Ridiculous Question

[LaughingAlex]

I think its fair to say there's little we can do to improve things generally, and the threat of blackmail or the carrot of terminating one would certainly have no beneficial effect whatsoever.  However, whether we can have a negative impact is less clear.  I would say that when you have no upside and an uncertain downside, that's not a recommended course of action.  However, this is in the context of a very public and visible coordinated boycott.  What any individual person chooses to do in terms of buying or not buying NCSoft games probably has exactly no impact whatsoever in either direction, because that act would be financially unnoticeable.

I wouldn't look at finances so much as reputation and the general nature of how boycotting and threatening would give us a bad image for NCSoft and lead them to think "maybe we shouldn't deal with this crowd".

[Mistress Urd]

The only message I can send to NCSOFT is voting with my wallet. Does that suck for other companies under their umbrella? Yes it does, but that's the problem of collateral damage. That's going to be my policy with NCSOFT until I see some change that makes me reconsider that position.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

I'll likely get a little flak for this considering my involvement with Revival. But here goes...

Am I specifically going out of my way to "Boycott" NCSoft? No. There's no real point. The $60 I spent on Guild Wars 2 isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to the billions they pull from Korea, and China. I enjoy Guild Wars 2 decently enough every now and then, and that enjoyment (I feel) is worth more to me, than the money I spent on it is worth to NCSoft.

Boycotting them doesn't help getting the game back, nor do many other tactics people have considered or tried. Spamming their Facebook accounts doesn't help. They simply don't care, and our community is...truth be told... far to small compared to say...the Lineage II player base.

Also, if a large portion of us is being rude and demanding...it does make it that much more difficult for those of us who're trying to deal with them on a business level.

[TonyV]

Look, I know that some people are critical of my attitude towards NCsoft, but the simple truth is that during their negotiations with Paragon Studios, I bent over backwards trying to be as nice as I could towards NCsoft.  I don't have a copy of the exact message I posted, but I was the guy who posted--and took quite a bit of grief for--the message on the official forums that "NCsoft is not our enemy."  I conveyed many times that we the community simply wanted to ensure the continuity of the game, and warned NCsoft that there would be negative public relations consequences if they kicked us to the curb.  I privately volunteered to do my best to help sell more copies of other NCsoft games, and does anyone remember even Mercedes Lackey volunteering to pitch NCsoft for free if they'd just work with us to keep the game running?

After which they promptly kicked us to the curb.

So yeah, I'm not exactly in the most conciliatory of moods towards NCsoft over this.  And while I morally support the efforts of anyone who approaches NCsoft who thinks that they have a new and unique way of getting City of Heroes back up and running, the simple matter of the fact is that the "new efforts" have been ongoing for a year and a half now.  While I know that they have the best of intentions, and I still hope that they're able to pull some kind of miracle out of their hat, how long are you willing to be strung along by NCsoft?  Has anyone considered the possibility that NCsoft is telling people what they want to hear specifically to avoid the PR backlash that was getting out of hand?  "If we just make nice, they'll be a lot more likely to sell!  It won't hurt, right?"

Except that in my opinion, it does hurt.  For one thing, I've seen people beaten up on the forums here and on Facebook for expressing the fundamental opinion that NCsoft sucks for what they did.  For another, if there's no backlash and NCsoft gets away with it scot free, what kind of message does that send to them, and even to the industry as a whole?  That you can shut down games and kick communities that have been loyal and dedicated to you for almost a decade without any negative consequence?  If you want to send that message and are still under the mistaken belief that we have everything gain and nothing to lose by being nice, then by gummy, I won't stop you, everyone has a right to their opinion.  But I'm not on board that train.  And while I'm not actively encouraging people to be rude or obnoxious, I'm certainly not going to advice people against sending a stern message saying that this is unacceptable company behavior, and we will not financially support companies that engage in these practices.

Ultimately, if NCsoft parts with the IP for City of Heroes or in any way decides to relaunch the game, it's not going to be because the community made nice with them.  We've done nice, and it didn't work.  It's not even going to be because of the financial compensation for the game.  They've been offered millions of dollars for it and turned it down.  When it happens, it will be because either 1) they don't have a choice because they're being forced to by a higher authority or due to a dire need for money, or 2) we have a new boss in town with a different vision on how communities should be treated.

And yes, as Codewalker said, I am not with the team that's been communicating with NCsoft since September 2013 on trying to relaunch the game.  All of that is my personal opinion.  You are more than welcome to disagree, even post here that I'm crazy, and I won't hold it against you unless you're being egregiously confrontational.  Like I said, I'm not trying to kill hope here because things will change and as I've said before, they can say no a thousand times but all it takes is one yes.  I'm actually pretty optimistic, but it's a long haul game.  After a year and a half of dealing with them on a business level, five months since any word at all, I'm assuming that any kind of negotiations have at best indefinitely stalled (at worst been deliberately strung out) until I hear otherwise.  But hey... prove me wrong!

