Titan Network
Graveyard => Save Paragon Retirees => Save Paragon City! => Topic started by: Victoria Victrix on November 26, 2012, 04:49:27 AM
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Here's what I sent him. I HOPE I covered everything in a way that you all approve of.
Dear Joe;
Thank you for asking me for an interview, I appreciate the chance to speak with someone who represents the media in Korea, where I think our story is not being heard. You may call me Mercedes; I am a reasonably well-known fantasy author here in the US, where I have over 80 books currently in print. I have been the Guest of Honor at over 200 science fiction conventions all over the US, in Toronto Canada, in Perth Australia, in Auckland New Zealand, and have been a special guest at the Festivale Imaginales in Epinal France. My website is www.mercedeslackey.com .
1. What kind of game is City of Heroes that it has loyal followers like you?
The passionate and loyal followers of City of Heroes love it because it is not like any other MMORPG currently available. The game mechanics favor cooperative play, rather than competitive play. The User Interface is easy and intuitive to use, and does not rely on fast reflexes and the "twitch" control of console games. The player base tends to be older and more mature; people who find something they like and stick with it, rather than burning through to the endgame and going on to something new. Because of all this, it is very easy to find a large group of people within the game that become friends and share interests and concerns outside of the game. It is VERY rare to hear things like "LRN 2 PLY N00B!" in broadcast chat, or to be kicked from a team because one is a beginner and making beginner's mistakes. Families can play together with their young children, or their grandparents. My husband and I regularly play with with his father (a retired Army Special Forces Sergeant-Major), who lives 1500 miles away from us, and has a very ill wife who needs constant care, limiting his options for recreation. This is not so much a game as a huge "town" of 100,000 people who have intersecting interests and neighborhoods, and who play together and care deeply about their "town."
2. Tell me some of the cultural and social significance of the game to you and the game community.
No one is entirely certain how this came about, but the people who were attracted to and stuck with City of Heroes were those who are "builders" rather than "users." Rather than wanting something already created that they can just use and discard, when they are finished with it (such as the ready-made characters in DC Universe Online), they prefer to have something that they themselves have put together.
They invest their time, energy, and money in making things that are unique to them, whether it be their characters, the background and personal stories of those characters, the online radio stations and their DJs, or the incredible super group bases (I have seen an entire castle, complete with moat with water in it, landscaping, dungeon, wizard workshop, Great Hall, dining chamber, library, and rooms for every member--a space station--an undersea laboratory--a headquarters that deliberately looked as if it had been put together from two old warehouses and a retired fire station--and much more).
I truly think that in City of Heroes we were witness to the blossoming of a real, functioning online community of the sort that Second Life could only dream about. Second Life seemed to me to be largely about display and showing off what you could buy for your avatar. The City of Heroes community evolved over time to become one in which sharing was the norm, helping was second-nature, and cooperation was commonplace.
This extended to outside the game. The City of Heroes community has raised tens of thousands of dollars for charity over the course of eight years.
It was a place where, no matter what time of day or night it was, when my poor head was tired with all the writing, or when I was struggling with a problem, I could log on and either play to relieve my weariness and tension, or just chat with people on one of my global chat channels who would certainly be sympathetic, and who might even have some solutions for me.
I know I was by far and away not the only person to find that there, as our SaveCoH movement has collected many testimonials saying the same thing. Some of those testimonials are heart-rending. There are many in the City of Heroes community who are crippled or disabled in other ways. City of Heroes provides their ONLY social contact with the rest of the world, a place where it doesn't matter how much pain they are in, that they are bald and sick from radiation or chemotherapy, a place where, though they cannot walk, they can fly--and a place where the people they team with every day understand that they are sick, and are willing to help them along within the game so they can enjoy it too.
3. How did you first get your hands on the game?
My husband tried it and thought I would like it, so he got me the Valentine's promotion of a 14 day free trial just before Issue 5, about seven years ago. I had never played an MMORPG before, and I was pretty terrible at console and PC games, so I wasn't sure I would like it. I tried it, and I have to say, I still wasn't sure about it. Then I started connecting with other people than my husband, and I suddenly found myself with a huge group of new friends, and at that point, it became one of my main recreations and my main social outlet. We live in farm country, 20 miles from the nearest town, and to be a writer and artist out here is considered a very strange way to make a living. We just do not have too many people around here who are willing to be friends with us--but in City of Heroes we are quite ordinary and normal.
4. You personally seem much attached to your in-game characters: tell me about them how them or the game have affected your life.
As a professional writer, of course, I am always much attached to the characters I create, because I put so much work and so much of myself into creating them and their stories. I put the same amount of work into the in-game characters, but there, I was interacting, not just with the stories and lore written into the game, but with the stories other people had created for their characters.
So the ongoing storytelling became interactive and cooperative, and for a writer, this is very stimulating and exciting. When you write alone, everything goes just as you planned it. Your characters do what you tell them to. But when you are writing interactively and cooperatively with other people, what their characters do can have a profound impact on your story; it is a surprise, you have to react to it, and I would say that in most cases, it makes the combined story much, much better.
As a writer, I can say that I have become a superior writer because of this. My dialogue has become much better, and more realistic. My plotting is better. And also, out of this interactive storytelling, three of my fellow players and I have created and sold a five book series, The Secret World Chronicle, which started (and continues) as a free podcast at www.secretworldchronicle.com and on podiobooks. So not only did my writing improve, but I got more book contracts out of the game.
5. What are some of the request for the City community from NCsoft?
At this point, less than a week from the shutdown date, it is clear they are not going to reconsider their decision to shut the game down. So realistically, since they clearly are not even remotely interested in supporting it, what we want them to do is this.
Sell the IP, game code, the server code, and the customer account information at a reasonable price to one of the several interested parties that came forward in the first month after the announcement. Retain all of the customer/character account information, do not delete it, and sell it along with the game package, so that people can bring back all of their old characters with a revived game. Given all of the time (up to 8 years), effort, and money that people have poured into those characters and accounts, that only seems reasonable.
6. City community seems very large: what possible action to revive the game are you planning. How far would you go?
At this point, we are looking for a new home for City of Heroes. Among other things, four of us (an Internet Marketing Specialist, a UK Journalist, a UK Senior IT Tech and myself) are working on a plan.
We literally do not intend to stop until we have exhausted all potential owners.
There are some who are quite serious at attempting to raise the required several million dollars it would take via crowdsourced funding.
