Posi Confirms: COH Largest and Most Active MMO Ever Shut Down
By
Adar_ICT,
Posted on: 2012-10-29 18:54 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Sounds like SaveCoH was able to at least leave scorch marks on NCSoft's hull. Although you know what they say about leaving scorch marks.
Perhaps it will buy Arenanet a more humane death when NCSoft needs to cook the books for Wildstar.
I read "most active" as the dev team currently working on Issue 24, 25, etc...
I would however like to see a citation for "largest" MMO to be shut down. Without hard facts regarding subscription numbers makes me wonder how one can claim this. The best guesses out there atm are that CoH had between 50k-60k subs on 8/31/2012. I have no idea about games like SWG, Auto Assault, etc etc as I never played them nor had any idea how large their populations were. I am NOT saying Posi is lying.. I would just love to know the numbers for such a thing.
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Originally Posted by Paladiamors
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!
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who cares what the numbers are... the game is shutting down.. and they are not going to sell the IP.. NC Soft will never get another dime from me.. I dont even have the desire to log in anymore..
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
Damn, that just pisses me off even more.
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Few others are in a better position to claim this. Positron is not going to reply to you about specific data he had access to within his position at Paragon Studios, and the data you're asking for just isn't available to the general public. As consumers, we can only triangulate reports and other thingymabobs and speculate from there.|
Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
I would however like to see a citation for "largest" MMO to be shut down. Without hard facts regarding subscription numbers makes me wonder how one can claim this.
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On the other hand, when Positron states a fact about COH, that is and always has been adequate citation. The only way you can do better is direct information from NCSoft, and you're not going to get that. So this is what you've got.
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The only one that I can think of that would have been a *close* comparison to size of player base closed down would be Star Wars Galaxies. |
Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
I read "most active" as the dev team currently working on Issue 24, 25, etc...
I would however like to see a citation for "largest" MMO to be shut down. Without hard facts regarding subscription numbers makes me wonder how one can claim this. The best guesses out there atm are that CoH had between 50k-60k subs on 8/31/2012. I have no idea about games like SWG, Auto Assault, etc etc as I never played them nor had any idea how large their populations were. I am NOT saying Posi is lying.. I would just love to know the numbers for such a thing. |
As to how many it had at the time of *announcement* for closure, I do not know, but I am fairly certain that it would be at least closer to CoX levels than Tabula Rasa/Auto Assault levels.
For the NCsoft games that were closed down, Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault both had "low" population levels, at the time of their shutdown announcement.
From what i can work out from the financials, these are the rough levels of players:
Tabula Rasa: *roughly* 30-40K subscribers at the time of announcement. Personally, I would be more inclined to put this in the 25-35K range (due to currency exchange fluctuations, and me being lazy to work it out properly). At an NCsoft event that I attended in 2008, Kerensky (former German CM for Tabula Rasa) and I talked about the game, and he said that it wasn't looking healthy, and that my guess was in the ball park.
Auto Assault: Unknown, but it isnt listed under the Q4 tables for 2006 *or* 2007. However as an idea... "others" brought in through out 2007 roughly $2million for the *year*. It had a very very very small player base.
Dungeon Runners/Exteel: Once again, unknown as to their player base levels. They have always been (as far as i can tell) listed under "Others" in NCsoft's financials, so it is impossible to split them apart.
Also because both of those titles were Free2Play (although Dungeon Runners *did* have a subscription option as well), they could well have had a *lot* of accounts, but not many people actually spending cash on the games. In terms of active players though (ie those who played once a week), chances are they were each smaller than CoX at the level it was at when the announcement came through.
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Galaxies was a different situation because Galaxies was shut down so it wouldn't cannibalize TOR (or so they say). One could argue that it was shut down because of the large size of its player base.|
Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
The only one that I can think of that would have been a *close* comparison to size of player base closed down would be Star Wars Galaxies.
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It sounds to me like he's not going off of total subscribers, but rather the average number of people actually playing the game on a daily basis. I wouldn't be shocked if SWG had more subscribers but fewer people actually playing at the end, particularly given that one could have been subbed to it as part of a package deal with the whaddya-call-it... Station Pass, was it?
