Titan Network
Graveyard => Save Paragon Retirees => Save Paragon City! => Topic started by: Segev on September 28, 2012, 03:49:47 PM
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As per a very good suggestion further down the thread: Here are the sign-up documents! (https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B8Cnm8hAq3VtRHNiV2ItRUZHakE/edit)
With at least one very famous superhero who maintains "reporter" as his day job, I think it might be useful to reach out to the media-at-large as a community. It is desirable that wider-read media should write about the game and its closure and the efforts to save it; the best way, I think, to get the story out there is to invite the news reporters to come play. Show them everything you love about this game, and why you want it saved. Show them what you find fun, introduce them to the community and what makes it great, and tell them your personal stories. Maybe even win a few over as gamers who now wish they could play longer.
To this end, I propose a "Media Day" event. One day wherein we schedule time for experienced players to walk members of the press (from bloggers to webtv to newspapers and magazines and even TV news programs) through the character-creation process, and then through the opening missions and the processes of forming teams and joining supergroups and the like. If SGs can still be made new, perhaps somebody should even make the Weekly Galaxy (since "Daily Planet" is taken) as such and specifically invite all participants in this event to join it.
Give tours of various HQs, show off the gameplay, and most importantly, tell them about all the efforts to save the game and why it's worth saving and how NCSoft can win by selling the IP to a new studio.
The biggest snag to this is the inability to make new accounts. We can't just invite a horde of new people to play.
The second biggest snag is getting the attention of the media people.
The third is that I am, myself, not a player, so I cannot tell you how best to do the navigation and on what missions to lead our guests. I used to play, but I imagine my 5-year-old account is quite defunct by now. Nor would I be good at mentoring, personally, since I am not experienced in the modern game and wildly out of practice from when I did play.
Fortunately, there are solutions to all three problems!
1) I need volunteers who have spare accounts! I am not going to ask for your account information, but will, instead, pair you up with guests from the media and let you arrange to share the information directly with them. This will help prevent any mix-ups and - I'll be honest - I want to avoid any appearance of phishing, here.
2) I need volunteers who would like to be mentors! These people should love the game and be experienced in the opening missions. They should be willing to help one or more newbies through the process of signing on to an account, creating a fun superhero (or villain), and leading them through missions. A key part of this will be ensuring that your proteges are able to fully appreciate the story, the ease and fun of the game, and most importantly the community. Expect to spend a lot of time on Media Day with this; you'll be answering questions, helping arrange interview times and "press conferences" so your media proteges can ask all the questions they need to to appreciate this game somewhere vaguely approaching the way you do.
3) I need volunteers who are masters of social media! Specifically, we need to get in touch with members of the press as stated above, and extend these invitations! So if you know anybody in the press, if you know ways of contacting press institutions, if you know social media where the press unicorn for news, put the word out. Gauge interest and hand out contact information so that we can get some measure of what sort of headcount to expect.
This project is in its earliest of organizational stages, and it is the first of its type I've attempted to spearhead, personally. We need to pick a date, and thing to consider for this date are timeliness compared to the news cycle and the sunsetting of the game as well as whether media people can be on on that day and whether our mentor volunteers can be on. So weekdays vs. weekends are a major consideration.
I am thinking of aiming for somewhere between October 15th and 20th, giving us at least two weeks to get this set up and still aiming for long enough before the deadline that the articles and stories will be published in time to make a difference.
My plan is to schedule this as an all-day affair, probably 6-12 hours of gaming and interviews and press conferences. A fourth category of volunteer to be the guys questioned at this press conference (or these press conferences) would be welcome. People like TonyV or VV or major players in the game who know the game, the community, and the circumstances as-we-know-them of the transfer of the IP would be ideal. It would be advisable for these volunteers to do as much research as possible into the situation so they can give authoritative but as-true-as-we-know answers without spreading unsubstantiated rumors.
For the time being, this thread is open for suggestions to refine this, mentions of tentative volunteering for any of these roles, expressions of interest in helping organize this game-side, suggestions for dates, times, formal sub-events to orchestrate as part of this, and general discussion. I will, this evening, set up some google documents for listing your preferred online name and contact info if you're volunteering an account or to be a mentor, as well as for leaving suggested ways of spreading the word. Anybody who wants to spread the word, speak up in here but also feel free to get some preliminary ground laid on garnering media interest.
Let's see if we can't have some major blogs, tv news, or newspaper articles telling the world about the writers' experiences in CoH and the efforts of that game's players to save it!
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This is a fantastic idea with one downfall. If you don't already have City of Heroes installed you can't get in game.
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Hm. There's no way to obtain the client at all? I know we need already-extant accounts, which is why I've asked for volunteers who have spare ones they're willing to donate to a media guest.
The client may not be downloadable from the official site anymore...but would there be legal problems with creating a torrent site for it? Clients themselves were not, once it went free-to-play, what were being sold (as evidenced by the fact you could download it for free up until they announced the shutdown).
However, now that you've brought this up, I do have a backup plan (that I just came up with). It's messy and makes this a lot harder, though: we'll need to make an actual convention out of this. Volunteers donating accounts will bring their computer with them. I expect reasonably-paranoid volunteers will want to also be semi-mentors at this point so they can hover over their computer while somebody else is using it. The computer obviously already has the client installed.
The advantage of this is that it actually brings all the media people, mentors, and other participants together in one place. The disadvantages are that it now requires travel for many, is going to cost money to get the space, and is going to be a major investment of time and money in general.
So! While we'll keep that plan as a backup, first I'd like to investigate ways to get the client (legally!) onto computers which currently lack it.
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I just finished downloading and updating through the installer on my laptop, this morning. The links were gone from the Master Account page, but I already had the CoH account, so it was there in the Installer once it downloaded and updated.
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Out of respect for keeping to the EULA and ToS, if we cannot help them log in using accounts already made, there's always TwitchTV. If we get a sort of online convention going, even better... with people showing off bases and base building, character creation and customization, making an MA arc, running iTrials (which free can't do), fighting GMs (Eochai and Adamastor... I have a spawn recipe for him), and other such activities (CC in Atlas Park 33!).
Run the various Live segments as a Virtual Conference room. Have a designated player on hand in each chat to answer questions while the person running the live video portion shows off.
Either way it would require coordination, an agenda, as well as a Q&A Session afterwards, preferrably with TonyV as the spearhead of the #SaveCoH Campaign. It would best if our dearest VV could be there as well.
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Depending on the date--the 20th is bad for me, and may conflict with the Extra Life (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5378.0.html) play-a-thon--I'd be glad to be a mentor. I can use Skype for audio communication, and if we can get a twitch.tv set up for my mentor-ee, so much the better.
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I will have to look into TwitchTV. How would that enable people to share clients that are already installed? (Or am I misreading Kheprera's post?)
There is, on the 19-21st, a convention in Rolla, Missouri. It's a gaming convention, tabletop, but if we need a hasty venue for physical gathering, it would be a possibility, as I actually do know the people running it. It is, however, Rolla, Missouri, which is fairly out-of-the-way in terms of accessibility. (It's halfway between Springfield, MO, and St. Louis, MO on I-44, for those who have rudimentary knowledge of city and highway layout in Missouri.)
But yeah, an online convention would be superior. Maybe a combination, with a physical locale and a twitchTV (again, I'm totally clueless how this works at the moment) linkup to enable remote connection. Other, better physical venues are also open for suggestion.
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Hm. There's no way to obtain the client at all? I know we need already-extant accounts, which is why I've asked for volunteers who have spare ones they're willing to donate to a media guest.
Just to respond to this: last I'd heard, the client could still be bootstrapped from the NCsoft Launcher, which is tied to games like AION.
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Hm. There's no way to obtain the client at all? I know we need already-extant accounts, which is why I've asked for volunteers who have spare ones they're willing to donate to a media guest.
Is there a sign up list somewhere? I have an extra account I can "donate". I think my husband does too.
edit to add: I have two accounts I can donate... possible husband's too.
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I will have to look into TwitchTV. How would that enable people to share clients that are already installed? (Or am I misreading Kheprera's post?)
They would not be able to log into the game via Twitch, but they would *still* be able to see it. The advantage is we could log into the Beta and show them what was in the works. We could have multiple "rooms" of Twitch videos going, showing all different aspects of the game. The media could jump between rooms as they saw fit PLUS we would have extra exposure since other gamers tend to wander in.
It is not getting the media to actually play the game, no, but it's the next best thing, I think.
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Is there a sign up list somewhere? I have an extra account I can "donate". I think my husband does too.
edit to add: I have two accounts I can donate... possible husband's too.
Not yet; I can't access google docs to create one until I get back to my apartment this evening. I will be making sign-up sheets, though! Thanks very much for your interest!
They would not be able to log into the game via Twitch, but they would *still* be able to see it. The advantage is we could log into the Beta and show them what was in the works. We could have multiple "rooms" of Twitch videos going, showing all different aspects of the game. The media could jump between rooms as they saw fit PLUS we would have extra exposure since other gamers tend to wander in.
It is not getting the media to actually play the game, no, but it's the next best thing, I think.
Hm. That would be a decent "next best thing." I will keep it on the list of possibilities.
I am encouraged, however, to hear that the client can be bootstrapped onto a machine as long as there's an available account.
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I'm curious which media outlets are the primary target for this? I know that Massively and OnRPG both have people who play the game. They were at the rally.
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"Any and all" is the obvious answer. More specifically, my thought is that we should be able to get more than a few general-content bloggers who might have heard "something" about this but not know enough to feel comfortable writing, and I'm hoping we'll get main stream media types (even if they're more 'general interest' story types rather than a big name reporter). For those who get picky about "main stream media," I'm including both left- and right-wing in this, as I don't think this is a particularly divisive issue in American political terms. I am not worried that any particular conservative/liberal bias would color reports on our efforts and the facts of the game's closure.
But this is intended to help "break out" of "just" the gaming news/culture bubble and get at least some passing notice by main western culture.
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I am reminded of one of my favorite movies.
"...everyone?"
"EEEEEEEVERRRRRRYOOOOOOOOOOOONE!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrTsuvykUZk
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I am reminded of one of my favorite movies.
"...so like, when you say...everyone..."
"EEEEEEEVERRRRRRYOOOOOOOOOOOONE!"
...now I'm reminded of the Nicholas Cage movie, Knowing. That's...frighteningly appropriate and horrifyingly wrong at the same time.
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Unfortunately I cannot participate in this, but the idea IS fabulous, good luck.
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Alright! Sorry this took so long, but here it is: a folder with the documents (https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B8Cnm8hAq3VtRHNiV2ItRUZHakE/edit). If people would write their screen names and preferred contact methods in the documents corresponding to that with which they'd like to volunteer, and drop media contact methods in the appropriate document, I would appreciate it.
If anybody can get in TOUCH with media people, putting reports of such efforts in the media contacts document would also be appreciated.
Now. Having looked at the thread on the charity event on the 20th, I am wondering if it "conflicting" wouldn't be a good thing. If we could get the media guests participating or at least to see it, it might help. Thoughts?
I'm also looking for volunteers to help plan specific schedule events.
Nothing is set in stone yet; this is the first day of planning. Thanks for the interest!
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I have sent you an email with an old EU server account i had - it is a Premium account and you can't access my main account from it unless you know all of those logins and passwords :)
So you are free to send it to anyone who wants to use it. I logged in on it to select the server as Virtue. Personally I would think a single point of contact for these is best.
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Good plan. Virtue sounds as reasonable a server as any!
The google docs are meant to be a central listing point.
Nobody needs to give their account info at this stage; the intent is to pair you up with the guest who'll use it. However, I do appreciate it! If we have sufficient, I might log in to the account myself to try to participate, depending on scheduling and if we have enough for all expected guests.
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I can attest that Virtue is, in fact, awesome. >.>
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There's also the Rally Part 2 - Dance Party... AP or MI on your server of choice. October 20th 8am ET to ???
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Sorry for my ignorance of acronyms, but "AP" and "MI" stand for...?
I'll look into making the documents into spreadsheets in a bit; we've got our first volunteer entry on it, though! ^_^_d
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Sorry for my ignorance of acronyms, but "AP" and "MI" stand for...?
I'll look into making the documents into spreadsheets in a bit; we've got our first volunteer entry on it, though! ^_^_d
Atlas Park and Mercy Island. (that would be me. :D)
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If we have sufficient, I might log in to the account myself to try to participate, depending on scheduling and if we have enough for all expected guests.
