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If I was on the CoH: Phoenix team, having bought the rights but not bought the character data, and paranoid about inflation (which would be a valid concern), I might set it up where we import the basic character data from an Extractor file including levels, incarnate unlocks, etc. but strip any influence over say 100Mil, any enhancements not slotted (if those are even in the recovery file), and limit them to one or two purple sets per character.|
Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
Not hard to put put 2 billion on a toon and tweak out their build. Rinse and Repeat on every toon using the same enhancements and 2 billion and then IF CoH was revived: Boom 50's enhanced out the gills each with 2 billion inf each
 Plus - like I have said: If Titan is involved that is an absolute deal breaker for me. |
If I was really paranoid, maybe do it on a per account basis - your first character, you get as many purples as you've got slotted. Second, two sets. After that, no purples.
And as for Titan being involved - I'd be shocked if they weren't, at least in some sense. For better or worse (I think it better, you think it worse) Titan has gotten really good at promotion. So even if it is Brian Clayton and his people who make the deal, without anyone direct control involvement, they'd want to bring Titan and TonyV in to spread the word "yay! CoH is back! Here's the details."
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
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A tempting as it might be for them, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't mess up your avatar |
Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
Plus - like I have said: If Titan is involved that is an absolute deal breaker for me.
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@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Itching at the chance to make a vid about that, lemme tell ya. |
Originally Posted by GadgetDon
So even if it is Brian Clayton and his people who make the deal, without anyone direct control involvement, they'd want to bring Titan and TonyV in to spread the word "yay! CoH is back! Here's the details."
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Saying stupid things for free does not automatically grant the moral authority to accuse others of being paid to do so.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
As to arcanavilles estimates you are talking about a poster that was bought and paid for.
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In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
YES!
My awkwardness finally ended this thread! Phew... that took a while... and here I thought it would just keep going on and on and on...
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
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no, it will keep going. |
Originally Posted by Electric-Knight
YES!
My awkwardness finally ended this thread! Phew... that took a while... and here I thought it would just keep going on and on and on... |
very much pleased with the chance of the gaming returning after shut down.
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The level of thickness required to ignore the irony of your statement and the quoted statement is truely astounding. Please, for the sake of humanity as a whole don't make me explain it to you |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
It is posts like yours why I could never consider myself part of the forum community. The in game community was wonderful the forum community insular and totalitarian.
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In point of fact, I have an idea where Ms Lackey is getting that number from, and the problem appears to be that Ms. Lackey does not possess the requisite accounting knowledge required to fully understand both the context of that number, and the fact that without divulging confidential information she would be unable to support that number with published information sources, making them dangerous to assert.|
Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
As far as I am aware, she has always defended that figure, although there was enough evidence to the contrary to prove that CoX was *not* making $800K/month profit.
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All I can say is that given the information available to me, there's an accounting context under which her numbers would be accurate, if all of my sources in the matter are themselves accurate, and does not *directly* contradict the public information available. I do not believe she's mistaken or deliberately misrepresenting information, I believe she's allowing herself to fall into the crossfire of a spreadsheet duel for which she's unable to properly defend herself.
Hypothetically speaking, I would assume that an objective analyst of the situation would consider the possibility that the assertions from the development team that the game was significantly profitable, and the outside analysis that suggests it was not, isn't necessarily a prompt to determine who's mistaken, but actually a potentially important data point in an otherwise opaque situation. Hypothetically speaking, participants of this forum would not be completely unfamiliar with such situations occurring in other environments, and might extend a little latitudinal mercy to those that might be conveying incomplete information from within one.
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And I thought some of my posts in this thread wandered into the technical |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In point of fact, I have an idea where Ms Lackey is getting that number from, and the problem appears to be that Ms. Lackey does not possess the requisite accounting knowledge required to fully understand both the context of that number, and the fact that without divulging confidential information she would be unable to support that number with published information sources, making them dangerous to assert.