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Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
I read "most active" as the dev team currently working on Issue 24, 25, etc...
I would however like to see a citation for "largest" MMO to be shut down. Without hard facts regarding subscription numbers makes me wonder how one can claim this. The best guesses out there atm are that CoH had between 50k-60k subs on 8/31/2012. I have no idea about games like SWG, Auto Assault, etc etc as I never played them nor had any idea how large their populations were. I am NOT saying Posi is lying.. I would just love to know the numbers for such a thing. |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
I thought the story for Borderlands 2 was fantastic >> Loved Handsome Jack as a villain
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I wouldn't exactly say the story was great, but I thought the characters and dialogue were quite amusing. I found Handsome Jack to be a hilarious jerk who I looked forward to smiting throughout the game.
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Originally Posted by Agent White
I thought the story for Borderlands 2 was fantastic >> Loved Handsome Jack as a villain
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Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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check out mmodata.net they seem to have reliable numbers|
Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
I read "most active" as the dev team currently working on Issue 24, 25, etc...
I would however like to see a citation for "largest" MMO to be shut down. Without hard facts regarding subscription numbers makes me wonder how one can claim this. The best guesses out there atm are that CoH had between 50k-60k subs on 8/31/2012. I have no idea about games like SWG, Auto Assault, etc etc as I never played them nor had any idea how large their populations were. I am NOT saying Posi is lying.. I would just love to know the numbers for such a thing. |
after a quick peek - looks like swg had less than 25k when their announcement was given. same with tabula rasa. i wouldn't be surprised if their CoH claim is correct.
:'(
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"Just cause you don't understand what's going on don't mean it don't make no sense
And just cause you don't like it, don't mean it ain't no good" - Suicidal Tendancies
The thing that struck me was the fact that NCSoft has been paying Matt and the others for the last two months, but wouldn't let them finish off Issue 24 (which must have been close to release) and organise some quality farewell events for the last month or so of the game. Shutting down all development completely on August 31st seems even more mean-spirited to me now. Everything we know about the Paragon Team would suggest that given the chance, many of them would have been willing to give City of Heroes a proper send off.
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It turned out much better than I expected, honestly. The first one had basically a framework of a story just to give you an excuse to shoot things and get loot. This one actually gives a narrative and gives you some characters you actually care about. Fleshing out the first game's vault hunters was a big treat. |
Originally Posted by Tenzhi
I wouldn't exactly say the story was great, but I thought the characters and dialogue were quite amusing. I found Handsome Jack to be a hilarious jerk who I looked forward to smiting throughout the game.
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And yes, it was extremely satisfying at the end.
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Actually, the situation is not uncommon in larger corporations, though the length of time differs. People who are laid off, rather than fired, are given a certain grace period to look for new jobs while still being paid. They aren't actually allowed to come into the office, or access company assets, because, as impending former employees, they might harbor some ill will and enact criminal mischief on the company's property. Be that physical or intellectual.|
Originally Posted by GreyScribe
The thing that struck me was the fact that NCSoft has been paying Matt and the others for the last two months, but wouldn't let them finish off Issue 24 (which must have been close to release) and organise some quality farewell events for the last month or so of the game. Shutting down all development completely on August 31st seems even more mean-spirited to me now. Everything we know about the Paragon Team would suggest that given the chance, many of them would have been willing to give City of Heroes a proper send off.
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Of course, in Miller's case, there may have been stipulations in his contract that said they had to pay him X amount upon termination of his employment. We'll never know.
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Doesn't strike me. I worked for a large multinational offsite records/data storage company whos reputation could be considered ironclad considering their mountainous scale. Escorting employees off the premises immediately after they have been served their termination papers was SOP - because the risk to the company was too great should an employee decide to do something... untoward, in their final days. Laws, however, state that unless certain conditions are met, those employees must be given X amount of notice - so the work-around is that you are still technically on their payroll for that time, you are just not authorized to be on-site.|
Originally Posted by GreyScribe
The thing that struck me was the fact that NCSoft has been paying Matt and the others for the last two months, but wouldn't let them finish off Issue 24 (which must have been close to release) and organise some quality farewell events for the last month or so of the game. Shutting down all development completely on August 31st seems even more mean-spirited to me now. Everything we know about the Paragon Team would suggest that given the chance, many of them would have been willing to give City of Heroes a proper send off.
