All right, positives and negatives, glasses half full and half empty, listen up!

Have you read Johnny's link of the Sept. 26th dinner? http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=297727

Brian, Matt and Melissa are very much there with bells on, still fighting the good fight to get PS and CoH saved. And NCSoft is apparently still talking, something that no, we never thought they would do, you're right, Intrinsic.... But they're actually talking, still, after a month! Servers, accounts, a new publisher, the Paragon Team, the IP, the engine...it's going to take some time. Nothing like that is going to happen overnight. But I really feel, deep inside, that it will happen. Talks wouldn't still be ongoing after this long is progress wasn't slowly creeping along.

So, still yes here.

So is your agenda to solicit gut instincts, or talk people out of them? I thought your ground rules were just one short glance.

That's okay. And for what it's worth, it's great to see the level of activism from both the players and the former Paragon employees on behalf of CoH. It shows that the game might still have a chance to do well if NCSoft does sell it. But see, that's the problem.

In order to sell CoH, at some point someone within NCSoft needs to sign off on the deal. If CoH is sold to another party, and the game thrives under the new ownership, then the person at NCSoft who approved the deal will be known as the one who let CoH get away. It may also call into question NCSoft's handling of the game and Paragon Studios up to the closure announcement. That's the kind of decision that can be an embarrassment to the company, and can have a negative effect on an executive's career.

So ultimately I think NCSoft will let CoH die because at this point it's the safe decision to make.

Your point is valid, but it is just as valid to note that NCSoft's reputation in the west (and EU for that matter) is hitting rock bottom nowadays. I think CoH is the 8th game they have closed down. Plus, their EU version of Aion was sold off to GameForge, who has made a walkin' disaster out of it (read their boards), and Lineage 2 was hawked off to another publisher in EU too. Not to mention that Aion NA is a complete lag pit, and chat is so clogged with unabated gold farmers that you can barely get a team going (both of these facts being largely intertwined I would bet).

And not only that, but NCSoft keeps pushing new launches of cheesy Asian grindfests like Blade & Soul and Wildstar on us regardless.

Now at what point are NA and EU players at large going to view NCSoft as the cold, quick up-front box fee cash grab publisher here who then closes their games down? I think it's already happening, and it will negatively impact western sales of Blade & Soul and Wildstar as well.

And NCSoft cannot get that box fee in Asia because gamers there don't buy games. They just pay pennies per hour to play MMOs from internet cafes, and that game time rolls into the next month if they don't use it besides. This is why NCSoft feels compelled to grind them to death in the first place-- but they don't adapt their games for the western audience (nor support them well, either) so they don't tend to do as well here.

I dunno. You have a point, but NCSoft's reputation has gotten to the "hit rock bottom and commenced digging" level. And CoH negotiations have been going on for a solid month now. If they were that dead-set on killing the IP off, there would have been no negotiations at all, never mind a solid four weeks straight of them, with our Paragon team in fine spirits at the dinner on 9/26 besides.

Complete nonsense. The game was successful and the decision was made to shut it down regardless. So if it continues to succeed, it doesn't make anyone at NCSoft look bad. They CHOSE to ditch the game. How is that 'letting it get away'?

Probably why they are focusing on more Asian oriented games after the closure of COH. Maybe they figure that the market here for them has been shrinking, maybe because of the decision maybe not. It would be foolish of them to continue to put a whole bunch of asset behind a NA/EU style game if their reputaion is hitting rock bottom here.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

Lol, but that's the very reason why their reputation stinks here. They invest as little as humanely possible into their titles, then close them down in as little as a year (or in some cases a couple/few) after they launch.

They have made their own bed. And now with the closure of CoH their reputation has hit rock bottom, and their subsequent launches of Blade & Soul and Wildstar are going to be hurt by it. You can see it in repeated comments on forums and even at gaming blogs like Massively's. "Oh, maybe I'll play that-- oh, NCSoft. Never mind."

It looks 'letting it get away' if there was profit made after the sale. I.e., "the idiot who sold it took away profit WE could have had."

Because, until the sale/turnover/whatever it's called if it happens... they *haven't* "let it get away". It stays under their roof. It doesn't earn anything, but it also doesn't let *anyone else* earn anything, so it's fine like that.

It is... unlikely, I would guess... that CoH will ever, if it's ressurected, approach the numbers they'd like to see it make. I could *possibly* see it getting back to where it was before the Announcement. In that case, it won't have 'gotten away'.

If it turns into the next coming of (the game what's name shall not be mentioned) then yeah, it "got away", and there went the idiot that sold it. LYNCH HIM!!!

Mike

/Boy if it did require lynching as exampled, that'd be awesome for the Devs/state of the game, yeah?
//Not that I approve of lynching, by the way... that's just be wrong and stuff.

Yea, which will make them then invest even less in the NA market until they might just pull out totally in the future. Might be a good thing might be a bad thing. This is like that never ending circle or the chicken and the egg. I guess they realize they not sure what the US market are looking for while at the same time trying to find the next WoW money making game, but invest little so when it dont live up to expectation, they wont lose so much when they axe it, but then that furthers degrade their reputation which starts the process all over again. What title are we on now? Number 5 or 6?

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

Probably, maybe, and depends.

Now the community based thing (As far as Titan Network workings) may work as they seem to have some good ideas, people that seem to know what they are doing, and they seem to have somewhat of a buisness handle on it.

Ideas and things that look good on paper may not go so well over all. They say it's being built by the commuity but how many of the community actually have a say in it and or contributed a say? If this game has 170,000 members, and would like to go beyond that, with the tagline of community built, then there are alot of stuff to consider. But most of it is way down the line before it becomes important, like is the game only going to be available on the internet and what places will be advertised at? If it's only on gaming sites, and sites that only people that even heard of COH knows what it is and the significance, then it will be a major uphill battle to even reach ten percent of the peak population/profts.

Look at how many people said this was their first MMO. And for some, I came across this game on a store shelf.

I think they will be successful with the community based game at least the first few months guranteed, if they follow through with the plans, but the unproven area is how they deal with bugs, complaints, ideas etc. that may not come from an old member, and competition, and finding a balance between the ideal gamer's mind and the ideal buisness model. I think they can take of NCSoft's mistake, lack of advertising, and turn it into their favor by buying actual spots in various places where the usual MMO game commercial is a WoW or the likes. I mean, I know some people come and gone but I havent seen much (relatively) saying that COX sucks. Most people that came across this game seemed to have enjoyed it at least at one point in time or another I1-I23. I think even if we had 100% more advertising for the this game, which still wouldnt have amounted to much, the player base would of been even larger.

Dont get me wrong, I'm not saying that any effort is doomed, but I think there is alot of stuff that goes into that is not always a movie finish glorious battle in order to reach profits beyond what NCSoft did. Remember at around 2004/2006, it was making more than four times the amount of profits then it was now. Yet, the population while it had some dips and decreases all that much, so something else was chomping into those profits that wasnt just pure population level. OH wait, dang forgot, that prior to free to play ever member meant $15 after f2p it could be either way. Ok belay the above. Didnt consider some stuff.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!