Titan Network

Not entirely sure I put this in the right place, but we'll see if it gets moved.

I saw this today:

http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/16193/20130326/wildstar-mmo-gameplay-preview-player-housing-revealed.htm

My favourite line:

"Of course, following last year's high-profile shuttering of "City of Heroes", the involvement of NCSoft seems to be invoking almost as much fear of abandonment as it is hope for commercial success on/after the "WildStar" release date."

We ARE being heard. Keep shouting.

i thought that was a nice little tidbit that they added on, definitely seemed as a shout-out to our efforts

The involvement of NCSoft is what is keeping me away.  WildStar looks like it could be a lot of fun, but I simply cannot trust NCSoft.

It is the callous treatment of Paragon Studios and the players that has made up my mind.

It's not about fear of abandonment; it's about NCSoft taking the ball and going home because they don't want to play anymore.

I see Quinch and Captain-Electric posted a couple of really good comments right at the top.  I wish Carbine Studios all the best, I really do.  I just hope that they're able to get away from NCsoft before NCsoft is able to kill off Wildstar.

Keep the pressure on them.  The know their handling of our community was way too heavy handed.  Who am I kidding here.  Just plain wrong.  As an active player in one of their other mmos, I can tell you they are quite aware and quite concerned about what the players are saying as the latest licensing agreement suggests.  If you're curious, check out the latest one for gw2.  It was published last night.

Quote from: wing8872 on March 27, 2013, 11:19:01 PM
Keep the pressure on them.  The know their handling of our community was way too heavy handed.  Who am I kidding here.  Just plain wrong.  As an active player in one of their other mmos, I can tell you they are quite aware and quite concerned about what the players are saying as the latest licensing agreement suggests.  If you're curious, check out the latest one for gw2.  It was published last night.

If they think this publicity is fun, wait until we have either a working legal community server that doesn't use their IP or one of the Plan Z's comes out and we get publicity over those.  Then the real fun will begin.  :)

I've left my comments on that site as well.

Anything to help the cause ....  ;)

Left a comment and here is the latest Guild wars 2 licensing agreement:

http://guildwars2.pl/guild_wars_2_eula,a643

Yes, they want to stop all reverse engineering. Too late! This new agreement basically shows CoH is wide open.

Quote from: Ironwolf on March 28, 2013, 10:32:31 AM
Yes, they want to stop all reverse engineering. Too late! This new agreement basically shows CoH is wide open.

Not to put more fuel under the dead horse-"reverse engineering" hot air baloon, but since the only thing that prevented us from reverse-engineering the game was CoH's EULA, which was arguably unenforceable before (since they would need to prove you, and only you clicked on the "I agree" button), but is no more enforceable now since the service is terminated, can't we legally reverse-engineer it now ? Or was there a "even in the event of closure of the service, whatever the cause" clause to the "Please don't RE" term ?

The new agreement is worded to stop people from creating their own servers.

Now the fun thing is Lineage 2 has tons of unofficial servers and might afford us a toe hold on building a CoH one. If they allow Lineage 2 servers to exist outside of the realms of Officialdom, then CoH is simply upholding a tradition started by Lineage 2.

If you do a simple Google/Dogpile/Bing on Lineage 2 private servers, you will find literally HUNDREDS of unofficial servers for Lineage. I am beginning to think we are foolishly far too worried that NCSoft will even care if we have a CoH server.

Quote from: Ironwolf on March 28, 2013, 01:26:16 PM
The new agreement is worded to stop people from creating their own servers.

Now the fun thing is Lineage 2 has tons of unofficial servers and might afford us a toe hold on building a CoH one. If they allow Lineage 2 servers to exist outside of the realms of Officialdom, then CoH is simply upholding a tradition started by Lineage 2.

If you do a simple Google/Dogpile/Bing on Lineage 2 private servers, you will find literally HUNDREDS of unofficial servers for Lineage. I am beginning to think we are foolishly far too worried that NCSoft will even care if we have a CoH server.

Yeah but don't think the lineage people antagonized them like post coh  people rightfully so or not
But also there have been cases that ncsoft have attacked and had private servers shutdown. They might they might not but as long as its kept quiet and not trying to rub their nose in it will probably be beneath their notice

Quote from: JaguarX on March 28, 2013, 03:43:40 PM
Yeah but don't think the lineage people antagonized them like post coh  people rightfully so or not
But also there have been cases that ncsoft have attacked and had private servers shutdown. They might they might not but as long as its kept quiet and not trying to rub their nose in it will probably be beneath their notice

Lineage 2 is still going, so there's not going to be any hostility of that magnitude. Perhaps if it were marked for shutdown out of the blue, things would get ugly. but being that NCSoft is both developer and publisher and the Lineage franchise is their foundation,  that's highly unlikely.

I still feel NCSoft was vigilant on cutting down private servers for Tabula Rasa because they were bitter about the Garriott incidents and the resulting negative media attention. I would expect just as much for CoH.

Exteel supposedly has functional private servers and people are trying to develop private servers for Dungeon Runners and Auto Assault. I don't know how closure of those games was taken but I'm assuming they weren't as vocal of defiant as TR and CoH players so they've been able to stay under the radar.

I wonder if there are still surviving private servers for Tabula Rasa. It could be possible that there's a guy that knows a guy that knows a guy but unfortunately I know no guys ><. But if anyone does know a guy... drop me a line?

Quote from: Xieveral on March 28, 2013, 08:39:16 PM
Lineage 2 is still going, so there's not going to be any hostility of that magnitude. Perhaps if it were marked for shutdown out of the blue, things would get ugly. but being that NCSoft is both developer and publisher and the Lineage franchise is their foundation,  that's highly unlikely.

I still feel NCSoft was vigilant on cutting down private servers for Tabula Rasa because they were bitter about the Garriott incidents and the resulting negative media attention. I would expect just as much for CoH.

Exteel supposedly has functional private servers and people are trying to develop private servers for Dungeon Runners and Auto Assault. I don't know how closure of those games was taken but I'm assuming they weren't as vocal of defiant as TR and CoH players so they've been able to stay under the radar.

I wonder if there are still surviving private servers for Tabula Rasa. It could be possible that there's a guy that knows a guy that knows a guy but unfortunately I know no guys ><. But if anyone does know a guy... drop me a line?

I didn't try the game although I had thought about it and then the game was suddenly being shut down. I guess now I'm happy I didn't because I'd probably be just as sad for losing it too. If a private server does exist now though, I wouldn't mind the opportunity to play.

Quote from: Xieveral on March 28, 2013, 08:39:16 PM
Exteel supposedly has functional private servers and people are trying to develop private servers for Dungeon Runners and Auto Assault. I don't know how closure of those games was taken but I'm assuming they weren't as vocal of defiant as TR and CoH players so they've been able to stay under the radar.

Speaking for myself, there was some serious annoyance when Auto Assault was canned, but, at the same time, it was pretty much expected.

The whole thing was mismanaged, at least all the way back to the closed beta (when I got involved).  This could have been due to NetDevil having to deal with NCSoft, creating the perception of an MPD-like management atmosphere.  What ever the case, between that, and some of the boneheaded things I experienced in the early CoH days -- for example, receiving my invite to the beta ONE DAY before it closed; that bugged the heck out of me -- my confidence wasn't that great that the game would take off to begin with.  So, when the plug was pulled just a little over a year after it was released, I was irritated, but not surprised.

All of this, plus the ridiculous email fiasco ("We're closing your game, but we like your money, so please try these other ones we publish instead!"), made me re-think any involvement with NCSoft-published games.  Yes, I even gave up on City of Heroes, briefly.  That most of my friends were still on it brought me back, though, and, yeah, I missed it.  Plus, I'd put a lot of work into my characters, and that proved just too much to walk away from.  I was already invested.

I can now safely say that I will never invest time, money or energy into an NCSoft product again.  This isn't out of some protest, boycott, or dangling a carrot that they might get my piddly $160-some a year back if they bring my games back.  This is because, when you're burned enough times by a business, you realize that this isn't a fluke or a bad break, but a repeating pattern, and a normal business practice for them.  You realize they just aren't worth doing business with, and just stop doing business with them.

So, back to your original point, no, the protests were nowhere near this big nor vocal when Auto Assault was shut down.  But it certainly does make the more recent events affect one's decision-making all the more deeply.   And it makes me all the more glad to hear these acknowledgements of "caveat emptor" when discussing the latest shiny new thing NCSoft dangles in front of everyone, with hopes that their memory spans are short.  Losing the work I put into Auto Assault was aggravating; losing everything I put into City of Heroes was downright brutal.  Anyone who puts that kind of energy into a game needs to know that NCSoft doesn't cater to them.  Their way of going business has proven that.

Apologies for rambling.  Long time lurker, finally posting.  Guess I needed to air my brain out a bit, and mentioning Auto Assault's closure sort of opened it all up.  Carry on. :)

Whyaylooh, you're in good company and that was well-said.

You know, if I'd come across someone who was boycotting NCSoft during the time I was a City of Heroes player, I'd have probably put up some kind of defense for NCSoft. That just popped into my head when reading your post. (And I'm typing it out without really examining what it says or means; not in the mood to think about it.)

Regardless of what it means, though; once a customer has been screwed, and if they dive back in and get invested, you know...that's all on them. I know some former CoHers who are doing that. But what do you say? Nothing. This is the kind of thing you can't teach people if they won't learn. Be a friend and listen to them gripe when it happens to them again.

Well, one thing about Auto Assault was that IIRC, the game was not that old when it was shut down. People had not had the time to get deeply invested in the game's world, so the shut down was less brutal.

Now us, we had time to get all comfy and secure in the knowledge that CoX would continue for a long time into the future. HAHA joke was on us!

I find digitaltime's caveat regarding NCSoft very amusing. I bet NCStupid finds it a lot less so. BOO. HOO. HOO.

QuoteJaguar: Yeah but don't think the lineage people antagonized them like post coh  people rightfully so or not
But also there have been cases that ncsoft have attacked and had private servers shutdown. They might they might not but as long as its kept quiet and not trying to rub their nose in it will probably be beneath their notice

The fact is that no one knows what they will do, until after the fact. I'd think they have far larger fish to fry, like cracking the inscrutible Chinese market and doing something - anything - to try to stabilize their flailing stock prices. But maybe they will devote everything to shutting an emulator down! That'll be great, they should do that. It would add yet more LUSTRE to their shining reputations as a friendly organization whose sole mission is to spread happiness around the globe. /endsarcasm

A problem for them will be FINDING the emu in the first place, I'd think.

Quote from: Illusionss on March 29, 2013, 04:53:27 PM
The fact is that no one knows what they will do, until after the fact.
A problem for them will be FINDING the emu in the first place, I'd think.

basically.

It looks like the comments section has attracted some objections.

I seem to recall a board member called JustMe, but I'm not sure.

Cult mentality?  I guess I missed that memo while Agge and I were chasing the anti-NCsoft posts out of the Wildstar and GW2 threads.

Quote from: eabrace on March 31, 2013, 04:11:50 PM
Cult mentality?  I guess I missed that memo while Agge and I were chasing the anti-NCsoft posts out of the Wildstar and GW2 threads.

That was my thoughts.

I was one of the anti-GW2 posters, but I've mellowed :)

Yes, this "JustMe" twit is spewing a lot of bile over there.  If he's not actually a paid shill, he's an idiot with a grudge against CoH or it's players, for whatever doubtless pathetic reason.  I imagine he's probably a 14-year-old living in his parents' basement who thinks he's very hip and cool, but I'll put together a post later to debunk his ramblings.

Why?

Allow our way of dealing with this compared to his. He rants against us and we are saying a simple thing NCSoft has no long term interest in their players. All they want is the money and that is fair enough - we are just warning players against that very fact.

I hear you, but it galls me to allow blatant slander to just go unchallenged.  It's letting the other side make a case without making ours.  Not that the above posts before his weren't very welcome and well-stated, but we do seem to have some persistent haters here and there who keep bringing up some points that I just don't think should go unanswered and not rebutted.

Quote from: JanessaVR on March 31, 2013, 11:11:35 PM
I hear you, but it galls me to allow blatant slander to just go unchallenged.  It's letting the other side make a case without making ours.  Not that the above posts before his weren't very welcome and well-stated, but we do seem to have some persistent haters here and there who keep bringing up some points that I just don't think should go unanswered and not rebutted.

Bringing yourself down to the level of people like JustMe would be counterproductive.

He or she has their own agenda here, and I don't think getting involved will benefit us in any way.

Let's just carry on trying to get CoH back up and running.

Well, I'll grant that you have a point about not feeding trolls.  Success is ultimately the best revenge.  I'm inclined to bookmark that page, however, for when we achieve such success as I am a card-carrying Vengeful Bitch (TM).   :)

Quote from: Cobra Man on April 01, 2013, 02:35:15 AM
Bringing yourself down to the level of people like JustMe would be counterproductive.

He or she has their own agenda here, and I don't think getting involved will benefit us in any way.

Let's just carry on trying to get CoH back up and running.

I agree. People like that are just like those random comments on YouTube, telling the "Tuber" to remove all of their videos within "X" amount of hours or they'll contact YouTube, and get them to do it. They're reasoning is that the videos are "against Christian values" or claiming that they negatively influence their children to the point that they can't be controlled. They're so full of it, that it's almost funny to read.

Bottom line is that they don't do any harm and it's just best if they're ignored.

Quote from: LT. Couper on April 01, 2013, 03:04:42 AM
I agree. People like that are just like those random comments on YouTube, telling the "Tuber" to remove all of their videos within "X" amount of hours or they'll contact YouTube, and get them to do it. They're reasoning is that the videos are "against Christian values" or claiming that they negatively influence their children to the point that they can't be controlled. They're so full of it, that it's almost funny to read.