7. What kind of reputation did NCsoft, as a game developer and publisher, had on the United States or outside of Korea?
For that, allow me to link you to some images.
http://gamespeopleplay.smackjeeves.com/comics/1587704/fool-me-six-times/
http://i.imgur.com/4frLV.jpg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/33551029/aG-ADxIdeUODDt0JnVAALA2.jpg
http://www.repeat-offenders.net/savecoh/Stockwatch.png
http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o714/MMOKiller/NCsoft%20the%20MMOKiller/NCsoftGollumisnotlistening_zps698a4259.jpg
http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/534526_4097202620635_365088681_n.jpg
http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o714/MMOKiller/NCsoft%20the%20MMOKiller/NCSofttheFamilyKiller_zpsb6486f8d.jpg
http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o714/MMOKiller/NCsoft%20the%20MMOKiller/simplykillMMOs_zps9b8d119b.jpg
Starburst Magazine, with over 250,000 subscribers, has called for an entire boycott of NCSoft products
http://www.starburstmagazine.com/editorial/3869-boycott-ncsoft
And on the page, "What Does The Internet Think" http://www.whatdoestheinternetthink.net/ if you enter NCSoft, you get
Conclusion
The internet is very negative about ncsoft.
With a disapproval rating of 84.3%
In short, the shutdown of CoH has proven to many gamers and game magazines that NCSoft is not to be trusted, and that the time, effort and money you put in an NCSoft game can be made to vanish on a whim.
8. As you know, the gaming platform is moving from PC to mobile in recent years: can you see yourself, if NCsoft decides to preserve City and make it available on mobile, playing it on a smartphone?
First of all, this is a complete fallacy. It is probably much more realistic to say that "gaming has expanded into mobile operations." There are just as many expensive gaming PCs being used now as there ever were. There are just as many PC gamers as there ever were. Big, powerful PCs are not being sold as much as they were in the past, because PC gamers are not buying new computers, they are upgrading their existing ones instead. If you want a real number of PC gamers, as opposed to what the "common impression" is, you should look at sales of advanced video cards, not PCs as a whole.
PC gaming is not going to go away, or even drop that much. In fact, as those inclined to game in the West get older, they are MORE likely to move to PCs. Quite frankly, for those of us who are older (I am 62), gaming on a small screen is next to impossible. I need as big a display as I can afford. I have tried even simple games on a smartphone, and never went past the free trial as they were impossible and frustrating. Nor am I the only one to say this. The older a player is, the MORE likely he is to want a powerful PC with a big display to game on.
Judging by the reaction from the players on the Titan Network, NONE of them would be even remotely interested in a 2D sidescrolling version of City of Heroes. Apps for a phone--checking the Marketplace, for instance, or simple chat on one of your global channels--those would be welcome. But the players reacted to the idea of a 2D sidescrolling City of Heroes with disgust--and at this point, frankly, if NCSoft offered the core playerbase free beer for a year and a brand new car with their game, we probably wouldn't buy it. If this is NCSoft's plan, it is a very bad one.
There also seems to be a fallacious assumption in Korea that everyone has 4G connectivity with unlimited airtime.
No.
In the US there are very few places with 4G connectivity. I can't get it for instance, anywhere in my area. Even 3G isn't the norm. In fact, at my house, I can only get 2G service, which only allows texting and phone calls. And US customers have limited plans with limited airtime. There are many recent news stories about parents who absent-mindedly handed their child their phone to play an online game to keep him busy only to find themselves with a shockingly high bill at the end of the month. This was not a bill for the game, which was free to play--it was a bill for the data download. Many people have been switching to texting rather than calling, despite the fact that texting is less convenient because unlimited texting is still cheaper than using phone minutes.
The hype about smartphone games ignores this. Evidently the writers of this hype live in an alternate universe, where 4G service is everywhere and costs nothing, rather than the reality I live in, where 4G service is confined to large cities, and data plans begin at $30 a month extra, with additional charges for every meg downloaded over 2GB a month. ($30 for 2GB per month, $50 for 5GB, and $80 for 10GB.)
9. City seems a not a game made of the most recent technology: there are many such classics games that seem to continue to attract users. Do you think game companies responsible for making and publishing such games should sustain the lives of such titles?
I would be more inclined to call it a "mature" technology; I think the graphics hold up very well, even when compared to newer games. Certainly the graphics are superior to many brand new console games. In the hands of the skilled developers, the old game engine was made to do things no one every believed it could. Furthermore, when I visited Paragon Studios about 3 years ago, plans were going forward for a City of Heroes 2, based on a new graphics engine. It was NCSoft that canceled that, despite great player anticipation.
And, again, as the West gets older, we are attracted to those things that made us happy when we were young. Just as an example, you can see how popular movie remakes are, and the revival of nostalgic toys. Everquest is still alive, as is Ultima Online. In fact, the number of old games that are still holding a steady customer base far outnumbers those that were canceled. The only reason Star Wars Galaxies was canceled was because the license was lost.
My personal feeling is that as the population gets older, old games will become more, not less, popular. I think that a company that ignores this, is a company that is setting itself up for failure.
To be honest, I believe that World of Warcraft is a freak, a fluke. Every game company sets up unrealistic ambitions of being the "WoW killer" that are never going to happen. In the current weak economy, which shows no signs of improvement, not even WoW is sustaining its old numbers. They have lost so many customers that they are laying off 600 customer service employees because there is not enough work for them. They are still making a great deal of money, obviously--but the idea that any other game company will be able to muster tens of millions of customers is an idea that belongs ten years in the past.
Companies should be satisfied with a robust customer base that provides a profit. Many of these old games still do. I think game companies owe it to their stockholders as well as to their players to continue to support a game as long as it provides a profit. I think canceling a game that is making a profit, along with destroying jobs and an online community, is entirely unethical. And I believe that companies that do that are going to get exactly what they deserve, as customers revolt over "greed killing cool."
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Do they work for a game magazine, or a general news outlet?
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Tsk tsk. I saw the post before the edit. :p
And no, I'm not going to spill what was edited, all I can say is "impressive" :)
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Do they work for a game magazine, or a general news outlet?
Korean newspaper - the guy that wrote the article ""NC Soft at a Crossroads" for the Korean Times.
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Tsk tsk. I saw the post before the edit. :p
And no, I'm not going to spill what was edited, all I can say is "impressive" :)
GAH! No worries, in an hour it will be Monday and I am going to post anyway.
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/e swoon
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What an outstanding, compelling response...my compliments.
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I think this could only help us.
Who knows, they may end up finding the whole Voices thing I've done based on searching on your name in relation to City of Heroes...
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/e swoon
Tony, can I make it a Call To Action and would you sticky it when I post?
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Well written responses to his/her questions, Mercedes.
Also:
Korean newspaper - the guy that wrote the article ""NC Soft at a Crossroads" for the Korean Times.
They are at a "crossroads" and can't play a guitar for crap.
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Well written, Mercedes.
Well, that's kinda her job :P
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Awesome, well-written, and drives the point home hard.
I just hope the guy doesn't go "TL;DR LUL"
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I hope that this article will help give at least some traction to our cause over there. I can't agree more though with what you said, especially about how differnt it is. Every MMO after WoW seems to want to copy aspects of it in order to 'beat' it or at least be like it. CoH was created at the same time, and shows little if any real influence from WoW. The funny thing is that when I personally tried the one expansion with the big evil mind controlled dragon and the Lovecraftian wannabe monsters and such... I finally found it fun and interesting, but the main WoW fanbase seemed to hate it. We play CoH because we don't want grinds and instances and premade characters we can dress up somewhat. We want to create, we want to write.
