City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

An Update

Adar_ICT

By Adar_ICT,
Posted on: 2012-11-14 17:42 in CoH and CoV General Discussions

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Doctor_Gemini View Post
What you have to realize, however, is if you look over Another Fan's posting history, his definition of "people on these boards who always would agree with the devs no matter how preposterous the action or position" is everyone who disagrees with him.
Well seeing as most people who didn't like what the devs were doing didn't make an effort to change things but simply left, you might be right.

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He is the highlight of this thread, though. I do thank him for his comments because I had a rough day at work, and coming home and being able to laugh my *** off at him really helped.
I am sorry you are so upset you needed to take a personal shot.

 

Posted

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Originally Posted by Doctor_Gemini View Post
What you have to realize, however, is if you look over Another Fan's posting history, his definition of "people on these boards who always would agree with the devs no matter how preposterous the action or position" is everyone who disagrees with him.
Most people that toss around the "Fanboy" word are just trying to dismiss someone's opinion by pretending these posers would never dare contradict the devs.

Truth is, though, that most of the time, the word is being targeted at someone with a long history of disagreement with the devs, but that happens to be agreeing with the devs that one day.

It's the last resort used by someone when they have no ground to stand on and are afraid their entire argument will fall apart in the light of more educated views.

The use of the word "Fanboy" is an automatic acknowledge that you just lost the argument. Of course, it's something the name-caller will never admit.

 

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Originally Posted by Knight_of_Armor View Post
Some guesses - to be sure that all assets are liquidated? Clear all outstanding customer subscriptions, account balances, and credits?
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Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU View Post
I have a feeling that there might have been some contractual/legal issues which would have prevented a sudden shutdown/sell on though. What they are, I don't know, but I have a feeling that they decided to take the "safe" route for them (not the player point of view).
Neither of which explains NCSoft coming out at the beginning of October and saying 'we've exhausted all options'. If Seoul was still in 'no comment' mode, I could see this, but...

Right now, I have my optimistic opinion, my cynical opinion, and my really cynical opinion. I'll keep all three in balance for now and wait and see.

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Posted

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Originally Posted by Starsman View Post

The use of the word "Fanboy" is an automatic acknowledge that you just lost the argument. Of course, it's something the name-caller will never admit.
How would you characterize people who feel they are the arbiters of what constitutes winning and losing an argument ?

Anyway the argument about how well the game was doing wasn't won or lost on these boards. It was won and lost on the sales chart and NCsoft's boardroom. So yes it is amusing in the extreme to see people argue that a game which is terminal is healthy and doing well.

 

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Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter View Post
I can't see how PvP could ever really be feasible in CoH.

#1, if PvP balance were a serious issue, there's probably no way the current system of powers would ever survive. SWG had an equally complex system for choosing skills, and it got scrapped for something much simpler because it would have been impossible to balance otherwise.

#2, PvP always seemed to be all about inspirations, which is pretty silly.

#3, If PvP in CoH was good enough, that it started drawing crowds, it would have probably shredded the existing community to pieces as trolling, ego-drama, and "lolrp" became the norm instead of the exception. Remember that one of the commonly-held beliefs of vocal PvP'ers is that roleplay has no place in online role playing games.

Well it's been feasible for 20 issues or so but I admit it did take a big hit post I13. I don't have an issue saying that the Devs got it badly wrong with I13 and if Positron had been brave he'd have rolled it back but he didn't.


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Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man View Post
You have to realize that anyone who brings up such a thing generally thinks "anyone who likes the devs more than me is a butt kisser." And they are usually indifferent about the development team at best.
Anyone who drives slower than me is an idiot, anyone who drives faster is a maniac.

 

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Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon View Post
Neither of which explains NCSoft coming out at the beginning of October and saying 'we've exhausted all options'. If Seoul was still in 'no comment' mode, I could see this, but...

Right now, I have my optimistic opinion, my cynical opinion, and my really cynical opinion. I'll keep all three in balance for now and wait and see.
Oh 100% agreed, if anything what I was saying was as an explanation for what was said earlier on, and yes it is pure conjecture on my part.