If you can remember your old account name/password it should still work. They haven't deleted any accounts.
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Not even 5+ year old ones? Huh. I'll look into it Sunday. (I volunteered to work tomorrow due to a contract terminating soon and the company needing some tasks finished before then.)
ThorsAssassin had an interesting bit to say about people "not even in the gaming industry" who might be able to help if they can be persuaded it's worth doing. They might be equally or more valuable to invite to join us for this event.
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Not even 5+ year old ones? Huh. I'll look into it Sunday. (I volunteered to work tomorrow due to a contract terminating soon and the company needing some tasks finished before then.)
I'm pretty sure the absolute worst that could happen is you'd have to rename your characters. If I remember right, there was a one time thing where they might have released the lock on some character names, but I don't remember anything specific about it besides it happened.
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I will second the concerns about the possible EULA violations (I think there is something about sharing accounts), but I also think this is a great idea. Just in case we can go forward with sharing accounts, I will volunteer one of my accounts to be used. It is a free account that I created so that my wife, roommate, and myself could do the 4 man minimum events. I now wish I went through with my plan to make 5 free accounts so that we could do TFs.
I also really like the idea of an online convention using Twitch.TV. If we go that route, I will be willing to run a room. I have never streamed game video, but if someone can give me some instructions, I am confident in my ability to get up and running in time. If we do the online convention, I can probably get my wife to help out as well. If anything, I can probably get her to duo with me to illustrate that the game is small team friendly.
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I will second the concerns about the possible EULA violations (I think there is something about sharing accounts), but I also think this is a great idea. Just in case we can go forward with sharing accounts, I will volunteer one of my accounts to be used. It is a free account that I created so that my wife, roommate, and myself could do the 4 man minimum events. I now wish I went through with my plan to make 5 free accounts so that we could do TFs.
I also really like the idea of an online convention using Twitch.TV. If we go that route, I will be willing to run a room. I have never streamed game video, but if someone can give me some instructions, I am confident in my ability to get up and running in time. If we do the online convention, I can probably get my wife to help out as well. If anything, I can probably get her to duo with me to illustrate that the game is small team friendly.
...what's NCSoft gonna do? Ban us? >.> *snrk*
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Fortunately, I don't think NCSoft wants to be that hostile to these sorts of efforts. It makes them look like "the bad guy," and as long as we're not smearing them with it, it would make for WORSE PR.
We're not doing this to attack NCSoft; we're doing this to create greater awareness of why people love this game so darn much.
Add in how hard EULAs are to enforce, and I think we're okay. I'm no lawyer, but I think they'd be stretching anti-"account-sharing" rules to the extreme in this case, anyway. "Reasonable man" standards are all over the place in law, and we're clearly not trying to do any of the nefarious stuff usually associated with "account sharing."
I'm currently on a computer network that forbids google docs, so I can't check the ones set up for this right now, but please, if you're volunteering, enter name and contact information and any relevant notes on them! (Again, I am not asking for you to divulge account passwords at this time, just means of getting the guest who will borrow your account in touch with you to get them later.)
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...what's NCSoft gonna do? Ban us? >.> *snrk*
Personally, I don't think that NCSoft would do anything about it. I just wanted to point out that there could be problems.
Fortunately, I don't think NCSoft wants to be that hostile to these sorts of efforts. It makes them look like "the bad guy," and as long as we're not smearing them with it, it would make for WORSE PR.
We're not doing this to attack NCSoft; we're doing this to create greater awareness of why people love this game so darn much.
Add in how hard EULAs are to enforce, and I think we're okay. I'm no lawyer, but I think they'd be stretching anti-"account-sharing" rules to the extreme in this case, anyway. "Reasonable man" standards are all over the place in law, and we're clearly not trying to do any of the nefarious stuff usually associated with "account sharing."
I'm currently on a computer network that forbids google docs, so I can't check the ones set up for this right now, but please, if you're volunteering, enter name and contact information and any relevant notes on them! (Again, I am not asking for you to divulge account passwords at this time, just means of getting the guest who will borrow your account in touch with you to get them later.)
I put my info on the docs before I even posted ;D
Also, if we go ahead with the account sharing, what is stopping us from doing that along with the online convention? The volunteer accounts could be like the VIP pass and the streaming could be for general admission.
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Do we have any experienced TwitchTV users here who would be able to take point on putting together this "online convention?" Let me know what kind of organizational requirements you have, and I will try to get another google doc or few up to help with that! If there's anything I can do to create a central repository for the efforts involved, I'll be happy to do that, too.
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Could you edit the google doc signup sheet into the original post so that it's easier for people to find? Preferably at the start of the post.
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I seriously doubt if you keep an email trail documenting you are giving someone the account and when and then that person stupidly does something in the game that it would come to you in anything but the preliminary start of the investigation by the police.
Once they trace the IP address and find as of xx date that person had the account............
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I would like to volunteer to be a Mentor.
I have 10 years of experience with the CoH community (joined the Prebeta boards in Sept 2002) and have convinced many of my friends to try coh over the years. The only caveat is that my account is at the Free to Play status due to financial reasons beginning this year. I love this game and sharing it with others, so if you manage to get this set up, just let me know what you need from me.
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I have taken the suggestion of putting the link at the top of the OP; thanks for pointing out how hard it was to find!
Another good point that has been brought up elsewhere is means-of-contact between mentors and guests. Is there a good preferred program onto which anybody can sign up to participate in voice chat without having to exchange a lot of contact information? Skype is a bit out for this. I have heard teamspeak and ventrillo mentioned, however, but I know nothing of them save that they are voice chat enablers. Thoughts?
The goal here is ease of access and smoothness of communication for the guests; we don't want chat programs to become the focus in any way, but rather to serve as a facilitator to enhance their learning and enjoyment of the game and its community.
Thanks to everyone who's posted, pointing out difficulties to overcome and offering suggestions and advice on making this work.
I am not ignoring the concern about account-sharing getting the account owner in trouble; the best I can do is provide witnesses as to who shared with whom and the fact that the dates line up. On the "up" side, NCSoft likely won't take much if any action simply because the game's ending (for them at the least) in less than two months after Media Day. The concern will be making sure you don't get banned based on something a guest does from the revived game. Which, if this becomes an issue, I tihnk we can probably work something out with the revived Paragon Studios. I can't make promises, so it's always a risk, for which I'm sorry. But I can promise that I will do all I can, if some problem arises from the generosity of an account-donor being screwed by his guest player, to get some extenuating circumstances defense in place. (That said, given the environment and cause, I think we'll probably be okay. But take that for what it is: the opinion of just another guy trying to organize something to help save the game.)
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Added myself to the donor list - it might be a good idea to note whether the accounts you're donating are freem, preem or vreem, as they influence what kind of content is available as well.
I might also volunteer as a mentor, but I'd need a bit more information on what exactly that would entail. For example, I specialize in PUGs, but aren't too involved in the community.
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Another good point that has been brought up elsewhere is means-of-contact between mentors and guests. Is there a good preferred program onto which anybody can sign up to participate in voice chat without having to exchange a lot of contact information? Skype is a bit out for this. I have heard teamspeak and ventrillo mentioned, however, but I know nothing of them save that they are voice chat enablers. Thoughts?
Ventrilo and Mumble (two voice chat programs that I'm familiar with) would work fine. Both of them require for someone to have/host a server, and then you give out the server info to whoever is connecting. I know ventrilo can be setup to have someone running a personal type server (usually with a low number of max users) or you can pay to rent a dedicated server (which can handle more people, and are always running). But no contact information has to be exchanged directly, just have to give out server info to participants.
Anyway, I got in contact with my friend, and apparently his extra account was a fresh free account (nothing on it), which I've now pledged. I'm afraid to write my e-mail in a public document due to spambots, so I listed to contact me through pms here. Going to make sure I have e-mail notification on.
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Unfortunately, the ubiquity of Skype means that we may find it to be the preferred program from the media side, though I am seeing only Gmail addresses. That suggests Google Talk to me.
Is there some sort of verbage we should be using? TonyV was cautioning us to hold off on trying to contact the media in general, unless we personally knew someone, and I've yet to see a posted press release. I'd like to invite Laura Sydell, or one of her minions, from All Tech Considered on NPR, but I'm not exactly certain what to offer..
Also, I haven't actually tried, but is the sign up sheet openly editable? I'd like to volunteer the account that I made to try out the F2P side.
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Fansy has apparently managed to contact a few people (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5331.msg56239.html#msg56239). They're not journalists, but they are fairly high profile media (mostly webcomics). The people he's mentioned are behind, in order, Megatokyo, Questionable Content, Penny Arcade and For Better or For Worse.
Edit: fixed link -eabrace
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Anyone thought of or know how to contact Bill Amend? Foxtrot has had more than a few the reference WoW in ways only a player could, plus the liberal application of Linux/Unix references. It's no xkcd, but it's definitely nerd-centric yet still mainstream.
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I was actually going to make some effort on writing a "press release" type announcement and vetting it past this thread today (with a pm to Tony and VV to make sure they see it and can put their editorial input on it). The release will be what I intend to send to any media wherein I'm effectively "blind calling" on their contact channels.
I will also be looking into the public-contact methods various major news organizations have for people to send them potential stories. I know they have them. I will try to take a look at St. Louis and Dallas/Fort Worth local news stations and their parent networks; if others would look into their local stations and see what networks parent them, that would also be good. There is a "media contact methods" document in the shared folder linked in the first post that we can use to gather what we find together. When we've got a Titan Network-approved (and maybe Paragon-approved, if Brian can and wishes to take a look at it) solicitation/press release written, I will put that on some web space I purchased when I was initially looking into a kickstarter to try to put together a bid for CoH. (For those who are not aware of how I came to this forum, it was in preparation to build the award levels. I came looking for what people would be interested in, and learned a lot more about the situation. Thus I've put that aside - or at a minimum on a back burner until and unless it becomes actually useful - and am instead focusing on other means to make a unified backing for Paragon's self-purchase negotiations.)
Once it's on that web space, I will either personally - or through asking for volunteers for specific groups - send either a copy of the official press release invitation and/or a link to it on my web space, depending on the size-of-message the contact channel allows. (If TonyV would prefer it somewhere on Titan Network web space for officialness purposes, I am open to that, as well; I just don't want to ask for such when I can volunteer some of my own.)
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I'm happy to send out a few emails once you've got the release written, if it'll help :)
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I am very gratified to learn and pleased to announce (not that people can't check the document themselves) that so far we have 20 volunteered accounts for loan to our guests, and three volunteers to mentor! Thank you very much, everybody who's donated!
I am going to get on the "find media contact info" task this evening, and will keep everyone posted.
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Please folks, do not PM me for your volunteer accounts. All credit for this goes to Segev and Fansy.
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Please folks, do not PM me for your volunteer accounts. All credit for this goes to Segev and Fansy.
Oh, geeze, yeah, don't pm people with your account volunteering! There's a link to a folder of google documents at the top of this thread. One of them is for volunteering!
Thank you all so much for the volunteering you're doing.
I am looking at setting a date. I was thinking Oct. 20 for a few reasons (not the least that I know of a RL gaming convention I might be able to get some floor space for a LAN room that anybody who wanted to physically show up could use), but I know that there are other events which, while the opportunity to show them off might be nice, it could conflict with people who want to participate in those and potentially mentor. The other possibility I'm thinking of is Oct. 31; Halloween might not be a bad time to have people out. The drawbacks to this one are twofold: it's less than a week before Election Day, and so the media might just not be interested; and it's only a month before the final shutdown, so the stories will either come out RIGHT on time, or too late for anybody to do anything.
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Give credit where credit is due!
It's all VV's doing and there is nothing she can say to reverse it!
In truth, Segev is the one to speak with on links for signing your name and volunteer accounts. All I am doing is (slowly) reeling in some big fish to use them (when and if they can) -- nothing is 100% for sure until those in question (on the good guy side) can make it in. They are very busy with tight schedules.
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Good point on the tight and busy schedules. Fansy, do you think you could do a straw poll as to which of Oct. 20 and 31 are most likely to be "free," and maybe a second one to see if there's just plain a better day before the end of the month? I'm largely flexible, though I work a typical day job schedule with the 20th being the best for me (and the 31st actually being pretty hard for me to do anything with, since it's a weekday...hrm) if only because I was already thinking of taking off that Friday to fly to the convention I mentioned.