Personally I think I am going to make a nice short story right now, in honor of my main and the alts connected to him. Thank you VV. You inspired me.
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As I said to my brother, this is such an incredible opportunity, it's like comparing a guy on a bicycle to something travelling at relativistic speeds.
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Spectacular
I would suggest though another point responding to the 'old technology' question. Simply saying it was 'mature' sounds like prejudiced spin, BUT, explain how it was mature. It has developed rich feature libraries that are increasingly rare and could never be found in a new MMO, specifically a huge library of costume pieces, a hundred thousand arcs by the community, thousands of custom bases in the community built minecraft style, thousands of animations, hundreds of emotes, and hundreds of skills you could mix and match.
The technology has had numerous upgrades and while you might see an old zone and think the game is low tech, observe the newer zone library and newer costume sets. The content includes thousands of quests and recent technology has improved the features of the newer quests dramatically. Hundreds of complex arcs in recent years include player choices and scripted situations. Most importantly, a lot of improvements the community has wanted were finished and about to be released but the company cruelly cancelled the launch of those features.
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Tony, can I make it a Call To Action and would you sticky it when I post?
You bet. Set the message icon to the exclamation point and start the subject to Call to Action: and I'll sticky it as soon as I see it.
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You bet. Set the message icon to the exclamation point and start the subject to Call to Action: and I'll sticky it as soon as I see it.
If anyone else here has tried FTP TOR then they know how true this is. some orange crystals and a few sets of armor that you can get in game... that are all purple. Not even augmented orange!
I know, I prefer orange, I'm odd. Point is CoH had more than most other MMOS ever will and was built to grow
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I liked a lot of the details, especially about the number of PC Gamers and video cards sold. I put together 2 $2,500 PC's last year for myself and a buddy. I'd much rather buy my hardware than purchase from a vendor.
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My "PC" hasn't been replaced in 8 years. Seriously upgraded, yes, but not replaced.
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The part with links on the opinion of NCSoft outside Korea seems kind of lacking. I don't think links to the MMOkiller meme images does much to effectively demonstrate how poorly they have done here. Also, whatdoestheinternetthink.net isn't a very credible source of opinion (according to the site Nazi Germany is seen as a good thing)
There should be more articles concerning NCSoft's poor customer relations, business practices and shortcomings floating around that can better paint a picture of how bad they are and were long before the CoX closure.
Other than that section, It looks good and I look forward to seeing the finished article!
EDIT: a link to Terwyn's voices page would also give an impression of how they're seen outside Korea as well
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Wow, Madam V, you might just shake the CoX IP loose of those jackals yet!
<directs a standing ovation toward the honorable and esteemed spokesperson>
And even if you don't, at the very least you may succeed in giving some very deserving NCsoft executives a serious case of indigestion. Perhaps egg-on-the-face, even. That's gotta be worth something. ;)
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VERY happy to see this. One of our big concerns seems to have been even getting the attention of anybody in Korea; the fact that we have is great to see- and fortuitously timed as well!
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I'm not much of an editor so I can't comment too. Other than this is beyond my wildest hopes we got Banespider Scouts and Longbow Spec Ops in Korea as it were. This has lifed the spirits of the person who got me into COH who'd given up so hard he'd not logged in since it started for that thank you.
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Very nice! I'm glad a Korean newspaper is covering this! I wonder if it had to do with all the comments CoHers made on that article about them in the korean paper a few weeks back. It feels very much like the pebbles in the pond have turned into big ole fist sized rocks.
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fantastic article, now to wait and see for the public version to really rock the blocks of ncsoft
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Very, very good! The article itself was cogent and well-written, as expected.
More importantly, am I understanding correctly, this will be printed in Hangul and read in Korea? Finally!
Korean investors will see NCSoft as a bad risk. Our fellow gamers in the East will have a red flag up. The people of Korea will see this as a bad emissary of their culture and values.
So long as we were confined to English, NCSoft was safe. Finally, we have attacked on their home turf, cost them money and prestige where they live. Congratulations due for this "Doolittle Raid."
I see some minor typos. Should I bring them up? Perhaps this will be irrelevant because the whole thing shall be translated.
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*Hands clapping in astonishment*
That was awesome. :) How many +Taunt globals have you installed?
My "PC" hasn't been replaced in 8 years. Seriously upgraded, yes, but not replaced.
Heh. My PC has barely been upgraded in the same amount of time - I doubled the RAM and invested a lot into hard drives... I'm a pack rat and I can't bear to see a piece of data deleted as long as it has any informational value (and is not a virus - those do not deserve preservation).
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And, again, as the West gets older, we are attracted to those things that made us happy when we were young. Just as an example, you can see how popular movie remakes are, and the revival of nostalgic toys. Everquest is still alive, as is Ultima Online. In fact, the number of old games that are still holding a steady customer base far outnumbers those that were canceled. The only reason Star Wars Galaxies was canceled was because the license was lost.
My personal feeling is that as the population gets older, old games will become more, not less, popular. I think that a company that ignores this, is a company that is setting itself up for failure.
Now we're seeing some truth, and someone's definitely got this shit figured out. The one thing that concerns me about this, and this specter has raised itself in conversation before this, is there a fundamental East-West flaw here in comprehension of this?
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That being said, I think the article was sufficiently brazen enough to say what had to be said. It was straight honest on every front.
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Brian Clayton and I had a long, long talk about the "Graying of America," and why this might be part of the fundamental reason why Korea "doesn't get it." Their population bubble is still young, the top of the bell curve in Korea is early-mid-twenties I believe. Ours is into Grecian Formula, Viagra, and Hot Flashes.
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Brilliantly done, VV!
I look forward to hearing how much of your response actually gets published.
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Good news and good progress. I hope this works something out. Very concerned at the history with some of their other games.
There are loads of videos on youtube speaking to NCSofts BS as it related to both Dungeon runners and Auto Assault.
Also, some 150,000 people have downloaded Dungeon runnners from CNET. Not sure if that is some private server or what.
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Ours is into Grecian Formula, Viagra, and Hot Flashes.
Well, I'm not quite THERE yet but I can relate. In all honesty, I haven't been able to make a console game controller work since the NES.
Once again, brilliant work from VV (as if we expected less) and, combined with the Team Wildcard initiative, we might be able to pull this off.
As another favorite author tells us, "Million to one chances tend to happen 99 times out of 100."
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Sheer Brilliance..
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I been Upgrading a computer I owned for 6 years.... technically it's not even the same computer it's like the idea of replacing part so much it's something new.
I finally went and got a brand new system custom built one not off the shelf. Main reason... er somehow I messed up on the last upgrade on the old one. Still worked but developed issues (Think it the wrong Ram.) Got to complex for me to know what I'm doing to Upgrade on my own.
