Author Topic: NCSoft Stockwatch  (Read 714361 times)

Frostyfrozen

  • Boss
  • ****
  • Posts: 107
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #360 on: November 23, 2012, 08:44:09 AM »
Reading the player reviews is harsh on that GW2 event. A new game and the first try at a non Halloween event and people rack the Dev's over the coals.
Makes me think many of them would push my Granny of a sidewalk for walking slow.
( Feel better now thankyou :) )

Kaiser Tarantula

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 580
  • @Nerva
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #361 on: November 23, 2012, 11:53:44 AM »
I see green numbers on NC's price change.  I hate seeing green numbers on NC's price change.

pogoman

  • Vox Populi
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 599
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #362 on: November 23, 2012, 05:33:34 PM »
Blueside, I think the best way to make them keep tanking is another Call to Action. On that note, keep your eyes peeled - the secret project is just crossing the Is and dotting the Ts on stage one. Stage two, well, we'll be needing your help, so keep watching the forum.

Can't wait for stage 2! Keep us updated, please!

LuchRi

  • Lieutenant
  • ***
  • Posts: 67
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #363 on: November 23, 2012, 05:55:39 PM »
I'll be keeping my eyes open for Step 2... not sure if I can help, but if so I will!

Quinch

  • Guest
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #364 on: November 24, 2012, 01:34:14 AM »
Stage one has been launched. Stage two is scheduled for Monday, when everyone's had a chance to recover from the traditional tryptophan poisoning. Keep your eyes on the forums and the news.

Victoria Victrix

  • Team Wildcard
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,886
  • If you don't try, you have failed.
    • Mercedes Lackey
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #365 on: November 24, 2012, 01:56:24 AM »
I think that the GW2 Unrest is explained by this article, which is FAR more serious a charge than some disappointment over an in-game event.

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs.cfm/blogId/1209/entry/24237/utm_campaign/MMORPG%20Daily%20Digest%20Email/utm_source/MMORPG/utm_medium

This also may be the smoking gun that explains WHO canceled CoH and WHY.

The who:  Nexon.

The why: because OUR devs could not, or would not, monetize the Ascendant end-game, turning CoH into the Korean Grind Microtransaction Hell so beloved of Nexon.

Poor Arenanet.  And this does not bode well for Carbine and Wildstar.
I will go down with this ship.  I won't put my hands up in surrender.  There will be no white flag above my door.  I'm in love, and always will be.  Dido

Atlantea

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 877
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #366 on: November 24, 2012, 06:08:43 AM »
Jesus...

I'm beginning to wonder if we've had the wrong target all this time.

And if so, that's just Machiavellian genius on Nexon's part. They get NCSoft to take all the blame and anger and hatred and even have their stock tank while they get to sit back and look innocent until NCsoft falls far enough in stock price to acquire at firesale prices.

Then they swoop in and acquire the IP and rights to NCSoft's library and maybe even resurrect City of Heroes and they look like saviors, until they start monetizing the fuck out of everything like they're starting to in Guild Wars 2.

I'd rather City of Heroes STAY dead rather than poison it's memory by resurrecting it as a blood-sucking vampire version of it's former self.

Quinch

  • Guest
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #367 on: November 24, 2012, 06:17:36 AM »
NCsoft is hardly blameless in this - remember that they didn't really didn't give two lumpy, corn-decorated.... candy bars about it while it was still going.

Judging by their past history, the most likely scenario I can envision is NCsoft hearing the offer/ultimatum/what-have you and basically going, "yeah, sure, screw'em".

Lucretia MacEvil

  • Guest
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #368 on: November 24, 2012, 06:36:20 AM »
Stage one has been launched. Stage two is scheduled for Monday, when everyone's had a chance to recover from the traditional tryptophan poisoning. Keep your eyes on the forums and the news.

Can vegetarians get in on it early?

Please?


ukaserex

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 500
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #369 on: November 24, 2012, 06:36:32 AM »
I have little doubts that Nexon was the catalyst behind this - and it is possible that getting the NCSoft stock price to tank is part of their plan - however, it does sound like the stuff of movies.