Bottom line is that they don't do any harm and it's just best if they're ignored.

+1.

As they say we all are entitled to our opinion. They can have it. Some people feed off attention and response. If people give to them, the only one that wins is them. If they dont like COH or the players, that is fine with me and just as well for those that love COH. No amount of getting on their case or yelling at them "You're wrong!" and etc about what they think will change their mind. If anything it will only cause them to validate their belief and use it as an example of why the dislike. Especially on another website that is not here.  Plus we seen it already people will think what they think and express what they think just to express what they think.

Not to mention maybe they have a reason to be upset at COH. Maybe their experience wasnt great with the people or didnt like the game or various bad experience. Maybe sometimes it's best to either see what the underlying cause is or not and not jump to conclusions just because the evidence of why is not on the surface shining as bright as a light bulb in a dark room. Perception to the human is reality and each person have different perception. Hell, sometimes I even have to remind myself that.

I agree with Tony.  We are feeling hurt by losing our game, but PS folks are hurting and some may have or come close to losing their REAL homes.  I wish the best for carbine and Anet.  My hatred of NCSoft aside, lets hope they learned from us and wont pull the rug out from under these studios.  Too much personal  (financial) blood has been shed from their previous actions. 

Quote from: JanessaVR on March 31, 2013, 11:11:35 PM
I hear you, but it galls me to allow blatant slander to just go unchallenged.  It's letting the other side make a case without making ours.  Not that the above posts before his weren't very welcome and well-stated, but we do seem to have some persistent haters here and there who keep bringing up some points that I just don't think should go unanswered and not rebutted.

I believe the line is "don't wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig enjoys it".

Quote from: Minotaur on April 01, 2013, 10:10:17 AM
I believe the line is "don't wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig enjoys it".

Alternately: "Arguing with an engineer is like mud wrestling with a pig..." :)

I couldn't resist. I have no willpower this early!

http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/16193/20130326/wildstar-mmo-gameplay-preview-player-housing-revealed.htm#comment-848480549
(Give the page a few seconds to load up and it will move you down to my comment.)

I'm sticking with the shill angle because I've always suspected their use by publishers even before one of EA's was exposed and another one fessed up about their ubiquitousness in the industry. I think it's as real a possibility as it being someone like BurntToast.

Which is why I also suspect it could be BurntToast. That guy has become, like, the perfect super villain--the kind who believes in the hate and destruction he sews.

I found BurntToast quite smart and likable. But when he threw the racism blanket over our entire community, which is quite diverse, I ran out of understanding. Nevertheless, I've always wondered who all he was sending PMs to here. I feel like if you'd have done something besides completely ignore his pleas, he could have been brought into that kibun blind alley and helped keep you from looking like average American tourists...a reputation you briefly gave all of us, because that's how this sort of thing works.

Racism? No. I don't think so. And I love everyone here. But when you tried to appeal to NCSoft through some of South Korea's most sensitive cultural pressure-points...it was Tsoooo weird and awkward to watch ya'll do that. Like, 1990s weird and awkward. And there's a reason why no one ever talks about the 90s.

(It's because the 90s were really weird and awkward.)

But anyway...I don't blame him for getting upset. I DO blame him for building a crusade around what I think he knows, deep down, was just one of many (bad) ideas that got kicked around these forums at that time. And I DO blame anyone here who poked fun at him or disregarded him while simultaneously appearing to be asking for input about South Korean culture from anyone who had any facts about it. Yes he was second generation but he knew more than anyone else at that time.

A mess could have been avoided. That guy has worked his tail off for months, all over the Internet, to color this community in a very dark fashion.

Eh, he's one guy. We have bigger fish to fry.

Over-sensitivity is a big problem, and it wont serve him well in life. If someone was on a message board going off about how my ancestors the Vikings are still a baby-pillaging, coastline-ravaging, church-burning, boat-rowin', battleaxe-wielding bunch of Eurotrash rapists, I would not go on an internet rampage lasting months about it. I'd just give 'em the side-eye, laugh and go about my business. That level of sensitivity strikes me as almost unbalanced.

This is the Internet. Be ready to roll with the punches. Besides, I dont see a groundswell of support for him, I see one lone guy boo-hooing in a comment section. He's dismissable.

Quote from: Captain Electric on April 01, 2013, 01:37:37 PM
I couldn't resist. I have no willpower this early!

http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/16193/20130326/wildstar-mmo-gameplay-preview-player-housing-revealed.htm#comment-848480549
(Give the page a few seconds to load up and it will move you down to my comment.)

I'm sticking with the shill angle because I've always suspected their use by publishers even before one of EA's was exposed and another one fessed up about their ubiquitousness in the industry. I think it's as real a possibility as it being someone like BurntToast.

Which is why I also suspect it could be BurntToast. That guy has become, like, the perfect super villain--the kind who believes in the hate and destruction he sews.

I found BurntToast quite smart and likable. But when he threw the racism blanket over our entire community, which is quite diverse, I ran out of understanding. Nevertheless, I've always wondered who all he was sending PMs to here. I feel like if you'd have done something besides completely ignore his pleas, he could have been brought into that kibun blind alley and helped keep you from looking like average American tourists...a reputation you briefly gave all of us, because that's how this sort of thing works.

Racism? No. I don't think so. And I love everyone here. But when you tried to appeal to NCSoft through some of South Korea's most sensitive cultural pressure-points...it was Tsoooo weird and awkward to watch ya'll do that. Like, 1990s weird and awkward. And there's a reason why no one ever talks about the 90s.

(It's because the 90s were really weird and awkward.)

But anyway...I don't blame him for getting upset. I DO blame him for building a crusade around what I think he knows, deep down, was just one of many (bad) ideas that got kicked around these forums at that time. And I DO blame anyone here who poked fun at him or disregarded him while simultaneously appearing to be asking for input about South Korean culture from anyone who had any facts about it. Yes he was second generation but he knew more than anyone else at that time.

A mess could have been avoided. That guy has worked his tail off for months, all over the Internet, to color this community in a very dark fashion.

I dont know. The way the comment look, it could be any one of the people that stormed off or never been here in the first place.

I seen more than a couple of people say stuff like this.

But I think it's correct as stated i na few above comments that I dont think there is a big anti-titan following.


There is a saying that if you dont have any haters that means you are doing somethign terriblely wrong. Everything great have it's detractors. Microsoft, there are some people that rant all day and night about Mr. Gates being Illuminati and the anti-christ and etc, same for Steve Jobs (RIP his soul), just about every MMO game and company out there, Facebook, Myspace, life in general, rich people poor people, politicians, religious people, non-religious people, BMW drivers, Chevy drivers, Porche drivers, Yaris drivers, Hummer drivers, Captain Electric. They all have their group of people that hate on them. It means they are doing something proper.

While at least since I been here, a few people abandoned ship, I dont see a mass movement or unless I'm wrong about that and correct me. A few people left, yes, but that is normal. Some people left angry, some people left due to lack of time, and some people left after losing hope while others just left because they could. It's the nature of the beast. And there is nobetter place to rant and rave and acta plum fool than the internet. No one knows who you are and you can be dozen of people at the same time. Maybe it's Toast maybe not, but unless he changed modus operandi, which is very possible, he usually use some variation of Toast something, which even then there is no gurantee it's him. I still believe in innocent until proven guilty even on the internet.


What we need to do is to find a way to get 8 more haters by June. But in the end, let them hate. That is their job. Let the haters do their job. It's free advertising especially when they rant and rave because coming off as a raving lunatic regardless of how valid the point, kills the point on the internet these days and people probably will come here to either see if the raving madman is right or to gather evidence that the madman is wrong and use it against him. Although thank goodness all that racial(culture ignorance or what ever title is assigned) stuff been dealt with swiftly. There have been some cases where even I got a little nervous. But I dont think it defines the entire community as a whole but on the flip side, I seen that same logic when applied ot other games. Like WoW, known as griefer city and an unfriendly place when majority of the community are no such thing and those are due the actions of the relative few. I aint perfect either on that front either and try my damn hardest to understand that and look at it from that point of view. We dont want negative generalizations made about us so I try not to do it to other things.

On a side note, I aint going to lie about my perception. In the beginning there seemed to be a few people that had that "with us or against us" mentality here but more so from both sides on the old forum but I think it died down a bit and basically ceased once things got clear. But that being the image of the entire community? Come on man, no.

Quote from: eabrace on March 31, 2013, 04:11:50 PM
Cult mentality?  I guess I missed that memo while Agge and I were chasing the anti-NCsoft posts out of the Wildstar and GW2 threads.

Actually, I thought you handled it well.

Quote from: JanessaVR on March 31, 2013, 09:40:00 PM
Yes, this "JustMe" twit is spewing a lot of bile over there.  If he's not actually a paid shill, he's an idiot with a grudge against CoH or it's players, for whatever doubtless pathetic reason.  I imagine he's probably a 14-year-old living in his parents' basement who thinks he's very hip and cool, but I'll put together a post later to debunk his ramblings.

This would be extremelly counter productive.  I know you have decided against it already but replying to his post just makes us look worse.  I hate to say it Captain Electric, but all you did prove his point.  We aren't a cult mentality but one of the biggest anti-Titan things I have heard is "If you say anything they don't agree with then you are a unicorn" in which case one person from a our community speaking for them self not as a whole goes out and calls them a unicorn.  JustMe isn't some 14 year old in his basment that is exactly what he was talking about, that sometimes we can just cover ears and go LALALALA when people try to point out our flaws, which everyone has.  The best thing to do is ignore him, or better yet.  Listen to him.  If 1000 people keep saying the same thing there is likely some truth in it and by accepting that we may actually be doing that, we can start fixing it.  We need as many people as we can get.  I love the CohTitan Community.  It is a beautiful group of hardworking, honest people that achieve things like moving people across the country.  But the truth remains, I have seen this "With us or a unicorn" attitude in other places on the web being linked to CoHTitan

QuoteBut I think it's correct as stated i na few above comments that I dont think there is a big anti-titan following.

You would be rather shocked at how big it is actually.  The difference is that we are organized with a goal, they are just a group of people that are tired of hearing and seeing us.
The entire group of people I started the game with 8 years at launch.  Can't stand CoHtitan.  I have friends in real life who I tried directing to this site for support, they weren't impressed.  The entire SG and global channel I was on in CoH ranging from about 150-200 people all are anti-Titan.  And they aren't trolls or paid bashers by NCSoft.  Their compliant is the same as everyone else's.  Clearly I don't agree with them or I wouldn't be here.  But they are out there.  I do my best to tell them that the opinions of a few on the site don't express the entire goal of Titan but it makes no difference.

P.S. Before I become the "unicorn" keep in mind that is excatly what people are talking about.  I just point this out because I think it is a rather easy fix.  The first two comments on that page were great.  No fuss or muss, just the facts that NCSoft is a bad publisher.  But, Captain Electric.  Your post was never deleted.  It was just moved for some strange reason.  So NCSoft is not paying them to remove comments. 

Quote from: Taceus Jiwede on April 01, 2013, 09:40:58 PM
This would be extremelly counter productive.  I know you have decided against it already but replying to his post just makes us look worse.  I hate to say it Captain Electric, but all you did prove his point.  We aren't a cult mentality but one of the biggest anti-Titan things I have heard is "If you say anything they don't agree with then you are a unicorn" in which case one person from a our community speaking for them self not as a whole goes out and calls them a unicorn.  JustMe isn't some 14 year old in his basment that is exactly what he was talking about, that sometimes we can just cover ears and go LALALALA when people try to point out our flaws, which everyone has.  The best thing to do is ignore him, or better yet.  Listen to him.  If 1000 people keep saying the same thing there is likely some truth in it and by accepting that we may actually be doing that, we can start fixing it.  We need as many people as we can get.  I love the CohTitan Community.  It is a beautiful group of hardworking, honest people that achieve things like moving people across the country.  But the truth remains, I have seen this "With us or a unicorn" attitude in other places on the web being linked to CoHTitan.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that.  He didn't say anything I thought worth listening to - there was nothing I would call constructive in his post, just "I'm totally fine with the way NCSoft handled CoH and treated its players, I'm giving them more money, and you guys suck!"  So, no, I'm not going to listen to that.  However, Cobra Man, Dylan Clearbrook and Captain-Electric have handled the situation to my satisfaction, so my bothering to rebut his posts is unnecessary.

Quote from: JanessaVR on April 01, 2013, 09:54:24 PM
We'll have to agree to disagree on that.  He didn't say anything I thought worth listening to - there was nothing I would call constructive in his post, just "I'm totally fine with the way NCSoft handled CoH and treated its players, I'm giving them more money, and you guys suck!"  So, no, I'm not going to listen to that.  However, Cobra Man, Dylan Clearbrook and Captain-Electric have handled the situation to my satisfaction, so my bothering to rebut his posts is unnecessary.

I agree he took very lightly for a person who played CoH for 8 years.  Most of his post wasn't all the constructive.  But I am not speaking of just his post this time.  I was more so speaking about how he said something we didn't agree with, and we felt it was necessary to get back on and tell him how wrong he is when in reality its not a "right or wrong" situation.  I am not saying we should take his "NCsoft is peachy" approach.  I am saying we can't tell him he is wrong for thinking that him self.  If he wants to support a publisher that will screw him then he can, not everyone considers NCSoft to be the devil and CoH to be god.  Some people just flat don't care and we have to accept that.  We can't tell them they are wrong and to get on the NCSoft hate train.

