Voices

[Terwyn]

Below is the first draft of the second entry of the series. I would appreciate a thorough criticism, as well as advice in making it as effective an on-line piece as possible.

I was also going to include what we know as the "Kibun" letter, but since I am unsure of its final form, I felt it safer to save it for later.

Thank you, again, VV, for taking the time to answer my questions. I hope my efforts meet with your approval.

It should be noted that this is only the text, the formatting will be much more professional.

I live out in the country, 20 miles from the nearest small town.  Needless to say, as a liberal female fantasy writer I don't have much in common with my neighbors.  My best friend only has internet at work and does not have chat.  Other friends and collaborators don't have chat at all, or have limited internet.  Virtually 90% of my contact with the rest of the human race comes via the acquaintances I have made in CoH.  I do have some people I consider very good friends, some of whom are also collaborators, who have not vanished completely as they leave City, but they are much, much younger than I am (I am 62) and have lives outside of work.  Often I do not talk to them for as much as a week at a time, and then it is only a few lines of chat.  All I have left now is my husband and my work.  I am feeling horribly alone and lonely now.
As a writer, I am deeply invested in my characters and their stories.  Some of them have made it on to professional prose, but writing is very hard work, and nothing like as immersive as the experience of playing their stories and reactions.  NCSoft is going to do something no one else ever has: completely destroy almost a hundred of my characters and stories.  Legally, that is not a criminal action.  But by all that is holy, it should be.
~Mercedes LacKey

When a multi-award winning best-selling author, beloved by thousands around the world, complains of a terrible loneliness and isolation, something is terribly wrong.
After taking part in a podcast with Mercedes two weeks ago, (You can access it here) I started collecting stories from other players for the purpose of getting a better picture of the player community. I did not expect her to add her own. Intrigued by her comment about the consequences of the shut down, I asked her a few more questions, reproduced below.

MW:  You characterized the consequences of the shut-down of City of Heroes as doing something no one else ever has - completely destroying over a hundred of your characters and their stories. This is certainly not at all similar to one of your books being taken out of print, and is certainly something which likely has never happened before to an extremely prolific author. What should the publishing world think of this occurrence? What measures ought to be taken to ensure that this can never happen again?
ML: In fact, this is vastly more devastating than having a book go out of print.  When a book goes out of print, the author still has a copy of her original manuscript.  Her readers can still get used copies.  And all authors are protected by "reversion of rights" clauses, essentially "use it or lose it" clauses in our contracts that stipulate that if a book is out of print for X number of years (as little as two, generally not more than 5) we get all rights back and we can do what we want with it, including reselling it and putting it back in print with another house.  And, in fact, many authors have done just that.  Or nowadays, as is happening with the Marion Zimmer Bradley Trust, going straight to e-book, wherein all the profit comes right back to the author.  In the case of City of Heroes, my characters and their storylines will be gone.  Inaccessible.  Forever.  It's as if NCSoft willfully came to my house, blew up my computer and burned all my manuscripts.  Personally I think that the publishing world, authors, and game designers should be appalled.  I strongly believe that game designers should also have reversion of rights clauses in their work, so companies like NCSoft can't squat on the carcasses of games like greedy vultures until the end of time.

The very thought of a permanent destruction of years' worth of work is horrifying, regardless of where it may occur. The concept of applying many of the same rules which protect traditional authors to game designers and studios is fascinating, and certainly one which could only be of a benefit. As one who is working on one's own novels, I am stricken with a sense of fear. If this is happening to her, what may prevent it from happening to others, unless better protections are put in place?