I also agree that you could have mentioned HOW the game matured to having so much story arcs and content. That the Dev team were exploring the boundaries and figuring out new ways to use the "Old" Tech. Things people said couldn't be done, but never tried because it was not NEW.
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That was a wonderful and heartening read. Most importantly, this is Koreon coverage which we have badly needed and well I expect well-written from VV ;). Combined with our new call to action we have hope again folks...city is going to go dark but after sunset comes a new dawn and I will be standing with all you for that sunrise. No matter how long it takes we are a community...raise your torch high and believe that with mouse-ears, plan z, or a miracle we do have a future, we are a community...WE ARE HEROES
I started playing city on an old computer I upgraded several times, I now play on a several years old laptop...and just bought a kicking new desktop to work on plan z or play our revived city ;)
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I've had the same computer for ten years. Of course, it's a bit like grandpa's old axe. We've had to replace the handle once or twice, and we needed a whole new blade every now and then, but it's the same axe.
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Yeah, it's worth mentioning that the game has itself been "upgraded" many times, just like the computers playing it. It's still recognizable as the same game as the one that launched eight years ago, but it can do things now that earlier versions of the engine could never even think of doing. (And the next update was going to add even more functionality, including a revamp of the cutscene engine, new tools for the Demo recorder, and redoing the backend functionality of Epic/Pool powers in order to make them customizable)
CoH wasn't on its last legs, it was about to launch to new heights.
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I love you.
I mean I seriously, seriously love you.
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Brian Clayton and I had a long, long talk about the "Graying of America," and why this might be part of the fundamental reason why Korea "doesn't get it." Their population bubble is still young, the top of the bell curve in Korea is early-mid-twenties I believe. Ours is into Grecian Formula, Viagra, and Hot Flashes.
Hey! I resemble that remark! :P
Fantastic responses, there, Mercedes-- especially the commentary concerning PC hardware upgrades. As someone who just spent $1800 on PC parts at Newegg (of which over $400 was just on the video card alone) I can attest that my purchase shows up nowhere on any OEM (prebuilt HP/Dell/Gateway/etc.) sales chart. But I'm still here, and playing hardcore online. And I also loved the parts about those phone app "games." If Korea is into the cheesy "gameoids" then good for them, but brushing millions of us from other countries off as following suit is certainly uninformed on their part.
I would love to be a fly on the wall when NCSoft Korea sees your interview! I hope they don't shorten it any! When is it posting to the Korean Times, anyway?
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Excellent writeup, VV.
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I was surprised and honored when I saw that VV used my meme in her post!! ( "I don't always despise a company....) Thank you for making me feel a little famous. Your post was perfection, and stated everything that matters.
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I got the website saved so I can see when it get's posted!
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I think the response was very well written.
I did notice one tiny little mistake that is easy to over look. Especially as the author of the written piece, since you know what it is supposed to say.
I know I've done it often enough in my posted responses on the CoH forums.
In the hands of the skilled developers, the old game engine was made to do things no one every believed it could.
Like I said, as easy mistake to over look.
In this case, I think the content far outweighs the tiny typos that few people would notice. :)
You're still among my favorite authors.
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Great posting, I love to see it in print!
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I would have liked to have gotten the take from the rest of you before I answered the interview. However, as we know, journalists want their answers RIGHT NOW, so I did the best that I could as quickly as I could.
Best person to keep an eye on if/when this is posted would be Rae, I think. She found Joe in the first place.
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Now I'd love to read a translation of what is actually printed.
Good to know we are not going to go away quietly.
Edit: ew it was late.
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My "PC" hasn't been replaced in 8 years. Seriously upgraded, yes, but not replaced.
I think mine's going on five now, with a new videocard about three years ago? And the addition of a laptop two years ago (mostly for going over to LAN it up with friends =P or MMO it up).
I did buy a smartphone this year though, and will most likely get another one soon (not happy with my current one as it seems to be incompatible with just about every app out there >.<).
As someone else already pointed out somewhere, everyone already -has- a PC, and often a laptop too - obviously smartphones and tablets are going to be selling more, until everyone has one of those too. :P
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Joe says it's scheduled for publication 'early next week'. He said he'd drop me a line when it goes live, so I can link y'all.
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Joe says it's scheduled for publication 'early next week'. He said he'd drop me a line when it goes live, so I can link y'all.
Awesome! :D
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That was a superb response. :)
A friend is playing things like Skyrim and while it is visually stunning, he still oohs and ahhs at CoX. I recently got SLI and have gone from mostly high settings to Ultra across the board and frankly ... damn. Eight years, you could have fooled me. WoW always seemed ok from a distance but get close up and everything is very flat. Not so in CoX.
Again .. thank you for the time you are putting into this.
The sheer variety of players is always outstanding, CoX is truly unique.
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Joe says it's scheduled for publication 'early next week'. He said he'd drop me a line when it goes live, so I can link y'all.
I be looking forward to it. Got the site saved on my favorites and been checking it every so often.
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That was a superb response. :)
A friend is playing things like Skyrim and while it is visually stunning, he still oohs and ahhs at CoX. I recently got SLI and have gone from mostly high settings to Ultra across the board and frankly ... damn. Eight years, you could have fooled me. WoW always seemed ok from a distance but get close up and everything is very flat. Not so in CoX.
Again .. thank you for the time you are putting into this.
The sheer variety of players is always outstanding, CoX is truly unique.
Don't fool yourself, the graphics engine was showing it's age. Ultra mode helped a little, and the newer areas did look better, but overall the polygon counts were low and the textures crude by today's standards. WoW had a complete overhaul of the areas from 2004 about 2 years ago, CoH was in need of that as well, but would never be able to afford it.
What made CoH great was the ability to create: characters, backgrounds, missions, bases/buildings. As a player you could have a lot of creative input into the game.
Next to that was the great community, I think because a superhero game will attract helpful friendly players.
Finally it was friendly to casual play, you could team with anyone though the sidekick system, scale difficulty as you pleased, no need for tank/healer/dps trinity as in most other games, no daily grinds mandatory items or gruelling PvP.
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Don't fool yourself, the graphics engine was showing it's age. Ultra mode helped a little, and the newer areas did look better, but overall the polygon counts were low and the textures crude by today's standards.
I, along with many others know this, and know it well.
I didn't care one jot.
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Don't fool yourself, the graphics engine was showing it's age. Ultra mode helped a little, and the newer areas did look better, but overall the polygon counts were low and the textures crude by today's standards. WoW had a complete overhaul of the areas from 2004 about 2 years ago, CoH was in need of that as well, but would never be able to afford it.
What made CoH great was the ability to create: characters, backgrounds, missions, bases/buildings. As a player you could have a lot of creative input into the game.
Next to that was the great community, I think because a superhero game will attract helpful friendly players.
Finally it was friendly to casual play, you could team with anyone though the sidekick system, scale difficulty as you pleased, no need for tank/healer/dps trinity as in most other games, no daily grinds mandatory items or gruelling PvP.
All the more reason to make CoH2 not drop the whole IP.
