So, like many I'm angered by the announcement that CoX will be closed.
While I can appreciate how difficult it might be to pull the plug on an MMO, CoX really strikes me as a unique product. Something that had it's own portion of the market.
I understand that negotiations direction with NCSoft seem to result in silence. However, I thought it might be worthwhile to see what other companies have to say.
We could attempt talking to Funcom, Bioware or Blizzard, and seeing if we could get an official comment on that. Give them an opportunity to get one-up on NCSoft.
Maybe a public chastising by their peers might show that us protesters have a valid point to be made. Would Blizzard, Bioware or Funcom surrender a profitable MMO with an incredibly close community? Would they sunset it without any work to their loyal fans and customers? Do they think that any other game out there offers the flexibility that City of Heroes does? Do they think that the closure of CoX might represent an open place in the market to design products for?
Those are the kinds of the questions we want to ask. To illustrate the mis-step that's been taken by NCSoft.
I hope this idea has some merit. I really just want to save our city.
~HAZARD
Quote from: Hazard on September 21, 2012, 06:21:06 PM
So, like many I'm angered by the announcement that CoX will be closed.
While I can appreciate how difficult it might be to pull the plug on an MMO, CoX really strikes me as a unique product. Something that had it's own portion of the market.
I understand that negotiations direction with NCSoft seem to result in silence. However, I thought it might be worthwhile to see what other companies have to say.
We could attempt talking to Funcom, Bioware or Blizzard, and seeing if we could get an official comment on that. Give them an opportunity to get one-up on NCSoft.
Maybe a public chastising by their peers might show that us protesters have a valid point to be made. Would Blizzard, Bioware or Funcom surrender a profitable MMO with an incredibly close community? Would they sunset it without any work to their loyal fans and customers? Do they think that any other game out there offers the flexibility that City of Heroes does? Do they think that the closure of CoX might represent an open place in the market to design products for?
Those are the kinds of the questions we want to ask. To illustrate the mis-step that's been taken by NCSoft.
I hope this idea has some merit. I really just want to save our city.
~HAZARD
I recall SoE said something, but cannot recall what now.
Quote from: downix on September 21, 2012, 06:24:35 PM
I recall SoE said something, but cannot recall what now.
SoE very specifically said (paraphrased), "Whoever said we were looking into acquiring CoH was full of it. We're not interested."
Quote from: eabrace on September 21, 2012, 07:07:57 PM
SoE very specifically said (paraphrased), "Whoever said we were looking into acquiring CoH was full of it. We're not interested."
Thank god. I'd rather have EA running this thing than SOE. And
that says something. :P
Quote from: DrakeGrimm on September 21, 2012, 07:22:29 PM
Thank god. I'd rather have EA running this thing than SOE. And that says something. :P
I dunno, lately they seem to be doing more things right than wrong (edit: SOE that is).
Funcom laid off half their worldwide staff. Not sure that indicates they're in the market for a new property.
Quote from: dwturducken on September 21, 2012, 08:29:51 PM
Funcom laid off half their worldwide staff. Not sure that indicates they're in the market for a new property.
Funcom has too many resources tied into TSW right now to be looking at another IP. I just really hope TSW doesn't fail, too. :(
I have pressure from my Friday night group to try SW, as a couple of them were in the closed Beta. Given the company lay-offs, the general downward trend in MMO subscribership, and now the CoH debacle, I'm not committing a monthly subscription fee to someone else's MMO.
Quote from: dwturducken on September 21, 2012, 08:37:16 PM
I have pressure from my Friday night group to try SW, as a couple of them were in the closed Beta. Given the company lay-offs, the general downward trend in MMO subscribership, and now the CoH debacle, I'm not committing a monthly subscription fee to someone else's MMO.
At least play the 3-day trial? Pretty please?
Quote from: DrakeGrimm on September 21, 2012, 08:34:03 PM
Funcom has too many resources tied into TSW right now to be looking at another IP. I just really hope TSW doesn't fail, too. :(
I wanted to like TSW. I really did. It's looking like my next stop if things fall through here. And I sincerely do believe that Funcom wouldn't be a half-bad publisher for CoH.
It saddens me to say, but given what I read on the Nexon stock report, MMOs -- unless they are using a free to play business model - - are likely a thing of the past. They didn't come out and say it, but my "reading between the lines" made me think that MMOs are going to be extinct soon, at least for most companies.
Of course, I could be wrong - it certainly wouldn't be the first time or last time. (and I hope I am!)
I've contacted Aeria and Blizzard.
Aeria said they are aware of the situation but at this time they can't.
Blizzard said they read their forums so get people to post on their forums in the games, gaming and hardware section and they'll see. So if alot of people don't post, they know it's not that popular and they won't concider it. If you have a blizzard account post! Please! Make a new thread, call it anything you want just do it and link it to everyone you know.