Anyway, 20th is becoming more and more my date-of-choice, but if we have a better one for our guests that we know of, our goal IS maximum exposure to people who can spread the word!
Thanks again for your efforts with the enormous fishing rod!
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if there is a problem with people getting the game i can put a copy of the installer online as well as a fully updated and ready to run game folder for people to download and instructions for the default paths to drop the game into on their computers its the way i install it on my computers other than my main so i can say that this is a valid working method if the gameserver is no longer allowing the game to download just let me know if it is needed and ill do it
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Um I just noticed that October 20th Is te EXACT SAME DAY as Extra Life..Would having it on the same day be a help or hinderance?
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Um I just noticed that October 20th Is te EXACT SAME DAY as Extra Life..Would having it on the same day be a help or hinderance?
Could be a help. Media plug - Players fighting to save game and playing for charity.
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The potential conflict/potential PR boost dichotomy is one of the things that's weighing most heavily on my mind in deciding whether to use Oct. 20 or not. I'm thinking our effort won't be so large that we'll pull enough away from Extra Life to harm it, and that the visibility offered by having media people visiting and seeing the Extra Life event going on will be a net plus. But I am very new to this PR thing; I only have my only-recently-out-of-academia life experience to draw on.
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I am not the rhetoritician of these boards by any stretch of the imagination, but here is my first draft of the press release to invite the media to join us on the 20th of October. Please offer any comments on how to better formalize the language, get attention, and on any information that would be useful to include that isn't there (or anything that IS included that shouldn't be).
Thanks for your help! I hope to get a final draft done by this evening and sent out to as many media locales as possible. (I have used my own email address as a contact point; I didn't feel right volunteering anybody else's, but if there is a better one, let me know, please.) This will likely need reformatting out of forum markup language for final distribution.)
Dear Members of the Press,
Doubtless by now you have heard something of the "Save CoH" movement, and know that "CoH" is short for "City of Heroes." There is a rumbling buzz in gamer circles about the sudden and unexpected closure of this popular and profitable Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG, or simply MMO). If you have been interested in finding out more about this so you can present the story of what it is all about, but have not been sure how to get the in-depth news for which you are known, this is your chance! The players of CoH are holding a "Media Day" event on Saturday, the 20th of October.
The players love their game so much that they want to share it with the world before it goes away. To that end, we extend a formal invitation for you to send reporters who would like a guided tour of character creation and mission playing, and to see the City as her players see her. Media guests will be given access to an account through which to experience the game directly, and streaming video of others playing and explaining what they're doing will also be made available. Players in and out of character are eager to answer any questions you might have, and show both in-game events and player-scheduled events - including a charity game-a-thon that is donating money to charities of the game-a-thon-ers' choices - which highlight the heart of the community and why CoH has become such an institution. Already, the efforts of the Save CoH movement have gotten an unprecedented amount of response from the company which owns and is shutting down CoH, NCSoft. We are eager to invite you to come see why!
Come join us for a day of fun and community, and learn what the rumbling buzz is all about so you can share it with your own audience! Contact segev.stormlord@gmail.com or visit the Titan Networks forum (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5388.0.html) to see our organization and RSVP for participation.
We hope to see you in our City,
the Heroes and Villains of Paragon City
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Segev,
If we are planning this for October 20th there are certain things to be arranged IMO.
Physical hosting location if any needs to be aquired, if most of this is going to be virtual then the neds are much more modest.
It takes time to arrange computers, av equipment, themed decorating/a backboard, travel arrangements, food if any, presentation materials whether this is videos, pamphlets, etc. If we have a live media presance then gift bags are a common practice and finding sponsors if we can would be nice (the time window is very short), we are going to have costs associated wih his endevour no matter what we do.
Also is there a complete list of features a true free account has and does not have access to? I ask because as a paid subscriber who became premier and then VIP I have never faced those limitations. I have discovered access to a free account (beta) but if absolutely neccesary I may lend a VIP account out for the day.
Is there somewhere specific we should start looking for transport options to? Do we want to be in costumes, causal or business attire in person/video presention?
Do we need computers transported (glances over laptops)
Do we need light and sound systems, routers, arrange net access?
Thoughts?
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I would tend to recommend against Halloween - At least a portion of people are going to be unavailable that day for Halloween activities. (That includes me.)
There will also be an early afternoon timeslot (PDT) that I will not be available for on the 20th.
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Also is there a complete list of features a true free account has and does not have access to? I ask because as a paid subscriber who became premier and then VIP I have never faced those limitations. I have discovered access to a free account (beta) but if absolutely neccesary I may lend a VIP account out for the day.
The wiki has a list of what various account levels have access to: http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Account
Free players can look at, but not post to, broadcast chat. Free players can use team chat, local chat, LFG and help. Free players cannot send PMs, but can reply to them with /reply, or whatever the player has it bound to. Free players can receive but not send ingame e-mail.
Free players can't trade. Annoyingly, this means you can't gift them inspirations. I like to give spare end inspirations to people who are running low. Free players can't use the invention system or the market, but can use the basic training/DO/SO enhancements.
Free players have access to most ATs, only don't get access to controllers, masterminds and the hero and villain epic ATs. Free players can get small inspiration drops, but not medium or large.
They have access to a lot of powersets and costumes, but not everything. There's a lot of powersets and costumes, so it'd be hard to list out everything.
They don't get access to First Ward or Night ward missions, even if it's someone else's. Or SSA arc missions. This is unfortunate because these are some very good missions, especially the ones from the newer SSA. They also can't start a character in Praetoria, and can't use the tip system for side switching (though can join someone that is doing tips). No access to incarnate content. They do have access to all non incarnate related TFs, and I believe all other story arcs.
Also, they get only 2 character slots. Which shouldn't be a problem for an introduction.
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Point to note: Most of the accounts "on offer" for donation are some level of Premium, with only a smattering of Free.
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We do have a lot to do, and I am going to make a firm declaration of Oct. 20 as the date.
I have a physical location we can use, but I will expect that most of this will be virtual/online, as I don't expect most people to be able to make it to Rolla, Missouri from hither and yon about the world. (I will be happy to support others having physical locales of their own, if they want to try, but I can obviously only handle one, especially with this short of a notice.) The organizer of Cog Con (http://www.cogcongaming.com/) would be delighted to host a physical location for this effort, and has apparently been attempting to follow what Titan Networks is up to.
So, I'm glad things like lighting and goodie bags and sponsors and all of that have been brought up. We will need a schedule of events, some channels of TwitchTV or other streaming service running with people who are playing and explaining what they're doing, a good voice chat program with some dedicated channels for our guests to use to talk to us, conduct interviews, etc., and, yes, at any physical gathering site, we'll need computers set up.
For the physical site in Rolla, I am going to attempt to recruit some friends into putting word out and seeing if we can't get some student participation - bring their computers and set up as if at a LAN party in one of the rooms of the con. I am working on the press release, as you've doubtless seen the first draft a bit up thread from here; one suggestion has been that it should not read like a letter. Anybody who knows more about how press releases typically look who wants to take a crack at the format, please do! I will give it another go soon.
Sponsors...there is a computer store in Rolla I might be able to talk into helping out, some, but the big thing we'll need sponsors for is those goodie bags and publicity (if we can't just do it through media-contact channels). Who would be good sponsors, though? For the goodie bags, might formerly-Paragon still have promotional gewgaws earmarked for distribution that are never going to be used now? What else might work?
Travel arrangements are pretty much on the participants - guests or otherwise - to handle. I am going to be spending more than I should just to fly to Missouri for this (not enough to break me, but more than I should). This is why an online presence is essential, even with a physical "center" of the action from which to host it. Food...well, depending on our sponsors, we might be able to take media guests out to lunch or something on the 20th if they're physically in Rolla.
Additional guests...if anybody wants to come, please do. I will also extend invitations to Brian and, through him, any others formerly-of-Paragon. I will extend a more direct invitiation to VV; CogCon is a tabletop gaming convention, so she could get some gaming of that sort in there, too. (Again, unless we get sponsors with generous pockets, I can't actually offer to pay for anybody's travel or hotel stay, unfortunately.)
So, I will put out a now-official call for experts in TwitchTV and chat programs to outline how they would set this up. We will need to be able to have everybody who wants to participate be able to establish telepresence, and we'll need some good "interview rooms" on the virtual side.
Volunteers to mentor! If you could at least informally think of what, precisely, you want to show your guests, that's an excellent place to start. We'll try to have a 9 am CDT workshop on character creation for any guests who are taking advantage of our borrowed accounts, and this will follow into the first mission or mission arc, but once there are choices available, mentors, you may be responsible for showing your party of guests around and guiding them through an arc or two.
We want to be sure that anybody who's participating in the Game-a-thon charity event who's willing is also available to tell our media guests about what they're doing and why. Remember, a big part of our showcase here is not just the game, but the community. Have your testimonials ready! If somebody wants to go to the Testimonials thread and extract them into a printer-friendly format, we maybe should make a PDF of some of the best and even print some off for distribution at the event. Bonus points if we can make them look "pretty" with some border graphics.
This is the first event of this sort I've ever attempted to arrange without having some precedent and tradition on which to draw. Anybody with experience at this stuff, please offer advice and whatever aid does not put you out more than you'd like. It is greatly appreciated.
This is not much time. But we're heroes, aren't we? Let's do this!
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I'd be proud to stand up and talk to anyone who wants to listen about the work we're doing, both for the charity and to save CoH.
I mean. Come on. Saving sick kids and our own City. What causes are more worthy?
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I like the press release. Playing up CoH's philanthropic efforts in the "metamessage," though--the text that accompanies the release--with a link to something like Real World Hero could go pretty far.
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And here I reveal just how much I have to learn here: "text that accompanies the message?"
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And here I reveal just how much I have to learn here: "text that accompanies the message?"
Well, I assume that press releases aren't sent "naked"--that there would be a paragraph before the body itself explaining what the press release is, who should be interested in it, and why. It seems especially useful for a "cold call" like this one. That said...
[ihavenoideawhati'mdoing.jpg]
Never take advice from a fox on a keyboard to heart without thinking it over.
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I had been holding back my premium account for vigil use, but this is better. Also, my son is grounded from the computer at the moment, so his free account is available, too. ;D
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Also, my son is grounded from the computer at the moment, so his free account is available, too. ;D
Well played. :)
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Well played. :)
It was hardly a planned thing. He threw a chair in class. Now we have to go to a family counselor. It's a shame, too, because it was a video game that we could actually both play together, unlike Mortal Kombat (I kick his @$$) or the various iterations of Smash Bros (he kicks my @$$). We're both upset, especially in light of the Sunset.
Unrelated, I was recently followed on Twitter by @KeyBiscayne, who says they live Tweet sunrises and sunset. My wife laughed. A lot.
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My condolences, dwturducken, on the timing of the incident in light of the sunset and all. Here's hoping this might change things so you can play CoH with your son again when this is over!
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I have 48-50 accounts on both Virtue and Pinnacle that are on the Maria Jenkins arcs. Since those were revamped I think they are fine examples to show folks, and the storyline is self explanatory.
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Rolla, Mo is difficult but not impossible for me and possibly two laptops a couple of microphones some Lan cable, and whatever else I can get out of storage and shlep with me.
It appears to be a solid 6-7 hour drive so um an inexpensive train, bus or really cheap plane fairwould be preferred...perhaps you could list where buses, trains, and planes come into and whether transport from them could be arranged...also its been a very long time since the con circut for me but any chance of doing the sleeping bag space thing either as one group or with existing attedees to keep costs down? I would drivethis but after a 7 hour drive. That is a lot of the energy I would need to be helpful spent in transit. Money is tight right now but if I ca do tis on the cheap and not utterly exhaust myself bydriving 14 hours in two days...I will be there and happy to speak and mentor :
Anyone else considering this from Illinois?
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I can't really help out much with this (I work weekend :( ) but I would suggest taking our guests to some SG bases. An editing demo could be interesting, too.
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I am, myself, flying up from Dallas to STL and driving from thence to Rolla. The plane fare from here is ~$160-170, SouthWest Airlines.
I am crashing at a friend's place, so I can't really help others with lodgings. Hotels and motels in Rolla do tend to be of the double-digits per night price range, IIRC, though. I know there's a train track through Rolla, but I don't know if there is a passenger stop. I will see what I can find out.
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This is a fantastic idea with one downfall. If you don't already have City of Heroes installed you can't get in game.
