Ko's Twitter 'Rant' About #COH, #SaveCOH, and What the Community is Becoming...

[Arcana]

When heated ranting and raving becomes public, you need to take a step back and take a deep breath.

In such a situation, what would Statesman do?

Technically speaking, the last time that happened Statesman tried to fix the problem all by himself and got killed.

The lesson is, of course, when people think they are fighting the good fight but they are just drawing the ire of the world upon themselves alone, its never a good thing.  Because the devs hate tankers.

[Samuraiko]

Technically speaking, the last time that happened Statesman tried to fix the problem all by himself and got killed.

The lesson is, of course, when people think they are fighting the good fight but they are just drawing the ire of the world upon themselves alone, its never a good thing.  Because the devs hate tankers.

*barely manages to avoid spewing water all over her desk*

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[Arcana]

Sorry for getting up on my soap box here, but this is an all too common misconception that is a major pet peeve of mine.

This has aboslutely nothing to do with "free speech."  In the USA, Freedom of Speech as guaranteed by the Constitution, is the right to protest the actions of the governemnt without fear of reprisal or punishment from that government, or the government being able to silence your opinion.  Once upon a time, those who disagreed with the government and it's laws, and voiced thier opinion, were imprisoned or executed; it is this sort of thing that Freedom of Speech is intended to protect against. 

Internet forum posts about computer games and those who play them is not "free speech," and there is no right being exercised here.  Referring to it as such demeans the actual right and obsucres the importance of its purpose.

Actually, that's an incorrect interpretation of the first amendment to the US Constitution.  The first amendment does not explicitly grant free speech nor does it have anything to do with protesting the government.  The first amendment actually grants the free exercise of speech to be unimpeded by government restriction.  Or to put it more directly, it doesn't grant the right to free speech, it actually limits the right of the government to restrict speech.  Because its a government limitation, not a declaration of a right, there is no specific constitutional protection of free speech itself.  My employer, for example, could restrict my right to say anything at all within the workplace.  They would not be violating a Constitutional right, because I have no right to free speech.  My sole right under the First Amendment is to be free of governmental restrictions. 

The First Amendment makes no reference to protest speech.  Speech need not have a political element or be directed at the government to be protected from government restriction.  For example, the famous Miller Test, flawed though it may be, articulates the principle that the government cannot pass laws that restrict speech even if it is found offensive, unless that speech lacks "literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."  Political speech is only one kind of speech protected by the Miller principle.

Also, like all clauses in the US Constitution, the right described within the First Amendment is not absolute.  Where it contradicts other rights and powers proscribed within the Constitution, its up to judicial review (the courts) to arbitrate the difference.  That is where the power to limits expression comes from: the Constitution directs Congress to pass laws necessary to protect its citizens, and is the principle behind the "shout fire in a theater" rule.  Congress can pass laws that restrict speech when, like in the apocryphal case of shouting fire in a theater, such speech poses a "clear and present danger" to people Congress has both a right and a responsibility to safeguard against.

[JanessaVR]

Let me just say that I really *do* hate NCSoft.

I hate them with flaming passion of 10,000 suns.  I openly call them my enemy, cheer any possible perceived setback or injury they suffer, bask unabashedly in every bit of schadenfreude I can at their expense, and resolutely refuse to apologize for any of this.  I would, as another poster put it, dearly love "to crush NCSoft, see their execs driven before us, and hear the lamentations of their stockholders."

And in spite of all *that*, I remind myself to keep it together.  After the first month or so of the closure, I sat down and asked myself, "Ok, so you hate NCLimp and want CoH back.  What's the best way to accomplish that?"

Well, first off, I keep sending letters, every week.  I keep trying to recruit people to draft letters to Disney and I'm personally paying for all postage/envelopes and doing all the labor for prepping them and sending them off for my entire circle of friends.  I have a standing offer open to pay for any postage from anyone they can find to send letters to Disney (and later Google or whoever) and I've made good on it.  If they just supply me with letters, I'll see that they get there.  (I also extend that option to the board here – if you can't afford postage, drop me a line.)

