So What is Plan Z?

Is it somehow less important? If you want to impose that kind of justice, you've had it your way. My turn, right?

But I'm sure you're a smart guy who already realize how dumb that argument is, so I'm just going to pretend that you didn't insult your own intellect by posting this.

You know, a lot of them realize that if anything gets anywhere, they are a long way off from doing it yet. They are currently organizing and brainstorming...it may not get any further than that. I cannot say it will or will not...

HOWEVER...

The people over there are extremely optimistic about it, they now have support from a small gaming company that is working on helping with the coding/gameplay/etc.

They have several legal professionals advising about best ways to not infringe upon any trademarks, and how to best incorporate should the need arise.

They have organized teams to develop storylines and work on gameplay and powersets...

These guys are EXTREMELY well organized...whether you think it will get half way off the ground or not, is not important to them...they want to see their little project succeed.

Someone is talking about doing a flash game first for certain media to help raise money, and maybe doing a kickstarter after the first of the year to get some capital together to really start developing.

So, before you mock, perhaps you should have all the information. I am not sure if this Plan Z idea will ever get off the ground...it's a monumental undertaking...but I hope it succeeds anyway...because it would be a momentous accomplishment if it did.

Plan Z will be raising money for the project - there's no question of doing it as a purely volunteer effort.

You have no idea how hard I laughed.

Especially since this was right above it

Wouldn't being clouded by emotions mean that we'd be planning on making a game purely by a volunteer effort?

As opposed to putting money in a Max Bialystock production ?

Kickstarter projects are reasonably common now.

Springtime for Hitler did pretty well.

Will it cost $80 million? We need to keep that number in use somehow, right?

That's an over-valuation of the property designed to put off buyers while allowing NCsoft to claim they tried to sell it.

Plan Z will be using a lot of open source tech and tools to reduce costs and allow for greater community participation in the project.

Really ? I had 110% of the production and got nothing.


Ahh like this one ?

http://betabeat.com/2012/04/this-is-...am-looks-like/

or maybe this one ?

http://betabeat.com/2011/09/when-kic...-a-27637-ride/


TBH I don't get kickstarter. The people with the project get funding, you get something that a carnie guessing game would be embarrassed to give out as a prize.

On a side note, if people are just willing to give away money to have the game alive, that undercuts the notion that the IP is only worth 500k. At that price if you had 4000 people willing to buy a lifetime sub for $120 or just a year sub in advance at that price you have 0 risk on your investment.

Did it occur to you that someone, iunno, lied about that number?

Did it occur to you that the number is accurate, and the parties that made the offer are legally required to remain anonymous?

So basically neither side know if the number is true or not.

It's still, maybe it is true, maybe it is not true. Unless NCSoft or that anonymous guy says so.

All this so anonymous crap. Out of all the buisness transactions that are made public of who bought what for what price or made an offer to this company and what offer they turned down. I mean hell there is even an article about 11 companies that tried to buy Facebook and Mark turned them down. Even one remained unnamed. Yet, his offer is published instead of this I heard from this guy that knew this guy that knew this guy that said she heard from the janitor that the offer might have been 80 million. Out of those 11, 10 of them were named companies. And lo and behold, it also show what they offered.

All we have is rumors. Usually when these situtations come to light, there is whole lot more than meet the eye and it may end up that all this stalling in price negotiations is just NCSoft's fault, and yeah if I was NCSOft I probably would have turned down 500k too. That sounds like very little risk for the buyer especially with supposedly ready made fans all ready to jump onto the revived COX no questions asked. And if the offers were along that line then yeah, they cant really be considered reasonable offer from the seller standpoint. Although on the same token, it might be NCSoft being a butt. Or more likely than not, it might be both sides being unreasonable and not really trying to negotiate at all but trying to do barely enough to say they exhausted all options and the other side barely doing enough to say that they were wholly ignored and stonewalled. When in reality neither side is doing anything besides trying to reinforce their predetermined stance they made before even entering into any form of communication.


There are other examples out there but for the one that is mainly mentioned http://www.businessinsider.com/all-t...n-fall-2006-12.

Not making it up.

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!

This number?

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=297932

The one a redname suggests is not worth speculating on and Golden Girl herself dismisses as unrealistic?

Of course, somehow, with no proof whatsoever, the number has morphed from being an offer to an asking price. Convenient how the new viewpoint just happens to be in line with the SaveCoX anti-NCSoft propaganda.

Given the fanatical Anti-NCSoft agenda of much of the SaveCoX movement, and lacking any proof at all in support of the number as legitimate (as an offer or an asking price), I believe it if far more likely that someone simply remembered the number and misremembered the original context, so it took on a meaning more in line with the point they wanted to make. A more cynical person might suggest that the source of the number has been intentionally misrepresented, but that never happens on the Internet.

There's a difference between "For all" and "There exists".

The kickstarters I've given money to all have the product I'm kickstarting as at least part of the "prize".

That isn't saying it's not worth speculating on, it's saying that conclusions shouldn't be made until more information is available from the involved parties in question.

It may well be a true price, it may well be fraudulent.

I simply believe that the legalities of such negotiations force things to remain anonymous. I would happily confirm whether the $80 million tag is real, should I find the means to do so. As it stands, if it is the number that came from NCSoft, rather than external speculation, then the supposition that its goal is to make the appearance of being willing to sell without ever actually holding the intent to sell is quite a reasonable conclusion to make.

Personally, I'm waiting for more information.

