Titan Network
Graveyard => Save Paragon Retirees => Save Paragon City! => Topic started by: HEATSTROKE on October 31, 2012, 02:51:53 PM
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Since we are looking at the time frame that the Cone of Silence will be lifted I am wondering if we will hear from them shortly. I dont particularly care what happened because we cannot change the past. I am far more interested to hear what their plans are. Are they going to try to fight for the IP through other means Are they going to form a new studio? Will they create another SuperHero MMO ?? Are they even vaguely interested in helping Plan Z along ??
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Hopefully we will! The same question's been wandering through my head the last few days as November drew closer! ;D
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Well, based on this, it sounds like attempts by Paragon Studios to pry the IP out of NCSoft's hands were unsuccessful: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=298232
In the first 20 minutes of the podcast, Positron mentions what are arguably the three most salient points for City of Heroes fans. Firstly, they (Paragon Studios) tried everything, and anything that wasn't tried was at least thought about and brought up in a meeting. In every case, when reading the forums, Facebook, Twitter, PMs or Twitch commentary by COH fans saying things like, "Why haven't you tried this?" Or, "Have you thought of that?" Or "Please do this before it's too late," the first thought to go through Matt's head was "Yes, yes, and yes," it's been on the table and either thought through or actually tried. Paragon Studios was just as caught off-guard by NCSoft's surprise realignment of focus as their fans, and just like many of their fans, they worked their tails off on their end to try and save the game.
Secondly, as a matter of fact, City of Heroes is the largest and most active MMO ever to be shut down. Specifically, it had more active and average concurrent daily users than any MMO ever to be shut down.
Thirdly, the SaveCOH effort took NCSoft by surprise. They were not prepared for the public outcry, fan support for the game, and the level of dissatisfaction with NCSoft for the closure.
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That third point is very, very, very, very important.
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Man, I would LOVE their involvement in Plan Z.
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Man, I would LOVE their involvement in Plan Z.
There's a potential legal quagmire there. Especially if their new jobs are involved with some other MMO. It's not like PlanZ will be able to pay their salaries anytime soon.
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Doesn't change that, provided the legalities can be worked out comfortably, it'd be wonderful to have them on board.
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Segev I dont understand how the third point makes a difference. How does that help the Save CoH movement ?
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Segev I dont understand how the third point makes a difference. How does that help the Save CoH movement ?
It doesn't help our movement much, unfortunately... however it tells us that we had an impact, and it tells other game companies that their player base is more than just a money printer...
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It doesn't help our movement much, unfortunately... however it tells us that we had an impact, and it tells other game companies that their player base is more than just a money printer...
True.. unfortunately NC Soft doesnt give a crap about its western customers.. they would have never done this to their core market..
Pretty much I am hoping to hear something from our beloved development team.. or whats left of it... if they arent doing anthing I dont think Ill invest in another MMO ever again... I just looked at how much I spent over the years on CoH and I dont regret one minute of it.. I just feel that there was so much more left I didnt get to enjoy..
I also feel they purposedfully cancelled the game before issue 24.. In talking to ex players and friends they were all excited about what issue 24 had to bring.. I am of the belief we would have seen an upswing in bother player numbers and dollars spent on CoH.. Its no mistake to me that they cancelled it before Issue 24 came out. it was a game changer
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It's important because it means NCSoft did care enough to have expectations. When a company has expectations and those expectations are so far thrown off that they are "surprised," it has effects all over their chain of command. Maybe not grand ones, but it is an irritant, a distraction, a problem.
That they didn't expect it means they noticed when their expectation was off. It also means others around them likely noticed, too.
The more their expectations are off, the more it disrupts their business model on some level. It's why they have spent what effort they have on trying to quiet the surprising behavior and bring it more in line with what they do expect; it is more comfortable, and comfort equals stock and profit health.
So it shows we can surprise them and get their attention. It means we absolutely should keep it up and keep getting more notice, because if they expected it to be less...then they really weren't prepared for negative PR. And that means negative PR costs them MORE than it would if they'd been prepared. And if this starts costing them enough...
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They're on TWITCH TV RIGHT NOW!
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they aint gonna share anything vital.. but its nice to see everyone.. Posi looks great..
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Black Pebble is wearing an Atlas 33 shirt.
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*Salutes*
Ladies, Gentlemen, and others, the REAL Heroes of Paragon.
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They said on Twitch they can tell us what they are up to starting tomorrow. Follow their twitter feeds.
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I hope they do something that they love.. that they can use to support their families, and that takes advantage of an extremely loyal fan base..
in that order..
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I hope it's not a City of Heroes Browsergame or something like that... :o
I hope it's something like, "Ok guys, maybe they don't sell us the IP, so we hire you to made a new Heroes-MMO"
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I loved all of the veiled 'watch this space' comments. I can't wait to see what comes out tomorrow.
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I loved all of the veiled 'watch this space' comments. I can't wait to see what comes out tomorrow.
Yeah, me too. :) But I suspect most of them are breaking up onto different projects. Perhaps Melissa and Matt might be the most likely ones to begin a new kickstarter project; I know at least in Matt's case, in a recent interview, he said he's having a hard time finding another senior lead designer position because most people are promoted from within into it.
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He implied a few coffee talks ago that he might be doing his own thing if nothing panned out, but he wasn't really allowed to say that yet.
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Let's hire him for Plan Z ;D
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Let's hire him for Plan Z ;D
If only we could. However, if the gags come off tomorrow...well, I have a few ways to contact some people and ask what they think of Plan Z and if they have any way we can tune it to work with their future plans. Should their future plans in any way touch on a spiritual successor to CoH, anyway.
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When I'm a publisher boss in my next live then I would do it just like that to be the hero: When I can't get the game IP then I try to get the people to let them do a similar game...
...but this is just me, maybe it isn't that simple...
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One of the reasons I want to build myself a financial empire to dwarf that of Bill Gates is so that I can do things like that.
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One of the reasons I want to build myself a financial empire to dwarf that of Bill Gates is so that I can do things like that.
First lesson: high taxes are your friend. Money invested in the company is not taxes, encouraging growth. Gates purposeffully located in high tax areas to keep money in the company rather than extracted by greedy execs.
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First lesson: high taxes are your friend. Money invested in the company is not taxes, encouraging growth. Gates purposeffully located in high tax areas to keep money in the company rather than extracted by greedy execs.
Interesting philosophy. You'd want low corporate taxes but high personal taxes, I think, for such a scheme.
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well lets hope there is some news to energize the community today.
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Interesting philosophy. You'd want low corporate taxes but high personal taxes, I think, for such a scheme.
Can we PLEASE lay off the real-world politics?