[Surelle]

I'll likely get a little flak for this considering my involvement with Revival. But here goes...

Am I specifically going out of my way to "Boycott" NCSoft? No. There's no real point. The $60 I spent on Guild Wars 2 isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to the billions they pull from Korea, and China. I enjoy Guild Wars 2 decently enough every now and then, and that enjoyment (I feel) is worth more to me, than the money I spent on it is worth to NCSoft.

Boycotting them doesn't help getting the game back, nor do many other tactics people have considered or tried. Spamming their Facebook accounts doesn't help. They simply don't care, and our community is...truth be told... far to small compared to say...the Lineage II player base.

Also, if a large portion of us is being rude and demanding...it does make it that much more difficult for those of us who're trying to deal with them on a business level.

Irish_Girl, do you consider as you progress what will happen to APR if NCSoft fades away and an IP deal never happens?  I'm not being disrespectful here, because I truly admire everything you're doing, but I am curious.  What will become of all that work of yours (and the work of whomever else is helping you, if there are others)?  Just because they haven't appeared to notice much yet, they might hear about APR after it launches in one form or another and then serve you a C & D.  I mean, you've even got a public website, Facebook and forums, no?  How will that go over if a deal never materializes? 

I do agree that NCSoft doesn't want some sort of mass spamming like at the closure.  Even though people did this (for the most part) in what we consider a polite fashion, what amounted to initially leaking the higher-ups' emails then bombing them with "we love the game, don't shut it down!" emails as well as mailing capes and masks to them didn't go over too well.  Clearly they were done with CoX and didn't like being harassed about it; unfortunately for NCSoft, freedom of speech is so engrained in US culture that it was natural for us to make our voices heard.

People have said that the South Korean public is also big on picketing, holding demonstrations and expressing themselves when they feel they've been wronged, but I don't live there so I don't know.  NCSoft sure didn't like it when we did it, though.

I have no idea by this point if I23/CoX IP efforts have totally dropped off their radar, or if we were ever really on it to begin with (which even Nate said at the start might be the case).  Either way, though, we aren't going to get anywhere unless they really want to budge.  I'd imagine that, as the years go by and nothing happens, we will figure out the truth for ourselves as Tony said.      Either way, we're no worse off than we were before Nate Downes & Crew began their hard work, we're still grateful even if they try and fail, and hey, at least it has given us the tiny sliver of hope we haven't had in a couple years, right? 

Personally I've never really had a totally concrete feeling either way about what will happen, but common sense does dictate that A.) if CoX was so wonderful to them, they wouldn't have shut it down in the first place and B.) if they wanted it back up, they could have made it happen WAY faster than this.

I just wish they would realize when they do something like look at Wildstar's total bomb here in the west that their own horrible reputation proceeds them.  Doing whatever is most profitable for their company is their priority, but expecting gamers to be a mass of brainless sheep willing to close down one launcher and blindly open the next a minute later with nary a look backward is ridiculous. 

It doesn't seem like NCSoft realizes their actions all have consequences.  Or alternatively, I can only surmise that NCSoft feels the CoX player base was so tiny that the loss of us in other games won't affect them at all.  However, if they would for once glance back at the big picture, each game they've closed has likely had a separate player base for each, and if you add us up together and it's a larger figure than they'd like to think.  Plus, we tell our guildies, family and friends, then the press reports each closure for other MMO gamers to read and they spread the word even further, and so on....

[Cailyn Alaynn]

You are more than welcome to disagree, even post here that I'm crazy, and I won't hold it against you unless you're being egregiously confrontational.

I think you're crazy! ;P
But hardly for your opinion on the matter. I think it's a very valid opinion, I can see and understand why you have that opinion...and you're certainly not alone in your lack of warm fuzzies for NCSoft.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Irish_Girl, do you consider as you progress what will happen to APR if NCSoft fades away and an IP deal never happens?  I'm not being disrespectful here, because I truly admire everything you're doing, but I am curious.  What will become of all that work of yours (and the work of whomever else is helping you, if there are others)?  Just because they haven't appeared to notice much yet, they might hear about APR after it launches in one form or another and then serve you a C & D.  I mean, you've even got a public website, Facebook and forums, no?  How will that go over if a deal never materializes? 

Of course I consider that possibility, and Nate and I have had a few fairly long discussions on exactly that. I'm still hopeful that the deal will go through despite the delays, I am however not naive enough to think that everything always goes as one hopes every time.
Truth be told, I expected to see a C&D show up a couple days after I started talking about it publicly. (Which was just a short time after the sunset.)