MW: City of Heroes has been a lifeline for so many people, myself included, largely due to the strength of the community that built up as a result of the game. What do you think contributed to the existence of such a tenacious and intractable community, and its response to the impending demise of its home?
ML: I think there are a number of factors that led to the development of this community.  City of Heroes began as heroes only.  Somewhere I read a quotation by a famous theologian, that even if you do not feel prayerful, if you put yourself in the posture of prayer, devotion will come.  Even though people might not have felt themselves to have the "heroic virtues," by acting them out within the game, I think many of them actually acquired the heroic virtues.  That tended to contribute to a less exploitative and more cooperative community in general.  City of Heroes also lent itself to extensive roleplay within the context of the City story arcs, and as psychologists the world over will tell you, roleplay can be both therapeutic and character-building.  As a result the game encouraged the building of community ties, cooperation, friendship, even some real-world romance.  In short, for the long-term players, it stopped being "a game" and started having value far outside mere gameplay.  It became our village, the place where we came after work to socialize, gossip, have some improvisational theater, and maybe gain a level or two.  Given the experiences that NCSoft has seen with its partner Nexon regarding Nexon's social game, "Maple Story," where the social aspect is the game, they have to have brains made of aged linoleum to be surprised at the strength of our negative response to ripping our world out from under us.  Really, their stupidity just astonishes me.

Certainly, City of Heroes is a unique addition to the entire MMO genre, winning multiple awards as well as several entries in the Guinness Book of Records, including being the first MMO to use adaptive difficulty as well as being the first to institute a mentoring system. Despite its age, it proved an intractable thorn in the side of villains everywhere, with its cooperative focus enabling its players to develop a unique relationship with the game's developers. Prior to the shutdown, the second player-designed costume set was nearing completion, and the player's input into the 24th expansion enabled many game fixes previously thought impossible.

I sincerely doubt that NCSoft fully comprehends the storms gathering on its horizon.

MW: You've stated that you are not a gamer. What brought you into the City of Heroes, and what did you find to be its greatest strength?
ML:  I have very poor hand-eye coordination (I've been stalled for so many weeks on the early levels of Portal and Psychonauts that I've deleted them from my desktop where they have been a never-ceasing reminder of my Epic Fail).  Solo games don't hold my interest for very long (I never actually finished Myst, pretty as it was) because I want social interaction.  City of Heroes provided my aging reflexes with a game that was not so "twitchy" that I couldn't succeed (and even become quite good at the ATs of Defender, Controller and Tank), and just as importantly, gave me a social setting I simply can't get in the real world.  My equally aging old friends and older relatives either do not have internet outside of work, or don't chat--and live hundreds to thousands of miles away.  My younger friends all come from within the game, where they were impressed by my skills at keeping their characters alive long before they knew I was a writer--if that even mattered to them (after all, there are several billion people on this planet who have no idea who I am).  For me, it was the social context that was the greatest strength--that, and being placed literally within someone else's storyline, where I was "living" it in a more visceral way than just reading it.

Mercedes and I played on the same server. As far as my interactions with her have gone in game, she was just another hero, trying to make the world a better place. I have found City of Heroes to be a standard by which I measure other games. Not in regards to complexity or difficulty, but in regards to its immersive capacity. The ambient sounds of City of Heroes included many things which you would never notice if you weren't paying attention to that made the game's world far more realistic, including dogs barking, the ringing of phones, and my personal favourite, the crunch of soil under one's feet. Over all, City of Heroes is the most satisfying experience of nearly any game I have ever played.

MW: What has playing City of Heroes taught you? Has it influenced your craft in any way? What advice would you have for those who want to make their living telling stories, either through writing novels and short stories or making video games? Do you see any difference between novels and story-driven games like City of Heroes?
ML:  The one thing that playing City has taught me about the craft of writing is that cooperative storytelling is a heck of a lot more fun--and often, more rewarding for both the reader AND the writers--than solo storytelling.  It was in the context of prosing up our roleplay, and then writing stories outside of the roleplay--and then finding the tools to manage true interactive writing--that I discovered that having more heads than just my own on a story generally made it much better and far less predictable.  My dialogue improved immensely.  Writing cooperatively made me sensitive to places where it is much better to sacrifice "my" character's place in the spotlight in the interest of a better story.  I've always had the firm belief that anyone who thinks she is "writing for the ages" had better get that particular stick out of her butt and just concentrate on writing a good story.  But cooperative storytelling really brought that home, and I've thrown out hundreds of ideas and subplots in the course of making those stories a hundred times better because they were about the ensemble, not just one main character.  There are a lot of differences between what a game designer and a novelist have to do, of course.  But I was extremely pleased to see our City writers were creating what were essentially mini-novels, following all the classic ideals of good story-telling.