I look forward to the month of December to see, once the game is dead, what new information comes to surface.
Those who have no idea what they are doing genuinely have no idea that they don't know what they're doing. - John Cleese

P51mus

  • Boss
  • ****
  • Posts: 205
  • aka Pitho
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #370 on: November 24, 2012, 06:58:09 AM »
I have little doubts that Nexon was the catalyst behind this - and it is possible that getting the NCSoft stock price to tank is part of their plan - however, it does sound like the stuff of movies.

Could've sworn someone on this forum said that Nexon is angry about how much NCsoft's stock has fallen since they acquired a sizeable portion of it.  Can't remember where exactly, and not sure what the source was.

Ammon

  • Team Wildcard
  • Boss
  • ****
  • Posts: 132
  • UK marketing guy and City of Heroes addict
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #371 on: November 24, 2012, 07:51:02 AM »
The why: because OUR devs could not, or would not, monetize the Ascendant end-game, turning CoH into the Korean Grind Microtransaction Hell so beloved of Nexon.
To be fair, the entire end-game of CoH was locked away not only behind pay-to-win, but full subscription.  You had to both subscribe and grind to get all those incarnate powers slotted up.  Unlike microtransactions, where once you bought it you have it til the game closes, the Incarnate ascension stuff would be unuseable the moment you stopped subscribing, even if you'd been a subscriber from the very start.  The ultimate in rented power.

Victoria Victrix

  • Team Wildcard
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,886
  • If you don't try, you have failed.
    • Mercedes Lackey
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #372 on: November 24, 2012, 08:52:39 AM »
To be fair, the entire end-game of CoH was locked away not only behind pay-to-win, but full subscription.  You had to both subscribe and grind to get all those incarnate powers slotted up.  Unlike microtransactions, where once you bought it you have it til the game closes, the Incarnate ascension stuff would be unuseable the moment you stopped subscribing, even if you'd been a subscriber from the very start.  The ultimate in rented power.
]

True-ish.  But if I understand the poster correctly, the way that Nexon works is that you either faceplant a lot or you pay from the get-go.  Casual gaming becomes casualty gaming. 
I will go down with this ship.  I won't put my hands up in surrender.  There will be no white flag above my door.  I'm in love, and always will be.  Dido

Kaiser Tarantula

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 580
  • @Nerva
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #373 on: November 24, 2012, 09:23:49 AM »
True-ish.  But if I understand the poster correctly, the way that Nexon works is that you either faceplant a lot or you pay from the get-go.  Casual gaming becomes casualty gaming.
Having played a lot of Nexon games, this is basically how it goes.  Most Nexon games assume a certain minimum of cash expenditures as part of a player's levelling strategy.  If you don't then you're underpowered, and frequently you'll hit a point where diminishing returns on loot-per-kill-per-death can't fund the cost of your constant deaths, especially if you attempt to solo.

This is a common scheme in most pay-to-win games, particularly of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese origin.  Rappelz, Luna Online, Fly For Fun, Mabinogi, Ghost X, Dungeon Fighter Online, Trickster Online, Monato Esprit, and Maplestory (admittedly to a lesser extent in Maple's case) for instance, are all games I've played that have done this.

Turjan

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 270
  • You cannot kill a dream
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #374 on: November 24, 2012, 04:56:58 PM »
Having played a lot of Nexon games, this is basically how it goes.  Most Nexon games assume a certain minimum of cash expenditures as part of a player's levelling strategy.  If you don't then you're underpowered, and frequently you'll hit a point where diminishing returns on loot-per-kill-per-death can't fund the cost of your constant deaths, especially if you attempt to solo.

I've not played any Nexon stuff myself, and I had been wondering exactly what their style was - that explains it perfectly for me, ta Kaiser.