Next, I try to spread the word about our situation.  But when I talk to people I operate under one primary rule – "Don't sound crazy."  Some sort of frothing-at-the-mouth tirade worthy of Mel Gibson isn't going to help our cause.  And seeing as I'm ultimately a pragmatist and interested in doing what will *work*, I remind myself to always strive to sound reasonable and coherent.  Blind rage is understandable, but there's no percentage in it if I want to achieve *results*.  A conversation with someone who's thinking of checking out an NCSoft game might go like this:

"Ok, you can try that game out, but I'm telling you, it's from NCSoft and the last time we CoH players gave them $, they suddenly cancelled the game on us, and to this day still refuse to even tell us why they did it, or to sell it to someone else, despite the fact that it wasn't in the red – we were still making them $.  I'd think twice about investing any money in their games, as they have a proven track record of just suddenly cancelling games and screwing their customers over, multiple times now.  CoH was just the latest one they killed off, yours will likely be next, the way they operate."

I've also set aside $ for any new buyer of CoH.  I'm ready to drop $1,000 *on the spot* for a long-term subscription / cash shop items for whoever any new publisher of the game turns out to be.  The minute they announce my ability to spend money on a new home for CoH, I'll be Jane-on-the-spot, debit card in hand.

On another note, my new icon here reflects my support for what I think will ultimately be the way we finally get CoH back, through...less than official means.  As TonyV recently said, we have "Top Men" working on the reverse-engineering efforts.  Hoist the Jolly Roger and hand me a parrot and cutlass, I says.   :)

As for people spending $ on other NCSoft titles, well, I might not be in the politically-correct camp here.  I understand that some people pre-ordered GW2 before the closure of CoH was announced.  Fair enough – NCSoft wasn't our enemy then.  And if those people are playing GW2 now, well, they did pay for it, might as well get their money's worth.  But honestly, I'm *not* ok with CoH players continuing to give NCSoft any money whatsoever now, after they've closed the game down on us.  If you're still giving them $ now, what you're doing is sending the message that it's ok for them to treat us this way, and that even if they do, you'll keep buying their products.  It's enabling behavior for an entity that's abused us badly, and truthfully I'm not ok with that.  I'm not going scream a tirade of profanities at you, but I really do believe you're hurting our efforts by knowingly continuing to fund our enemy, in spite of all the harm they've done to us.

But ultimately, where you spend your $ is your choice.  I just ask that people consider the message they're sending when they do.

[Arcana]

But ultimately, where you spend your $ is your choice.  I just ask that people consider the message they're sending when they do.

Case in point.

[JanessaVR]

Case in point.

Ok...wow.  I...kind of...lack the words here...

[Triplash]

Case in point.

*sniffles*  ... That's beautiful.

[Twisted Toon]

Ok...wow.  I...kind of...lack the words here...

Did you know that a 0.022 scale Deathstar made from Lego can not be build on the planet Earth? It would have to be assembled in Space.

All you need to know about building a Lego scale Deathstar.

[houtex]

Case in point.

I LOLed here:

What colours will the Open Source Death Star be?

If we let everyone choose the colour of one piece it'll pobably look grey anyway so we'll either have a poll or paint it rainbow colours. Yes there will be a smiley on it.

Awesome.  I *almost* clicked donate for this alone. :)

[FatherXmas]

But honestly, I'm *not* ok with CoH players continuing to give NCSoft any money whatsoever now, after they've closed the game down on us.  If you're still giving them $ now, what you're doing is sending the message that it's ok for them to treat us this way, and that even if they do, you'll keep buying their products.

That is predicated, sending NCsoft a message it was Okay to shut down an MMO that still had an active paying playerbase, that they know that you were a City of Heroes player at the very end and are now playing one of their other products.  While this may be true with Aion and Lineage II in the US, GW2 seems to exist outside of NCsoft's account manager site (the one we used for CoH).  Also unlike Aion, Lineage II and CoH, the forums software for GW2 isn't vbulletin.