The fact that it is possible for an author to learn from a game designer just as easily as a game designer can learn from an author illustrates clearly why the community of City of Heroes, including its developers, is worth preserving. I recently picked up the first novel of the Secret World Chronicles, which is the collaborative project Mercedes is speaking of, and found it to be the most entertaining read of any of Mercedes' books. The truth of what she is saying is self-evident.

Never mincing any words, it should be noted that Mercedes has been a staple of the resistance movement by the City of Heroes community, providing insight to both the realities of the situation as well as galvanizing the community with well-timed words of support. She has also made sure that her involvement with this community is well known by NCSoft, sending letters alongside many of the player community. She has given me permission to reproduce a letter that she has sent to the CEO of NCSoft, Taek Jin Kim.

Her first letter contained quite the fascinating offer.

Dear Mr. Kim;
This, like so many other letters, is a plea to save Paragon Studios and the City of Heroes, City of Villains, and Going Rogue games.  And like so many others, I could tell you about the thousands of hours I have spent there with friends, the thousands of dollars I have spent within the games, or even how this game allows my husband and I to "meet" and play nearly every night with my father in law, the retired, and multi-medaled Special Forces Sergeant-Major Jim Dixon.  I could even tell you how this game is the only one ever to interest him.
Instead, I am going to make you an offer.  I am a multi-award-winning, New York Times bestselling fantasy and science fiction author.  And I will offer myself and my likeness to endorse and advertise, exclusively, all NCSoft products for a minimum term of five years and a maximum term of ten years, for no compensation or payment, if you will make it possible for the game and Paragon Studios (even in a reduced capacity) to continue to function, either once again under the NCSoft umbrella, or until a new owner comes forward.
I had in mind something like this:  Advertisements with a photo of myself, imposed over a transparent image of one of my more striking characters, both of us in the same pose.  Text: "I am New York Times bestselling fantasy author Mercedes Lackey.  Creating fantastic realms is hard work, and when I relax, I like to play in someone else's world.  I play NCSoft Games.  Anything else is unimaginable."   The tagline for the ad campaign would be "NCSoft: anything else is unimaginable."
I hope, sir, that I have caught your interest, and you will consider this proposition.
Yours truly
Mercedes Lackey

Estimates of the value of Mercedes' endorsement of NCSoft and its products are difficult to accurately determine, but I believe it would be enough to make any game studio sit up and take notice. No acknowledgement of Mercedes' offer was made. In fact, on October 2nd, as a response to the efforts of the City of Heroes community, NCSoft posted the following:

City of Heroes® Players and Fans,
We wanted to let you know that your voices have been heard and your concerns have been taken into serious consideration. We appreciate the overwhelmingly constructive and positive messages in the emails, notes, and packages you've sent in support of the game. It has not been an easy decision for us to close Paragon Studios® and prepare to shut down City of Heroes. We've exhausted all options including the selling of the studio and the rights to the City of Heroes intellectual property, but in the end, efforts to do so were not successful. City of Heroes has a special place in all of our hearts, and we want to ensure its reputation and the memories we share for the game end on a high note.
Once again, we will be holding events throughout the process of preparing for the game's end, and we encourage players and fans of the franchise to join forces and enjoy their time in a game that we've enjoyed supporting for more than eight years.
The NCSOFT® Team

Sources have reported that offers have been made from two different studios to acquire the IP, and that NCSoft did not respond to either of them, thus indicating that their claim to have exhausted all options is demonstrably false. It is arguable that they did not even attempt to seriously consider the option. Given the estimated value of Mercedes' offer, I would strongly encourage any investors of NCSoft to start asking serious questions.

[Atlantea]

That was a most satisfying read. Well done!

Have you considered getting together with Rae and making any tweaks necessary to these interviews and essays to make them into articles that can be sent to and published by various gaming sites like Rae has done?

[Atlantea]

I saw this comment on your article. I don't know if the poster resides here at Titan or not. But I haven't seen it posted here.

This is incredibly moving. So I felt I had to re-post it back here.

Mike Brafford says:
25/10/2012 at 4:43 pm
This is for my grand daughter who I call Bean.

She is 10 now and has never had a single year that was without drama from a male figure in her life – except me – I am her Papa. She was 1 and her father "dropped" her breaking her right wrist. He left her and mom and moved from Michigan to Texas. She has never received so much as a birthday card from him.