All I can say is that given the information available to me, there's an accounting context under which her numbers would be accurate, if all of my sources in the matter are themselves accurate, and does not *directly* contradict the public information available. I do not believe she's mistaken or deliberately misrepresenting information, I believe she's allowing herself to fall into the crossfire of a spreadsheet duel for which she's unable to properly defend herself. Hypothetically speaking, I would assume that an objective analyst of the situation would consider the possibility that the assertions from the development team that the game was significantly profitable, and the outside analysis that suggests it was not, isn't necessarily a prompt to determine who's mistaken, but actually a potentially important data point in an otherwise opaque situation. Hypothetically speaking, participants of this forum would not be completely unfamiliar with such situations occurring in other environments, and might extend a little latitudinal mercy to those that might be conveying incomplete information from within one. |
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
Mercy is not a commodity in abundance on the internet.
That's the thing that just gets me...
Outsiders make assumptions and guesstimates based on the snippets of public information made available...
And then use those assumptions as assertions of facts when presented with hearsay that is to the contrary (from people that we know have inside contacts).
While I absolutely understand doubting the hearsay (my lifelong motto has been di omnibus dubitandum), no matter the source (hearsay/second/third-hand knowledge has room for doubt)... I don't understand the absolute insistence of clinging to assertions based on the fragmented information we have as outsiders. All of it should be doubted... and we can only push, prod, wait and see if we can learn the truth.
Absolutely insisting that someone (citing inside sources) is wrong when you truly do not know is absurd.
Actually, when I put it this way... it's like religions... my assertions are better because they come from X source, while yours only comes from Z source (may Z source be with you!).
We know that us outsiders don't have all the information. And the people sharing vague things from inside sources are not making outrageous claims, yet, we have the same few people here constantly calling these people liars.
Your assertions may be wrong. Stop using them as the basis to judge what others are saying.
Fact is that you do not know. Leave it at that until you have actual evidence that counters the claims.
Actual evidence... not presumptive guesstimates based on fragmented information.
("That's exactly what the other side is doing, ur ur ur") 
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
I have no fears they would intentionally mess up any of my toons. My dislike/distrust stems from more a cultural stand point. IF CoH were saved, IF Titan was not playing any type of key role in the production/maintenance of the game (much like they did pre-8/31), and IF I did come back I would try to grab my original name that I wanted for my main toon and go from there....those are three VERY big IFs.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
A tempting as it might be for them, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't mess up your avatar
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Originally Posted by Paladiamors
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!
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Ohh, in that case, I don't think you have much to worry about with Sentinel. Buyer gets the encryption keys, we give our Sentinel files to the buyer, buyer decrypts our data and adds it to the DB. That's what I envision anyhow.|
Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
I have no fears they would intentionally mess up any of my toons. My dislike/distrust stems from more a cultural stand point. IF CoH were saved, IF Titan was not playing any type of key role in the production/maintenance of the game (much like they did pre-8/31), and IF I did come back I would try to grab my original name that I wanted for my main toon and go from there....those are three VERY big IFs.
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Unless the problem is the latter... if anyone in Titan-Network is putting money forward and ends up being partial owner... I guess either don't bother playing it, or just wait a while and see how things go.
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They got sued over the Garriot event, lost, then counter-sued and lost again. Whether what they felt they were doing was "legitimate business" or was legal in Korea or not is irrelevant, because it didn't fly at either trial.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Keep repeating that. Maybe you will even believe it's true. Hell I thought so as well before someone dug up the case information and it turned out it was due to differences in Korean and U.S. Law.
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Like I said, this whole situation has reeked of them trying to cover their butts to avoid another such lawsuit from day one. But I'm not a lawyer (much less a trans-continental IP lawyer) anyway, so I'm not in a position to really comment on legalese mumbo-jumbo.
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
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Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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I suppose that makes sense. Most of my cultural exposure is predominately African or from the Ancient Near-East (The Hittites, Sumerians, Babylonians, Persians, etc) rather than Asia. If a game and its community showed a shocking disrespect to my own culture, I'd not want to play it either.
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Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
I have no fears they would intentionally mess up any of my toons. My dislike/distrust stems from more a cultural stand point. IF CoH were saved, IF Titan was not playing any type of key role in the production/maintenance of the game (much like they did pre-8/31), and IF I did come back I would try to grab my original name that I wanted for my main toon and go from there....those are three VERY big IFs.