Now this could well have been a recent decision, one that due either the SaveCOH or Brian Clayton or any other factors that I cannot think of actually moved their hand to do such a thing, so their early October statement could well have been true *at that point in time*.

 

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Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
How would you characterize people who feel they are the arbiters of what constitutes winning and losing an argument ?
Calling anyone in any argument a "Fanboy" is not a loss "because you are wrong" it's a loss because you just admitted you are not willing to continue the conversation down an intelligent path. You are forfeiting the discussion so you lost.

BTW, I don't know who called who fanboy in this thread. I just am commenting on the use of the word. This thread went south on post 1 so I just been hopping in an out while bored at work. HOWEVER:

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Anyway the argument about how well the game was doing wasn't won or lost on these boards. It was won and lost on the sales chart and NCsoft's boardroom. So yes it is amusing in the extreme to see people argue that a game which is terminal is healthy and doing well.
This game is not dying due to its "choices". This game was doing very well, well enough to cover the cost of two dev teams (CoH + Project X) without taking the whole studio into the red.

This game is terminal only because the corporate equivalent of a drive-by shooting.

 

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Originally Posted by Golden Girl View Post
MA powers aren't fatal
Not true at all

Reading the OP however, I can't help but wonder, if NCSoft couldn't just take the exsisting IP and make a CoH2.

Seeing the amount of detail one can get in Aion and Blade & Soul, I know I wouldn't mind an update to CoH to match those.

I really don't think it's the genre that kept CoH from being popular in Asia. It was the game itself. It's play and very likely it's art style.

While I don't recall the names, I know after CoH came out, while I loved (and still do!) it's art style, I saw Korean MMOs and was amazed at their looks. Never tried them out, because I kept hearing such things as "Grindfest" to describe them.

Though, having checked out many other forums now, I have come to see "grindfest" to mean "doesn't level as fast as I want" which is a no win for any game company as those same people then complain about "I hit max level and now I'm bored"

And this is a perfect opportunity to update CoH! They have the IP, they can make a better MMO. And it may just get those who ******* and moaned about the thought of an update to CoH when they said "No updating CoH if it means I can't transfere over my character and be max level already"

If that player doesn't return, it'd be very likely they'd be replaced by more players anyways, because I really don't think it's the superhero genre that was holding CoH back.

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Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
Well seeing as most people who didn't like what the devs were doing didn't make an effort to change things but simply left, you might be right.
I seem to recall a lot of temper tantrums from unhappy PVPers (and one former community rep), not unlike that which you and others have been criticizing the Titan group over. Both groups have a history of calling for the blood (or at least job) of the person/people responsible for the decision.

Why there's some need to paint one group as heroes and the other as villians is beyond me. In both groups/cases, there were extremely vocal detractors acting like babies and those who politely argued their position. Guess which group gets noticed more and thus paints public opinion of their entire faction?

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Originally Posted by Nethergoat View Post
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Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU View Post
Oh 100% agreed, if anything what I was saying was as an explanation for what was said earlier on, and yes it is pure conjecture on my part.

Now this could well have been a recent decision, one that due either the SaveCOH or Brian Clayton or any other factors that I cannot think of actually moved their hand to do such a thing, so their early October statement could well have been true *at that point in time*.
Having had more to read and digest, I think my cynical side is winning out.

Either:

- The individual at NCSoft who shot down the sale negotiations knew of the legal complications, but never told anyone involved in the deal or at NCSoft PR about them.

- Said individual no longer becomes a roadblock once the complications are removed, but again nobody told anyone involved in the deal or at NCSoft PR about this.

- There are no legal complications.

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Originally Posted by Starsman View Post
Calling anyone in any argument a "Fanboy" is not a loss "because you are wrong" it's a loss because you just admitted you are not willing to continue the conversation down an intelligent path. You are forfeiting the discussion so you lost.
It's pretty accurate in this case. People often self organize into groups recognizing the fact hardly discredits the value of an argument. The same way recognizing that another group on these boards could be called the Doomers doesn't discredit the argument.

It is just a way of not dealing with the same points over and over again.

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This game is not dying due to its "choices". This game was doing very well, well enough to cover the cost of two dev teams (CoH + Project X) without taking the whole studio into the red.
This is a matter of faith. The best you can say is that the current subscriber base was at most 20% of the peak number and likely in the 10-15% range. We have no idea how the cost of the dev teams was divided and we know at least 1 project hadnt gotten much further than paper/board testing.