Since I registered GW2, which I got on sale (no idea if that's out of the store's cut or NCsoft's or both) I have yet to receive an e-mail about any other product from NCsoft, just GW2 event/major patch news (I use a different e-mail account with GW2 than CoH).  It's almost as if they don't share.

I've also just posted that ArenaNet is publicly disagreeing with what NCsoft said during it's investors conference call about when GW2 will get to China as well as a paid expansion in the last half of 2013.  It's almost as if they don't talk to each other.

Just to be clear, I did buy GW2 after Nov 30th.  As I said it was on sale and a couple of RL friends are playing it, mainly because it's subscription free.  I have no intention to buy Gems, their proxy currency for their item shop, with real money but they do provide a way to purchase Gems with in game gold (and vice versa) if I every have a hankering to buy another character slot.

$50 retail (NCsoft doesn't get all of it) once is a lot less than the $140 a year I was spending on CoH.  So it's slightly more than zero the boycotters are giving but NCsoft is still losing money from me for shutting down CoH.  Their loss.  Plus if you want to think about it, for how long does their share of my retail purchase help pay for my use of their servers and bandwidth?  I'm costing them money in the long run.

[JanessaVR]

I have thought about this.  If you picked it up at discount price from some retail store's bargain bin, I consider that rather less of a big deal than rushing out to pick it up at full price directly from NCSoft on day 1 and then continually dropping $ in their cash shop.  And if you're refusing to patronize their cash shop, then yes, you *are* continuing to use up their services – and not paying them another cent for doing so.  I can only hope every other GW2 player follows your example.   :)

I was not aware that GW2 didn't use the standard NCSoft launcher.  That said, I'm a developer DBA by trade, and with the same name and credit card #, I'd consider that a pretty valid composite key for table matching to identify customers.  However, if they're not talking to ArenaNet, maybe the point is indeed moot anyway.

[Adelante]

As an amusing (and rather more clever dig than I would have given them credit for) follow-up I received in my mailbox yesterday 30 pieces of silver from that particular person I posted about here. 

[Samuraiko]

As an amusing (and rather more clever dig than I would have given them credit for) follow-up I received in my mailbox yesterday 30 pieces of silver from that particular person I posted about here. 

Just think, at the rate that NCsoft's stock is dropping, you can buy the company with that. :)

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[JanessaVR]

Well, if that's 30 pieces of physical silver, I'd go check the commodities exchange myself.  Or a coin shop.  :)

Step 1:  Get into fight online.
Step 2:  Get sent precious metals by mail.
Step 3:  Profit!  (30 x 1oz. coins at $30.87 per ounce today = $926.10)

Could you give him my address?

[Taceus Jiwede]

But honestly, I'm *not* ok with CoH players continuing to give NCSoft any money whatsoever now, after they've closed the game down on us.  If you're still giving them $ now, what you're doing is sending the message that it's ok for them to treat us this way, and that even if they do, you'll keep buying their products.

One thing a lot of people forget is that NCSoft didn't make GW 2, or CoH, or Wildstar.  They are a publishing company, the developers over at Arena Net worked very hard on GW 2, put as much time and their life into it as the developers for City of Heroes.  It is their baby and they just happen to have a bad publisher.  They don't deserve to be treated as the bad guys when the only thing they have done wrong is go with a bad publisher.  When you work very hard on something and some one comes up to you and says "I can take that somewhere" and you know they have the money and resources to do so, you would go with them and that is probably what happened with GW 1.  And NCSoft hadn't found them self on the throne of "pure evil douchebags" at the point GW 1 was started or even released.  Arenanet had no way of knowing NCSoft would act this way, yes NCSoft would get some of the money from retail and gems(so don't buy them) but Arenanet gets some of the retail price too.  If anything you are supporting Arenanet and NCSoft just happens to be getting some too.  I don't plan on playing any more NCSoft published games, but that doesn't mean I wish ill on the companies that are unlucky enough to have them as a publisher and I even go as far to say I hope they are successful for their sake and not NCSoft.  Its just too bad the only way to support these developers is by somewhat supporting NCSoft even if you aren't actively supporting them, you just have to ask your self is it more important that hundreds of thousands employees remain employed and developers having a chance to make their hard work and dreams come to life with NCSoft getting some on the side, or that NCSoft pay and burn for what they have done.  Also look at it this way, when NCSoft killed off other games before CoH, the players probably felt the same way as we did.  They probably told people to boycott NCSoft and many people probably did and they were justified to do so, and all of those players never had the chance to take part in the magic that was City of Heroes.