Would it help if i post the CoH bits that are installed on my computer on thepiratebay? Putting these files in the proper directory would make it force patch.
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Unfortunately I forgot to try today, but I have been told that the installer can be boot-strapped from the NCSoft general sign-in page, so we CAN get it on anybody's computer who needs it. We're getting around the account problem with donors; if you check the first post in this thread, you'll see a link to a folder with google docs that are how we're organizing this.
In other news, here's my second attempt at the announcement/invitation thing, phrased a bit more as a "press release." I understand those tend to have eye-catching titles, but I'm drawing a blank. As before, thorough comment and criticism are heartily requested. I have mentioned a certain authoress's involvement in this effort in this version in a shameless attempt to make it more news-worthy; I hope I have not offended in doing so and will remove it if asked. (If I don't hear a confirmation that it's okay, I'll message her tomorrow, but I don't want to spam her inbox if she will see it on her own.)
Anyway, enough with my late-night ramblings! Please read and review. I'd like to get it out Sunday, Monday at the latest. We'll need at least that much time for our potential guests to get interested, exchange some planning details, and make their own plans.
On August 31, 2012, Paragon Studios was abruptly shut down to the complete surprise of its employees and management. Its signature game, the still-profitable City of Heroes, is scheduled to be permanently shut down on November 30, 2012. Since the announcement, the players of City of Heroes (CoH) have come together in a surprisingly active and vocal movement to try to convince NCSoft, the parent company which owns the rights to the game and which shut down Paragon Studios without warning (citing a "realignment of focus" as the sole reason), to take action to preserve the game they love and in which they have grown an extensive and involved community.
Recognizing NCSoft's desire to be done supporting CoH is a legitimate choice for a South Korean business to make regarding a product popular in the West, the players have held ongoing vigils on the game servers wherein their characters hold aloft torches, have held rallies and marches to demonstrate their devotion, and have even bought a "thank you" dinner for the Paragon Studios developers, with the hopes that NCSoft will be convinced to allow the game and its developers to continue in other hands, rather than shutting it down. Even such luminaries as Mercedes Lackey - noted science fiction and fantasy authoress - have come forward in support of this effort.
On October 20th, the players of this game are holding a charity Game-A-Thon to support Children's Miracle Network hospitals. Also on that date, they are inviting members of the press to come and join them in demonstrations of how characters are made, what the most exciting parts of the game are to them, and to answer questions both in word and in deed about why this community means so much to them. Though things look bleak for their City, these players of heroes (and 4-color supervillains) are determined to take on the never-say-die attitude of the genre they love, and offer to share their experiences - poingant and stirring and wholesome - with others before the game closes and they can do so no more.
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Unfortunately I forgot to try today, but I have been told that the installer can be boot-strapped from the NCSoft general sign-in page.
You don't even have to do that.
1. Install the NCSoft Launcher (http://us.ncsoft.com/en/launcher/ncsoft-launcher.html)
2. Select City of Heroes, click install
I did it just a couple days ago on a fresh computer when I didn't have my files handy to copy over, and it worked fine.
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Thanks!
I'll see about setting it up to do that overnight while I sleep. I should then try to remember my username and password.
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I'm fine with the mention, Segev. Title might be: Save Our (Virtual) City!
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Players of the City of Heroes Cry Out: Save Our (Virtual) City!
On August 31, 2012, Paragon Studios was abruptly shut down to the complete surprise of its employees and management. Its signature game, the still-profitable City of Heroes, is scheduled to be permanently shut down on November 30, 2012. Since the announcement, the players of City of Heroes (CoH) have come together in a surprisingly active and vocal movement to try to convince NCSoft, the parent company which owns the rights to the game and which shut down Paragon Studios without warning (citing a "realignment of focus" as the sole reason), to take action to preserve the game they love and in which they have grown an extensive and involved community.
Recognizing NCSoft's desire to be done supporting CoH is a legitimate choice for a South Korean business to make regarding a product popular in the West, the players have held ongoing vigils on the game servers wherein their characters hold aloft torches, have held rallies and marches to demonstrate their devotion, and have even bought a "thank you" dinner for the Paragon Studios developers, with the hopes that NCSoft will be convinced to allow the game and its developers to continue in other hands, rather than shutting it down. Even such luminaries as Mercedes Lackey - noted science fiction and fantasy authoress - have come forward in support of this effort.
On October 20th, the players of this game are holding a charity Game-A-Thon to support Children's Miracle Network hospitals. Also on that date, they are inviting members of the press to come and join them in demonstrations of how characters are made, what the most exciting parts of the game are to them, and to answer questions both in word and in deed about why this community means so much to them. Though things look bleak for their City, these players of heroes (and 4-color supervillains) are determined to take on the never-say-die attitude of the genre they love, and offer to share their experiences - poingant and stirring and wholesome - with others before the game closes and they can do so no more.
Added a title; wanted to make it sound more "news-y" and less "we're begging the media," but VV's title was a fitting one.
I'm going to hop over to the "...realigning of focus" thread and see what I can do to formalize a press release that uses the two images there, next. I will ask around a bit to see if I can't get somebody else - maybe the OP of that thread, maybe one of our media-experienced gurus - to send out that particular release, and let me know which outlets they sent it to. I'll wait about a day after and then send out the Media Day invitation/release. It's a cheap trick, painting it to look like two different people are sending out nearly-timed and conveniently related releases, but I think it will help. Especially sending out the salacious one first to whet their appetite, and then the "come find out more!" one second to offer them the feast.
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Posted a first draft of the other press release (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5527.msg60246.html#msg60246) I was discussing over in the "re-alignment" thread.
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Segev,
Okay the press release looks good but I do notice some things you may wish to polish....I know the words "shut down" are powerful to us but um you used them a LOT really close to each other...perhaps some other phrase? Ending, lights going out, snuffed out, shattered community, fight for survival, right to existence, people not just pixels, reduced to ashes, dreams turned to dust. Just randomly brain storming here.
Also you emphasize over an over that this is a game...unless it is going out to the gaming community perhaps the focus on that word/concept should also be decreased. We are a community, this is a hobby, a virtual world, a form of artistic expression, a story brought to life, inspiration, a tribute to paragon studios and coh, a way to be heroes.
Some of the sentences look like they need a bit of punctuation or to be a little less run on...but as people may have noticed that is not exactly my strong suit so...I'll let someone else play copy editor.
That said thank you for trying to put this together :)
Transit side of things
Apparently there is an amtrak station within 30 miles of rolla city center....I do not know how difficult it might be to get to campaign headquarters from there (rental car? shuttle service? Taxi? other people willing to play shuttle service :) or whether the fees/logistics will work but I'm still trying to make this happen. I am also willing to drive PART of this if others from the chicago area or able to reach the chicago area want to pile in a car friday night and take turns behind the wheel.
Also what time saturday were things supposed to start? If say one could make it into Saint Louis or another Missouri town with relatives a few hours from Rolla;) and then continue the journey the next morning is that a practical option?
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Okay, not sure if this is the right thread to ask or not, but I wrote up an open letter to NCsoft kind of thing that I'm planning to mail off to as many directions as possible {I did send a copy to Extra Credits crew, but I'm not sure if I did it through the right channels or if they're going to respond so I'm going to wait a couple of days anyway}, so would anyone mind if I pasted it here for feedback and stuff? Also if I should send it ASAP or try and coordinate with another event?
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On October 20th, the players of this game are holding a charity Game-A-Thon to support Children's Miracle Network hospitals. Also on that date, they are inviting members of the press to come and join them in demonstrations of how characters are made, what the most exciting parts of the game are to them, and to answer questions both in word and in deed about why this community means so much to them. Though things look bleak for their City, these players of heroes (and 4-color supervillains) are determined to take on the never-say-die attitude of the genre they love, and offer to share their experiences - poingant and stirring and wholesome - with others before the game closes and they can do so no more.
I think that's "poignant".
Also, love it! That's some great work there, Segev! ;D
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The way Cog Con runs, they have a number of "slots" during which games and other events happen. In my experience, this is not dissimilar to how most conventions and conferences go.
Saturday, they have a slot at 9 am, 2 pm, and 7 pm. Each slot lasts 4 hours, with an hour between for food and such. Traditionally, they have a charity raffle with the drawing at 6 pm.
My thought is to try for the 9 am and 2 pm slots, with the 7 pm slot as an optional "if the guests are still interested" thing. That's very early for anybody coming in from St. Louis, obviously, though. I will be staying at a friend's house (my family lives in St. Louis, but I will be striving to get down to rolla before noon on Friday the 19th so I can help set up CogCon and set up the room).
The other thing I am considering is making it a 9 am "build characters, early bird runs" thing for media guests who want to get there early, or simply starting it at 10 with a 9 am early-bird trickle-in. We could then do a solid 2 pm slot with everybody ready to go, and keep with the optional 7 pm extension.
Tying this in with the virtual attendees, we'll need to find out what time zones our mentors and guests will be in. If they're in mountain or pacific time, they may well not want to even get started until 11 am CDT (9 am PDT), while East Coast participants might be fine with 10 am EDT (9 central).
Thanks for both the proof read and the research on transit logistics. Your suggestions on the content are VERY helpful, and I will comb through it again. I tend to write in the same way that I speak, so words do get re-used a fair bit, and the emphasis on community over game is definitely worthwhile.
I'm afk for the remainder of the day, but I will strive to get the edits done late tonight and up then. Feel free to try your own hand(s) at it if anybody wishes; my feelings will not be hurt. I realize we've got limited time to get this out. If we can get the "realignment" press release out today or tomorrow (and I know I'm asking a lot of volunteer people, but if somebody would take over that one I'd appreciate it), and this one out tomorrow or Monday, we should be in good shape.
Okay, not sure if this is the right thread to ask or not, but I wrote up an open letter to NCsoft kind of thing that I'm planning to mail off to as many directions as possible {I did send a copy to Extra Credits crew, but I'm not sure if I did it through the right channels or if they're going to respond so I'm going to wait a couple of days anyway}, so would anyone mind if I pasted it here for feedback and stuff? Also if I should send it ASAP or try and coordinate with another event?
Actually, I'm fine with whatever you wish to do. Coordinating it is awesome, but I can't do it right now.
If you and others in this thread and the realignment thread and the nuts thread can coordinate something, spectacular!
A big help to me and this press release effort would be if you'd put whatever media contact means you use to put your open letter out here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1frrB_PNZtjI1YebP1HslDZhIPFz6HpvLxF00BW0LhlI/edit), where I'm building a repository of good sites to contact for all of these efforts.
Meanwhile, I would be delighted if you posted it for our consumption. you MIGHT want to start your own thread, but posting it here as well won't hurt, I don't think. ^_^_v
Thanks again!
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Well, I'll post it here and if someone thinks it warrants its own thread, I'll make another one. I already posted a thread asking about where I could I send it, so I don't wanna clog up the forum with threads on what's essentially the same topic. Also, I'd like to thank our resident writer for an editing pass.
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To whom it may concern,
As you are aware by now, your decision to close down the City of Heroes franchise was met by nearly unanimously negative response. That kind of reaction is only to be expected, of course, and one that NCsoft has had plenty of experience weathering. What it apparently did not expect, if its behavior is anything to judge by, is how intense, far-ranging and most importantly, numerous the grief, pleading and yes, outrage over the announcement was.
One cannot pretend to understand why NCsoft would choose to close down another profitable franchise, at least not as an outside observer. Most likely, the only individuals who would be able to provide that answer are the ones who made the decision. Certainly nobody else saw it coming; not the players, especially considering the resurgence following the Freedom transition. Not the developers of Paragon Studios, who at the time of the announcement still had open job postings and ongoing projects months if not years into the future. In fact, the entire event is surrounded by a thoroughly confusing dissonance - one certainly cannot question the decisiveness and commitment with which NCsoft closed down the City of Heroes franchise. And yet, at the same time not only had a new paid powerset been deployed only ten days prior, but Issue 24 still sits in open beta, ready for deployment, to say nothing of the fact that it took a week to remove City of Heroes from the NCsoft homepage, or that that the Bio Armor powerset, scheduled for release with I24, became available on the in-game market afterwards. With that degree of conflicting developments, it is hard for one not to take away the impression of either an unplanned, knee-jerk reaction, or a strangely schizophrenic approach to leadership.
