DISCLAIMER:
The following post is supposition based off foreign news I found off Google. I do not know someone, that knows someone, that knows someone. I merely found the news, and am pondering what it might mean, and if nothing else trying to keep a heads up on the enemy.
http://game.southcn.com/xyzx/content/2013-04/03/content_66114539.htm
Now, yes, I know none of that is written in English, so I hit up Google Translate. This is an April 1 article, so take it for what it's worth, but then I don't know that they celebrate AFD there.
Basically, by copying 虽然NCsoft没有公布这两款新作的具体名称，但根据此前NCsoft对外透露消息称这两款游戏将是其旗下现有游戏的续作，固有外媒猜测，这两游戏很有可能为《天堂3》和《永恒之塔2》。
NCsoft发言人称，目前还无法对外透露这两款神秘游戏的任何消息，但是会在《天堂永恒》之后揭晓谜题。
into Google translate, I'm getting the gist that NC is planning to release (or announce) 2 new games, that will be sequels to existing games.
Food for thought.
They are just reiterating the report from 6 weeks ago of NCSOFT licensing the Unreal 4 engine for two games and the public speculation that one would be "Lineage 3" and the other "Aion 2".
http://www.thisisgame.com/en/2013/02/14/mysterious-projects-from-ncsoft-will-use-unreal-engine-4
And Korea has a lot on its mind other than games right now.
There's a chance that Western culture, and the US, may again be due to grow warm to the South Koreans. But then, there's also a chance it will grow colder, if Koreans feel that, yet again, the US is using other people's countries and lives to fight its economic and political agenda. :(
Quote from: Ammon on April 04, 2013, 05:32:02 AM
And Korea has a lot on its mind other than games right now.
There's a chance that Western culture, and the US, may again be due to grow warm to the South Koreans. But then, there's also a chance it will grow colder, if Koreans feel that, yet again, the US is using other people's countries and lives to fight its economic and political agenda. :(
Not to further derail, but I'm pretty sure from interviews I've seen that most South Koreans are not at all worried. They know the U.S. is their ally and will act accordingly to any military incursion against them by the North.
I don't really think there is a political agenda on the U.S.'s part specific to this current bout of news coming out of that region other than the fact that we probably
want to continue flying bombers and jet fighters near the border.
Failure on the U.S.'s part to ease the South Korean people's fears would mean that the South Korean government would have to ramp up their own military, to include development of nuclear weapons of their own (which we don't want).
I kind of see it like what happened with Japan after WWII except it's more of a mutual thing than a requirement based on an old treaty.
This isn't the 1950's anymore, so, any 'new' Korean war that could theoretically occur, would be vastly different than the last one. It would be over in a matter of weeks (the hot portion, anyway).
My personal opinion is much the same as the South's, in that, nothing is likely to happen so long as the North has a way out. The North's only advantage is its control over it's people as far as information is concerned.
Tempest in a teapot. Typical NK saber-rattling, nothing to see here. Moving along...
Quote from: JanessaVR on April 04, 2013, 05:55:12 AM
Tempest in a teapot. Typical NK saber-rattling, nothing to see here. Moving along...
The Daily Show had a funny bit on this the other night. Look for "Nuke Kid on the Block".
And that's enough politics for one month on Titan. Please keep that kind of thing out of our space. It inevitably leads to feather ruffling and fit pitching, same as any other internet gathering place. :)
Oye, no, didn't want this derailing into the P word..
Wanted to game/NC$oft speculate & FatherXmas's first post did the trick. I hadn't seen that news clip in my search, oddly enough. So thanks for the info!
The bad PR from closing COH and the sudden and believed unneeded firing of PS seems to have added to other things causing NC$oft to go into a major business downswing. This has also caused distrust from consumers, investors, and business clients, possibly making ownership of the COH IP bad for them. As far as i know, their isn't a way to just simply erase the IP and doing so would likely make things worse anyway. As I see it, they have 3 options available to them.
1: Sit on the IP and wait for things to blow over. By now they might be realizing that things aren't blowing over any time soon and this is seen as a bad business practice and is just adding to the distrust from current and future consumers, investors, and clients, as well as making them look less competent.
2: Restart COH. They may see this as bad because it would be acknowledgement of a bad decision and make them look less competent. It also may not heal the damage already done. If they did this though, it might smooth things over with time and make a future cancellation, if needed, done better and much less damaging.
3: Sell the IP. This would be the best decision as it would free them of the IP, leaving them to do other things. This may also be seen as NC thinking of their customers. They are in an entertainment business after all and should think of their customers if they plan to be successful. This would only be negative to their image if the company they sold it to made it more successful than they did. This would have very little negative effect though as it wouldn't be directly affecting them.
This is just my speculations.