Those of us who work on it understand that our plans might have to drastically change, or even just entirely go up in smoke. But we keep working because we love Paragon City and want to go smack some baddies there again some day.

[MaxEternal]

I am not a copyright lawyer or anything, but I don't think you are violating any copyright laws until you actually either make money on APR or have a playable game you invite others to play.   I don't think there is anything illegal about recreating the physical layout of the game.

So hopefully you have some time before someone tries to pull the plug. 

Of course I consider that possibility, and Nate and I have had a few fairly long discussions on exactly that. I'm still hopeful that the deal will go through despite the delays, I am however not naive enough to think that everything always goes as one hopes every time.
Truth be told, I expected to see a C&D show up a couple days after I started talking about it publicly. (Which was just a short time after the sunset.)

Those of us who work on it understand that our plans might have to drastically change, or even just entirely go up in smoke. But we keep working because we love Paragon City and want to go smack some baddies there again some day.

[Arcana]

if there's no backlash and NCsoft gets away with it scot free, what kind of message does that send to them, and even to the industry as a whole?  That you can shut down games and kick communities that have been loyal and dedicated to you for almost a decade without any negative consequence?  If you want to send that message and are still under the mistaken belief that we have everything gain and nothing to lose by being nice, then by gummy, I won't stop you, everyone has a right to their opinion.  But I'm not on board that train.  And while I'm not actively encouraging people to be rude or obnoxious, I'm certainly not going to advice people against sending a stern message saying that this is unacceptable company behavior, and we will not financially support companies that engage in these practices.

Objectively speaking, there simply aren't enough City of Heroes advocates to send any message to NCSoft except minor annoying ones.  As an abstract goal, I believe, and have spoken about, the belief that there exist some social contract obligations MMO operators ought to have (discounting the legal ones) when they create, sell, and financially benefit from social communities.  But there's a reason that threats of boycotts generally fail, and that's because MMO operators, like most game publishers, presume a certain number of disgruntled players will always exist.  Demonstrating yourself to be one communicates nothing interesting to them.  Without sufficient momentum, they don't have impact because they are comparable to threatening to make the sun go away at dusk unless your demands are met.

Whether someone *wants* to boycott NCSoft on principle is, in fact, explicitly a matter of principle.  But if the question is whether it will have a positive impact or any impact at all, I'm afraid the objective rational reality is that it won't have a beneficial one to the community.  That should not factor into stances based on principle, because stances based on principle shouldn't factor in their objective probability of having a beneficial outcome.  If they do, they aren't strictly speaking stances based on principle alone.

[Arcana]

I am not a copyright lawyer or anything, but I don't think you are violating any copyright laws until you actually either make money on APR or have a playable game you invite others to play.   I don't think there is anything illegal about recreating the physical layout of the game.

Technically speaking, copyright law grants to the copyright holder the exclusive right to create derivative works.  However, as a practical matter, no one is generally held responsible for derivative works no one actually sees, and unlike trademark law a copyright holder can selectively choose to enforce copyright (you must defend all infringements against trademarks or lose the protection as a matter of law).  So copyright holders could technically sue an eight year old who sketches Statesman on their bedroom wall, but of course no one ever does that.  However, legally speaking, they probably could.  Copyright law is kinda sticky in this regard, especially because copyright can be selectively enforced so caselaw is often spotty and inconsistent.

[TonyV]

Objectively speaking, there simply aren't enough City of Heroes advocates to send any message to NCSoft except minor annoying ones.

Nevertheless, I think that it's important.  When NCsoft shut down City of Heroes, I'm firmly convinced that they did so with the expectation that few people would care, and most people would move on to other games, preferably one of theirs.  This is an attitude that I think is very dangerous, as to me it represents a fundamental shift in why game developers develop games to begin with and shows a total disregard for how much time, energy, and money people tend to spend on MMORPGs.  We're not talking about a $60 one-off game purchase, but we're being treated as if that's all the game was worth to us.

Maybe NCsoft doesn't care what the City of Heroes community thinks, but I for one don't intend to be a party to what is going on, with publishers focusing on maximizing (not even making, but maximizing) profits over communities.

That's also part of the reason why I think that the MMORPG genre has become so degraded today.  People don't want to lay out hundreds or thousands of dollars and/or thousands of hours on a game just to have it disappear on them.  Weirdly enough, the first generation of MMORPGs hasn't suffered much from the mentality plaguing other companies today.  Everquest is still running, as is Ultima Online an a spate of other games that have been around since the very early days of MMORPGs.  World of Warcraft seems to be pretty stable and not going anywhere.  Outside of those, it's a toss-up whether any game you start playing today will be around in another year or two.

