A failed attempt to save the game is still worthwile
Except WE have not heard anything from Brian Clayton - we have heard what he has SUPPOSEDLY told others. Hearsay is still hearsay no matter who you supposedly heard it from. There is nothing stopping me from saying I spoke with TJ Kim and relaying that he said they are going to shelve CoH for 5 years and hold the IP irregardless of what anyone does/says...does that make that a fact because I say he told me?
The main problem with the SAVE movement; and there are many...is they lack any credibility. Everything that has been posted has been hearsay. These "official sources" are not official in the slightest if they can't be bothered to speak for themselves. Remember back when the beginning of October hit and we were supposed to hear something OFFICIAL from an actual person...yeah me too..instead we got more hearsay. Spreading the word through a select few; who drop your name is just as damaging regarding NDAs etc...as saying it yourself..so where are they? Or would people like Brian Clayton simply say those speaking on his behalf are lying to protect his butt if it came to an NDA issue? The only thing I know about these people relaying supposed comments is they are biased towards keeping CoH in ANY way they see fit...and yes that means bending the truth to keep the masses spirits high. I don't know Mercedes Lackey and so HER word means just as much as the word of any other poster on here to me; regardless if she has sold 100,000 books. When I see every little snippet, or conspiracy theory brought forth as truth...it tends to kill the reputation of the source. When I see these people using ANY means necessary to gather their "troops" it stains any truth they may be stating.
So until an OFFICIAL announcement by someone who is/was DIRECTLY involved in CoH is made regarding these supposed claims - I will call it what it is: Hearsay.
Yeah, remember when folks was mad about that? "Get some official sources." And then when there's sources about something, those sources aren't good enough, because they're 'obviously biased.' Gee, couldn't have seen that coming.
Jkedan prefers the world where nothing can ever be officially proven. Everything is a U.F.O. photo that 'might' be fake. Any speculation is just positive thinking. Anything we hear from someone who knows a source, is just a lie. Anything we hear directly from the source, is also just a lie. Incoming wild speculation: NCsoft-sanctioned troll? ![]() ![]() |
Compared to the last reported quarter, the game grew a small percentage year over year.
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There are plenty of examples of games with less playerbase that have run for longer lifespans.
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Anything else you can come up with would be YOUR guesswork in an attempt to dismiss reality.
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The game didn't have to live either.
Worst case scenario, IF there was a reason to worry about the studio or game profit margins, a first attempt should have been done to shrink the dev team and perhap merge studios. That is: IF you gave a ***** about your players and the game.
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I know it's impossible for youi to understand, but it's just possible that NCSoft knows more about running MMOs than you do.
So until an OFFICIAL announcement by someone who is/was DIRECTLY involved in CoH is made regarding these supposed claims - I will call it what it is: Hearsay.
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http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/NCs...ews-E23242.htm
... which is being treated as no different from anything coming from SaveCoH.
![](http://www.fragglerockforever.com/CoX/toons.jpg)
![](http://www.fragglerockforever.com/CoX/toons.jpg)
And I am referencing the wording "official source." All these "I heard from so and so" and "look at this website you can post to anonymously" statements that are supposed to be fact...are not fact. Until someone official states something themselves...it is just hearsay. I wouldn't take ANY posters comment pre 8/31 as fact regarding the future of the game- and see no reason to do so now.
More specifically I was referring to this...
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/NCs...ews-E23242.htm ... which is being treated as no different from anything coming from SaveCoH. |
Shrinking the dev team, merging studios, shutting down servers - these are all things that are well documented to cause player flight. Which then causes another round of said contractions. |
There were some issues with name clashes but at least my character had a unique enough name to not be bothered by it.
The dev team also was resized as needed, allocating resources smartly from one game to another instead NCSoft stupidity about having all its American studios spread all over 3-4 states.
I know it's impossible for youi to understand, but it's just possible that NCSoft knows more about running MMOs than you do. |
And I am referencing the wording "official source." All these "I heard from so and so" and "look at this website you can post to anonymously" statements that are supposed to be fact...are not fact. Until someone official states something themselves...it is just hearsay. I wouldn't take ANY posters comment pre 8/31 as fact regarding the future of the game- and see no reason to do so now.
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So in order for anything to actually come to light, we not only need an anonymous official source, we need a martyr willing to be sued for every cent he/she is worth, and willing to never have a job again due to being a liability (who is going to hire anyone who leaks company secrets?). Convenient.
