I honestly hope we haven't given up already. Have you given up?

Really? I don't follow either of those games, but for kicks I googled my way over to a B&S forum called "Blade and Soul Dojo" and ran a few searches. Didn't really see much in the way of buzz about the closing of City of Heroes.

I suspect it is wishful thinking to believe the average MMO gamer knows enough or cares enough about CoH and what happened to it, to punish NCSoft for it. If there was some kind of ground-swell of negative opinion outside of these boards and a few other CoH-friendly blog sites, NCSoft would be reacting to it. They aren't. There isn't. That doesn't make me happy to say it. It's just the truth. They don't need protests and petitions to let them know how many people care about CoH. They have the population data from the game. They know exactly how many people support this game, where they are, when they play, how much they spend on it... and they are going ahead with closing it anyway.

There already been a few games where the entire development was gone but it still went back on the market, just because you dont have the original developers anymore, doesnt mean you cant run and manage it.

They might need time to adjust to the engine and way things work, but they can make it work again.

But at the end, i never give up, i have the friends, the screenshots and movies, but most of all, i have the memories of this game.

As long there are things to hold on to, moving on doesnt mean you give up, you take the memories with you into the next adventure.

As for blade & soul, already too much competition within the action-MMO genre, alike Wildstar being just 'among' all the big companies trying to put down a solid MMO. Nevertheless, i will go play Blade&Soul, if only they would release it in Europe already...

The average gamer has the attention span of a humming bird with ADHD and when told "If we don't hang together we shall surely hang seperately" thinks it's a plot and immediately looks for the place to plant the knife.

When we have people with links to the save CoH petition their sig saying they can't wait for B&S on the official CoH forums there's little chance of getting the non-CoH crowd to care.

If all I'm doing is depriving myself of something that could be entertaining by boycotting NCSoft, I'm fine with that. I'd love to see them burn for this. While I'll effectively play no part in it their stock may take care of that on its own, so it's just a matter a time.

Do you have a link to some numbers to see how things spiked over all the 7 years?

I find it very odd that Issue 13 had such a big drop in players... sure, PvP was gutted but how many players actually did any PvP? The reason it was revamped was precisely because it was not seen as a big risk (i think.)

I kind of remember not being very active since before issue 11 and actually picking back up precisely with i13 (Merits+Shields!)

I don't think they will suffer anything due to CoH cancelation.

However, the way they are managing NCSoft Interactive, and if I understand correctly, the way NCSoft Interactive (west) keeps losing money EVEN with the release of GW2 (although the whole company is not losing money) will result in the entire western operations being moved back to Korea and just do international support for their games going forward.

There never was. It isn't the fault of your fellow CoH fans that people who don't play this game don't care that it is closing its doors. I mean take a step back and try to imagine, for real, the kind of negative publicity that would be required to shame NCSoft into taking another look at CoH. Do you honestly think we're anywhere near that level of awareness in the media? Are ALL of the gaming news site ablaze every day with news of this atrocity?

No.

If you don't want to give up, then don't. But at least have the decency not to blame people who DID support this game with considerable amounts of their time and money, for its demise.

And then NCSoft will smack it down with a C&D.




This fight was over before we knew it had started. The lord-high-muck-a-mucks made their decision, and we never got a say on it.

There's nothing left to give up on.

They would have nothing to gain by blocking an emulator unless they actually had plans to DO something with the CoH IP.

Maybe. And maybe no one will give a damn. Enforce stuff on the internet from a different country? Should be interesting.

I still have a PC running Windows 95. So there's already a difference.

But yes, there should be the power of give & take on both sides of the customer/business relationship, particularly when it comes to long-term investment.

Nobody should be allowed to suddenly discontinue a service such as this anymore than they have the right to nuke a city (that was still in the black, no less) on a "whim."

That's interesting. How do you know how much NCSoft was asking for?

Awesome movie, Tim! Very well done!

Hmm, i thought someone said the Trion thing was a rumor. Don't suppose that's been verified yet...would be interesting info if it was.

Actually, a public traded company is legally forbidden to lie in any press release because that can lead to a huge world of fraud.

They CAN withhold certain information, but should they be 100% certain that the company is doing badly then they are forced to say it. It does not matter if you are an investor or not, because either you or the people managing your 401k in your behalf may end up investing in the company due to lies.

I’m not exactly sure of the tiny details, but information can be withheld as long as it's not information that can hurt any future investor.

For example, Amazon never tells us how many Kindle's they sell. As long as the sales can’t hurt the company, that's ok. If they suddenly somehow found out that kindles are emitting child killing radiation, they MUST tell everyone about it because the recall and lawsuits for medical costs will surely threaten the company.

