Not sure if this was posted, but big old shout out to us: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12/13/the-think-tank-whats-your-solution-to-save-closing-mmos/ (http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12/13/the-think-tank-whats-your-solution-to-save-closing-mmos/)
...All those people posting "Move on, let it go, you should not get that attached to a game" have never went through a shutdown themselves.
One day, their favorite MMO will be in the crosshairs. They'll find that stimulating, I bet.
Quote from: Illusionss on December 14, 2012, 03:40:29 AM
...All those people posting "Move on, let it go, you should not get that attached to a game" have never went through a shutdown themselves.
One day, their favorite MMO will be in the crosshairs. They'll find that stimulating, I bet.
That, or they churn through games like potato chips, never having savored something so satisfying.
"...the fire rises...!" 8)
Somebody please explain to Beau, there, that NCsoft weren't the "artists" who had the "right" to shut down "their creation". CoH was created by Cryptic Studios and developed in recent years by Paragon Studios. Period. The fact that NCsoft funded the process is irrelevant. If they'd made the game using a bag of D.B. Cooper's money that they found in the woods, would that make D.B. Cooper the creator of City of Heroes?
Right with you, Copper.
I'll repeat my fine arts metaphor. Buying a Vermeer gives you the right to exhibit it, charge money for it, the duty to protect it. It doesn't give you the right to say you painted it, or to throw it into a fireplace.
That gave me the urge to make the first Massively Multiplayer Renaissance Art-based Online RPG.
But...
I don't have the Monet.
:3
Quote from: Kistulot on December 14, 2012, 04:27:15 AM
That gave me the urge to make the first Massively Multiplayer Renaissance Art-based Online RPG.
But...
I don't have the Monet.
:3
...you're going to hell for that pun.
It's all about the Richard Benjamins?
The bittersweet thing about what happened to CoH and SWG is that it brought to public attention the fact that the current MMO business model may be broken and that multiplayer games are inherently ephemeral. You can always reread your favorite book, watch a movie again or revisit a single player game (even if the hardware to run it does not exist anymore or is hard to come by, there are still emulators available and no one seems to object to their existence1). But your stay in an MMO is only temporary and that holds true both for shiny new and popular games as well as for older and more niche products. Now that some titles are shutting their doors for good, a few of them prematurely, concerns will grow. Only good things can come out of this.
[1] - In fact vendors such as gog.com made a business out of selling old DOS games bundled with DOSBox.
Agreed. I resisted getting involved with MMOs for exactly that reason. I enjoy retrogaming. The look of a game is secondary to that undefinable fun factor, so I keep all sorts of PC classics on hand. Coin-op emulators too. This so-called "abandonware" is now de-facto Public Domain. The cycle for electronic art is simply faster than for other arts, because everything in the electronics world changes fast!
Technology costs continue to shrink with each new generation, and today's overpriced graphics card is in tomorrow's recycling bin. I expect servers are growing less expensive, so why not release a game into public domain once it's definitely reached the end of its profitability cycle? There's no point in hanging onto an economically exhausted game, and you win customer goodwill. The gamers will pay for the new server time... everyone wins.
Granted some of those games may have some life left in 'em, like Asheron's Call. Certainly CoH does.
Quote from: Copper Cockroach on December 14, 2012, 04:07:51 AM
Somebody please explain to Beau, there, that NCsoft weren't the "artists" who had the "right" to shut down "their creation". CoH was created by Cryptic Studios and developed in recent years by Paragon Studios. Period. The fact that NCsoft funded the process is irrelevant. If they'd made the game using a bag of D.B. Cooper's money that they found in the woods, would that make D.B. Cooper the creator of City of Heroes?
It could be argued with some truth that our characters in any given MMO are "art work" very carefully created, honed and crafted by us, and not the company in question. Closing an MMO destroys artwork rightfully belonging to the players.
Makes sense to me, if they want to go down the "hands off someone else's art!" road. NCSoftheaded destroyed my artz. I R dizgruntled.
Quote from: Illusionss on December 14, 2012, 07:08:25 AM
It could be argued with some truth that our characters in any given MMO are "art work" very carefully created, honed and crafted by us, and not the company in question. Closing an MMO destroys artwork rightfully belonging to the players.
Makes sense to me, if they want to go down the "hands off someone else's art!" road. NCSoftheaded destroyed my artz. I R dizgruntled.
Except when a EULA or something similar-looking tells you right from login that anything you create is the property of NCSoft. :/ I think someone said that the EULA we had in CoH wasn't legal enough, but it besting the argument "they are stealing my art" if it even holds.