 

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Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon View Post
Having had more to read and digest, I think my cynical side is winning out.

Either:

- The individual at NCSoft who shot down the sale negotiations knew of the legal complications, but never told anyone involved in the deal or at NCSoft PR about them.

- Said individual no longer becomes a roadblock once the complications are removed, but again nobody told anyone involved in the deal or at NCSoft PR about this.

- There are no legal complications.
Actually, the 'legal complications' argument makes some sense. If they transfered CoH to someone else as a running entity, they'd have to transfer over account information, balances, points, character data, etc... All of that (and all of the accompanying contractual foo) is quite possibly not worth the headache for the relatively small amount of money beind discussed.

If they let the game close, they can theoretically transfer the code 'clean' without any of those annoying encumbrances.

This could mean that none of the character/account data will transfer though.

The only problem with the hypothesis is that you'd still want to let people know that this was going to happen though, otherwise the bulk of your potential customers will move on before you can get a new service started up.

 

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Just a quick question about something that has bothered me from the start of the "protests" against NCSoft. Whenever something is brought up that NCSoft has said regarding the closure and their subsequent actions, there are invariably a bunch of Titan/Plan Z people who fall back to pointing out NCSoft's history of falsehoods. What history are they referring to? As far as I can tell, the only substantiated instance of them actually lying about something was with the whole Garriot thing. Granted, it was a pretty impressive falsehood, and the fact that they thought they could get away with it is amazing. However, it is still a single data point. One event does not really seem to justify saying that "they have a history of lying".

I admit that the only closures by NCSoft that I have been involved with were AutoAssault, Tabula Rasa, and Dungeon Runners. None of the three were shut down with anything looking like malice to me, nor do I recall any "lying" on the part of NCSoft. AutoAssault did terribly. Tabula Rasa, although I personally enjoyed the game (after they fixed a bunch of stuff after beta) did not do well either. Dungeon Runners seemed like more of an experiment in the first place, rather than a long term game. Again, I enjoyed it a lot, but still.

I completely agree that what NCSoft did with CoH was pretty crappy. Their actions since the shutdown have been equally crappy. It just bothers me to see how easily people have used a single incident prior to this, as PROOF of NCSoft not dealing in good faith during this process. Yes, it sets a precedent, but does not indicate a pattern. If there are other public examples of outright falsehood by NCSoft, fine. I just haven't seen anyone in here mention any incident other than the Garriot thing, even when they specifically state that NCSoft can't be trusted because of their history of lying.

Just a little observation from someone who admits to not having completely researched everything going on.

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Posted

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Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
This is a matter of faith. The best you can say is that the current subscriber base was at most 20% of the peak number and likely in the 10-15% range.
CoH up to the announcement was a freemium game. "Subscriber" base is meaningless. Quarterly reports showed about 8 million dollars a year. We never get to know but quarter to quarter things where getting better than the previous year.

The devs were still learning what were the most profitable things to add to the game. Super Packs and new power sets proved the previous year to be huge, and these 3 months, plus the next 2, would have seen a barrage of new power sets and a new super pack. You can call this "hope", but I call it an informed estimate. There is reason to believe this may had ended as a 10 million year.

That is more than enough money to sustain 80 developers and pay the rent, while being profitable. This is not about faith.

Positron has already stated as much as he can: the studio as was profitable.

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We have no idea how the cost of the dev teams was divided and we know at least 1 project hadnt gotten much further than paper/board testing.
We KNOW that a lot of that team was there for Secret Project. We also know, though, that some of the staff meant for Secret Project was working on CoH's issues (Positron, I think, mentioned some stuff would slow down once we lost art team to Secret Project.) I seriously doubt it was only in the paper/board stages. The comments of such a system came from some one that has not worked at Paragon for a few years, If I recall correctly.

