Posi Confirms: COH Largest and Most Active MMO Ever Shut Down

In my experience, similar situations exist with various non-digital items that are leased. Lease agreements tend to heavily favour the lessor and limit the rights of/penalize the lessee.

Mind you, I've wished for offline versions of many an online only game. In most cases playing offline or only playing online with a handful of my RL friends would be my preference.

I dont think it's criminal. And I hope it never come to law. I do not think any corporation should be forced to do anything they dont wish to do with something they actually own and or created. That is like saying that you must give up your property to someone else if you dont plan on using it or want to replace it. Like, "No, you cant trade in that car. That guy over there like seeing your car drive by his house and he wants to drive it and since you dont want it, you must give it to them."

All that monthly fee was rent, not an investment, not owning, anything besides the disks and the stuff maybe on that disk that came in the box and downloaded on the computer that you can keep.

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!

...Let me guess: you're a corporate lawyer. If you're not, you should become one pronto. And, LOL!

Superfund sites for everyone (that can't afford to buy private islands)!

So, you're ok with Lead Paints? Pet foods from China that have killed animals? We can always discuss Asbestos as well. I can add even more things to the list if you'd like. Should I go on?

Maybe you'd like to be driving a Pinto...

You know, I had to add this:
While I'm not a fan of most Lawyers, I found this website interesting. It has a very, very long list of what they refer to as "Defective Drugs". AKA, Drugs that Corporations have released to the market that have caused personal injury, if not death, to those taking them.

I'm sure you're "so glad" that the drug companies weren't forced to do anything they didn't wish to do with something they actually own or created.. well, maybe up until it killed or injured someone....

Originally Posted by PapaSlade Rangle's right....this is fun.

Sure, why not? I like Pintos (particularly the models with the round headlights) and despite a bout of media hysteria they're not particularly unsafe.

Setting aside the question of whether a law similar to the one being discussed would be a good idea, you'd probably lose that bet. Two reasons: first, CoH predates WoW, so it could never have been a reskined WoW-like game. We have a lot of public information regarding the design evolution of City of Heroes, and such predictions about how the Cryptic developers would have responded to any outside force are ludicrous on their face: the launch-version of City of Heroes was itself partially a risk-management design iteration of the original alpha concept. What we got at launch *was* what Jack thought was the safe version of City of Heroes.

Second, it would have taken zero effort for Cryptic to make a stand alone version of the game to satisfy the law because such things existed for the developers before launch. Not every MMO has such things, but I have first hand knowledge that City of Heroes did, at least from alpha to significantly past launch. I'm not just randomly guessing here: I'm not the only person outside of Paragon that is aware of their existence. I don't know they were kept up to date into the NCsoft era, but I don't know they weren't either.

I don't even know what the specific risk is to an MMO company that has a contingency plan to allow players to keep stand alone versions of the game if it sunsets. If I were running an MMO company, I'd make that a mandatory design requirement. For business reasons, it might never see the light of day so long as the game continued to operate commercially, but there would be zero business impact of having such a thing released to players when the business itself was no longer going to exist.

Was refering to the game industry.

But even in that realm, closing a game is like a company choosing to discontinue a product.
Closing a game causes no harm to anyone so what is the logic for making a law forcing them to keep it running? That law above is like forcing GM to continue to make the Pontiac forever. I dont believe that the closing of this game caused actual injury or danger to anyone. It's a trivial matter that shouldnt even be worth the time of the law process especially when there are more important issues that should be addressed that effects actual health and lives.

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!

Sorry but that's not how the law works. We don't stop charging and arresting people stealing pension funds cause they aren't hurting anyone physically. Laws are made not just to protect people from harm but also secure them from fraud among various other reason..

GM can discontinue their Pontiac all they like but they can't take away the Pontiac they sold to people when they do but apparently MMO producers/developers can. This is what needs to change.

BOTH of your paragraphs, even though you began by agreeing on the legal thing, were mainly complaining about "people" denigrating the protesters. Since it was a direct reply to me and quoting my post, it wasn't clear to me if I was being lumped in with those people so I was just clarifying. There was no need for the English lesson.

