I honestly hope we haven't given up already. Have you given up?
By
Ael Rhiana,
Posted on: 2012-11-08 17:31 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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On this, at least, we agree.
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Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
I honestly believe there is no way CoH could have sunsetted where people would not have been screaming and threatening NCSoft for months.
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Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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Agreed.
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Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
What you said should apply both ways, as you said.
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Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
I can see quite a lot has been posted to this thread since last I read it.
Marketing new items including a new powerset less than 10 days before the Sunset Notice of 8/31 stinks, imo.
Paragon Studios ought to have been in the information loop months in advance that headquarters was considering closing NCSoft, not as a sudden surprise late Friday afternoon 8/31 that you're all laid off and we're closing CoH.
Nearly everyone commenting on the public financial reports (since none of us have access to NCSoft internal accounting) suggest that CoH was still profitable (earned more than its expenses) and had a loyal stable customer base. Why it made sense to NCSoft to close CoH under these circumstances is unknown and is the cause for near endless speculation other than their nebulous "refocusing" comment.
Some of their PR statements if intended to be soothing were instead inflamatory, e.g. CoH is special to NCSoft like a family member - man, I sure want no part of a family that "sunsets" even revenue-producing members of the family, with no warning and no options for reprieve.
Yeah the 90 days of play during "Sunset" is better than nothing. Barely. NCSoft refunded the unused/unusable portion on my annual subscription to the product they're discontinuing. Huzzah! (Too bad for me I bought my last batch of Paragon Market points prior to the timeframe they're refunding.)
NCSoft hasn't told us WHY sunsetting CoH is good business; e.g. if it cost more to produce than the revenues generated. Do they have to? No, but if you want to keep your customers, you talk to them nicely, with rational understandable explanations, not with what comes across (imo) as doublespeak (as in CoH is so special to us we have to, um, KILL it.)
As a player I want to see CoH continue. I loved the content and the game. I also loved the community and active supergroups. Additionally, I came to appreciate that CoH is an art form: all the conversations and forums devoted to builds, all the costume contests, reminded me of model railroad enthusiasts, who'd lovingly detail this or that. NCSoft's decision to stop publishing CoH affects me. NCSoft's decision NOT to sell the IP likewise affects me. The time and creativity I put into developing characters, bases, and teams/groups vaporizes into limbo. I could talk some about what made CoH special and so could you.
MMORPGs may be a highly competitive market. So is the soda pop industry. In 1985 Coca-Cola decided to stop making Coke and changed the formula. Here's what happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke or if you prefer here's what Coke says about it: http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/h...e_newcoke.html
We CoH players may be too few (or we may not be!) but with Coke, the consumers, the customers WERE able to bring back their desired product. Likewise customers of other discontinued products were able to get the manufacturers to re-introduce "sunsetted" products.
I applaud those working to make a positive difference and hope in time we get City of Heroes back, optimally with most/all of the development team, since imo CoH without them sure wouldn't be the same. I want Issue 24, and Issue 25 with Kallisti's Wharf (see the youtube video) and all the other neat things the devs had planned. Will I get what I want? Maybe not, but I can work for it. I've written a non-responsive NCSoft--very bad form, imo, to ignore customer communication. As a customer and fan of CoH I have every reason to be unhappy and even angered over what NCSoft has done and how. That others feel differently is their perogative.
aka @Kristoff von Gelmini, leader of small SG bases (Infinity/Victory/Virtue/Protector), member of The House of Tera (Justice) and various others (Champion/Infinity/Victory/Guardian/Freedom).
If you are going to insult me please do it so the word filter doesn't *** it out 
Blunt *** could be many things, but I doubt you called me a f.a.g 
Or maybe you did
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Save, maybe that it should inform you that being a blunt *** is counterproductive in some instances.
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Originally Posted by Paladiamors
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!
