*peers through the dust and embers*
By
Angry_Citizen,
Posted on: 2012-11-20 24:01 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Of course not, but I don't really remember him saying that in the thread. Granted, I was reading it on my phone on the train on the way home from work so maybe I missed it. That said, I didn't get any sense of him making things personal from any of his other posts, so why should I assume he would in the very first one?|
Originally Posted by Thunder Knight
I was talking about the same thread, so I'm not sure how that refutes what I said, or how it supports what you said.
I don't know anything about "tainted", I just know that he started off that thread with name-calling and insults, right in the very first post. So you coming in and defending him by saying "He never insulted anyone in that thread!" is disingenuous at best. (At worst, you seriously believe that saying "You guys are all idiots!" is not an insult) |
To be honest given that the whole thread has been deleted and I can't go back and check, this is a little moot, is it not?
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
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"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
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Thing is though, how many old games do people actually still play? Do people still play Spy Hunter, or Manic Miner, or Elite, or any of those games that don't require a cost by a company to maintain? Or for example, what happens when an old game you love doesn't run on your new PC because of OS compatibility, or graphics support or a myriad of other reasons?|
Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
I think the bigger problem there isn't whether or not a game got axed. But while not being a perpetual gold mine, AFAIK CoH was the only one of the games that WAS still pulling its own weight. That makes things scary for pretty much every MMO in existence, because now we can't even base the long-term survivability of our games on the coldest known standard.
I was getting wary of new games already. Now... I have no idea what to think. What variable is there that still CAN be trusted? |
The difference here is that the closure of an MMO is something that's forced on the players en masse by the company that runs it and so there's that whole "wanting something you can't have" effect that takes over, but ultimately it's no different to upgrading your Amstrad CPC464 to a PC and finding you can't play Ikari Warriors anymore.
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
"Angelina my love, I'm a genius!"
"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
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Umm..... you're kidding... right?|
Originally Posted by SteelRat
Thing is though, how many old games do people actually still play? Do people still play Spy Hunter, or Manic Miner, or Elite, or any of those games that don't require a cost by a company to maintain?
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| Or for example, what happens when an old game you love doesn't run on your new PC because of OS compatibility, or graphics support or a myriad of other reasons? |
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| Ultimately it's no different to upgrading your Amstrad CPC464 to a PC and finding you can't play Ikari Warriors anymore. |
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Not helping your case.
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Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
Umm..... you're kidding... right?
Umm..... you're kidding... right? Umm..... you're kidding... right? |
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Be intentionally blind. See if I care. |
Originally Posted by JKedan
Not helping your case.
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Even A_F has noted how ridiculous the "outdated games" argument is.
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Which is why one of the goals of the movement is to raise awareness about this kind of thing happening.|
Originally Posted by JKedan
It has more to do with timing than content.
Seeing something wrong and speaking out against it is admirable. Seeing something wrong and virtually ignoring it until it effects you, then clamouring for attention by stating that you are now speaking for the rights of everyone in your chosen demographic? Not so admirable. |
How many CoH players, especially those who had been playing since beta -- long before NCSoft was even a name that anyone knew -- were even aware how many had been shut down? The only one I saw firsthand was Tabula Rasa, and IIRC there was support from COH players (though everyone knew it had lost a ton of money so it wasn't too surprising). I had seen the Auto Assault name mentioned a couple times but had never even heard of the game other than that.
Hell, there were players who didn't even know CoH was being shut down nearly a month after the initial announcement.
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That's why projects like DOSBox exist.|
Originally Posted by SteelRat
Or for example, what happens when an old game you love doesn't run on your new PC because of OS compatibility, or graphics support or a myriad of other reasons?
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Games like Doom and Quake for which the source code has been released continue to be upgraded by volunteers to run on modern systems.
See also: The Ur-Quan Masters, aka Star Control 2. Played through that one (again) not too long ago. Great game.
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And no companies citing EULA's, saying, "Hey, you can't do that!"
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Originally Posted by Codewalker
That's why projects like DOSBox exist.
Games like Doom and Quake for which the source code has been released continue to be upgraded by volunteers to run on modern systems. See also: The Ur-Quan Masters, aka Star Control 2. Played through that one (again) not too long ago. Great game. |
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All three of the examples I gave were made possible by the cooperation of the companies involved. ID released the source for Doom and Quake to the community.|
Originally Posted by TimTheEnchanter
And no companies citing EULA's, saying, "Hey, you can't do that!"