Sorry for sounding snarky, I really do appreciate everything you're doing for CoH, PlanZ, and all of it. You're fantastic about all of that. And it's not like you go on and on about it. But one reason I like these boards is that it's a haven from politics (as was CoH and the CoH boards, for the most part).
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Interesting philosophy. You'd want low corporate taxes but high personal taxes, I think, for such a scheme.
Nope, the opposite. Corporate taxes are applied to operating profit, that is, the profit left over *after* you've paid for everything, not gross profit, the money you take in minus direct costs.
Let me take for example the cost of an employee. The difference between the total cost of that employee and the corporate tax rate is the effective cost of that employee. This is a simplified model I'm about to use, but it gives the general idea: If your corporate tax rate is 25%, and the employee's salary, compensation package, etc, comes to $100k a year, you would be paying $75k of it out of profit. However, if your corporate tax rate is 50%, you are only paying $50k out of profit.
This is one of the reasons why nations with the highest percentage of workforce also are nations with high corporate tax rates. China has one of the highest, with, between its various tax codes (China applies 6 different taxes on a corporation) adding up to 62% as of 2011. I understand it has dropped to 53% aggregate since then. Germany, an economic powerhouse, has a total aggregate of 56.9% for manufacturing.
It seems illogical if you don't understand corporate tax structure, but if you do, it is clear, higher corporate taxes means lower costs for employees.
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Can we PLEASE lay off the real-world politics?
Sorry for sounding snarky, I really do appreciate everything you're doing for CoH, PlanZ, and all of it. You're fantastic about all of that. And it's not like you go on and on about it. But one reason I like these boards is that it's a haven from politics (as was CoH and the CoH boards, for the most part).
Sorry, sorry; it's a weakness of mine. I'm generally decent at keeping it to a low philosophical background thing, at least insofar as I can keep from bringing it up myself. Usually. But I'm really bad at avoiding rising to the bait. My apologies, again.
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Sorry, sorry; it's a weakness of mine. I'm generally decent at keeping it to a low philosophical background thing, at least insofar as I can keep from bringing it up myself. Usually. But I'm really bad at avoiding rising to the bait. My apologies, again.
I understand. I'm pretty liberal, and generally try to avoid political arguments when baited by the other side (which, in this case, would be you, I guess :-) Partially to avoid flame wars, and partially because I'm just plain bad at arguing in general (which means I don't want to take this to PM's either).
Don't take this as an insult, I really appreciate what you're doing here, which is way more than me.
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Our dear Dr. Aeon has been snapped up by Cryptic to work on STO.
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oh well..
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That's a good thing. He now has a solid paycheck coming in again (always a plus, food's kinda important), and someone we *know* is good is working on STO, also a plus.
Besides, Dr. Aeon with *Star Trek* level technology to play with? Brrrrr. (AE *World*.)
They're going to *need* heroes over there soon, methinks. ;]
2cp. ;]
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What bothers me is that we've heard of many of the PS Devs going to work on Star Trek.
NONE have been hired to work on Champions Online.
You'd think Champions would get some love. But no - it never ever does. They're basically working with a skeleton crew there struggling just to keep the lights on EVEN NOW!
I'm not very impressed with PWE.
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That's a good thing. He now has a solid paycheck coming in again (always a plus, food's kinda important), and someone we *know* is good is working on STO, also a plus.
Besides, Dr. Aeon with *Star Trek* level technology to play with? Brrrrr. (AE *World*.)
They're going to *need* heroes over there soon, methinks. ;]
2cp. ;]
Its absolutely a good thing. These are real people with real families that depend on them. Thats more important than anything.
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What bothers me is that we've heard of many of the PS Devs going to work on Star Trek.
NONE have been hired to work on Champions Online.
You'd think Champions would get some love. But no - it never ever does. They're basically working with a skeleton crew there struggling just to keep the lights on EVEN NOW!
I'm not very impressed with PWE.
Ive tried CO.. hated it.. hate the it looks and plays...
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You'd think Champions would get some love. But no - it never ever does. They're basically working with a skeleton crew there struggling just to keep the lights on EVEN NOW!
I'm not very impressed with PWE.
That's not a PWE thing, that's a Cryptic thing. The did the same thing to COH when they started working on CO. And I'm sure they will do it to STO when the decide what their "next big thing" is.
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Hm. It could be fun, sometime in the future, when Plan Z is functional (assuming things go that direction) as a game, to contact Cryptic about doing limited events with the Plan Z Earth as one of those planets that "looks just like Earth did in the 21st century, but..." so heroes can run into Starfleet and vice-versa. </random musing>
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What bothers me is that we've heard of many of the PS Devs going to work on Star Trek.
Some. Not many. I've heard that you can count the number on one hand, though that was a couple of weeks ago. Still, whoever they got, I'm sure they're better off for it. I do have the feeling that the STO universe is about to get a lot more interesting. :)
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Not claiming this as a positive in any way since it looks like the posting was taken down (or I have bad research skills), but a friend of mine said he saw something on the PWE main website that they were looking for someone where two qualifiers had to do with knowledge of the comic genre and experience with Foundry.
I'll keep looking.
PS: Link to Doc Aeon's announce here. https://twitter.com/SeanMcCann14/status/264039786032017408
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Could someone PM me the Twitter names of the Devs I should follow? I'll have to sign up when I get home from work.
Thanks.
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Champions is going to go the way of CoH, and I don't think it will be very far in the future (And it's NOT because I hate the game, I have no particular beef with it, once the rumor they had nothing to do with CoH's demise was thoroughly debunked, which I was glad to hear.)
DC Univers Online and Marvel Super Heroes Online have something that CoH and Champions don't.
Movies.
Movies about *their* archetypical characters, and multimillion dollar advertising campaigns, and multimillion person audiences.
We just *can't* compete on that level, and it's getting the "Lesser" SHMMO's run over.
And then when you add to that, *No* advertising (CoH), *No* new content for long periods of time (CO), and no apparent support from the parent company (Both). What do we expect? GameFacePlant.
And we're getting it. It absolutely *amazes* me that NCSoftCore and PWE *aren't* capitalizing on the year of the biggest Super Hero movie of all time, both heere *and* overseas (The Avengers.)
This is DEEPLY STUPID. They BOTH have *previously-established* superhero MMO's *WITH an established playerbase*, and they both *Have* a western market (or did, anyway), and neither did *anything* to capitalize on these facts.
If I was either a PWE or NCSoftCore investor, I'd have yanked my investment and gone to Disney/Marvel or *at least* DC. If I remember correctly, didn't The Avengers hit the Billion-dollar mark? I *know* Batman did OFF THE FRST MOVIE. let alone whatever sales have been for part two and three of the trilogy.
Superman. Spiderman. The X-men. (kinda makes ya sad that your studio pissed off Whedon to the point he quit on Wonder Woman now, after seeing what he did with the Avengers, donnit DC? ;] )
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I'd love to see a movie (Even a youtube movie), showing off Plan Z's World/Content/Signature Heroes *and* Villains, and done *before* the game releases to get us attention.
Obviously, not anytime soon, but we *could* do promo videos for it as we get closer to launch.
Or just flat do a *live* video with a couple of action scenes to get attention, both to the game, and the the SaveCoHCause, with a Plan Z: coming soon, attached to it.
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Want a scary thought? Look at World of Warcraft. Now think of what would happen to their already-huge playerbase if they did a *Good* WoW movie, that the mainstream (Not a player) public could just go watch in a theatre, and all of a sudden actually have a grasp of what WoW is?
I have played WoW in the past, but don't anymore, mostly because of obnoxious players. I'd *still* go see the movie, and if they did it right, might get back on the game anyway. And I *wouldn't* be alone, I know a lot of people that quit for the same reasons, and might return if their interest was punted in the right place.
A movie would be a good start. Have you seen the trailers for WoW: Mists of Pandaria? Ignore the Kung-fu Panda rip off, and just take a *good* look at the story and cinematics. I watched that and *almost* set up an acount again, because I wanted to play a Panda, because they did them in a very cool style.
Now if they'd done a full blown *Movie* for, say Cataclysm? I'd *be* playing.
Now how long I *stayed* would be *their* problem (Gameplay/Content/Getting rid of griefing players, etc.
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So having said all this, when is the Plan Z youtube video coming out? We have several very talented people to help on this.
"PLAN Z: Coming Summer 2015."
Hmm. youtube video a year early, movie and game timed to release together, backed by a internet ad campaign?
It's a thought, and something to consider seriously.
2cp. ;]
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Could someone PM me the Twitter names of the Devs I should follow? I'll have to sign up when I get home from work.
Thanks.
Just going to put them here in case other people want them, too.
Black Pebble- @hosunl
Dr. Aeon- @seanmcann14
Posi- @mmodesigner
Hitstreak- @hitstreak
Zwillinger- @andybelford
War Witch- @melissabianco
Black Scorpion has one that I can't remember, will post it later. Those are the ones I know of.
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Black Scorpion- @6ix7even
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I was just about to post that. I'm pretty sure it's a Virtuosity reference, which is the only way I can remember it.
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Dr. Aeon & Star Trek Online players have reason to celebrate today... but if I was a Champions player I'd be bumming out. McCann is precisely the guy they could've used to address one of that game's biggest perceived problems: underwhelming story content, and a shortage of content in general. Don't know what this says about Cryptic's commitment to our colleagues in Millenium City. Congrats to the good Doctor, at any rate!
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What bothers me is that we've heard of many of the PS Devs going to work on Star Trek.
NONE have been hired to work on Champions Online.
You'd think Champions would get some love. But no - it never ever does. They're basically working with a skeleton crew there struggling just to keep the lights on EVEN NOW!
I'm not very impressed with PWE.
The thing about Cryptic is that their engine is the same for all their games. So in theory, any innovations that happen in STO are able to be ported over into CO and NWN and whatever else.
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Dr. Aeon & Star Trek Online players have reason to celebrate today... but if I was a Champions player I'd be bumming out. McCann is precisely the guy they could've used to address one of that game's biggest perceived problems: underwhelming story content, and a shortage of content in general. Don't know what this says about Cryptic's commitment to our colleagues in Millenium City. Congrats to the good Doctor, at any rate!
To be fair, since both are owned by Cryptic, it's quite possible that Dr. Aeon could be loaned over to CO for plot arcs every now and again. It's even likely, if he comes up with some ideas and pitches them. At least, if Cryptic is an open and friendly environment where everybody considers themselves to be on the same team. I suspect it is, but that could just be my tendency to think the best of everybody until they give me reason not to.
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Could someone PM me the Twitter names of the Devs I should follow? I'll have to sign up when I get home from work.
Thanks.
Other developers/Paragon staff (past and present) that are on Twitter:
Eric Johnsen - @pCthulhu - Associate Producer
Al Rivera - @CaptainGeko Geko - powers guy before Castle, current STO Lead Designer
EM Stock - @_EMpulse_ - former community lead
@bAss_ackwards - (I can't honestly recall which devleoper he revealed himself to be in the farewell thread)
Nate Birkholz - @nbirkholz - Producer
C.W. Bennett - @pohsyb - programmer, departed for Apple in March '11
April CuppaJo Burba - @CuppaJo_ATX - left for Tabula Rasa in September '06, currently Director of Community at ZeniMax Online Studios
V D'Amelio - @TheDarkWatcher - Senior Programmer
Avatea - @Avatea - former moderator for EU forums, then Senior Community Specialist when forums were combined
Bruce Harlick - @BruceHH - former mission programmer, departed late '09/early '10 to work for Zynga
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Regarding Plan Z and a "movie," we're PLANNING a prologue web comic, and have a myth-arc for it planned out. There are also noises from others regarding other web comic topics.
I'm sure we'd love, if we get the capability, to do a true movie to kick off the game, as we get to that stage, but we will have to wait and see on that. It would almost certainly require us to actually find and contract with a movie studio who'd use their own budget to make the movie, which we'd cross-promote, if it were to be a GOOD movie and really do what we want without being a hackneyed "movie-made-to-sell-the-game."
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Our dear Dr. Aeon has been snapped up by Cryptic to work on STO.
While this is good for Dr. Aeon to have a paycheck, it's actually kind of sad. STO sucks rocks and already had most of its fun dissected out of it by Cryptic's new overlords, Perfect World. Seriously, STO has fallen far, far from the tree.
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While this is good for Dr. Aeon to have a paycheck, it's actually kind of sad. STO sucks rocks and already had most of its fun dissected out of it by Cryptic's new overlords, Perfect World. Seriously, STO has fallen far, far from the tree.
I know all of my friends who play the game disagree strongly with this, and while there is complaint that STO's ground missions are jarringly un-Star Trek, those complaints are tempered by an acknowledgement that it's mostly because it is trying to be an MMO. And the plot missions and starship combat more than makes up for it, in their minds.
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She was also EU Community lead for Tabula Rasa as well. Shame her Twitter account hasn't been posted to for 2.5 years.
*facepalm* Forgot to check to see if her account had been active lately. I did trim a couple of others from the list because they seem to be inactive.
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Zwillinger- @andybelford
...is back at EA. Good luck to him with his new job :)
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@bAss_ackwards - (I can't honestly recall which devleoper he revealed himself to be in the farewell thread)
Fire Man
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I know all of my friends who play the game disagree strongly with this, and while there is complaint that STO's ground missions are jarringly un-Star Trek, those complaints are tempered by an acknowledgement that it's mostly because it is trying to be an MMO. And the plot missions and starship combat more than makes up for it, in their minds.
And all my friends who USED to play the game would disagree strongly with you. =) But you make a good and fair point: 'Fun' IS subjective. I just didn't like the way STO was going under Perfect World, especially during the last 'holiday event,' and I still don't but... if folks are enjoying it, and (to my mind) more importantly if the devs are getting paychecks for it, then who am I to complain anymore?
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Fire Man
Who has posted the following on Twitter:
O_o @bAss_ackwards
Working at Trion Worlds. Very excited for the upcoming expansion of Rift - check out the Dimensions trailer! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFhSDMooGes
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i really hope one of the big three say something today..
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Thank you, Lily
Just going to put them here in case other people want them, too.
Black Pebble- @hosunl
Dr. Aeon- @seanmcann14
Posi- @mmodesigner
Hitstreak- @hitstreak
Zwillinger- @andybelford
War Witch- @melissabianco
Black Scorpion has one that I can't remember, will post it later. Those are the ones I know of.
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...is back at EA. Good luck to him with his new job :)
Way to go, Zwill! Any word on what team he's on? I'd like to support it, but most of what I know from them is sports-related.
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Way to go, Zwill! Any word on what team he's on? I'd like to support it, but most of what I know from them is sports-related.
He said on twitter that it's an unannounced project and he can't tell us yet.
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He said on twitter that it's an unannounced project and he can't tell us yet.
Good for him !!
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I don't hate Star Trek Online. Far from it. I PLAY it. Have played for some time. And them having a better story guy there is a good thing!
But... They already HAD some good story people there already. Champions has NOTHING.
Champions is going to go the way of CoH, and I don't think it will be very far in the future (And it's NOT because I hate the game, I have no particular beef with it, once the rumor they had nothing to do with CoH's demise was thoroughly debunked, which I was glad to hear.)
DC Universe Online and Marvel Super Heroes Online have something that CoH and Champions don't.
Movies.
Movies about *their* archetypal characters, and multi-million dollar advertising campaigns, and multi-million person audiences.
We just *can't* compete on that level, and it's getting the "Lesser" SHMMO's run over.
And then when you add to that, *No* advertising (CoH), *No* new content for long periods of time (CO), and no apparent support from the parent company (Both). What do we expect? GameFacePlant.
And we're getting it. It absolutely *amazes* me that NCSoftCore and PWE *aren't* capitalizing on the year of the biggest Super Hero movie of all time, both here *and* overseas (The Avengers.)
This is DEEPLY STUPID. They BOTH have *previously-established* superhero MMO's *WITH an established playerbase*, and they both *Have* a western market (or did, anyway), and neither did *anything* to capitalize on these facts.
I can't disagree with any of this.
One of the things I was doing after Black Friday was offering advice to people on how to adapt to Champions. Between DCUO and Champions, Champions is the one most like COH. I think I veered into actual boosterism of the game at one point.
Well I'm no longer actively recommending CO as a place to go for COH players. I've recently become disillusioned of any possibility that CO will ever live up to the potential it could have. Because Cryptic and PWE both seem to have a business philosophy of "develop the new shiny game" every couple of years and letting the older ones rot after a certain point.
The ONLY reason STO is resisting that trend even SLIGHTLY is because of the franchise behind it. If it were a generic space game? It would have next to NO development at all, just like Champions, and 99% of Cryptic's resources would be in Neverwinter Nights until it came out. Right now, I'd guess only about 75% of their resources are in NWN. 23% is in STO, and 2% is in CO just keeping the lights on. Yes, they'll have vehicles soon. But they also have grab bags and lock-boxes now too. Loot that drops that you have to pay real money to open, even if you're a subscriber.
DCUO is run by SOE - who has possibly the best track record of supporting older games in the industry (Everquest) at least when they are their own games. (Star Wars Galaxies was an anomaly since Lucasarts pulled the license. They'd probably still be running SWG right now even on limited servers if not for that.)
DCUO despite being clunky when it comes to RP options and limited in customization options to the point where it's difficult to impossible to make a "port" of a character from CO or COH to DCUO, is nevertheless getting the love. Did you know they now have player/SG bases in the works? So now - one of the biggest complaints of the RP crowd in DCUO - no RP areas is now somewhat addressed. The game has actually improved a lot since launch.
And because it's SOE, and because of the point above about being part of a major franchise - it would not surprise me in the slightest if it outlasted CO and is still going in 8-9 years (assuming DC/Warner doesn't pull the license like LA did).
Oh - and on the subject of Lockboxes. DCUO has them as well - but has done them RIGHT. If you are freemium or Premium, you have to buy a key to open one. But if you're a subscriber? You just open it for free. THAT's how you do a lockbox!
So yeah - sad to say. But of the two existing Superhero MMOs, if you want to play the one that's going to be around longer? Go DCUO. That's the way things currently look.
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And good for Zwill and the others!
My only qualm is that Zwill is working for EA. EA in no way shape or form DESERVES as good a guy as Zwill.
(yeah I'm still bitter over Mass Effect and the death of Bioware.)
And I'm sad, because whatever he's working on, I won't be able to support, because it's EA. And EA, like NCSoft, gets none of my money.
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Regarding Plan Z and a "movie," we're PLANNING a prologue web comic, and have a myth-arc for it planned out. There are also noises from others regarding other web comic topics.
I'm sure we'd love, if we get the capability, to do a true movie to kick off the game, as we get to that stage, but we will have to wait and see on that. It would almost certainly require us to actually find and contract with a movie studio who'd use their own budget to make the movie, which we'd cross-promote, if it were to be a GOOD movie and really do what we want without being a hackneyed "movie-made-to-sell-the-game."
Any thoughts on live-action or animated?
I recently came across the promotional movie for Halo-4, and it seemed to be close in quality and content for a full theater release. It is posted on YouTube in 20-minute segments. Final one should be this Friday. As I understand it, they wanted to reach non-gamers with this film. Very impressive. Looks like a fairly significant budget though.
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Well, EA is only slightly less evil than NCSoft, but I'm still quite happy that Andy has a paying job once more.
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It's important because it means NCSoft did care enough to have expectations. When a company has expectations and those expectations are so far thrown off that they are "surprised," it has effects all over their chain of command. Maybe not grand ones, but it is an irritant, a distraction, a problem.
More to the point, it's personally embarrassing to NCSoft management as long as we can keep it public, particularly in Korea. Korean culture has strong underpinnings of 'face' and 'harmony', and prizes the ability to read the mood of the people you interact with in order to avoid breaking either. For example, in a business deal, you would not ask "Will we be able to sign the contract by Friday?" because that puts the other person in the position of possibly having to say 'No', breaking the harmony; instead, you would ask 'What is the earliest date that we can expect to sign the contract?", allowing for an answer that isn't an outright refusal.
NSoft's original "realignment of our vision for the future" statement was just such a 'face-saving' declaration; it allowed them to avoid saying "We're not interested in continuing to operate City of Heroes" without making a bald statement about it. Similarly, their "exhausted all opportunities" statement was another dance around the point, avoiding the flat "We're not going to sell the IP".
The thing that makes it embarrassing for the NCSoft management is that, within Korean culture, these would have been perfectly-acceptable declarations that would be accepted at face value. However, making these statements to a Western audience, and our reaction to them, shows that NCSoft completely misread its audience for these statements -- demonstrating a massive lack of nunchi, the ability to 'read' someone else's mood. And it's this spectacular flop that embarrasses them -- someone in a higher position is supposed to have a better grasp of nunchi, and our publicity backlash erodes the credibility of the NCSoft management.
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I'm thrilled for him. He has a young family to support, so getting on anywhere is a good thing. If I had to make a choice of getting food for my kids or declining a position with NCSoft just because I don't like their business practices, I'd have to accept the job.
Of course, that would not detract me from continuing to look for other employmemt. I'd happily use evil for the greater good.
I just hope he doesn't forget us! :gonk:
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More to the point, it's personally embarrassing to NCSoft management as long as we can keep it public, particularly in Korea. Korean culture has strong underpinnings of 'face' and 'harmony', and prizes the ability to read the mood of the people you interact with in order to avoid breaking either. For example, in a business deal, you would not ask "Will we be able to sign the contract by Friday?" because that puts the other person in the position of possibly having to say 'No', breaking the harmony; instead, you would ask 'What is the earliest date that we can expect to sign the contract?", allowing for an answer that isn't an outright refusal.
NSoft's original "realignment of our vision for the future" statement was just such a 'face-saving' declaration; it allowed them to avoid saying "We're not interested in continuing to operate City of Heroes" without making a bald statement about it. Similarly, their "exhausted all opportunities" statement was another dance around the point, avoiding the flat "We're not going to sell the IP".
The thing that makes it embarrassing for the NCSoft management is that, within Korean culture, these would have been perfectly-acceptable declarations that would be accepted at face value. However, making these statements to a Western audience, and our reaction to them, shows that NCSoft completely misread its audience for these statements -- demonstrating a massive lack of nunchi, the ability to 'read' someone else's mood. And it's this spectacular flop that embarrasses them -- someone in a higher position is supposed to have a better grasp of nunchi, and our publicity backlash erodes the credibility of the NCSoft management.
Thank you for that insight in Korean culture, I wasn't aware of any of that. Doesn't change the fact that I'm still throwing a temper tantrum over here (I WANT MY HEROES AND MY GAME AND EVERYTHING), but it make some sense of what they said. I knew fairly quickly that part of this was a culture gap, though I'm not sure if it is from NC Soft in Korea or with me being from the Midwest. I still can't get over how they will cancel CoH while it is still making money, and go into promoting that awful anime softcore they call a video game instead.
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We need to continue the push on NCSoft. The more we can damage their kibun without damaging our image in the process, the better our chances of getting NCSoft to cough up the IP at some point - even if it's part of their going-out-of-business sale.
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I am a symbol. I can be whatever the City of Heroes needs me to be. Something more. I am the NCSoft basher.
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when CO first came out and i looked at it, i could tell from a first glance that it was a crappy knockoff version of CoH (and i still think that)
i also could never bring myself to play CO because the graphics make my eyes hurt (even with the more annoying effects turned off)
i dont think i could play STO because its too PVP oriented (i LOVED CoH for the fact that it was NOT focused towards PVP at all)
i am glad that most of the devs have found some work, although we havent heard from the upper levels (posi, warwitch, ect)
im still hoping that ncsoft will fold under the pressure and release the IP so that the game can be continued
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"...within Korean culture, these would have been perfectly-acceptable declarations that would be accepted at face value. However, making these statements to a Western audience, and our reaction to them, shows that NCSoft completely misread its audience...."
So in plain language (and at the risk of offending the PC Police yet again,) you're saying that Koreans are accustomed to being lied to by rich douchebags. Yeah, that's pretty much what I got from "Gangnam Style" too. This has been quite an education. At least now I can cogently explain why I like the Japanese so much more.
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Less all out lies and more like double talk. Think Politician more used car salesman.
What I still can't figure out is why. Anyone with a basic web browser can look at the last big hit movies that came out of Hollywood and see they been Superhero movies. There been a number of Hero and HEROES like T.V. shows. Not to mention big boom in Superhero toys.
AKA Superhero business is BIG and City of Heroes has a 8 year lead on the competition. True we have an older engine but it's still good and the Dev been pushing the mechanics to the max and supercharging with all the new powers and features. So no matter the culture gap it's stupid. You have a Hot market item (superhero) two competitors who's games are ... alright... at best. A modest market campaign would have double or tripled the returns put into it. Instead they pull the plug. Double so if you count that NCsoft stopped Paragon Studios from working on CoX2.
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"...within Korean culture, these would have been perfectly-acceptable declarations that would be accepted at face value. However, making these statements to a Western audience, and our reaction to them, shows that NCSoft completely misread its audience...."
So in plain language (and at the risk of offending the PC Police yet again,) you're saying that Koreans are accustomed to being lied to by rich douchebags. Yeah, that's pretty much what I got from "Gangnam Style" too. This has been quite an education. At least now I can cogently explain why I like the Japanese so much more.
To you and I, yes, it comes off as "rich jerks lying." It's one reason I can't stand role-playing in asian-culture-based games; the way they think is alien enough to offend my own sensibilities. (Not "I hate Asians for thinking that way," but "I hate trying to think that way and have an innate annoyance when forced to deal with it.") Still, it is very useful to understand it.
To Korean cultural mindset, it's better to tell a face-saving white lie. It's better for all involved. This is because that face-saving white lie allows all involved to maintain the illusion of comity, of kibun. The "realignment" and "exhausted all options" lines would be expected to be understood for their true meaning, but give a way for the "losing" side (in this case, us) to preserve their own public harmony by accepting that all that could be done was tried and moving on, while preserving the harmony of the side with the power to make the decision by allowing them to not have to state flatly that they don't want to cooperate.
I'm sure there are proper kibun-preserving methods to protest. It is a kibun-restoring act, when pushed too far, to suddenly and loudly explode in what Americans would call a violent tantrum. To us, that's the tantrum-thrower losing all dignity, but to Korean culture, that's restoring harmony when it has been lost. No, I don't quite grasp the logic. I think being forced into such a display is one of the greatest ways to shame those who've put you in that position, however, as it means they failed so hard to read your subtle cues that your kibun was being repeatedly disrupted that you had no means of preserving it further.
In a sense, that's what we're doing, from their mindset. They are watching a frighteningly polite but determined...and increasingly angry (but still, mostly, polite)...sector of their target market (at least, the market they claim to target) throw an ongoing and ever-amplifying tantrum. And it's becoming more dedicated and more organized. This is why remaining organized and turning the volume up with each passing deadline in their schedule is so important. They keep expecting it to die down, to go away, and for harmony to be restored. Sure, at this point, they've taken a mild hit to their Face because they failed to anticipate this and each effort they've made to smooth it over has only made the backlash worse. This displays a lack of management-worthy nunchi, which, as it becomes more public knowledge, increasingly shames and calls into question the worthiness of those making the decisions.
That each effort they make only provokes a more organized and angrier response demonstrates they cannot manage people, that they cannot understand those they purport to serve, and that they lack the culturally-expected ability to maintain kibun. That it remains polite helps us here to avoid being dismissed, which means we can get greater publicity. That it is organized and directed is confusing to the Korean cultural mindset, because "organized" and "tantrum" don't really go together. This destabilizes NCSoft's management still more, as their attempts to mollify with simple kibun-preserving pap have failed and they know culturally that we're attempting to restore our kibun, but we're doing it in a way that is continually amplifying their failure of nunchi.
From an a-cultural perspective, we are hoping we're also doing some harm, financially, but revealing to their stockholders just how poorly they're managing their company and their interests overseas, and just how hazardous their refocusing on Asia is due to shrinking their company when it should be growing. In this way, we hit them where it hurts even those whose appreciation for kibun is merely for show.
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The whole subject of kibun and Korean face-saving, and trying to convince NCSoft tobe more cooperative by trying to respect those things, it's kind of a moot point really when you look at the rest of the story.
As far as I've seen, those who are rich and powerful are like gods in Korea. They *must* be respected, and they are always right. If they make any decision, it's up to everyone else to accept it graciously and keep their mouths shut about it. If they speak out about it, it embarrasses both themselves and everyone around them.
The problem with that is, for us, the only way to respect the Korean way is to quietly accept the City of Heroes shutdown and even thank them for it! Trying to save CoH is going to make them angry, and it's going to be disrespectful, and there's not much we can do about it. It's not really about the Korean way, it's about ours. And as far as I'm concerned, they can roll their eyes at our behavior and call us spoiled rude children all they like, as long as they sell off or restore it.
We've all encountered players who behave the same way NCSoft is behaving. The ones that insult, bully, and humiliate other players, and then claim that they have a right to do that, and if you don't like it you should cancel your subscription and leave. And you know what we call those players. :)
But more important is we have to learn to treat NCSoft the same way - not delicately, but like trying to convince one of those disruptive players to play something else for a while and leave you alone. It's not easy, and sometimes it's not possible, but it beats quietly leaving.
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I think Kibun is a red herring. At the end of the day, NCSoft is a business, and cultural issues aside, it acts like a business. The behavior that many are attributing to Kibun or "saving face" also comes from one other thing. In the west we call it pride. The two concepts aren't as alien to each other as it would seem at first glance.
NCSoft is a very prideful company, and the unilateral "This is how we're going to do it" attitude is part of that. It's unlikely that we can change their decision at this point, but we can definitely make them wish that they had, and warn others of the destructive pattern of behavior so that they don't get burned by it as well.
And if the pressure gets high enough, there is still a small chance that they could decide that selling off the IP is the best way to make it go away.
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Oh - and on the subject of Lockboxes. DCUO has them as well - but has done them RIGHT. If you are freemium or Premium, you have to buy a key to open one. But if you're a subscriber? You just open it for free. THAT's how you do a lockbox!
I agree. That is the way the lock-boxes should work.
when CO first came out and i looked at it, i could tell from a first glance that it was a crappy knockoff version of CoH (and i still think that)
i also could never bring myself to play CO because the graphics make my eyes hurt (even with the more annoying effects turned off)
i dont think i could play STO because its too PVP oriented (i LOVED CoH for the fact that it was NOT focused towards PVP at all)
I have been a lifetime subscriber of STO since about the time it came out. I haven't once stepped foot into anything PvP related. Even my Klingon character hasn't participated in any PvP content.
Ignore the PvP stuff, and STO isn't too bad. Granted, the Klingon side is more geared towards PvP. But, its not mandatory that you participate. Even as a Klingon.
We've all encountered players who behave the same way NCSoft is behaving. The ones that insult, bully, and humiliate other players, and then claim that they have a right to do that, and if you don't like it you should cancel your subscription and leave. And you know what we call those players. :)
Unicorns? :P
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I think Kibun is a red herring. At the end of the day, NCSoft is a business, and cultural issues aside, it acts like a business. The behavior that many are attributing to Kibun or "saving face" also comes from one other thing. In the west we call it pride. The two concepts aren't as alien to each other as it would seem at first glance.
NCSoft is a very prideful company, and the unilateral "This is how we're going to do it" attitude is part of that. It's unlikely that we can change their decision at this point, but we can definitely make them wish that they had, and warn others of the destructive pattern of behavior so that they don't get burned by it as well.
And if the pressure gets high enough, there is still a small chance that they could decide that selling off the IP is the best way to make it go away.
Yep, the joys of a massive ego...
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I agree. That is the way the lock-boxes should work.
I have been a lifetime subscriber of STO since about the time it came out. I haven't once stepped foot into anything PvP related. Even my Klingon character hasn't participated in any PvP content.
Ignore the PvP stuff, and STO isn't too bad. Granted, the Klingon side is more geared towards PvP. But, its not mandatory that you participate. Even as a Klingon.
This has been my observation, as well.
Unicorns? :P
This forum has one word filter. The word spelled "t" "r" "o" "l" "l" is filtered to "unicorn," and the plurals thereof likewise.
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This has been my observation, as well.This forum has one word filter. The word spelled "t" "r" "o" "l" "l" is filtered to "unicorn," and the plurals thereof likewise.
Actually, just checked and it looks like somebody added the F-bomb in as well.
There's one other banned topic in the filters: louis vuitton.
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I don't even know the significance of that "Louis" one. ^^;
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Actually, just checked and it looks like somebody added the F-bomb in as well.
There's one other banned topic in the filters: louis vuitton.
A quick search shows it's some kind of shoe/watch/jewelry company. So I'm going to guess some kind of spambot issue.
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So I'm going to guess some kind of spambot issue.
We have a winner!
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Rage....... taking......Over........ want..... news....now......Rage...REALLY.... taking...over.....
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Having their NDA's lifted merely means they can talk, not that they will. However, I understand that some of them noted that they'd say something today in announcements yesterday. (I was working and traveling from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. yesterday and much of the previous day (no Halloween this year for this Olantern, sadly) and completely missed the details there.)
In the meantime, calm yourself by considering in a Sphinxian way that our devs are number one and all others are two or lower.
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"To Korean cultural mindset, it's better to tell a face-saving white lie. It's better for all involved. This is because that face-saving white lie allows all involved to maintain the illusion of comity, of kibun. The "realignment" and "exhausted all options" lines would be expected to be understood for their true meaning, but give a way for the "losing" side (in this case, us) to preserve their own public harmony by accepting that all that could be done was tried and moving on, while preserving the harmony of the side with the power to make the decision by allowing them to not have to state flatly that they don't want to cooperate."
I really appreciate the effort you're taking to explain the cultural context. But to be honest, it feels to me like the mindset of medieval Europe before the Colonial revolution, the multiple French revolutions and so forth, like the Koreans are still living in Shakespeare's time when the rest of us are post-Hugo. And now the Korean overlords used to hearing "God save the king" are getting a little taste of "give me liberty or give me death" and "viva la republique!"
Yeah, this would be consistent with a country that lived quietly under Imperial Japanese rule for fifty years until somebody else managed to liberate 'em.
What did they expect?! What flag is flying over Paragon's City Hall? Here's a hint, Mr. Kim: it doesn't have a flowery harmony-preserving symbol on it. It's the flag of the folks who fought two wars to ensure you live in a country with Internet access.
"Rage... taking... over...."
Yup! The PC police are gonna pull me over again, aren't they?
"...our devs are number one...."
Yup yup.
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"To Korean cultural mindset, it's better to tell a face-saving white lie. It's better for all involved. This is because that face-saving white lie allows all involved to maintain the illusion of comity, of kibun. The "realignment" and "exhausted all options" lines would be expected to be understood for their true meaning, but give a way for the "losing" side (in this case, us) to preserve their own public harmony by accepting that all that could be done was tried and moving on, while preserving the harmony of the side with the power to make the decision by allowing them to not have to state flatly that they don't want to cooperate."
I really appreciate the effort you're taking to explain the cultural context. But to be honest, it feels to me like the mindset of medieval Europe before the Colonial revolution, the multiple French revolutions and so forth, like the Koreans are still living in Shakespeare's time when the rest of us are post-Hugo. And now the Korean overlords used to hearing "God save the king" are getting a little taste of "give me liberty or give me death" and "viva la republique!"
Yeah, this would be consistent with a country that lived quietly under Imperial Japanese rule for fifty years until somebody else managed to liberate 'em.
What did they expect?! What flag is flying over Paragon's City Hall? Here's a hint, Mr. Kim: it doesn't have a flowery harmony-preserving symbol on it. It's the flag of the folks who fought two wars to ensure you live in a country with Internet access.
"Rage... taking... over...."
Yup!
"...our devs are number one...."
Yup yup.
Er. There's quite a few Commonwealth folks here who still live in effective monarchies, so I wouldn't quite characterize it that way.
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I don't know, Commonweath countries I'd consider to be monarchy "in name only". The real decisions are all made by parliament, so they kind of evolved into representative republics in any event.
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Let's not get into the Royalist-Republic debate here, huh? I'm spouting off because the Korean "mindset" as described is so servile it's throwing me (a normally easygoing, tolerant guy who speaks three languages) into a fit of apoplectic xenophobia.
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Sorry, I've been recently involved in coming up with the background for some Steampunk fiction that reminded me of it. It's set in the Victorian era in a parallel world where the American colonies never rebelled, so the notion of republic vs. monarchy and how one can become the other is fresh on my mind.
By all means, continue with your xenophobia. :)
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It's set in the Victorian era in a parallel world where the American colonies never rebelled...
OMG! An America where they speak English, measure distances in inches and miles, count weight in pounds or tons, instead of all that lovely metric stuff the rest of the world have. ;)
I once imagined an alternate universe where the Pilgrim Fathers had been able to spell properly too ;D
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Having their NDA's lifted merely means they can talk, not that they will. However, I understand that some of them noted that they'd say something today in announcements yesterday. (I was working and traveling from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. yesterday and much of the previous day (no Halloween this year for this Olantern, sadly) and completely missed the details there.)
In the meantime, calm yourself by considering in a Sphinxian way that our devs are number one and all others are two or lower.
Precisely,
As I understand it, this may be (in part) due to the way some California employment act (WARN?) applies. Technically, after a shutdown like this, employees stay on payroll for 60 days, but aren't obligated to show up for work. This lets them job search, clean up loose ends, etc, with full benefits. It also has the side effect that all employment conditions remain in full effect- if they have an IP agreement where any work they do while employed by X remains the property of X, that remains in effect. That means that if they even got together with the other devs and started brainstorming strategies on what to do from here, NCSoft could claim ownership of those ideas. Now that the 60 days are passed, they're possibly more able to START pursuing various projects without as much risk, in theory.
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I don't know, Commonweath countries I'd consider to be monarchy "in name only". The real decisions are all made by parliament, so they kind of evolved into representative republics in any event.
Yep, pretty much figureheads. Though really well paid ones!
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This forum has one word filter. The word spelled "t" "r" "o" "l" "l" is filtered to "unicorn," and the plurals thereof likewise.
I know. I thought the filter was amusing since a friend of mine collects the single horned variety of Unicorn and not the club wielding variety. :p
I must say, someone on the Titan team there has a sense of humor to match that of the Paragon Studios design team.
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I don't know, Commonweath countries I'd consider to be monarchy "in name only". The real decisions are all made by parliament, so they kind of evolved into representative republics in any event.
Constitutional Monarchies are still monarchies. The Queen is our head of state. :P
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Constitutional Monarchies are still monarchies. The Queen is our head of state. :P
Long Live Queen Beatrix!! hmm May be not the Queen meant here, but still Long Live Elizabeth II too ;)
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Long Live Queen Beatrix!! hmm May be not the Queen meant here, but still Long Live Elizabeth II too ;)
I'm Canadian, Globe. Long life to Queen B as well. I do believe you know about the tulips. ^_^
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Personally, I would be very happy if CoH is saved, but once NCSoft coughed up refunds and given their track record I would say the game has two chances of being saved, slim and none.
However, I as a very loyal and paying customer with spare disposable income will give a final parting gift to NCSoft and Nexon, voting with my wallet and never buying their stuff again. Even if the game is saved, if you have logged on recently, you can see the damage that has been done.
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I think we have made our case and I think its only going to get worse for NC Soft.. however what the community needs to know is exactly what the chief developers and those that are the key players are going to do. That is very very important especially considering the loyalty and love the community has for the Dev Team. That announcement that NC Soft made saying they did all they could do ( which we all know is a flat out LIE ) did take a lot of steam out of people...
It gave a feeling of inevitability..we need to offset that with some GOOD news..
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Just bolding one part, because the way in which I have read what you typed is the announcement from the developers... not sure if that is what you meant, or if you are referring to an announcement from NCsoft...
corrected for clarity.. Thanks
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I thought I read something that implied some of Paragon's NDA would get lifted on Nov 1st. Anyone else remember this or am I just going nuts?
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I thought I read something that implied some of Paragon's NDA would get lifted on Nov 1st. Anyone else remember this or am I just going nuts?
I remember that as well, but as I said a couple of pages ago, just because they can talk now doesn't mean they must. There may not be that much more to tell they they haven't revealed already, at least, not that's appropriate to publicize. They have revealed some information recently, such as essentially confirming that NCSoft showed no interest in actually letting go of the IP.
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i dont think i could play STO because its too PVP oriented (i LOVED CoH for the fact that it was NOT focused towards PVP at all)
...What??? PvP in STO is so ridiculously marginalized, by devs and players alike, that I really can't understand what you're talking about. You have to enter one of two zones, or enter a queue to PvP. Those are the only options, and they're pretty easy to ignore.
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I've played STO up until Black Friday, and I can confirm PVP is dead there.
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I've played STO up until Black Friday, and I can confirm PVP is dead there.
99% of PvP is actually people farming dilithium. 8)
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hmm, well if the pvp is dead there i think the only 2 things stopping me from playing it is if its not f2p i dont want to pay for it, and im not huge into star trek (i would actually be more inclined to try the old republic, but from what ive heard that game is more pvp focused)
im also not interested if its grindy in any way
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STO is definitely F2P.
As to whether it is grindy... YMMV but in my opinion it is not.
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hmm, well if the pvp is dead there i think the only 2 things stopping me from playing it is if its not f2p i dont want to pay for it, and im not huge into star trek (i would actually be more inclined to try the old republic, but from what ive heard that game is more pvp focused)
im also not interested if its grindy in any way
Star Wars is not quite f2p, and life after 50 is nothing but a grind. The game it's very fun to play up until 50, though, and not grindy before then.
You don't have to pvp at all in it, either. I never do. There is a lot of pvp content, but you can totally skip it on a pve or rp server.
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Less all out lies and more like double talk. Think Politician more used car salesman.
Or to put it in a way that's less 'malevolent', think of a bunch of school girls who are trying to (at least pretend to) be nice to one another and want to stay together as a group. They all want to tell Debbie that the dress she's wearing is awful and that it makes her butt look huge, but they don't to make Debbie cry or leave the group. So they hint in roundabout ways: the color is off, the pattern is a little wrong for her, maybe that the cut isn't quite right. Everyone, including Debbie, is supposed to know that what everyone is really thinking despite what they are saying. The problem arises however when they try that tactic and Debbie fails to get the subtext or if they try that tactic with someone who doesn't use the same mode of communication.
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Or to put it in a way that's less 'malevolent', think of a bunch of school girls who are trying to (at least pretend to) be nice to one another and want to stay together as a group. They all want to tell Debbie that the dress she's wearing is awful and that it makes her butt look huge, but they don't to make Debbie cry or leave the group. So they hint in roundabout ways: the color is off, the pattern is a little wrong for her, maybe that the cut isn't quite right. Everyone, including Debbie, is supposed to know that what everyone is really thinking despite what they are saying. The problem arises however when they try that tactic and Debbie fails to get the subtext or if they try that tactic with someone who doesn't use the same mode of communication.
Good analogy except its more that they are telling Debbie that the thing "wrong" with her is her race, religion, culture, core values, her favorite subject in school, the person she likes, that she likes wearing dresses/pant suits...or that she exists :(
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Weeks later.. still no word at all to the community from the Upper Management People from the former Paragon Studios. No recent update from Tony V.. none... You cant expect people to keep fighting forever with no encouragement at all. Im sorry I have serious issue with that. We keep hearing stuff like.. the response from the community took NC Soft off guard.. AND ???? what was the result of that ??... People need to get some info from the powers that be so to speak...
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I suspect at this point there is just nothing else to tell. Just because we desperately want a happy ending doesn't mean there will ever be one.
As far as Melissa Bianco, Matt Miller, etc., people that high up on the food chain are going to have trouble finding comparable jobs somewhere else. They were working on CoH for over/just under a decade. Even Matt said people usually get promoted into his job, not hired from outside to do it.
Kickstarter funding doesn't just go up with the snap of your fingers, and PS got totally blindsided besides. I would imagine that most of their time was initially spent trying to save their baby, and only when that fell through for the final time (with NC's newest "NO WAY JOSE' SO SHUT UP NOW ONCE AND FOR ALL, PEEPS" announcement) would they even begin to think about licensing/building a new engine, and perhaps starting a new game.
I really wouldn't expect to hear anything until next year sometime about any sort of potential new game, if anything is able to happen at all. And much as I admire the heartfelt attempts at Titan City by the player base, I seriously doubt someone like Matt or Melissa is going to get involved in something where they can't even hire or control those working on it. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that one.
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I thought I heard something about Posi taking the family on vacation. I might be wrong. But in any case, I'd say that the silence is not a sign of defeat or concession but something a bit more interesting.
How interesting? Well, that is where my gypsy fortune telling skills fall short.
The former Paragonners could just be taking some very well deserved time off before diving into their next great whatever. They deserve it.
Meanwhile, the news keeps spreading and some surprising allies have emerged. The war has not stopped. We're just in a maneuver phase.The biggest advantage we have is that our opponent is really out of options.
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I see black pebble now has
Today: Product Marketing Manager for Epic Games. Yesterday: Ex-Marketing Guy on City of Heroes.
on his twitter.
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Kickstarter funding doesn't just go up with the snap of your fingers, and PS got totally blindsided besides. I would imagine that most of their time was initially spent trying to save their baby, and only when that fell through for the final time (with NC's newest "NO WAY JOSE' SO SHUT UP NOW ONCE AND FOR ALL, PEEPS" announcement) would they even begin to think about licensing/building a new engine, and perhaps starting a new game.
NC had a new announcement?
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I see black pebble now has on his twitter.
If correct, and I'll hope that it is, Congratulations to Black Peeble on securing new employment!