Quote from: Beltor on April 04, 2013, 11:11:18 AM
2: Restart COH. They may see this as bad because it would be acknowledgement of a bad decision and make them look less competent. It also may not heal the damage already done. If they did this though, it might smooth things over with time and make a future cancellation, if needed, done better and much less damaging.
This is just my speculations.
This here was my speculation, with regards to the news of 2 secret projects, a new engine (the same one I believe TPP is using), and talk of the projects being "sequels"
Let's face it ... we know NC$oft is not smart, nor do they think of their customers. Their ignoring of our efforts pre shut down thru now kinda proves that. Mind you, I could be COMPLETELY wrong in this. Which is why I clarify that I'm just speculating. I also wouldn't put something this additionally dumb past them.
I'd say Lineage Eternal is definitely one of them. That's been pretty open knowledge for a long time now. And yeah, Aion 2 could easily be the other then.
Asians just don't "get" superheroes, and CoH bombed over there. And they aren't making anything that doesn't serve their primary bread and butter, a.k.a. Asians. The Lineage series and Aion are still huge there, too. It only makes sense.
Quote from: Tanklet on April 04, 2013, 11:15:42 AM
This here was my speculation, with regards to the news of 2 secret projects, a new engine (the same one I believe TPP is using)
Half right. I believe NCSoft was grabbing licenses for Unreal 4, TPP was looking at licenses for Unreal 3. True both engines are similar, but Unreal 4 handles scripting differently (doing away with pre-compiling unreal script, and adding in c++ that can be changed on the fly, if memory serves) and boasts some more advanced real time rendering capabilities than Unreal 3 has.
Otherwise, there's not too much difference between them though...
Quote from: Shenku on April 04, 2013, 01:05:21 PM
Half right. I believe NCSoft was grabbing licenses for Unreal 4, TPP was looking at licenses for Unreal 3. True both engines are similar, but Unreal 4 handles scripting differently (doing away with pre-compiling unreal script, and adding in c++ that can be changed on the fly, if memory serves) and boasts some more advanced real time rendering capabilities than Unreal 3 has.
Otherwise, there's not too much difference between them though...
I think it was stated, and I could be wrong because it's been awhile, that Nate told us switching from Unreal 3 to 4 in the future for TPP wouldn't present any major technical hurdles. I'd have to go ask him though to make sure.
Quote from: Surelle on April 04, 2013, 12:05:13 PMAsians just don't "get" superheroes
What? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_%26_Bunny)
Anyway, wasn't CoH not even given a chance to bomb in Korea? Korea release canceled?
What is "TPP" ?
Quote from: perdman44 on April 04, 2013, 04:59:52 PM
What is "TPP" ?
The Phoenix Project, one of the two Plan Z groups. The other would be "H&V", Heroes and Villains.
Quote from: P51mus on April 04, 2013, 04:58:02 PM
What? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_%26_Bunny)
Anyway, wasn't CoH not even given a chance to bomb in Korea? Korea release canceled?
It went into open beta in January 2005. Reports indicated they only had a peak of a few hundred players on at any one time. It was suppose to go live that March. Then Guild Wars was released there in May and was a relative success.
In all fairness the Korean/Asian release was barely advertised as well.
NCSoft is struggling to do anything more than pull gamers from their own software. It is a difficult thing - you play a normal Asian style grinder and when the company introduces a new game you assume it is more of the same. So introducing City of Heroes - a unique game - to people wanting a grinder, is a failure from the start.
You think of an NCSoft game and you expect to see a certain type of game and if you have tried their other offerings your expectations are already set.
I never got that whole thing about "Koreans don't understand superheroes." I mean, what the heck is this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySbJeLwU6Vs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySbJeLwU6Vs)
It's not they didn't get the idea of superheroes. It's that our game's style didn't suit them. Compare it to the original Guild Wars play style which did do well enough there back then. Look at the play style of Lineage II and Aion. Even today WoW doesn't do all that well there, at least not as well as most westerners would expect, they're 6th in MMORPGs just ahead of Lineage 2 and behind Tera.
Quote from: FatherXmas on April 04, 2013, 09:13:11 PM
It's not they didn't get the idea of superheroes. It's that our game's style didn't suit them. Compare it to the original Guild Wars play style which did do well enough there back then. Look at the play style of Lineage II and Aion. Even today WoW doesn't do all that well there, at least not as well as most westerners would expect, they're 6th in MMORPGs just ahead of Lineage 2 and behind Tera.
That's what I understood - that on the whole they prefer PVP, not PVE, and that's why CoH wasn't popular there. But, either way, ancient history now - it just wasn't their cup of tea.
Quote from: JanessaVR on April 04, 2013, 09:20:11 PM
That's what I understood - that on the whole they prefer PVP, not PVE, and that's why CoH wasn't popular there. But, either way, ancient history now - it just wasn't their cup of tea.