But regardless of the causes leading to the shutdown, the decision has been made and is long past the point of undoing. It is, perhaps, best that it remains undone. It would be selfish and inconsiderate of us, the players, to ask of you to continue supporting a franchise you no longer have interest in. And yet, there is a great degree of the same when one denies others the chance to take custody of it in their stead - to take what you have allowed to be built and let it grow and flourish, not only for our own enjoyment and pride, but as a continuing legacy of your own accomplishment. NCsoft certainly has the power to instead shutter City of Heroes completely, locking it away for good. Its memory will remain for a long time, however - eight years of history is not forgotten overnight. But given the tragic end it was given, that memory will by no stretch of imagination work to NCsoft's benefit.
You certainly took a great risk acquiring the City of Heroes IP from Cryptic and founding Paragon Studios. Doubly so, given how many of the game's developers departed not only to work on other games, but on a direct competitor. And whether your decision was made on faith or foresight, it paid off in spades. Content was added, past mistakes were undone, new areas, new powers, two entire expansions... Paragon's developers took the diamond in the rough and measured, cut and polished every facet with the kind of care that would make a jeweller proud. But most important of all, they developed us. Even before weekly streams, Q&A sessions and coffee talks, they talked to us and listened to us and played with us, not as masters, but as mentors. They offered us their attention and we gave it in return. It may sound like useless sentiment, until one considers that, just as much as the game itself, that kept us in City of Heroes, paying our subscriptions to NCsoft each month.
And yet, during that entire time Paragon's parent company remained uninvolved. The sense of family that pervaded the City of Heroes community was absent when NCsoft was mentioned. It was Paragon Studios' boss. Silent, distant, apart, unknown. As Paragon had flourished under its own direction, there was never a hint of acknowledgement of its success. Even so, the players, through their love for the game, benefited you. We were your customers, through the money we gave. We were your allies, spreading word of the game when Hosun Lee, Paragon's one-man marketing department, didn't have a penny to his name to advertise with. And with little more than a gesture, we could have been your friends.
Because, or perhaps despite that separation, is what we, your former players, feel toward NCsoft is betrayal. Not, again, because it lost interest in the game. Instead, because, by what is essentially giving the game that we too invested time, effort, emotions and yes, money for eight years a moonlight burial in the backyard, it is impossible to see it as showing us anything other than utter, dismissive contempt. NCsoft acts not even as a playground bully, but as a spoiled child that has grown bored and is taking his ball with him, no matter what anybody offers to pay him in return for the only way to keep playing their favorite game.
It is, perhaps, an innacurate impression. Brian Clayton, the manager of what's left of the studio says that you have dedicated an entire team to reading and sorting the emails and the packages sent to NCsoft in response to their deluge. It speaks, I believe, of both of us. Of the players, that such a team would be necessary to understand what drives us. And it speaks of NCsoft, that you would care enough to do so.
We are not a mob, to want nothing more than destruction or vengeance. We are not beggars. We do not ask for charity, that you would simply hand over years of investment on a whim. You may not even see us as equals, but that too is acceptable. What we ask is simply that you acknowledge us. If you give us a number, we will raise the amount. If you give us your terms, we will sit down with you, share a dinner and negotiate. And perhaps not even us - all things considered, it may very well better not be. But the most important thing of all, maybe even the only important one, is that the City of Heroes continues. In the hands of the players or not, it matters little, but ultimately in the hands of someone who will treat it with the faith and foresight you once showed.
It is not a decision to be made lightly, or quickly, but likely one that nevertheless should be made soon. Because with every passing day the hope that City of Heroes can be saved dwindles, yielding ground to anger instead, and thoughts turn away from saving City of Heroes to NCsoft, the killer of MMOs. It would be the latest body to be tossed onto the pile, but not by far the last and that is the thought that would plague the thoughts of your customers. "If a game can be killed on a moment's notice, no matter how successful, then when will the time come for mine? If all I have invested in a game will be pulled out from under me, and it's not a question of 'if', but 'when', then why begin at all?" And even without City of Heroes, it would hardly be without precedent. If it has happened before, it would happen again, and it will be a long time before the stain of Tabula Rasa on NCsoft's reputation fades into obscurity. It would hardly be a legacy worth being remembered by - first by fraud, then by vandalism. What would others think of it? What kind of toxic reputation would haunt NCsoft's name? Sincerity would not even matter anymore, if shutting down City of Heroes is something you believed you could not avoid.
And that, in the end, is what this letter is about. A reminder that when there is a pressing sense of urgency and that when one feels all options have been exhausted and the only thing to do is to take a confident leap forward, it is best to step back from the ledge and consider the consequences.
Sincerely,
Quinch
Six Year Veteran
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Quinch, that is a damn fine letter - it tells a story, the chapters unfolding one after another, leading ultimately to a very heartfelt conclusion.
*thumbs up*
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Quinch,
Sorry about vanishing offline on you there...but I read the letter now...phew.
The letter is strong and powerful, it makes good points...but it is still a draft. Offline publications usually have print limits...I.e. the amount of space alloted for an editorial, story, or ad. In radio TV it is the time limits you have to watch. (This commercial s a 30 second spot and it is supposed to play at 2pm) I don't see those sorts of issues being as important for online venues as their main issuesv would be data capasity and bandwidth.
It rambles more then a bit, losing your fantastic phrasing in occasional fluff that just is not needed...which is the kind of thing I expect you will notice when writing the next draft :)
Grammer and punctuation is something I let others handle but I did notice at least one point where it appears you modifyied a sentance but left pieces of both of them in there the section on tabula rasa,please reread it carefully. If we have one or more good venues for this I should go back to my letter so you can all show me the silly goofs...a writer who is their own editor tends to be as well advised as the doctor who is his o her own patient...lol
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Well, I wasn't planning to send it to offline publications - I don't think they'd have any interest in publishing it - but anybody wants to volunteer to cut it down to a more printable size, I'm all for it.
As for the rambling, it's a little necessary. Remember, it's an open letter - it needs to be readable and understandable by both NCsoft as well as everyone who's never even heard of CoH, thus reiterating a lot of things that NCsoft would already know. Some of it is for the sake of pacing, too, as overcompressing information can turn one off quickly, and some things are... subtext.
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Very nice letter, Quinch. I had some hang-ups reading it, but I don't have any good suggestions for improvement. I'll look again after I've slept, just in case, but it's very effective, I think.
Here, before I bed down, is the next draft of the press release for this event. If I seem to have missed any suggested edits, please re-mention them. If there are new problems, let me know. I hope to have this ready for release VERY soon.
[size=14]Community of Heroes to NCSoft: Don't Destroy Our World[/size]
On August 31, 2012, Paragon Studios was abruptly closed to the complete surprise of its employees and management. Its signature product, the still-profitable City of Heroes, is scheduled to be permanently shut down on November 30, 2012. Since the announcement, the players of City of Heroes (CoH) have come together in a surprisingly active and vocal movement to try to convince NCSoft, the parent company which owns the rights to CoH and which terminated Paragon Studios without warning (citing a "realignment of focus" as the sole reason), to take action to preserve the extensive and involved community they have grown over the last eight years and have come to love.
Recognizing NCSoft's desire to be done supporting CoH is a legitimate choice for a South Korean business to make regarding a product popular primarily in the West, the players have held ongoing vigils on the servers wherein their characters hold aloft torches, have held rallies and marches to demonstrate their devotion, and have even bought a "thank you" dinner for the Paragon Studios developers, with the hopes that NCSoft will be convinced to allow the virtual world and its developers to continue in other hands, rather than destroying this valued source of family togetherness, meeting place for far-distant friends, and unique aid to bridging gaps of generation and understanding. Even such luminaries as Mercedes Lackey - noted science fiction and fantasy authoress - have come forward in support of this effort.
On October 20th, the players of City of Heroes are holding a charity Game-A-Thon to support Children's Miracle Network hospitals. Also on that date, they are inviting members of the press to come and join them in demonstrations of how characters are made, what the most exciting parts of the game are to them, and to answer questions both in word and in deed about why this community means so much to them. Though things look bleak for their City, these players of heroes (and 4-color supervillains) are determined to take on the never-say-die attitude of the genre they love, and offer to share their experiences - poignant and stirring and wholesome - with others before the servers go dark and they can do so no more.
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Alright. I've sent out the "realignment" press release (http://stormlord.us/NCSoft%20Realignment.pdf) to several places. I need to finish polishing this other one for the Media Day, now. The goal here in finishing and sending out the realignment one first is to grab attention and interest, get the media buzzing about it so that the opportunity to "learn more" will be of more interest when we send out this one. But I want this one to include all relevant information.
Really, this post is a status update; all the usual "thanks" and "all suggestions welcome" apply, but nothing new in that regard.
I will also look into travel arrangements. I have made my own to fly to St. Louis; there is a small chance I can arrange a 12-seater van for moving people around Rolla, but I'd rather we had something a bit more reliable. I will look into listing hotels in the region if people like. I know the Drury Inn is a good quality one, but I have some friends who've stayed in the hotels in the area before, so I'll see what they suggest, too.
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"It is, perhaps, an innacurate impression."
Inaccurate.
I know, spelling quibbles, but it looks more professional without them. :)
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"It is, perhaps, an innacurate impression."
Inaccurate.
I know, spelling quibbles, but it looks more professional without them. :)
Whups. Fixed. Also ironic.
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Just got an email from the organizer of CogCon. The relevant portion to those coming in from a distance is:
"The issue I see is that the rooms in the Havener Center often only have one data port enabled. It costs $$ to have other enabled, and we don't have the $$ for that.
"Also, each computer must be registered on the network, so it must be registered to a student/staff or faculty member.
"Do you know a number of people willing to bring their computers and who can use the wireless? Assuming you do, we should be able to allocate you a space, but it will be in the back as things look right now. Like Missouri/Ozark or the like."
"It is looking like we will have quite a few people here playing Pathfinder, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine. I know that I plan on playing Pathfinder all weekend."
"The other thing I notice reading the thread is that people may be looking at coming in from a distance. That is a problem with Rolla, since the train does not come through - only freight and no passengers. The nearest passenger depot is Jeff City. Greyhound does stop in Rolla, but only once or twice a day. The guy who said there was Amtrak within 30 miles of Rolla is not correct. Also, the Amtrak in Jeff has a goofy schedule. It is only used for the train between STL and KC.
We aren't dong the charity raffle this year. We actually don't have the rooms until about 5pm on Friday this year - not all day on Friday."
So, for those wanting to come in, we'll need to arrange transport somehow to help out. I'm going to be driving one of my parents' cars in from St. Louis, myself, and I'm getting in very early on Friday. I really do appreciate all those who want to come in to help; I apologize for the fact that I don't have the funds to arrange for better group transit myself. If you can't make it, the virtual attendance is fine, too!
All that said, if people still want to come in, we should see what we can do about arranging car-pooling or Grayhound tickets. Also, hotel rooms.
The wireless isn't bad, but I need to double-check with Barb to see if that also requires registration. I think the public wireless does not require it, though.
I will be working with her to try to get some volunteers from amongst the students to bring a few computers in for the event.
All of that said, we also need to coordinate the virtual side of this! I will go back through this thread to find the posts on what sorts of voice programs we should have set up. Any suggestions are still, of course, welcome. We should also think about what sorts of "events" we want to showcase. Anybody who wants to give a virtual tour of their bases, or showing off some specific gameplay element, please step forward. Mentors, in particular, we should plan what it is we're going to show our guests.
I now need to go finish and pdf-ize the press release inviting said guests, or all of this is for naught. I will get it out tonight if it kills me!
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Last call for advice on this press release! I will make a .pdf out of it after giving people a chance to make sure I haven't made any faux pas.
And then I'll send it to the same places I sent the "realignment" release, and ask everybody to look into their own local papers, magazines, stations, etc. and send it to them!
Thanks!
======================
Community of Heroes to NCSoft: Don't Destroy Our World
Callback Contact: Cameron Johnson cameron.e.johnson@gmail.com
On August 31, 2012, Paragon Studios was abruptly closed to the complete surprise of its employees and management. Its signature product, the still-profitable City of Heroes, is scheduled to be permanently shut down on November 30, 2012. Since the announcement, the players of City of Heroes (CoH) have come together in a surprisingly active and vocal movement to try to convince NCSoft, the parent company which owns the rights to CoH and which terminated Paragon Studios without warning (citing a "realignment of focus" as the sole reason), to take action to preserve the extensive and involved community they have grown over the last eight years and have come to love.