Actually that's the term that was taught to me by my software firm many years ago. The idea is funding is derived from previous revenue streams and not future ones. It's also anything that contributes to the creation of, or sustaining of, revenue streams but does not actually generate revenue itself. Taxes would be a prime example. So is management salaries, marketing costs, maintenance, etc. It also includes R&D. Which is why my company was quick to impress on me the nature of the concept since my work was ALL NRE. I know businesses capitalize on it. It's a useful concept. Given that the people who taught me had decades of experience in business and in multiple industries, I was inclined to trust their instruction. I also note that this former employer no longer had any of these people on their boards when they went belly up. I suspect they cashed out as soon as the holdings went public and moved on. I have since worked with MBAs, all of whom were millionaires, who confirmed my previous instruction and taught me more. And since my field was not finance I have relied mostly on on-the-job training. I've done additional research and study when it was demanded, but I've not gone out of my way to acquire formal training in the subject.

No disrespect. You are one of those "one or two" people I referred to elsewhere. Your last paragraph is consistent with that assessment. And I'm also familiar with the "Non-recurring" expense concept too. Our disagreement is mostly with regards to slight overlaps in nomenclature. I'm not a company financial officer except with my own, small business. I can do long term income and expense analysis then make projections that can satisfy financiers (and have done so), but that's the extent of my financial acumen. Well, also I put together a P&L and other financial reporting documents, but those are pretty standardized and routine. My appraisals are typically based on what I think I would want to pay for something and not a general market analysis. But when it comes to actual negotiations with me as a customer, that is what matters at the end.

Hmm. I'm doing myself a disservice. When I actually enter negotiations I've been told that I'm quite skilled. I'm knowledgeable about mathematical proofs concerning the process and the application. I just lack the skill for bringing initial contact into that stage unless it is something I'm already passionate about. If I don't care about something enough to promote it, it doesn't happen. I am unable to establish a false front. Anyways, most of my business knowledge is mathematical rather than social. Give me a set of simultaneous, non-linear, differential equations and I'm much happier. I prefer the abstract over the concrete. I'm a company officer out of necessity and skill but it's never my first choice.

I didn't misconstrue standards of business communication. At the very worst I used some terms loosely, I DO follow those standards except in unusual cases. I had some difficulty identifying proper and establishing proper channels in this case and I used a slightly novel technique to overcome this difficulty. I also used it to gather other information as well. Based on the standards I had set when I did it I found it successful. The reason I was so loose at the outset was because I set the story forth for entertainment purposes. Not for instruction or justification. Unfortunately I did not establish my intent sufficiently well and I've been paying for it since. It didn't help matters that the original story had other inaccuracies - the result of hazy memory, a lack of concern about detail, and typing it up when I was falling asleep at the keyboard.

Thank you for your respectful and professional tone. It's recognized and appreciated.

I dimissed the chance of it being an offer - because no one would pay that kind of money for a medium-sized MMO like CoH.

Information since then suggests that it is in fact the go-away-and-shut-up price NCSoft has put on the property.

Actually I have some insider info that suggest that number isn't quite accurate and is too high, but the real one is still in the insane range.

If so, please share if possible.

It's a person with a connection to Paragon Studios. He didn't give the exact number - only described it in relation to the 80Mil one. Unless he grants me permission I can't discuss it in an open forum.

The fact that someone dismisses the number as unrealistic when presented one way, then turns around and presents the exact same number, unsupported, as fact in a way that advances their agenda doesn't raise any red flags with you at all?

'If the number came from NCSoft' is a huge 'if' to base anything on, particularly since it is completely unsupported. And when the origin of the $80 million speculation can be found in the linked thread.

We have examples just above that show where failed negotiations are not held in confidence. Why would they be here? If nothing else, the companies that tendered rejected offers lose nothing by announcing it. In fact, they lose out on the goodwill they would have gained from the SaveCoX community (admittedly a proven double edged sword) by trying.

Personally, I'd take less issue if the people using the $80 million asking price argument made it clear they were pulling it out of their posteriors rather than stating it as proven fact.

What information? Links or it didn't happen.

I would just like to point out one problem with this. Although the "Plan Z" project DIRECTLY may be trying to avoid infringing, any number of members of Plan Z are pretty openly discussing reverse engineering of the server code. Just because the actual Plan Z group may not officially be trying to reverse engineer it, having members of that group participating or even supporting such a thing, is extremely bad practice for ANY game company. yes, I understand that Titan network does not equal Plan Z, but the fact that it is so openly discussed just boggles my mind.

It all goes back to one of the main problems I have with the whole Plan Z thing. It is not their goals that bother me, it is their methods, and more specifically, their public behavior. Not ALL of them. I don't want to start hearing people griping about me for labeling all of them unfairly. You can find plenty of examples both here and on the Titan boards, where members of Plan Z have said and done things that are indefensible for a software company to endorse or just turn a blind eye to. Chalk it up to having a LOT of people joining in on a community driven project, that don't actually know how to behave in a corporate environment, or who don't understand the business repercussions of those actions. I sort of feel sorry for Avel, as he has suddenly become a focal point of attention here. I think he came in here with the best of intentions, to show that Plan Z isn't just some flighty operation. Unfortunately what he presented, and how he presented it, doesn't match the experience of many of us. I said before, there may have been a lot more going on that he hasn't shared. Truthfully though, even if he had come in here with undeniable proof that he followed the correct procedures, and knew exactly what he was doing, he still would have been attacked. Why? because others from the Plan Z group have so soured a good portion of the playerbase here, that there is no way to recover, short of suddenly brokering a deal that DOES allow them to purchase the game from NCSoft.