Trusting NCSoft - Would you play COH2?

[unladenswallow]

If NCSoft made a City of Heroes 2, would you trust them enough to play it?

No absolutely not. They have shown that despite their company claim that they want "to make the people in this world happier" there is no truth in that statement. I just spent over eight years in one of their worlds and I was very  happy in it until they very abruptly announced that it was coming to an end.

Gamers First is the only company I hold more contempt for than NC Soft. While NC Soft treated us with callous disregard and indifference at least they didn't try to exploit us. While it isn't a technically a Korean company it's CEO  and I believe at least some of it's staff is originally from Korea and all it does is market Korean games to the Western market. They use exploitative marketing techniques to try and get players to spend money in their cash shops every month by offering rare one time only items that they will never offer again. I really don't have the time to go into all that is wrong with Gamers First just suffice it to say after dealing with their incredibly horrible customer service for over three years and after filing no less than three complaints to the Better Business Bureau I will never do business with them again.

To extend a metaphor, NC Soft just suddenly shot our game accounts in the head with absolutely no warning. At least they didn't try to abuse and exploit us so much that it sucked all the fun out of the game and made us want to delete our accounts. Neither is acceptable but even then NC Soft gets absolutely no credit for the fun we had in this game. The credited for that lies solely with the staff at Paragon Studios that gave us a great game not because of NC Soft but in spite of it.

[Osborn]

There have been discussions about whether or not NCSoft was or is going to make a COH2, but I wanted to pose a more simple question.

If NCSoft made a City of Heroes 2, would you trust them enough to play it? 

It depends: Am I keeping all my vet rewards and reward tokens and the like from CoH? Basically, is my status as a Premium player with like 30 some reward tokens coming into CoH 2?

If No: Hell no, I wouldn't play CoH 2. Period. Unless it was some private server I could console in whatever I wanted. I love the community of CoH compared to other games, but let's be honest: I played CoH 1 almost primarily entirely with my boyfriend and close personal friends. If CoH 2 is robbing me of the retarded amount of money I've spent to 'reset' my wallet, it's going to have to bring in a crazy amount of stuff that I don't think a game physically could without me just being able to add in a console command and recover it.

If Yes: Probably still not considering how they handled the closing of this game in a most embarrassing way, BUT I'd consider it at least.

On the one hand City of Heroes is a universe we all love dearly.  On the other most of us feel betrayed by NCSoft and may not trust them to do right by us with a new title.  There's also the question of; Do we trust their business practices enough to expect them to even be able to make another successful title, or given their poor performance, will they even be around long enough to make another MMO worth bothering with. 

For me, I've lost all trust in the company.  It would take a LOT for me to try any future game put out by NCSoft.  What are your feelings?

Me too. About the only thing they could do now to recover me as a customer is to quickly and for a fair price sell the IP to somebody. If some mega media giant like Disney has to basically wrestle the IP from them legally after it's devalued to basically nothing, then I'm still going to remain boycotting them. CoH 2 wouldn't change that, easily.

I'd have to be like, the greatest game ever conceived and give me basically everything I had in CoH 1, and then some.

I'm not one to say that either situation is 'impossible', but, I wouldn't count on it.

[Victoria Victrix]

If someone other than NCSoft were to take over CoH, I would subscribe even if I had to reroll everyone.  I'd shed a tear for all the work, but I'd reroll.  Leveling is NOTHING like as hard as it was in the old days.

[mikoroshi]

I would not give NC a dime.

But I would play COH2.

If NC released COH2, I'd want the old team back.  And I'd still step with trepidation into it.

[Kaiser Tarantula]

Nope.  NCsoft has abused whatever trust I had in them far too many times.

When I first purchased CoH, it advertised on the box a free month of gameplay.  It didn't state that, in order to get that free month, you had to purchase a month's subscription.  I wound up shelling out a total of $60 right there just to get into the game.  But then I loved the game, and so all was forgiven.

Then, sadly, financial situations forced me to allow my subscription to expire.  People swore, up and down, that NCsoft "never gets rid of accounts" and "all my characters would still be there."  I felt my account data was safe.