Recognizing NCSoft's desire to be done supporting CoH is a legitimate choice for a South Korean business to make regarding a product popular primarily in the West, the players have held ongoing vigils on the servers wherein their characters hold aloft torches, have held rallies and marches to demonstrate their devotion, and have even bought a "thank you" dinner for the Paragon Studios developers, with the hopes that NCSoft will be convinced to allow the virtual world and its developers to continue in other hands, rather than destroying this valued source of family togetherness, meeting place for far-distant friends, and unique aid to bridging gaps of generation and understanding. Even such luminaries as Mercedes Lackey - noted science fiction and fantasy authoress - have come forward in support of this effort.
On October 20th, the players of City of Heroes are holding a charity Game-A-Thon to support Children's Miracle Network hospitals. Also on that date, they are inviting members of the press to come and join them in demonstrations of how characters are made, what the most exciting parts of the game are to them, and to answer questions both in word and in deed about why this community means so much to them. The precedent of heroes and the press working together in metropolitan areas makes the Rolla, Missouri headquarters of this meeting somewhat ironic, but for those who cannot attend in person, the beauty of an online world is that practically full access can be achieved via the internet, and members of the press are invited to join by whatever means most will sate their curiosity best.
Though things look bleak for their City, these players of heroes (and 4-color supervillains) are determined to take on the never-say-die attitude of the genre they love, and offer to share their experiences - poignant and stirring and wholesome - with others before the servers go dark and they can do so no more.
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I teach writing and do a fair amount of critiquing professional writing, so I'll give the same feedback I'd give to a student who had written the same piece.
On the whole, this looks good. Most of the sentences are digestable, the tone is just right, and it hits all the relevant and interesting facts. I particularly like the use of phrases set off with dashes.
I suggest making it clear in the first paragraph that CoH is a multiplayer, online game about superheroes. This could be done in the space of a single sentence or even an appositive phrase.
The second paragraph needs work; that first sentence just has too many ideas going on. It needs to be broken up into multiple sentences. I'll give it a try here ...
"Players have held ongoing vigils on the servers wherein their characters hold aloft torches, have held rallies and marches to demonstrate their devotion, and have even bought a "thank you" dinner for the Paragon Studios developers. Players recognize NCSoft's desire to cease supporting CoH as a legitimate choice for a South Korean business to make regarding a product popular primarily in the West. However, they seek to convince NCSoft to allow the virtual world and its development to continue in other hands. They hope to prevent the destruction of this valued source of family togetherness, meeting place for far-distant friends, and unique aid to bridging gaps of generation and understanding. Even such luminaries as Mercedes Lackey - noted science fiction and fantasy authoress and CoH player - have come forward in support of the players' effort."
I hope that helps.
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i don't know if i mentioned this yet but if you send someone your files from the coh folder on your hard drive and they copy them to the same location on their computer it will force patch the game. We can set up a torrent file or just send on skype.
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I've stolen Olantern's rewrite of the second paragraph wholesale, as I cannot improve upon it and it is definitely punchier. I also added a parenthetical detailing what he suggested about the nature of CoH. Here it is:
*******************
Community of Heroes to NCSoft: Don't Destroy Our World
Callback Contact: Cameron Johnson cameron.e.johnson@gmail.com
On August 31, 2012, Paragon Studios was abruptly closed to the complete surprise of its employees and management. Its signature product, the still-profitable City of Heroes (a multiplayer online game about super-powered heroes), is scheduled to be permanently shut down on November 30, 2012. Since the announcement, the players of City of Heroes (CoH) have come together in a surprisingly active and vocal movement to try to convince NCSoft, the parent company which owns the rights to CoH and which terminated Paragon Studios without warning (citing a "realignment of focus" as the sole reason), to take action to preserve the extensive and involved community they have grown over the last eight years and have come to love.
Players have held ongoing vigils on the servers wherein their characters hold aloft torches, have held rallies and marches to demonstrate their devotion, and have even bought a "thank you" dinner for the Paragon Studios developers. Players recognize NCSoft's desire to cease supporting CoH as a legitimate choice for a South Korean business to make regarding a product popular primarily in the West. However, they seek to convince NCSoft to allow the virtual world and its development to continue in other hands. They hope to prevent the destruction of this valued source of family togetherness, meeting place for far-distant friends, and unique aid to bridging gaps of generation and understanding. Even such luminaries as Mercedes Lackey - noted science fiction and fantasy authoress and CoH player - have come forward in support of the players' effort.
On October 20th, the players of City of Heroes are holding a charity Game-A-Thon to support Children's Miracle Network hospitals. Also on that date, they are inviting members of the press to come and join them in demonstrations of how characters are made, what the most exciting parts of the game are to them, and to answer questions both in word and in deed about why this community means so much to them. The precedent of heroes and the press working together in metropolitan areas makes the Rolla, Missouri headquarters of this meeting somewhat ironic, but for those who cannot attend in person, the beauty of an online world is that practically full access can be achieved via the internet, and members of the press are invited to join by whatever means most will sate their curiosity best.
Though things look bleak for their City, these players of heroes (and 4-color supervillains) are determined to take on the never-say-die attitude of the genre they love, and offer to share their experiences - poignant and stirring and wholesome - with others before the servers go dark and they can do so no more.
*****************************
*****************************
I am going to put this into a pdf right after posting this, and begin getting ready to send it to the various news sites to which I sent the other one yesterday. I will check back here after posting a copy to my web space but before sending it out just to be sure there are no more comments.
Moonyfire101, thanks for that information. We almost certainly will follow your advice to make sure we have a streamlined place for our guests to acquire the game if they don't show up in person to physically borrow a computer with it on it.
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Alright, here's the link to the .pdf: http://stormlord.us/Community%20of%20Heroes%20to%20NCSoft.pdf
I'm going to start sending it out, though I may have to call it quits early, unfortunately. Please, anybody who wants to, send it to any news organization you can think of. I'll send it to the ones I sent the other to either tonight or tomorrow morning if I don't see anybody else reporting they have, but that's still a relatively small number. Let's use our grass roots numbers to our advantage!
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Submissions made to CBS weekly and evening news, to ABC's "News Specials," to MSNBC, to Fox News, and to both the Colbert Report and The Daily Show. As well as one local paper in Missouri. I'm off to bed now; with the first few out, I feel a lot better. Still, if anybody has contacts, connections, or just a local news outlet they can think of to send this to, please do so!
I'm looking forward to hearing back from some of these news folks. ^_^_x
(that's crossing fingers, in case it wasn't obvious. ^^; )
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I sent this to: Lorehound.com, Gamesmaster Magazine, Total PC gaming, SFX, Gamingdaily.co.uk, Eurogamer, Inc Gamers, Geek Mom, Gamen Guide, TenTon Hammer, Korean Herald, EGM Magazine, Games Magazine, WGE Magazine, Edge Magazine, MMO Gamer, thirteen1.com, MMO site, gamespot, The Guardian, BBC Click, Korean Times, Seoul times, VG today and IGN wire.
(Basically, the people I'd found who had ran the NC Soft statement without a response from us, and a few people I thought should've covered us, but haven't yet, and some english language South Korean newspapers.)
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I sent this to: Lorehound.com, Gamesmaster Magazine, Total PC gaming, SFX, Gamingdaily.co.uk, Eurogamer, Inc Gamers, Geek Mom, Gamen Guide, TenTon Hammer, Korean Herald, EGM Magazine, Games Magazine, WGE Magazine, Edge Magazine, MMO Gamer, thirteen1.com, MMO site, gamespot, The Guardian, BBC Click, Korean Times, Seoul times, VG today and IGN wire.
(Basically, the people I'd found who had ran the NC Soft statement without a response from us, and a few people I thought should've covered us, but haven't yet, and some english language South Korean newspapers.)
-wonders if he should send his open letter to the sites from this list he hasn't yet, or if it's too late now-
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It can't hurt! I'll send you the email addresses I have over PM, if you'd like?
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Sure, hit me. I guess it's not over until one of them publishes it.
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Great! Thanks, rae!
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Attempted travel update. Segev and I seemed to have reached the same conclussion about the supposed train station in Rolla (I really hate when official information sites give misinformation)
With that it mind I am tenatively planning a Friday evening train ride to Saint Louis which hopefully means meeting up with others there before continuing the journey by car or bus. The good news it will cost under 70 dollars round trip. From Saint Louis we are looking at about a 2-2.5 hour drive. Or we could all try and come into Jeff City...but there are not as many trains going through and renting a car at odd tmes may be more difficult.
I'm attempting this on a shoe string budget due to a major expense I can not avoid a few days earlier. If we can get one room for the ladies and one for the gentlemen and bring sleeping bags...its only one or two nights 4-6 people in a room (or more) will drop the cost a lot.
We are definately going to need equipment to pull this off <sigh>. We need a display screen and form of projection for one and a sound system. Plus the virtualization...I am really woried about bandwith issues here but maybe they won't be a concern at a college...d they have an AV or broadcasting class/club willing to help us?
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Two hours is about right for a trip from inside St. Louis proper out to Rolla. It's 90 min. from West County to Rolla.
I am borrowing parents' vehicle for the weekend, as I said. I can switch to the 12-seater van if it will help, but I'll have to ask people to chip in on gas a little since it's not exactly "fuel efficient." (I use scare quotes there because, technically, the more people in it, the more efficient it is based on gallons-of-gas-per-person.) My own flight arrives in St. Louis before 10 am; I will be spending at least part of the day with family because I haven't seen them in a while. What time are others arriving? And how many "others" are there?
Though I can chip in to help a little with hotel costs, I will not be staying in one. I am staying at a friend's apartment. I am not comfortable asking him to house strangers, sorry. ^^; He doesn't have much space.
Display screen and projector I can probably arrange through the campus. I believe the Gaming Association can borrow or rent such for us (I will help defray any costs they might have to the best of my ability); I'll talk to the coordinator about it. Sound system...we'll be relying on charity. I'll bring my computer speakers, and they're not terrible, but it's just one set.
Bandwidth issues will be a concern if we have multiple machines trying to use one port. I am going to try to work to get students who'll volunteer their machines for the effort, since they can use the network more directly. I may need to invest in a hub. It is not possible to piggyback unregistered computers on the wired connection, unfortunately, but we CAN, I am fairly sure, use the public wireless. Still, any student or faculty-owned computers we can get for our primary contact point will be best. (I doubt I count as either anymore, as my university web space stopped working a couple months ago.)
Thanks for the note about AV equipment, QuantumHero! I am really groping blind on exactly what we'll need, so keep any suggestions coming. The worst that can happen is we'll realize we don't need/can't provide for them.
I'm guessing we want the big screen projection for any broadcasts and events. We'll still want some stations for any guests who show up in person, and we'll probably use the big screen for video chat with distance participants when appropriate.
Over the next couple of days, we should nail down a tentative schedule of events. Remember the Con's overall structure is a series of 4-hour "slots," starting at 9 am, 2 pm, and 7 pm.
(They are apparently not doing the charity raffle this year.)
We need not plan to use all three slots, but we should plan to schedule our events to fit within them as best as possible just to click with other events in which people might want to participate. Distance events are the best ones to allow to diverge from that schedule.
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Supplies and Logistics:
We need posters, signs, artwork, and hand-outs.
I don't know how big this con is but I want people walking in to be unable to miss our existance and want to come see.
Computers I want one dedicated computer on the petition encouraging people to sign it, I recommend the same plan for our new york group....unless comming from the same IP is a problem.
I would like another dedicated computer running a live presentation of videos and promo material (contact video owners directly to place files on a computer and not take bandwidth for you-tube/cohtube?)
Maps of game zones, official and gamer created artwork to decorate the area with
A file of letters and testimonials with any sensative data blacked out.
Workshops on charactor design (visual)
And power design/play styles.
Presentations on our three worlds in one
Presentation on our time line/history/ Aug 29th (and the things sold just prior), I 24.
Identifying t-shirts, capes, jackets, hats, badges or something for our team to wear (remember most of us have never met in RL)...and something fun for guests. Cut out masks?
Should we have computers dedicated for charactor costume design and then export the designs to a computer that is actually playing the game for our guests? Set up an electronic questionaire and build a suitable toon for each guest all ready to finalized with them?
How do we handle hero, villain, praetorian. Each have things to offer a presentation or hand out about what the three starting worlds mean.
I would also recommend higher level character content being available either in movie or playable format. What do people think the best show case missions/areas/powersets are?
