Jack Emmert re: CoH - "Tell NCsoft to call me"

[Oggie221]

I would profess my undying love for him on the spot.  He could even send me out as a assassin to "Take care of" pesky WoW devs.  Of course now that I've posted this online in a open forum anyone can look into.  I am just kidding  *whistles*  Nothing to see here folks, move along.

Really though.  I would be more then happy to see Jack in charge of CoH if it ment the game going live again.  I miss Paragon City horribly.  I just hope this isnt some sort of April Fools joke.  Because if it is, IT IS NOT A FUNNY ONE!

[Surelle]

You know, the very fact that CoH's closure is still upsetting to so many people (even within the industry, and even within Carbine-- who could get a whippin' for sure for joining in) definitely goes in our favor no matter what.

You wonder if the sheer tenacity of the ill will shown toward NCSoft will finally break them one of these days. 

I wish I could join in that CO forum conversation!  My old CO login from launch won't work-- does anyone know for sure if you have to be a paying customer to post there?  It might be work the sub fee for a month to get the timing right, and try to illicit a response from Jack/PWE before this too goes by the wayside....

Can anyone else join in over there too, and Send a PM to Jack?  And how much control does he have over money there anyway, with PWI publishing his games?  Isn't it PWI who would be doing the dealing and calling NCSoft?

[SeaLily]

A bunch of MMO designers going "CoH was great and also MMOs should never get shut down" which wraps up with Jack going "hey tell NCsoft I'm onboard, call me" is worth knowing about if you're interested in CoH still, even if nothing comes of this.

If Cryptic somehow manages to get CoH up and running again, however Jack attempts to do it, even if it's just got a CO style skeleton crew adding minimal content, it's better than nothing.

[ukaserex]

  You have to keep in mind that sometimes the community is a terrible judge of what should and shouldn't be done. 

I cannot tell you how many times ...wait, yes I can. During each issue, there were some things done that really irritated me, only to see how they impacted the game favorably later on.

For example: The burn nerf in issue 5, I think. I was hotter than the gun that shot Kennedy. However, without it, I might have never rolled a scrapper or a controller or a warshade. They closed one door, but in a way, opened some others (for me).

I can almost guarantee I am one of the worst people at deciding what would be healthy for the long term success of a game.

Another example: Jack was of the opinion, at least back then, that players should be teaming. I didn't and don't always like teaming, so I was rather against him in that regard. However, when I look back at what I liked best about the game, only rarely do I think of soloing AVs. (Dreck pre-Ed and post-ED/IO was a blast. )
My better memories are of MoUGTs, MoM's and the MoMagisterium trials, and the Apex task force. So, I have to think that Jack was right about that position, too - at least a little bit right. Certainly not all wrong.

[dwturducken]

Surelle, I have a Silver account and have posted, but I have not PM'd anyone. Still rooting around for that. So far, the only "dev" I have seen is the Community Manager.

[Surelle]

Surelle, I have a Silver account and have posted, but I have not PM'd anyone. Still rooting around for that. So far, the only "dev" I have seen is the Community Manager.

I posted too.  I finally got my account to respond; apparently there was some small waiting period because I've been inactive since, well, since CO launched, however long ago that was, lol.  But yeah, I can't find a PM address for Jack anywhere.  If you do, please let me know, and I will try and touch base with him briefly too.  I don't want to bug anyone, but it's not like we're taking a total shot in the dark.  He publicly stated he wanted NCSoft to call him about CoH.  That's the biggest public statement by far that we've had from anyone.

[Illusionss]

Still feel that there is an element of malice to this whole thing, I dont think NCStupid is going to sell to ANYone. This is about punishing us now, not so much an economic? decision. If it ever was economic.

Of course, had we just stepped off the curb and taken our medicine like good little drones, we still would not have our game. So I dont regret our defiance; we lost nothing thereby and every now and then, big corporations need someoen whispering in their ears that they are not actual gods, a la Caesar. But yeah, not selling is about punishing the playerbase. I would love to be wrong!