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When the long lost source code for Star Control 2 was discovered, the original authors (Fred Ford and Paul Reiche) released it and gave their blessing to the UQM project. The name was still trademarked and had been sold along with some other assets to the company that made Star Control 3, which is why it was changed for the open source version.
As far as I know, EULAs have never been invoked against people playing old PC games in DOSBox, et al.
Console emulators on the other hand have had issues, mostly because reading your own old cartridges isn't really feasible for most people, so they have to turn to underground ROM trading which infringes copyright.
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Yeah, though if you actually own a physical copy of the game, the ROM issue is kinda moot. That all predated the DRM craze when companies started whining that even if you'd already bought a CD with a song on it, you need to buy it again if you want to put it in your MP3 player.
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Originally Posted by Codewalker
Console emulators on the other hand have had issues, mostly because reading your own old cartridges isn't really feasible for most people, so they have to turn to underground ROM trading which violates copyright.
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And just a couple days ago, I helped someone play their copy of MechWarrior 4 (which is protected by C-Dilla DRM, making it incompatible with 64-bit OSes) by recommending that they run it inside VMWare Player. 
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Why is that exactly? Do you think it was men that started the fight for women's rights? Able bodied people who fight an uphill battle for wheelchair access?(Ha) Do you think I noticed the everyday dangers people with allergies have to watch out for until my son developed a nut allergy? Is that hypocrisy, or lack of awareness?|
Originally Posted by JKedan
It has more to do with timing than content.
Seeing something wrong and speaking out against it is admirable. Seeing something wrong and virtually ignoring it until it effects you, then clamouring for attention by stating that you are now speaking for the rights of everyone in your chosen demographic? Not so admirable. |
I wasn't aware of ncsofts history with shuttering games, now I am. I don't blame them for making a business decision. They could have gone about it differently, but that's not my call. I don't think they are evil. Hell, you want evil, look up Monsanto.
That doesn't mean I am a fan of ncsoft either.
Maybe I am wrong, but I don't see people speaking on my behalf as a gamer, I see them speaking out as gamers. It's my job to speak on my behalf, just as it is everyone else's right as well.
I just find it amusing that in order to vilify the Titan network, some people feel required to practice the same methods they are deriding.
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If everything else in the park is not pulling it's own weight, and CoH was the only west title doing so (before GW2's launch) then it WAS the closest NCSoft West ever got to maximizing returns on investment. Meeting expectations? Sure... you are not meeting my expectations on rationality either but I also will admit, my expectations are perhaps unreasonably high |
Originally Posted by JKedan
I don't believe that is true. Pulling one's own weight is not even remotely the same as meeting expectations, much less maximizing return on investment.
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Originally Posted by SteelRat
Thing is though, how many old games do people actually still play? Do people still play Spy Hunter, or Manic Miner, or Elite, or any of those games that don't require a cost by a company to maintain? Or for example, what happens when an old game you love doesn't run on your new PC because of OS compatibility, or graphics support or a myriad of other reasons?
The difference here is that the closure of an MMO is something that's forced on the players en masse by the company that runs it and so there's that whole "wanting something you can't have" effect that takes over, but ultimately it's no different to upgrading your Amstrad CPC464 to a PC and finding you can't play Ikari Warriors anymore. |
There are MANY very well known workarounds to computer upgrades breaking games, going from VMWare virtualization of old hardware/software combinations to plainly keep an old computer running DOS or Windows XP around. If you trully believe this game should be no different, then we should get all needed stuff to just build our own servers or virtualize them
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Not sure about the legality of this one, but there is also the Amstrad Abandonware page, hosts an emulator and even has flash versions of said emulators allowing you to play... Ikari Warriors! |
Originally Posted by Codewalker
That's why projects like DOSBox exist.
Games like Doom and Quake for which the source code has been released continue to be upgraded by volunteers to run on modern systems. See also: The Ur-Quan Masters, aka Star Control 2. Played through that one (again) not too long ago. Great game. |
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I believe that Amstrad themselves helped the emulation side of the game by releasing information to the BIOS/ROM to help the coders out.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
Not sure about the legality of this one, but there is also the Amstrad Abandonware page, hosts an emulator and even has flash versions of said emulators allowing you to play... Ikari Warriors!
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In terms of the games, it is hard to say. A lot of the games themselves are more than likely abandoned completely. This is due to lack of developer interest, unable to find the developers, companies going bankrupt/sold on.]
Anyways, abandoware is its own grey murky legal mess
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Anyone who read the forums, or visited sites like Massively and Ten Ton Hammer. or otherwise had an ear to the ongoings of the MMO circuit. Which is basically who your audience is going to wind up being anyways.