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Excellent list. I have one (hopefully very small) bucket of cold water to throw on it: we are not the entire con, and the con itself is not large. We have one room. It should be decently sized, but we won't be able to split off into multiple rooms at the physical location.
That said! We can do posters and fliers. We can have one workshop at a time, and we can show videos on our main projector if we're not using it for anything else (and we may well not be). A big part of our "power" here is that we've got a virtual presence, so even when we can't spread out to multiple physical rooms, we can invite online attendees to do things via webcast, voice chat, video chat, and in the game proper.
Most of QuantumHero's list is doable and wise for what amounts to a "single booth" at a convention. (There really aren't booths at this one, but as I said, we have a room.) I will bring my own laptop, which is a quad-core that I use as my desktop. I am going to be working tonight on a flyer to try to get volunteers to loan computers to this effort for other dedicated machines. Surely, there are CoH/V players on campus who will want to help and maybe even participate.
I don't know if coming from the same IP is an issue for the petition; I THINK I remember it requiring an email address, so that might be sufficient proof-of-individuality.
If I can get the letters and testimonials printed out, I can probably spread them out on part of a table for people to peruse.
I'd like to add a plea to the /em holdtorch crowd that if they can put together that collage, I will strive my best to get it printed out and displayed at our physical location.
Identifying T-shirts or badges or the like are going to be tricky. We'll need to come up with something, though, as you're quite right about needing ease-of-ID for each other.
Goodies for the guests are, I think, going to be the hardest part. Brainstorming is good, here! Remember: we need to be able to do it in sufficient number and with sufficeintly small budget.
We're pulling this together on very short notice, and I'm extremely impressed with how hard everyone's working and with the results so far. So! What we need are volunteers - perhaps from our potential mentor pool? Perhaps from those coming in? - to do the visual character design workshop, the power design/play style workshop/presentation, and the presentations on "our three worlds in one" and the timeline of CoH (focusing particularly on the events that have sparked this movement).
((I confess, I'm not sure what you mean by "three worlds in one," QH.))
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Three worlds in one-paragon city, rogue isles, praetoria...all of which do have different starting xperiances.
Forgot to mention workshop/ presentation on AE, bases, ouroboros, side-switching, patron arcs...incarnate system, seasonal events.
I was thinking of a table/booth in the main/enterance area for part of this...if we are going to bea bit remote from the main con...is that do-able?
Is there anything stopping us from putting up some kind o temporay dividers to seperat the room into 2 or 3 sections if we want to? I know its one room so actual sound proofing is impossible but personally I really like the idea of vaguely organized stations or sections that we can dedicate to each major purpose. Whether any kind if dividers/temp walls are available,segev?
Security...this is a potential problem we are going to have an issue if electronics go missing or are damaged. Be this in a shared hotel room or our event room, same with coats, drawings, purses/wallets, etc. Hopefully we can trust each other but there will be other people there. Ladies I will be honest don't bring purses if you can help it, I intend to wear a fanny pack and carry it as a purse or stuff what I absolutely must keep with me in pockets. If you bring a purse keep it on your lap do not put it s
omewhere that it can walk away.
A letter writing station might be cool.
Pages...we are either going to need a rotating schedule or else someone running for basic supplies. Mountain Dew/energy drinks, snack food or pizza, veggie and dip, cheese and crackers...something. Kleenex, basic first aid, supplies, cables, ice, tape, power strips, pens, batteries.
We need a video/photo taker
Do we want/need at least one point of wearing costumes?
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The convention takes place in the Havener Center (http://phyfac-web.mst.edu/dcm/floorplans/R0012_02.pdf), and has in the past had rooms 204-210 on the map. I can never remember which one's which by name, but the "front desk" area typically lies just north of 206 (the great big ball room). I've been told we'll likely have one of the "inner" rooms, which I think means either one half or the other of 207 or 208, or maybe 210. I honestly wouldn't be surprised at getting 210, as it's the least likely to actively disrupt other events. It has the advantage, however, of avoiding disruption from people playing Pathfinder 20 feet away!
Thinking about it more, I think Missouri/Ozark is both halves of 207. We might be able to get both.
I'll try to get more information tonight.
Like I said, it's not a large convention.
Security, at least in the convention site, will have to be handled mostly by our own vigilance. There is, obviously, campus security, but it's like any convention: you are best off monitoring your own stuff.
Now, as for a table/booth at the main entrance: I am sure Barb would love to have volunteer helpers at the front desk. If they happen to encourage people to go check out the CoH room, I doubt there'd be objections.
A rotating schedule is probably our best bet. I think we can get pizza delivered by local delivery places, but we have to go downstairs to meet them. There are also several fast food places across the street, and the Convention schedule leaves an hour between slots for lunch, and two for dinner.
That bring up our other consideration: How long do we want to schedule this for?
I'm leaning towards the 9 am and 2 pm slots, and calling it a day after that. This gives our hard-working volunteers a chance to unwind, get some dinner, and maybe play some tabletop RPG or something in the last slot after we clean up. If we really have so much that we need all three slots, that's actually pretty awesome, but it will be one heck of a long day.
The various stations will likely be best-achieved with simply setting up tables. I'm thinking putting the computers for playing along one wall, maybe the dedicated computers along another or the same. The projector obviously goes up on one dedicated space. The letter-writing station, the table with flyers and testimonials and such, will probably fill us out.
Since I know Rolla and the campus, I will likely wind up doing a lot of the running around if we need incidentals. That said, I am going to be working to recruit at least a few Gaming Association members or CoH-playing students who can also do some of that.
Whether we do a costume display/contest thing or not is a good question and depends how many people want to participate. It's a great idea if we can get the numbers. (I know I don't cosplay...though honestly, if it's as cold in Rolla as it's been here in Greenville on the 20th, I might be wearing my cloak anyway, and that's not something my signature CoV character would object to wearing.)
I'll put word in the flyer trying to get CoH people interested in showing up that costumes are permitted. I hesitate to call for an actual contest because, well, prizes cost money. ^^; But I'll see what I (or somebody cleverer than I) can think up, and maybe we can pull that one off, too.
QH, you've had some awesome ideas. I am going to do my best to make sure as many of them happen as possible! Thanks!
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As far as costumes I was thinking photo Op or short skit rather then contest. Maybe our very own virtual torch vigil?
I won't be able to bring much (my probable train allows only carry-on luggage) but I do own speakers, power strips, lan cable, a laptop, and. Fair amount of audio stuff..the problem is 90% of my life being in storage right now and how much I can actually bring.
Do we have access to a small handcart to shlep stuff as well
Does anyone have a decent kareoke system...we could use it for audio if needed.
We are going to want music playing...maybe from our videos maybe one of our paragon radio stations. We also may want some sort o entertainment.
I'd like to at least allow gameplay the entire day...because of extra life...maybe we can be a convention team...and at least get a cumulative 24 hours from the entire group. We need to make extra life part of this and try to put in at least a reasonable token showing for this section of team coh.
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Hello again, everyone! I know we have a number of volunteers to mentor and a generous outpouring of accounts for loan to our guests, but now we need to make some declarations of who's participating how. In particular, who'll be at CogCon in Rolla, and who'll be logging in remotely?
I know I will be physically there, and I'm working on recruiting local students to help out. QuantumHero is the only person on here whose made serious noise about also showing up physically, and I know her concerns are partially financial, so the more who're coming, the better she can afford to.
That is not to say I am ungrateful if you are going to participate virtually! The virtual presence is very important as well. But we're to the point where we need to have at least a rough idea of who's planning to show up physically so that we can make arrangements for hotel rooms and transport to Rolla. St. Louis is the best city to train or fly to, to my knowledge, if only because I know I have a vehicle if you are arriving early enough on Friday to ride in with me. (I'm planning to head down early Friday afternoon, probably leaving about 12:30 or 1 pm, but it's flexible.)
The other order of business: QH has listed several excellent ideas for events we can run, in the form of workshops, demos, discussions, etc. Who amongst our mentor volunteers (or anybody else) would be interested in taking the lead on what, if anything, amongst those? We will make certain to have speakers and video-projection capability, so physical presence is not required to lead or present anything. We'll make sure to coordinate times once we know who's willing and able to do what. We also will need a skilled in-game videographer and somebody on site who is comfortable shooting video, so we have records of the event to give out to any interested parties who might want to display it.
Thanks again to all of you for your help with this project. I'm really looking forward to it, and I expect we'll get some Con visitors wandering by to see what's up, too.
IN SUMMARY!
- Please state planning to attend CogCon physically for this event. We'll be organizing any car pooling and hotel room sharing! If you're going to attend virtually, mentioning that is also appreciated just to aid in head-counting.
- If any of the events QH has suggested - or you have any you can think of yourselves - interest you enough to run, please speak up and volunteer.
- We also need to make sure we get video records of the event for later archival and distribution purposes. Volunteers on this front are sought.
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I'm going to put all the cards on the table folks.
My starting point is the chicago,illinois area.
My options are driving or train unless a magically cheap flight appears.
I have a car and am willing to drive but not all the way both ways in the space of one weekend.
I am also willing to take a train with somone or myself (I wish my husband could go but he will be working) I will need to leave after work on Friday (although I'm try to arrange an earlyier departure from the office) so by the time I get to Saint Louis I really, really, really do not want to be a woman alone. I'm tough and independant folks but there is such a thing as basic safety. IAnd if anyone has ever teamed with me on some of the more confusing maps, I'm more then a little nervous about geting lost on the way out of saint louis.
Then there is Rolla itself I need to sleep *somewhere* and I do not mean a park bench. Now I have done plenty of camping so I can sleep almost anywhere as long as it is a safe place. I need to know if this will be a female only room or a mutual crash space with an area for the gals that cntains more then just me.
My brother, his wife and infant children just moved to Missouri they can not travel to the con butwould meet me in Jeff City on the way back...I would like to do this if I can.
As for events if needed I can probably throw together a speach in about an hour or so but a bit more warning would be nice :) I am very high energy if I don't burn it all geting to Rolla and trainedin public speaking :) My budget for this adenture is 150-200 dollars which is money I proably should not b spending right now but this is important to all of us.
We NEED people...at this con and we need media folks also....Segev hasben working very hard to pull this off. I'll be honest Rolla, MO is not my first choice for a media day location BUT everything we film will be part of a larger presentation t help this effort, every resourse can be shlepped to the next con or event...even if we think of this as a practice run we need to make a big showing.
So who is from the midwest
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Does the train go through Jeff City? If so, that might be an alternate location for people to meet. St. Louis is practically on the other side of Rolla from Jeff City. (Well, really, they form a sort of triangle, but if you've already gone out to Jeff City, St. Louis is out of the way to get to Rolla, and vice-versa.)
I am going to send out another round of press releases/invitations to news agencies. I think I may have failed to make it clear I would like RSVPs in the one I vetted past this thread before. We DID see it reposted on at least one blog, which is something...but I am going to get more than that if it is at all within my power to do so.
While I'd like to be in Rolla before 5 pm, if I'm QH's ride that won't be possible, it sounds like. Who else is in the area/driving through St. Louis (or possibly Jeff City)?
Hotels...I will look up the addresses for the ones in Rolla and post their URLs here tonight. Sorry I hadn't done that yet. ^^;
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Unfortunately, I cannot physically attend the convention. The drive is 14 hours one way and that is a bit too much for me to pull off and still be of any use. How are we going to handle the virtual side of things? If possible, I will help out on that front. Right now I do not have any way to stream video from my computer or run a team speak server, but if someone can point me in the right direction, I can get it set up by the 20th. At the very least, I can still offer my free account.
Is there a plan for what will be going on, aside from demos?
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i can possably offer an account for the day, it is only premium though
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Anything helps.
Virtual side, we'll need... me to go back through the thread and see what suggestions we had. I hesitate to use Skype, because it's awfully resource-intensive these days, but it IS the one with which I'm most familiar.
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The three hotels I found under $100/night are: Holiday Inn Express (http://www.hiexpress.com/hotels/us/en/rolla/rlamo/hoteldetail/directions), Quality Inn (http://www.qualityinn.com/hotel-rolla-missouri-MO213/Hotel-Map?country=US), and Drury Inn (https://www.druryhotels.com/propertyoverview.aspx?property=0053).
Drury is the most expensive at $95/night, and Quality is the least at $65/night. Holiday Inn Express is $85/night. At least, these were the prices as I checked tonight.
There was one other at $105/night, but I figured that was just pushing out of people's price range.