[Brou]

http://www.crypticstudios.com/

Contact>business/market+pr

[Senkan]

Not selling is a business move.  I doubt NCSoft has any personal feelings towards the player base.  We need to stop thinking of NCsoft as sinister.  They are about as sinister as GE or IBM or Coke.  But business is business.  Like it or not.

[jeangray]

Alright, I have been rather sick the past couple weeks and watching any portion of a pax panel has little to no appeal right now.  That being said I'm wondering what was said that makes everyone think Jack Emmert is interested in it to run it again at all?  Yes, I read the 'have NCSoft call me' line, but I'd think he'd honestly be interested in the IP just to add things from COH lore into CO if anything.  It just doesn't really add up that they'd want two superhero games no matter how awesome COH is (and my goodness it is!). 

Sorry if I'm sounding like a killjoy, I'd honestly love love love it if they could buy it and run it so we could play again.  LOL, I've played by ED rules since I started in 2004 (had no idea you could slot more than one type of each enhancement-total NOOB so ED actually made my characters more powerful).

So, what is it I'm missing this with this story?  My fever-ridden, head-clogged, completely off-balanced self thanks you in advance for some insight!

[Twisted Toon]

For the record, I was never on the Jack hate train either.  I've defended him and the decisions he made in running the game many times.  Laypeople have little to no idea how hard it really is to design and run a fun and engaging game, one that has to be designed to last for years, probably over a decade or more if you're lucky, as well as the technical skill to actually execute on that plan successfully.  Was he always right?  Of course not, no one ever is.  But he had a really good track record, including making some hard decisions that he was highly criticized for but that I'm convinced saved the long-term health and well-being of the game.

If Perfect World were to acquire City of Heroes and development placed back under Cryptic's purview, that would make me extremely happy.

I agree that most of the changes Jack implemented were for the benefit of the game. However, he didn't implement the changes in a very palatable manner. He wasn't nearly as bad as NCSoft, but he could have done better with the communication. I reluctantly supported the fact that he had a vision for the game and worked towards that end. Any MMO needs to work towards one (possibly two) visionary goal(s), and not three or four dozen visionary goals. I just didn't entirely agree with his vision of where the game should go. It was still a very good game though, even when Jack was in charge. It just got better when he stepped aside. I would definitely play it again if Cryptic got a hold of it again.

Another example: Jack was of the opinion, at least back then, that players should be teaming. I didn't and don't always like teaming, so I was rather against him in that regard. However, when I look back at what I liked best about the game, only rarely do I think of soloing AVs. (Dreck pre-Ed and post-ED/IO was a blast. )
My better memories are of MoUGTs, MoM's and the MoMagisterium trials, and the Apex task force. So, I have to think that Jack was right about that position, too - at least a little bit right. Certainly not all wrong.

That was one of his views that I seriously disagreed with him about. Usually, the only time I teamed up was on Agent Night when the rest of the Agent (the SG I was a member of) would get together and go steam-roll +4 x8 missions of...whatever...except Malta. The rest of the time, I was solo.  Well, except when the Incarnate stuff first came out and the only way to get the Incarnate stuff in a "reasonable" time period was to do the Incarnate Trials. After the solo path to Incarnate-hood was released, I was all solo again.

[Aggelakis]

*Jack Hate Train commentary, feel free to skip*

I don't subscribe to the Jack Hate Train newsletter. However, I understand their fury and their blame. ED came on the heels of GDN, after which Jack specifically told the players there would be no more power nerfs.

Technically, what he said was true. ED did not touch any POWERS. ED did not nerf any powers. However, to the players, the enhancement system is a very important part of the power system. There is no difference to the players between nerfing a power and nerfing the enhancements you can put in a power. He was thinking like a developer, not like a player.

And then he basically told the playerbase that they were being babies and should shut up, because he knows better than the playerbase how to play the game. Which technically is true, because he helped build the damn thing, but you should never tell your customers that they don't know what they want, or that they should want something other than what they do want.

