And the mask comes off.

[Abraxus]

I don't think it is a matter of entitlement.  I think it is a two-fold issue that has nothing to do with entitlement.

The first issue, however inadvertently it was created, is that we were given HOPE!  After a long period of having nothing to hope for and accepting that situation, a flicker of hope was give when there was a started and quickly failed negotiation.  To the faithful, it was quite painful to honestly entertain the possibility that our beloved game could return only to have it dashed.  Then, just when we had finally accepted that hope no longer existed, word of another (and much more promising) round of negotiations, and even though we were hesitant to believe again after being so recently disappointed, we did so.  I tell you, and I don't think anyone would disagree that nothing plumbs the depths of despair more quickly than having hope, and seeing it die.  Much more so than never having had hope at all.

The second issue is that because of the lack of information, none of us can make any sense of the (pardon the pun) endgame, and we all very much want to be able to make sense of it.  Based on the few facts we did get, it makes absolutely no sense to anyone regardless of their business acumen, to withhold a property whose market value fades on a daily basis, and once enough time goes by, not only will folks stop caring about the past game, but the successor projects will start to enter beta testing, giving them something to hope for that NCSoft cannot take away!  Then, the old game will hardly seem worth it.  They just cannot reconcile these things logically, and most of us possess the ability to view things logically, even if there are strong emotions involved. 

So, between having hope given, and taken away, then given again and feeling it fade day by day - combined with the lack of understanding any of us have, due to the NDA, for why the hell anyone would sabotage their own potential profits by standing on ceremony, or whatever they are doing to prolong this deal, there is understandable frustration that grows daily.  We don't express it every day, but we all feel it. 

For the folks that complain about the complainers, please bear in mind that the very reason any of us are here at all, is that we are passionate about this game.  You cannot have that level of passion, and not have some fairly powerful emotions about things that govern whether you will ever experience it again.  Especially when, because of the lack of information, we cannot form an educated thought about why things are as they have been for so long. 

I don't think we feel entitled.  I think we have been teased with hope over periods of time, and because of our love for the game, we feel stung when we have little to no reason to maintain that hope.

[Arcana]

No, because that situation encompasses "Negotiations are going on and they're like Fast and Furious XVII", as well as "Well, negotiations were never officially stopped but we're exchanging an email every other month". In both situations we'd have the same information and the NDAs would still apply, but they're vastly different in their results.

To put it another way: I WOULD feel better if I knew that ACTIVE negotiations are going on. I can understand that they might take a while even if they're trying to move along. But right now I don't have enough reason to feel confident that this is going on as opposed to just negotiations being officially going on but not moving anywhere for several months.

There's no such thing as passive negotiations.  There's also no distinction between fast and slow negotiations that you can reasonably convey if under an NDA.  Consider that for all of my "knowledge transfer" in City of Heroes I only got in (very minor) trouble with the Powers That Be at Paragon Studios twice when it came to talking about things I wasn't supposed to be talking about (at least that I ever found out about).  One of the two was when I mentioned how long it took for a specific project to go from discussion to implementation.  I *didn't* get in trouble for actually describing, in detail (in another context) every single step in that process.  If that doesn't make sense to you, you don't have enough experience in these kinds of situations to be a good extrapolator for what is and is not sensitive discussion material.

[Balince]

To me it's pretty simple, we deserve to know because without us there efforts are pointless. They are attempting this because they know how many of us still would instantly start playing CoX. I think while we deserve the right to know and I think Nate would agree we do, it may be the case that there is simply nothing he can do if there is no wiggle room for him to talk under this mysterious NDA.

[Ironwolf]

The main rule about NDA - you don't get to talk about being under an NDA.

[Power Gamer]

Not to put too fine a point on this, but what difference would it make if you DID know at what point the negotiations are currently?

Could you do anything to move them along an inch?

Or would it simply provide more whining fuel because 'they are doing it wrong'.