So basically they're pushers who are foisting drugs cut with bulking agent on you, and after a while the hit you get off them isn't enough to make scoring the free stuff worthwhile, so you have to fork over the dosh if you want a real high. That's...unsettling, to say the least. :o

Kaiser Tarantula

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 580
  • @Nerva
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #375 on: November 24, 2012, 06:23:04 PM »
So basically they're pushers who are foisting drugs cut with bulking agent on you, and after a while the hit you get off them isn't enough to make scoring the free stuff worthwhile, so you have to fork over the dosh if you want a real high. That's...unsettling, to say the least. :o
Kinda, same idea but here's how it actually works.

In a typical Nexon (or hell, any Korean-developed grindgame), it's expected that you'll spend a certain amount of cash on things that boost your levelling speed or make levelling easier.  Stuff like CoH's amplifiers and XP boosters or windfalls.

If you do not buy these things, eventually you'll run up against stronger and stronger enemies, until you reach enemies that take an entire HP bar or most of your MP bar to kill.  You have to rest after each foe, and you've got a good chance of dying in a one-on-one conflict.  Soon after this point, you face enemies of a similar caliber in groups and thus you hit a brick wall.

These enemies are designed with the boosters in mind, so that a player with the boosters will find them a reasonable and rewarding challenge, while those without will suffer.  This is compounded by looot diminishing returns.  If you find enemies of your level too hard for you, you can't go back and fight earlier enemies because they give reduced rewards, until they eventually stop giving rewards at all.  You have no option to counter your lack of power via farming.

Eventually, you hit a point where you are unable to continue without other people carrying you, or purchasing cash shop items to deal with it yourself.  Considering what the communities are typically like on games like this, I can almost understand those who decide to pay up to avoid dealing with them.

Let me use Dungeon Fighter Online as an example.  As you level, and get better gear, the costs of repairing that gear starts to grow exponentially.  There will come a point at which, if you are not fighting enemies well above your level, the costs of repair will exceed the money you make from a dungeon run.  And up until recently, they had a system where you can only do a certain number of dungeon runs per day.  As a result, cash shop items that buff your stats, or increase the payout at the end of each run, or make holding a high dungeon rank easier (which in turn increases the payout at the end), are very lucrative.

Further, certain classes (the Berserker comes to mind), are designed with cash-shop items in mind.  In the Berserker's case, their most powerful skill (Frenzy), has a recoil effect - it saps your health to use it, and you gain health with each kill.  The higher its level, the less health it drains and the more you get back per kill.  You need to max it out to make it useful, otherwise it drains you far too quickly for your killing to keep up.  The only items that can artificially improve your Frenzy skill are only available through the cash shop, or from players who've purchased them through the cash shop.

Colette

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 466
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #376 on: November 24, 2012, 06:33:24 PM »
For those of you who are interested, there're several articles on Cracked.com about the shady ways these games addict customers and milk them of their money.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-borderlands-2-remorseless-addiction-machine/

http://www.cracked.com/article_18709_6-devious-ways-farmville-gets-people-hooked.html

If I may, for the health of the gaming community we really need a name/label for exploitative, pay-to-succeed games like those described above. "Grindfest" implies doing not-fun things to succeed, but games that only allow you to succeed based upon your monetary investment are a new low and demands a new name for us to slap on them as a warning to others.

Moving on, over thanksgiving I finally had the chance to speak face-to-face with a good friend who works in computer games and lent me his insights into NCSoft. I'm confident that he will not mind my sharing, provided I don't divulge the source. Y'all will just need to take my word on it, and I'm sorry what I have to say is discouraging.

He worked for a US-based game company that somehow affiliated with NCSoft. They had expected support in the way of game engines, only to be told, "nope, you need to come up with all that on your own." They got no support from Korea, zero, while the Koreans expected their cut of whatever was generated. Apparently, their reluctance to share anything doomed the project. (He now works in San Francisco. having developed a successful MMO whose name y'all would know. On a personal note, he's also the friend who showed me CoH in the first place.)