My fince contacted Valve, no word back from them but they would be good too.
Oh, and Phosphor but no word from them either.
What about Turbine? They've kept Asheron's Call alive (with updates) forever. If Brian's deal falls through, they might be a great backup plan.
Quote from: Victoria Victrix on September 22, 2012, 02:13:30 AM
What about Turbine? They've kept Asheron's Call alive (with updates) forever. If Brian's deal falls through, they might be a great backup plan.
I hadn't thought of AC's old developer. But, yeah, they know how to keep a venerable franchise alive.
Quote from: Vulpy on September 22, 2012, 02:23:22 AM
I hadn't thought of AC's old developer. But, yeah, they know how to keep a venerable franchise alive.
They've also done exceptionally well with the F2P concept with DDO.
Well if anyone has any contacts with Turbine...it can't hurt to approach them. While I HIGHLY doubt we could crowdfund a million dollars, we might be able to crowdfund something to help them to buy it.
Hmmmn. I played DDO quite a bit for a while. The thought of trusting that particular band of developers with CoH is not a happy-making thought. But any port in a storm, I guess.
Quote from: The_Hunter_JLJ on September 22, 2012, 05:02:46 AM
Hmmmn. I played DDO quite a bit for a while. The thought of trusting that particular band of developers with CoH is not a happy-making thought. But any port in a storm, I guess.
Remember: as long as we have AE/MA, we are not constrained by their updates (or lack of them). We can make our own awesome arcs. That's something no other MMORPG has in the arsenal.
And yes, I will. Even though sometimes I have gone outside and deliberately smashed crockery after wrestling with Dr Aeon's Machiavellian and stubborn creation for
hours.
Quote from: Victoria Victrix on September 22, 2012, 05:08:22 AM
Remember: as long as we have AE/MA, we are not constrained by their updates (or lack of them). We can make our own awesome arcs. That's something no other MMORPG has in the arsenal.
And yes, I will. Even though sometimes I have gone outside and deliberately smashed crockery after wrestling with Dr Aeon's Machiavellian and stubborn creation for hours.
True as far as it goes. BUT... DDO especially at the upper levels and the overly-vaunted "endgame" is a raid-fest, pure and simple. Which to some people is what MMOs are all about, and quite clearly the devoted fans of DDO think that's just fine. More power to 'em. Just not where I think CoH should be headed, as I said rather strenuously in the official forums when the iTrials first started becoming public.
My other complaint about the Turbine development team is they have no qualms at all about blithely redesigning major system elements with very little care for how disruptive their new introductions are going to be. Think of upheavals on the order of E.D. every issue or so.
I'm an old D&D player from WAY back, and still have an active campaign, albeit in an online shared creative writing format now rather than traditional tabletop. But I finally just couldn't take the constant rules churn any more. You just plain didn' t know from one update to another whether your existing character was going to continue to be viable or need a complete redesign from the ground up. Fine for the rules lawyers and the min-max crowd, kind of irritating if you tried to work the history, capabilities, and achievements of your character into a coherent roleplaying background.
Quote from: Victoria Victrix on September 22, 2012, 05:08:22 AM
Remember: as long as we have AE/MA, we are not constrained by their updates (or lack of them). We can make our own awesome arcs. That's something no other MMORPG has in the arsenal.
And yes, I will. Even though sometimes I have gone outside and deliberately smashed crockery after wrestling with Dr Aeon's Machiavellian and stubborn creation for hours.
...the horrible truth...AE is Dr Aeon's final horrible weapon against heroes--and villains--everywhere. ;)
Quote from: DrakeGrimm on September 22, 2012, 05:35:58 AM
...the horrible truth...AE is Dr Aeon's final horrible weapon against heroes--and villains--everywhere. ;)
I've seen the theory that AE killed CoH, if that's what you're referring to. The truth I think is a little more complicated. AE had its problems, but the bigger problem was it didn't go far enough. But that's a topic for another time and another thread.
No, I was mostly just making a joke about how big a pain in the butt AE is to work with, from a creative stand point. :P
Quote from: The_Hunter_JLJ on September 22, 2012, 05:19:07 AM
BUT... DDO especially at the upper levels and the overly-vaunted "endgame" is a raid-fest, pure and simple.
Speaking as a Master Mechanic trapmonkey who prefers to solo as much as possible: I can't say you're entirely wrong. But that's gotten much better with the Menace of the Underdark expansion. And I get enough Turbine Points every month to allow me to fill out my party with hirelings when I'm solo before I go tromping around in dungeons. The hireling AI leaves something to be desired, and I'm not saying the game is perfect, but it's made some improvements recently.
Meh. My real problem is with the entire industry, I guess. I was one of the many hard-core gamers who foresaw computers becoming a big gaming platform clear back in the late 80s with early efforts like Island of Kesmai. Even tried to pull together a game of my own, but that's another story.