[Illusionss]

Not selling is a business move.  I doubt NCSoft has any personal feelings towards the player base.  We need to stop thinking of NCsoft as sinister.  They are about as sinister as GE or IBM or Coke.  But business is business.  Like it or not.

Declining to accept money for a product they no longer want is business, all right. STUPID business.

That's why I say malice. Business is getting what you can for an item you no longer want. Malice is not selling just to frustrate the would-be buyer.

[JaguarX]

...but you should never tell your customers that they don't know what they want, or that they should want something other than what they do want.

Sounds like automakers these days. It's highly annoying.

[Taceus Jiwede]

It's very easy to make a throw-away comment that you know will generate a lot of free goodwill on a panel.

It's even easier to make that comment when your own inside information has informed you that NCSoft has absolutely no intention of selling to you.

Color me extremely skeptical.

This is how I felt but don't know much about Jack so couldn't really come to a conclusion.  He can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk?

[TonyV]

And then he basically told the playerbase that they were being babies and should shut up, because he knows better than the playerbase how to play the game. Which technically is true, because he helped build the damn thing, but you should never tell your customers that they don't know what they want, or that they should want something other than what they do want.

To be fair, he never said, "You're being babies, shut up, I know better than you how to play the game."  That's just your interpretation of what he said.  I don't recall any post that he ever made that was even close to being that disrespectful.  Also to be fair, a lot of people were being babies.  Let's not kid ourselves, there have always been vocal members of the player base that constantly griped and complained and threatened to ragequit over the least little thing.  And ED invoked a lot of unjustified rage in people.

Again, I'm not saying that Jack was the best communicator or that he was always right, but I am thoroughly convinced that were it not for ED, the game would have been dead within a year (October 2006), because it had become excruciatingly boring.  About that particular mechanic, he was right, and he took way more flak for it than he deserved.  Again, having a tough skin is part of being a game designer, but seriously, put yourself in his shoes.  You make a change to the game that you know to the core of your soul HAS to be made for it to be able to last longer than a year or so, it's massively unpopular because everyone is accusing you of nerfing the game, and you have a vocal contingent of people on the forums viciously attacking you and being completely unreasonable, and since you can't roll back the changes, you know there's absolutely nothing you can do that will satisfy them.  Whatever you think of Jack Emmert, he did NOT deserve that.

To be 100% honest, I really believe that the problem that most people had with Jack Emmert wasn't any particular change he made to the game, including ED.  I think that the problem that most people had with Jack was that he left City of Heroes to start a competing project, which eventually became Champions Online.  People felt betrayed by him.  I think that's also why you're seeing such an outpouring in this thread of people enthusiastic about the possibility that he could resurrect the game--it may very well turn out that NCsoft, who we thought was our friend all these years, was the devil all this time and Jack, in what would be an ultimate act of redemption, could turn out to be the game's savior.  You can't make up an ending better than that.  At any rate, the point is that folks don't really care so much about how good or bad Jack's impact on game mechanics were, and we're ready and willing to embrace him once again on our team if we had an opportunity to do so.

It's very easy to make a throw-away comment that you know will generate a lot of free goodwill on a panel.

It's even easier to make that comment when your own inside information has informed you that NCSoft has absolutely no intention of selling to you.

Color me extremely skeptical.

Maybe so, but he may also not have realized what kind of reaction that his throwaway comment would get.  I mean, if he could light up a community like he did with with a throwaway comment...

Plus, I have to respectfully disagree.  I have to believe that Jack Emmert still thinks of City of Heroes as his baby.  Yeah, he moved on to Champions Online and I don't doubt that he's a loyal employee of Perfect World now, but I think that it's overly cynical to think that he was only pandering to the City of Heroes community.  Jack was one of the key founders of the game, and he spent several years making it a reality, building it from the ground up.  To this day, he has probably spent more time on City of Heroes than any other game.  It was also said in the context of a discussion about how great games should never die.  I really have no doubt that the guy would genuinely like to see the game revived, because as much hard work and creative energy that the people put into the game who were with Paragon Studios at the end, he probably put as much or more into it at the beginning.  I don't see how the game shutting down couldn't have been an emotional blow to him also.