Be content that the work is done as expertly and competently as may be expected.
Yes it is taking longer than any of us would like. So?

Pushing at the peeps who are doing this for us is NOT helping, and frankly borders on childishness.

Give yourself a break and the team a break by enduring the silence.
Surely you will be rewarded. And I'm certain the team will appreciate the breathing space.

I'm as excited as any here.

I've tried other MMO's and found them greatly lacking in every department.

Have faith. It will be worth the wait.

[Remaugen]

I lost my internets and could not find them for a while. I was hoping that when I finally got back on we would have good news, oh well. . .

[Aggelakis]

See, this attitude is actually getting quite annoying now.  It's been a year, we should be asking what's going on; we deserve to know.

You do not deserve anything, actually.

I mean, it'd be pretty nice if we got some information. It'd be awesome, actually. But no one deserves information. Why do you deserve information? Because you sat on your ass for a year and a half? lol

You're an adult. You should choose your words with more care.

[Arcana]

To me it's pretty simple, we deserve to know because without us there efforts are pointless.

I don't think I would have found that line of argument convincing on the old official forums, particularly if directed at me.  Also, it only sounds reasonable when used with improper representation.  "We deserve to know because without us things are pointless" is a truism, but no one has the right to assert it.  "I deserve to know because without me things are pointless" is the version without the claim of representing everyone, and its very obviously false, regardless of who states it.

And referring to the NDA as "mysterious" implies you don't have much experience with NDAs or negotiations.  I've never been in a negotiation where you *were* allowed to comment publicly.  Heck, I'm not even allowed to publicly comment on the price I paid vendors for equipment I negotiated the price on, like ever.  That's just the way this works.  If I kept doing that, pretty quickly no one would do business with me.  Try telling vendors that without their customers all their efforts are pointless, so you deserve to know everything they are doing.  Try telling them you deserve to know what price they offered to everyone else.  Let me know how that turns out.  I may be crazy, but I'm not that kind of crazy.

[FloatingFatMan]

You do not deserve anything, actually.

I mean, it'd be pretty nice if we got some information. It'd be awesome, actually. But no one deserves information. Why do you deserve information? Because you sat on your ass for a year and a half? lol

You're an adult. You should choose your words with more care.

Deserve might be a bit strong, but without the fans, you have no one to sell a product too. Leaving us hanging too long with -nothing- to keep the hope going is just not right.  It's torture.

[blacksly]

There's no such thing as passive negotiations.  There's also no distinction between fast and slow negotiations that you can reasonably convey if under an NDA.  Consider that for all of my "knowledge transfer" in City of Heroes I only got in (very minor) trouble with the Powers That Be at Paragon Studios twice when it came to talking about things I wasn't supposed to be talking about (at least that I ever found out about).  One of the two was when I mentioned how long it took for a specific project to go from discussion to implementation.  I *didn't* get in trouble for actually describing, in detail (in another context) every single step in that process.  If that doesn't make sense to you, you don't have enough experience in these kinds of situations to be a good extrapolator for what is and is not sensitive discussion material.

You're missing my base point... not that what they're doing (or failing to do) is morally wrong, or that we deserve more, or that there is a problem with the NDA, or with how it's being observed. I understand that none of those speak to any reason why anyone should announce any information.

My point is that there is a loss of attention, and in entertainment, you almost never want to lose attention (and never when you have a good product). And loss of attention seems like it would hurt both sides. So I do understand how negotiations could continue at a slow rate, and how the NDA can't really decide what "discussion materials" to limit. I just don't understand WHY they decided to go with negotiations that are not only private but, in effect, secret. This isn't a merger, and it's not a negotiation that will affect stock prices. Burying an entertainment product for 2-3 years while selling it is also harming it while selling it.

[blacksly]

Deserve might be a bit strong, but without the fans, you have no one to sell a product too. Leaving us hanging too long with -nothing- to keep the hope going is just not right.  It's torture.