Quote from: Kistulot on December 14, 2012, 04:27:15 AM
That gave me the urge to make the first Massively Multiplayer Renaissance Art-based Online RPG.
But...
I don't have the Monet.
:3
*sniff*
That was beautiful :)
My "acceptance" of a EULA because I have to "accept" it to play, and my belief that it is actually correct, morally or legally are two different things. We didn't destroy their game, but they sure destroyed all our work - thousands of hours, a lot of in-game and real world currency, a lot of purple and otherwise valuable recipes and all.
Destroying something very carefully made by someone else, with care and attention to detail, as well as aesthetic pleasingness is destroying art in my book. I do not love them (NCSoft) for it and I never will, and I am tired of being expected to kowtow in their general direction despite that, it so I think I will take a break from these boards for a bit. Peace.
Quote from: Mister Bison on December 14, 2012, 07:20:28 AM
Except when a EULA or something similar-looking tells you right from login that anything you create is the property of NCSoft. :/ I think someone said that the EULA we had in CoH wasn't legal enough, but it besting the argument "they are stealing my art" if it even holds.
Actually it has been said that EULA can be challenged, not that this particular EULA is not legal. But the legality of EULAs is always a little fuzzy. It helps to see them as part contract and part wishlist, with the emphasis on the latter. Just because something is mentioned there, doesn't make it legally binding by default (although companies would like everyone to believe it is). It just gives their legal teams an argument that you knew what you were getting into when you clicked that Accept button. The court, in case an EULA is challenged, doesn't necessarily have to share that point of view.
One thing that occurred to me for future MMO shutdowns: why not leave the player with the ability to do something, no matter how limited, with their characters offline? Give the players the ability to retain something of the characters they put their time and effort into.
Using CoH as an example, had NCSoft done what Codewalker has accomplished on his own with the character creator and client, it wouldn't have left us with quite as much ill will (assuming, of course, we could access our old characters). Throw in something like Outbreak or similar limited zone done purely offline, and it might have helped stave off some of the sense of loss, allowing players to retain something after the doors closed on the servers.
I'm no lawyer. However, contracts like the EULA can be overturned by a judge, provided the judge decides a contract is "unconscionable." I've personally seen that.
And I think the argument that CoH, over the term of its existence, transcended commercial art to become something more valuable, might hold up, if it came to that.
You guys do know that a Korean court has determined that in-game items that require work to earn or real money to buy are all worth real money, don't you?
http://moremoney.blogs.money.cnn.com/2010/01/22/play-money-is-real-money-says-high-court/ (http://moremoney.blogs.money.cnn.com/2010/01/22/play-money-is-real-money-says-high-court/)
That I did not know!
Quote from: therain93 on December 14, 2012, 03:11:20 AM
Not sure if this was posted, but big old shout out to us: http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12/13/the-think-tank-whats-your-solution-to-save-closing-mmos/ (http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/12/13/the-think-tank-whats-your-solution-to-save-closing-mmos/)
Thanks for posting this article. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one thinking this issue is complex. I'm glad also (assuming I'm inferring correctly) that this issue in general is being considered by the industry.
Quote from: Victoria Victrix on December 14, 2012, 11:53:25 AM
You guys do know that a Korean court has determined that in-game items that require work to earn or real money to buy are all worth real money, don't you?
http://moremoney.blogs.money.cnn.com/2010/01/22/play-money-is-real-money-says-high-court/ (http://moremoney.blogs.money.cnn.com/2010/01/22/play-money-is-real-money-says-high-court/)
Hmmm.... this would implicate, that NCSoft robbed us from assets (costume bundles, power sets etc.) we bought with paragon points, that were payed for with real money.
Quote from: Globetrotter on December 14, 2012, 06:08:21 PM
Hmmm.... this would implicate, that NCSoft robbed us from assets (costume bundles, power sets etc.) we bought with paragon points, that were payed for with real money.
That's the ruling by the Korean court in a nutshell.
Quote from: Kistulot on December 14, 2012, 04:27:15 AM
That gave me the urge to make the first Massively Multiplayer Renaissance Art-based Online RPG.
But...
I don't have the Monet.
:3
I liked that!
But then, I'm young and Impressionist.
From the article: "I believe that it is always up to the artists (or publisher or the group that holds the rights) to do what they want with their art ... We don't support most censorship, like the alteration of books or movies. This should be no different."
Two words: Architect Entertainment.