Imagine how you'd feel if you somehow lost the rights to your first published book, and the new publisher killed off printing any more copies because of some weird business decision.  You have plenty of other books, and I'm sure you love those a lot, but that would have to hurt, and if you had a chance to rectify the situation, surely you'd take the opportunity to do so.

And let's not forget that this isn't the first time that he's said stuff paying homage to the City of Heroes community.  Right after the announcement, there were a lot of rumors flying around that NCsoft shut down City of Heroes because the game engine license was about to run out or couldn't be renewed or was too expensive.  There were also rumors flying around that NCsoft legally couldn't sell the game to another studio because Cryptic owned the license to the engine.  Jack Emmert personally dispelled all of those rumors by stating with crystal clarity that NCsoft's license to the engine was perpetual (that is, it wasn't a matter of money), and that as far as he knows, the license would transfer to whomever NCsoft sold the game to.  Cryptic also posted a REALLY classy, nice message to the City of Heroes community as the game was sunset talking about how great the game was and how much of a loss it is to the MMORPG landscape.  The post didn't strike me as pandering at all, and they went far beyond the normal kind of slimy corporate-speak that you usually get from companies that are just shooting for not looking like a tool.

In short, yeah, I think it was a throwaway comment, but I don't doubt Jack's sincerity or sentiment in saying it, and I think the community would be well-served if Cryptic and/or Perfect World somehow managed to acquire the game.  I have no idea how I personally or we as a community could help push that forward.  To be honest, at this point, I think any kind of personal involvement I try to have in such a thing would probably backfire.  But if there's a chance, by gummy, I'm game for us trying whatever we can do, and if there needs to be publicity of some effort generated by the community, I'd be willing to shout it from my little mountaintop to help the word get out.

[eabrace]

To be 100% honest, I really believe that the problem that most people had with Jack Emmert wasn't any particular change he made to the game, including ED.  I think that the problem that most people had with Jack was that he left City of Heroes to start a competing project, which eventually became Champions Online.  People felt betrayed by him.  I think that's also why you're seeing such an outpouring in this thread of people enthusiastic about the possibility that he could resurrect the game--it may very well turn out that NCsoft, who we thought was our friend all these years, was the devil all this time and Jack, in what would be an ultimate act of redemption, could turn out to be the game's savior.  You can't make up an ending better than that.  At any rate, the point is that folks don't really care so much about how good or bad Jack's impact on game mechanics were, and we're ready and willing to embrace him once again on our team if we had an opportunity to do so.

I'm not saying I really hated Jack, but some of the design decisions he made (and admitted were his in posts on the forums) frustrated the hell out of me.  (There were more, too, but it wasn't until later years that we learned those decisions had been his.)  All of my frustration with Jack came before he left the game.

But I was never so frustrated with Jack that I'd ragequit over Cryptic picking the title back up if it ever came to that.

[UberGuy]

To be 100% honest, I really believe that the problem that most people had with Jack Emmert wasn't any particular change he made to the game, including ED.  I think that the problem that most people had with Jack was that he left City of Heroes to start a competing project, which eventually became Champions Online.  People felt betrayed by him.

No one of the six or seven RL friends I played with felt that way, nor did anyone I knew well in game, as far as I know. Those who disliked (some of) the things Jack did disliked them long before Jack left, and before we knew that he became more distant on the forums because he was working on another title. It sounds very harsh to say it this way, but frankly, a lot of us were glad to see him go. Not because he had contributed nothing good, but because we were starting to feel his steering hand on the game's balance direction was limiting it too severely. I think that particular belief was probably borne out, especially since his (and Geko's) immediate successors, Positron and Castle, who were much better received than Jack and Gecko, respectively, were actually already working at Cryptic already.