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As much as I, as a player and (up until the announcement) loyal subscriber for the entire run of CoH's life, would love if the devs could continue to do their job and release content-
Allowing them to continue working with the knowledge that their days are numbered entails some risk for the employer. If one of the employees was disgruntled - they may be tempted to sabotage the company - in this case leak the server data.
EDIT: I just want to be clear that I am in no way defending NCsoft's decision to close the game, their handling of numerous things during this process, or their refusal to work with people to work with people to keep the game alive. Just that continuing to pay Matt for 60 days while not letting the devs develop makes sense to me.
"My inner mind has become a reality-cracking overgod. He torments me! Help!"
Remember, there's a difference between active subscribers and daily concurrent users. WoW may have 10 million active subscribers, but the DCU is going to be a much smaller fraction of that.
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I thought SWG was closed down due to LucasArts refusing to renew their licence to the Star Wars IP, which was then given to TORtanic.
| Galaxies was a different situation because Galaxies was shut down so it wouldn't cannibalize TOR (or so they say). One could argue that it was shut down because of the large size of its player base. |
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Had it been up to them, we would have had something great. |
Originally Posted by GreyScribe
The thing that struck me was the fact that NCSoft has been paying Matt and the others for the last two months, but wouldn't let them finish off Issue 24 (which must have been close to release) and organise some quality farewell events for the last month or so of the game. Shutting down all development completely on August 31st seems even more mean-spirited to me now. Everything we know about the Paragon Team would suggest that given the chance, many of them would have been willing to give City of Heroes a proper send off.
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Something like...
Rularuu trapped in a tiny box.
Wade right in there with him.
The Rikti run off back to their homeworld. For good.
Boomtown, Galaxy, Faultline, Eastgate, all rebulit.
MOT stuffed in the box with Wade and Rularuu
Lord Nemesis sliding over to Praetoria and actually making the place work.
Lord Recluse and Red Widow settling down and working on the next generation of world conquerors.
Ghost Widow, Numina, War Witch, and Kelly Nemmers founding the "Undead Girls" and becoming the featured musical act at the Golden Giza.
Statesman still being dead but popping in every now and then like Obi Wan to give advice to new heroes.
Manticore getting over Sister Psyche and moving in with Flambeaux
Jim and Fusionette getting married
....
Yes, if they had had any say in things it could have been interesting.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
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The only problem with mmodata.net is that their previous datapoint for Star Wars Galaxies was in the Q3 (roughly) of 2009. Then the next one it is reading 0 (time of game closure).|
Originally Posted by Torment And Agony
check out mmodata.net they seem to have reliable numbers
after a quick peek - looks like swg had less than 25k when their announcement was given. same with tabula rasa. i wouldn't be surprised if their CoH claim is correct. :'( |
So, as to how the game was doing in between those two data points, they have no information on. Is it sensible to say that it was declining... yes. But as to by how much though is another matter.
Less than 50K susbcribers? I can go with that, but as to *how much* below 50K subscribers I cannot comment on.
Side note: it is interesting to note that mmodata.net doesnt have any data on City Of Heroes from 2009 onwards so make of that what you will.
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That's a fact that needs to be on page 1 of google results and all over the social media sphere.|
Originally Posted by Torment And Agony
check out mmodata.net they seem to have reliable numbers
after a quick peek - looks like swg had less than 25k when their announcement was given. same with tabula rasa. i wouldn't be surprised if their CoH claim is correct. :'( |
Random people may not care that CoH in particular was closed but knowing that NCSoft holds the record for largest MMO killed might deter them from investing in whatever the victim du jour is.