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And probably would explain the silence. If they replied to you and then word got out, then questions woud be raised of why respond to you and not this guy or that guy or that girl or that uy over there and etc. When comments that was meant to be soothing and everytime it is spoken instead makes it worse, wouldnt the bright thing, at least from what I was told, is to just be quiet? And do remember that on top of the usual buisness communication traffic, the other games, the people over on COtitan intentionally tryign to flood the communication lines, it may not be that they intentionally ignored you. They may not have the time or more important things to do. Not saying what you said isnt important but it may have just lost in the shuffle or maybe they decided to ignore anything that looked like those flame "communication" thing from COHTitan people and yours just got lumped into there. |
Originally Posted by JohnRobey
Some of their PR statements if intended to be soothing were instead inflamatory |
It dont seem that anything they can say right now can "soothe" the situation and if they continued to release statements that continue to anger the customers, then instead of them complaining about the lack of talk from NCSOft they would flip it to say that it seems that NCSoft is now taunting them. I think so many people are so angry that right now, there is no way to appease them either way. So what is an entity to do? Try to appease those that cannot be appease or focus on te changes and goals of the company? I would focus on the goal of the company. And ona person level, most people wouldnt bother trying to appease to people angry. All a person have to to do is look at past post between an angry person (non-NCSoft angry post) and most people give up in one or two posts to make it better and write it off fairly quickly as "oh they dotn want to listen anyways so I'm not going to waste my time", if responding at all.
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Originally Posted by JohnRobey
I've written a non-responsive NCSoft--very bad form, imo, to ignore customer communication. As a customer and fan of CoH I have every reason to be unhappy and even angered over what NCSoft has done and how. That others feel differently is their perogative.
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-Female Player-
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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! |
Convincing a person that they are being emotional never works. Like they will suddenly respond in a rational manner.
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Yes, I believe I am 100% ready to hear NCSoft's explanation right now. Yes, their two Public Relations statements qualify imo as examples of "EPIC FAIL". No, I don't think NCSoft or any company should single out my communication as the one to reply to. Rather, I think any reasonable customer letter, one that omits bombastic language, ought to be responded to, and many companies have a department dedicated to customer relations. Perhaps my communication was "lost in the shuffle" as you suggested or "not important enough" or otherwise slipped thru the cracks. Be that as it may, NCSoft dropping the ball on this reflects on them, and signals clearly how important my business as a customer is to them or isn't! Unless you're suggesting that NCSoft cannot distinguish between one customer's letter and another's? I'm not certain about "entities" but I expect businesses to act business-like, which means reading one's mail, sorting and filtering it, perhaps discarding/ignoring bombastic rants, but otherwise responding business-like to customer letters. (Presumably NCSoft still wants customers.)|
Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
And probably would explain the silence. If they replied to you and then word got out, then questions woud be raised of why respond to you and not this guy or that guy or that girl or that uy over there and etc. When comments that was meant to be soothing and everytime it is spoken instead makes it worse, wouldnt the bright thing, at least from what I was told, is to just be quiet? And do remember that on top of the usual buisness communication traffic, the other games, the people over on COtitan intentionally tryign to flood the communication lines, it may not be that they intentionally ignored you. They may not have the time or more important things to do. Not saying what you said isnt important but it may have just lost in the shuffle or maybe they decided to ignore anything that looked like those flame "communication" thing from COHTitan people and yours just got lumped into there.
It dont seem that anything they can say right now can "soothe" the situation and if they continued to release statements that continue to anger the customers, then instead of them complaining about the lack of talk from NCSOft they would flip it to say that it seems that NCSoft is now taunting them. I think so many people are so angry that right now, there is no way to appease them either way. So what is an entity to do? Try to appease those that cannot be appease or focus on te changes and goals of the company? I would focus on the goal of the company. And ona person level, most people wouldnt bother trying to appease to people angry. All a person have to to do is look at past post between an angry person (non-NCSoft angry post) and most people give up in one or two posts to make it better and write it off fairly quickly as "oh they dotn want to listen anyways so I'm not going to waste my time", if responding at all. If they was to reply right now to answer the questions would you really be ready to listen? Or only ready to listen to get even more angry if they dont say what you want to hear? They already released two statements I think, and look how that turned out. |
Re: appeasing the angry crowd aka all of us, did you read the link I posted on "New Coke"? I actually like the Coca-Cola company version better than the Wikipedia synopsis. The reason I posted that is that Coca-Cola angered and upset MANY of its customers. Coke chose NOT to ignore it's customers. Coke wanted to win/survive the "cola wars" -- hence the "bold" step of New Coke/Coke II -- and Coke had the wisdom to see it had made a bad decision in doing away with its "failing" product and brought it back. "Classic" coca-cola came back ONLY because of customer action and letters.
aka @Kristoff von Gelmini, leader of small SG bases (Infinity/Victory/Virtue/Protector), member of The House of Tera (Justice) and various others (Champion/Infinity/Victory/Guardian/Freedom).
ok, lets recap:
1. Liking stuff and being upset when it gets snatched away from you for no reason is not only wrong, but stupid. [And we were never given a real reason, so dont start about that.]