His take on the CoH situation is similarly discouraging. Apparently the Garriott fiasco has sparked xenophobia, and NCSoft "just wants the relationship with the west to end." They want to do business now only with fellow Asians. So the arbitrary CoH shutdown and the treatment of Paragon employees is a logical consequence of a corporate temper tantrum. We are, all of us, victims of the messy Garriott-NCSoft feud.

As to the IP, he considers it in character for Kim and company to shove CoH into an archive forever. I think they might even erase the code out of spite. The estimated worth of the game is trivial to them. They believe (rightly) that MMO players have limited time and money to invest, and tend to invest in one game at a time. Therefore, why sell CoH to a competitor who will only draw away customers from their own games? (The fact that we don't give a dead donkey's kidney for their freaky Korean underage hooker martial arts fapfest notwithstanding. NCSoft is not known for understanding the audience, except how to addict and exploit them, and doesn't even want to understand the western audience.)

As to Kim himself, my source says NCSoft's current stock slump stems not mainly from our efforts, but from the company CEO abruptly selling all his NC stock to Nexon. This is interpreted as him not having confidence in the company. It badly screws over his employees who now find themselves holding a depressed stock. I believe this speaks volumes about the man.

All our protests and actions, in sum, have little effect except to make them madder, as they literally no longer want our business. Due to language and cultural insulation, we have little power to affect their bottom line in Asia.

So... the advice we arrived at is to proceed with Plan Z. If we want a CoH-like experience, it would be best to approach American game companies and ask for a new superhero MMO, or build and own it ourselves if possible. Forget about dealing with NCSoft in any way (as they are sociopathically exploitative and callous.) Keep in mind that superhero MMOs enjoyed marginal success at best compared to every businessman's secret, impossible dream of rivalling Warcraft.

In any case, the discussion I had with him indicates that lights-out on the first really is the end of Paragon City, barring a pirated copy of the code on a pirate server. Please feel free to fact-check, as I only have hear-say to report. And sorry to be the bearer of such dreadful news.

I'll conclude by once again cursing Jack Emmert for selling his lovely creation to such wretchedly unfit caretakers.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2012, 07:38:17 PM by Colette »

WildFire15

  • Lieutenant
  • ***
  • Posts: 96
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #377 on: November 24, 2012, 08:21:08 PM »
At the moment, I'm waiting to hear from Posi or Brian Clayton over whether the game is defiantly not going to be sold or not. Given their current position, not selling would be daft when there's still interest.

Undercat

  • Minion
  • **
  • Posts: 31
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #378 on: November 24, 2012, 10:12:36 PM »
His take on the CoH situation is similarly discouraging. Apparently the Garriott fiasco has sparked xenophobia, and NCSoft "just wants the relationship with the west to end." They want to do business now only with fellow Asians. So the arbitrary CoH shutdown and the treatment of Paragon employees is a logical consequence of a corporate temper tantrum. We are, all of us, victims of the messy Garriott-NCSoft feud.

wth? You could almost have copied that paragraph verbatim from a diatribe I vented on this forum about a dozen pages back, but I was later able to find news copy claiming that executives at ArenaNet felt they had a wonderful relationship with Kim and NCsoft, contradicting the xenophobia hypothesis. On the other hand, given the direction that ArenaNet itself has been heading recently, it is entirely possible that the glowing comments I uncovered simply predate a more general "falling out" between NCsoft and the Western market. After all, it must have become obvious to NCsoft that they were going to lose their Garriott appeal long before the verdict was handed down in early October. The loss of that appeal shares a strangely coincidental timing with their closure of CoX and Kim's subsequent sale of a sizable portion of his personal stock in the company.

Quote
As to the IP, he considers it in character for Kim and company to shove CoH into an archive forever. I think they might even erase the code out of spite.