I may hate NCSoft but I don't hate the hundreds of thousands of employees they have that had nothing to do with the closure of City of Heroes

Just to clarify I am not a NCSoft sympathizer in anyway at all but I do sympathize with everyone that will get the chopping block long before any of the executives or higher ups at NCSoft get it.

Alright now, lemme have it.  Don't hold back now :)

[Knightslayer]

Also look at it this way, when NCSoft killed off other games before CoH, the players probably felt the same way as we did.  They probably told people to boycott NCSoft and many people probably did and they were justified to do so, and all of those players never had the chance to take part in the magic that was City of Heroes.

Considering no NCSoft article can appear without -someone- saying something bad about them I'd say that what goes around comes around.
For every game they've shutdown there is a portion of that playerbase that will always hold a grudge against them - the CoH player base just happens to be larger than the previous games they shut down - y'know, with it still being profitable and all that  ;)
Of course for every one of those that does avoid them they probably have two or three that either didn't care about what they did, or have never heard about NCSoft, or don't put much stock in the opinion of some random strangers on the internet.

[Twisted Toon]

Its just too bad the only way to support these developers is by somewhat supporting NCSoft even if you aren't actively supporting them, you just have to ask your self is it more important that hundreds of thousands employees remain employed and developers having a chance to make their hard work and dreams come to life with NCSoft getting some on the side, or that NCSoft pay and burn for what they have done.

Problem is, none of those developement studios currently attached to NCSoft is safe from the chopping block.

I believe I have determined NCSofts decision making paradigm.

Dice

Only they think that every decision is a trivial one, and it doesn't seem to be an experiment.

It boggles the mind.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Problem is, none of those developement studios currently attached to NCSoft is safe from the chopping block.

I agree, I am even sure that at this point most of the development studios attached to NCSoft recognize it is a very real possibility they will get the chop.

[Illusionss]

FX: $50 retail (NCsoft doesn't get all of it) once is a lot less than the $140 a year I was spending on CoH.  So it's slightly more than zero the boycotters are giving but NCsoft is still losing money from me for shutting down CoH.  Their loss.  Plus if you want to think about it, for how long does their share of my retail purchase help pay for my use of their servers and bandwidth?  I'm costing them money in the long run.

I hear GW2 is about to release an expansion. I couldn't WAIT to see CoX expansions, and when I had the opportunity, paid for them in advance - happily.

I am not purchasing this, or any other GW2 expansion. Nope. For one thing, my highest level character is level 22.... but even had I seen all the content so far, I still won't be buying.

I am hoping the game gets more interesting in higher levels, but right now I am playing occasionally and sort of having to force myself to do it. I LIKE my character, I just find the game rather boring... jog, jog jog everywhere. This does not bode well for my spending freely in the cash shop, my problems with NCSoft to the side.

[FatherXmas]

I hear GW2 is about to release an expansion. I couldn't WAIT to see CoX expansions, and when I had the opportunity, paid for them in advance - happily.

I am not purchasing this, or any other GW2 expansion. Nope. For one thing, my highest level character is level 22.... but even had I seen all the content so far, I still won't be buying.

I am hoping the game gets more interesting in higher levels, but right now I am playing occasionally and sort of having to force myself to do it. I LIKE my character, I just find the game rather boring... jog, jog jog everywhere. This does not bode well for my spending freely in the cash shop, my problems with NCSoft to the side.

Actually...