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Originally Posted by Codewalker
Which is why one of the goals of the movement is to raise awareness about this kind of thing happening.
How many CoH players, especially those who had been playing since beta -- long before NCSoft was even a name that anyone knew -- were even aware how many had been shut down? |
Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader
It's not just that CoH was pulling its own weight - but it was actively in development and most people were very excited about the next update. Would it have changed things? Who knows, but this was the answer to a lot of people's unhappiness and could have brought people in or at a minimum stopped/slow the very slow spiral people saw.
And the active development was part of the main difference between this and the other games - the surprise. There may have been hope on the part of Tabula Rasa players and devs and Auto Assault players and devs that they would be able to turn things around, but the mood was pretty negative. These were widely perceived as failed games. (And yes, I will say they should have been sold if anyone was looking to continue them, both as a sign of loyalty to the customers who had bought into the game and as a way of getting something, no matter how little, out of it.)
As I've said elsewhere, I've been involved with failing projects before, both on the inside and the outside. There's a process things go through, moves taken, increasingly drastic moves. Layoffs, projects delayed, rapid shifts in priorities, some attempt to save it. Most people on the outside can see doom falling, and everyone on the inside knows they're teetering on the edge. This came out of the blue. Shocking. Surprising. They were profitable but not profitable enough. They had membership retention unheard of for a game this old, but not good enough.
And that's why CoH's closing should make one more reluctant to invest in an NCSoft game in the future. Because this came with no warning. And it wasn't enough to be profitable and have happy customers, you have to reach some unknown level of success. Everything I'm reading says that GW2's numbers are below expectations. They sold a lot, but did they sell enough to reach some secret NCSoft goal to keep the axe from falling?
So to me, the argument isn't "NCSoft is a serial game killer". It's "NCSoft is a stalker, in hiding preparing to lash out with an assassin's strike". (Stalker in AT sense, not criminal sense)
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Errr, TR was under active development when it got the announcement... Auto Assault I believe *had* been scaled back, it was so long ago I cannot for the life of me remember what was happening in the development cycle for that game so I might well have been wrong.
TR had introduced just in the run up to the closure: FPS mode, PAU's for PvP content (that was on the way for PvE play as well I believe).
It was actively developing new zones (cities on Earth, with recognisable landmarks I believe), armour sets, mobs, vehicles... I believe that they wanted to do some other planets as well, eventually leading to the combat against the Bane on their home world...
*shrugs* To be honest, unless a game has hit maintenance mode, there will always be active development on it, even if the developers are not shouting it from the rooftops.
So whilst the games were performing very badly from a *financial* stand point, they had yet to stop active development on the game.
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The main reason is because the game is 8-1/2 years old. A lot of the people in the SaveCoH crowd have been around before NCsoft reared its ugly MMO killer head.|
Originally Posted by JKedan
I wonder if they might not look at all this hubbub and think "if five games in five years is so bad, why were these people still around to get burned after four games in four years? Why is five so bad, but four is 'ok'?".
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It hasn't always been like this. I honestly think that NCsoft used to be a fine and decent company. We used to get a lot of support from them. Something has changed in the last few years. Personally, my theory is that there has been some significant changes in internal management, or else some other shift in culture in which the company has taken a complete different tack. It might have been around the Tabula Rasa stuff that happened. Although NCsoft had shut down some titles before that, they were mostly minor titles at best that were vastly underperforming expectations. I'm guessing that some folks at NCsoft corporate, whether justified or not, really took the stuff that happened with the Garriotts personally, and it has since tainted their outlook on the western market to the point where they're making stupid corporate decisions now because of it, effectively punishing people who had absolutely nothing to do with the brouhaha.
But whatever the reason, things definitely changed. NCsoft is a much different company today than it was before it started killing off MMOs.
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Originally Posted by JKedan
Why didn't moral outrage compel action then? Why were they still supporting a game owned and run by such a company?". In short, why did this urge to 'defend mmo gamers against the business practices of callous publishers' only show up when our game was on the block instead of any of the others that shut down, NCSoft owned or otherwise?
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I admit that I'm much more aware of things like Glitch closing now. I've thought long and hard over the past couple of months over when the "right" time to close an MMO is and what the "right" way to do it would be, or even if there are "right" ways at all.
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Originally Posted by JKedan
An outside observer might think it appears a little hypocrital, and perhaps a touch self important. A "This didn't matter until I was effected, but now everyone should take note" situation. A bit late to start complaining about something that's been going on with little protest from us for at least five years, isn't it?