If Korean equity markets operate in a manner even remotely similar to ours, then executive management at NCsoft would have to possess a death wish to irrecoverably mark an asset to zero value without recourse to market. In this country, they would be subject to a shareholder lawsuit, and one for which the responsible individuals might be held personally liable. Executives of public corporations have a fiscal duty to protect the interests of their shareholders. For management to refuse a buyout offer they feel to be insufficient is one thing; indeed, even if they make decisions that ultimately harm their investors, it may still not constitute tort if their actions were performed in good faith. But for them to simply destroy value out of spite or gross negligence would be quite another matter.

Yet, in the end, I agree that nothing done by this community is likely to have the slightest influence on NCsoft whatsoever. We are simply too small. They probably correctly assume that a majority of online gamers possess rather Machiavellian personalities---young, self-interested and fairly ruthless. There will not be an exodus from their other games over the closure of CoX. Most players of these other games could give a rat's exhaust pipe about the fate of any game they aren't personally invested in, even if it presages an incident that may affect their own pet universe in the future. Do you see GW2 players flocking to our cause in droves? No. What about Aion players? No.

Why should NCsoft care if 3 percent of their (former) customers hate them? Why should they care when these (former) customers squawk if no one else is listening? If, by now, we had mobilized half of their total audience to support our cause (say, by sympathetically logging out for a month), I assure you that NCsoft would be doing everything humanly possible to restore CoX to permanent service. That hasn't happened. It won't happen. They know it. That's why they don't care: there's always a fresh supply of disinterested chumps coming down the pike to keep the use-and-discard business model going. Once any particular batch of marks get screwed and boycott, the next chumps will already be lining up. It may not be flattering, but provided you steer clear of religious or political issues, it is largely accurate.

Yet the days of that abusive model are numbered. The stranglehold that large publishers have held on the gaming market is evaporating before our eyes. Established game production personalities are becoming cognizant of the potential to raise millions of dollars via social funding systems, like Kickstarter; and the plethora of low-cost development tools that are becoming available, coupled with direct-to-consumer digital distribution systems, threaten to marginalize publishers even further. Why spend $60 on some big-name box that, as often as not, turns out to be generic crap when you can roll the dice on 4-6 smaller Kickstarter projects instead? Or even just wait six months to let the wheat separate from the chaff? Why spend $60 on some dumbed-down, bubble-headed eye candy game when you can pick up six or more classic titles for the same fee? The games on offer at places like gog.com may not sport quite the pulchritude of their dermatologically-perfect competitors, but they often exhibit more substance in five minutes of gameplay than their newer kin can claim in a start-to-finish play-through.

Game production is following a trend started by laser printers, digital audio recorders, CMOS video cameras and Internet blogging software: democratization via commoditization. I have watched the price of gigabit colocation drop from tens-of-thousands-of-dollars down to about $1200/mo. Hell, in Missouri the cost of a gigabit connect to your home is less than $100 from Google fiber. Coupled with continuing trends in CPU core density and better parallelizing compilers, the days of the $100 million+ MMO run by "me-too" companies chasing Blizzard's tail may be numbered. A few years ago, I would have called Project-Z an exercise in denial; today, I consider it more a potential hallmark of the future.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2012, 02:56:06 AM by Undercat »

Colette

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 466
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #379 on: November 24, 2012, 10:41:52 PM »
"You could almost have copied that paragraph verbatim from a diatribe I vented on this forum about a dozen pages back..."

Then please consider it confirmation from someone who has actually seen NCSoft's way of doing business up close.

"I was later able to find news copy claiming that executives at ArenaNet felt they had a wonderful relationship with Kim and NCsoft."

Yeah, I'm sure Paragon Studios had a "wonderful relationship" with NCSoft right up until....

"If Korean equity markets operate in a manner even remotely similar to ours, then executive management at NCsoft would have to possess a death wish to irrecoverably mark an asset to zero value without recourse to market."

"...not selling would be daft when there's still interest."

I really hope you're both right, obviously. I am simply relaying the assessment of my good friend in the business. He feels it's more probable NCSoft wants CoH to die. Consider the bad PR the CoH community represents to them.

"...the days of that abusive model are numbered."

Ultimately, the days of any abusive business model are numbered.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2012, 10:55:53 PM by Colette »