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I doubt you remember me from the old Pinnacle RPC boards about 6 years ago (I bowed out at the time because I was going through a very painful divorce and had lost my account to my ex, and the board hack at the time wiping out all of my stories was salt on an already festering wound), and this is probably a bad place to say ANYTHING defending DC Universe Online, but I do feel I need to correct one of your statements.
You actually design and play your own characters in DCUO; in fact, some combinations of words that make up existing DC character names (like any variation of "Wonder Girl" I discovered for one of my toons there) are AUTOMATICALLY blocked as "Syntax Errors" in the character creator. Seriously, one of the most common complaints about DCUO is that you CAN'T play as the established characters (the common wording being some variant of "playing as Batman's errand boy"), which I guess shows how out-of-touch I apparently am with PS3 game reviewers...
Mind you, it's not a GOOD Character Creator; if CoX was a Ferrari and Champions Online is a Porsche, then DCUO would be a soap-box derby car with a missing wheel. As someone who bought a Lifetime Membership to it at launch (I'm a big DC fanboy, at least before the "New 52" reboot), I ended up dropping it and returning to CoX after the first month, only returning to it recently at the urging of a friend ("Hey, at least you don't have to pay for anything in it") and because it's the last place to find the DC Universe I had loved. Seeing a beloved place full of characters I'd grown to care for be completely destroyed; I am HONESTLY uncertain if it's better that CoX is (hopefully just for the moment) gone completely as opposed to seeing a bunch of bastardizations pretending to be those beloved characters going through pathetic imitations of the motions.
...sorry, got off-topic. Anyway, I think you might have confused DCUO with the Marvel MMO in-development, since that one you can only play as the existing characters, or with the Legends mini-game thingy in it where you run missions as existing characters as "training simulations."
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As someone elsewhere said, the the DCU character-generator makes the one for CO look like the one from CoX.
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A friend is playing things like Skyrim and while it is visually stunning, he still oohs and ahhs at CoX. I recently got SLI and have gone from mostly high settings to Ultra across the board and frankly ... damn. Eight years, you could have fooled me. WoW always seemed ok from a distance but get close up and everything is very flat. Not so in CoX.
I had a similar conversation after I found out that my computer could actually handle Ultra Mode with the graphics turned ALL the way up. (No joke - EVERYTHING was maxed out with the single exception of Bloom because it was too much light for me.) Someone saw one of my videos and said, "Nah, that can't be COH, it looks too good - someone did a graphics mod or something."
"No," I said, "That's COH in Ultra Mode. Cranked all the way up."
"CoH looks like that?!"
"Yep."
"Okay, I need to get back into the game, and I want your computer."
:)
Was it showing its age? Oh sure. But with the proper resources, oh, the game we could have had...
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
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Sure it was showing its age: much like a fine wine or good cheese.
Or good pickles ;)
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All the more reason to make CoH2 not drop the whole IP.
I agree, and at this point I think a CoX 2 is the best future for the game. Just my personal opinion, I know, but just keeping the extant game running is a much more limited future than keeping the IP moving forward.
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I agree, and at this point I think a CoX 2 is the best future for the game. Just my personal opinion, I know, but just keeping the extant game running is a much more limited future than keeping the IP moving forward.
I'm pretty sure we would have all been happy with an announcement to the effect of "Hey we're shutting down the game but thats only because we're releasing CoH2. Details to follow." It would have been a lot better than what we got.
Now whoever picks up the game in the future (and I believe this will happen) will probably face this same situation. The simplest solution is to restart the original game and keep it going while the new game is being built then, once everything is ready, phase out C1 and phase in C2. Or, even a situation like Guild wars where both versions exist together. Any of these will be preferrable to what we have now.
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WRT age, one of the things that I liked about CoH was it's ability to play on my laptop. It's a new-ish Thinkpad, and TPs don't like games. This and WoW are the only games that would still run on it, granted with the settings reduced, though not all the way. Nothing else will even accept my laptop's hardware as sufficient to install. (Granted, I haven't tried DDO on this, but it's buggy on my desktop.)
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Very nicely done, VV. I learned a lot from your responses.
...for instance. We started playing City at the same time.
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I agree, and at this point I think a CoX 2 is the best future for the game. Just my personal opinion, I know, but just keeping the extant game running is a much more limited future than keeping the IP moving forward.
No reason not to have both. That's what WoW did, and that is what Paragon Studios planned until NCSoft shot that plan down.
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As far as I am aware, they are *not* working on a sequel to World of Warcraft though. They do have another MMO project being developed, but apparently it will be a new IP.
Not a sequel but a considerable graphics engine upgrade and some extensive world destruction to make room for it.
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Not a sequel but a considerable graphics engine upgrade and some extensive world destruction to make room for it.
I wouldn't call it considerable. They got shadows (players only, not dynamic world shadows) and reflective water. The textures are still flat and the models are still relatively low poly, especially parts of the old world that didn't get as much makeover time. Ultra Mode had much more advanced graphics than WoW does.
Some of the old world got renovated in order to be able to fly. Parts of it were obvious they didn't spend as much time on and just did the bare minimum. The renovated stuff was nowhere near the quality of the newer zones.
WoW had never really been about the fancy graphics anyway, though. Their engine lends itself to the cartoony art style.
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Oh yeah, and the Direct3D 11 patch. Is it stable yet? The last time I played people were still saying leave it off because it caused crashes. AFAIK the only new thing in the DX11 renderer was tessellated water. Woohoo. Especially since everybody avoids water areas because it's such a pain. :)
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Ahh, so actually still developing the game. Just like, you know, Paragon Studios were still doing.
But I have to admit, I have heard nothing of this considerable graphics engine upgrade (well, unless you are referring to their DX11 client which is live right now).
Just wondering, but can you post a link to where this is mentioned, you have piqued my interest.
Given their advertising, I was under the impression that it was a bigger deal than just that. I don't play WoW, myself, I just go by what they advertise.
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Anyone know if the article saw print/publish?
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Anyone know if the article saw print/publish?
Was just going to ask this. I thought it was supposed to come out today?
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While I liked all of it, I just wanted to say... THANK YOU for your response to the "As you know, the gaming platform is moving from PC to mobile in recent years..." question.
GAHHHH... that kind of mindset drives me up the wall!!
I guess "gaming platform" means the mentality of those going after money from new/bigger audiences...
Heh, anyway.
Yeah, no... People interested in computer games are not moving to mobile games.
And you countered with a great point of reference - upgrading computers and, specifically, graphics card purchases.
Anyway...
Thanks, VV. Not like you needed to, but you represented most of my opinions quite well.
There's one thing (not important in the scope of the interview), that I thought I'd just comment on.
The closure of SWG and the whole citing it being because of losing the licensing...
From what I have read, while this comment is all-too-common and accepted as fact, it is not true. SOE said, at that time, that they could renew the contract, but felt it was time to end the game.
Why does this matter to me?