I still keep hoping that a company will come along that has what I consider a community-friendly sunset plan.  Either maintain a single-player version of the game, or develop the server to be end-user friendly enough that when the game shuts down, people can buy the server software as a stand-alone purchase and keep the game running on a smaller scale.  I know that a company that has a plan like that would definitely entice me to start shelling out the cash again.

[FloatingFatMan]

^ I agree pretty much with everything Tony's saying, and I'll add, I'm pretty much of the mind that the so called negotiations are pretty much dead.  NO business in its right mind takes this long to seal a deal; it's rank incompetence at best.

[Solitaire]

^ I agree pretty much with everything Tony's saying, and I'll add, I'm pretty much of the mind that the so called negotiations are pretty much dead.  NO business in its right mind takes this long to seal a deal; it's rank incompetence at best.

I hope your not right, but I'm starting to feel the same way, I know people have advised that negotiations can go on a long time, but it does have a feeling of not going anywhere. We're at the end of March 2015 with nothing being mentioned since last year, people again will mention NDAs, but really what's to be lost by saying how the negotiations are going, just a run down of things. (I know we don't have any rights to know) but considering the community is still here after 2+ years after shut down say's a lot about our cotinued support for a game we all loved. (And would rather be playing than any other game!).

Just my thoughts, have no bad feelings towards anyone, just want to go back to my City.

[Noyjitat]

All of you have gone mad.

The light at the end Of the tunnel just got a little dim. So I hope you're wrong and we soon hear something.

[Burnt Toast]

[MWRuger]

It has been stated, often, that we will be told if the negotiations are dead. Until then, I will wait.

Frankly, the time to make a stink was during the time between the announcement and the closure. We did that. AP33, Masks through the mail, snail mail to Korea. We got their attention, but it wasn't enough. I don't think we can do much to them as our numbers are pretty small and the people you could engage has shrunk greatly since the closure.

If you really want to commit to a campaign you will need an email marketing strategy, a focused social media campaign and events that are not only visible, but also unavoidable. (Holding a rally in an NCSoft game and making clear why we are all there kind of thing)

But it can take years to build momentum and get attention that you need. I have been working an NPO of chemical cleanup that everyone except the polluter's agree needs to happen. The county I live in just won a multi-million dollar law suit against them. We have been fight for 5 years to get to this point. Still not resolved.

I'm not saying it can't be done, just that it is very difficult and the people we could motivate with a campaign are probably not enough in number to be a threat to NCSoft. That's what corporations respond to, threats and money.

Look, I know that some people are critical of my attitude towards NCsoft, but the simple truth is that during their negotiations with Paragon Studios, I bent over backwards trying to be as nice as I could towards NCsoft.  I don't have a copy of the exact message I posted, but I was the guy who posted--and took quite a bit of grief for--the message on the official forums that "NCsoft is not our enemy."  I conveyed many times that we the community simply wanted to ensure the continuity of the game, and warned NCsoft that there would be negative public relations consequences if they kicked us to the curb.  I privately volunteered to do my best to help sell more copies of other NCsoft games, and does anyone remember even Mercedes Lackey volunteering to pitch NCsoft for free if they'd just work with us to keep the game running?

After which they promptly kicked us to the curb.

[FloatingFatMan]

I don't think Nate's lying to us, I think NCSoft are stringing him along too.

[Twisted Toon]

I don't think Nate's lying to us, I think NCSoft are stringing him along too.

For what reason?

[Thunder Glove]

To prevent another PR issue, I'd imagine.  CoH fans are more likely to stay quiet and wait if we think negotiations are ongoing.

There's not many of us compared to some other games, granted, but we're loud, and we have plenty of free time now that Our Game is gone.

[Arcana]

To prevent another PR issue, I'd imagine.  CoH fans are more likely to stay quiet and wait if we think negotiations are ongoing.

There's not many of us compared to some other games, granted, but we're loud, and we have plenty of free time now that Our Game is gone.

That's convolutedly illogical.  If NCSoft wanted us to go away, the absolute best, most obvious way to do that would have been for NCSoft to tell the negotiating team they had destroyed all copies of the server software and source code as part of the shutdown.  Period, end of story, go away now.  That's what I would have recommended, if it was my job to make the CoH playerbase go away.  And I would have done it right from the start.

If they want to avoid a PR disaster, the best way to do that is to have no story at all.  By propagating a fake negotiation, they are creating a story where none existed.  Once you start ascribing that level of stupid to NCSoft, you have to assume its also possible the negotiations are taking a lot longer than you expect because NCSoft keeps forgetting how to communicate in English and has to relearn the language with a Rosetta Stone refresher course.