So it didn't work.

[Paindancer]

Yes, absolutely NCSoft PR reads here.  given.

This puts us at a slight disadvantage, as our cards are generally on the table.  Our emotions are as well, and its a delicate balance between an internal show of support and coming off as a bit of a ungracious winner.

IF I had NCSoft's eye right now

Thank You, for addressing the player base concern regarding refunds.  Many feel you did the right thing by offering refunds opposed to equivalent game time.  We feel you listened to us, and its appreciated.

Thank you for giving us a way for the players to talk to you.  Again, we feel we are being heard.  We would also welcome the chance to listen to you as well.

City of Heroes is important to us, as you are seeing.  It is community to many of us.  Families play together on it.  The Superhero is very dear to the American's heart.  We simply do not want something dear to us to go away, because a company on another shore couldn't understand it, or us.

We want you to set it free, as we do not feel you have been a trustworthy caretaker of our community.  We hope you can find a solution that benefits NCSoft and the COH players, ideally allowing it to be sold for a fair price to a party who would value our community and continue to develop the game, or if that fails release the game code.  We understand, we are a small voice to you, but sometimes the smallest voice is heard the clearest.  We would like to be able to say 'In the end, NCSoft decided to respect our community'.

[DrakeGrimm]

Yes, absolutely NCSoft PR reads here.  given.

This puts us at a slight disadvantage, as our cards are generally on the table.  Our emotions are as well, and its a delicate balance between an internal show of support and coming off as a bit of a ungracious winner.

IF I had NCSoft's eye right now

Thank You, for addressing the player base concern regarding refunds.  Many feel you did the right thing by offering refunds opposed to equivalent game time.  We feel you listened to us, and its appreciated.

Thank you for giving us a way for the players to talk to you.  Again, we feel we are being heard.  We would also welcome the chance to listen to you as well.

City of Heroes is important to us, as you are seeing.  It is community to many of us.  Families play together on it.  The Superhero is very dear to the American's heart.  We simply do not want something dear to us to go away, because a company on another shore couldn't understand it, or us.

We want you to set it free, as we do not feel you have been a trustworthy caretaker of our community.  We hope you can find a solution that benefits NCSoft and the COH players, ideally allowing it to be sold for a fair price to a party who would value our community and continue to develop the game, or if that fails release the game code.  We understand, we are a small voice to you, but sometimes the smallest voice is heard the clearest.  We would like to be able to say 'In the end, NCSoft decided to respect our community'.

/Signed


Hawthorne Grimm. Kings Row/St. Martial. City of Heroes, Virtue Server.

[MishaFox]

Agreed! The PR dept and the people still left running CoH are in a tough spot.

[dwturducken]

Just the people running CoH.

PR signed on to make crap look like gold.

[Felderburg]

Ultimately, this changes nothing--we knew before that NCsoft wanted to terminate their involvement with the game. They're taking steps to do that in a customer-friendly way, like a responsible business should do. My personal goal was never to convince NCsoft to maintain the game, and certainly not to maintain the game indefinitely. My goal was to persuade them, one way or another, to make a cash grab of the IP by selling it to another publisher. Our CoH accounts with them would have to close before this could take place.

Keep it up, everyone!

The key thing is to keep it up well beyond the closure of the servers. Just because the servers go down doesn't mean the game has to, and things like selling games or IPs can take a while.

[Electric-Knight]

I think we need to make sure that the same news outlets and gaming sites that have covered things so far... continue to cover our story.
Anyone and everyone that has been in touch with anyone that has covered us, should absolutely keep them updated. It will probably soon be time for us to make another show of our community to display that we were not one unity rally and done (Oh, and, of course, the dinner on us was well noticed as well... what I love most about this movement... it is sincere... that's generally why I believe we cannot fail ).
We'll see what happens Thursday for Positron's Ally. No immediate rush, but yeah, despite the fact that we're certainly not aiming to just be a publicity show, we're likely going to have to supply some flash now and hen to keep the momentum going.

I just hope that the defeatists aren't really going to disappear on us in too great of numbers.
Anyway, just rambling... I'm so very happy to be amongst the many of you, fighting together.
:)

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

The key thing is to keep it up well beyond the closure of the servers. Just because the servers go down doesn't mean the game has to, and things like selling games or IPs can take a while.