I am an original SWG refugee. The way most of you feel about NCsoft? That's how I still feel about SOE. They took such a vast and awesome game and turned it into a sickly, pathetic, poor, poor clone of WoW. It was worse than turning Chess into Checkers.
They shut my favorite game down on November 15th, 2005... but instead of it just being gone (like CoH currently is), it lived on in this perverted undead state (called the NGE). Just to give a tiny bit of facts, so you understand I'm not using hyperbole with my complaints: we went from having 33+ professions that any one character could select and mix around with multiple professions (and drop and earn new skills and professions, unendingly) to simply having 9 different professions (only one for your character) with no variance within those professions (months later they added minor options within them... again, nothing even remotely like the variance and diversity and customization attainable beforehand).
33+ (with great mixing and matching) to 9 (on a set path). Completely different game (It'd be like every Blaster was Energy/Energy and every Tank was Inv/SS, period, please choose one, thanks).
They shut that game down, because they lost a ton after they did that. And it never really recovered.
Anyway... I don't mean to get an a tirade about it (and certainly none of that is directed at you!!). It's just... well, you can imagine.
I've been through this song and dance (that we're going through now).
I truly loved that game. And I'm not just reacting from my emotions about it being closed. I just heard that rumor about the licensing thing... and then I heard that it was not true... So, I did a tiny bit of searching and immediately found the president of SOE stating that this was not the reason. That they could renew the license and that they simply chose not to.
Haha, sorry... while my emotions about that may not be clouding my findings... they do make me want to run on about it. :roll: :P ;D
All that being said... Thank you very much and great job. :)
P.S. About losing your favorite game, due to the corporation being completely stupid jerk heads - While some of the resentment and pain never fully goes away, it does absolutely get better over time. It can just fire on up again when things are bad! Also... I still don't believe you'll have to stick through lack of CoH permanently, hehe!
P.P.S. I ended up falling in love with CoH afterward ;)
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I knew there was a good reason I always loved to read your work.
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While I liked all of it, I just wanted to say... THANK YOU for your response to the "As you know, the gaming platform is moving from PC to mobile in recent years..." question.
GAHHHH... that kind of mindset drives me up the wall!!
I guess "gaming platform" means the mentality of those going after money from new/bigger audiences...
Heh, anyway.
Yeah, no... People interested in computer games are not moving to mobile games.
And you countered with a great point of reference - upgrading computers and, specifically, graphics card purchases.
Anyway...
Thanks, VV. Not like you needed to, but you represented most of my opinions quite well.
There's one thing (not important in the scope of the interview), that I thought I'd just comment on.
The closure of SWG and the whole citing it being because of losing the licensing...
From what I have read, while this comment is all-too-common and accepted as fact, it is not true. SOE said, at that time, that they could renew the contract, but felt it was time to end the game.
Why does this matter to me?
I am an original SWG refugee. The way most of you feel about NCsoft? That's how I still feel about SOE. They took such a vast and awesome game and turned it into a sickly, pathetic, poor, poor clone of WoW. It was worse than turning Chess into Checkers.
They shut my favorite game down on November 15th, 2005... but instead of it just being gone (like CoH currently is), it lived on in this perverted undead state (called the NGE). Just to give a tiny bit of facts, so you understand I'm not using hyperbole with my complaints: we went from having 33+ professions that any one character could select and mix around with multiple professions (and drop and earn new skills and professions, unendingly) to simply having 9 different professions (only one for your character) with no variance within those professions (months later they added minor options within them... again, nothing even remotely like the variance and diversity and customization attainable beforehand).
33+ (with great mixing and matching) to 9 (on a set path). Completely different game (It'd be like every Blaster was Energy/Energy and every Tank was Inv/SS, period, please choose one, thanks).
They shut that game down, because they lost a ton after they did that. And it never really recovered.
Anyway... I don't mean to get an a tirade about it (and certainly none of that is directed at you!!). It's just... well, you can imagine.
I've been through this song and dance (that we're going through now).
I truly loved that game. And I'm not just reacting from my emotions about it being closed. I just heard that rumor about the licensing thing... and then I heard that it was not true... So, I did a tiny bit of searching and immediately found the president of SOE stating that this was not the reason. That they could renew the license and that they simply chose not to.
Haha, sorry... while my emotions about that may not be clouding my findings... they do make me want to run on about it. :roll: :P ;D
All that being said... Thank you very much and great job. :)
P.S. About losing your favorite game, due to the corporation being completely stupid jerk heads - While some of the resentment and pain never fully goes away, it does absolutely get better over time. It can just fire on up again when things are bad! Also... I still don't believe you'll have to stick through lack of CoH permanently, hehe!
P.P.S. I ended up falling in love with CoH afterward ;)
Right there with ya Knight. Took a break from SWG for CoH beta testing and after losing myself in Paragon for almost a year, I came back to SWG only to find NGE implemented. When I took a look at what they wanted me to drop my current mixed profession for and then found out that my guildmates had been MIA for at least a month, I shut it down and went straight back to CoH.
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The article is up!
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2012/12/602_126197.html
Its even one of the headlining articles in the Money section, its bound to be seen by many!
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The article is up!
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2012/12/602_126197.html
Its even one of the headlining articles in the Money section, its bound to be seen by many!
Excellent! As a community we can continue 'turning the screws' until we.....
Multiple choice question:
A) Redside: .... hear the sweet, sweet wails of bitter agony from our most despised foe and wrench the IP from their grasp.
B) Goldside: .... hear the sweet, sweet wails of bitter agony from our most despised foe... and have someone else wrench the IP from their grasp.
C) Blueside: .... resolutely convince our foe to part with the IP while ignoring their sweet, sweet wails of bitter agony.
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Just read the article and I was wondering what the genesis of the article was? I read the OP and VV didn't say or I didn't see it. Glad to finally see some Korean interest even after the fact. Thanks to VV for putting a great face on our plight.
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At a guess, the author of the article was assigned a piece on the drop in NCSoft stocks and found us in his research. Maybe his/her editor liked the angle.
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Um. Hi.
The journalist wrote an article called NCsoft at a crossroads, which someone linked to.
I emailed him, and sent him the 'firewall of silence' press release, a link to Starbursts 'boycott NCSoft article and said if I asked really nicely, Mercedes might be willing to talk to him.
I've been trying to get the Korean press to notice us for a while now, and figured his previous articles questioning NCSofts business choices meant he might be a good person to approach.
He had certainly been bewildered by the interest in his initial article and keen to follow it up. He said he was interested in the press releases I sent, but needed to do his own investigation (Sign of a great journo! ) and asked if I could pass his details on to Mercedes, et voila, Korean articley goodness.
I also emailed him a big old thank you tonight for the work he did. An ally in the Korean press is clearly a good thing to have, and he's the only press guy who hasn't been on the receiving end of a 'no comment'.
...I bet my RL boss wishes I put this much effort into my day job.
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Rae. You win the internets.
I'll buy you a beverage of your choice should our paths cross in the future.