Anyways, there is a legal standard of honesty that is expected from every public traded company and that is precisely why they never said City of Heroes was canceled due to it having a small player base or it having no profits: because it would have been a LIE.

Again, can't reiterate this enough: It does not matter if you are currently a shareholder. Everyone can eventually decide to be one and such decision should be made with critical information at hand. But again: there are bits that are not necessary to reveal.

It's very unlikely City of Heroes cancelation (costs involved in the process and lost profits, since it WAS profitable) would hurt the company in a significant way so they don’t have to say much about the real reason. But once more: they can’t lie to us. They can be vague, though.

Link?

You rock, Tim!

basically.

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!

Nobody should be allowed to discontinue a service? Are you serious? Do you even know what the consequence of such a law, if it existed, would be?

I doubt it.

Which is another way of asking too much money. NCSoft may have never published a price for which, if offered, they would be willing to sell the IP, but let's be realistic: in the corporate world, there is always the right price. Since NCSoft turned down all offers, it can be inferred that they did not see any offers they liked.


In response to the OP: I am with some other up-thread. I have given up in the sense that I have accepted that NCSoft is completely unwilling to compromise, which in turn means that the game is done.

I think his point was:

So basically: if the service is profitable it should not be allowed to be killed. Not saying I entirely agree, not with just those small clauses, but he was not saying that no one should not ever be allowed for no reason at all to cancel any service.

LOL you know what the consequences of not having such laws are going to be ?

Think about people that are using web services to do their taxes, doctors using cloud based practice management and emr systems.

At the very least you will see companies forced to provide data back to their customers in case of closure, in a usable format or with software that renders it usable.

yes but this isnt life and death. It's video game.

Not to mention even without those laws thus far, there havent been many cases of companies canceling something that totally shutsdown an emr systems and operation. Usually they have contracts on term of services, legally binding contracts that say this particular company will provide this service for this exact length of time for this exact amount of money and must be renewed every so often. And if the person in ospital that is in charge of those contracts (for this example) allow it to expire and no replacement is ready, then that is their ***, not the company that provide the service unless they breach the contract.

And sometimes hospitals do not use the same company forever. They actually switch systems every so often depending on a number of factors and sometimes the new system is so different that it requires some training for the people that is to use them.


As close to a contract we have here is that EULA like thing. We didnt havea problem with it now, so there shouldnt be much problem when they excercise a right that is laid out in that writing that we been agreeing to all of these years.

I think consumers should have more rights, but I dont think it should be at the expense of adding extra uneeded laws on buisnesses. We actually have more rights than many people realized. If we didnt agree with the terms we could of walked away amd that is less money they have. But it's too late to walk away when they already written us off and that money is moot. That train have left the station.

All we can do now is learn from the mistakes over these years, look at exactly what we are getting into now, and not going for something that we wont agree with IF it was to occur because if it is written, it can happen as this game has shown. Prior to this, it probably wasa assumed that as long as a game stayed in the black, and popular among the players who play the game, then that was enough to keep it open. Now we know, if we didnt know prior, that is not always true. What ever game is played next, read the policies and if it's fishy, dont mess with that company.

Out of immigration laws that are proposed, buisness regulations, economy, and etc. time spent wasted over a law due to greiving game players because the game is closing should be least of the worries when there are more important laws and regulation that is actually life and death or grave financial standing on the line, that needs to be solved.

Plus have to think about the effects of the law outside of the gaming perspective. I doubt it have any chance of goign anywhere if it just states "game makers should be allowed to discontinue their product if it's not losing them money." Still on a side note no one answered if this was supposed to be the case, and they must wait unti lthey start losing money, who pays that difference? Or is this a law that basically gurantees that no matter what product they make, they eventually will have to take a loss before they can close it?
I dont think any company should be forced by law to take a loss. I think they could have killed this game off and kept the devs and assigned them to other projects but then for it to be a law, there would have to be employee protection across the board, where people get laid off every day due to cutbacks, losses, realignment of company, or just because they can.

If there is serious talking about laws of this matter that is beyond angry gamer chatter, then it would have to focus more on than just gamers and how it affect gamers. Have to think about how it affects consumers and all buisnesses with consumers/clients/customers.
The Lincoln TC was still making a profit and America's best selling luxury vehicle yet they discontinued the product and many workers that worked in the factory that made cars on that platform lost their jobs. Now if the proposed law was in effect, Ford would still be forced to make that vehicle, and the Crown Vic, and the Grand Marquis. Yes, lot of Ford customers was pissed about that, especially the livery market when they killed the TC.

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!