As for protest being the only recourse, that may be the case here but I wasn't limiting my comments to just THIS situation either because legislation would affect all MMOs. If offline mode is a feature valued by MMO customers then someone, eventually should want to include it in their gameplay offering. I would think it might enhance the value of cash shop items if we knew they had some permanence, but maybe there aren't enough people who agree to make it worth doing.

Which reason applies here? There's no fraud if you were never promised the game would last forever. Consumer health/safety? Don't think so. Environmental concerns? I doubt it. Anti-trust? Nope. So what legal basis would you choose for this law? You are essentially asking the government to impose a value-add feature into a product because... you want it. That's not how this should work and it would set a very bad precedent. Heck, I'm a liberal-leaning moderate and even I wouldn't want THIS much government meddling in product design.

They were selling cash shop items up until they day before they announced the shut down of COH and even advertising them. This should be considered fraud as far as I'm concerned.

There is still people that have hundreds of dollars of paragon points they won't get refunded all because they bought them before some arbitrary date NCsoft decided upon.

Fraud implies you were promised something that wasn't delivered. With a subscription fee, it's easy to judge that because I know if I've received the service I've paid for and I would certainly expect a refund if I've paid in advance for service I don't get because the game shut down.

But it's less clear with these F2P micro-transactions. How long should you expect to use an item you pay for in the cash shop? If they leave the game running for 3 months after the announcement, can you really claim a refund if they're allowing you the use of those purchases for 3 months? Even the idea of an offline mode doesn't exactly solve the problem for people who play MMOs for the multiplayer so you'll always have the problem of how to shut down an MMO without having to give everything back.

I'd be tempted to agree that unused virtual currency should be refunded as cash, but then what about points "earned" through subscription stipend or other in-game means or promotions (for those MMOs where such things exist?) If you require that to be seen as a cash liability on the company's books, you can expect that sort of thing to go away entirely. Or maybe it'd be okay if they could keep virtual money separate from real money. e.g. You pay for items with a mixture of real money and/or virtual money but you never BUY virtual currency.

Something like that might be doable, but I still don't think legislating an offline mode is the way.

It's not like they used the word FOREVER in their marketting campaign.





http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/333/City-of-Heroes-Freedom-Costume-Giveaway-North-America.html

Nice. I would counter with a lengthy explanation of how sometimes that word isn't meant to be taken literally but I have some work to catch up on. It took me forever to get through traffic this morning.

hmm yea WoW did come after COX. Go figure. I always thought the numbers was low because it had to compete with WoW but in reality WoW had to compete with COX and won.

I dont think it's a bad idea if the company choose ot give away the property but do think it's not good idea to force a company to give up the property by law. Why would I make a product that if for some reason it dont do well, I have to give it away for free and let go all rights to it? Sounds like a system that can be easily be abused by the player base. Dont buy a game and wait until it goes free because by law they have to let it go for free. I dont see how that is a good idea at all, besides asa benefit for the players. How would it in anyway benefit a buisness with that law?

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!

Yes, like GM discontinuing Pontiac, you have the game disks dont you? You own that.

The rest was just rental. Just because you rent a car doesnt mean you own it regardless of how many miles you put on it or had it. And if the rental company just so happen decide that they can no longer or want that particular car in their fleet but some was still rented out, like when Pontiac was discontinued, they can (have) taken the car back when the term was up, or refunded the people the money and or put them in another car. That is their legal obligation but ultimately, the subscription fee is not ownership. And the company should not be forced to keep the car in fleet if they want to choose not to.

With magazines, can pay subscription and they send you magazine that you own, but if the magazine ends production, a magazine maker should not be forced to continue publication because a few want to continue reading each issue forever.

Players knew or should have knew that the subscription was not the purchase of actual property but merely rent to access data to play a game and nothing more. Not an investment where the player is suppose to expect returns or gains on what they put in for the rest of their lives. I think the only case here maybe is that NCSOft and other game creators do not make that part clear.