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Thanks rae, for filling in the (my) blanks. I agree having a friend in the Korean press is a bonus. Perhaps he has a bone to pick with NCSoft and we can all enjoy some more negative NCSoft press.
I have been lurking here on Titan for so long it feels really strange to post something.
But I should add a great big thanks to TonyV and everyone else who has been moving the SaveCOH train along so nicely.
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<facepalm> Sorry, rae. You get to have my Internets. You said that a while ago, and VVs wording when he first contacted her made it sound like it was out of the blue.
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Ah , weren't nothing. Been trying to get their attention since the middle of October, but just got lucky with him. There's still about 50 Korean journalists who ignored me.
But the one who paid attention was /AWESOME/ so it works out OK in the end :)
(Edited, because I posted that at about 2am, and forgot what month it was.)
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Agreed, one awesome journalist and article is worth far, far more than 1000 'softball' journalists and articles.
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And, as has been mentioned on one of these related threads, an article in a major paper/publication has a good chance of being picked up. That's why we need someone who reads Korean, to see if it gets reprinted in the Korean-language papers, even if they're just the ones owned by the same company.
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<facepalm> Sorry, rae. You get to have my Internets. You said that a while ago, and VVs wording when he first contacted her made it sound like it was out of the blue.
I have so many internets right now!
S'cool. This place is so busy sometimes I don't remember what I have and haven't posted :)
And welcome wrrkid. Glad you posted !
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wow, rae, that's an awesome little story. I imagine it's going to get even better. with a huge drop like that in their stock price, this will certainly generate interest in the cause and win over a lot of support from the sidelines.
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And, as has been mentioned on one of these related threads, an article in a major paper/publication has a good chance of being picked up. That's why we need someone who reads Korean, to see if it gets reprinted in the Korean-language papers, even if they're just the ones owned by the same company.
http://www.babelfish.com
Babelfish
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Lovely little article! :D
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I have never been a fan of fantasy fiction before. However, I am now a fan of Mercedes' truth. Very pleased to see this article in a Korean paper. I can only imagine what's being said within the halls of NCSoft. I would love to be a fly on the wall! (that understood Korean) Looking forward to the weeks ahead to see what other articles come to light.
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http://www.babelfish.com
Babelfish
Babelfish and Google Translate don't always translate things well or alter the sentence structure appropriately in translation.
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http://www.babelfish.com
Babelfish
I gotta say, I have trouble with Babelfish, lately. Thank you, though. Google Translate will do whole webpages.
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A followup on the article from the awesome folks at Massively also went up.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12/04/korea-times-quotes-mercedes-lackey-calling-city-of-heroes-closur/
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Now, the dominoes start to fall?
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Behold, the Path of the Dragon, coming to fruition...
/me flees before getting lynched for referencing TSW
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Rae definitely wins ALL the internets.
Some updates: LOTS of trolls on the Massively nod. No, I am not upset. Some of them are clearly Ayn Randian types who think that businesses should be allowed to do anything they want and are upset that I called the move unethical. They would not know ethics if the ethics grew teeth and bit them in the ass. Some are the usual sort so beautifully lampooned in Bill Shatner's brilliant song "Has-Been" ("What's your name, son?" "Jack. Never Done Jack." "And you, partner?" "Dick. Don't Do Dick.") I figure that for every ten of these armchair-riders fist-pumping each other and yelling in their basement rooms "YAH! YOU TELL DA BITCH!" there are ten people thinking about buying a book. Or at least writing a letter to the Mouse.
Because of the Korean Times article, Larry deems us to have reached the tipping point he was waiting for, and he is sending the link, and the full interview with some overview directly to Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing using his SuperSekrit "I am a BoingBoing Tipper" power. He also sent the full interview to Elliot at Massively for some persepective on things that didn't get covered.
So we will see if anything comes of these.
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Some updates: LOTS of unicorns on the Massively nod. No, I am not upset. Some of them are clearly Ayn Randian types who think that businesses should be allowed to do anything they want and are upset that I called the move unethical. They would not know ethics if the ethics grew teeth and bit them in the ass. Some are the usual sort so beautifully lampooned in Bill Shatner's brilliant song "Has-Been" ("What's your name, son?" "Jack. Never Done Jack." "And you, partner?" "Dick. Don't Do Dick.") I figure that for every ten of these armchair-riders fist-pumping each other and yelling in their basement rooms "YAH! YOU TELL DA BITCH!" there are ten people thinking about buying a book. Or at least writing a letter to the Mouse.
Eyesight problems too:
LOL. What a bunch of BS this article. It's clear the guy does not know a thing about ethics.
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" I figure that for every ten of these armchair-riders fist-pumping each other and yelling in their basement rooms "YAH! YOU TELL DA BITCH!"
Ya! You tell them bitches!
In all seriousness though Victoria. That was a very very well written article. The full interview was very well written and very moving. If these half witted people who don't even have a sense of empathy act like we are just a bunch of nerds over reacting and we are in the wrong then we are better off without them. The reason our community is so wonderful is because we care, support, and fight for each other. Our community is what will save this game and it is what made this game great like you said. And there is no room for the apathetic jerks who think "Ja whatever man its just a game." To be fair most of those people haven't read the testimonies but even if they had most of them clearly have no sense of empathy which means that at some point in the second grade their brain stopped maturing correctly.
We love ya here VV and you are making a huge difference I am glad you are on our side, that is for damn sure.
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Yeah, I saw the unicorns over at Massive... no big surprise and you're entirely correct with your opinion of them, VV.
What's weird is... I thought we learned that the unicorns are from Korea... http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/12/03/north-korean-secret-lair-unicorn-king-tongmyong_n_2232057.html?ncid=GEP
8)
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... Bill Shatner's ...
I've heard that calling him "Bill" is code for "I HAVE MET WILLIAM SHATNER AND HE IS SUPER COOL!" Idly wondering if that's at all founded in reality...
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I think I'm out of date with my internet slang... What does unicorn actually mean in this context? I know it seems rightly applied to people being 'the one sane man' type jerks, but not sure where it comes from!
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/me flees before getting lynched for referencing TSW
Dude, TSW rocks... but, Ms. Geary would like a word with you. Clearly the Illuminati is where its at.
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I think I'm out of date with my internet slang... What does unicorn actually mean in this context? I know it seems rightly applied to people being 'the one sane man' type jerks, but not sure where it comes from!
This forum autocorrects the world tee arr oh double ell to 'unicorn' :)
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I think I'm out of date with my internet slang... What does unicorn actually mean in this context? I know it seems rightly applied to people being 'the one sane man' type jerks, but not sure where it comes from!
These forums have an automated word filter that turns T R O L L (and the many use of that word with suffixes and such) into unicorn.
So, those hateful creatures that lurk under bridges and leap out to extort some undeserved payment from you via your sanity at trying to talk amongst reasonable people... are kindly automatically referred to as unicorns here.
I know not why (not exactly... other than the juxtaposition humor of it).