You can do an educated guess. Arcanaville has posted some solid estimates about in these forums. If we assume everyone got paid, tops, 75k a year (after benefits.) That's an absurdly high salary. I recall inquiring about average salary rates when they were recruiting and was told between 30k and 50k is more of a standard, with perhaps 60-80k only for senior management staff. So I'm certain the average salary (with benefits) in Paragon Studios was nowhere near 75k. BUT if it was, it would have added to 6 million a year, leaving 2 million in profits or about 33% returns (assuming 8 million a year, not 10.)

Have the studio, and the game, seen better days? Yes. Does not mean the current days were bad.

 

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Originally Posted by Adar_ICT View Post
Just a quick question about something that has bothered me from the start of the "protests" against NCSoft. Whenever something is brought up that NCSoft has said regarding the closure and their subsequent actions, there are invariably a bunch of Titan/Plan Z people who fall back to pointing out NCSoft's history of falsehoods. What history are they referring to? As far as I can tell, the only substantiated instance of them actually lying about something was with the whole Garriot thing. Granted, it was a pretty impressive falsehood, and the fact that they thought they could get away with it is amazing. However, it is still a single data point. One event does not really seem to justify saying that "they have a history of lying".

I admit that the only closures by NCSoft that I have been involved with were AutoAssault, Tabula Rasa, and Dungeon Runners. None of the three were shut down with anything looking like malice to me, nor do I recall any "lying" on the part of NCSoft. AutoAssault did terribly. Tabula Rasa, although I personally enjoyed the game (after they fixed a bunch of stuff after beta) did not do well either. Dungeon Runners seemed like more of an experiment in the first place, rather than a long term game. Again, I enjoyed it a lot, but still.

I completely agree that what NCSoft did with CoH was pretty crappy. Their actions since the shutdown have been equally crappy. It just bothers me to see how easily people have used a single incident prior to this, as PROOF of NCSoft not dealing in good faith during this process. Yes, it sets a precedent, but does not indicate a pattern. If there are other public examples of outright falsehood by NCSoft, fine. I just haven't seen anyone in here mention any incident other than the Garriot thing, even when they specifically state that NCSoft can't be trusted because of their history of lying.

Just a little observation from someone who admits to not having completely researched everything going on.
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Originally Posted by Starsman View Post
CoH up to the announcement was a freemium game. "Subscriber" base is meaningless. Quarterly reports showed about 8 million dollars a year. We never get to know but quarter to quarter things where getting better than the previous year.

The devs were still learning what were the most profitable things to add to the game. Super Packs and new power sets proved the previous year to be huge, and these 3 months, plus the next 2, would have seen a barrage of new power sets and a new super pack. You can call this "hope", but I call it an informed estimate. There is reason to believe this may had ended as a 10 million year.

That is more than enough money to sustain 80 developers and pay the rent, while being profitable. This is not about faith.

Positron has already stated as much as he can: the studio as was profitable.



We KNOW that a lot of that team was there for Secret Project. We also know, though, that some of the staff meant for Secret Project was working on CoH's issues (Positron, I think, mentioned some stuff would slow down once we lost art team to Secret Project.) I seriously doubt it was only in the paper/board stages. The comments of such a system came from some one that has not worked at Paragon for a few years, If I recall correctly.

You can do an educated guess. Arcanaville has posted some solid estimates about in these forums. If we assume everyone got paid, tops, 75k a year (after benefits.) That's an absurdly high salary. I recall inquiring about average salary rates when they were recruiting and was told between 30k and 50k is more of a standard, with perhaps 60-80k only for senior management staff. So I'm certain the average salary (with benefits) in Paragon Studios was nowhere near 75k. BUT if it was, it would have added to 6 million a year, leaving 2 million in profits or about 33% returns (assuming 8 million a year, not 10.)

Have the studio, and the game, seen better days? Yes. Does not mean the current days were bad.
75K cost to employer in the bay area is an absurdly low estimate. As an average it's even worse.

As to arcanavilles estimates you are talking about a poster that was bought and paid for.

 

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Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
As to arcanavilles estimates you are talking about a poster that was bought and paid for.

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Originally Posted by Another_Fan View Post
75K cost to employer in the bay area is an absurdly low estimate. As an average it's even worse.
You should look more at the state of the video game industry. It's a horribly underpaid sector. 75k is by no way low.