Of these, two of them are along a stretch of Highway 44 that is "hotel row," effectively. They're not bad, and are maybe 10 min. from the Con site by car. Drury Inn (the $95 one) is the only one I've seen personally on the inside; it looked clean and well maintained. I haven't stayed at any of them. Drury is closer to the con site, maybe 3-5 min. away, and not too bad to walk from. Warning on Drury: it is two stories and has no elevator; the 1st floor rooms are $100/night.
I will look for more if people want, but that should give you a rough idea of what costs are looking like. Each of these were for a room with two double beds.
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If nothing else I can pull up city maps and give you explicit directions that avoid the unsavory areas of town as much as possible on your way out of the city.
I can't promise anything else, but I lived in St. Louis for 8 years - I know the area pretty well. Also, check your messages.
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Messages checked :) Thank you and I hope you are still willing when you read my probable time
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Segev: VERY IMPORTANT NOTE.
KEYBINDINGS.
Make absolutely sure that your donor accounts have their characters set to the DEFAULT keybindings! This occurred to me last night, when I realized that I'll need to transfer influence over and respec the high-30s Brute on my second account - She is unplayable unless you know how my keybindings are set up. I can temporarily reset her to the default keybinds without much trouble, but many people who use extensive keybinds aren't going to think of needing to DO that. *I* have my keybinds saved to files on my hard drive and backed up elsewhere - Not everyone thinks to do that, which means if you overwrite their keybinds, they'll be *gone*.
Make sure account donors are aware of this. The command is /bindsavefile c:\filedirectory\filename.txt for saving them.
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Thanks for that note, SithRose; I never would have thought of that, myself. ^^;
Hopefully they'll see it in here; when I contact them directly, I'll make doubly sure, though.
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Well, how 'bout that... just remembered I had extra free accounts, one that I made by accident when I didn't understand how to add CoV to my account, and another trial account that I made to make a special toon just for a couple days because I was out of server slots on my main one.
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Sent out a couple more invitations, this time to news stations in St. Louis and Springfield, MO (they're both 90 miles or so from Rolla).
Need to send some to the Miner (student-run paper) and KMNR (student-run radio station) and Rolla's local paper.
Should I send it to radio stations, do you think? They don't usually do long news stories, to my knowledge, but...I could be wrong.
Next on the planning agenda: tentative program of events. Either I or Quantum Hero (or some other volunteer) should take the list of ideas QH put up a page or so back and try to organize them into time slots. These will be tentative; our next move will be to get volunteers to host each individual one.
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Segev, forgive me if this has already been mentioned but have you tried contacting NPR affiliates? This might just be the kind of thing that public radio goes for. "Plucky players, pester publisher" tht kind of thing. (wow, was that that a tabloid headline!) If they pick it up, it could get far more coverage that with other mainstream media outlets.
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Good point! I tend to forget NPR even exists, it's so far off my normal radar. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll do it in the morning. (If I don't post that I have, e-kick me again in this thread or a message.)
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NPR is the only thing my dog listens to while I'm at work all day! :D
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<pokes segev>
I was not really home yesterday but will try to transpose the program idea list today if no one gets to it before me.
This is your reminder about NPR
Also still looking for others actually going to Rolla. A lot of that list was supposing we would ahve physical people there
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Sent press releases/invitations to NPR Morning Edition and Talk of the Nation, and to several Maine newspapers (as we have a volunteer mentor in Maine who gave me the contacts for them).
If anybody else has papers or stations or other outlets in their region they recommend, please let me know!
Quantum Hero, thanks for putting that list together when you get to it. (I was posting this as you posted, ironically.) If we CAN'T get physical people there, we need to know that, too. >_< I might just be the only one. Still waiting to hear back from any interested media guests, as well.
So yeah, if you're going to Rolla, please say so! If not, we will re-adjust for a more pure-Virtual presence. (I've made my plane reservations, and I have friends in the area; I'm going, no matter what. But I don't want QH to put herself out of finances and time if we're not going to have enough for it to really work as more than a "let's play CoH" room.)
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Segev, I have two accounts to donate to the mild-mannered reporters. The trouble is, my ability to connect to the internet that weekend will be sketchy, at best. So if there is someone you want me to submit the info to, it will probably have to happen by this Thursday.
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Media Day Events/Programs in no particular order
Since I no longer know what is going to be virtual and what is going to be physical I'm loosly throwing together events into themes...note that we can always move something between catagories.
Set up/Logistics/coordination - both virtual and physical (if applicable)
Brief video/Introduction/Welcome
Three Worlds in One - Paragon City, Rogue, Isles, Praetoria (also co-op zones, shadow shard, pocket d, etc). Three starting experiences, three play experiences., the ability to cross between them.
Our unique game, our unique community - mission architect, power customization, costume creater versatility,, ouroboros, tip missions, casual or serious, radio missions, task forces, giant monsters, mini task forces, seasonal and special events, incarnate, solo or teamed, gamers with disabilities, non-traditional gamers....a unique and involved community.
Timeline - of our game, the shut down (including just how badly caught by suprise paragon was, hyping comming attractions an hour before getting canned), I 24, the fight to save us.
Links to our most powerful media content and testimonials (live presentation if we have one)
Free, Premiere, VIP, reward tokens and paragon points.
Character creation and game play basic and advanced versions, teaming in COH unless handled by individual mentors
Creating a Charactor: Designing a look from simple to advanced
Making your own AE mission
Why save City of Heroes and the need for a MMO gamer's "bill of rights" (make sure they know we are profitable AND willing to buy the rights)
NcSoft the Gamekillers
Show of solidarity...hold our torches high
Other October 20th events (extra life, turn up the volume, etc)
Plans A-Z and the building of our own MMO if we must
Multi-media songs, poems, videos, letters, collages, web-links
Any other ideas folks?
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I can mentor on Virtue and Pinnacle, and be a virtual presence. Bandwidth being what it is, I cannot game and Skype at the same time, so my mentoring will all be via chat, but I am a fast typist. I am available for interviews should anyone actually want one. PM me if you want my phone number.
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I'll do what I can to spread the word on the FB groups/Twitter that this is happening and ask people to make an effort to be online. Even if they can't physically play, it wouldn't hurt them to vigil in AP.
I'll do what I can to be around for this, too, although I can't guarantee it won't just be an AFK AP33 vigil, depending on timezones and real life, so I wouldn't wanna volunteer myself as a mentor or whatever.
If you wanna add me, it's @Vandellia, though, if I'm about and you need team members or someone to be suitable sad about the closure and helpful to new people.
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So it turns out that I have another obligation that starts at about 2pm (mountain time) on the 20th. I can still help out with anything on the virtual side up until I have to leave. While I am not much for speeches, I can definitely give tours through missions or zones or do other types of mentoring. My main characters are on Virtue and Guardian, but I am more than willing to transfer one to another server if need be. Also, my free account will be available to use for whoever needs it. Its two character slots are on Virtue and are empty.
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I will be available in game on Protector, Virtue, Victory or Freedom for any kind of assist. Globals in game are @globetrotter and @alber. Also have some free player accounts available and one premium account.
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Already volunteered the use of my free account if it's needed. There are two available character slots on Protector. Work requirements in real life will probably prevent me from being available online until after 9PM eastern time on the 20th but after that time, I'll be happy to assist in whatever way I can if you still need me.
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I want to thank everybody for their volunteering and their efforts.
As of yet, I've heard back from no potential guests, media or otherwise. While I will still be going to Cog Con in Rolla and trying to set up this room, I will only ask that people who've volunteered check in periodically throughout the day if they're available, rather than setting up a specific "you must be here!!!" time, because as it stands, we might just have a few walk-in guests. :(
I am not giving up just yet, but I want to be realistic and I don't want to ruin others' weekends by asking them to be there when we might have little to be there fore. I will know a bit more tomorrow, however; maybe we'll get some good news.
Until then, though, I just want, once again, to extend my thanks to all who've helped me try to get this working. I know we've canvassed a lot of media outlets, and some have printed the press release even if they haven't sent any indication that they'll be participating. So some word has gotten out!
And remember, above all else: have fun. This is a game, and there are plenty of other events happening at the same time, so enjoy whatever you wish to do! We can still add some numbers to the server population on the 20th!
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And my semi-obsessive hunt for CoH related news has turned up this ...
http://interact.stltoday.com/pr/arts-entertainment/PR101312011310681 (http://interact.stltoday.com/pr/arts-entertainment/PR101312011310681)
If nothing else it's more advertising.
Lets keep the snowball rolling.
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Well, my flight leaves at 6:05 am tomorrow morning!
I have no idea what to expect in the way of attendance from people other than volunteers. To those who have offered accounts, but can't be there, I am sorry I haven't emailed you. If you are comfortable sharing the information with me directly, my email is segev.stormlord@gmail.com or the one I used in the press release. They both go to the same place.
Thanks to all who've volunteered. I will post tomorrow night with a better idea of what the actual setup consists of, there. To all those participating in the other events on Saturday, good job, good luck, and have fun!
Thank you all. I'll see you on Saturday I hope! (Spending most of tomorrow visiting family and traveling)
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Have anyone thought of making a SG "Save COH" yet?
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Emailed you, Segev.
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same here
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Can assist all weekend, on Guardian, Exalted, and one alt on Virtue. Will probably spend most of my time on Guardian, though. Want to play my very first alt. Will miss her the most, I think. Look for Indigo Fey, which is also my global.
Look forward to seeing everyone playing, this weekend!
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I have a few hours only I be on Virtue. In the morning 7:30 Am eastern daylight time, to Noon give or take. Then on again at 7:Pm till 10:00.
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I'm still available if you need some in game help with this.
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I'll be on guardian all 24hrs on the 20th if anyone needs me to show a newsie around. @MrsAlphaOne is my global.
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I may have already asked this, so please forgive me if I have. RL is being very passive aggressive, lately. Is anyone hearing anything from media? I know there was a fake on the first weekend, but if anyone has had interest from media types, I've missed the post(s).
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Sadly, no. I have heard nothing back from any media; I have gotten a couple pings wherein the press release was posted more or less verbatim, but nobody's RSVP'd on the "guest" side.
I also have, I think, only two computers - my own, and my little brother's - that will be actually available for the events on campus. I'm still going to show up, see if we have any interest, but at this point, I will be (pleasantly, but extremely) shocked if this event...well, happens. Not for lack of your support, but for my failure to manage to pique the interest of any media.
I'm not giving up until I show up and we've got no guests. I'm not saying people shouldn't play and enjoy the day. But I want to be realistic and not have anybody throw away their day if they have other plans, or wish to make some. On the other hand, if you're going to be on anyway, I thank you for your kind efforts!
(I don't want anybody to think this is going to get me down; even if nothing happens, this convention is one at which is a chance for me to see all of my friends from college again, and there are other things happening, so...well, it'll be disappointing if nothing happens, but for me, this trip is not wasted one way or the other.)
Also, finally got CoH installed on my machine, and will have it on my brother's by tonight. ^_^ So, assuming my account still works after all these years, maybe you'll see Segev the Dark/Necromancer Mastermind wandering around tomorrow and for the remaining days of the game!
Again, thank you all. Your support and efforts have been amazing.
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I am posting from my phone; I can't get my computer to connect to the campus network for some reason. Good luck and have fun to all who are participating in all the events today!
I've heard from no potential guests.
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I have heard from a potential guest! She sent an email last night that I only noticed this morning, but now that I've gotten back to my friend's apartment and an internet connection I can use, I have contacted her. Volunteers, both to donate accounts and to mentor, should have been copied on the email. She's our only respondant, but it's something, so please welcome her if you see her on!
Her name is Sami Yuhas and she is a staff reporter at http://plus10damage.com/ who has done some coverage of #SaveCoH and, in her words, "popped in a few times." ^_^_v
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Yay!
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So, any word on how things are going in the trenches today? (Stuck at work...)
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Still getting her hooked up. I'm still not done putting my kitchen back together from a deep cleaning, but I hope to be ready by the time she is ready to join the game.
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Yay this is something....which server will she be on...I will jump on and help however I can
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Still waiting. She got it downloaded, and it gave her the option to "create an account." Told her to give it a whirl (I've sent her te log in info for my free account, at the moment). Haven't heard back, but it's only been a few minutes.
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If your on Virtue I can join in. I have an Hour left of time.
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Well my time is up. Take good care of our guest!
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I'm currently on pinnacle on a hero named Quantum Hero...should be easy to find :)
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Has anyone met our guest in-game yet?