NCSoft should get some sort of award for killing off the largest MMO. It could be like a virtual traveling trophy given to the current record holder. Sure, some company could easily take the crown from when NCSoft killed CoH but when NCSoft offs GW2 for Wildstar they'll surely get it back. Hmm, may need categories, like largest subscription MMO killed, largest Hybrid MMO killed, largest free-to-play MMO killed, largest buy-to-play killed, etc. etc..
Well, there's a few more facts to mention when I'm telling people what a ****** corporation NCSoft is to every MMO player and gamer in general who will listen. And really, they already made the devs sign NDAs as part of their severance agreement. They couldn't have added a clause that said that engaging in any sort of vandalism would also breach their contracts and let the devs stay on to work if they wanted? I mean, hell. The worst they might do is leak the server code, and it's not exactly like that's going to be hurting NCSoft considering how dedicated they are to making sure this game does not live on in any official capacity. =/
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If this were a thing, my vote would be for "The Living Dead Girls".
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Originally Posted by jwbullfrog
Ghost Widow, Numina, War Witch, and Kelly Nemmers founding the "Undead Girls" and becoming the featured musical act at the Golden Giza.
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Originally Posted by theHaunt
If this were a thing, my vote would be for "The Living Dead Girls".
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Much better. I approve of that.
Writer of In-Game fiction: Just Completed: My Summer Vacation. My older things are now being archived at Fanfiction.net http://www.fanfiction.net/~jwbullfrog until I come up with a better solution.
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NCSoft may have been legally obligated to continue to pay people like Matt for a few months but they had zero obligation to keep the live servers up and running for -any- period of time after their final decision to kill the game. The servers could have been instantly shutdown on August 31st and that would have been all she wrote.|
Originally Posted by GreyScribe
The thing that struck me was the fact that NCSoft has been paying Matt and the others for the last two months, but wouldn't let them finish off Issue 24 (which must have been close to release) and organise some quality farewell events for the last month or so of the game. Shutting down all development completely on August 31st seems even more mean-spirited to me now. Everything we know about the Paragon Team would suggest that given the chance, many of them would have been willing to give City of Heroes a proper send off.
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I am by no means saying I'm happy with NCSoft's decision to shut CoH down. But in the grand scheme of things I'm happier we got to play the game for 3 extra months (without updates) than not. *shrugs*
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It would have sucked for us players but if they had pulled the plug on 8/31 at the announcement the anti-NCSoft firestorm would have been glorious. Which is why they "gave" us three months.
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Originally Posted by Lothic
But in the grand scheme of things I'm happier we got to play the game for 3 extra months (without updates) than not. *shrugs*
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To be fair, it would have looked crappy if CoX was closed down *immediately* when Tabula Rasa was given 3 months to sunset. But of course, a lot of the players here didn't give 2 hoots about Tabula Rasa and how it was closed down, so why would they care if TR was given 3 months and CoX wasn't given anything.|
Originally Posted by Ogi
It would have sucked for us players but if they had pulled the plug on 8/31 at the announcement the anti-NCSoft firestorm would have been glorious. Which is why they "gave" us three months.
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Rather surprisingly, I am actually amazed that there hasn't been more uproar over "compensation" packages.
Tabula Rasa players got quite a nice deal. Here, it was just a refund.
I was scooped after I started gathering notes on Analog Hole Gaming's latest podcast guest-starring Matt "Positron" Miller, but I'm sure you'll come back here after reading Johnny Butane's post. Skip to this post's twelfth paragraph if you want to know why Johnny Butane's interpretation is lacking context. Especially relevant COH posts, and posts that ought to be especially relevant to Paragon's fans, are enlargened and emboldened. My own notes are italicized and in parentheses.
Points of interest will generally be spaced apart by paragraphs. I'm in a rush, but I type pretty fast.