2. Morality is idiotic. Only fools think that others should behave by moral norms. Corporations are people too, as we are oft' reminded here in the States, and so: ditto.
3. It is wrong to be upset when someone else takes your stuff with no warning, and then refuses to give it back when asked politely. Refuses to give it back, when offered money! Wow.
4. Hell, emotion, PERIOD is wrong and is the province of fools.
Some of you must be a real hoot in real life. Jaysus.
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An excellent example of my point.
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
ok, lets recap:
1. Liking stuff and being upset when it gets snatched away from you for no reason is not only wrong, but stupid. [And we were never given a real reason, so dont start about that.] 2. Morality is idiotic. Only fools think that others should behave by moral norms. Corporations are people too, as we are oft' reminded here in the States, and so: ditto. 3. It is wrong to be upset when someone else takes your stuff with no warning, and then refuses to give it back when asked politely. Refuses to give it back, when offered money! Wow. 4. Hell, emotion, PERIOD is wrong and is the province of fools. Some of you must be a real hoot in real life. Jaysus. |
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I think the Coke analogy doesn't work that well with this situation. Coke was (surprisingly enough) the flagship drink of the Coca-Cola company, so of course they were more willing to appease its customers (and doing so made their sales increase more than Pepsi). |
Originally Posted by JohnRobey
Yes, I believe I am 100% ready to hear NCSoft's explanation right now. Yes, their two Public Relations statements qualify imo as examples of "EPIC FAIL". No, I don't think NCSoft or any company should single out my communication as the one to reply to. Rather, I think any reasonable customer letter, one that omits bombastic language, ought to be responded to, and many companies have a department dedicated to customer relations. Perhaps my communication was "lost in the shuffle" as you suggested or "not important enough" or otherwise slipped thru the cracks. Be that as it may, NCSoft dropping the ball on this reflects on them, and signals clearly how important my business as a customer is to them or isn't! Unless you're suggesting that NCSoft cannot distinguish between one customer's letter and another's? I'm not certain about "entities" but I expect businesses to act business-like, which means reading one's mail, sorting and filtering it, perhaps discarding/ignoring bombastic rants, but otherwise responding business-like to customer letters. (Presumably NCSoft still wants customers.)
Re: appeasing the angry crowd aka all of us, did you read the link I posted on "New Coke"? I actually like the Coca-Cola company version better than the Wikipedia synopsis. The reason I posted that is that Coca-Cola angered and upset MANY of its customers. Coke chose NOT to ignore it's customers. Coke wanted to win/survive the "cola wars" -- hence the "bold" step of New Coke/Coke II -- and Coke had the wisdom to see it had made a bad decision in doing away with its "failing" product and brought it back. "Classic" coca-cola came back ONLY because of customer action and letters. |
CoH is to NCSoft as Surge is to the Coca-Cola company: A well-liked but under-performing product that was put out of commission by the company and has a small but vocal fanbase on facebook.
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The game and the studio weren't doing well by comparison to current generation MMOs it looked like the inside of an army boot. Your products are part of your corporate image, if you want to be seen as state of the art, you can't have a beat up pacer on blocks in your front yard, also it didn't even have nipples. |
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
ok, lets recap:
1. Liking stuff and being upset when it gets snatched away from you for no reason is not only wrong, but stupid. [And we were never given a real reason, so dont start about that.] |
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| 2. Morality is idiotic. Only fools think that others should behave by moral norms. Corporations are people too, as we are oft' reminded here in the States, and so: ditto. |
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| 3. It is wrong to be upset when someone else takes your stuff with no warning, and then refuses to give it back when asked politely. Refuses to give it back, when offered money! Wow. |
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| 4. Hell, emotion, PERIOD is wrong and is the province of fools. |
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yeah I read it, but in this situation unlike coke's, I think NCsoft already figured that if they close this game they can forget about many players as customers. NCSoft still probably wants customers but I wouldnt be surprised if they written this set of customers off with the game. WHile speaking on COke, yes, they responded to customers and stuff, but when it came to the drink called Surge, they wasnt as open about explaining the death of it and responding to requests to bring it back and it was left dead. Why? Some say coke's main product, those customers would have lost them a lot more than they was willing to lose. Yet Surge customers was basically a small percent and could care less if they went elsewhere. The coke situation, I could see if it was some decision if WoW was closing. Lot more customers, lot more money. Here, we are the gaming's world Surge. Good drink, well loved by the people who drink it but not enough to keep alive. |
Originally Posted by JohnRobey
Yes, I believe I am 100% ready to hear NCSoft's explanation right now. Yes, their two Public Relations statements qualify imo as examples of "EPIC FAIL". No, I don't think NCSoft or any company should single out my communication as the one to reply to. Rather, I think any reasonable customer letter, one that omits bombastic language, ought to be responded to, and many companies have a department dedicated to customer relations. Perhaps my communication was "lost in the shuffle" as you suggested or "not important enough" or otherwise slipped thru the cracks. Be that as it may, NCSoft dropping the ball on this reflects on them, and signals clearly how important my business as a customer is to them or isn't! Unless you're suggesting that NCSoft cannot distinguish between one customer's letter and another's? I'm not certain about "entities" but I expect businesses to act business-like, which means reading one's mail, sorting and filtering it, perhaps discarding/ignoring bombastic rants, but otherwise responding business-like to customer letters. (Presumably NCSoft still wants customers.)