I don't think it's wrong, or torture. I just don't see how it's good business for either seller or buyer, when entertainment products benefit so much from being kept in the news.

[rebel 1812]

not a good way to treat prospective customers.  'You don't deserve to know anything about this product you might buy or the status of bringing it to market';  that attitude will lose customers.  They will plan their money for things they do know about.  I get the feeling even if the deal goes threw next year (based on current pace) it will be a money losing deal.  There won't be any marketing for it to get new subscribers.  Many past subscribers have already moved on to new games, or used that money elsewhere.  Those that are interested have been alienated with the attitude that you don't matter and don't need to know anything.

[Power Gamer]

You are not a prospective customer until a product or service is made available for consumption.

Complaining about not hearing what is happening with your non-existent product or service is crazy-talk.

Its a bit like pulling on the leprechaun's beard so it is length you think it should be. It doesn't make the gold any shinier.
 

[Cailyn Alaynn]

If my chronology is correct, this all started with a leak from someone not authorized to discuss, which then compelled them to respond.

Your chronology is correct, Arcana. Nate's hand was pushed forward by external forces far before I expected any sort of public announcement to be made, and likely a good while before he would have liked.
I don't believe the subject of any kind of formal announcement had even come up in any conversation between Nate and I, except of course the obligatory "Don't talk about it", and then basically overnight that changed.

Since no one's talking, I presume negotiations are still going on.

I would likely get in trouble if I confirmed or denied this. So I'll just whistle.
/em whistles

[FloatingFatMan]

When the news leaked, and Nate made his announcement, we were all given the impression that it was "imminent".  If it really was known to be a long long ways off yet at that time, then that should have been communicated so folks didn't their hopes up so soon.

A simple "It could be a year or more away yet." would have sufficed.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

When the news leaked, and Nate made his announcement, we were all given the impression that it was "imminent".  If it really was known to be a long long ways off yet at that time, then that should have been communicated so folks didn't their hopes up so soon.

A simple "It could be a year or more away yet." would have sufficed.

I know at the time what I considered "Soon" and what a lot of other people considered "soon" was quite different. A couple people I talked to thought the announcement meant that the game being up and running was days away. Soon to me was more a long the lines of several months to get the deal bashed out.
That being said, things have taken a lot longer than (I) expected. Nexon going aggro on NCSoft wasn't exactly something Nate planned for, I'm sure.


Since the announcement, I believe myself and a couple others have tried to get across that these kinds of deals are glacially slow from the end user perspective.
And trust me when I say...knowing the details as they happen doesn't help in the slightest . Lol.

[MM3squints]

When the news leaked, and Nate made his announcement, we were all given the impression that it was "imminent".  If it really was known to be a long long ways off yet at that time, then that should have been communicated so folks didn't their hopes up so soon.

A simple "It could be a year or more away yet." would have sufficed.

For me expectation of imminent once translated to 6 months and some change, so anytime anyone gives me that feeling I always take it with a grain of salt. It could have been imminent at the time, but the internal drama between NcSoft and Nexon  could have made the deal go underground for the time being. There is nothing Nate and his team can do if the deal maker on the other end is keeping their heads down. Lets just say if the person making the deal on NCSoft end decided out of the kindness of his heart screw Nexon and just go with it, what if that guy gets fired for his action and the only line of communication is terminated before a deal is made. This is all speculation, but I assume there are many moving parts that is going on at the moment to just have a clear cut deal.

If anything, you can look at this cat video and think, "man if this cat was the NCSoft Rep, he wouldn't give what the hire up said and just do it"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoUEQYjYgf4

[Thunder Glove]

I was under the impression that the negotiations were effectively on hold while the Nexon/NCSoft dance was going on, so right now, literally nothing is happening.

