Can anyone rez Zwill?

[TimtheEnchanter]

Well, they're able to post, but not still officially on the payroll.

And we know that Cryptic just picked up a few devs for STO, but we don't know who.  I'd think if they're over at Cryptic now, they wouldn't be posting on NCsoft boards.

I guess another thing that may end up going down soon then... AP33. Someone has been restoring it after server restarts until now. Interesting to see if it still happens after the next one.

[Aggelakis]

Note the last two sentences - PS or NC (or both) has promised to give us some celebratory treats before the end of the game, and that they will be posting what these will be shortly. I just checked, and they have not done so yet. If they don't, then that's false advertising, and we can probably sue them. (Somebody make a copy of that archive post just in case!)

I wish people would stop throwing around potential lawsuits when they don't understand what can and can't be sued over. We can't sue them because a post on their forums falls through; there is no guarantee there; it's not false advertising if they don't, it's just a community manager's word gone wrong. He's no longer with them, so he cannot guarantee anything.

[Paindancer]

I wish people would stop throwing around potential lawsuits when they don't understand what can and can't be sued over. We can't sue them because a post on their forums falls through; there is no guarantee there; it's not false advertising if they don't, it's just a community manager's word gone wrong. He's no longer with them, so he cannot guarantee anything.

+1

[Olantern]

I wish people would stop throwing around potential lawsuits when they don't understand what can and can't be sued over. We can't sue them because a post on their forums falls through; there is no guarantee there; it's not false advertising if they don't, it's just a community manager's word gone wrong. He's no longer with them, so he cannot guarantee anything.

Also +1.  See "Legal Considerations" for more on this.

Please, my fellow Titan-ites, please don't make me feel like I have to write up a post explaining the time, effort, and expense of civil litigation ...

[TimtheEnchanter]

Also +1.  See "Legal Considerations" for more on this.

Please, my fellow Titan-ites, please don't make me feel like I have to write up a post explaining the time, effort, and expense of civil litigation ...

Indeed. And I like this idea better: http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5277.msg52715.html#msg52715  8)

[Teege]

I wish the best for our beloved Community Manager. I'm going to trust that we haven't seen the last of him.

Hats off to you, Andy. See what I did there?

[Taceus Jiwede]

Moreso than family in my case. My blood family only ever convenes for funerals.

Heroes and Villains don't see eye to eye, but we stick together.

[Victoria Victrix]

+1

+1

It is true that anyone can sue anyone for anything.  Trust me, unless you just won the lottery, it is going to be expensive, drawn out, and eat your life.  And if you had just won the lottery, unless you were motivated by a Stephen-Richter-sized revenge, why would you?

Besides, I dunno about you, but if I had just won the lottery, I would go make NCSoft an offer for the IP that was so juicy they couldn't possibly refuse it.

[StarRanger4]

+1

It is true that anyone can sue anyone for anything.  Trust me, unless you just won the lottery, it is going to be expensive, drawn out, and eat your life.  And if you had just won the lottery, unless you were motivated by a Stephen-Richter-sized revenge, why would you?

Besides, I dunno about you, but if I had just won the lottery, I would go make NCSoft an offer for the IP that was so juicy they couldn't possibly refuse it.

+1 for truth.  And with what I had left over I'd go out and buy a buncha books by some lady named Lackey.  And make sure Zwill got hired back as community lead. 

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

+1 for truth.  And with what I had left over I'd go out and buy a buncha books by some lady named Lackey.  And make sure Zwill got hired back as community lead.

Don't wait to win the lottery; buy the books anyway. You can get them cheap if you shop around in used bookstores if nothing else, and believe me, they are worth a lot more than the new price for hardcover editions. I've got over 6000 books in my library - and Misty's are one of three authors who live on the shelf above my bed, just in case I wanna reread one for the 20th time (and counting) some night. She's also one of the few writers who my mom asks me every time I'm home "anything new"? We started my nieces on them a couple of years ago. Has made gift buying pretty easy.

[Segev]

I'd like to add to Olantern's plea that people not make him write a post on how expensive and time-consuming civil litigation is that it is remarkably unhelpful to take a "NCSoft is the enemy and must be PUNISHED" attitude. Regardless of whether their reasons for shutting down CoH are benign, malign, or indifferent, our only real hope of getting the game to continue is to treat them like human beings who have real reasons for their actions...and trying to work WITH them to help their reasons be achieved most easily by getting what we want out of it.

They're not sitting in glass towers twirling their mustaches in delight at the misery of the fans of CoH. They made a business decision for whatever reasons they made it. The better we understand that decision and its reasons, and the more we're willing to look at them as potential allies in achieving what's best for everybody, the better chance we have of this working out okay.

[StarRanger4]

Don't wait to win the lottery; buy the books anyway.

I will, eventually, the bulk buy thing was only semi a joke.

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

I will, eventually, the bulk buy thing was only semi a joke.

