New efforts! -- metadiscussion

[Ironwolf]

I know that we all don't know everything that has been going on. I can tell you however Robert has been talking to the team for a long time. He was not 100% sure they were the people making the effort but he had a VERY strong guess.

Now he had the permisson from the team to make his Facebook post and he is in fact talking to the team as I type this.

This came out different from what I planned - but it wasn't my place to plan it. Once word is out all this will be water under the bridge and now Robert got to wear my shoes for a day and he understands how strongly our players love this game. The more fierce the attack - the more love for the game. I am asking that you not pillory Robert as he is doing his best as I was distracted these past few weeks and likely should have been more on top of things.

I just have to ask we not drive wedges into the very community we have fought to hold together.

[Angel Phoenix77]

I know that we all don't know everything that has been going on. I can tell you however Robert has been talking to the team for a long time. He was not 100% sure they were the people making the effort but he had a VERY strong guess.

Now he had the permisson from the team to make his Facebook post and he is in fact talking to the team as I type this.

This came out different from what I planned - but it wasn't my place to plan it. Once word is out all this will be water under the bridge and now Robert got to wear my shoes for a day and he understands how strongly our players love this game. The more fierce the attack - the more love for the game. I am asking that you not pillory Robert as he is doing his best as I was distracted these past few weeks and likely should have been more on top of things.

I just have to ask we not drive wedges into the very community we have fought to hold together.

I respect what you have been doing and saying. Question did that include saying Monday we will get some kind of information? To me this is what is hanging me up.

[Ironwolf]

I respect what you have been doing and saying. Question did that include saying Monday we will get some kind of information? To me this is what is hanging me up.

Yes, emphatically. Robert may have phrased something poorly - but he was asked to relate his information. I dropped the ball for a few days and I know you would like to have heard it from me - but again I was preoccupied.

[Angel Phoenix77]

Yes, emphatically. Robert may have phrased something poorly - but he was asked to relate his information. I dropped the ball for a few days and I know you would like to have heard it from me - but again I was preoccupied.

its cool, thank you for clearing this up for me. And I understand why you were preoccupied, rl takes precedence

[HEATSTROKE]

So was his Monday information accurate regarding some news coming ?? and I am NOT speculating on what that news would be.. just that it would be... news...

[Kistulot]

Yes, emphatically. Robert may have phrased something poorly - but he was asked to relate his information. I dropped the ball for a few days and I know you would like to have heard it from me - but again I was preoccupied.

And it is 110% a-ok with me. You had personal things come up and I dont think anyone, red or blue or gold side, is going to blame you for putting your family first. Thank you for taking the time to clarify things, even with how busy you must still be.

[kiario]

So was his Monday information accurate regarding some news coming ?? and I am NOT speculating on what that news would be.. just that it would be... news...

Didn't Tony confirm in his post that there WILL be major news on Monday?

[Tubbius]

Thank you, Tony, for taking the time to put everything out there reasonably.

I will say that it's good that I don't work on Monday.    While I don't do Facebook, I will certainly watch these forums as much as possible then, just in case.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Yes, emphatically. Robert may have phrased something poorly - but he was asked to relate his information. I dropped the ball for a few days and I know you would like to have heard it from me - but again I was preoccupied.

Really not a problem at all.  I think most of us understand you are doing this on you free time and by personal choice.  You have done more then enough by bringing everyone together for the talks.  You have a life and things to do.  You have done so much for all of us already, you don't owe any of us anything more then you have already given us.  And you didn't even owe us that.

[dwturducken]

Tony you said: "I've also told some of the admins here on the Titan Network because some of them are in a unique position to be able to help out." Does this mean they will be beta testers?

War Witch expressly stated in a post Black Friday Coffee Talk that, if they had some internal office confusion on continuity or some forgotten detail relevant to something they were working on, Paragon Wiki was where they went to resolve it. I don't think that anyone could dispute that, outside of Cryptic/Paragon, no one knows more about the game, be it the play of the game or its inner workings, than the good people of Titan. It's most likely less beta testing and more tech support. I would be shocked and disappointed if, by the time the game is back up, no member of Titan was involved in some aspect of the recovery.

[TonyV]

Didn't Tony confirm in his post that there WILL be major news on Monday?

It depends on how you define "major news". The only thing that I'm relatively sure of is that they plan on letting everyone know who they are.  To me, this isn't particularly earth-shattering, but you know, enh.  It is possible, depending on which way the wind is blowing, that they may also post some information on the talks with NCsoft, but keep in mind that 1) this could be good or bad, so please don't go counting your chickens yet, and 2) I assure you that if anything major is released, unless you're deliberately making yourself unavailable to news, you will hear about it, as it will be nigh impossible to avoid seeing it either here, on Facebook, Twitter, or some gaming site.

Yes, emphatically. Robert may have phrased something poorly - but he was asked to relate his information.