I know apathy is just as bad, but we honestly can not change their minds.  There is no reason to try it just makes us look bad and like we will fight anyone who says something we don't completely agree with.  I think its a good idea to keep posting that NCSoft is a bad publisher.  But if someone starts disagreeing then there is no reason to fight them over it.  I just know when a lot have people have come to me personally in life and say "You always do this and bothers me and other people"  I dont accuse them of being a unicorn.  I think "Maybe they are on to something" and do some soul searching to resolve this issue.  Everyone and everything has their flaws, the greatest flaw of all though is not accepting this and working to improve them.  CoHTitan is great and I am not saying it is completely flawed or anything like that.  But I have seen the mentality people speak of on other websites.  If you tell a person they are wrong, they will do everything in their power to prove they are right.  Even if they don't completely agree with what they are saying, people will take on new opinions even just out of spite for the person who told them they were wrong.

Quote from: Taceus Jiwede on April 01, 2013, 09:40:58 PM
This would be extremelly counter productive.  I know you have decided against it already but replying to his post just makes us look worse.  I hate to say it Captain Elect:ric, but all you did prove his point.  We aren't a cult mentality but one of the biggest anti-Titan things I have heard is "If you say anything they don't agree with then you are a unicorn" in which case one person from a our community speaking for them self not as a whole goes out and calls them a unicorn.  JustMe isn't some 14 year old in his basment that is exactly what he was talking about, that sometimes we can just cover ears and go LALALALA when people try to point out our flaws, which everyone has.  The best thing to do is ignore him, or better yet.  Listen to him.  If 1000 people keep saying the same thing there is likely some truth in it and by accepting that we may actually be doing that, we can start fixing it.  We need as many people as we can get.  I love the CohTitan Community.  It is a beautiful group of hardworking, honest people that achieve things like moving people across the country.  But the truth remains, I have seen this "With us or a unicorn" attitude in other places on the web being linked to CoHTitan
  You would be rather shocked at how big it is actually.  The difference is that we are organized with a goal, they are just a group of people that are tired of hearing and seeing us.
The entire group of people I started the game with 8 years at launch.  Can't stand CoHtitan.  I have friends in real life who I tried directing to this site for support, they weren't impressed.  The entire SG and global channel I was on in CoH ranging from about 150-200 people all are anti-Titan.  And they aren't unicorns or paid bashers by NCSoft.  Their compliant is the same as everyone else's.  Clearly I don't agree with them or I wouldn't be here.  But they are out there.  I do my best to tell them that the opinions of a few on the site don't express the entire goal of Titan but it makes no difference.

P.S. Before I become the "unicorn" keep in mind that is excatly what people are talking about.  I just point this out because I think it is a rather easy fix.  The first two comments on that page were great.  No fuss or muss, just the facts that NCSoft is a bad publisher.  But, Captain Electric.  Your post was never deleted.  It was just moved for some strange reason.  So NCSoft is not paying them to remove comments.

Good point

Quote from: Taceus Jiwede on April 01, 2013, 09:40:58 PM
  You would be rather shocked at how big it is actually.  The difference is that we are organized with a goal, they are just a group of people that are tired of hearing and seeing us.
The entire group of people I started the game with 8 years at launch.  Can't stand CoHtitan.  I have friends in real life who I tried directing to this site for support, they weren't impressed.  The entire SG and global channel I was on in CoH ranging from about 150-200 people all are anti-Titan.  And they aren't unicorns or paid bashers by NCSoft.  Their compliant is the same as everyone else's.  Clearly I don't agree with them or I wouldn't be here.  But they are out there.  I do my best to tell them that the opinions of a few on the site don't express the entire goal of Titan but it makes no difference.

P.S. Before I become the "unicorn" keep in mind that is excatly what people are talking about.  I just point this out because I think it is a rather easy fix.  The first two comments on that page were great.  No fuss or muss, just the facts that NCSoft is a bad publisher.  But, Captain Electric.  Your post was never deleted.  It was just moved for some strange reason.  So NCSoft is not paying them to remove comments.

Well in my case I won't support anything from NCSoft and when friends try to ask that I play a game by them I give them what happened to CoH and its done. I don't suggest their games and I do everything on the street level/word of mouth to get people to stay away. Apparently, on behind the scenes PMs etc on Titan, there are people who label me a hate filled vile villain for that. So I certainly don't blame people for being anti-Titan and personally, its my belief that the best method for showing NCSoft the error of their decistion is being a customer lost forever even if that causes collateral damage to Arenanet or Carbine. Does that suck for them? It does and I sympahtise with them but the MMORPG market is very competitive and sometimes a little thing like that can hold sales down a few %. Should Arenanet or Carbine fall under different management down the road I'd have to look at their product more seriously.

My issue is simply with the management of the game City of Heroes and those of the other games they just closed without batting an eye.

I played almost every day from 5am to 7am EST and 9:30pm to 11ish - for 8+ years.

I bought their expansions, costume packs, superpacks and damn near every possible thing there was to have. I had all the powers except Street Justice (just didn't like it) and all my time, money and friends in the game were flushed without a thought in a so long and thanks for the fish moment.

I had just bought the freaking power they released - what a week before they announced shutdown?

So no, I do not trust NCSoft to have the interest of their players regarded in any way. Don't get me wrong - the Devs did indeed and that is why we cared and bought them dinner. However in my book if you are going to run a business about games, you ought to bloody well play them. I would require all my executives to play a minimum of 2 hours a day - each day a different game.

KNOW YOUR OWN PRODUCTS. They have no clue and so have lost out on a gaming community that has the Devs of different games saying CoH should have never been closed as it was a wonderful game.

QuoteThere is a saying that if you dont have any haters that means you are doing somethign terriblely wrong. Everything great have it's detractors.

Yep, pretty much.

With that said, anywhere you go on the internet, people are disagreeing. I go to news articles where an attempt to save a horribly-abused pet is being discussed, guess what in the comment section, there are people who dont agree with helping abused animals. Or children. Any concept you can name, you have some people against it. So the idea that there are people against rebooting CoX, or against Plan Z, no shocks there.

But just like they dont care whan we want, the fact that they want the game dead and they view Plan Z as stupid: I dont care about that. It is irrelevant to my interests.

I spent six years in-game and I never encountered any anti-Titan sentiment in the SGs I was involved in, nor did I see any in public chat. I'm sure it was there, but it was hardly everywhere.

I meant post close.  Titan was and still is any CoHers best friend.  That is why I hate to see it get a bad rep, when in actually the Titan community is a hub of many different people.  But the people who don't come here or didn't stick around long enough don't see it and just make conclusions based on the comment boards of other websites.

QuoteThere is a saying that if you dont have any haters that means you are doing somethign terriblely wrong. Everything great have it's detractors.

There is a lot of truth in that.  And while haters will just be haters.  Some people who aren't haters become haters after being accused of being a hater. 

Quote from: Taceus Jiwede on April 02, 2013, 05:01:25 AM
And while haters will just be haters.  Some people who aren't haters become haters after being accused of being a hater.

Truth. And that is a reason why the label probably shouldn't be thrown around in a liberal (non-politic definition) manner.

:)


Many people have sent me PMs... I simply respond to them - to answer one of your questions.


Contrary to what some may think - I have not "worked my tail off" to color Titan in any manner. If I see an article and happen to think the comment sections are biased and full of suppositions I simply call that out.


I stop by Titan every now and then to read a little information and see if anything here has changed....that is the extent of my involvement with Titan. I post once every few months here as well; especially if/when my name happens to come up. While I am not a fan of Titan...I will always be a fan of City Of Heroes; remember I played from Issue 3 until the lights went out (2 VIP accounts):) CoH was/is the only game I have ever played for more than a week. My CoH community left the game on November 30th...and moved on to other games (most of them to GW2) but I basically have given up on MMOs.


As far as the kibun mishap - I "spoke" to roughly 12-15 people; many who were directly involved in it...and begged them to discontinue...only to be disregarded and/or ridiculed. The Kibun was one of many reasons I left Titan...but not the only reason.

Quote from: Captain Electric on April 01, 2013, 01:37:37 PM
I couldn't resist. I have no willpower this early!

http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/16193/20130326/wildstar-mmo-gameplay-preview-player-housing-revealed.htm#comment-848480549 (http://www.idigitaltimes.com/articles/16193/20130326/wildstar-mmo-gameplay-preview-player-housing-revealed.htm#comment-848480549)
(Give the page a few seconds to load up and it will move you down to my comment.)

I'm sticking with the shill angle because I've always suspected their use by publishers even before one of EA's was exposed and another one fessed up about their ubiquitousness in the industry. I think it's as real a possibility as it being someone like BurntToast.

Which is why I also suspect it could be BurntToast. That guy has become, like, the perfect super villain--the kind who believes in the hate and destruction he sews.

I found BurntToast quite smart and likable. But when he threw the racism blanket over our entire community, which is quite diverse, I ran out of understanding. Nevertheless, I've always wondered who all he was sending PMs to here. I feel like if you'd have done something besides completely ignore his pleas, he could have been brought into that kibun blind alley and helped keep you from looking like average American tourists...a reputation you briefly gave all of us, because that's how this sort of thing works.

Racism? No. I don't think so. And I love everyone here. But when you tried to appeal to NCSoft through some of South Korea's most sensitive cultural pressure-points...it was Tsoooo weird and awkward to watch ya'll do that. Like, 1990s weird and awkward. And there's a reason why no one ever talks about the 90s.

(It's because the 90s were really weird and awkward.)

But anyway...I don't blame him for getting upset. I DO blame him for building a crusade around what I think he knows, deep down, was just one of many (bad) ideas that got kicked around these forums at that time. And I DO blame anyone here who poked fun at him or disregarded him while simultaneously appearing to be asking for input about South Korean culture from anyone who had any facts about it. Yes he was second generation but he knew more than anyone else at that time.

A mess could have been avoided. That guy has worked his tail off for months, all over the Internet, to color this community in a very dark fashion.

Burnt toast is actually the kind of people I am speaking of.  That is a CoH lover that we don't have on our side and it shouldn't be that way.  I am sure a lot of people are getting tired of me being the devils advocate a lot of the time but I truly think we can bring back a lot of people with an easy fix.  Simply listen to people like Burnt Toast.  I have to agree the kibun thing I found rather racist but it wasn't enough to make me leave Titan because it wasn't Titans post so much a post on Titan.  I say we ask Burnt Toast what made him leave, even though he kind of answered that already, and then try and work on it.  There is no shame in saying "Oh maybe I do, do that sometimes"  Ill admit I can be a pain in the butt and tend to be a little over opinionated at times and often get into arguments with the "same side" but its because I think we can do better.  Burnt Toast isn't a unicorn or some paid CoH basher by NCSoft.  He is a person who felt that when he spoke his opinion didn't matter. He is also a CoH fan which is why we are all here.  I feel the "With us or a unicorn" attitude truly needs to go.  This isn't a game or a "war" as some people have made into.  This is a struggle to bring back our game and we are loosing numbers.

However I would like to point out that the "With us or a troll" attitude is a bit of an illusion taken on by some people.  While I have seen that attitude, I have frequently disagreed with people on this forum and have never been called a troll so I do know its not entirely true.  But it has happened in the past. 

Quote from: Taceus Jiwede on April 02, 2013, 07:59:11 PM
Burnt toast is actually the kind of people I am speaking of.  That is a CoH lover that we don't have on our side and it shouldn't be that way.  I am sure a lot of people are getting tired of me being the devils advocate a lot of the time but I truly think we can bring back a lot of people with an easy fix.  Simply listen to people like Burnt Toast.  I have to agree the kibun thing I found rather racist but it wasn't enough to make me leave Titan because it wasn't Titans post so much a post on Titan.  I say we ask Burnt Toast what made him leave, even though he kind of answered that already, and then try and work on it.  There is no shame in saying "Oh maybe I do, do that sometimes"  Ill admit I can be a pain in the butt and tend to be a little over opinionated at times and often get into arguments with the "same side" but its because I think we can do better.  Burnt Toast isn't a unicorn or some paid CoH basher by NCSoft.  He is a person who felt that when he spoke his opinion didn't matter. He is also a CoH fan which is why we are all here.  I feel the "With us or a unicorn" attitude truly needs to go.  This isn't a game or a "war" as some people have made into.  This is a struggle to bring back our game and we are loosing numbers.

However I would like to point out that the "With us or a unicorn" attitude is a bit of an illusion taken on by some people.  While I have seen that attitude, I have frequently disagreed with people on this forum and have never been called a unicorn so I do know its not entirely true.  But it has happened in the past.

+10 this.

I more than a little ashamed to have been a part of the kibun movement when it first started, but I bugged out when I saw it getting out of control. That was before Burnt Toast had his incident. I'm still sorry that I didn't do something to try to steer it back to something not offensive. Also, I came to terms with my opinion not mattering pretty early on. :)

Quote from: Taceus Jiwede on April 02, 2013, 07:59:11 PM
Burnt toast is actually the kind of people I am speaking of.  That is a CoH lover that we don't have on our side and it shouldn't be that way.  I am sure a lot of people are getting tired of me being the devils advocate a lot of the time but I truly think we can bring back a lot of people with an easy fix.  Simply listen to people like Burnt Toast.  I have to agree the kibun thing I found rather racist but it wasn't enough to make me leave Titan because it wasn't Titans post so much a post on Titan.  I say we ask Burnt Toast what made him leave, even though he kind of answered that already, and then try and work on it.  There is no shame in saying "Oh maybe I do, do that sometimes"  Ill admit I can be a pain in the butt and tend to be a little over opinionated at times and often get into arguments with the "same side" but its because I think we can do better.  Burnt Toast isn't a unicorn or some paid CoH basher by NCSoft.  He is a person who felt that when he spoke his opinion didn't matter. He is also a CoH fan which is why we are all here.  I feel the "With us or a unicorn" attitude truly needs to go.  This isn't a game or a "war" as some people have made into.  This is a struggle to bring back our game and we are loosing numbers.