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These forums have an automated word filter that turns u n i c o r n (and the many use of that word with suffixes and such) into unicorn.
So, those hateful creatures that lurk under bridges and leap out to extort some undeserved payment from you via your sanity at trying to talk amongst reasonable people... are kindly automatically referred to as unicorns here.
I know not why (not exactly... other than the juxtaposition humor of it).
Great moogly oogly... the filter even catches the word spelled out with the letters spaced! :D
SDFKJSFDKHTFKJHSDFKJRSFKJHSDFKJHSDFOSDFKJHDSFKHSDFLSDFKJHSDFKHSDFL
:D
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Ohhhhhh! Thanks! I was trying to think what about the behaviour was unicorn-like and was feeling a bit dumb since I couldn't think of anything. :P
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hee hee hee
(https://i.imgur.com/0Y8vF.jpg)
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;D I love it!
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u n i c o r n
Great moogly oogly... the filter even catches the word spelled out with the letters spaced! :D
(https://i727.photobucket.com/albums/ww272/ft5512/trollicorn-tiny.png)
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I've heard that calling him "Bill" is code for "I HAVE MET WILLIAM SHATNER AND HE IS SUPER COOL!" Idly wondering if that's at all founded in reality...
William Shatner is barely founded in reality. But he is pretty cool.
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I'm not sure what Tony's beef with the word is, but it doesn't really matter. From what I've seen, I suspect he's as amused by this flurry of attempts at getting around the filter, and he's not gonna come down on us for it, or anything. I was always tempted to rotate names of types of a certain villain group found predominantly in Skyway City (Gardvord, Jutal, Caliban, etc.).
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Mild objection: Ayn Randian types - such as myself - do not necessarily think that a company can "do whatever it wants." We just recognize that it is their property, and we did know this going in. I will go so far as to say that the serious and most successful approaches to resolving our issues are ones of which Ms. Rand would have greatly approved - namely, the early efforts to find a buyer or to put together a buy proposal; TF Hail Mary; and the successor-game efforts.
Each of these is firmly rooted in principles wholly in line with objectivism: We, as a community, see value that the current owners either do not see or do not want, and have attempted first to enlighten them, then to find somebody who will share the view and will see enough value to make NCSoft willing to give it up since they don't want it anymore, and then, if that fails, to put our own sweat and tears into filling the niche wherein we see this value.
Rand's hero in Atlas Shrugged, Hank Rearden, refuses to sell a product he owns: the patent to a new metal formula that the book tells us is stronger and lighter than steel (and apparently uses copper as a primary component). One might try to draw a parallel to NCSoft's refusal to sell CoH's IP, but one would be mistaken. Rearden, like Tony Stark in Iron Man 2, refuses to sell his property "because it's [his]," but also because he wants to see it USED. He sees value in it, and he wants to exploit it. (In Rearden's case, the express purpose of the buyer - the government - wanting to buy it is to make sure it's never used.)
What is ethical, to a true Ayn Randian, is to respect life, liberty, and property. To respect that one who owns the property is the only one who has a right to decide how it is used, so long as he is not using it to deprive others of the use of theirs. It is not ethical to demand another use his property in a way to help you; you can only demand inaction of another without impinging his liberty, not action.
What is moral, to a true Ayn Randian, is to use your life, liberty, and property to seek excellence and exploit one's resources to produce more excellence. To give of your productivity in exchange for value you otherwise could not have, but only with those who will pay for it of their own free will. In this, you enrich yourself with that value you couldn't get otherwise and them with your product they valued more than what they paid you.
What NCSoft has done is ethical, but stupid. What they have done may, to a Randian, be immoral, depending on why they did it. (We've been told there are legal issues at play of which we know nothing; NCSoft may, to an extent, be a victim here. They have not handled themselves in a responsible fashion wrt trying to deal with their customers, so "may be a victim" doesn't absolve them of that, but it might mean they weren't "sinning" in an objectivist sense.)
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I'm not sure what Tony's beef with the word is, but it doesn't really matter. From what I've seen, I suspect he's as amused by this flurry of attempts at getting around the filter, and he's not gonna come down on us for it, or anything. I was always tempted to rotate names of types of a certain villain group found predominantly in Skyway City (Gardvord, Jutal, Caliban, etc.).
I just refer to one of the CoH ATs shortened forms as unicorner to make the point I think it's silly.
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Hmm. The filter used to let that one through, too.
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Hmm. The filter used to let that one through, too.
It's worth noting that, the way filters work, it has to be a wholly different one since it filters the t-space-r-space-o-space-l-space-l to "u n i c o r n s" and not "unicorns."
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It's worth noting that, the way filters work, it has to be a wholly different one since it filters the t-space-r-space-o-space-l-space-l to "u n i c o r n s" and not "unicorns."
He used to have one for it that changed it to just "unicorn".
Obviously that was a bug, so I fixed it to correctly reproduce the spacing. :P
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It is pleasing to know that such bugs are hunted down and ruthlessly cut into p i e c e s.
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well....it seems that 'troal' works. (Those Rotten Overbearing Argumentative Loudmouths)
(https://i.imgur.com/hntOK.jpg)
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The butt-shaped mouse is the keystone of that image.
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Amazing as always - I salute thee!
Even after the servers went dark, I said to myself: "We WILL be back!"
Admittedly that was more to keep up some semblance of spirit, but I feel that it really will happen now. :)
Once this is proven true, we need to add a statue somewhere nice in our City
We love you, VV.
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hee hee hee
(https://i.imgur.com/0Y8vF.jpg)
I first read that as:
"Golf tee, pirate, oh, train train." Which didn't help me any.
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LOLOLOL....
for anyone else having probs
tee---arr---oh---el---el
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Yeah, but I still don't get how a train car equals an "L". :P
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I believe it stands for elevated train.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_'L'
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Yeah, but I still don't get how a train car equals an "L". :P
My best guess is that it's "the L-train." Which is a term I've heard, but never known how you distinguish it from other trains.
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Yeah, but I still don't get how a train car equals an "L". :P
L train
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My best guess is that it's "the L-train." Which is a term I've heard, but never known how you distinguish it from other trains.
L, as in 'El', as in 'Elevated', as the guy above you said.
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Most famous in the US is Chicago's system probably. The trains operate on tracks above street level. Think of it as an "aboveway" instead of a subway.
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Everything you need to know in life can be learned from The Blues Brothers movie.
At least that's where I first saw the 'L'.
What I want to know is how do they keep up with the crashed cop car removal, that must get pretty expensive. Although unlike snow removal they could be selling the wrecks as scrap I suppose.
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This.
Also been there twice. Great city in the summer...even had cheeburger and no coke pepsi.
Ackroyd and Belushi made chicago great.
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Wonderful article VV. This is the kind of pressure we need more of. To the pain!
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That was a great read. I am very happy to have an amazing read and person speaking on our behalf. Thank you so much. I wish I could do more for my fellow heroes but for now I shall continue to prey and hope that we per veil.