I wasn't part of this conversation directly, so anything I say was said would only be hearsay.  ("Hearsaid"?)  However, I can assure you that the Hail Mary team is not actively soliciting people to release news on their behalf.  I can pretty confidently say that the conversation did not go like this: "Hey Robert, we have this information we'd like to get out to everyone.  Can you please disseminate it for us?"  They are, however, being steadily solicited for information from several people.  I don't necessarily mean to portray that in a bad light; people are excited and they want to know what's going on.  I can easily imagine a scenario in which Robert asked, "Hey, can I post about this?" and was told sure.

I can also pretty confidently say that the Hail Mary team didn't ask anyone to post a "***MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT***" (as Robert's post was titled), and they sure as hell didn't ask him to characterize the announcement as "jaw-dropping" or ask him to say that he is "100% confident in the chance of this deal happening".

That's what I was trying to point out in my reply, and what I've been telling people for months now.  You should ALWAYS understand that when you're reading secondhand information, it has been filtered through a lens of personal subjectivity.  Even with a complete lack of malice or ill will from a source you consider reliable, there is a chance that the actual truth is not being represented 100% accurately.  In fact, it's happened before on this very topic.  According to Robert, this means I'm calling him a liar, and it made him mad enough to delete my reply (quoted in the OP) pointing this out.  If so, then I guess I'm calling myself a liar also, because I've said the same thing about my own posts.

Tony you said: "I've also told some of the admins here on the Titan Network because some of them are in a unique position to be able to help out".Does this mean they will be beta testers?

Maybe it's their server hardware knowledge that can help.

^^^^^  That.  Because of their reverse engineering efforts, they have technical knowledge of the game client and back-end that likely no one else knows except the developers themselves.  In fact, I'd dare say that they probably have a more comprehensive knowledge of how everything is put together than the developers, most of whom probably only had insight and experience with a particular facet of the game they were working on.

But to be clear, no one at Titan is on the Hail Mary team.  Or at least if there are, they've done a damn good job keeping it secret from me.  There were simply some questions and answers fired back and forth and to be honest, I don't think the consultation was that extensive.

[batgirl]

It depends on how you define "major news". The only thing that I'm relatively sure of is that they plan on letting everyone know who they are.  To me, this isn't particularly earth-shattering, but you know, enh.  It is possible, depending on which way the wind is blowing, that they may also post some information on the talks with NCsoft, but keep in mind that 1) this could be good or bad, so please don't go counting your chickens yet, and 2) I assure you that if anything major is released, unless you're deliberately making yourself unavailable to news, you will hear about it, as it will be nigh impossible to avoid seeing it either here, on Facebook, Twitter, or some gaming site.

I wasn't part of this conversation directly, so anything I say was said would only be hearsay.  However, I can assure you that the Hail Mary team is not actively soliciting people to release news on their behalf.  I can pretty confidently say that the conversation did not go like this: "Hey Robert, we have this information we'd like to get out to everyone.  Can you please disseminate it for us?"  They are, however, being steadily solicited for information from several people.  I don't necessarily mean to portray that in a bad light; people are excited and they want to know what's going on.  I can easily imagine a scenario in which Robert asked, "Hey, can I post about this?" and was told sure.

I can also pretty confidently say that the Hail Mary team didn't ask anyone to post a "***MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT***" (as Robert's post was titled), and they sure as hell didn't ask him to characterize the announcement as "jaw-dropping" or ask him to say that he is "100% confident in the chance of this deal happening".

That's what I was trying to point out in my reply, and what I've been telling people for months now.  You should ALWAYS understand that when you're reading secondhand information, it has been filtered through a lens of personal subjectivity.  Even with a complete lack of malice or ill will from a source you consider reliable, there is a chance that the actual truth is not being represented 100% accurately.  In fact, it's happened before on this very topic.  According to Robert, this means I'm calling him a liar, and it made him mad enough to delete my reply (quoted in the OP) pointing this out.  If so, then I guess I'm calling myself a liar also, because I've said the same thing about my own posts.

^^^^^  That.  Because of their reverse engineering efforts, they have technical knowledge of the game client and back-end that likely no one else knows except the developers themselves.  In fact, I'd dare say that they probably have a more comprehensive knowledge of how everything is put together than the developers, most of whom probably only had insight and experience with a particular facet of the game they were working on.

First I wondered ...



and then I realized



and ultimately I realized IF IF IF IF IF IF the news is positive

[FloatingFatMan]

It depends on how you define "major news". The only thing that I'm relatively sure of is that they plan on letting everyone know who they are.  To me, this isn't particularly earth-shattering, but you know, enh.  It is possible, depending on which way the wind is blowing, that they may also post some information on the talks with NCsoft, but keep in mind that 1) this could be good or bad, so please don't go counting your chickens yet, and 2) I assure you that if anything major is released, unless you're deliberately making yourself unavailable to news, you will hear about it, as it will be nigh impossible to avoid seeing it either here, on Facebook, Twitter, or some gaming site.

To be honest, I would expect that any such official news about the sale of CoH and it's return would come from NCSoft themselves as a major press release, done in partnership with the new owners.

[Saedor]

Ok, now I'm confused. Ironwolf says;

Yes, emphatically. Robert may have phrased something poorly - but he was asked to relate his information. I dropped the ball for a few days and I know you would like to have heard it from me - but again I was preoccupied.