[Arcana]

My point is that there is a loss of attention, and in entertainment, you almost never want to lose attention (and never when you have a good product). And loss of attention seems like it would hurt both sides. So I do understand how negotiations could continue at a slow rate, and how the NDA can't really decide what "discussion materials" to limit. I just don't understand WHY they decided to go with negotiations that are not only private but, in effect, secret. This isn't a merger, and it's not a negotiation that will affect stock prices. Burying an entertainment product for 2-3 years while selling it is also harming it while selling it.

I got your point just fine, and I still reiterate that this is not atypical.  You're comparing development, where there is a stead stream of news to tap for marketing purposes, with contract negotiations for which there is almost always none.

Also, you're thinking about this in the same erroneous way most City of Heroes players did and do, as a college economics problem.  Why would NCSoft allow the property's value to degrade?  That's a weird question when asked about a company that was willing to completely destroy that property's value in the first place.  They shut down the game.  They dispersed the only people who knew how to support it.  Its gone.  NCSoft may be willing to negotiate with another party to gain control of it, and they are probably willing to play hardball in those negotiations, but the assumption that the reason why NCSoft wouldn't just hand the keys over to someone willing is because they need to recover their value from the property is fundamentally flawed.  Its dead.  It has very little material value anymore.  I'm sure they wrote the whole thing off for tax purposes already.

In fact, the complexity of this kind of transaction, particularly about a non-strategic item like City of Heroes, is something that I really think most people don't understand, and just assume is as simple as whatever they understand it as, and thus wildly speculate as to why its not happening the way they assume.  I've mentioned a few times since rumors of buyout negotiations that this could be a lot more complex than people are assuming.  For example, I was talking about this just a few months ago with a friend of mine who is an accountant, who reminded me that if any components of the IP were fully depreciated and were now being sold, there would be taxable consequences to such a transaction.  Those taxable consequences could be dodged if this transaction were coincided with another one, where NCSoft purchased analogous IP for another project.  Under those circumstances, with the sale of City of Heroes being so unimportant to NCSoft in a strategic sense, its entirely possible NCSoft could include contingency terms in the transactional agreement.  The notion that the negotiations could hinge on a continency trigger didn't occur to me until just then.

Not only would a contingency clause explain the duration of the negotiations, they would also explain why they could not be discussed, not even to mention that it exists.  Because that would then transform the CoH transaction into a signal for another, possibly more secret transaction.

I'm not saying this is what is happening.  I'm saying that if you aren't an expert at such transactions, guessing about the whys of how its happening and the whys of why we are being kept in the dark is futile.  You may simply fail to have the requisite knowledge necessary to make that speculation remotely realistic.  There are probably dozens of totally different reasons why things could be happening the way they are happening, all of them as technical or obscure as that one.  And that's separate from the fact that some people are just slow when working on non-priority tasks.  The truth is probably some combination of many reasons, as most such things are.

[Twisted Toon]

I know at the time what I considered "Soon" and what a lot of other people considered "soon" was quite different. A couple people I talked to thought the announcement meant that the game being up and running was days away. Soon to me was more a long the lines of several months to get the deal bashed out.
That being said, things have taken a lot longer than (I) expected. Nexon going aggro on NCSoft wasn't exactly something Nate planned for, I'm sure.


Since the announcement, I believe myself and a couple others have tried to get across that these kinds of deals are glacially slow from the end user perspective.
And trust me when I say...knowing the details as they happen doesn't help in the slightest . Lol.

back in the day, when I played The Realm Online, they had a given the players a heads-up about something that they were working on and that it would be out "soon". Little did we players know that "soon" was about 3 or 4 years. So, when I hear that something will be "soon", I always think of The Realm, and decide to not hold my breath that it will actually be soon. That way, if it actually is soon, then I'm pleasantly surprised. However, if it just "soon" then I won't be all that disappointed that it wasn't out earlier.

Also, I recall when I was a wee kid, my parents would tell us (myself and my brothers) to wait in the car and they'll be out "soon". half an hour later, they're still "saying goodbye" to the people we were visiting. I learned patience at a young age.