I was contacted by a Korean Journalist to comment on CoH

[JWBullfrog]

I agree, and at this point I think a CoX 2 is the best future for the game.  Just my personal opinion, I know, but just keeping the extant game running is a much  more limited future than keeping the IP moving forward.

I'm pretty sure we would have all been happy with an announcement to the effect of "Hey we're shutting down the game but thats only because we're releasing CoH2. Details to follow." It would have been a lot better than what we got.

Now whoever picks up the game in the future (and I believe this will happen) will probably face this same situation. The simplest solution is to restart the original game and keep it going while the new game is being built then, once everything is ready, phase out C1 and phase in C2. Or, even a situation like Guild wars where both versions exist together. Any of these will be preferrable to what we have now.

[dwturducken]

WRT age, one of the things that I liked about CoH was it's ability to play on my laptop. It's a new-ish Thinkpad, and TPs don't like games. This and WoW are the only games that would still run on it, granted with the settings reduced, though not all the way. Nothing else will even accept my laptop's hardware as sufficient to install. (Granted, I haven't tried DDO on this, but it's buggy on my desktop.)

[DrakeGrimm]

Very nicely done, VV. I learned a lot from your responses.


...for instance. We started playing City at the same time.

[Victoria Victrix]

I agree, and at this point I think a CoX 2 is the best future for the game.  Just my personal opinion, I know, but just keeping the extant game running is a much  more limited future than keeping the IP moving forward.

No reason not to have both.  That's what WoW did, and that is what Paragon Studios planned until NCSoft shot that plan down.

[Victoria Victrix]

As far as I am aware, they are *not* working on a sequel to World of Warcraft though. They do have another MMO project being developed, but apparently it will be a new IP.

Not a sequel but a considerable graphics engine upgrade and some extensive world destruction to make room for it.

[Codewalker]

Not a sequel but a considerable graphics engine upgrade and some extensive world destruction to make room for it.

I wouldn't call it considerable. They got shadows (players only, not dynamic world shadows) and reflective water. The textures are still flat and the models are still relatively low poly, especially parts of the old world that didn't get as much makeover time. Ultra Mode had much more advanced graphics than WoW does.

Some of the old world got renovated in order to be able to fly. Parts of it were obvious they didn't spend as much time on and just did the bare minimum. The renovated stuff was nowhere near the quality of the newer zones.

WoW had never really been about the fancy graphics anyway, though. Their engine lends itself to the cartoony art style.

[Codewalker]

Oh yeah, and the Direct3D 11 patch. Is it stable yet? The last time I played people were still saying leave it off because it caused crashes. AFAIK the only new thing in the DX11 renderer was tessellated water. Woohoo. Especially since everybody avoids water areas because it's such a pain. :)

[Victoria Victrix]

Ahh, so actually still developing the game. Just like, you know, Paragon Studios were still doing.

But I have to admit, I have heard nothing of this considerable graphics engine upgrade (well, unless you are referring to their DX11 client which is live right now).

Just wondering, but can you post a link to where this is mentioned, you have piqued my interest.

Given their advertising, I was under the impression that it was a bigger deal than just that.  I don't play WoW, myself, I just go by what they advertise.

[Daimyoshi]

Anyone know if the article saw print/publish?

[Lily Barclay]

Anyone know if the article saw print/publish?

Was just going to ask this. I thought it was supposed to come out today?

[Electric-Knight]

While I liked all of it, I just wanted to say... THANK YOU for your response to the "As you know, the gaming platform is moving from PC to mobile in recent years..." question.

GAHHHH... that kind of mindset drives me up the wall!!

I guess "gaming platform" means the mentality of those going after money from new/bigger audiences...

Heh, anyway.
Yeah, no... People interested in computer games are not moving to mobile games.
And you countered with a great point of reference - upgrading computers and, specifically, graphics card purchases.

Anyway...

Thanks, VV. Not like you needed to, but you represented most of my opinions quite well.