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Originally Posted by JKedan
Then again, I don't really think most people outside the CoX community care. At least not any more than most of us did when some other game we didn't play shut down.
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Still, I'm well aware that a lot of people in other communities don't understand. Hopefully they won't have to go through what we are any time soon, but as more people understand the implications of games like this shutting down, I think that awareness will continue to build until the industry has to rethink when and how it happens, and their commitment to games particularly in the MMO genre, especially games that require third-party connectivity to play.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
...And just as a P.S.
I've never said that I'm 100% right. I've made mistakes, probably a few missteps. But I'm doing the best that I can to try to change something that I believe is a great injustice, and I'm genuinely proud of what all we've accomplished. Yes, there's a chance that 10 years from now, City of Heroes will still be as dead as it's scheduled to be on December 1. But 10 years from now, I won't be looking back on this experience thinking, "Man, I wish I had tried harder" or wondering if things would have turned out differently if I had. Also, I've learned some valuable lessons through this ordeal, lessons that I hope to carry forward and make the world a better place in other ways.
I hope that the rest of the Save CoH crew feels the same way. No matter what the end result of all of this is, I will always remain convinced that it's been, and will continue to be, a worthwhile battle to fight.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
I feel the same way, absolutely.
Not that my efforts have been completely exhaustive. Seriously, this whole mess came down at such a bad time for me timewise (as I've mentioned elsewhere).
But, yep, no doubt about its worth in my mind.
@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
*Long post by TonyV*
As for CoH's shut down, I've come to think it was because the company did decide to realign how they do things.
Right or wrong, whether I agree with it or not, I get the feeling that NCSoft wants to only keep games that are staying profitable in their area, and then porting them over to the other markets.
I think that's the company's refocusing. Hopefully, with this refocusing, they don't think they need WoW numbers. Not with so many options, players being cheap (WTF? I can't play for free?) and fickle (I love this game! Ooooo...look! A new shiney!).
That said, I hope the company starts showing more customer/employee loyalty, but I hope that of all companies, which sadly has been on a decline for a long long time now, no matter the company (and why employee loyalty has taken a dive) or industry, when it comes to big companies.
As for things learned, I've learned players can be some of the most hypocrital people around. Okay, I knew that already, but it has been really reenforced seeing the comments some players have made about other games and seeing the posts they made in the past. 
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The BrandX Collection
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To be fair I probably wasn't making my point as well as I might. What I was trying to say was that games have always had a "lifespan". There have been reasons beyond completing it, getting the newest shiney, or just moving on to something else which have often been things beyond the control of most of us. |
Originally Posted by Starsman
I still play old console games in an emulator (perfectly legal so long as I actually own the games I play, best with disk based games.) Most console games can easily be replayed decades later either by getting a console or running an emulator.
There are MANY very well known workarounds to computer upgrades breaking games, going from VMWare virtualization of old hardware/software combinations to plainly keep an old computer running DOS or Windows XP around. If you trully believe this game should be no different, then we should get all needed stuff to just build our own servers or virtualize them |
I'm fully aware of emulators, DOSBox, VMWare and all those other things to extend the life of an old game or give us a chance to work around those limitations, but more often than not I've found when I've got misty eyed about a game I used to play, spent an hour researching the ways of getting it going again only to find that it very quickly showed its age.
MMO's are no different in that respect when you get to the bottom line and demonising NCSoft as an evil game killer is a bit over the top, imo.
@SteelRat; @SteelRat2
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"Of course you are darling, that's why I married you. Physically, you're rather unattractive"
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I have a bunch of old game systems that I pull out from time to time.
And I enjoy many of the games on those systems.
From Atari 2600, NES, Sega Genesis, Playstation, Playstation3 and games on the PC... Some of us don't find the "age of the game" to be a problem.
Some of us like playing those games.
Also, just because "demonizing NCSoft as an evil game killer" may not be accurate (mostly due to the extreme wording used there) it does not make the idea that CoH is an aged game not worth playing anymore, haha, true. So, the point is somewhat lost.
Just because some people don't enjoy an older game doesn't mean that those who do need to feel the same way.
And, again, this current game that we are talking about is not past its prime.
@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 don't know anything about "tainted", I just know that he started off that thread with name-calling and insults, right in the very first post.
So you coming in and defending him by saying "He never insulted anyone in that thread!" is disingenuous at best. (At worst, you seriously believe that saying "You guys are all idiots!" is not an insult)