However I would like to point out that the "With us or a unicorn" attitude is a bit of an illusion taken on by some people.  While I have seen that attitude, I have frequently disagreed with people on this forum and have never been called a unicorn so I do know its not entirely true.  But it has happened in the past.

That is exactly some of the problem, some people just can't seem to accept there are differing points of view and when you have a large community of players, the only common agreement is that we all liked City of Heroes. There are several people on Titan who shall remain nameless who label people who won't spend money on anything NCSoft as "Vendetta hate filled vile villains". I don't label people, I ask what is their thinking because in general people don't reach such decisions without thought.

Quote from: Taceus Jiwede on April 02, 2013, 07:59:11 PM
I feel the "With us or a unicorn" attitude truly needs to go.  This isn't a game or a "war" as some people have made into.  This is a struggle to bring back our game and we are loosing numbers.

I will disagree with this.  This is a war and NCSoft is our enemy.  That said, certainly one should keep in mind that it's NCSoft that is our enemy, and not our fellow CoH players.  However, Titan is the home of the efforts to either revive or replace CoH.  If any CoH players are not at least nominally ok with that, then what are they doing to try to revive or replace CoH?

Quote from: JanessaVR on April 02, 2013, 09:54:41 PM
I will disagree with this.  This is a war and NCSoft is our enemy.  That said, certainly one should keep in mind that it's NCSoft that is our enemy, and not our fellow CoH players.  However, Titan is the home of the efforts to either revive or replace CoH.  If any CoH players are not at least nominally ok with that, then what are they doing to try to revive or replace CoH?

That is a good point. I agree that CoHTitan is the only one fighting for CoH and that is why I would like to see us get as many numbers as possible.  Some people are apathetic and they aren't doing anything to save the game, and it is annoying when people tell us we are dumb for trying to save the game.  But that doesn't mean everyone who isn't 100% with us is 100% against us and at times people have taken that approach.  Much like Mistress Urd said though we are such a large community of people so just because some of taken that approach doesn't mean everyone at Titan does.  I see how people think its a war and I understand that mentality but if it is a war then it is only a war with NCSoft to save our game not with the people who don't understand or take part in our efforts.

Quote from: Taceus Jiwede on April 02, 2013, 10:45:30 PM
That is a good point. I agree that CoHTitan is the only one fighting for CoH and that is why I would like to see us get as many numbers as possible.  Some people are apathetic and they aren't doing anything to save the game, and it is annoying when people tell us we are dumb for trying to save the game.  But that doesn't mean everyone who isn't 100% with us is 100% against us and at times people have taken that approach.  Much like Mistress Urd said though we are such a large community of people so just because some of taken that approach doesn't mean everyone at Titan does.  I see how people think its a war and I understand that mentality but if it is a war then it is only a war with NCSoft to save our game not with the people who don't understand or take part in our efforts.

Well actually, COHTitan is not the only one fighting for COX believe it or not. COHTitan the largest? Most likely. Only? No. There are some out there that is not on COHTitan that are fighting just as long and just as hard as anyone else on here if not more.

Although, playing mr. obvious here, everyone who played COX or cared about COX or broke up about it is not here in COHTitan. Or else, we would have about what, 100,000 people or so here?

Quote from: JanessaVR on April 02, 2013, 09:54:41 PM
I will disagree with this.  This is a war and NCSoft is our enemy.  That said, certainly one should keep in mind that it's NCSoft that is our enemy, and not our fellow CoH players.  However, Titan is the home of the efforts to either revive or replace CoH.  If any CoH players are not at least nominally ok with that, then what are they doing to try to revive or replace CoH?

I have to say that they were the enemy the moment they announced our home would be gone.  IMO they kicked us south of the boarder when they announced they were taking something we enjoyed hours on and spent buckets of money on in some cases.  They were a "friend" for 8+ years and then knifed us in the back.  I will NEVER spend another dime or second on them only due to the fact that any "friend" that turns on me gets left behind and never regains my trust.

When you fight a war the first thing you want to establish is what the point of the war is. Not to start a political issue just using it as an example :

The US war with Afghanistan. We had a countries government acting as a haven for terrorists to plan acts in other countries. The USA countered after an attack by the terrorists with an act of war. They did not have a plan for victory. They didn't intend to occupy and make it American territory. They wanted a new government that they are now finding out is not much different from the old one.

So, my point is if you plan a war with NCSoft - what does victory look like?

Does it get them to sell the game but drives players away because they think those CoH players are nuts?
Do we win by constant positive action - in which we act as heroes and make even our enemy feel he was wrong?
Do we listen and make welcome even dissenting opinions as long as they also offer a positive solution?

We have an opportunity now to make a difference even more than in the past - lets show BOTH companies love for restoring our City.

Quote from: Ironwolf on April 03, 2013, 02:47:49 PM
When you fight a war the first thing you want to establish is what the point of the war is. Not to start a political issue just using it as an example :

The US war with Afghanistan. We had a countries government acting as a haven for terrorists to plan acts in other countries. The USA countered after an attack by the terrorists with an act of war. They did not have a plan for victory. They didn't intend to occupy and make it American territory. They wanted a new government that they are now finding out is not much different from the old one.

So, my point is if you plan a war with NCSoft - what does victory look like?

Does it get them to sell the game but drives players away because they think those CoH players are nuts?
Do we win by constant positive action - in which we act as heroes and make even our enemy feel he was wrong?
Do we listen and make welcome even dissenting opinions as long as they also offer a positive solution?

We have an opportunity now to make a difference even more than in the past - lets show BOTH companies love for restoring our City.

+1.

I will add that a positive solution do not always equals the solution the person is looking for or wanting to hear or a solution they agree with.

Being heard is the main thing we're after actually, and I'm just wondering...

We've all been part of criticizing NCsoft for not promoting CoH like it should have been. Because of a lack of money spent on advertising CoH did not grow to its full potential.

Now here we are, the only group fighting for CoH. If we stop, there will not be a single group effort left attempting to revive CoH...and are we spending any money to promote that fight?

What I'm asking; is it time we put our money where our mouths are? Should we be pooling together resources to buy ads on MMO sites and MMO magazines? Imagine if every time NCsoft had an article up promoting Wildstar they saw YET ANOTHER Save CoH ad.

It's a lot of money and I have no clue how to go about it, but if we want to be really heard, we've got to get our message out in front of NCsoft's, and there's no way to do that but pay.

It's been mentioned before, actually but... nobody stepped up to the plate of organizing. Frankly, the idea of being responsible for other people's money gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies. But I would be willing to chip in, should something serious come of it.

Quote from: Quinch on April 03, 2013, 03:22:13 PM
It's been mentioned before, actually but... nobody stepped up to the plate of organizing. Frankly, the idea of being responsible for other people's money gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies. But I would be willing to chip in, should something serious come of it.

Yeah and I won't pretend I'm willing or even able to manage something like that, just brainstorming. I've got two small kids, a full time job and a small business I run on the side...pretty sure wife would kill me if I try to "entrepreneur" anything else, lol.

However, if someone were able to manage something like that, I think it could be immensely powerful IF we knew a buyer was waiting. For example: if we talk to Jack and find out that, even unofficially, he and Cryptic were open to the idea of buying CoH, THEN we start a big campaign to get the word out. If we don't know of a real buyer ready to buy CoH...then there's really no point in advertising.

I am willing to try and find out the cost of advertising on a few websites. I will post what I find and if we then can get a serious buyer - like Cryptic - we can put the pressure on. Until we have again as I posted an end to our war - we can't fight.

I personally would be willing to buy an add depending of course on the price. I am not good with making the ad however so I would come here for ideas - all credit freely given for the artwork.

One further thought - how about this angle:

A picture of a character from City of Heroes with a suitcase saying - I am still looking for a home!

#SaveCoh
NCSoft please call Jack.

Or something like that?

I know this has been floated before, but what about a print ad in an industry magazine. Game Informer is the only that comes to mind that's still in print, but I'm sure there are options for this.

(Scratch Game Informer, short term: a half-page black and white ad is over a $100K, and a full page color ad is nearly double that.)

This is the rate scale of one of the regular MMO sites - I won't post the name at this point.

This rate card was last revised December 19, 2012. Rates are effective from Jan 1, 2013 through December 31, 2013. These prices are subject to change at any time.
IN-PAGE BANNER ADVERTISING
Location
Typical Impressions*CPM** Rate

Home Rectangle (Home Target)
Size: (300x250 – 85KB max)
Up to 15,000 per day
$9.00

Article Rectangle (Article Target)
Up to 8,000 per day
$6.00
Size: (300x250 – 85KB max)

Skyscraper (Run of Site)
Up to 80,000 per day
$4.00
Size: (160x600 – 85KB max)

Forum Rectagle (Forums Target)
Up to 20,000 per day
$1.50
Size: (300x250 – 85KB max)

Leaderboard Banner
Up to 50,000 per day
$2.40
Size: (728x90 – 85KB max)

Forum Square
Up to 60,000 per day
$1.20
Size: (200x200 – 85KB max)

Mobile Site Leaderboard
Up to 5,000 per day
$2.00
Size: (320x50 – 40KB max)

* This is generally the largest amount of impressions we can run daily. These figures can be increased under certain circumstances and with enough advance booking subject to our availability.
**CPM

Not exactly sure what these mean? Someone with more expertise than me could explain this perhaps? What would the minimum size run for a day or 2?

Actually, that's pretty helpful. And, in more than one instance, doable by an individual. :)

So what do you think of Statesman pointing out saying NCSoft,Call me maybe?

We could even link the banner to a youtube video playing the Carly Jepsen song?

Quote from: Ironwolf on April 03, 2013, 06:24:45 PM
So what do you think of Statesman pointing out saying NCSoft,Call me maybe?

We could even link the banner to a youtube video playing the Carly Jepsen song?

Would have been funny and cool six months ago--and the Internet would be quick to point this out to us.

Man kids these days.........

If Tony handles the money I'll chip in.

Quote from: Ironwolf on April 03, 2013, 06:32:38 PM
Man kids these days.........

;D

If its set up in a safe manner for money transaction I'll put in too.

Quote from: Lightslinger on April 03, 2013, 03:37:28 PM
Yeah and I won't pretend I'm willing or even able to manage something like that, just brainstorming. I've got two small kids, a full time job and a small business I run on the side...pretty sure wife would kill me if I try to "entrepreneur" anything else, lol.

However, if someone were able to manage something like that, I think it could be immensely powerful IF we knew a buyer was waiting. For example: if we talk to Jack and find out that, even unofficially, he and Cryptic were open to the idea of buying CoH, THEN we start a big campaign to get the word out. If we don't know of a real buyer ready to buy CoH...then there's really no point in advertising.

Yeah, the few people I know that could single handedly buy COX dont seem to have an interest in buying it. Outside of here, I've been putting in a lot of leg work to prod around and see if anyone is interested or the know of someone interested in this type of business. Only one out of the dozen with signifcant finances is actually a share holder of NCSoft stock. Trying to get him to bring it up to NCSoft at the next stock holder meeting or something. But he needs facts to go on, according to him. So far, concrete is that closed the game and did not sell the IP. Need more concrete reliable evidence of it being a bad move or concrete proof  that they might have fibbed, more than usual businesses their sheets.

And the one that was an ex-COX player is still a bit bitter. I cant bring up COX and community without her getting pissed. I'm like calm down cowgirl, that was in the past. You can be a hero for these people. I'm running out of angles. And this is out of character for me, but I might need some ideas of how to present it where it's not about her but about something bigger in a neutral manner. Her husband is genius at making business proposals and when his company is trying to buy something and it seems the seller isnt budging they send him and most of the time he come back with the paperwork ready to sell, he collects his cut and everyone is happy. He might be willing to do this one for free asa favor to a friend. But she is the gate keeper and guarding that gate as viciously as Cerebrus.

Sometimes I feel like I'm failing.

JaguarX: Well here is the problem, it would be a very risky investment. The game itself was going to need to be redone from the ground up. Frankly, they did a pretty amazing job keeping what they had running as well as it did. The problem was, the game was not generating new players fast enough to replace players who were leaving, thus the game was "slowly bleeding to death". So, lets say someone were to hypothetically buy the IP from NCSoft and get the game restarted. Let's leave all of the issues of transitions asside..... How is the game going to grow and be healthy? Many players have already moved on to other games, it might not be so easy to some of them to come back. If the answer is CoH2, that's is going to take some big bucks and possibly 3 years before it can go live. Then you have two problems, getting CoH people to move to CoH2 and getting new players to come to CoH2. Even if you can shorten the go live with CoH2 to 2 years, that is still a long time in the MMO world. Markets and player tastes can change quite a bit.

Quote from: Mistress Urd on April 05, 2013, 08:39:16 PM
JaguarX: Well here is the problem, it would be a very risky investment. The game itself was going to need to be redone from the ground up. Frankly, they did a pretty amazing job keeping what they had running as well as it did. The problem was, the game was not generating new players fast enough to replace players who were leaving, thus the game was "slowly bleeding to death". So, lets say someone were to hypothetically buy the IP from NCSoft and get the game restarted. Let's leave all of the issues of transitions asside..... How is the game going to grow and be healthy? Many players have already moved on to other games, it might not be so easy to some of them to come back. If the answer is CoH2, that's is going to take some big bucks and possibly 3 years before it can go live. Then you have two problems, getting CoH people to move to CoH2 and getting new players to come to CoH2. Even if you can shorten the go live with CoH2 to 2 years, that is still a long time in the MMO world. Markets and player tastes can change quite a bit.