My problem is that NONE of the games on the market even try to come close to what we were doing with a bag of dice, a pile of books, and a notebook 30 plus years ago. They're all for the most part stuck in the "kill 10 rats, get thru the levelling as quick as possible, and then do endless pointless raids" model. CoH is one of the few which DIDN'T go that way for the longest time. Most of the MMOs out there deserve the "RPG" because the players put it in DESPITE the design, not because of it.
Some day one of them is going to realize all the other possibilties inherent in the idea of a true RPG. I don't think it's any coincidence that you're seeing a resurgence of popularity of "pen and paper" RP games at the same time the interest in MMOs seems to be waning.
MMO design has stagnated pretty much since WoW came to dominate the market. Paragon Studios was just damn near the only design shop left that was innovating, and even they were only nibbling around the edges. But... not really relevant. I don't have a hundred million and a design shop of my own to do it right, and with people conditioned by the whole raid end-game folderol not sure a real role-playing world would even sell now. Sorry for the threadjack, carry on.
Just a note: pen-and-paper RPGs are still out there. I'm an avid pnp gamer, myself, though I do most of my gaming online via IRC, it's just using the chat as a medium for the role playing. It runs otherwise as it would at a table.
MMOs are a different sort of beast. They are in the "hack and slash" mindset because it's an easy one to program. Innovation "around the edges" is precisely what is needed to erode the barriers to changing that paradigm. Because enough nibbling at the edges will eventually lead to something that really works and will be the starting point of the next big sweep of ways of doing things.
(shrug) I still both play and run pen and paper games. Could do way more of them if there were more hours in the day. As I've tried to explain to my group of players, I just can't spend every waking hour of every weekend playing or gamesmastering, much as they'd like me to. Online games are a LOT more convenient, even if they aren't anywhere near as interesting or satisfying.
I think that the only reason MMOs are considered a different beast is that is how they've been implemented. There's a market *begging* for an MMO version of exactly what good PnP games supply - a growing, evolving, changing world where the players can have real input into what happens. Instead what we get over and over is the same old "kill 10 rats" games with increasingly sophisticated graphics and a light layering of story and dialog. Oh, and I suppose in fairness it's worth mentioning things like Second Life where there's NO structure and you can do anything you want, but that's taking things too far in another direction.
MMOs could be SO much more, and they don't even have to figure out WHAT that "more" might be. They simply need to look at what the designers and gamesmasters of traditional RP games have been doing for over 30 years and follow their lead. AND learn that not being able to foresee all ends is part of what makes a real role-playing experience so interesting.
Paragon Studios was making some steps in that direction, which is why they were still getting two subs from me *despite* making some design decisions I deplored. I thought adding "raids" into CoH was a huge mistake, forever altering the flavor of the game and taking it in exactly the wrong direction, and said so quite vociferously in the feedback threads at the time. Their new dynamic view of the world through the eyes of the current team leader was a huge if far too limited step in the right direction. Sadly, we'll never know now if they intended to keep pushing toward a dynamic, changeable world or not.
Oh yeah... and why are we talking about this in this thread anyway? I forget. (grin)
...I miss pen and paper games...
Working on one in parallel with this post, actually. Well, instead of a pen I'm using a keyboard, and instead of paper I'm using googledocs, but you get the idea.
Well, this isn't the right thread for it, so I'll make this my last post about it in this thread...
But in the spirit of "saving CoH," establishing some space for people to run CoH-style games online might not be a bad idea. Examination of what we are allowed to use from the character creator once Nov. 30 rolls past may be required, but if you really want to explore making an online thing wherein pen-and-paper levels of play can be done, making a sort of "actor's studio" thing that doesn't directly utilize CoH properties other than the character models of player-made characters might not be a bad starting place for some aspect of that "plan Z" people talk about.
I suggest starting a new thread on this if people really want to discuss it further; I don't have solid enough ideas to formulate an opening post thereof, and I really should get to bed before I am unable to get up in time for church in the morning, so I won't start said thread myself. Not tonight, anyway.
We could use your thoughts, both in terms of overall game design goals, and in the specifics of what CoH did/didn't do well related to PnP games, roleplaying, etc. Check out the forum section labeled "City Sunset" (not entirely accurately) and see if you want to help Plan Z get a solid start with your input on these matters.
I'll try to make time to stop in one of these days.
Quote from: Scott Jackson on September 23, 2012, 06:59:52 AM
We could use your thoughts, both in terms of overall game design goals, and in the specifics of what CoH did/didn't do well related to PnP games, roleplaying, etc. Check out the forum section labeled "City Sunset" (not entirely accurately) and see if you want to help Plan Z get a solid start with your input on these matters.