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As to arcanavilles estimates you are talking about a poster that was bought and paid for.
I trust in Arcanaville's integrity. I have seen her bash the devs even after she was temporarily employed by the studio (something that also sets her in a perfect position to know just how much they pay, btw.)

 

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Originally Posted by JayboH View Post
[IMG]LOL Anchorman ftw[/IMG]
Sad but true. If you recall just after I13 Arcanaville would go around following positron's postings to take his foot out of his mouth for him. I always wondered what it took to get someone to do that for you now I know.

 

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Originally Posted by Starsman View Post
If we assume everyone got paid, tops, 75k a year (after benefits.) That's an absurdly high salary.
Actually, that's an absurdly low number. That's less than a fresh out of school CS grad would get in Silicon Valley. I know someone who recently signed on at Zynga (senior coder, 20+ years experience). His all-in number (including benefits and stock) is about 280k.

Now that's just coders. QA, art types would be much less. But still, 75k including benefits... not making sense.

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So I'm certain the average salary (with benefits) in Paragon Studios was nowhere near 75k. BUT if it was, it would have added to 6 million a year, leaving 2 million in profits or about 33% returns (assuming 8 million a year, not 10.)
Remember, rule of thumb on overhead is roughly 50%. So if the average with benefits is 75k, that would make the actual salary roughly 50k. You'll have a tough time getting quality people at that kind of money.

But even accepting those numbers, you still haven't accounted for servers and support, which could easily cost more than 2 million a year.

 

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Originally Posted by Brillig View Post
Actually, that's an absurdly low number. That's less than a fresh out of school CS grad would get in Silicon Valley. I know someone who recently signed on at Zynga (senior coder, 20+ years experience). His all-in number (including benefits and stock) is about 280k.
20+ years. I think you already jumped into a very different category.

I just did a search in payscale.com and it seems the median for someone with 5 years of experience would be 66k, that’s for a Video Game Designer in San Francisco. A total starter would be below that mark. This is also industry wide, my understanding is steady jobs like MMO maintenance are a bit under the median due to their "steady" nature.



As you say, QA, Artists and others are likely to be way under that.

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But even accepting those numbers, you still haven't accounted for servers and support, which could easily cost more than 2 million a year.
Define support. The bulk of support costs is manpower, and I would figure this to be covered under the 80 man head count.


Edit to add:

PayScale breaks it down like:


10% are under 45k/y
25% are under 55k/y
50% are under 67k/y
75% are under 82k/y
90% are under 100K/y


Remember: this is for Video Game Designers.

 

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Originally Posted by Starsman View Post
20+ years. I think you already jumped into a very different category.

I just did a search in payscale.com and it seems the median for someone with 5 years of experience would be 66k, that’s for a Video Game Designer in San Francisco. A total starter would be below that mark. This is also industry wide, my understanding is steady jobs like MMO maintenance are a bit under the median due to their "steady" nature.

As you say, QA, Artists and others are likely to be way under that.



Define support. The bulk of support costs is manpower, and I would figure this to be covered under the 80 man head count.
I'm talking GM support, billing support, etc... none of which were covered by Paragon, but were nevertheless part of the cost of doing business for CoH.

Regarding salaries, you might take a look at this: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...ey_Results.php

It's from 2010, but given the economic climate, I doubt it's moved much (in either direction) since then. And I don't think that SF/SV would be cheaper than these averages (in fact I think it would be higher, but we don't need to go there.)

The average salaries start at $50k for QA, which would correlate to $75k once you count benefits and overhead. Other disciplines are higher, often significantly so.

So I still think your estimates are too low.

 

Posted

You know, if Paragon were actually making a profit, this could mean that their employees were significantly underpaid, even for the industry.

In which case, this is a great thing for them!

\o/ ::balloons:: \o/

 

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Originally Posted by Brillig View Post
The average salaries start at $50k for QA, which would correlate to $75k once you count benefits and overhead. Other disciplines are higher, often significantly so.

So I still think your estimates are too low.
Personally, I trust PayScale.com more than I do a 2 year old article written by a guy in Gamasutra.

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I'm talking GM support, billing support, etc...
Those costs tend to be nearly transparent. Not saying they are non-existant, but removing a game from the support chain actually results in increased average cost to all other games, not a decrease.