![](http://www.fragglerockforever.com/CoX/toons.jpg)
You misunderstood - when I said pre 8/31 posts: I mean here on the forums. If Joe Schmoe had said "I heard from so and so that this is going to happen" I would not have believed him either... and now when I see Joe Schmoe saying "I heard from so and so this is going to happen" I still don't have any reason to believe them.
Glassdoor is a POS website plain and simple. I have looked up some of my former employers and they barely rate better than NCSoft and these were WONDERFUL places to work - Ex employees...and even current ones under the veil of anonymity can be overly critical to the point of ruthless. I wouldn't use glassdoor in a project that asked for PROOF for fear I would be laughed at.
I wasn't presuming that the pre 8/31 posts had anything to do with CoH, not directly anyhow. But those posts point to the same problem that a lot of us feel directed NCsoft's decisions about CoH. While I won't call it disrespect, there is at least a misunderstanding and/or poor management of their Western branches, and consequently, the Western market.
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You misunderstood - when I said pre 8/31 posts: I mean here on the forums. If Joe Schmoe had said "I heard from so and so that this is going to happen" I would not have believed him either... and now when I see Joe Schmoe saying "I heard from so and so this is going to happen" I still don't have any reason to believe them.
Glassdoor is a POS website plain and simple. I have looked up some of my former employers and they barely rate better than NCSoft and these were WONDERFUL places to work - Ex employees...and even current ones under the veil of anonymity can be overly critical to the point of ruthless. I wouldn't use glassdoor in a project that asked for PROOF for fear I would be laughed at. |
About glassdoor though, if their claims were false, I would expect a much vaguer description of the problems. Generally when have a bunch of random people describe an experience, if they weren't all really there, you'd get a very diverse account of it. The glassdoor complaints that all seem to have in common is, "The Korean office doesn't get us" and mismanagement. Were these rare isolated incidents, I'd expect everyone's experiences to be much less unified. Unless you're thinking all the ex-employees just read what was already there and decided to copy it. But what would be the point?
![](http://www.fragglerockforever.com/CoX/toons.jpg)
Guys: Little hint. The trolls here cannot be convinced because their goal is not discussion of the issues at hand. The goal of a troll is to sidetrack discussions, to refocus attention on non-productive conversation, to argue ad infinitum and distract people from working or engaging in productive discussion. No amount of arguing, no amount of evidence, even God Himself posting a message would not make any difference to the trolls. Notice that the trolls aren't arguing for anything; they have no positive goal they are trying to achieve. They only argue against goals, because they delight in causing discord and friction within a group of people who, in most cases, they are jealous of because of the shared commonality and comradeship among the group, elements that most trolls lack in their personal lives.
Please don't feed the trolls. They are never satiated, and if you allow it to, the argument will go on for a thousand pages. This is what they want, it encourages them, it drives them. Do you know how badly you want City of Heroes to continue? That's how badly they want to get you riled up and wasting time on them. They don't give a damn about the game, they only care about making you miserable. Please do not let them be successful towards that goal. The best way to fight a troll is to completely ignore them. If you must respond because the troll is causing confusion, never address them directly, because that attention is what provides them pleasure.
Saying something like, "City of Heroes was profitable" does absolutely no good. Ample evidence from Paragon City staffers at the top levels of management and even NCsoft's on Investor Relations reports does not discourage the troll from arguing otherwise. You have to understand that a troll does not need to do any research. It only takes mere moments to make baseless claims like, "City of Heroes was losing money," or "subscribers were jumping ship by the boatload," or "NCsoft wanted to dump Paragon Studios because the developers' salaries and benefits were too high," or any of dozens or hundreds of claims. For every five or ten seconds it takes them to fire off one of these baseless claims, you could spend hours of painstaking research refuting it, only to be sidetracked yet again by another five-second baseless claim or even the same refuted claim in a different thread. Hopefully you can see the quandary here; in just a minute, if you allow them to, the trolls can distract you for days. In days, the trolls can distract you until well after these forums are gone, which is why they continue to post these absurd arguments.
If the troll believes that a massively distracting discussion would result from arguing over the simplest of provable mathematical truths, the troll would willing engage in that argument. So hopefully you can see that anything that requires actual thinking or possibly looking up of information is certainly something the troll will press indefinitely. And even once disproven, the troll will remain unfazed, continuing to use the same argument hoping that yet another person who falls into his or her trap has not heard it before and/or causing yet more people actively working on positive goals to stop what they're doing to, for the umpteenth time, post yet again the justifications of statements that have never really been arguable.