Yeah. Some like raspberry tea some like honey mint some like it straight up. I prefer green tea. ;D. Cox over there could have been visually anything but the game play as is wouldn't have done well. Hell even pvp centric games sell tons here but there seem to be enough for non pvp games too. An untapped gold mine. I think the surface has only been scratched with cox type games. But it has to be done before people get over saturated with hero media.
Quote from: Sleepy Wonder on April 04, 2013, 04:16:26 PM
I think it was stated, and I could be wrong because it's been awhile, that Nate told us switching from Unreal 3 to 4 in the future for TPP wouldn't present any major technical hurdles. I'd have to go ask him though to make sure.
Well, as I understand it, the only technical hurdle is that Unreal Script is suppose to have been removed in UE4 entirely(at least, last I heard it was), which means any scripting in UScript done in UE3 would have to be converted over or in some cases maybe rewritten entirely. Impossible to do? No. Easy or time-friendly to do? That depends on how much needs to be transferred over if the change over is to be made at some later date in the development cycle. That gets to be less likely the closer to completion the game gets, since it would require essentially rewriting most of the code for the game.
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg409%2F6544%2Fshitashiot8.jpg)
Honestly, given the way Sentai works (and I mean real super sentai, Zyuranger not Mighty Morphin, Shinkenger, even Sailor Moon really) works I don't think you're giving a huge section of cultures enough credit.
Maybe some modern comics conventions may not be agreed across the board, to say that they don't get superheroes feels a little narrow minded to me, unintentionally so but still there.
If you at all get the feeling you have to add ", but I'm not racist" to something, you're probably at least using a racist sentiment.
CoH's gameplay was pretty unique. Plenty of people who enjoy comics probably dont get into it, and plenty of people who I know played it hate to read comics for any number of reasons. Retcons. Poor writing. Downright offensive representation of women.
To say that Asia doesnt get superheroes is to say that "the west" doesn't understand... I dunno, Anime, Ninjas? Do most people in the West 'get' superheroes? It could be argued its still a niche and that the explosion of the films are enjoyed not because people get the mystique, allure, etc, but because they're good stories with good effects.
Just my 2inf.
Quote from: Kistulot on April 05, 2013, 05:06:14 AMHonestly, given the way Sentai works (and I mean real super sentai, Zyuranger not Mighty Morphin, Shinkenger, even Sailor Moon really) works I don't think you're giving a huge section of cultures enough credit.
Maybe some modern comics conventions may not be agreed across the board, to say that they don't get superheroes feels a little narrow minded to me, unintentionally so but still there.
Look at those -- it's a
group of characters fighting [insert opponent here]
together. Look at the type of MMOs that NCSoft makes its money on in Asia. Take
Aion, for an example; you have the starting zone, where there's little that a single character can't handle themselves, then the first zone after you get your wings, which is still pretty solo-friendly, although there's a monster roaming around the central town that wants a team to take down effectively, and when you hit the mid-to-late teens you start getting handed quests that are essentially unsoloable, forcing you into groups to complete them. Which isn't a drawback for the Korean players who get together with their gaming group to go down to the gaming cafe and socialize while they play, because that's the way their gaming culture grew.
In the West, gamers would go off into their computer room at home to play; it was a mostly solitary experience, and you would socialize
in game with the friends you made
in game, but if your friends or guildmates weren't on, you had the solo content to keep you busy; because it evolved from single-player games, PvP and the group content was generally an
adjunct to the characters' storylines, not an integral part of it.
With the exception of skippable parts of the game -- TFs, Hami raids, mother ship raids, Incarnate raids, etc. -- there was nothing in City of Heroes that
actively pulled players together in teams, and certainly nothing (aside from a leveling pact between two characters) to pull a group of characters together to play through the content together. CoH followed the Western superhero-comic style of the solo hero, who might become part of a group, but the fact that Iron Man joined the Avengers didn't stop him from going out on his own, or teaming up with another hero on an ad-hoc basis -- where in the super sentai programs that became the norm in Asia, the members of the group come together and fight
as a group; it is rare for a character to have much solo time. And that dichotomy made the gameplay style of CoH more foreign to Korean gamers when 'City of Hero' was released there; it didn't fit the superhero meme as it was presented in Asian media, even though there is nothing inherently
stopping you from playing CoH that way -- the game didn't resonate with Korean gamers the way it did for Western gamers.
City of Heroes was as amenable to getting together with a bunch of friends for an evening's play as any of the Korean MMOs, but it was a facet of the CoH community and Western gaming that we didn't think anything of playing with a group of friends one night and playing with a
different group of friends the next night, just from the vagaries of who was on at any given time. But what the Korean players wanted was a game that supported a group of friends getting together and
then gaming together -- socialization in person, not across the Net, with the group membership being stable over time. Neither one is better than the other, but each type will be jarring and less attractive compared to the playstyle you're comfortable with. And that's why CoH flopped in Korea, and why the Korean-style MMOs have an uphill fight to retain Western players.