Re: appeasing the angry crowd aka all of us, did you read the link I posted on "New Coke"? I actually like the Coca-Cola company version better than the Wikipedia synopsis. The reason I posted that is that Coca-Cola angered and upset MANY of its customers. Coke chose NOT to ignore it's customers. Coke wanted to win/survive the "cola wars" -- hence the "bold" step of New Coke/Coke II -- and Coke had the wisdom to see it had made a bad decision in doing away with its "failing" product and brought it back. "Classic" coca-cola came back ONLY because of customer action and letters. |
Maybe Coke's customer service practice is why Coke is the largest or one of the largest drink makers in the world and NCSoft is only another cog, a big cog, but still another cog in the game machine. You do realize that when they changed the forumla, one it wasnt over night that they changed it back, two, the customers did more than just rant and rave like lunatics. They stopped buying the products in enough numbers to make a notice. Here, what we have, a bunch of raving angry people talking so far. Now time will tell if they stick to their word and actually use their power to get noticed or end up another group of gamers that was all talk and no bite. But NCSoft cant just switch it back as easily as Coke can switch the ingredients. At this point it would be alot of work to bring it back and some assume that even if it did come back it would be the same. Remember the changes that this game went through as different people in the dev area had more say, joined the team, left the team? If we had the original 2004 team on this game, I think i24 would have been a whole lot different.
Not to mention everyone heard of Coke just about, even people who dont even drink their products. Outside a few online gaming magazines, underground blogs, a celebrity that no one outside the game/fantasy world ever heard of, no one hardly heard of NCSoft. Hell, fro mthe looks of it, most players that played this game for years didnt know anything about NCSoft (or else they would have seen their habits long ago.). So large publicity works against Coke in those cases. "NCSoft, who's NCSoft? and why should people of the greater world care? OH they shut down a game? So?" compared to "Hey you hear COke change their formula? I used to like it but the new stuff taste like crap." "What? Coke changed their formula and the customers are angry? Well that is a story."
-Female Player-
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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! |
People want to know more about NCSoft's reason for their decision just so they can argue more.
My new Youtube Channel with CoH info
You might know me as FlintEastwood now on Freedom
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I just made that same anology. I liked Surge.
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Originally Posted by That_Ninja
I think the Coke analogy doesn't work that well with this situation. Coke was (surprisingly enough) the flagship drink of the Coca-Cola company, so of course they were more willing to appease its customers (and doing so made their sales increase more than Pepsi).
CoH is to NCSoft as Surge is to the Coca-Cola company: A well-liked but under-performing product that was put out of commission by the company and has a small but vocal fanbase on facebook. |
-Female Player-
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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! |
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Tell that to SOE.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Your products are part of your corporate image, if you want to be seen as state of the art, you can't have a beat up pacer on blocks in your front yard
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
also it didn't even have nipples.
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Wait, what was your property that they took? From my understanding it looks like they just took their stuff. |
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
3. It is wrong to be upset when someone else takes your stuff with no warning, and then refuses to give it back when asked politely. Refuses to give it back, when offered money! Wow. |
I dont think it's rude at all to refuse to sell something even when someone offers moeny for it. If that was the case, I would never be able to keep a car for more than two days.
I think it's rude for people to get upset at the property owner for wanting their stuff back.