Yeah that is exactly what I said in my pitch and a couple said it would be risky. Probably the reason of lack of interest even though they have up front money. They are probably thinking about long term investment. But the main obstacle I have is that I have no concrete numbers to show how well or less well they was doing. These are not the type of people that go by rumors.

But the main focus is trying with "the gate" keeper. She can be a major asset especially for the two projects , if she chose to. Whether money I mean a large amount of money is needed, or business expertise of her husband but her husband isn't a game player and won't budge unless its something she wants to do. While I have a nice sized chunk of change laying around what they can do makes mine look like couch change. And her husband knows about marketing to boot. But unless she gibes thumbs up he might as well be the king of Foligua Island.

Quote from: Mistress Urd on April 05, 2013, 08:39:16 PM
JaguarX: Well here is the problem, it would be a very risky investment. The game itself was going to need to be redone from the ground up. Frankly, they did a pretty amazing job keeping what they had running as well as it did. The problem was, the game was not generating new players fast enough to replace players who were leaving, thus the game was "slowly bleeding to death". So, lets say someone were to hypothetically buy the IP from NCSoft and get the game restarted. Let's leave all of the issues of transitions asside..... How is the game going to grow and be healthy? Many players have already moved on to other games, it might not be so easy to some of them to come back. If the answer is CoH2, that's is going to take some big bucks and possibly 3 years before it can go live. Then you have two problems, getting CoH people to move to CoH2 and getting new players to come to CoH2. Even if you can shorten the go live with CoH2 to 2 years, that is still a long time in the MMO world. Markets and player tastes can change quite a bit.

First, do you have any proof about the game bleeding bleeding to death? There's plenty of reason to believe the cash shop purchases weren't showing up in the financial reports directly under coh heading. One injustry insider has gone public (his name and reputation type of public) on other boards discussing this quite clearly. If anything, cityof was making money and it was Paragon Studios as a whole which was burning through any profit margin coh was making.

The only reason I'd believe that the game would need to be built from the ground up is purely due to all the old, messy, undocumented code if there's no one around who has worked on it previously to help get the game running as is. I'd bet just announcing Cityof returing to active servers would get the attention of pretty much every gaming site on the net and garner a lot of attention from players both old and new just to see what the fuss was about. Getting it live with all the goodness in i24 would be a wonderful starting point for the rebirth of the game. i24 had more than just new stuff for players to do, and fixes for many things, but also added systems for the devs to use that would allow them to do things that were previously impossible.

Think of it as starting a new MMO but with 8 years of active lore, play, memories, and content and there's a good chance with slow, continual development added as the game makes money, that within 2 years from rebirth, it'd be a thriving MMO, not one just starting off.

Quote from: TonyV on March 27, 2013, 06:01:37 PM
I see Quinch and Captain-Electric posted a couple of really good comments right at the top.  I wish Carbine Studios all the best, I really do.  I just hope that they're able to get away from NCsoft before NCsoft is able to kill off Wildstar.

I agree. I was really looking forward to playing Wildstar, but so long as NCSoft has control of it, I won't touch it.  I want to scream every time I get an email about joining the beta.

Until or unless NCSoft is under completely new management or can give really GOOD and compelling reasons to think that they have changed their corporate business practices I am DONE with them as a business and don't intend to give them another dollar or even the time of day (beyond basic human decency.)  The ONLY hook they have that could get me to do business with them again would be for them to reinstate and "unshutter" CoH--something which I feel they are unlikely to do--thus I don't have to worry overly much about being forced to do business with a corporate entity I once liked and admired and now despise for having personally burned me as well as our entire Community of (over-generalizing now) Most Excellent Gamers!  CoH players are the best!!!  The way we helped each other in-game is unlike anything I've seen or even heard other MMO communities being able to brag about.  (Probably this is just my ignorance talking and some of you will know equally fine MMORPG communities - and if so, feel free to post about them since that is likely the MMORPG I'd next be most inclined to try.)  But until I can fly my avatars above the skies of Paragon City, the Isles and Praetoria, personally I am done with MMORPGaming.  [You can think of me if you like as sitting by the door at NCSoft in half-lotus meditating, since in this case even waiting at the door can be a meditation, while I chant my Tibetan Buddhist Aum-Aum's.]

P.S. I don't disparage my CoH friends who are now playing GW2--they miss CoH just as much as I and tell me how GW2 isn't nearly as good but how they are trying to have fun and recreate the magic.  We each cope in our own way.  For me, that means getting back to reading Science Fiction and Fantasy novels and tabletop boardgaming rather than MMORPG via computer.

PPS.  I would like to say Thank-You once again to Tony V., to the forum moderators, as well as the entire Titan Network forum community of CoH fans.  You've made not only going thru this so much easier, I feel that in addition to my formerly active in-game SG mates I have also been fortunate in finding some true online friends here on Titan.  You all ROCK!!!!!!    8)

If we can get the IP we can inject it into the Plan Z: The Phoenix Project.  Making it an official sequel rather then just a spiritual superuser.  So it can a CoX2 can go ahead in the mean time we can operate CoX1.  Even keep both going.

I know for me a big part of a game is LORE.  CoX has more then most with over 8 years worth of growth, that 8 years of content and concept art already done.

Quote from: Tannim222 on April 05, 2013, 10:37:56 PM
First, do you have any proof about the game bleeding bleeding to death? There's plenty of reason to believe the cash shop purchases weren't showing up in the financial reports directly under coh heading. One injustry insider has gone public (his name and reputation type of public) on other boards discussing this quite clearly. If anything, cityof was making money and it was Paragon Studios as a whole which was burning through any profit margin coh was making.

The only reason I'd believe that the game would need to be built from the ground up is purely due to all the old, messy, undocumented code if there's no one around who has worked on it previously to help get the game running as is. I'd bet just announcing Cityof returing to active servers would get the attention of pretty much every gaming site on the net and garner a lot of attention from players both old and new just to see what the fuss was about. Getting it live with all the goodness in i24 would be a wonderful starting point for the rebirth of the game. i24 had more than just new stuff for players to do, and fixes for many things, but also added systems for the devs to use that would allow them to do things that were previously impossible.

Think of it as starting a new MMO but with 8 years of active lore, play, memories, and content and there's a good chance with slow, continual development added as the game makes money, that within 2 years from rebirth, it'd be a thriving MMO, not one just starting off.

The proof happend when the servers went dark.  :P

CoH in the financial records was clearly on its way down except for the Going Rogue bump. Like most MMO games online numbers are a secret and they kept making it harder to see the exact number. Long time players can tell you about server pop levels back in the good old days.

Hey, I'd love to have CoH back up and running, I got to see how much the MMO games now have better graphics but worse gameplay. I played some of the competition a couple of time because friends wanted to play it. After a couple of serious awful experiences I stopped. I just watch them MMO game hop every 2 months chasing the next "great" MMO. When CoH closed, I tried a few other games and yep, they haven't learned anything.

So for now, I am playing older games. Diablo 2 which is really old but is still a blast to play and Eve Online another old game but probably the furthest thing from CoH. Until this "Free to Play" fad goes away I don't expect things to get any better and since the next crop of MMOs will be designed from the ground up to be Free to Play I can be pretty sure they will suck. At least I can test them for free to make sure.  :P

Quote from: Mistress Urd on April 08, 2013, 09:34:43 AM
The proof happend when the servers went dark.  :P

Unfortunately I don't think this was the case.

Numbers and figures were indeed kept out of sight but if the game was bleeding to death don't you think that NCsoft would have released the figures to prove that?

Indications are that the game was probably still making a profit - albeit a small profit.

The most damning indictment about this whole thing is that CoH carried on - in profit - with zero advertising or marketing.

I can only imagine how things might have went if the game had been handled with even the smallest amount of business sense.

Quote from: Mistress Urd on April 08, 2013, 09:34:43 AM
The proof happend when the servers went dark.  :P

There are two reasons servers go black that I have personally seen happen... Because of profit margins, which as has been said again and again, there is no proof that this was the case, aaaand...

The company wanting people to pay money elsewhere.

Friends of mine have worked support for XBL(XCubeUndead), and people have called to get their XBL working so they can play a sealed game... bought brand new... thats servers have been turned off.

Unless you can prove to me this didn't happen, I see a heck of a lot more proof (with new offerings having just been released, and more in the pipeline for NCSoft) that this is true than profits. Not to be mean or anything, just sayin' if you come up with an idea the burden of proof is on you when its something like this, especially when its been said a hundred times people within Paragon Studios were quite convinced everything was goin' well.

To be fair, there is evidence that NCSoft was looking at profitability falling and decided to cut out sooner rather than later. That doesn't change the fact that they made no real effort to improve its visibility to change that falling profitability, nor does it invalidate the concern that perhaps somebody doctored (legitimately, through accounting tricks that are deceitful only because they're performed without elaboration) their books to make those numbers look that way for some other purpose of their own, but it would mean that those who didn't know why the numbers looked as they did could make the decision reasonably.

Not saying it's the case, but it's the most charitable case I can think of.

I'm still, personally, convinced that NCsoft isn't going to sell- they're trying to devalue themselves without looking like they're doing it, so Nexon can swoop in and gobble them up for cheap.  And then once Nexon is in charge, they can value CoH properly, maybe sell it off, maybe bring it back, maybe sequalize it, whatever they might do.  But right now NCsoft just wants to be worth less.  Getting a $5-10 mil injection from selling that IP could work against that.

But this is just me speculating, I don't know anything and I'm probably crazy, so.

Quote from: Mistress Urd on April 08, 2013, 09:34:43 AM
The proof happend when the servers went dark.  :P

CoH in the financial records was clearly on its way down except for the Going Rogue bump. Like most MMO games online numbers are a secret and they kept making it harder to see the exact number. Long time players can tell you about server pop levels back in the good old days.

Hey, I'd love to have CoH back up and running, I got to see how much the MMO games now have better graphics but worse gameplay. I played some of the competition a couple of time because friends wanted to play it. After a couple of serious awful experiences I stopped. I just watch them MMO game hop every 2 months chasing the next "great" MMO. When CoH closed, I tried a few other games and yep, they haven't learned anything.

So for now, I am playing older games. Diablo 2 which is really old but is still a blast to play and Eve Online another old game but probably the furthest thing from CoH. Until this "Free to Play" fad goes away I don't expect things to get any better and since the next crop of MMOs will be designed from the ground up to be Free to Play I can be pretty sure they will suck. At least I can test them for free to make sure.  :P

The thing is though, both War Witch and Positron have publically stated the game was doing very well, paticularly after going free to play. Then looking at how they were supporting the game through development and future planning, doesn't jive with the idea that the game was bleeding players, nor does it match up with the "official" financial records.

While I'm not quite convinced there was doctoring of the finances put into the records (though it wouldn't suprise me, I've seen it happen in 2 of the 3 multi-million dollar companies I worked for, one of them operating in the hundreds of millions), I'd be more understanding if it were said the game was profitable, but the studio wasn't. That I can see happening, with the devs seeing CoH's revenue, but not necessarily the operating costs of the entire studio.

Also, on several websites, when a game industry analyst publically puts their name and reputation out there and states all of his research into the closure doesn't add up that the game was indeed turning a suitable profit, then something is up.

So yes, in the end the servers went dark, but not for the reason's many people think, the subject is profit, but not necessarily the lack thereof. It could be VPs no longer thought the game was going to hit its target numbers, but never bothered to associate that issue with the nearly $0 marketing dollars Black Pebble had to work with to promote the game with. It could be NCSoft leadership decided it only wanted to focus on games with "more potential profit", and anything beneath whatever benchmark they had is being cut. When looking at the entire MMO industry, CoH apparently was still successful game, but not necessarily in the areas of the industry NCSoft wants to be in.

I'm ok with any of those reasons. But claims that the game was bleeding players and such just don't sit well with me when talking about the game prior to the notice of shut down, and it's not the rose colored glasses that I'm wearing either.

Quote from: Segev on April 08, 2013, 02:43:06 PM
To be fair, there is evidence that NCSoft was looking at profitability falling and decided to cut out sooner rather than later.

This is what I don't get.  If the game was becoming less profitable, it would have made sense to streamline things, cut down on Paragon's size, slow down the rate of updates, and things like that aimed at bolstering the profit-to-cost ratio.  I'm sure that we (by which I mean the playerbase) still would have been unhappy, but we wouldn't be anywhere near as unhappy as we are now.

But since the game was still profitable, all killing it outright accomplished was lowering their profits.  (Well, in theory.  In practice, GW2 more than took up the slack, but they could have had GW2's profits and CoH's profits instead of just one or the other) 

Killing the game entirely only makes sense from a financial standpoint if the game was losing money, and by all accounts it wasn't.  (Maybe it wasn't VERY profitable, but profit is profit, and there's certainly no gain in lowering their profit and further damaging their reputation in the West, the very market they keep saying they want to break into)

It's all water under the bridge at this point, of course, but I'm still baffled, and NCSoft still isn't providing any real answers (and probably never will).  Mostly I feel helpless, and above all angry.  I just want the game back, but I've got no clout, no connections, no massive bags of money, and no way to make NCSoft acknowledge me, let alone respond.

Quote from: Tannim222 on April 08, 2013, 05:42:52 PM
The thing is though, both War Witch and Positron have publically stated the game was doing very well, paticularly after going free to play. Then looking at how they were supporting the game through development and future planning, doesn't jive with the idea that the game was bleeding players, nor does it match up with the "official" financial records.