So when you see a troll post, please, don't reply to it. Instead, do something productive, such as engaging in one of our Calls to Action (1, 2 are especially important at this time), donating to RealWorldHero.com, or if nothing else, spend some time with your friends in Paragon City. All of these things are infinitely more rewarding and useful, and instead of coming away feeling frustrated, you will have a good time and feel a sense of accomplishment. And best of all, trolls can and frequently have been defeated in just this manner; once he or she realizes that attempts to rile up their targets are futile, they move on to another community where they can repeat the process with more success.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
No personal attack at all, trust me. Like I was saying; if you care about saving the game, to do nothing was bordering on cowardice. If you are at all apathetic to the cause, then no big deal. It's not worth the chance for the casual gamer. I consider myself pretty much a moderate on all things. Disney probably won't work. Someone like Mr. Clayton with backers (I would love to see George R.R. Martin involved) are a better bet.
Also, thank you for your service to the country. |
Next came the attitude that the players were going to save the game. The bigger you could make your signature block or the more outrageous claim you could make that you personally were not going to let this happen, the more admiration you received from Titan. The chest beating drowned out whatever small voice of reason that existed otherwise and people who felt differently were immediately branded as "trolls". So who really showed some courage under these circumstances (regardless if you agree with my position or if you don't)? I felt sorry for what the community had become. I never recall it being this divided or vicious.
Next came the lynch mob when things (inevitably and predictably) came crashing down for Plans A through Y. And people reacted in true mob fashion. Evil had a name and it was... NCSoft. People were spinning each other into a froth at Titan. If TonyV wasn't around for a couple days people would get nervous because individual thought and expression outside "the program" (calls to action) was out the window at this point.
Look, I did not shut down this game. And you have the right to disagree and praise everything Titan did. I have tried to give as much courtesy and respect as I could to those with a different opinion than my own. But I will not apologize for not joining the Titan thing and I resent the idea that I am a troll or don't care about the game or acted in a borderline cowardice manner because I did not climb aboard this bandwagon to nowhere.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom (or freem?) fighter; just as one man's exploit is another man's feature.
Next came the attitude that the players were going to save the game. The bigger you could make your signature block or the more outragous claim you could make that you were personally were not going to let this happen, the more admiration you received from Titan. The chest beating drowned out whatever small voice of reason that existed otherwise and people who felt differently were immediately branded as "trolls".
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![](http://www.fragglerockforever.com/CoX/toons.jpg)
It would be more convincing if your ammunition wasn't hearsay....
Where are all these "official" people? I don't mean the one guy with psychological issues (his statement NOT mine) from some startup that hasn't even achieved a decent webpage.
Why should/would I trust GG - she was a troll before 8/31 and her trolling has escalated to pure racism and threats of killing people at NCSoft; or did you not see the modded thread on Titan....or the "antics" she displays over here - She is one of your representatives...acting more trollish than people who are simply asking for proof and not rumor. You wanna know why people are leaving the "Titan Cause" take a look at some of the people involved and how they are representing Titan over here. Don't even get me started on the sanctioned racism on Titan...perpetuated by people like GG over here.
What happened to the disclosures by the actual people involved at the beginning of October?
You can call people trolls all you want - it's a simple and ineffective way of not answering the questions people keep asking. Your proof is your NCSoft Stockwatch thread; which shows Titan has NO clue how stocks work. Your proof is Mercedes Lackey saying "Brian Clayton told me this." Your proof is lacking in other words. I am not going to jump on board some secret project or stand behind people who do not have the courtesy to back up their claims with something more tangible than rumors and speculation. If me pointing out your flaws is trolling...then so be it.
I would rather be called a troll for asking for evidence...than be a troll telling people to trust me based on a shared hatred, rumors, and speculation.
I would rather be called a troll for not trusting some random person on the internet...than following someone blindly who has proven that hate is one of their motivations.
I would rather be called a troll for speaking my mind...than biting my tongue when things just don't add up.
So you can warn people about trolls all you want...and I will continue to warn people about the lack of facts, proof, and sensibility of some of the things Titan does/believes.
Guys: Little hint. The trolls here cannot be convinced because their goal is not discussion of the issues at hand. The goal of a troll is to sidetrack discussions, to refocus attention on non-productive conversation, to argue ad infinitum and distract people from working or engaging in productive discussion. No amount of arguing, no amount of evidence, even God Himself posting a message would not make any difference to the trolls. Notice that the trolls aren't arguing for anything; they have no positive goal they are trying to achieve. They only argue against goals, because they delight in causing discord and friction within a group of people who, in most cases, they are jealous of because of the shared commonality and comradeship among the group, elements that most trolls lack in their personal lives.