Besides, once someone decides to make their art commercially available, they are giving up some of their right to control it. If I buy a painting or a poster or a music CD or a novel or a movie or a board game, or even if I get one for free in some (legal) way, and the person who created it later decides that they don't want its contents to be publicly available, I have no obligation to destroy or sell it, because it is now my property. I'm not a legal expert by any stretch of the imagination, but don't we, as purchasers of a video game, have just as much right to continue to make use of the software we've purchased?
Obviously I have no more right to insist that NCSoft continue to run servers than I would to insist that videocassette manufacturers continue to sell VCRs. But I have a lot of trouble seeing any way that the idea that "MMO players have no rights to the software or setting once the publisher decides to stop supporting the game" is any more acceptable than the idea that "board game players have no rights to the components or rules once the publisher decides to stop manufacturing the game".
It's like going to the Pottery Barn, paying for a mug or plate or what have you and painting it and firing it, etc, etc only to be told that you can't keep it.
Quote from: Kistulot on December 14, 2012, 04:27:15 AM
That gave me the urge to make the first Massively Multiplayer Renaissance Art-based Online RPG.
But...
I don't have the Monet.
:3
Don't get Lippi with me.
For the love of Christo, Escher are being silly! You are all hitting a Homer with your wit!
Quote from: Mister Bison on December 14, 2012, 07:20:28 AM
Except when a EULA or something similar-looking tells you right from login that anything you create is the property of NCSoft. :/ I think someone said that the EULA we had in CoH wasn't legal enough, but it besting the argument "they are stealing my art" if it even holds.
Actually the EULA specifies that we own what we make, because if they did not then it would be unenforceable due to US federal copyright laws.
And, throwing this onto the other foot, I have an EULA here for every game I play which by selling me the game the gaming company automatically accepts as part of the purchase. I send them a copy by mail of course and their allowing me to access their online services is automatic acceptance of my EULA which specifies that it superscedes any EULA by them.
Quote from: healix on December 15, 2012, 03:19:15 AM
For the love of Christo, Escher are being silly! You are all hitting a Homer with your wit!
I fail to see your Pointillism.
Now please, can you lend me some gas so I can make my Van Gogh?
Quote from: downix on December 15, 2012, 03:20:31 AM
And, throwing this onto the other foot, I have an EULA here for every game I play which by selling me the game the gaming company automatically accepts as part of the purchase. I send them a copy by mail of course and their allowing me to access their online services is automatic acceptance of my EULA which specifies that it superscedes any EULA by them.
That's...absolutely hysterical! ;D I swear if a case involving a tactic such as yours ever comes to court, I'd
pay to watch that trial!
"The Defendant has no rights, he accepted our EULA."
"What about his EULA that he sent to you, and that you tacitly accepted?"
"...
What?!"
Oh dear gods, the entire software industry might have a heart attack.
...Pass the popcorn.
Soooo... is there lawsuit in the works? Sounds like some people have a case and genuine feeling of getting ripped off.
Now, for the OP:
There are several solutions. You could of course run the game at a loss, which would make little sense from a business standing. You could authorize private servers, even limited servers able to run only a dozen players, easy to do. You could open the source. You could modify the game to run as a standalone. You could switch it to a P2P architecture and then the players would be the servers.
Lots of options.
Quote from: Triplash on December 15, 2012, 03:31:29 AM
I fail to see your Pointillism.
Now please, can you lend me some gas so I can make my Van Gogh?
Hey - If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it!
This seems like a good place for a Nihilist joke, but I just don't care.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwce0rY5RIk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwce0rY5RIk)
Heck, the cheapest thing that even a corpse corporation could do is just release the game to the wild and wait for the internet to make its own emulator. If the internet's combined potential can't do it, then it wasn't meant to be.
Quote from: therain93 on December 14, 2012, 03:46:17 AM
That, or they churn through games like potato chips, never having savored something so satisfying.
Eventually this problem is gonna happen with cloud computing to single player games. What happens when eventually Steam closes down? Etc. As it is, the end user has almost no rights, where as the platform creator has basically all the rights. And this sentiment enables that.
So people going "Lol, it's just a game, move on with your life" are eventually waiting for this problem to come to bite them someday, somewhere in the future.
Quote from: Osborn on December 15, 2012, 11:57:41 PM
So people going "Lol, it's just a game, move on with your life" are eventually waiting for this problem to come to bite them someday, somewhere in the future.
Yup. and when it happens to them, they will scream, rant, and toss blame around, asking why something wasn't done to prevent it earlier.
Quote from: corvus1970 on December 16, 2012, 12:02:33 AM
Yup. and when it happens to them, they will scream, rant, and toss blame around, asking why something wasn't done to prevent it earlier.