There's one thing (not important in the scope of the interview), that I thought I'd just comment on.
The closure of SWG and the whole citing it being because of losing the licensing...
From what I have read, while this comment is all-too-common and accepted as fact, it is not true. SOE said, at that time, that they could renew the contract, but felt it was time to end the game.

Why does this matter to me?
I am an original SWG refugee. The way most of you feel about NCsoft? That's how I still feel about SOE. They took such a vast and awesome game and turned it into a sickly, pathetic, poor, poor clone of WoW. It was worse than turning Chess into Checkers.
They shut my favorite game down on November 15th, 2005... but instead of it just being gone (like CoH currently is), it lived on in this perverted undead state (called the NGE). Just to give a tiny bit of facts, so you understand I'm not using hyperbole with my complaints: we went from having 33+ professions that any one character could select and mix around with multiple professions (and drop and earn new skills and professions, unendingly) to simply having 9 different professions (only one for your character) with no variance within those professions (months later they added minor options within them... again, nothing even remotely like the variance and diversity and customization attainable beforehand).
33+ (with great mixing and matching) to 9 (on a set path). Completely different game (It'd be like every Blaster was Energy/Energy and every Tank was Inv/SS, period, please choose one, thanks).

They shut that game down, because they lost a ton after they did that. And it never really recovered.
Anyway... I don't mean to get an a tirade about it (and certainly none of that is directed at you!!). It's just... well, you can imagine.
I've been through this song and dance (that we're going through now).
I truly loved that game. And I'm not just reacting from my emotions about it being closed. I just heard that rumor about the licensing thing... and then I heard that it was not true... So, I did a tiny bit of searching and immediately found the president of SOE stating that this was not the reason. That they could renew the license and that they simply chose not to.

Haha, sorry... while my emotions about that may not be clouding my findings... they do make me want to run on about it.  :roll: :P ;D


All that being said... Thank you very much and great job.  :)


P.S. About losing your favorite game, due to the corporation being completely stupid jerk heads - While some of the resentment and pain never fully goes away, it does absolutely get better over time. It can just fire on up again when things are bad! Also... I still don't believe you'll have to stick through lack of CoH permanently, hehe!

P.P.S. I ended up falling in love with CoH afterward  ;)

[0nehanklap]

I knew there was a good reason I always loved to read your work.

[Adrenalin]

While I liked all of it, I just wanted to say... THANK YOU for your response to the "As you know, the gaming platform is moving from PC to mobile in recent years..." question.

GAHHHH... that kind of mindset drives me up the wall!!

I guess "gaming platform" means the mentality of those going after money from new/bigger audiences...

Heh, anyway.
Yeah, no... People interested in computer games are not moving to mobile games.
And you countered with a great point of reference - upgrading computers and, specifically, graphics card purchases.

Anyway...

Thanks, VV. Not like you needed to, but you represented most of my opinions quite well.


There's one thing (not important in the scope of the interview), that I thought I'd just comment on.
The closure of SWG and the whole citing it being because of losing the licensing...
From what I have read, while this comment is all-too-common and accepted as fact, it is not true. SOE said, at that time, that they could renew the contract, but felt it was time to end the game.

Why does this matter to me?
I am an original SWG refugee. The way most of you feel about NCsoft? That's how I still feel about SOE. They took such a vast and awesome game and turned it into a sickly, pathetic, poor, poor clone of WoW. It was worse than turning Chess into Checkers.
They shut my favorite game down on November 15th, 2005... but instead of it just being gone (like CoH currently is), it lived on in this perverted undead state (called the NGE). Just to give a tiny bit of facts, so you understand I'm not using hyperbole with my complaints: we went from having 33+ professions that any one character could select and mix around with multiple professions (and drop and earn new skills and professions, unendingly) to simply having 9 different professions (only one for your character) with no variance within those professions (months later they added minor options within them... again, nothing even remotely like the variance and diversity and customization attainable beforehand).
33+ (with great mixing and matching) to 9 (on a set path). Completely different game (It'd be like every Blaster was Energy/Energy and every Tank was Inv/SS, period, please choose one, thanks).

