How I feel about NCSOFT

[silverlyning]

This is how I feel about NCSOFT after over a year...

https://i.imgur.com/MMOHF7E.jpg

How do you feel? Honestly curious...

Hope you liked the comic - created by in game character Johnathon Silver, also known as Silver-Lining [Level 50 Empathy Defender].

[Super Firebug]

Yep. To borrow my own quote from a while back, "Until my avatar can, once again, stand in Atlas Park and flatten a Hellion's nose, NCsoft and I have nothing to talk about."

[chuckv3]

I agree. I played WildStar beta for about an hour, and I thought it looked promising, but then I had a stray thought reminding me it was run by NCSoft. I sighed, signed off, and decided I'd rather not open myself up to be slapped in the face again.

[Mistress Urd]

Kinda how I feel too, yet without an agreement by NCSOFT we don't get CoH back.

[Nealix]

I can't get onboard with any NCSOFT games after the way they treated CoH.  I just don't trust them now.  Getting so attached to another game they might suddenly cancel without at least a proper sunset period would be too painful.  I still think about how I'd rather be playing CoH while playing other online games.  I don't hate NCSOFT but fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

[MaidMercury]

I don't see much NCsoft stuff at the retail store I work at....like just 1 game, and I can't even remember what it is.

Mostly I see Xbox, PS3,4 and Wii games, Capcom,Marvel, Halo, GTA, Minecraft, Walking dead or something, Final Fantasy,
World of warcraft, Tomb raider, Batman Arkham Asylum..

..thought I would see a new Superman game (because of the movie) if anything, but no.

We use to still sell CoH up until the day it was forcibly removed by NCsoft.

[The Fifth Horseman]

I literally don't feel about NCSoft. None of their other offerings appeal to me in the slightest.

[doc7924]

It looks good and COH ran 8 years -which is not bad.

MMO's got shut down all the time.

Its the WAY they just shut it down that bothers me more.

Didn't they just come in one day and basically fire everyone on the spot?

[Stone Daemon]

Well, it's not so much about NCSoft (because I literally don't think about them at all anymore), but I'll tell you how I feel about Wildstar.

I feel about the same as I felt about SWTOR (when it released) and how I would probably feel about ESO (if I bothered to think about it at all): It's a shame that they're trying to make you pay a subscription fee for a game that should have been single player.

I played Wildstar in beta and I just didn't see the point. Large maps,  platforming, no travel powers, and no (apparent) way to bring teammates to your position short of waiting for them to haul ass across the zone? Doesn't make sense from a multiplayer perspective. But then, I started off with CoH so maybe I'm just spoiled.  :P

[Aggelakis]

Slightly disengenuous. The large maps are incredibly regionalized for questing; there are travel powers (unlocked at 15 - they're not the ridiculously OP travel powers City had, that basically rendered travel moot - they're incredibly awesome models of standard-fantasy-game-fare mounts); and there are taxis between the bigger hubs within a zone.

Additionally, they have exemplaring for higher level players to play with lower level players. (They don't have sidekicking. They want lower level characters to experience the game at their own level.)

It's pretty easy to team.

[houtex]

I don't know if it matters... but I don't feel anything for NCSoft.  No anger... no joy... nothing. 

Wildstar, I've downloaded, started... got to the character creator... and...

I just couldn't. 

It sits there, almost plaintively, on my desktop, with it's shiny new 'W' logo, saying 'c'mon, houtex, you should give it a go, right?  Don't let the past sway you...'

But I never do.  Just burnt on the whole idea of putting time into something that'll just die. 

If I have anything, it's not feelings for NCSoft... it's sadness in general, sort of, for their shutting down CoH just turned me off the MMO.. and gaming overall.. scene.

[Stone Daemon]

Slightly disengenuous. The large maps are incredibly regionalized for questing; there are travel powers (unlocked at 15 - they're not the ridiculously OP travel powers City had, that basically rendered travel moot - they're incredibly awesome models of standard-fantasy-game-fare mounts); and there are taxis between the bigger hubs within a zone.

Additionally, they have exemplaring for higher level players to play with lower level players. (They don't have sidekicking. They want lower level characters to experience the game at their own level.)

It's pretty easy to team.

Good to hear. I only got to about 12 on my highest beta character, and nothing was brought up to indicate any kind of travel by that point, and that first world wasn't something I wanted to imagine teaming in.

[Burnt Toast]

Yes and No... Upper Management of Paragon knew the axe was coming..... So while everyone was fired in one day - it was not a complete surprise.

It looks good and COH ran 8 years -which is not bad.

MMO's got shut down all the time.

Its the WAY they just shut it down that bothers me more.

Didn't they just come in one day and basically fire everyone on the spot?

[kiario]

I get disappointed at NCSOFT when I think about the shutdown. But there is also something else in me that thinks that they were not the only ones to blaim for this.
There must be many other games out there that are in a worse shape than CoH was when they shut it down. Fallen Earth as example.

However, I get angry about the total lack of respect that NCSOFT and other involving parties(if any) showed towards the many people that love CoH. They clearly dont understand the emotional bond that can exist to a game like this.

[Ironwolf]

I got to know more about what happened kind of behind the scenes and while the shutdown was poorly managed and in fact may have been one of the reasons that things at NCSoft were changing - poor management - I blame the mother company much less than I once did.

I really think that the company expected some pushback but not at the level they got and then the failed buyout on top of it became a nightmare in PR. I really think that you have to look to management as not acting in a way to allow a company asset to grow. They spent money on development but very little advertising even when we were at the peak of Superhero movies.