While I'm not quite convinced there was doctoring of the finances put into the records (though it wouldn't suprise me, I've seen it happen in 2 of the 3 multi-million dollar companies I worked for, one of them operating in the hundreds of millions), I'd be more understanding if it were said the game was profitable, but the studio wasn't. That I can see happening, with the devs seeing CoH's revenue, but not necessarily the operating costs of the entire studio.

Also, on several websites, when a game industry analyst publically puts their name and reputation out there and states all of his research into the closure doesn't add up that the game was indeed turning a suitable profit, then something is up.

So yes, in the end the servers went dark, but not for the reason's many people think, the subject is profit, but not necessarily the lack thereof. It could be VPs no longer thought the game was going to hit its target numbers, but never bothered to associate that issue with the nearly $0 marketing dollars Black Pebble had to work with to promote the game with. It could be NCSoft leadership decided it only wanted to focus on games with "more potential profit", and anything beneath whatever benchmark they had is being cut. When looking at the entire MMO industry, CoH apparently was still successful game, but not necessarily in the areas of the industry NCSoft wants to be in.

I'm ok with any of those reasons. But claims that the game was bleeding players and such just don't sit well with me when talking about the game prior to the notice of shut down, and it's not the rose colored glasses that I'm wearing either.

If the game was in fact gaining paying players every month, I doubt we would be here talking about the game being shutdown.

Black Pebble is a pretty funny guy, I got to talk with him during the meet and greets. I kept getting questions from various devs on how to spice up the pvp zones. The easy fix to fill a pvp zone was for Zwill, Black Pebble or some other dev to enter a pvp zone and go "I am here, come get me!"

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the "bleeding of players" then. The current MMO I play publicly lists number of players online.  :P

Quote from: Mistress Urd on April 08, 2013, 09:58:47 PM
I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the "bleeding of players" then. The current MMO I play publicly lists number of players online.  :P

The only MMO I can find verifiable population numbers on is an order of magnitude higher than the population estimate for GW2. And they use that population in their ads. :)

Even on a F2P model, 100K accounts is nothing to sneeze at. It's like a network show being cancelled for "only" having 8 million viewers, where it would thrive on cable with half that. It's a matter of realistic expectations, and we're seeing lamentation that the MMO is dying as a game format, instead of publishers and development studios shooting for 100K or 200K. Maybe the Plan Z projects can be the catalyst to shake up the genre. When the "pros" see what a rag-tag bunch of misfits can turn out on the cheap. :)

Quote from: Mistress Urd on April 08, 2013, 09:58:47 PM
If the game was in fact gaining paying players every month, I doubt we would be here talking about the game being shutdown.

Black Pebble is a pretty funny guy, I got to talk with him during the meet and greets. I kept getting questions from various devs on how to spice up the pvp zones. The easy fix to fill a pvp zone was for Zwill, Black Pebble or some other dev to enter a pvp zone and go "I am here, come get me!"

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the "bleeding of players" then. The current MMO I play publicly lists number of players online.  :P

No one has claimed that CoH was gaining players every month.

You appear to be moving the goalposts in your overall assessment of what happened to our game.

Perhaps a more consistent point of view would be more appropriate?

Quote from: dwturducken on April 08, 2013, 11:32:16 PM
The only MMO I can find verifiable population numbers on is an order of magnitude higher than the population estimate for GW2. And they use that population in their ads. :)

Even on a F2P model, 100K accounts is nothing to sneeze at. It's like a network show being cancelled for "only" having 8 million viewers, where it would thrive on cable with half that. It's a matter of realistic expectations, and we're seeing lamentation that the MMO is dying as a game format, instead of publishers and development studios shooting for 100K or 200K. Maybe the Plan Z projects can be the catalyst to shake up the genre. When the "pros" see what a rag-tag bunch of misfits can turn out on the cheap. :)

And I think that is the root of this. Expectations more than whether or not it was making a profit. Hell, to some $1 million a year in profits would be excellent while to another it's small potatoes not even worth the bother. I think many studios are expecting too much while doing so little. They want the multi million players but not doing anything to advertise and get word out to attract that amount, then call it failure when the game "only" reaches 100k even while pulling in profit so the plug is pulled because of not reaching expectations.

Quote from: Ironwolf on April 03, 2013, 03:51:05 PM
I am willing to try and find out the cost of advertising on a few websites. I will post what I find and if we then can get a serious buyer - like Cryptic - we can put the pressure on. Until we have again as I posted an end to our war - we can't fight.

I personally would be willing to buy an add depending of course on the price. I am not good with making the ad however so I would come here for ideas - all credit freely given for the artwork.

Another thing to think about.  Some people here probably have their own websites, blogs, etc.   Now obviously we could not ask them to put up ads in inappropriate places.   I mean, an ad for saveCOH would probably not be appropriate on a person's professional/business website.

Some of us, however, DO have websites where such ads WOULD be appropriate.  I run a fan-fiction site called the Continuum Worlds...and I already have banners for both Plan Z projects among my rotating banners.  It would not be hard at all to stick a save COH banner with a link in there. (hmmm...come to think of it...I should probably have a link/banner to the Titan Network there....gotta get that done)  Or, since I have a section on the front page which shows links to Super Hero MMO's, I could stick it there (where I now have an inactive link to COH...sigh)

Now my site is a low volume site (since the writers have all slowed down their output over the last several years)  But I am sure that there may be some here on Titan that have sites with higher volume.  But high or low volume,   That is a way some of us can help....simply by volunteering a tiny part of our site front pages for such an ad!

Just a thought.

Quote from: Thunder Glove on April 08, 2013, 05:48:45 PM
This is what I don't get.  If the game was becoming less profitable, it would have made sense to streamline things, cut down on Paragon's size, slow down the rate of updates, and things like that aimed at bolstering the profit-to-cost ratio.  I'm sure that we (by which I mean the playerbase) still would have been unhappy, but we wouldn't be anywhere near as unhappy as we are now.

This is exactly my line of thought.  When people try to say that the game wasn't doing well financially, this is what I keep coming back to:

1) I didn't notice any appreciable decline in player numbers while I was online.  Sure, over the course of time, we didn't have the numbers we did in October 2006, but it's not like the servers were empty.  Especially during peak hours, I never had any trouble getting groups to do things with, and during events, the place was pretty full.  I know, anecdotal evidence and all, but there you go.

2) If the game were actually doing poorly, the management at Paragon Studios would have had to have known, and would have tried to do things to compensate.  For one thing, I think there would have been a lot more nickel-and-diming going on, not the hybrid subscription model that we got.  Plus, they would have looked pretty foolish getting up in front of god and country and declaring that the game was continuing to be successful at the Player Summit.  Or for that matter, even having Player Summits.  I mean, there's being positive about your product, and there's outright lying about its performance.  I never--not one single time--got any whiff of the game doing poorly from any of the devs or business managers.  Either they're really good liars in lockstep with each other, or they really believed what they were telling us.

3) If the game were actually doing poorly, why the heck didn't NCsoft do something about it sooner?  Why didn't they force Paragon Studios to pare down their staff?  Why would they have given them the money to invest in another second project and actually staff up with more developers?  This is the most damning bit of evidence of all in my mind, why when I compare the two versions of events, the version in which Paragon Studios was losing money or not as profitable as they should have been just doesn't hold water.  No company would let the first sign of trouble be shuttering the game and its development studio completely.

4) NCsoft's first version of what happened, straight from the horse's mouth, was that it was purely a business decision.  There was no indication that it was based on financial motives whatsoever until an anonymous inside source called them out on why they shut down the game, and then all of a sudden, they started retconning the reason of the shutdown.  It doesn't work that way.  Also, NCsoft has never in the past made any kind of issue over saying that a game wasn't performing well financially when they shut it down, so I find it hard to believe that this was just some weird exception.

To this day, and unless I get some new information that proves me wrong, I will always believe that THE reason the game and studio was shuttered was because NCsoft is working diligently to consolidate all of their operations to the home office in Seoul, South Korea.  I don't know exactly why, they used to be fine with having subsidiaries and studios wherever, but apparently, someone high up in the company has decided that they don't like that strategy.  They've had at least a couple of big rounds of layoffs even since City of Heroes shut down, and it's only four months later.

That's also why if I were ArenaNet and/or Carbine, I'd be extremely worried about my future with NCsoft.  I've heard that one or both of them might have deals that would let them have an "out".  I don't know if that's true or not, but for their games' sakes, I sure hope so.  Even if the studios continue on with their respective projects, I just don't think that they'll be operating with the same level of independence and freedom that game studios traditionally operate with, and I think that a lot of their operations and management will come out of South Korea now instead of locally.

But I honestly don't believe, nor have I ever believed, that City of Heroes was losing money or doing worse than they were for the past couple of years.  I honestly believe that the game was doing moderately well, that Freedom was a success, and that the management and employees of Paragon Studios were caught completely off-guard at NCsoft closing the studio and the game and doing everything in their power to acquire and save it.

My thinking is that the people who say the servers were empty, didn't have any global chat channels, weren't in a SG and hung out in solo mission caves. That's all I can think of that would make the game seem empty. I played on Champion and was tuned into at least 3 channels just for forming TF/SF/Trial groups, and a channel for my SG. It was almost constantly buzzing! I never got the feeling that the world was empty.

I certtainly have some sympathy for the folks at Arenanet/Carbine. NCSoft did what they did and it wasn't pretty.

Quote from: TonyV on April 09, 2013, 03:18:06 AM
This is exactly my line of thought.  When people try to say that the game wasn't doing well financially, this is what I keep coming back to:

1) I didn't notice any appreciable decline in player numbers while I was online.  Sure, over the course of time, we didn't have the numbers we did in October 2006, but it's not like the servers were empty.  Especially during peak hours, I never had any trouble getting groups to do things with, and during events, the place was pretty full.  I know, anecdotal evidence and all, but there you go.

I dont know, certain servers seemed to be less populated as time went on. But at the same time Virtue, Freedom, and one other server that escape me at the moment seemed to get more populated. While I think overall the population got slightly smaller, I think most people just shifted to the main two servers. Even during peak hours outside virtue and freedom I had trouble finding 8 man groups for certain things. I never had opportunity to do Eden trial, STF, LRSF, and no shard TFs on a server like victory because I could never get on a team or form one larger than 5-6 or find people interested in doing those. Virtue it was easy. Villian side was even more empty on servers outside Virtue and Freedom and that one other server I still cant think of where it nigh impossible to form or join a team of more than 4 and during peak maybe 6 here and there only on weekends. During the week, My last few months of playing on victory server I did not run into a single other player villain side playing every single day for that month. And that is playing at peak times. So in all outside of Virtue and Freedom and that one server name I will think of soon, I had major trouble getting on a good sized team to get most of the team tasks done. But I figured it was just mostly population shift instead of major decrease.

Quote from: TonyV on April 09, 2013, 03:18:06 AM
2) If the game were actually doing poorly, the management at Paragon Studios would have had to have known, and would have tried to do things to compensate.  For one thing, I think there would have been a lot more nickel-and-diming going on, not the hybrid subscription model that we got.  Plus, they would have looked pretty foolish getting up in front of god and country and declaring that the game was continuing to be successful at the Player Summit.  Or for that matter, even having Player Summits.  I mean, there's being positive about your product, and there's outright lying about its performance.  I never--not one single time--got any whiff of the game doing poorly from any of the devs or business managers.  Either they're really good liars in lockstep with each other, or they really believed what they were telling us.

Yup. But just recently I seen where employees even management thought they was doing very good but then suddenly get cut. Even certain parts of the government is ran by profits. The management put out at the financial meeting that they was reaching their goal, and their service was grade A good and they was bringing in more money than they was spending, beyond the threshold that was set for them. Two weeks later, DoD let them all go and furloughed the four they let stay stated that they was trying to save money and that was an area that was under performing. Yet a couple of weeks ago, it was put out that they was exceeding expectations. Right now, there is a big internal fuss about it and I'll see what come of it soon. It seems it's not only NCSoft that does that.

But generally I always thought at least upper management or at least out of professional courtesy to let the upper management of those under you know how they doing. If it's poor work, say it's poor work and tell them to and or fix it. But giving false hope saying things are well and they repeat that then turn around and close doors because stuff wasnt going well? Hard to say as in reality they never said either or. Just realignment.

Quote from: TonyV on April 09, 2013, 03:18:06 AM
3) If the game were actually doing poorly, why the heck didn't NCsoft do something about it sooner?  Why didn't they force Paragon Studios to pare down their staff?  Why would they have given them the money to invest in another second project and actually staff up with more developers?  This is the most damning bit of evidence in all in my mind, why when I compare the two versions of events, the version in which Paragon Studios was losing money or not as profitable as they should have been just doesn't hold water.  No company would let the first sign of trouble be shuttering the game and its development studio completely.

Because I think overall COX was doing well, but probably they figured they had to or wanted to cut something and what better to cut something that is overseas, wont affect the home market, and going by some of the graphs, was near the bottom of the earning although still making a profit. I still think it was a bonehead move as a business man once told me, "Never burn your bridges with customers. Because you never know when you going to need or want them back." If they would have closed a Korean game, I think it had the potential to have much more damaging effect than a few dozen thousand of players half way across the world in a side show part of their target market.

Quote from: TonyV on April 09, 2013, 03:18:06 AM
4) NCsoft's first version of what happened, straight from the horse's mouth, was that it was purely a business decision.  There was no indication that it was based on financial motives whatsoever until an anonymous inside source called them out on why they shut down the game, and then all of a sudden, they started retconning the reason of the shutdown.  It doesn't work that way.  Also, NCsoft has never in the past made any kind of issue over saying that a game wasn't performing well financially when they shut it down, so I find it hard to believe that this was just some weird exception.