They shut that game down, because they lost a ton after they did that. And it never really recovered.
Anyway... I don't mean to get an a tirade about it (and certainly none of that is directed at you!!). It's just... well, you can imagine.
I've been through this song and dance (that we're going through now).
I truly loved that game. And I'm not just reacting from my emotions about it being closed. I just heard that rumor about the licensing thing... and then I heard that it was not true... So, I did a tiny bit of searching and immediately found the president of SOE stating that this was not the reason. That they could renew the license and that they simply chose not to.

Haha, sorry... while my emotions about that may not be clouding my findings... they do make me want to run on about it.  :roll: :P ;D


All that being said... Thank you very much and great job.  :)


P.S. About losing your favorite game, due to the corporation being completely stupid jerk heads - While some of the resentment and pain never fully goes away, it does absolutely get better over time. It can just fire on up again when things are bad! Also... I still don't believe you'll have to stick through lack of CoH permanently, hehe!

P.P.S. I ended up falling in love with CoH afterward  ;)

Right there with ya Knight. Took a break from SWG for CoH beta testing and after losing myself in Paragon for almost a year, I came back to SWG only to find NGE implemented. When I took a look at what they wanted me to drop my current mixed profession for and then found out that my guildmates had been MIA for at least a month, I shut it down and went straight back to CoH.

[Xieveral]

The article is up!

http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2012/12/602_126197.html

Its even one of the headlining articles in the Money section, its bound to be seen by many!

[Fulcrum]

The article is up!

http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2012/12/602_126197.html

Its even one of the headlining articles in the Money section, its bound to be seen by many!

Excellent!   As a community we can continue 'turning the screws' until we.....

Multiple choice question:

A) Redside:    .... hear the sweet, sweet wails of bitter agony from our most despised foe and wrench the IP from their grasp.
B) Goldside:   .... hear the sweet, sweet wails of bitter agony from our most despised foe... and have someone else wrench the IP from their grasp.
C) Blueside:   .... resolutely convince our foe to part with the IP while ignoring their sweet, sweet wails of bitter agony.

[wrkidd]

Just read the article and I was wondering what the genesis of the article was? I read the OP and VV didn't say or I didn't see it. Glad to finally see some Korean interest even after the fact. Thanks to VV for putting a great face on our plight.

[dwturducken]

At a guess, the author of the article was assigned a piece on the drop in NCSoft stocks and found us in his research. Maybe his/her editor liked the angle.

[Rae]

Um. Hi.

The journalist wrote an article called NCsoft at a crossroads, which someone linked to.

I emailed him, and sent him the 'firewall of silence' press release, a link to Starbursts 'boycott NCSoft article and said if I asked really nicely, Mercedes might be willing to talk to him.

I've been trying to get the Korean press to notice us for a while now, and figured his previous articles questioning NCSofts business choices meant he might be a good person to approach.

He had certainly been bewildered by the interest in his initial article and keen to follow it up. He said he was interested in the press releases I sent, but needed to do his own investigation (Sign of a great journo! ) and asked if I could pass his details on to Mercedes, et voila, Korean articley goodness. 

I also emailed him a big old thank you tonight for the work he did.  An ally in the Korean press is clearly a good thing to have, and he's the only press guy who hasn't been on the receiving end of a 'no comment'.

...I bet my RL boss wishes I put this much effort into my day job.

[Fulcrum]

Rae.  You win the internets. 

I'll buy you a beverage of your choice should our paths cross in the future.

[wrkidd]

Thanks rae, for filling in the (my) blanks. I agree having a friend in the Korean press is a bonus. Perhaps he has a bone to pick with NCSoft and we can all enjoy some more negative NCSoft press.

I have been lurking here on Titan for so long it feels really strange to post something.

But I should add a great big thanks to TonyV and everyone else who has been moving the SaveCOH train along so nicely.