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There is more than likely a method to do it, and if that were the case, then it could quite possibly mean that all NCsoft games were actually making a profit when they were closed down. However, i feel that this isn't necessarily the case.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In point of fact, I have an idea where Ms Lackey is getting that number from, and the problem appears to be that Ms. Lackey does not possess the requisite accounting knowledge required to fully understand both the context of that number, and the fact that without divulging confidential information she would be unable to support that number with published information sources, making them dangerous to assert.
All I can say is that given the information available to me, there's an accounting context under which her numbers would be accurate, if all of my sources in the matter are themselves accurate, and does not *directly* contradict the public information available. I do not believe she's mistaken or deliberately misrepresenting information, I believe she's allowing herself to fall into the crossfire of a spreadsheet duel for which she's unable to properly defend herself. |
The way in which it *could* happen, is that Paragon Studios actually pay nothing out themselves, and that it is NCsoft who end up footing all of the bills directly (although all expenses get marked against the store). It happened to me enough in retail (it wasn't my store that paid my wages, it was the wages department).
However, and this is where my retail point of view kicks in, each store *still* had those wages "marked against" them as an expense, for working out how profitable a store is. Even though each store effectively had a "blank check" to run with for wages, and everything else... it made it interesting to see which stores were the most profitable.... and they were not the stores with the most number of employees or the largest sales (it was normally the mid sized store with 5-8 employees).
I still hate that method though of accounting, because in my mind it is deceptive, and it can make stores overspend without realizing it, as their "outgoings" are zero on the shop store level, which the general punter is not aware of... (especially when they have their shop floor rent increased, and due to a lack of "increase of sales" it got closed down, and this was one of the most profitable stores in our area before the rent increase).
It all depends on what point of view you take. Internally you show a profit (money coming in because you do not actually have any direct expenses), but from the outside, you show a different figure (people not knowing that you don't pay the bills yourself, work out a different figure, which could well be a loss).
However, it does give the impression that Paragon Studios had to beg and scrape for every single penny though to justify their existence.
Anyways, yes, there is a way to do it, but the problem is that it requires the support of another financial side to do it. Without that financial side, who knows how profitable it actually would be...
And I will admit that I was closed off to this side of thinking, because it goes counter to how a lot of people would think, unless you are an accountant (boring people that they are, I have met enough in my lifetime already).
*shrugs*
Color me annoyed, confused and hating accountants/taxes and everything else to do with them because a loss might not always be a loss, it is just how you show it (and a profit might not always be a profit either, it all depends as to how you show the working out, and what you choose to miss out on)
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Just how much were you paid to astroturf ? I mean it's not like the scoring system did much of anything about custom critters in AE (Looks at all the s/l and fire characters that were made)
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Saying stupid things for free does not automatically grant the moral authority to accuse others of being paid to do so.
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I gave up reading this thread after the first five pages so I'm jumping to the end to post.
NCSoft NEVER reported profits on a per game basis. They only report sales revenue on a per game basis and only if the game had significant sales. This was the case with CoH up until the most recent report where both CoH and GW are now lumped into the "Other" designation to make room for Blade & Soul and GW2.
Now they did report sales revenue as well as profit and loss of their subsidiaries. However it appears that most of the time the subsidiaries strove to be profit neutral to slight loss, probably using some means to legally laundry profits the way most large companies do to avoid countries with high business income taxes (Hi US).
Now NCSoft did list Paragon Studios as part of NC Interactive which handles there games in this hemisphere. NC Interactive had huge losses in 2010 and 2011, in the 10s of millions of dollars, representing the bulk of NCSoft's subsidiaries losses for those years. NC Interactive's sales went from 70.3 billion KrW in 2009 to 27.5 billion KrW in 2011 and losses from 3.6 billion KrW in 2009 to 24.8 billion KrW in 2011.
That's all the hard date we have. We don't know what the sources of sales revenues were from a per title basis for NC Interactive or what and where their expenses were on a per title basis either.
Now in 2011 NCSoft had a gross profit margin of 77% meaning the 23% is the cost of sales. Now for a company that builds things, it means the cost of manufacturing. For an MMO company I would guess that means the cost of servers, bandwidth, help desk, website, etc., the cost of keeping the game running day to day. It wouldn't include the cost of the developers/studio. That's why by using that definition I can understand why the game had been called very profitable, but only on a gross profit basis. But it's that kind of fine point that gets lost in casual conversation. We still have confused people reporting sales revenue as profit so it doesn't surprise me.
