isles too, damnit! Fine... Praetoria, you too!)!!!

Personally, tonight I know I've spent way too much time engaging in a frivolous internet argument about someone else's character, someone I've never met and don't know. Does she deserve it? I think so. Would she have wanted me to spend this much time defending her? I doubt it. This was a bunch of wasted energy, instead of spending my time actually DOING SOMETHING to help save City of Heroes. Tonight, I wasn't part of the solution, and that's probably the worst kind of "community member" you can be around here right now.

Now, I'm off to go do something SaveCoH-related elsewhere on the Internet, and then do something maybe just as important--log in, gather some friends, and play the game till I can't stay up any longer.

Please go to www.SaveCoH.com, write letters, send masks and capes, writes posts on other forums, write open letters to NCSoft in comment sections beneath articles covering SaveCoH on gaming and other news sites.

People banking on a longshot will gravitate to anyone or anything that will promise to provide any form of hope. It's a perfectly natural reaction. History is filled with examples where this has produced both amazing results and some of the worst disasters known to mankind (thankfully we have nothing on that scale happening here) .

I have no way of judging ML's connections to the "inside" of what may be taking place. But some of her more recent comments in other areas trouble me greatly. The idea that NCSoft is going to infiltrate Titan with the express intent to do harm to their cause smacks of paranoia. The theory that "scientific research" is the key that can unlock the IP just strikes me as bizarre. And, worst of all, is the concept that "trolls" (my take is a troll is defined as anyone who hasn't followed the "program" as layed out by Titan or has opinions that differ from those expressed by Titan) need to be squashed at every opportunity.

This isn't the community I came to know and enjoy so well.

I love it. Every little step anyone mentions or suggests gets criticized by the peanut gallery.

I'm going to be fair and suppose that you just might not fully understand the concepts of multi-branched paths for pushing on publicity, furthering causes and such.
Hey, I get it. When you get right down to it, you can look at it and say, "meh, taking this and applying it to that just doesn't sit right with me". That's fine. Take that, be you and be proud. Nothing wrong with that.
However, when actually putting in efforts to branch out and be heard across multiple avenues, that is exactly what you may need to do.
There are people who have shared their experiences in the testimonials threads and one single idea, which is one tiny facet of the entire effort of reaching more people and more media outlets and gaining more attention is by going off of the various experiences and stories and circumstances that our vast community has shared.
She's not looking to jump on science as the aspect that will save City Of Heroes and Paragon Studios... It is one single avenue that was represented by more than a few stories shared and experienced by members of our community, and she has merely suggested that people with those stories can take them to people and places that focus on such aspects of science. It's not just a tacky attempt at publicity, it's something that some people feel is a true aspect of this game and why they want it to remain.
Whether anyone else thinks that they are right, wrong or are indifferent doesn't change their story... And the person you are criticizing is merely offering suggestions on ways to get their story heard and possibly have it cause traction.

I fully understand and respect that not many people have experience and/or knowledge about publicity, starting and furthering self-driven movements. So, I say none of this with disrespect to those questioning such ideas.
However, that is indeed how a great many things are run and how things do happen. Like it or not.

Except that ML isn't claiming to be an expert at relaying information that's being sent to her via e-mail. All she is doing is providing information as it is given to her.

One of the greatest issues of dispute brought up by just a couple of people are about the financials. She posted information she received from her husband, someone she trusts to provide her with accurate information.

I'm willing to admit that the information may be inaccurate. If so, it was probably a simple misunderstanding of data.

But what some people have done is taken one data point from the NCSoft release and then GUESSED with every single other piece of data they used to come to their conclussion.

When you look at how Paragon Studios was being operated, at the rate of work being done, every sign points to a studio that was self-sustaining and providing a profit.

Oh then why is the game being shut down?

The most likely scenario if PS was providing a profit, is it wasn't providing enough profit. NCSoft was probably hoping to make a certain amount back for their investment into the product, and the game wasn't matching. This target number isn't a single fixed amount for in a fixed place of time either. This number can change, the time frame it must be acheived in change. It's called Return of Investment. This happens in businesses all the time, particularly large businesses with multiple investments.

And when a large company sees that one of its smaller investments isn't providing the return it was looking for? They remove their investment and take what's left and put it into another something else. I'd look at one of the couple of games yet to be released in North America - this excludes GW2.

Now back to ML. As an author, she comes out publically about who she is on a public forum, and posts some bits of info that she claims she received from other people. She didn't have to come out and get involved, but she loves this game as much as we do.

I highly down she's putting everyone on for the sake of furthering an agenda. For one, she's dealing witha group of people that have proven they are capable of using the internet to their advantage. If it were to come about she has been lying to everyone, rest assured, there will be many an upset person, and which will quickly turn into bad PR for her.

About the Titan agenda. The only agenda is to help save this game (thus the community and as many devs as possible) - ideally whole and intact - or at least in some shape or form. For the most part, everyone involved is trying to do something positive while at the same time realizing there may be nothing to show for it at the end but the effort itself.

But there have been several people that have continuously done nothing but spew their vile spunk of negativity into multiple threads. They are not there to be part of the "good fight". They are not here to try and lift people up (which is NOT the same as providing FALSE HOPE!). And be assured, they are not trying to make people "see reality". They have done nothing but try to be disruptive, argumentative for the sake of being contrary, and pull people down.

If anyone reading this says to themselves, it's just a game, let it go. Then please, go. For some, this game has become like a second home, or their comminty hall where they gather with their neighbors, hang out, have fun. People have made friends, fallen in love, reached out to a world where everywhere else they've felt isolated, families have kept in contact - and interacted with one another. That's what this is about. And if that's not how you see CoH as a whole, then please feel free to look for your brand of fun elsewhere. But if part of you somehow resonates with this, then please, feel free to help out in any way you're capable.

It is my hope that at best, that at some point after 11/30 we'll all laugh together as we team up to stomp out some villainy or spread some havoc. But if not, then we'll still somehow find one another and with posted words for kleenex, wipe each other's tears.

A few people on this board who are going out of their way to spew venom and discord at every post - call others a troll?

Yeah, that's not the community I remember either.

As time passes and you don't get the information you want to hear - you start to eat your own. That is not mature or heroic and is beneath most of you with the exception of someone who has Evil in their freaking name folks.

Did you think he was going to spread sunshine?

You can join the noise to help save the game or you can sit in the back looking for places to sink your daggers - I couldn't care less. I know who is expending time, money and effort and who is sitting on their keyboard at mom's house whinging because they hate their life - its not Mercedes Lackey.

My take on the whole "Is Mercedes Lackey a credible source?" issue is pretty much this:

She is human. She is prone to human mistakes. Heck, just yesterday I had a professional financial adviser completely misinterpret my words that "your client's income year starts on 2 October" as "if you ask us, we will pay your client on 2 October" (we couldn't. Our bank sends payments out on the 1st, 7th, 14th and 21st of each month). When she is relaying any information that is more detailed than "things are happening" and "so-and-so told me", I bear in mind that she is just as capable of misinterpretation as that financial adviser was. Her words are not gospel truth.

I believe that she has chosen to lay her professional name on the line for City of Heroes. I believe that she is a personal friend of one or more of the development team for City of Heroes. I believe that she is in personal contact with one or more people who are currently engaged in negotiations with NCsoft. Why do I believe these things? Interestingly, because I trust the Paragon Studios team to call "bull" if she's lying.

Statements regarding PS's financial strength are treated by me as "well, she's not seen the figures and is relaying information second- or third-hand, so pinch of salt on the precise numbers and meaning".

Statements regarding NCsoft's treatment of refunds for previous games are treated as "well, since I doubt she was actually playing those games, she could be guessing or relaying a hyperbolic anecdote from someone else".

Statements regarding the negotiations, which so far have amounted to the grand total of "they're still happening" are so vague and non-definitive that I'm actually willing to take them at face value until someone can show me otherwise. I do this because it is reasonable that she will have contact with members of the dev team. It is reasonable that said contacts are providing her with vague and non-definitive assurances regarding the negotiations. It is not reasonable to expect her to deeply understand the precise nature of financial reporting or to know the small print from previous sunset exercises by NCsoft.

I do not have limitless faith in her ability to get specific detail. I do not believe that she is the one true path to knowledge. I believe that right this minute she is the only reasonably credible source we have regarding the negotiations, and everything she has said "as fact" about those is extremely tenuous.

And, lest we forget, humans are notoriously bad at objectively relaying information. She is as passionate about this game as any of us. Everything she offers is at least coloured by her opinions. She wants us to be hopeful, she wants us to feel positive, to keep on battling to save City of Heroes. And her words reflect that, her relayed information reflects that, and even the things she's flat-out gotten wrong reflect that.

Therefore, I have chosen to apply my knowledge of her and her position, plus my interpolation of the veracity of that position, and I am treating her statements as I covered above.

That's my stand, that's my personal feelings and position. Take it or leave it, it's up to you.