Honestly I dont think it even mattered what they would have said at that point. After the first reason, after the realignment thing, they could have said they was going to release all financial graphs of what actually happened and many people will still think it's fabricated or a ploy by NCsoft. I think after that instead of digging themselves deeper, they just clammed up about the situation. Because really, I dont think at that time, many people was willing or in the mood to listen to anything NCsoft had to say anyways if it wasnt "Sorry" and turning the game back on. So what would be the point of trying to explain if it was going to be taken as pure BS anyways and probably make things worse? In a way I think the smartest thing they did was shut up about it. Now, of course I preferred an explanation why. And I seen people wanting or rather demanding a reason why, but truthful, inside, was many people really ready to listen or looking for something they say to take and add fuel to their fire? Hell, now there is even word going around they might have made up the financial sheets, when in 2010 and 2011, it was taken as final word in anything about the final situation of COX, even when people was saying, Hey, look, people are leaving the game. And then sure enough someone would post a graph from NCSOft as solid factual evidence to show that while COX was in a decline, it was in no downfall and anyone who questioned those graphs during that time got flamed something awful. Now they are fabricated or possibly fabricated. Fabricated or not, I think it dont have anything to do with finance for reason of closing. So even if proof arises that the game was losing money faster than Titanic was taking on water after hitting the iceberg or proof arises that COX was making 3 billion a month, it would be irrelevant in the end as the points Tony V and others made are about right on point. It's too many plot holes to be about profits.

Quote from: TonyV on April 09, 2013, 03:18:06 AM
3) If the game were actually doing poorly, why the heck didn't NCsoft do something about it sooner? 

They do something. They just stop the localization a few month before closing the game. Which may have a huge effect on french and german speaking player. Which may explain the accelerated loss of player in the last few months of a game ... In France, we say "When you want to kill your dog, you accuse it of rage". I think it fit here.

Quote from: JaguarX on April 09, 2013, 04:02:40 AM
Because I think overall COX was doing well, but probably they figured they had to or wanted to cut something...

This just doesn't make sense.  Companies don't just cut products for the hell of it, they have to have a reason--and that reason doesn't always have to be financial, which I am 100% convinced is the case here.  Sometimes products are cut for political reasons.  Sometimes they're cut for internal organizational reason, which I think is the primary reason City of Heroes was cut and Paragon Studios was shuttered.  The thing is, though, if you do that, you should really make sure that it's a really good reason, and I don't think it was.  Still, it's their right to make dumb choices, and I don't particularly take issue with that choice.  However, keeping the IP locked up so that someone else can't acquire it is, in my humble opinion, compounding the stupidity of the situation.

Quote from: JaguarX on April 09, 2013, 04:02:40 AM
Honestly I dont think it even mattered what they would have said at that point.

Actually, there was a much better way of handling this.  What should have happened is that the powers-that-be should have called or come and seen Brian Clayton and explained that for business reasons, they want to dump City of Heroes and Paragon Studios.  They should have given him and the other business managers an opportunity to acquire the game and IP for a reasonable cost from them so that it could continue and 80+ people wouldn't have to be out of a job.  (I'm not saying there wouldn't be any layoffs; they were overstaffed for just City of Heroes for working on the other project.)  Then in August, they either announce that Paragon Studios is spinning off as an independent studio and publisher, or they announce the shutdown with Paragon Studios completely on board with what was happening and why--because the business simply wasn't there to continue the game.

Quote from: JaguarX on April 09, 2013, 04:02:40 AM
Because really, I dont think at that time, many people was willing or in the mood to listen to anything NCsoft had to say anyways if it wasnt "Sorry" and turning the game back on. So what would be the point of trying to explain if it was going to be taken as pure BS anyways and probably make things worse? In a way I think the smartest thing they did was shut up about it.

Saying they were sorry and turning the game back on was never an option.  As soon as I heard the announcement on August 31, I knew that would never happen.  Companies very, very, very rarely make a decision like that and change their mind.  If the smartest thing they did was to shut up about it, I'd hate to see what their idea of dumb is.  The smart thing to have done would have been to either spin off Paragon Studios or sell the IP to another publisher or investor willing to acquire Paragon Studios.  That would have avoided a lot of hurt feelings and not turned a contingent of loyal, dedicated players against the company.  It would have been win-win-win.  NCsoft wins by generating positive PR about caring about their players and collecting a nice payout in the process that could be used to support their other products.  Paragon Studios wins by not going out of business and a bunch of people get to keep their jobs.  The players win because we'd still be playing City of Heroes and probably arguing over stupid stuff like how good or bad the new Incarnate trial is.

Instead, NCsoft has effectively made a lose-lose-lose situation.  They've lost credibility to the gaming community and their reputation has suffered almost irreparable harm, some Paragon Studios employees are still looking for work four months later, and a subgenre-defining game and the product of millions of hours of creativity and hard work on the part of developers and players has been snuffed out for no good reason.  If that's not the height of dumbness, I just don't know what is.

Quote from: JaguarX on April 09, 2013, 04:02:40 AM
And I seen people wanting or rather demanding a reason why, but truthful, inside, was many people really ready to listen or looking for something they say to take and add fuel to their fire?

I honestly don't care very much why.  Sure, as a point of curiosity, it would be nice to know for sure.  If they took steps to keep the game and Paragon Studios alive, I wouldn't care if Taek-Jin Kim just didn't like the shape of Brian Clayton's nose and that's why.  I do care, however, when they lie to us and the gaming press, especially while trying to quell the outcry that is a direct result of their own stupidity.

Quote from: TonyV on April 09, 2013, 03:18:06 AM
This is exactly my line of thought.  When people try to say that the game wasn't doing well financially, this is what I keep coming back to:

Point 1)
Point 2)
Point 3)
Point 4)

Quick note, if you don't mind, I'm going to quote those when the topic of profitability comes up in offsite discussions - it covers the points better than I can, and it's very, for lack of a better word, pasteable.

Quote from: Quinch on April 09, 2013, 02:34:50 PM
Quick note, if you don't mind, I'm going to quote those when the topic of profitability comes up in offsite discussions - it covers the points better than I can, and it's very, for lack of a better word, pasteable.

Sure, have at it.  I even stealth edited out some typos.  :)

Quote from: LT. Couper on April 09, 2013, 03:43:34 AM
My thinking is that the people who say the servers were empty, didn't have any global chat channels, weren't in a SG and hung out in solo mission caves. That's all I can think of that would make the game seem empty. I played on Champion and was tuned into at least 3 channels just for forming TF/SF/Trial groups, and a channel for my SG. It was almost constantly buzzing! I never got the feeling that the world was empty.

One thing that everyone seems to be forgeting is that if you logged onto City of Villains side, it was a complete ghost town.  It did not matter what server or time of day but the CoV streets were completely empty.  I don't know if this had a part in the shutdown but when I started seeing this I was thinking something is very wrong here.

The Coh/CoV populations were very... lopsided. I don't know whether it was because of predilection to play good guys, zone design or better-but-less content, or a combination of all three.

Quote from: TonyV on April 09, 2013, 04:31:15 PM
Sure, have at it.  I even stealth edited out some typos.  :)

Ooooh. Assassin's Spellcheck. Nice.

My problem with City of Villains is that the various locations were just - wrong.

What does a City look like when it is all villains all the time?
In some locations I could see the controlling factions causing the area to be complete chaos and it to look like Boomtown.
In other locations the powers above impose a harsh ordered existense where a step out of order could mean death. It was a place of darkness and gloom.

Villainy is not always about chaos - it can be order imposed without excuse. Praetoria was the perfect example of a villainous ordered society.


In my eyes I blame whoever decided Praetoria was a good idea for the game closing. Praetoria had all this fanfare and yet it was a zone you worked to LEAVE! I couldn't wait to get to 20 and get out of there. No teams - or very few as the more difficult enemies meant more difficulty at low levels.

Quote from: Ironwolf on April 09, 2013, 05:29:55 PM
My problem with City of Villains is that the various locations were just - wrong.

What does a City look like when it is all villains all the time?
In some locations I could see the controlling factions causing the area to be complete chaos and it to look like Boomtown.
In other locations the powers above impose a harsh ordered existense where a step out of order could mean death. It was a place of darkness and gloom.

Villainy is not always about chaos - it can be order imposed without excuse. Praetoria was the perfect example of a villainous ordered society.


In my eyes I blame whoever decided Praetoria was a good idea for the game closing. Praetoria had all this fanfare and yet it was a zone you worked to LEAVE! I couldn't wait to get to 20 and get out of there. No teams - or very few as the more difficult enemies meant more difficulty at low levels.

Praetoria was definitely a very expensive flop. Extremely good content, but locking players away for 20 levels kept people away.

Quote from: Ironwolf on April 09, 2013, 05:29:55 PM
My problem with City of Villains is that the various locations were just - wrong.

What does a City look like when it is all villains all the time?
In some locations I could see the controlling factions causing the area to be complete chaos and it to look like Boomtown.
In other locations the powers above impose a harsh ordered existense where a step out of order could mean death. It was a place of darkness and gloom.

Villainy is not always about chaos - it can be order imposed without excuse. Praetoria was the perfect example of a villainous ordered society.


In my eyes I blame whoever decided Praetoria was a good idea for the game closing. Praetoria had all this fanfare and yet it was a zone you worked to LEAVE! I couldn't wait to get to 20 and get out of there. No teams - or very few as the more difficult enemies meant more difficulty at low levels.

Praetoria was beautiful, but I think the biggest problem with it is that some missions were solo only ... and some of those were rather tough. The mobs were awfully huge for characters that only had a couple of attacks at a time.

That, and they really should have made Loyalist have the option to be more heroic than it turned out.

I'll disagree strenuously - Praetoria was my favorite part of CoH, and I always played Loyalist.  All Hail the Emperor!   :)

But yes, being able stay longer would have been good, but they were doing that with the addition of First Ward and Night Ward.  I was able to finagle things to stay in Praetoria proper until L21 (or even L22), then I went to First Ward and Night Ward until L30+ before finally going blueside or redside.

I was completely immersed in the goldside storyline and couldn't get enough of it, and it was so beautiful there.  Some evenings I would just fly around and take in the scenery and ambiance.

P.S.  Praetoria was where I ended CoH.  Along with a friend, my primary character stood atop Praetor Sinclair's building in Imperial City, on the edge of the building, facing the Emperor's Tower in Nova Praetoria, holding up a torch and waiting for the sun to rise behind it.

As far as I'm concerned, she's still there - waiting for the sun to rise on Praetoria again.

Quote from: Quinch on April 09, 2013, 05:14:28 PM
The Coh/CoV populations were very... lopsided. I don't know whether it was because of predilection to play good guys, zone design or better-but-less content, or a combination of all three.

For my part, CoV was a huge disapointment. It let basically you play only as a part of Arachnos. You have a very tiny window to be your own master and build your own scheme and playing as a minion was not what i was hoping when playing on the red side. You sure can imagine around what the game gave you, but it was harder than on the blue side when there was no such limit. The better of the red side was for me in the late CoX. "Who will die" and "Pandora's Box" was just exactly what I wanted to play from the start.

I think Tony V hit the nail on the head with his points.
No, I don't think Praetoria had anything to do with it nor did empty servers (and guys, yes, there WERE some fairly empty servers....the Champion server was badly under populated....one of the reasons I moved to virtue)  Yes, a few servers could have and probably should have been closed down or combined.

And Praetoria was fairly young.  I imagine that,  had COH stayed open, more content would have been added over time.

As for lack of people red side.....well, I only played a red side toon a few times...and then only to play with friends.  I really did not care for playing villains.  And, even on the best days on Virtue, I noticed that the redside was still under populated when compared to the Blue side.

I think the Red Side eventually simply became an option...as most people wanted to play Heroes.   And once Freedom came out and people were able to get toons that previously you could only get by creating a villain, the population probably went down even further.

The other thing I think people forget is that, originally, Praetoria was the ONLY WAY you could start a toon that normally played on one side and take it to the other.  In other words, you could start a Brute in Praetoria, play through the content, and then emerge in Talos as a hero.  The alignment system then blurred that, but you still had to get to level 20 to change sides.  And even then, it was easier to get a toon to 20 via Praetoria and auto-select sides than to work a villain to 20, run through the alignment mishes, and finally change alignment.

What killed Praetoria, IMO, was F2P.  At that point, you could play a MM from level 1 as a hero.  With that, the need to start a toon/play through Praetoria dropped.  And that's when it pretty much became a ghost town.  When it launched, Praetoria was ALWAYS packed. 

That said, I thought Praetoria was stunning.  I loved the zone.  And first ward.  Second ward seemed a bit grindy to me, but still...  I ran a few toons through Praetoria at the end of days.  One of my favorite toons, my kin melee/regen scrapper was praetorian.  He bowed out of the game as a hero, standing watch from the top of Cole's tower, looking towards Synapse's, watching over the Praetors to keep them in check.

Quote from: Dylan Clearbrook on April 09, 2013, 06:49:21 PM
I think Tony V hit the nail on the head with his points.
No, I don't think Praetoria had anything to do with it nor did empty servers (and guys, yes, there WERE some fairly empty servers....the Champion server was badly under populated....one of the reasons I moved to virtue)  Yes, a few servers could have and probably should have been closed down or combined.

And Praetoria was fairly young.  I imagine that,  had COH stayed open, more content would have been added over time.