Agreed. However, if it drags on to the point that the servers actually go down, I have every intention of giving NCsoft a black eye on that count.

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

I think we need to make sure that the same news outlets and gaming sites that have covered things so far... continue to cover our story.
Anyone and everyone that has been in touch with anyone that has covered us, should absolutely keep them updated. It will probably soon be time for us to make another show of our community to display that we were not one unity rally and done (Oh, and, of course, the dinner on us was well noticed as well... what I love most about this movement... it is sincere... that's generally why I believe we cannot fail ).
We'll see what happens Thursday for Positron's Ally. No immediate rush, but yeah, despite the fact that we're certainly not aiming to just be a publicity show, we're likely going to have to supply some flash now and hen to keep the momentum going.

I just hope that the defeatists aren't really going to disappear on us in too great of numbers.
Anyway, just rambling... I'm so very happy to be amongst the many of you, fighting together.
:)

I've now attended two "parades" or "marches". They are kind of inspiring and fun in and of themselves. I am wondering if it would be possible to coordinate a rolling "march" through all 15 servers? Also thinking it might be possible to film such an event with demorecord, and then produce a composite march of all the heroes who were captured with the demorecords walking along a street. Even if that's not technically feasible, a series of views of a long line of heroes marching with the server names as a caption would be fairly visually impressive.

Out of game, I think VV's suggestions for "lighting a fire" under NCsoft have a lot of merit. Well worth checking out her threads.

[Mistress Urd]

Refunds is the last thing they needed.

I would love for a miracle to save CoH and I would come back. If I do have to find a new MMO home it will not be part of NCSoft or Nexon. Does that suck for Guild Wars 2 and any other NCSoft game? Yep, but I have to vote with my wallet.

[Burnt Toast]

I would love to see a 5,000 hero march; lol and maybe this time be able to find my toon amongs the 4,999 other players :)
(maybe I should make him taller than 4 feet?? :P)

I've now attended two "parades" or "marches". They are kind of inspiring and fun in and of themselves. I am wondering if it would be possible to coordinate a rolling "march" through all 15 servers? Also thinking it might be possible to film such an event with demorecord, and then produce a composite march of all the heroes who were captured with the demorecords walking along a street. Even if that's not technically feasible, a series of views of a long line of heroes marching with the server names as a caption would be fairly visually impressive.

Out of game, I think VV's suggestions for "lighting a fire" under NCsoft have a lot of merit. Well worth checking out her threads.

[dior]

Come on nay-sayers! Who said its over?

I hear no obese female singing!!

[TimtheEnchanter]

I would love to see a 5,000 hero march; lol and maybe this time be able to find my toon amongs the 4,999 other players :)
(maybe I should make him taller than 4 feet?? :P)

It would be possible, and I can already see how a modified version of Leandro's script for decorating a landscape with a mass of heroes would allow it to work. You could even get a much more uniform parade procession using such a script than you could possibly accomplish with a live recording.

[TheFlea]

Between this and the Lore AMA - I'd say we'd had some good news.

This post focuses on the refund information people were asking for. As others have said they're offering genuine cash-back refunds, even for game time cards which is a lot more than they have ever offered in the past and also a lot more costly to them as a company. I'd like to think this as a Plan B - if the game can't be saved we've gained ground here.

The Lore AMA was incredibly vague. The vague nature of it seems to suggest they weren't letting the cat out of the bag as we all had thought they would. This implies there is still a chance. The fact they said they can't disclose more on some of it also seems to imply that. After all, what good would saving the game be if they let the cats out of the bags?

[NecrotechMaster]

i agree with everyone that these posts by zwil and posi were not bad

getting refunds is something that would have prolly had to happen regardless if ncsoft closed the game or sold it

and in posi's post about the lore he even says that if the game does get saved then they have every right to completely change what they were talking about anyway to still keep us hanging lol

all in all i agree that this was a win for us

[Ziggy1890]

I think people are missing the "sunset of the City of Heroes franchise. " part.

[StarRanger4]

Zwillinger most likely wrote the announcement (If he wasn't still being paid by NCSoft, I'm sure he wouldn't be here right now).  I wouldn't bust out the tinfoil hats just yet.

Uhh....  Not really.  Andy probobly wrote the first draft.  Then legal and the NC overseers had a look at it and worked it over.