I respect the things I think Jack did well, I really do. I can do that and take no shame in calling out things I think he did badly. As far as I can tell, what Jack actually wanted would have played nothing like CoH actually did either at release or in I23. It would have been a slower, more plodding game in both tactical action and long-term progress. When it didn't turn out that way, he tried to steer it back. I don't begrudge him doing that at first as a game designer, though it's kind of mind-boggling it went live so different from the vision. I do begrudge how long he seemed to keep trying to do that when it should have been clear that the fast-pace of combat and ability of player characters to take on small armies of NPCs were much-loved aspects of the game as implemented (as opposed to designed).

Before he left, I do think Jack had come around to that, but by the time he left he wasn't really directing things that much - when he was most hands on was when he was trying hardest to steer the game back to his vision. The folks at Paragon Studios at the end had my enduring loyalty for how they seemed to embrace the game's crazy pace potential over the last couple of years of the game. For me, those times were when the game was at its best , specifically for that reason.

[Aggelakis]

To be fair, he never said, "You're being babies, shut up, I know better than you how to play the game."  That's just your interpretation of what he said.

No shit Sherlock, I didn't say he did. I said he *BASICALLY* said that. And that's the truth. He was extremely caustic on the forums when any of his changes garnered any kind of flak, even minor grumbles.

To be 100% honest, I really believe that the problem that most people had with Jack Emmert wasn't any particular change he made to the game, including ED.  I think that the problem that most people had with Jack was that he left City of Heroes to start a competing project, which eventually became Champions Online.  People felt betrayed by him.

I very highly doubt that.

[Captain Electric]

It's important for people to remember that we do not have a buffet of options. Cryptic is the only studio in the world that is staffed with enough developers who'd know what to do with the City of Heroes spaghetti code.

ED gripes and decade-old gripes about Jack are a speck on the windshield compared to the subject line on this thread. Some of this thread just sounds like biting the hand of the person who just hinted he could possibly #SaveCoH. I'm extremely relieved to see the majority of people here showing some preemptive gratitude instead.

Re: the video, everything I've heard about Jack tells me that he doesn't joke like that. It always sounded to me like he had an unfiltered quality that gets him into hot water on occasion.

I'm certain the biggest hurdle here is still NCSoft. Personally I don't think Jack can be talked into approaching NCSoft--because I think he already has. I think that's written all over his comment at the PAX East panel. Reading between the lines, he was implying that the ball is in NCSoft's court. "Tell NCSoft to call me. I'm here."

I also don't think PWE represents a hurdle. Even if we set aside for a moment the PR score this would net them, have you seen PWE's stable of games? PWE is the world's ultimate MMO pack rat. Loves to collect, hates to throw away. And where else would you rather stick your ten year-old beloved MMO? We have 24 issues and two expansions of pure awesome in City of Heroes. That would give us more game in our game (yo dawg) in maintenance mode than most MMOs will ever have period.

Here's how that conversation would go.

JACK: "Hai."
PWE: "Sup"
JACK: "Can I haz a IP?"
PWE: "LOL what is it about?"
JACK: "f2p w/super packs (lock boxes kinda)."
PWE: "OK."
JACK: "ty"
PWE: "np"

Tony I do not think this should ONLY be approached from the Jack angle. Sure I think we should let him know that we'd love to throw our wallets at him. But more than that, it is another clean opportunity to blacken NCSoft's eye based on their "exhausted all efforts" B.S. and Jack just handed it to us and our gaming press friends on a silver platter. I think Cryptic approached NCSoft with a legitimate offer and I think NCSoft turned them down just to be dicks. Because for the past ten years, that's been their modus operandi and we shouldn't have expected them to act any different when Paragon Studios wanted to pull out.

And I liked your analogy about Jack rescuing CoH being the perfect ending to this chapter; but I would not call NCSoft the devil if they sold the game and IP to Cryptic. I would stand by my word to NCSoft in the letter I wrote to them six months ago. I would buy copies of GW2 and some of their other games, and say good things about them whenever I had the opportunity. I'm sure you've come across some of my screeds around the Web, but my tone would change in a heartbeat if they changed their tone.

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg207%2F4247%2Fcharminutemanimage.gif
And next we get Jack to buy the Freedom Force IP....