They're so good I'd give you my duplicate copies just to get you started, but I already gave them away to some poor unsuspecting soul who had to rush out and buy the rest to get "the rest of the story". (evil grin)

[Victoria Victrix]

Segev, they made a business decision, yes.  But it is possible (and I speak only "what I have heard" not "what I have gotten confirmed") that they are making another dog-in-the-manger decision in being unwilling to sell the IP of CoH.  This makes no business sense if they are refocusing on the Asian market, where CoH is no competition to them.  Not to mention that they have no other game like CoH that could be competition.  The only way to get them to turn loose of the IP might be to ratchet up some of the negativity.

For those of you with no money, I recommend the Baen Free Library.  There are a fair number of my books on it, and you can download them for all of the common readers plus .rtf  and the books are completely free.  http://www.baen.com/library/defaulttitles.htm

[Stellar Agent]

For those of you with no money, I recommend the Baen Free Library.  There are a fair number of my books on it, and you can download them for all of the common readers plus .rtf  and the books are completely free.  http://www.baen.com/library/defaulttitles.htm

Not to derail, but:

I love that website.  I've bought lots of their books because of what I was able to read and the full chapter excerpts they usually have.

Also, I've been your fan long before there was a WWW to take advantage of.  <sigh> I miss Diane Tregarde.  Also the Brainship series (of which it seems I've missed a few titles).

[steve1967]

Well there are a number of valid business reasons why NCSoft would discontinue support for CoH and not sell the IP.  In fact, part of how they announced it is one good reason - it doesn't fit with their vision.  Not saying CoH is a bad thing, or even that it is losing money, just that they need to take resources devoted to making money from CoH in order to accomplish a different objective which is aligned with where the business wants to go.  Might or might not be profit, by the way.  Maybe their vision includes developing a "loss leader" to get into a Chinese market that they expect will go ka-boom five years from now, or even just allow them to develop the thing that will go ka-boom.  In the absence of information, we can't know.

Why might there be a good business reason to not sell it in that case?  Probably the first and easiest option is that they wanted to keep their options open with the IP.  If they sell it off, that avenue is closed forever to them, and with businesses next quarter is a long time away -"forever" is a scary word when talking about IP.

Why do I still think they might?  If we keep the pressure up, and if they get an offer that is sufficiently attractive to deal with the "forever" question, they might see it as a way to open up new options (maybe getting back into the US market someday) instead of shutting down options (losing CoH IP forever).

What is probably making it difficult is I am guessing Paragon/whomever is cash-poor.  It makes good business sense TO THEM to get the IP by offering a note payment over 5 years or whatever, since they are confident that they were and would continue to be profitable at some level and the net cash flow would be positive.  This might or might not be enough or NCSoft to cut it loose, since from their perspective, it is a very risky bet for which they might not get anything they wanted and fewer options and a big negative downside too.

[Segev]

Segev, they made a business decision, yes.  But it is possible (and I speak only "what I have heard" not "what I have gotten confirmed") that they are making another dog-in-the-manger decision in being unwilling to sell the IP of CoH.  This makes no business sense if they are refocusing on the Asian market, where CoH is no competition to them.  Not to mention that they have no other game like CoH that could be competition.  The only way to get them to turn loose of the IP might be to ratchet up some of the negativity.

Oh, I agree that it is not a good business decision. The thing is, if you ratchet up the negativity in a manner that says "and even if you go the way I want you to go, I'm not stopping 'cause you've made me that mad," they have no reason not to make that "dog in the manger" decision. (I had to look that one up; not often a classical allusion is new to me; thanks for that!)

Also, keep in mind that, while it may appear to be pure spite or laziness on their part to us, they may have additional business concerns. For all that we've had a flat denial of the theory that they're positioning to be bought out, it highlights one possible situation where they'd want the on-paper appearance of having a valuable property even as they allowed it to lose value-in-fact. Business can be weird like that (and it's one of the areas that I question how valuation is assigned. I suspect it has a lot to do with dishonesty and/or failure-to-do-proper-research on the part of the seller/buyer).

"We" (in this case meaning "whoever actually is going to take active part in the negotiations") need to know what those considerations, if any, might be, so that the offer/deal becomes attractive over whatever siren calls may be causing what seems, to us, to be bad business decisions to be motivated.

[SithRose]

I will, eventually, the bulk buy thing was only semi a joke.

Only semi-joking. Because I'm on my 4th and 5th copies of some of the early Valdemar books...they've rather been read and loved just a bit. :)

(And amusingly, I have to replace my copy of Winds of Fate again...because my baby decided that it was one of his favorite books to eat. At least he has good taste in books?)

[Hyperstrike]

It is a family.

Ooh!  Ooh!

Can I be the creepy uncle?

[StarRanger4]

Ooh!  Ooh!

Can I be the creepy uncle?

Only if your willing to share the position with me.