Light A Fire: Contact Special Interest Groups

[Victoria Victrix]

This is the first of my "Light a fire under NCSoft's tail" suggestion posts.

Many of you have posted in the Testimonials thread about how the game and ESPECIALLY the game community has helped you through problems.  I appreciate this deeply, I understand that you did so under the veil of anonymity, and if you prefer to remain anonymous, I understand that.

However it is time to come forward (and you can still remain anonymous).

It is time to go out and find the boards (and no matter HOW obscure you think your situation is, I will guaran-damn-tee you that there is a support board for it) that relate to you and your situation, and post your experience with the game community on them.  Parents with autistic children, vets with PTSD, folks with ADHD, Asbergers, Clinical Depression, spousal or parental abuse, you name it, if you have a problem there is a support board for it.  Hard as it may be to believe there are actually probably more support boards on the net than porn sites.

Why would I want you to do this?

Because a significant number of those people will go out and sign the petition.  A smaller, but equally significant number of people will write NCSoft and complain.  And a few--but again, significant, in light of how small an effort we actually have going here--will take things further than that, perhaps by generating their own articles, writing to their newspaper, or taking other actions.

This puts NCSoft on the map again....badly.  If this happens enough (and you would be surprised at how small a number "enough" is) the PR firm they hire and pay good money to is going to come to them and say "You have a problem."  If it happens more than enough, the PR firm they hire and pay good money to is going to come to them and say "you have a disaster." 

This lights a fire under their tail.  Eventually they will move to make it go away.

[Segev]

The core idea is not bad, but make sure to focus on the good, not on "NCSoft is a meanie!" While it could put NCSoft out there "badly," and that will get a response, it is always best if, when you force somebody's hand in public like this, you leave them room to save face by going with you on it.

Do your best to make NCSoft able to come off like a hero and a friend-to-all if they work with us on keeping the game going under whatever conditions are worked out. (I have my own preference, obviously, but as a community I know the goal is just to keep it running.) That way, when this is over, no bridges are burned, we have what we want, and NCSoft comes off looking good. This also makes vindictiveness on their part less attractive, since they have something to lose vs. something to gain, rather than simply having lost something and having reason to take a piece of theirs back.

[Paindancer]

I agree, but rather than spending time to demonize NCSoft (as rightly as it may be to do so), I think its better to paint the players in a good light, and let them look bad by comparison.  Dinner for the Devs was great press, and did exactly that.  good footstep to follow

[Victoria Victrix]

Definitely this is an action to yank the heartstrings until the reader runs out of Kleenex.

Since my Google-fu seems to be strong and I think in Boolean, I would phrase my search thusly.

"Support group X" where X = your condition, such as being stalked, both your child's diagnosed disease AND "handicapped child", PTSD, etc.

I want to stress that you do not have to believe in anything that is being advocated on any of these boards, blogs, and forums.  This does not matter; unless you ascribe to what's being said there, make your account, make your post, fire and forget and move on.  Your post will be there attracting other posts, attention, Google hits on searching "NCSoft" and "City of Heroes."

[Victoria Victrix]

Bump

The goal here is to take out story OUTSIDE the gaming community.  This will give NCSoft's PR firm fits.  They will file hysterical reports, making it clear we are not only not mollified by refunds, we are not going away any time soon, and that the only thing that will make us go away is if they play the gracious and release/sell the IP.

[Victoria Victrix]

Remember that you could be helping someone else as well.  "Game Therapy" is only now being explored and could have so many applications.

[SithRose]

Make sure you keep active in Twitter, too - a lot of special interest groups monitor their hashtags, which means if you include that hashtag in a #savecoh post...you might get more visibility out there.

(And bumping this thread too.)

[SithRose]

I've lit a few fires in both the autism and the fibromyalgia communities. (I have fibromyalgia, but it's not as severe as it is in many others.) Spreading the word as much as I can....

[WanderingAries]

I could see multiple personality disorders being easily treated here. :-D

[WanderingAries]

I've lit a few fires in both the autism and the fibromyalgia communities. (I have fibromyalgia, but it's not as severe as it is in many others.) Spreading the word as much as I can....

I was diagnosed while CoH was in Beta!

[SithRose]

I was diagnosed while CoH was in Beta!

I was diagnosed about a year ago. I've had symptoms for over a decade. Wheeeee! Anyhow, back to the thread...Special interest groups. Contact them! Tweet about them!