The attempts to purchase the game were not just summarily dismissed. They talked but moved very slowly and this caused more than one group to pull out. They also wanted a group buying it to ensure that their logo would be fairly and professionally represented. I don't know for sure but the old $80 million price might have been for a clean game with no NCSoft logo. You have to ask yourself if your company was to have their logo on a product - what assurances would you like?

It isn't as straight-forward black and white as I once believed. I once had the attitude if NCSoft returns the CoH world to us I would try their products again - now I think if it looks fun try it. I don't see them as evil - just an at times poorly managed company. That again might be why they pulled out of this area - most US based products weren't doing well - they may have thought pulling back to Korea and having local control was the answer. We love CoH but as a business it could not keep the NCSoft company afloat alone. They have literally billions at stake and so they retreated back to cementing their best money makers.

[FourSpeed]

I got to know more about what happened kind of behind the scenes and while the shutdown was poorly managed and in fact may have been one of the reasons that things at NCSoft were changing - poor management - I blame the mother company much less than I once did.

I really think that the company expected some pushback but not at the level they got and then the failed buyout on top of it became a nightmare in PR. I really think that you have to look to management as not acting in a way to allow a company asset to grow. They spent money on development but very little advertising even when we were at the peak of Superhero movies.

The attempts to purchase the game were not just summarily dismissed. They talked but moved very slowly and this caused more than one group to pull out. They also wanted a group buying it to ensure that their logo would be fairly and professionally represented. I don't know for sure but the old $80 million price might have been for a clean game with no NCSoft logo. You have to ask yourself if your company was to have their logo on a product - what assurances would you like?

It isn't as straight-forward black and white as I once believed. I once had the attitude if NCSoft returns the CoH world to us I would try their products again - now I think if it looks fun try it. I don't see them as evil - just an at times poorly managed company. That again might be why they pulled out of this area - most US based products weren't doing well - they may have thought pulling back to Korea and having local control was the answer. We love CoH but as a business it could not keep the NCSoft company afloat alone. They have literally billions at stake and so they retreated back to cementing their best money makers.

While I greatly respect your opinion, and further realize that you have a little more information than we do,
I still come back to a couple points.

You yourself use the term "mismanagement" - Fair Enough.

Mismanagement, however is simply a euphemism for "incompetence".

Couple that with the large helping of outright disrespect shown to their CoH/V customer base (not to mention
their former employees) with the way the shutdown was handled, and for me, a US based player, the issue is
*very* black and white in my mind.

There is absolutely nothing an incompetent and disrespectful company can do to garner my business.

While I fully support the right of others to view things differerently, that is how I view it.

NCsoft has ceased to exist as a viable provider of *anything* for me - ever.

Regards,
4

[Mistress Urd]

I got to know more about what happened kind of behind the scenes and while the shutdown was poorly managed and in fact may have been one of the reasons that things at NCSoft were changing - poor management - I blame the mother company much less than I once did.

I really think that the company expected some pushback but not at the level they got and then the failed buyout on top of it became a nightmare in PR. I really think that you have to look to management as not acting in a way to allow a company asset to grow. They spent money on development but very little advertising even when we were at the peak of Superhero movies.

The attempts to purchase the game were not just summarily dismissed. They talked but moved very slowly and this caused more than one group to pull out. They also wanted a group buying it to ensure that their logo would be fairly and professionally represented. I don't know for sure but the old $80 million price might have been for a clean game with no NCSoft logo. You have to ask yourself if your company was to have their logo on a product - what assurances would you like?

It isn't as straight-forward black and white as I once believed. I once had the attitude if NCSoft returns the CoH world to us I would try their products again - now I think if it looks fun try it. I don't see them as evil - just an at times poorly managed company. That again might be why they pulled out of this area - most US based products weren't doing well - they may have thought pulling back to Korea and having local control was the answer. We love CoH but as a business it could not keep the NCSoft company afloat alone. They have literally billions at stake and so they retreated back to cementing their best money makers.

As customers, its sad but we can only vote with our wallet. It ends up causing collateral damage to some innocent entities but I guess that's the price of doing business.

So 2 years of COH sub money ended up going to CCP, yet if the lights for CoH came back on I would be back.

[MWRuger]

Ironwolf,

Lacking the information that you have, I can only judge by what I saw and what they actually did. Maybe when more of the story comes out, maybe if we get our game back, maybe it was a huge PR nightmare for them (good), maybe if they come clean, maybe, maybe, maybe...

I don't trust them and I won't spend a penny with them until they give me a reason to trust them. For me, it's that simple. I understand that others may choose differently. I have no problem with that. But for me, they are anathema, and all their works. I no longer see red when I think of them and I might actually pi$$ on them if there were on fire (an upgrade let me assure you), but trust them with more money and, more importantly time? No thanks.

[Ironwolf]

Not defending them actually - I was just pointing out a little perspective that the poor management that led to the downfall of the US offices and our game is likely the same ones who poorly mangled the closure.

They made several good moves in the past (Chris Chung was one) and he was the one who bought the game from Cryptic at the start. He left to form his own company and then the death spiral began.

[Nightmarer]

I'm personally done with NCSoft, not only for terminating CoH, in fact, I couldn't care less if they are solely to blame or not, I'm done with them because they failed by not advertising and marketing CoH properly, from the very beginning to the very end.

There are no excuses there, they were the publisher and that was their job exactly, advertising and marketing but they never did, so any excuses they might come up with for CoH's closure, I'm not really interested, they're just a consequence of not doing the job any publisher is supposed to do. The way they handled CoH's closure is just the last nail in the NCSoft coffin.

No more NCSoft for me thank you very much.-