Are you talking here, or the official forums? I am not finding a "City Sunset" section here, unless I just don't have access or something. I coulda sworn I'd seen that section here at some point.
Quote from: The_Hunter_JLJ on September 23, 2012, 06:15:53 PM
Are you talking here, or the official forums? I am not finding a "City Sunset" section here, unless I just don't have access or something. I coulda sworn I'd seen that section here at some point.
here: http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/board,138.0.html
Houston, we have a problem.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3JyUcNZYr_EVVhWaWp0UktDRnc/edit
Well, I have
a problem, but it's because I'm at work right now and not at home.
QuoteThe proxy server is refusing connections
Firefox is configured to use a proxy server that is refusing connections.
I might have to wait until I get home tonight see what the problem you're referring to is. :)
It's because somebody assigned you Bug Hunter as a primary group, and primary groups determine which boards you can and can't see...
Quote from: Codewalker on September 23, 2012, 08:06:09 PM
It's because somebody assigned you Bug Hunter as a primary group, and primary groups determine which boards you can and can't see...
(grin) There's a certain irony in that, and I was guessing it was something along those lines. Thanks much for the fix, I can see it again now.
Is it worth sending NC Soft's PR agency copies of the articles/comic strips/Facebook groups/Twitter noise/copy of Tim's video?
Maybe if we can convince their PR agency that this is a very bad thing NC Soft are doing, they might be able to talk NC Soft into realising they need to do /something/ to address the issue. (Ideally, in our favour, but on the other hand, I suppose it could also swing them into mitigation mode and they could find a way to spin it to make us look like raving crazies.) I'm pretty sure it's not good for business to have the unofficial title of the MMO killer. Especially when you're publishing MMOs.
I realise they probably have a cuttings agency, but if most of our noise is online, is it even remotely possible they haven't simply haven't realised the scope of the outcry, and the PR disaster this could be for them?
..probably not. I dunno. Anyone? VV seems to be the authority on these things :)
http://www.hkstrategies.com/NCsoft_West_Selects_Hill_Knowlton_Strategies_as_Agency_of_Record
Quote from: rae on September 25, 2012, 05:28:40 PM
Is it worth sending NC Soft's PR agency copies of the articles/comic strips/Facebook groups/Twitter noise/copy of Tim's video?
Maybe if we can convince their PR agency that this is a very bad thing NC Soft are doing, they might be able to talk NC Soft into realising they need to do /something/ to address the issue. (Ideally, in our favour, but on the other hand, I suppose it could also swing them into mitigation mode and they could find a way to spin it to make us look like raving crazies.) I'm pretty sure it's not good for business to have the unofficial title of the MMO killer. Especially when you're publishing MMOs.
I realise they probably have a cuttings agency, but if most of our noise is online, is it even remotely possible they haven't simply haven't realised the scope of the outcry, and the PR disaster this could be for them?
..probably not. I dunno. Anyone? VV seems to be the authority on these things :)
http://www.hkstrategies.com/NCsoft_West_Selects_Hill_Knowlton_Strategies_as_Agency_of_Record
Maybe in addition to asking "is it worth" to send...we can ask, "Would it hurt?" :)
I say go for it! But I'm just one voice. :)
I may well do so :) I'll hang fire in case someone comes forward saying it's a bad idea, though. I'm nothing if not indecisive :D
My guess would be this:
We don't want to pressure NCSoft directly so much that they get defensive.
However, their PR agency presumably has a lot of experience in handling them. And frankly, I want their PR agency to get hysterical, and realize--as NCSoft apparently has not--that this is going to taint NCSoft games from now on among anything other than the power-gamer-play-for-a-month-PL-everything-and-move-on set.
So my personal opinion would be...yes. Start deluging the PR firm.
OK. I'm gonna collect as many of the 'Save' articles as I can, screenshots from the Twitter/FB campaigns, the gamespeopleplay comic, the front page of the petition and attach them to an email, as well as link them to Tim's video and I'll send it off to the PR company so they realise the interest the campaign has been given. The email I sent to NC Soft at the sunset email address (has ANYONE had a response, by the way?) focused mostly on the bad PR they were getting, so it should be easy enough to edit for this purpose.
I'll send it as one email it off to them today, so at least that base has been covered, but I don't piss them off so badly that they go into 'spin' mode and are unhelpful.
I know it's unlikely the PR company aren't aware of it, but you never know. And..well, I bet they get paid an arseload of money, and they should be doing /something/ to earn it. If the PR company hadn't picked up on this for some reason, then at least we'll know they know all about it, and will hopefully have kittens and talk to NC Soft, and maybe make them realise they are being considered 'toxic' by gamers.
If they do know about it already and they're just in their bunker, well..I guess nothing changes, except for the fact that we know for sure that their PR agency knows, but are also ignoring us, and their massive PR problem.
ETA: And done.