But TonyV says;

However, I can assure you that the Hail Mary team is not actively soliciting people to release news on their behalf.

So, which is it?

[Surelle]

Ok, now I'm confused. Ironwolf says;

But TonyV says;

So, which is it?

I think this Robert guy badgered Ironwolf and Team Hail Mary so much that he was finally given an inch and totally ran off with a mile or three.  Clearly there is no deal yet.  NCSoft has publicly said nothing and neither has Team Hail Mary.  I'd stick with Tony V on this. 

It's obvious when you look at Robert's posts (Tony V quoted them in the first post in this thread) that he was, as Tony V said, injecting his own overenthusiastic subjectiveness into his commentary, and also overstepping his boundaries by saying he himself would announce something Monday if Team Hail Mary did not.  Robert is not part of the team.   I understand his enthusiasm but he's talking out his butt at this point.  No deal has been made-- this is obvious as neither NCSoft nor Team Hail Mary has made public press announcements about it as they surely will if a deal is ever struck.

Poor Ironwolf has a ton on his plate with his family right now which is perfectly understandable; this forum isn't his job, it's just part of a gaming hobby (CoH) that was taken away from him as it was from all of us.  But I think this whole Robert Debacle will hopefully send the message to Team Hail Mary and all those in the know to keep the rest quiet until such time as a deal is struck.  And if there's no deal, there's no big apology or any explanation needed.  We're no worse off than we already are.

But I do hope NCSoft takes into consideration that their best-case scenario already came and went with Paragon Studios.  Their initial unwillingness to sell (despite whatever interpersonal conflicts there were) ultimately hurt them even worse than us.  We are still together.  People think of them as pariahs, and it has effected their poor NA results with Wildstar.  The MMO market is a crowded one with new entrants coming every day; people don't have to put up with poor treatment and nowadays they don't, they just go somewhere else. 

If NCSoft chooses not to help Team Hail Mary get off the ground in every way feasible and hold their hands as much as necessary to get CoH up and running again, and chooses instead to keep CoH shuttered (the little of it that still exists), NCSoft's own base of players will continue to erode.  Either they need to begin reversing their mistakes (turning over Tabula Rasa back to Richard Garriott to run would be another such step, as would eliminating the gold farmers that overrun Aion NA and Lineage 2 NA), or they need to stop releasing games in North America.

[Dev7on]

I understand what TonyV was saying. This is one of the best community out here and I don't want to see people attacking each other. Yes, I know you guys are anxious but, don't get all worked up. DON'T be disappointed when the team announced that we didn't got the game. We should be grateful that they made it far enough to try to get the game. I was anxious for the past 2 weeks and I know that I need to take a chill pill and calm down. I'm sorry for lashing out on Captain Electric because I thought people was blaming on Ironwolf about the information that brought out in the open since the Massively article. Like I said before I was just upset and confused. I didn't know what was going on. I listened to the SaveCoH Radio least night and it was a different attitude. TonyV barely said anything because how irritated he was. It was a little bit more hostile than friendly that we were supposed to be last night. That kinda broke my heart. I hope we all forgive and forget of whats happening right now. And when this is over I think we ALL owe Ironwolf an apology. Have a nice Labor Day weekend and remember that WE ARE HEROES!!!! THIS IS WHAT WE DO!!!!!

[blacksly]

People can't possibly be talking about character building and enhancement planning when the game isn't even bought or reverse engineered..... It could easily be a year if ever....  ?

Well, you know, it takes time to build 1-2 versions of every single powerset combination I may ever play, then do DPS and EPS calculations for it. So I had to beat the rush and start already.

[Surelle]

Well, you know, it takes time to build 1-2 versions of every single powerset combination I may ever play, then do DPS and EPS calculations for it. So I had to beat the rush and start already.

Haha, okay, okay, I give.     But personally, I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

[Wyrm]

Enthusiasm duly tempered.  Thanks for the lucid and realistic update, Tony.  If we happen to get knocked down again on Monday I may delay popping another Awaken for a little while, since I've probably let myself get a bit too optimistic about the possibilities despite knowing better.

To put it differently, I'll be bummed if Monday is a "Sorry, no go" message, but there are people that the past few days' discussion could have set up to kind of be crushed by anything other than the return of the game.  There's still one of my CoH friends I haven't talked with about this at all, just because I didn't want to raise her hopes.  And I'm a bit worried that she may be on the "Survivors" groups.

[Lava-Lad]

War Witch expressly stated in a post Black Friday Coffee Talk that, if they had some internal office confusion on continuity or some forgotten detail relevant to something they were working on, Paragon Wiki was where they went to resolve it. I don't think that anyone could dispute that, outside of Cryptic/Paragon, no one knows more about the game, be it the play of the game or its inner workings, than the good people of Titan. It's most likely less beta testing and more tech support. I would be shocked and disappointed if, by the time the game is back up, no member of Titan was involved in some aspect of the recovery.

Agreed!  Titan was a priceless addition to the CoH experience while the game was live, but has proven arguably the most important product of the game, as the repository of the lore as well as the hub for the community now that we've been dispossessed.

Tony and co, THANK YOU.