Please don't feed the trolls. They are never satiated, and if you allow it to, the argument will go on for a thousand pages. This is what they want, it encourages them, it drives them. Do you know how badly you want City of Heroes to continue? That's how badly they want to get you riled up and wasting time on them. They don't give a damn about the game, they only care about making you miserable. Please do not let them be successful towards that goal. The best way to fight a troll is to completely ignore them. If you must respond because the troll is causing confusion, never address them directly, because that attention is what provides them pleasure. Saying something like, "City of Heroes was profitable" does absolutely no good. Ample evidence from Paragon City staffers at the top levels of management and even NCsoft's on Investor Relations reports does not discourage the troll from arguing otherwise. You have to understand that a troll does not need to do any research. It only takes mere moments to make baseless claims like, "City of Heroes was losing money," or "subscribers were jumping ship by the boatload," or "NCsoft wanted to dump Paragon Studios because the developers' salaries and benefits were too high," or any of dozens or hundreds of claims. For every five or ten seconds it takes them to fire off one of these baseless claims, you could spend hours of painstaking research refuting it, only to be sidetracked yet again by another five-second baseless claim or even the same refuted claim in a different thread. Hopefully you can see the quandary here; in just a minute, if you allow them to, the trolls can distract you for days. In days, the trolls can distract you until well after these forums are gone, which is why they continue to post these absurd arguments. If the troll believes that a massively distracting discussion would result from arguing over the simplest of provable mathematical truths, the troll would willing engage in that argument. So hopefully you can see that anything that requires actual thinking or possibly looking up of information is certainly something the troll will press indefinitely. And even once disproven, the troll will remain unfazed, continuing to use the same argument hoping that yet another person who falls into his or her trap has not heard it before and/or causing yet more people actively working on positive goals to stop what they're doing to, for the umpteenth time, post yet again the justifications of statements that have never really been arguable. So when you see a troll post, please, don't reply to it. Instead, do something productive, such as engaging in one of our Calls to Action (1, 2 are especially important at this time), donating to RealWorldHero.com, or if nothing else, spend some time with your friends in Paragon City. All of these things are infinitely more rewarding and useful, and instead of coming away feeling frustrated, you will have a good time and feel a sense of accomplishment. And best of all, trolls can and frequently have been defeated in just this manner; once he or she realizes that attempts to rile up their targets are futile, they move on to another community where they can repeat the process with more success. |
You can call people trolls all you want - it's a simple and ineffective way of not answering the questions people keep asking. Your proof is your NCSoft Stockwatch thread; which shows Titan has NO clue how stocks work. Your proof is Mercedes Lackey saying "Brian Clayton told me this."
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Proof is impossible these days. Even when the odds are good (And the odds here are not good since we have the opaque wall of corporate privacy to contend with AND the anonymity of the internet). Never before has technology made it so easy for skeptics to adhere to their beliefs... or lack of belief... whatever you want to call it. Everything but physically being there in person when it happens, can be faked. And even the example I just mentioned is probably on the way out. Someone will get a Total Recall style mind-trick to work, and then even our own experiences will be in question.
![](http://www.fragglerockforever.com/CoX/toons.jpg)
Can we all just agree that you're a dipshit?
Not a fact.
Cherry-picking. Yes, revenues were up 3% YoY in Q2. However, revenues were down 15% for the trailing 4 quarters, YoY. This is an utterly meaningless "fact." You could use a browser game with 300 users to "prove" it. Only if "reality" = "stuff saveCoH really hopes is true." The game didn't have to live either. Shrinking the dev team, merging studios, shutting down servers - these are all things that are well documented to cause player flight. Which then causes another round of said contractions. I know it's impossible for youi to understand, but it's just possible that NCSoft knows more about running MMOs than you do. |
Please buff Ice Control.
Well since most of us know what he looks like....there's this lil website called youtube
Because yes at this point if he were to appear on the forums...that could easily be faked; unless of course he had and still has a red name
All a lot of dissenters want is proof...don't think that is asking for too much.
Granted even if Brian Clayton made a youtube video stating "Yes IBTT everything Titan has said about me is true" I still would not follow Titan. My main objection to them is their lack of credibility, but the Korean in me could never be affiliated with them again for various reasons. I would however stop saying there was no evidence and it's all hearsay....