Heck, I'll be honest, I feel bad for not really knowing about the whole thing with Tabula Rasa when that happened.
Yeah I hear you. It was one of those times where I shrugged and didn't give it a second thought.
However, I didn't say "Oh deal. Its just a game" either.
Quote from: Victoria Victrix on December 15, 2012, 11:50:40 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwce0rY5RIk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lwce0rY5RIk)
I would be very happy with an old museum in cyberspace, where we could still admire (play) OUR old Picasso.
Quote from: Osborn on December 16, 2012, 12:08:00 AM
Heck, I'll be honest, I feel bad for not really knowing about the whole thing with Tabula Rasa when that happened.
I feel REALLY bad. I did do my initial part though, I bought a box AND an open Beta.
I did know about the Garriott debacle. I had no idea exactly what happened though. None of the blogs I read at the time gave the facts, they just did Lord British jokes.
I have to admit, despite knowing who Lord British was thru friends who played Ultima games, to not knowing a damned thing about TR. Gues I'm always late to the party.
Quote from: Illusionss on December 14, 2012, 03:40:29 AM
...All those people posting "Move on, let it go, you should not get that attached to a game" have never went through a shutdown themselves.
It's disturbing that there's so many people on Massively (and elsewhere on MMO gaming sites) who have this transient mentality towards MMOs that smacks of Brave New World's approach to an economy. It's like they expect people to completely forget about an MMO once it's a few years old, or the exact moment when a publisher announces they're closing the game.
"It's just a game, let it go, stop whining! Now go play the latest new shiny!"
Upset as I was with NCSoft killing off Tabula Rasa and Exteel, I thought a lot of the smug snarking from the peanut gallery during both their closures was due to each game's short life and relatively small market share compared to the venerable big boys of the scene (of which I considered City of Heroes one).
But when they behaved the same way toward City of Heroes and its playerbase when NCSoft brought out the axe, well. Not even World of Warcraft will be safe from their smugness if it closes down.
A lot of them have been whining about Massively covering City of Heroes disproportionately, even though the editor(s) responsible for covering CoH have put out the same amount of articles per month during CoH's final months as they did in the months prior.
Quote from: Perfidus on December 16, 2012, 03:43:37 AM
I did know about the Garriott debacle. I had no idea exactly what happened though. None of the blogs I read at the time gave the facts, they just did Lord British jokes.
Honestly, after I found out about Garriott's lawsuit ... the way NCSoft made it look like he decided to skip on out of game development to pursue space tourism with that resignation letter they wrote "for" him feels a
lot like character assassination. Encouraging the gaming press to portray him as a space-smitten loon.
Quote from: Little David on December 17, 2012, 08:43:39 PM
But when they behaved the same way toward City of Heroes and its playerbase when NCSoft brought out the axe, well. Not even World of Warcraft will be safe from their smugness if it closes down.
Agreed. Is is indeed disturbing, and its evidence of several issues I have with our society: Increasing self-imposed isolation, Increasing selfishness, Easy distractability, and a pervasive disposable mentality. Granted, the internet does indeed enable certain personality types to be more snarky, harsh, and rude in general, but You would indeed think that fellow gamers would be a little more supportive.
Personally I've stayed away from most commentary that I wasn't directed to via posts here on Titan. Thoughtless, selfish crap like that will get me irritated in a hurry, and I'd rather avoid that nose as much as possible.
Quote from: Illusionss on December 14, 2012, 03:40:29 AM
...All those people posting "Move on, let it go, you should not get that attached to a game" have never went through a shutdown themselves.
One day, their favorite MMO will be in the crosshairs. They'll find that stimulating, I bet.
Ya know, I was watching the latest episode of the "The Middle" and it struck a chord with the gamer in me, about what we lost and what some of us are trying to do going forward. The background is that older brother spoils the ending of the book series the younger brother was reading for almost his entire life. See the two hulu links in my signature for how it played out.
Never forget there are professional trolls out there. This is literally all they do--come in with comment designed to make trouble, stir things up, start flamewars and denigrate others.
Quote from: Victoria Victrix on December 18, 2012, 02:17:19 AM
Never forget there are professional unicorns out there. This is literally all they do--come in with comment designed to make trouble, stir things up, start flamewars and denigrate others.
In other words, agent provocateurs for hire?
Quote from: Quinch on December 18, 2012, 03:49:18 AM
In other words, agent provocateurs for hire?
Actually no. Just maladjusted malcontents who aren't happy unless they think they have made someone else unhappy. A strange sort of avocation if you ask me, but it is an adrenaline high, and these folks are addicted to drama and adrenaline (and Mountain Dew and CheezyPuffs).
