News?

[NecrotechMaster]

ive also been hearing that the ski chalet might be open as well

i think they havent done the lore thing yet because maybe they are getting close to a breakthrough on the business dealings with ncsoft, but who knows

[eabrace]

I'll have to take your word for it (especially with a link to a post on the CoH boards) since the CoH boards are blocked for me at work.  Thanks for the heads up. 

[Wammo]

Just a thought...

If there is a breakthrough with NcSoft...How would we celebrate? What would you do to commemorate such good news?

[eabrace]

I'm not sure yet, but I bet it would require taking a vacation day or two.

[Teege]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/09/13/blade-and-soul-is-headed-west/

So much for NCSoft focusing on the Eastern market?

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

ive also been hearing that the ski chalet might be open as well

i think they havent done the lore thing yet because maybe they are getting close to a breakthrough on the business dealings with ncsoft, but who knows

Last night at least the Ski Chalet was open on Virtue, but not on Protector. Didn't check anywhere else. I'd forgotten how bad I suck at skiing (grin)

[RandomUnicorn]

Ski Chalet has been open on Virtue since before the vigil, and at that time Protectors was not open.

My guess is that this is not meant to slight to the other servers and may have in fact been a single Dev trying to cheer up the players. I base this on the fact that last week on Virtue I saw a Paragon Studios employee in Pocket D who was trying to keep our spirits up and spawning all sorts of villains (Hami, LR, Nemi, etc) for the crowd to fight. He may in fact have been the one to open up the Chalet. Either way at the time he off handedly mentioned words to the effect of, "he only had the power to spawn stuff on Virtue". If this is the case then it would explain why only Virtue's Chalet is open.

If more details are needed I drop me a line and I can see if I have the chat logs for that night.

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

Eh, no worries anyway, that is why I have characters on all servers. I wondered if it might be that the servers had been flagged to enable the Ski Chalet on the next reboot, and we crashed Virtue when someone was spawning tentacles or something before the Unity Rally Saturday. I operate on the theory that any little things we find like that are meant as fun stuff for the players by devs who care. I've seen former devs say things I was quite surprised to see them speak out about. These guys are the best.

[emu265]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/09/13/blade-and-soul-is-headed-west/

So much for NCSoft focusing on the Eastern market?

Oh that's interesting.  This announcement isn't well timed, considering this was their best cop-out since most people seem to understand that Cities was in fact making money.

[StarRanger4]

Eh, no worries anyway, that is why I have characters on all servers. I wondered if it might be that the servers had been flagged to enable the Ski Chalet on the next reboot, and we crashed Virtue when someone was spawning tentacles or something before the Unity Rally Saturday. I operate on the theory that any little things we find like that are meant as fun stuff for the players by devs who care. I've seen former devs say things I was quite surprised to see them speak out about. These guys are the best.

No... I think the dev's have an I win button that allows them to open the Chalet whenever they want, but it has to be done manually for each server.  And maybe they dont have dev hax chareters on each and every server which is why its only open on some rather than all.

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

I worked on those ski and bobsled track badges for years. Can't remember how I ever got them, pure dumb luck and persistence, I think, and IIRC some of them I still never got. A twitch god I am not. But I love the Ski Chalet. No idea why it seems so charming to me, but it has always been one of the spots that just really sold CoH to me.

[dwturducken]

Not sure where else to post this: My account was renewing on the 10th of the month on a three month cycle.  I was paid through November 10th. Now, my Paragon Points had not renewed for the month, so I went to my account to verify the date, and it now has no date. Not sure what it means, but it almost appears that, at least for the accounts that were VIP on whatever day this new change occurred, those accounts will remain VIP.  Some people have said that theirs had expired after Black Friday, and it really isn't telling us anything unless someone's account was due to expire in the next week, but it's a sign of something.

Just not sure what...