This is all moot anyways in 4 days when these boards are gone. While I check Titan forums out every now and then...I said my last post over there about a month or so ago.
Alternate scenario is, Brian posts about it. And the common response would then be, "How do we know you're really him?"
Proof is impossible these days. Even when the odds are good (And the odds here are not good since we have the opaque wall of corporate privacy to contend with). Never before has technology made it so easy for skeptics to adhere to their beliefs... or lack of belief... whatever you want to call it. Everything but physically being there in person when it happens, can be faked. And even the example I just mentioned is probably on the way out. Someone will get a Total Recall style mind-trick to work, and then even our own experiences will be in question. |
Saying something like, "City of Heroes was profitable" does absolutely no good. Ample evidence from ... NCsoft's on Investor Relations reports does not discourage the troll from arguing otherwise.
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I'm sure you won't and will justify it as "not feeding the trolls."
I can't really add too much more to what Fire Away and IBtT have already said, except to echo their thoughts.
At the end of August the various moves that were employed to unite the playerbase and make our voices heard, lead by Titan, were something we could be proud of. The Unity Rally, AP33, the campaign to send in masks and capes to NC. All of those events really were a way of showing what players of a super-hero game were about, and that we weren't about to let our beloved game go without a fight.
Unfortunately it's what happened after that, as time went on, and NCSoft dug their heels in that made me change my mind about the way things were going and also the way they were being handled. Whilst it might have all been fluff and rainbows inside the Titan forums themselves (although it wasn't long after the "Sorry we're not changing our minds" announcement that I stopped visiting them) it was the behaviour by various people outside the CoH / SaveCOH bubble that gave me the most concern; comment bombing gaming reviews of NCSoft games with anti NCSoft rhetoric, constant and in some cases rather disturbing ideas to be responsible for the entire companys demise, for example.
The real doozy though was a week or so ago when a Korean newspaper published an article explaining that the reason for NCSofts stock problems was, in fact, due to TKJ selling a large part of his shares. Neither City of Heroes, nor the Unity Rally was mentioned. At all. And yet, there were a string of chest thumping victory calls triumphantly proclaiming that the SaveCoH movement has succeeded, and that you "really shouldn't mess with us NCSoft" and all this other nonsense.
Believe me when I tell you that I'm really no market expert, and yet I was able to read what was presented before me in black and white by people that are. I'm sorry, but I just cannot give any credence to anyone that aligns themselves with that level of lunacy without at least one of them saying "Erm.. guys.. actually that wasn't us. See look, it says so just there". Especially if when someone does call to question things of that ilk they're labelled as a troll.
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
http://faces.cohtitan.com/profile/SteelRat
Alternate scenario is, Brian posts about it. And the common response would then be, "How do we know you're really him?"
Proof is impossible these days. Even when the odds are good (And the odds here are not good since we have the opaque wall of corporate privacy to contend with AND the anonymity of the internet). Never before has technology made it so easy for skeptics to adhere to their beliefs... or lack of belief... whatever you want to call it. Everything but physically being there in person when it happens, can be faked. And even the example I just mentioned is probably on the way out. Someone will get a Total Recall style mind-trick to work, and then even our own experiences will be in question. |
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
http://faces.cohtitan.com/profile/SteelRat
Well since most of us know what he looks like....there's this lil website called youtube
![]() Because yes at this point if he were to appear on the forums...that could easily be faked; unless of course he had and still has a red name ![]() All a lot of dissenters want is proof...don't think that is asking for too much. Granted even if Brian Clayton made a youtube video stating "Yes IBTT everything Titan has said about me is true" I still would not follow Titan. My main objection to them is their lack of credibility, but the Korean in me could never be affiliated with them again for various reasons. I would however stop saying there was no evidence and it's all hearsay.... This is all moot anyways in 4 days when these boards are gone. While I check Titan forums out every now and then...I said my last post over there about a month or so ago. |
Prior to Aug 31st, you were right about that evidence said. The same people who is saying this he said she said stuff, were the same ones that required and demanded proof of any poster that gave third hand knowledge, even if it was as simple as about a past post that someone typed and could be easily found in search, yet, the poster was the one that was suppose to provide the evidence.
Really it didnt seemed very much accepted pre-8/31 not sure why some expected to change now and accept every hearsay as fact when those same people especially did not trust anything that was hearsay without proof and some downright said it was false because lack of evidence. Yet, if someone say that hearsay is false, they are a troll now. lol. my how times has changed.
-Female Player-
And now back to forum pvp
Touche
Also, thank you for your service to the country.