Just because I let you borrow my car for a while, and want it back so I can trade it in for a new car doesnt mean you all of a sudden OWN my car because you been driving it for a month or two.
-Female Player-
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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! |
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that what it seems like.
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Originally Posted by JayboH
People want to know more about NCSoft's reason for their decision just so they can argue more.
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-Female Player-
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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! |
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Without us, their stuff does not exist.|
Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
I think it's rude for people to get upset at the property owner for wanting their stuff back.
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Symbiosis.
Lol
+1
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Originally Posted by that_ninja
an excellent example of my point.
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Originally Posted by Paladiamors
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!
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Unbelievable.
A thread where a group of robots are telling humans to stop being humans.
Maybe you should just try saying EXTERMINATE over and over again.
You did not OWN anything in CoH - you rented it. You were given a 90 day notice that you could no longer RENT the product from the true owner: NCSoft. If they choose not to sell their property; that is their choice - they have their reasons and are in no way obligated to make anyone else aware of those reasons as it is part of their business. Companies make decisions every day that customers have no right to know WHY that decision was made. It is not your company..it is not your product. We were/are customers and if we don't like their methods we don't have to buy their products. I for one have nothing against NCSoft as they are the ones who made CoH playable for years. I am grateful that they gave a niche game a chance when others did not.
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
ok, lets recap:
1. Liking stuff and being upset when it gets snatched away from you for no reason is not only wrong, but stupid. [And we were never given a real reason, so dont start about that.] 2. Morality is idiotic. Only fools think that others should behave by moral norms. Corporations are people too, as we are oft' reminded here in the States, and so: ditto. 3. It is wrong to be upset when someone else takes your stuff with no warning, and then refuses to give it back when asked politely. Refuses to give it back, when offered money! Wow. 4. Hell, emotion, PERIOD is wrong and is the province of fools. Some of you must be a real hoot in real life. Jaysus. |
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Originally Posted by Paladiamors
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!
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yep but until now, didnt seem like many people had as much of a problem with this company's past habits that seem to be utterly the most aweful thing in the world and wonder why or how could they? Easy, the same way they have been doing. Yet, they rake in more money and more money becuase people complain whine cry curse but then go right back like dope fiend. |
Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
Without us, their stuff does not exist.
Symbiosis. |
And without people to make games, we would not be here having a game to miss.
But still, that doesnt change the fact of actual owner ship.
Yes we have the power but in order to use that power if a person want to change a buisness is understand the situation. Do they expect most of the customers from the game to actually migrate over to their other titles? Probably a few but probably dont expect most of us to do so. Thus most of us probably have already been written off as a loss. SO whether or not we spend another dime on them is moot, to them. But if the company as described in many posts of how NCSoft should be was THAT important, then most of those people wouldnt be here today. Or it seems those "morals" are only important when it affects them in a negative way. As long as it's done to someone else, they dont give flying crap.
-Female Player-
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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! |
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It doesn't work as an analogy for the reasons you cite. My point in posting this is that sometimes customers can get discontinued products restored. Perhaps the small number of City of Heroes fans makes the analogy to Surge more apt, since Surge is a soda pop I've never heard of nor tried.|
Originally Posted by That_Ninja
I think the Coke analogy doesn't work that well with this situation. Coke was (surprisingly enough) the flagship drink of the Coca-Cola company, so of course they were more willing to appease its customers (and doing so made their sales increase more than Pepsi).
CoH is to NCSoft as Surge is to the Coca-Cola company: A well-liked but under-performing product that was put out of commission by the company and has a small but vocal fanbase on facebook. |
That said, why did Coca-Cola discontinue Surge? Was it profitable?
aka @Kristoff von Gelmini, leader of small SG bases (Infinity/Victory/Virtue/Protector), member of The House of Tera (Justice) and various others (Champion/Infinity/Victory/Guardian/Freedom).
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EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE!|
Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
Unbelievable.
A thread where a group of robots are telling humans to stop being humans. Maybe you should just try saying EXTERMINATE over and over again. |
No human emotion allowed! EXTERMINATE!! *BZZZT* ERROR ERROR! *BZZT* EXTERMINATE!
-Female Player-
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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! |
Yet there are people here who've made a crusade of basically talking down to others. Simply because they don't like how those people are handling this situation.
Why is that?
Nobody likes being talked down to.
As for your personal background. While I appreciate your origins, your story is no better or worse than many who come through here. Save, maybe that it should inform you that being a blunt *** is counterproductive in some instances.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.