[Ampithere]

Not sure where else to post this: My account was renewing on the 10th of the month on a three month cycle.  I was paid through November 10th. Now, my Paragon Points had not renewed for the month, so I went to my account to verify the date, and it now has no date. Not sure what it means, but it almost appears that, at least for the accounts that were VIP on whatever day this new change occurred, those accounts will remain VIP.  Some people have said that theirs had expired after Black Friday, and it really isn't telling us anything unless someone's account was due to expire in the next week, but it's a sign of something.

Just not sure what...

Probably just Zwill getting one step closer to getting VIP for all turned on. I wouldn't read too much into it.

[emu265]

Probably just Zwill getting one step closer to getting VIP for all turned on. I wouldn't read too much into it.

Yeah, I don't know what to make of it.  It all seems random.  My account was set to expire the Sunday after Black Friday and its still VIP.

[Golden Girl]

This is related to the current situation, and it gives some interesting little bits of info about the scrapped CoH2 and oither Paragon pjoects:

http://unsubject.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/city-of-heroes-villains-there-was-no-cohv-2-0-because/

[emu265]

This is related to the current situation, and it gives some interesting little bits of info about the scrapped CoH2 and oither Paragon pjoects:

http://unsubject.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/city-of-heroes-villains-there-was-no-cohv-2-0-because/

Interesting.  I would have loved to see Cities 2.  Too bad

[Victoria Victrix]

 The best thing we can do is continue to give NCSoft a black eye, not only in the gaming world but in the business press.  In the business press it would be "why would you abandon the Western market with one product that has no real competition, then turn around and say you want to enter the Western market with a product that is fundamentally identical to every other PvP/level grind game out there?"  We REALLY need more mundane press penetration, focusing on the social network/community building aspects of City, and tugging on the heartstrings with those sad stories.  In the gaming press we need to keep hammering on the "WHY would you invest your time and money in Blade and Soul when this same company has just proven it will yank a game that is in the black out from under the players?"

I detect the ungentle hand of our troll AreEss in the comments on both those articles.  Mole?  Or just a griefer?  There are some people who are just not happy until they pull everyone around them down to their own level of misery.

The plain fact is that CoH was the red-headed stepchild.  No attention, no advertising revenue, nothing other than positive reviews in the press.  NCSoft starved them, then cut them off.  IMHO this is proof positive that they don't understand the Western market and don't care to.

[Ampithere]

The best thing we can do is continue to give NCSoft a black eye, not only in the gaming world but in the business press.  In the business press it would be "why would you take abandon the Western market with one product that has no real competition, then turn around and say you want to enter the Western market with a product that is fundamentally identical to every other PvP/level grind game out there?"  We REALLY need more mundane press penetration, focusing on the social network/community building aspects of City, and tugging on the heartstrings with those sad stories.  In the gaming press we need to keep hammering on the "WHY would you invest your time and money in Blade and Soul when this same company has just proven it will yank a game that is in the black out from under the players?"

I detect the ungentle hand of our troll AreEss in the comments on both those articles.  Mole?  Or just a griefer?  There are some people who are just not happy until they pull everyone around them down to their own level of misery.

The plain fact is that CoH was the red-headed stepchild.  No attention, no advertising revenue, nothing other than positive reviews in the press.  NCSoft starved them, then cut them off.  IMHO this is proof positive that they don't understand the Western market and don't care to.

Agreed. There was an idea floating around about trying to get in touch with the Wall Street Journal. I think that might be a good route to take.

Anyone know if someone actually managed to figure out how we do that?

[Takeda]

Agreed. There was an idea floating around about trying to get in touch with the Wall Street Journal. I think that might be a good route to take.

Anyone know if someone actually managed to figure out how we do that?

Tricia Duryee has covered some of Nintendo's business moves at All Things Digital, which is linked to the WSJ, I don't see anything akin to a "digital gaming" section on the WSJ.  Here's her email (tricia@allthingsd.com), I'll leave it to somebody more articulate than I to compose the message we want to get across.

[Knightslayer]

Hearing Tricia makes me think of Tricia Helfer... who's done her fair share of video game voice acting. (and more than voice acting in one of the C&C games IIRC)
Maybe worth a shot if someone wants to contact her!