For example, note that EVERY reference is to NC Soft.  not Paragon Studios.  I'd be that was one of the changes that got rammed down his throat, that his original draft used Paragon Studios (which would have been believable to me) and he was forced to change it to NC Soft. (which I dont believe).  And, as I use the same handle pretty much everywhere... some of you have probobly heard me rant about what I thought of their phraseology.

Gods, Poor Andy.  I dont think I could soldier on as valiantly as he has in the unenviable position he's in; stuck between the rocks of management goons, the shoals of NDA's, and the hard place of very unhapppy players.

That he's been able to manage without loosing it more than that one tear two weeks ago...  Dammit, we should nominate him for Sainthood.  But he's not dead... yet.  IIRC, isn't dieing like a big qualifier for that position?

Either way, he should darn well be held up as an example of PROPER community manager to other companies.  especially the way he has managed to soldier on during these difficult times.

Okay, they;ve blinked.  so, what next?

[Rae]

*hands out some purples.*

Didn't we sort of know this was coming? I think I posted in 'news' back along that they were 'working on something for the VIP and premium players and they'd announce it when they could'. I'm guessing this was probably it. I know a lot of people saw it and got the second suckerpunch of the month, but I don't think this is anything particularly new. We were just hoping for an announcement that said they'd changed their minds, not 'still ploughing ahead'.

What we have to remember is that NC Soft, like us, are most likely following a number of plans. We have Plan 'A', which is 'save' but also plans B through to Z on what we'll do if Plan A falls over.  And we're just a bunch of rabid gamers. NC Soft - big ol' multinational business corporation - have their plan 'A', which is 'PULL EVERYTHING', but I'd imagine they have a bunch of other plans (probably ones that involve not being sued, or something) they have to have on the back burner, too.

Although, you know. I like our Plan A much better than theirs.

[StarRanger4]

*hands out some purples.*

Although, you know. I like our Plan A much better than theirs.

I.... dont think so.  Even if they had Zwill fire up the webcam and do a Community chat that said
"ROFL, JUST KIDDING YOU WINZ TEH INTERWEBZ" tomorrow enough people have been shocked, etc that it would never be the same.  We'd all be playing looking over our shoulders wondering if tomorrow was the day they'd try again.

We're much better off with someone other than NC Soft holding the money whip, I think.  And to be blunt, even though I never say this because it seems to compell the universe to prove me wrong: "I dont think ANYONE could be worse"

[Rae]

We're much better off with someone other than NC Soft holding the money whip, I think.  And to be blunt, even though I never say this because it seems to compell the universe to prove me wrong: "I dont think ANYONE could be worse"

Oh my, yes. Couldn't agree more. After this, I'd trust NC Soft about as far as I could throw them.

There's not much point in my threatening to boycott them, because..they don't have anything in their catalog that interests me, but.. even if they did launch something I was vaguely interested in, I'd see that logo and be all '...ooh. Uh. Um. No, actually.'

[Atlantea]

My thoughts too.

I was interested vaguely in trying out GW2 - mostly at the behest of friends who were in the Beta and raving about it. And I took a peek at the info and was pretty impressed, even though fantasy MMOs generally aren't my thing. But I was willing to give it a try as soon as I could scrape together the $60+ for purchase.

And then BLACK FRIDAY hit.

No. Just no. NCSoft will never get my money again. I don't care how shiny it is. How good it looks or plays. NO.

I wish the best to Arenanet and acknowledge that they have a good game, well thought out. I don't begrudge my friends from COH who are playing now because they bought it before Black Friday on digital pre-order.

But I'm not joining them now.

I truly hope arenanet has some kind of escape plan from NCSoft. IF they became independent or were bought by another company I'd change my stance immediately. But not now. Not while giving them money also gives NCsoft money. Anyway. Had this rant before and that's all I can say about it.

We're much better off with someone other than NC Soft holding the money whip, I think.  And to be blunt, even though I never say this because it seems to compell the universe to prove me wrong: "I dont think ANYONE could be worse"

Even EA?

Dr. Frankenstein: "This is a FILTHY JOB!" 
Igor: "Eh... Could be worse!"
Frankenstein: "How?"
Igor: "Could be raining!"
(THUNDERCRACK, Lightning fills the sky as sudden downpour drenches them)
Frankenstein: *Gives Igor a DEATH GLARE*
:D