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was this "IT" this:|
Originally Posted by Golden Girl
The "it" is the latest idea/angle of attack to get our game back - more details should be out in a day or two.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
More from Mercedes Lackey - some facts, some guesswork:
I've got this confirmed. The asking price for City will drop exponentially from the reported 80 million when it closes. I have the feeling that the 80 million actually included an exponential amount of padding to deal with those chimerical "legal issues"--after twice losing the Garriott case, I speculate they wanted enough in the bank to pay out without hurting. Once it's closed, all those issues go away, and the price goes to something reasonable. Sale will include the IP and code. The game engine was bought outright from Cryptic when NCSoft bought City (I have this from another impeccable source who was working at Cryptic when the sale happened). What is NOT known is whether account and character data are going to be preserved. No one knows this except NCSoft. Archiving your characters via Sentinel + might prove the only way to restore them--I can only say that one would hope that in the event that character data is deleted, a new owner would see the wisdom of doing a one-time restore for those that have done so, but that will depend on the generosity of a new owner. Her source also believes that NCsoft will consider a sale. |
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Originally Posted by JKedan
Mercy is not a commodity in abundance on the internet.
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And yet this game has a whole island of it!
Thelonious Monk
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Losing a civil lawsuit doesn't make you guilty of fraud.
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Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
They got sued over the Garriot event, lost, then counter-sued and lost again. Whether what they felt they were doing was "legitimate business" or was legal in Korea or not is irrelevant, because it didn't fly at either trial.
Like I said, this whole situation has reeked of them trying to cover their butts to avoid another such lawsuit from day one. But I'm not a lawyer (much less a trans-continental IP lawyer) anyway, so I'm not in a position to really comment on legalese mumbo-jumbo. |
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Actually it was "Garriott took them to court, Garriott Won. NCsoft appealed, lost the appeal". |
Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
They got sued over the Garriot event, lost, then counter-sued and lost again. Whether what they felt they were doing was "legitimate business" or was legal in Korea or not is irrelevant, because it didn't fly at either trial.
Like I said, this whole situation has reeked of them trying to cover their butts to avoid another such lawsuit from day one. But I'm not a lawyer (much less a trans-continental IP lawyer) anyway, so I'm not in a position to really comment on legalese mumbo-jumbo. |
They never counter sued from what I can tell on the interwebz.
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Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Losing a civil lawsuit doesn't make you guilty of fraud.
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The fact that he won the civil case pretty much makes them guilty of fraud at the civil level. Does not mean it's an automatic criminal win (no one goes to jail) but they ended up being guilty of it at a level where they had to compensate the affected party (Garriot.)
Not sure if they used the word fraud in the case, but even if the word was not used in the civil case you have to ignore the meaning of the word and the reason of the lawsuit to say NCSoft was not guilty of civil fraud.
In the United States, common law recognizes nine elements constituting fraud:
1. a representation of an existing fact (he was claimed to quit)
2. its materiality (he lost his job, had to execute options way too early)
3. its falsity (he didnt quit)
4. the speaker's knowledge of its falsity (they knew he did not quit)
5. the speaker's intent that it shall be acted upon by the plaintiff (deprive him of his options)
6. the plaintiff's ignorance of its falsity (here is where the PR letter comes into place, it was just for PR but NCSoft used it as a resignation letter)
7. the plaintiff's reliance on the truth of the representation (dont know enough of the case, guess the fact that he simply never quit in any way?)
8. the plaintiff's right to rely upon it; and (dont know enough of the case nor legal system to know how this fit, but I guess his right is the fact that it was the truth.)
9. consequent damages suffered by the plaintiff (lots of millions of dollars lost)
All she was saying was that her sources tell her that the engine is full-sale with the game - no problem there.
I remember a lawyer once getting mad with me because I left a message with her assistant, where I used the wrong term! I was like... "uh, excuse me, but I'm not a lawyer... I used the wrong pancaking term... sue me, lol".
(And she was the prosecutor representing the state against an idiot that attacked me... what a nice experience all around, lol)
Anyway... I'm laughing that I made a mistake in my terminology while explaining that this other person probably just used the incorrect terminology... and I didn't even do it to prove the point of how easy it is to do, lol.
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan