I was contacted by a Korean Journalist to comment on CoH

[Undercat]

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. 

[eviella]

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!

[Jetfire99]

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.

[Lily Barclay]

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.

[NecrotechMaster]

fantastic article, now to wait and see for the public version to really rock the blocks of ncsoft

[Colette]

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.

[The Fifth Horseman]

*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).

[Shadowhawke]

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?

[Shadowhawke]

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.

[Victoria Victrix]

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.

[Cinnder]

Brilliantly done, VV!

I look forward to hearing how much of your response actually gets published.

[Axonius]

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.

[JWBullfrog]

  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."

[HEATSTROKE]

Sheer Brilliance..

[Rotten Luck]

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.

[QuantumHero]

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

[JWBullfrog]

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.

[Thunder Glove]

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.

[Rienuaa]

I love you.

I mean I seriously, seriously love you.

[Surelle]

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! 

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?