And i never said you had to hurt someone physically. But what actual hurt is in a company closing down a game? If it hurts that much and the feeling of the communit ycant continue without that particular media then maybe the focus need to be more on the players. Why not continue the community since it's that tightly knit, on another game or media or forum? If a lose of a game hurts that much where it can be compared to physical thing like losing a pension through actual fraud, or being murdered, then maybe it's that person that may need to go talk to someone. It's just a game. What would the wrong doing in this closing be classified as? Fraud? I think the procedures and exactly what was getting into was clearly laid out not to mention that just about anything that is rented, subscribed to, and pay for access web sites must be fraud too. I think at worse, this closing might be bad customer service and that varies by view and from what I hear, bad customer service is not illegal and probably wont be illegal anytime soon. Destruction of a community? If it's a community in reality, then it should be able to persist even if this game and the game after and the game after is gone. What would it be labeled as?

"If you get into bed with a snake knowing that others have perished doing the same thing, then do not be surprised when it bites you regardless of how nice you was to it."



Or how about building a new game, which is said to be in the plan and implement that idea and make sure that even in the year 2165 that game should still be up and running even if there is only one player left. If it's a good idea, maybe that Plan Z will be the shining pillar of how a game should be ran and pull every single customer from corporate ran games as they flock to the ideal ran game that will never end. No law is needed to do that. This is a chance to give the people a choice to choose between the old way, which is described by some here as on par with murder, pollution and fraud, or the ideal way in the way that is proposed by those tht think that law would be a good idea. If it is as good of an idea as people claimed, then when Plan Z is finished, then just about every other game on the market should be on the brink of shutting down due to lack of players.

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!

Then sounds like you people and the people that got "ripped off", have a very solid case and should go ahead and sue them and the case should be a slam dunk for ya'll and be over quickly. Why isnt that in the works? What is stopping ya? With evidence that solid, you shouldnt even need a lawyer to prove that fraud. Its been what about two months now nearly since the refund announcement and no one started a case? Is it hesitation because the case is not as solid as they try to put on like the was hording points for months instead of actually spending them knowing an online game can end at any moment? Or is it they are just heated right now but knwo in their hearts that it is not fraud?

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!

Unfortunately, that's exactly how it works. It's the Golden Rule: "The one with all the gold makes the rules". Corporations do this sort of thing all the time. Just look at how much the copyright laws of the U.S. have been changed just to keep Mickey Mouse from entering the public domain.

Our problem is that even collectively, we just don't have enough gold to make anyone take us seriously.

But at least I can continue to read the magazine's I own.

Originally Posted by PapaSlade Rangle's right....this is fun.

So you're saying it's OK for a company to make exaggerated claims about a product they're advertising. And here I thought that was bordering on fraud. Silly me!

There are some products out there that are "guaranteed forever", and the manufacturer actually means it and they've been good on their word about it. You try using a slogan like, "Play Free Forever" and then discontinue your product a year later, and see how much your customers trust you afterwards.

Both the doctrine of right of first sale (which is itself being challenged recently) and the time-shifting and limited backup exceptions to copyright protection are rights given to consumers, in effect, for the sole reason that they want them, and it seems fair, and for no other "public good" reason. The 35 year copyright reversion option exists solely because it was seen as fair over and above any contractual agreement that exists. See also: Rule Against Perpetuities.

Perhaps a class action lawsuit would be a good idea. When we win, we'll all get $5 vouchers good for any currently running NCSoft game. Success!

True.

Just as easily you can pick up another game and play it.

Or maybe it's best only to stick to console games where the person is actually buying the game and even if it goes under, they still have the game?

Or only buy stuff to own from places that never ever killed a product in their entire history? If you can find one.

Never buy stuff that require updates to operate, see the console game?

Many choices out there but just about everyone here made a choice to put money into something that could end at anytime. Some of us knowingly, and seemingly some of us that didnt know. Was the process lack a bit on an indelicate touch? Probably, but so do some cases of death, since some like to compare to this end of game as their life ending too, I'll bite. Some people get ran over while others die peacefully in their sleep. Some peopel die before they are 18 while others die when they are 90. Some people never get to see the outside of the womb. Some people are brutally hacked to bits and placed in a shallow grave, while others get a million dollar funeral from loves ones.

Or maybe we are being the indelicate ones for wanting them to wait until they start losing money to shutdown, especially odd given how many people are upset at losing a few bucks on points.

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!