Yup, and they are filled with keyboard courage!
Quote from: Victoria Victrix on December 18, 2012, 02:17:19 AM
Never forget there are professional unicorns out there. This is literally all they do--come in with comment designed to make trouble, stir things up, start flamewars and denigrate others.
Members of the Local 1337
when it comes to the unicorns
(https://i.imgur.com/qC86R.gif)
I agree. Furthermore, I feel that the pejorative "poo poo head" and its near-cousin, "poopyhead", is an insult that is used far too little in this jaded age we live in ;)
Quote from: Victoria Victrix on December 18, 2012, 04:31:34 AM
Actually no. Just maladjusted malcontents who aren't happy unless they think they have made someone else unhappy. A strange sort of avocation if you ask me, but it is an adrenaline high, and these folks are addicted to drama and adrenaline (and Mountain Dew and CheezyPuffs).
Oh, so professional grade, not as in actually doing that for a living. Gotcha.
Well it seems to me that in this current generation of video gamers who simply don't own games for the long term. They go the warz route or they rent them or they buy used and trade in when done. Few have a library of their favorites piled up next to their PC or console. Also due to the online nature of a lot of games, ones with limited or poor single player support, they play what's popular and when their RL or online friends move on they do as well.
MMOs are strange beasts since you don't "beat" them. Plus early on a number have subscription fees over the cost of the game itself. It would be like hitting the bowling alley every day after school to play with your friends rather than tossing around a football or Frisbee.
So to them all games are temporary, fleeting things. Things you beat and move on. It's not surprising that to many, attachment to one game and it's player base seems odd. "Why don't you all just go onto the next game?" "Aren't they all the same?" "Why would you want to be Captain Underpants when you could be Batman's lackey or play Iron Man?" Sadly these sentiments have more to do with lack of imagination and the willingness to stand out in a crowd than simply being a unicorn.
Quote from: FatherXmas on December 18, 2012, 08:09:26 PM
Well it seems to me that in this current generation of video gamers who simply don't own games for the long term. They go the warz route or they rent them or they buy used and trade in when done. Few have a library of their favorites piled up next to their PC or console. Also due to the online nature of a lot of games, ones with limited or poor single player support, they play what's popular and when their RL or online friends move on they do as well.
MMOs are strange beasts since you don't "beat" them. Plus early on a number have subscription fees over the cost of the game itself. It would be like hitting the bowling alley every day after school to play with your friends rather than tossing around a football or Frisbee.
So to them all games are temporary, fleeting things. Things you beat and move on. It's not surprising that to many, attachment to one game and it's player base seems odd. "Why don't you all just go onto the next game?" "Aren't they all the same?" "Why would you want to be Captain Underpants when you could be Batman's lackey or play Iron Man?" Sadly these sentiments have more to do with lack of imagination and the willingness to stand out in a crowd than simply being a unicorn.
never really thought of it in that manner but very good point.
Now that you mention it, I noticed this mentality in many things outside of games. Everything from computers, to phones, to social sites, cars, hang out spots, marriage, jobs, even books.
But people get attached to different things and some things that people are not attached to is viewed as an alien thing ot be attached to. Like some people are attached to stamps and cant understand why people dont care about if a particular stamp is discontinued or not, but that stamp collector dont understand how people can get attached to games just as some gamers dont understand why someone would be attached emotionally to a stamp when they can just buy another one. Same priniciple just different media. Some Porsche owners were upset when Porche switched to watercooled in mid-90s while many other Porsche owners and non-Porsche owners didnt see what the big fuss was about. Although the reaction was stil lthe same for people that didnt understand. "Why don't you all just go onto the next Prosche." "Aren't they all the same?" "Why would you want an air-cooled Porsche when you could have an updated new Porsche?"
To the outsider or people that are not attached and or just dont understand those quoted reactions are righteous because to them it's trivial matter. To the person that is attached to them it's no trivial matter.
I try to keep this in mind before asking why anyone is attached to anything because what I am attached to is probably alien to someone and they are probably thinking the same thing about what I find important. Treat others as you would like to be treated. I dont want people trivilizing what I'm attached to and saying it's stupid, thus I dont do it to others regardless of how trivial it seems even if they have a thing for a particular type of soil which I may view as dirt is still dirt. Also one of the reasons I cant bring myself to down or try to sabatoge other games out of spite even if it is ran by a company that I dont care for in particular. Those players, even if enjoying a game for a company that I would give two craps about if they sink, probably have about as much if not more in some cases as people have an attachement to COX.