In the first 20 minutes of the podcast, Positron mentions what are arguably the three most salient points for City of Heroes fans. Firstly, they (Paragon Studios) tried everything, and anything that wasn't tried was at least thought about and brought up in a meeting. In every case, when reading the forums, Facebook, Twitter, PMs or Twitch commentary by COH fans saying things like, "Why haven't you tried this?" Or, "Have you thought of that?" Or "Please do this before it's too late," the first thought to go through Matt's head was "Yes, yes, and yes," it's been on the table and either thought through or actually tried. Paragon Studios was just as caught off-guard by NCSoft's surprise realignment of focus as their fans, and just like many of their fans, they worked their tails off on their end to try and save the game.
Secondly, as a matter of fact, City of Heroes is the largest and most active MMO ever to be shut down. Specifically, it had more active and average concurrent daily users than any MMO ever to be shut down.
Thirdly, the SaveCOH effort took NCSoft by surprise. They were not prepared for the public outcry, fan support for the game, and the level of dissatisfaction with NCSoft for the closure.
By the 30-minute mark, Positron and the podcast crew had drifted into some tangents. Just a general heads up, Positron was a classy guest but the podcast crew can be very frank and probably isn't family friendly.
The WARN Act in California ensured at least 60 days of employment for Positron after the shutdown notice. He was no longer required (i.e. invited) to show up for work, but he's still been getting checks, insurance, and will receive a severance package for staying on the payroll through that 60 days.
This comes to a screeching halt sometime around this Wednesday (or next Wednesday?), at which point he will be an extremely senior-level designer in search of employment. Most companies don't hire at his level. Most promote to his level. So he may have a harder time searching for a job than any of us might have expected. He would like to stay in the Bay area, because his family has settled down there, his wife is in the PTA, Posi is involved in Cub Scouts, and so on.
For the past couple of months, Positron has been saving the world from alien invasions, flying FTL spaceships across the galaxy, and playing Pokemon in WOW.
A lot of talk about WOW. The podcast crew seem to be in the same guild. One of the hosts (the female) is either Posi's guild leader in WOW, or Posi has at least raided with their guild. Since WOW's latest expansion, only 32 guild members have logged in and completed at least one quest, out of a little over 300 guild members total. (Note: I have read elsewhere that Mists of Pandaria pushed WOW back over the 10 million mark, though--and no, I don't play WOW.)
A host mentions that Positron looks great. Turns out, Positron has lost 87 pounds on Weight Watchers. He explains how. Weight Watcher's points system seems almost like a game to the hosts. Positron did it for his family. They are going to Disney World for Christmas and Posi decided to get in better shape.
Paragraph 12: By the 45-minute mark: The character "Positron" is now owned by NCSoft, even though Matt Miller created the character for the Champions pen-and-paper RPG when he was a teenager. Matt could fight it if he wanted, but he just doesn't want to. He spent 9 and 1/2 years working on City of Heroes, and its loss was a complete surprise, but COH is in the past now, and Matt has moved on. (Note: In Matt's most recent Twitch appearance, he did say he would consider working on another Super Hero MMO and it sounded like he had given it some thought, as there would be many concepts, mechanics, and features that could be improved on when building from scratch.)
By the 50-minute mark, the crew and guest have discussed Torchlight 2's mechanics, story, and general features and generally feel it's a great game. (Not much feedback from Posi on TL2.)
Borderlands 2 is better online, everyone agrees. Posi wouldn't even install it until he knew friends had begun playing. A podcast co-host describes single-player in both Borderland games as repetitive, and describes the story as "not great". (Note: I haven't played Borderlands 2 but I actually highly enjoy single player mode in Borderlands.)
A co-host has been sucked into Tale Tell Games' game, The Walking Dead. Says it is a great game. (Note: I haven't played, but I can vouch for Tale Tell Games, they make great adventure games. The Wallace and Grommet games were hilarious.)
At this point, I had heard about 1/3 of the entire show and had to stop listening. Anyone feel like taking notes on some more minutes?
@Captain-Electric � Detective Marvel � The Sapien Spider � Moravec Man � The Old Norseman
Dark-Eyes � Doctor Serpentine � Stonecaster � Skymaiden � The Blue Jaguar
Guide to Altitis � A Comic for New Players � The Lore Project � Intro to extraterrestrials in CoH