Two years and a change of address later, I found myself in good enough financial situations to consider resubscribing.  However, I'd apparently lost my account details in the move.  "No problem" I thought.  "I still remember the account name, recovering the password should be child's play, right?"

Wrong.

NCsoft never supplied me with a new password, nor would respond to any requests I had to recover my account (I made about four requests in total).  Eventually, I resigned myself to accepting the fact that my old account was gone.

So, two or three more years later, a week before the shutdown notice, I re-registered.  I figured "the game's free-to-play, I can at least see what's happened while I've been gone."  I re-registered to find almost everything new locked behind either VIP or cash shop fees.  Even my second and third favorite archetypes, the Mastermind and Controller.  I found myself so horribly limited in selection that I just said "screw it, I'll play on Beta until I can purchase a subscription.  At least there I'm not so horribly limited."

Then, just a week before I was slated to get the cash to purchase a subscription... the shutdown notice came.  And that was it - I'd had it with NCsoft.  Not only had they screwed me when I got into CoH, and screwed me again when I tried to get back into CoH, now they allowed me to re-register only to slam the door in my face.

Fine.  If they're that averse to gaining and keeping my money, then I just won't give it to them.  If this is how they treat their customers, I'm not going to be one.  if this is their idea of business, I want no part of it.

NCsoft can bite me.  They'll never see a penny of my money again, so long as I live.

[NecrotechMaster]

im pretty much in the same group, i wont touch ncsoft games again, although coh was the only one i ever really played, it still hurt a lot, coh was pretty much the only social outlet for me (although i have been in contact with many poeple i played coh with a lot through steam and recently been playing torchlight 2 with one of them)

its good, but still not the same

[Zolgar]

I'm gonna say:
Pay to play? Fock no.
Free to play? Eh, I'd play it. If it totally didn't suck, I might throw a few ducks at it here and there.. but I would strive to not get overly attached to it.

[Jetfire99]

Not going to drink the ncsoft aid chompers! Heck no my peepers are open wide I be seeing what NCSOFT be doing.

[Spellcaster Hana]

Ahahahahaha...NO.

But I'd make an exception if Paragon Studios were assembled to make it.

[Osborn]

I find this interesting to be honest, because even if the IP was sold on to another company that you approved of, there is still the risk of "previous money spent" not being taken into consideration...

Slight derail I know, but it is interesting to read... I do understand your point of view though.

My main complaint is about the sudden devaluation of 8 years of monetary work. I had no problem with free to play. I'm not selfish or snobbish enough to cry if people gain things I payed for. But I'm not buying probably over a thousand dollars of PP again, especially if it's going back into NCSoft's coffers, especially twice over if it means the loss of honest jobs in Paragon Studios.

But I feel I'd be a sucker to throw money into COH 2 when NCSoft could close it at any moment too. I feel like I was scammed honestly. They were coming out with new stuff up until the edge. No ordinary person would look at that and think it wasn't false advertising. But judges and executives aren't ordinary people so I know I'm gonna have to take the loss. I think only video games get treated this way as lawyers don't respect the medium. I bet if I pitched a season long Football schedule and took thousands of peoples cash then folded right up, I'd at very least be sued for false advertisement but because courts don't see gaming as a "legitimate" hobby and as a child's toy they treat customers with disdain that biases them more than our justice system is already biased.

If the entire sport of Soccor vanished overnight and the IP to it was sat on making the nets and balls and league games illegal and if the World Cup organization used police to bust people playing "private games" in their own homes, nobody would be like "Grow up and get a job and life, Soccor's dead move on. It's a game for children anyways you lazy virgin. Just buy all new equipment for Baseball it's so much better and more people in some specific country play it anyways. There's plenty of sports.". Nor would anybody seriously consider buying Soccor 2, especially if the same guys ran it.

But when it's us then we're an acceptable target. Companies see us as open wallets. Fans act like we're obligated to buy anything as if it's some religious tithes.

I'm not blaming you, or anybody here. But gamers need to stop with this Stockholm syndrome where we see OURSELVES as acceptable targets and feel obligated to buy no matter what.

I cannot in any way imagine being spit on then being offered C

[Osborn]

The forum glitched up.