As for lack of people red side.....well, I only played a red side toon a few times...and then only to play with friends.  I really did not care for playing villains.  And, even on the best days on Virtue, I noticed that the redside was still under populated when compared to the Blue side.

I think the Red Side eventually simply became an option...as most people wanted to play Heroes.   And once Freedom came out and people were able to get toons that previously you could only get by creating a villain, the population probably went down even further.

Server merge was probably one subject that the CoH community wasn't very friendly about. With all of the cheap server transfers people were probably on the server they wanted to be on.

Quote from: Mistress Urd on April 09, 2013, 07:36:32 PM
Server merge was probably one subject that the CoH community wasn't very friendly about. With all of the cheap server transfers people were probably on the server they wanted to be on.

Probably so.  But it is probably something that still should have been done.  I was one of the late comers to the game...and if I had not decided to check out a few of the other servers, I probably would not have stuck around very long. I would have probably assumed that all the other servers were just as barren as Champion.

There were very populated servers and some barren ones.  Those barren ones could easily given a potential new player the impression that COH was a game in deep decline.

Existing players may not have cared for merging some of the servers....but it might have helped to attract and keep new players. 

Quote from: Dylan Clearbrook on April 09, 2013, 08:22:14 PM
Probably so.  But it is probably something that still should have been done.  I was one of the late comers to the game...and if I had not decided to check out a few of the other servers, I probably would not have stuck around very long. I would have probably assumed that all the other servers were just as barren as Champion.

There were very populated servers and some barren ones.  Those barren ones could easily given a potential new player the impression that COH was a game in deep decline.

Existing players may not have cared for merging some of the servers....but it might have helped to attract and keep new players.

Yeah. In hindsight, which seems to always be 20/20, or rather less blurry with my vision :D, I think there would be less fuss than let on if server mergers, in theory, IN THEORY, was what it took to save the game and cust costs, along with other things.

Remember new players probably had no idea which servers were popping which were empty and judged population and state of game by what ever server they fell in and how many people they seen. Granted, many people may have been hidden and only played with close knit group of friends which didnt help perception to a new player when they log in and they dont see many people or see a group running around but dont interact with them. For some percection is reality. For example if I was a new guy and logged into say Victory server (it was pretty empty unless you knew of some of the regualr players there and being in with some of the regulars I knew more than a few that refused to do PuG and only grouped and did TFs with only people they knew.) and seen the relative emptiness I would have thought the game was on it's way out and probably head out soon. Even if I switched servers, unless Virtue or Freedom was chosen two out of what? Ten servers, the rest would be looking empty, even more so if I was a transfer from a game where there were millions of players overall with thousands of players each server on at any given time.

I think a server transfer would have created the illusion of more population. I kind of like CO one server thing. Yes, the population overall when thought about is probably smaller than COX overall on it's worse days but it seems more lively in chat and visual expecially in MC because it's only one server. Smaller space but larger population density, while COX had vast amount of space but on some servers it seemed the nearest neighbor was miles away.

Quote from: JaguarX on April 09, 2013, 08:43:40 PM
I kind of like CO one server thing. Yes, the population overall when thought about is probably smaller than COX overall on it's worse days but it seems more lively in chat and visual expecially in MC because it's only one server. Smaller space but larger population density, while COX had vast amount of space but on some servers it seemed the nearest neighbor was miles away.

One server?!  Dear gods, NO.  I would have had to play around the Freedom server...players.  No way in hell.  I was active on Protector and Virtue and happy for it, even if I had mostly migrated to Virtue by 2012.

Quote from: JanessaVR on April 09, 2013, 09:10:07 PM
One server?!  Dear gods, NO.  I would have had to play around the Freedom server...players.  No way in hell.  I was active on Protector and Virtue and happy for it, even if I had mostly migrated to Virtue by 2012.

no no I'm not sayign COX should have went to one server. God no, that would be too much cut back for that situtation. Just fewer.

Although I came across behavior attributed in stereotypical fashion to Freedom server on many servers especially Virtue. I guess you get enough people together the more likely some will start acting like a butt. I figure about out of every ten people 2 are people that will act like butts to get on people nerves for the hell of it. Thus you have 100 people you get 20 butts. Then that is not including converts. People who wasnt a butt but figured since peole can be butts and nothing happen to them they will be butts too.

Quote from: Kaos Arcanna on April 09, 2013, 05:35:23 PM
That, and they really should have made Loyalist have the option to be more heroic than it turned out.

The Loyalist Responsibility arc finale -- stop Arachnos from blowing up the reactors (and killing most of the population of Neutropolis) in defiance of Cole's order to let them do it -- always seemed pretty damn heroic to me.

Quote from: TonyV on April 09, 2013, 07:12:22 AMThis just doesn't make sense.  Companies don't just cut products for the hell of it, they have to have a reason--and that reason doesn't always have to be financial, which I am 100% convinced is the case here.  Sometimes products are cut for political reasons.  Sometimes they're cut for internal organizational reason, which I think is the primary reason City of Heroes was cut and Paragon Studios was shuttered.  The thing is, though, if you do that, you should really make sure that it's a really good reason, and I don't think it was.  Still, it's their right to make dumb choices, and I don't particularly take issue with that choice.  However, keeping the IP locked up so that someone else can't acquire it is, in my humble opinion, compounding the stupidity of the situation.

I still think that CoH was killed as what NCSoft saw as a face-saving move because it was making a profit (read: 'refusing to die on its own') while being almost a complete antithesis to the playstyle of the games they brought to the Western market only to close them because of poor performance (as Aion is slumping here now), and they didn't want to admit that there could be anything in the playstyle of an upstart, third-rate game that flopped in Korea that could be better than their bread-and-butter group-centric PvP grindfests, because group-centric PvP grindfests are the One True MMO Playstyle. Without CoH, there's nothing overt to point at and laugh at over their inability or unwillingness to realize that the Western market is different from the Asian market, and NCSoft can believe that they just have to find the right IP, and Western gamers will flock to the game in droves.

All of the rest of the drama over NCSoft's 'announcements' plays out with a fair degree of 'rationality' from their point of view if you make the assumption that the "expecting to run the company as if it were in Korea" feedback from the glassdoor site (http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/NCsoft-Reviews-E23242.htm) was characteristic of the company as a whole -- we were expected to accept the pronouncement of the game's shutdown from NCSoft's position of authority, and they made repeated non-statements that were expected to give us a face-saving way to accept their decision and move on -- except that we don't react that way to being fed bullshit, and the fact that they expected it to work is just one more example of how little they do or care to understand the western market.

Quote from: LT. Couper on April 09, 2013, 03:43:34 AM
My thinking is that the people who say the servers were empty, didn't have any global chat channels, weren't in a SG and hung out in solo mission caves. That's all I can think of that would make the game seem empty. I played on Champion and was tuned into at least 3 channels just for forming TF/SF/Trial groups, and a channel for my SG. It was almost constantly buzzing! I never got the feeling that the world was empty.

For me, at least on Liberty - which seemed to have maybe 5-10% fewer people than Champion - on the weekend evenings, there were plenty of people about - provided the playerbase knew ahead of time that there was a reason to log on.

When @Cinderfrost would host Wednesday night iTrials on Liberty - sometimes we had to get two leagues going. But - the rub of it is - that's 48 players at most. Granted, not everyone wanted to play incarnate content. (or could, for that matter.)

On Friday and Sunday nights, @Noyjitat or @Noyjitat? or any of his other alt accounts, lol, would host MotherShip raids. However, sometimes there simply weren't enough folks to run them with more than a team or two. And, yes, I know an MSR can happen with less than 8 - but let's face it - they need to be a pretty solid, balanced 8 to get the job done.

After those MSR's, I'd host iTrials, and more often than not MoiTrials - Liberty loved their badges! Usually, I wouldn't have any trouble recruiting because I'd do the recruiting for the most part at the same time every weekend.

Sadly - when I would try to get task forces going over the weekend, or during the week during prime time - even the weekly taskforces - this was often a painful and tedious process. I had a fairly long list of global names to call upon, but once SWTOR went live, more than half of those names stopped logging in.
I can think of a dozen right now - I think I saw them once or twice pop back in before the end.
/begin digress
Granted, if I may give myself the benefit of the doubt, I was considered by most to be...passionate about the game. I took things way too seriously, in retrospect. (it wouldn't be unfair to suggest I was wound pretty tightly..okay, toilet-trained at gunpoint, maybe!)
That may have been a factor. I didn't suffer fools kindly - but a lot of that was trying to protect the game time of those few who could only play for a given hour or so each week and chose to join my leagues.
/end digress

In the end, I found myself playing on Infinity and Champion more as the end drew near. I'd had toons on Virtue and Freedom, as well - but I didn't team up that much on those servers. Most of the invites I got were for farms - which was okay - but I could always get xp faster solo than teamed.  (when I take into account the amount of time to recruit and head to mission door etc.)

So, from my limited perspective, yeah, CoH was fizzing out.

Quote from: Codewalker on April 09, 2013, 09:35:28 PM
The Loyalist Responsibility arc finale -- stop Arachnos from blowing up the reactors (and killing most of the population of Neutropolis) in defiance of Cole's order to let them do it -- always seemed pretty damn heroic to me.

In hindsight I wish my Praetorian 50's battle cry had been Local $character_name "I'm from Powers Division.  I'm here to help."  As it was, he was my 2nd energy blaster (gosh those were fun!) and his F10 battle cry was instead "Greetings from Emperor Cole!"    (Just why anyone in their right mind would choose a blaster to be their liaison and ambassador to Primal Earth is beyond me, but I had a blast playing it to the hilt.  Needless to say, my Gold side toon, Mark Davis, did things the Powers Division way and 100% vigilante!   ;)  Thanks, Titans, for this walk down Memory Lane.

Quote from: ukaserex on April 09, 2013, 11:45:14 PM
For me, at least on Liberty - which seemed to have maybe 5-10% fewer people than Champion - on the weekend evenings, there were plenty of people about - provided the playerbase knew ahead of time that there was a reason to log on.

When @Cinderfrost would host Wednesday night iTrials on Liberty - sometimes we had to get two leagues going. But - the rub of it is - that's 48 players at most. Granted, not everyone wanted to play incarnate content. (or could, for that matter.)

On Friday and Sunday nights, @Noyjitat or @Noyjitat? or any of his other alt accounts, lol, would host MotherShip raids. However, sometimes there simply weren't enough folks to run them with more than a team or two. And, yes, I know an MSR can happen with less than 8 - but let's face it - they need to be a pretty solid, balanced 8 to get the job done.

After those MSR's, I'd host iTrials, and more often than not MoiTrials - Liberty loved their badges! Usually, I wouldn't have any trouble recruiting because I'd do the recruiting for the most part at the same time every weekend.

Sadly - when I would try to get task forces going over the weekend, or during the week during prime time - even the weekly taskforces - this was often a painful and tedious process. I had a fairly long list of global names to call upon, but once SWTOR went live, more than half of those names stopped logging in.
I can think of a dozen right now - I think I saw them once or twice pop back in before the end.
/begin digress
Granted, if I may give myself the benefit of the doubt, I was considered by most to be...passionate about the game. I took things way too seriously, in retrospect. (it wouldn't be unfair to suggest I was wound pretty tightly..okay, toilet-trained at gunpoint, maybe!)
That may have been a factor. I didn't suffer fools kindly - but a lot of that was trying to protect the game time of those few who could only play for a given hour or so each week and chose to join my leagues.
/end digress

In the end, I found myself playing on Infinity and Champion more as the end drew near. I'd had toons on Virtue and Freedom, as well - but I didn't team up that much on those servers. Most of the invites I got were for farms - which was okay - but I could always get xp faster solo than teamed.  (when I take into account the amount of time to recruit and head to mission door etc.)

So, from my limited perspective, yeah, CoH was fizzing out.

I never played nearly as much on Liberty as I would have liked.  (It was the initial home server of my Praetorian who later got moved to Victory.)  Yeah, it sounds like some of the servers were way full; e.g. Freedom--so much so that I rarely did much there--and I'd started on Infinity and still played there with some frequency.  But rather than "fizzing out" my prob was so many toons, so many servers, so many kewl players....  which server, which character, etc. to log on to.  That's where I thought the SG's who had it together with guildportal.com pages etc. were really helpful; that and the global chat channels.  Thus I was rarely on Freedom or Virtue but mostly on Justice and Victory, but had over 100 toons across 9 servers and literally could not keep up, but I sure had a ball trying!!!  /em holdtorch

I would like to add to TonyV's point #1.  Every time PS added more playable content like Preatoria, the servers would fill up like they were a few months after the game went live from beta in the very beginning.  I really don't believe it was the lack of players as some claim nor do I believe the game wasn't profitable.  And let's add profitable enough.

If anything might have hurt CoH, it was the appearance of lack of reinvestment.  The fact that PS was creating more playable content is proof they knew CoH needed it.  They were attempting to make it from what I saw. 

The only business reason I could see for NCsoft choosing to kill of the game is the potential investment it could take to give the game the facelift they likely felt it needed.  As for their argument that they felt no one would take as good care of us as they did (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt so don't shoot me), I think I speak for everyone here when I say,

"We'd rather never have new content again if we could just have a few playable servers left up for us.  A GM to help us when we got stuck like in a mission that won't end but no other tech support would be acceptable too.  As it stands, we cannot meet with our friends, pick fights with our player enemies, or anything else.  In short, we cannot do what we were born to do.  To be heroes."

Perhaps it is time for our negotiations team to talk to NCsoft directly instead of trying to get someone to buy the game.  Things have cooled down a little for them.  Perhaps they would be more interested in talking.  Again, it's just a thought.