I was going to say I can't see myself being offered the opportunity to lose all my stuff and have the priveledge to start over by the same guys that made me lose my stuff and accepting it.

I might not have the highest self esteem but I do have some dignity.

[Technerdoc]

It will be an totaly different game anyway, more like "City of Heroes goes World of Warcraft" when the Paragon Studios are not in the project, so I don't think I will like it.

I will never play a game from NC-Soft or Nexon again, that's for sure. I play and pay for City of Heroes about 6 years and I really love the game and then someone say "It's over thanks and bye, bye". I mean... everything is gone. My characters, my story acts in the AE building even all my money, just everything...

I also think that I can't play just an other MMO, City of Heroes was so different. When I lock in somewhere and read think like "Learn to play you noob!" or I have to play an entire MMO alone, then I just want to smash my head against the next wall. Nothing is like City of Heroes right now, I have a feeling I play always the same game just with other graphics and a part 2 from an other studio will not change anything.

Well, not everything is gone, we still have us in this forum. Something they can't switch off so easy is friendship...

[Rae]

If NCSoft made a City of Heroes 2, would you trust them enough to play it? 

Fuxx no.

[corvus1970]

Absolutely not. I'd trust them about as much as I'd trust FOX with a new Joss Whedon show: which is to say not at ALL.

As far as I'm concerned, NCSoft has not simply burned their bridge with me, but rather nuked it into atoms. They announced the "sundown" of a game that made a steady, if unspectacular, profit over EIGHT years. The announced it shortly before Issue 24 was to have been released. They axed the good folks at Paragon Studios. Their response to the fan campaign was essentially "Can you please stop making us look like jerks? Mkay thx bai!"

As far as I'm concerned they wouldn't recognize a good MMO, or good sense, if it beat them about the head and shoulders.

So no, NO, a thousand-times no. Hell, not just "no" but Shia LaBeouf "NO" (nono nonononon NO NO! etc, etc).

To hell with NCSoft!

[Lydiastar]

If NCSoft made it? Not a chance.

If Paragon Studios made it? Absolutely.

yes

[Rotten Luck]

I will play CoH2....IF they get rid of the whole top level of the company Board of Directors, CEO anyone who has command choices.

Only with a new Leadership with a PROPER company goal of providing service to a customer base would I join up again.  Till then once the servers go dark I will NEVER join any NCsoft game.

Double so if it's some Grind fest or Pay for gear setup.

[Dollhouse]

If it's NCSoft? Damned unlikely. They have a long way to go to repair their reputation in my book.

Released by someone else? Well...maybe. If the game had a whole bunch of improvements and updates to the gameplay, I just might. The comic superhero setting isn't actually much of a draw for me, and was never why I played CoH for over eight years. I got drawn in by a couple of RL friends who are fans of the genre, and the rest is history. I've stayed because of those friends and the many others I've made in the game more than for the game itself. CoH is a very good game, don't get me wrong...but other things have kept me subbed.

So yeah...if a CoH2 managed to draw in a significant chunk of the community, particularly the part that I grew to think of as friends (and especially those that haven't migrated to TSW with me), I'd give it a whirl. But to tell you the truth, I'd really rather just have CoH1 back so I can keep beloved characters and keep on playing them alongside their old, dear friends and compatriots. CoH2, without those characters that have become so important and "real" to me, wouldn't have nearly the draw.

[Kuriositys Kat]

NEVER!  They burned that bridge, razed and salted my trust in them.  I will examine any game coming down the pike  carefully and if NCSoft has even a whiff of presence around such  game, I won't touch it.

[K26dp]

If someone other than NCSoft were to take over CoH, I would subscribe even if I had to reroll everyone.  I'd shed a tear for all the work, but I'd reroll.  Leveling is NOTHING like as hard as it was in the old days.

Yes, this in a nutshell. I've been wanting CoH2 for a long, long time. I would hope there would be a way to somehow carry over old characters, but if not I could deal for an updated game.

Unless it was NCSoft who ran it. They could offer actual free superpowers to use to super jump to work every day and I wouldn't touch it.

[Colette]

While I don't normally clutter things up with YouTube junk...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgI2ZQVyrBo