Then my daughter married a guy who seemed a good guy and appeared to love my grand daughter as his own and I hoped against hope as parents do that they would live happy and forever. I was wrong. It turned out he had a drug problem brought about by working in a factory that caused his back and knees to ache. Within a year I was buying my daughter groceries as any money I gave them ended up buying drugs. Several years passed until my daughter saw the damge being done and left him.

My daughter found a new guy who was wealthy and hard working and unknown to us was also an ex-con who was basically insane. He tried every way possible to control my daughter and separate her from her family and isolate her – not all at once but step by step like Worm tongue. During this time he also on a regular basis was mentally abusing my grand daughter. Being called stupid, a loser and every other hateful thing under the sun – took an outgoing 10 year old girl who got straight A's in school to sad loner who was failing 4th grade.

One day while at our house she watched me play City of Heroes, now I have been playing since the game began but she never really understood we were HEROES. She saw me battling a monster and defeat him. For the first time she said, "Can I play?" I said of course and we spent the next 3 hours building a character and playing the game. I watched and coached her a bit and she played. I listened to her laugh – a real from the belly laugh and I realized to my horror it had been YEARS since I had heard her laugh like this and I nearly cried and had to leave the room for a moment.

I won't talk about the way we got the family out from under this monster. I will talk about my 10 year old hero standing beside her Papa fighting back against this live-in monster as she walked out of hell. She yelled at him and told him he was hateful and a horrible dad and that they would never go back to him. I was never more proud in my life of anyone and her spirit was bent but not broken.

My grand daughter then helped us get back her 2 year old sister who had been kidnapped by the father's family. She helped open the door and unbuckle the seat belts, when we had accidentally saw her sister at a McDonald's sitting in the car eating with one of the grand parent kidnappers. I ran interference and she helped her mom get the rest of the family back. Ten years old is young to have walked in the fires of hell and yet this game helped her learn she can fight back and defeat the monsters.

It also showed me the laughter that was missing from her soul and now I will spend every day working to keep the laughter loud and long and I thank this game for as long as it lasts for the bond we shared that was already strong now becoming a thing of legend. She now has a tale to tell her sister as she gets older in how she helped save her from the kidnappers.

I now have a 10 year old who is my hero.

[Terwyn]

That was a most satisfying read. Well done!

Have you considered getting together with Rae and making any tweaks necessary to these interviews and essays to make them into articles that can be sent to and published by various gaming sites like Rae has done?

I am now. ^_^

[Ironwolf]

That was my post from the testimonials page. I cut and pasted it from here.

My grand daughter is now living with us - going to school and even just got an "A" on a math test. She goes with me to walk our dog 2 miles a day now and I am doing everything I can to help her recover from the nasty mess that adults made of her life.

She has a few characters either she plays or I level up for her when she is doing other stuff.

Flying Turd Flinger (she is 10 after all)
BlackVeil Bride
Scarey Clown Bunny
Electric Chelsea
Chelsea Bean

I even have her starting to read Arrows of the Queen!

[Atlantea]

That was my post from the testimonials page. I cut and pasted it from here.

My grand daughter is now living with us - going to school and even just got an "A" on a math test. She goes with me to walk our dog 2 miles a day now and I am doing everything I can to help her recover from the nasty mess that adults made of her life.

She has a few characters either she plays or I level up for her when she is doing other stuff.

Flying Turd Flinger (she is 10 after all)
BlackVeil Bride
Scarey Clown Bunny
Electric Chelsea
Chelsea Bean

I even have her starting to read Arrows of the Queen!

Yay! Woot! That's awesome. ^_^

Although... ooh... You might want to hold off on the third book in that trilogy for awhile... It's very good. But there are some pretty adult and even traumatic themes going on there that might - given what she's been through, be pretty tough.

Then again, it could be cathartic as well. Just want to give you a heads up in case you yourself haven't read it.

[Terwyn]

Please tell her, from one without voice to another, I have heard her clearly. ^_^

[Rotten Luck]

That was my post from the testimonials page. I cut and pasted it from here.

My grand daughter is now living with us - going to school and even just got an "A" on a math test. She goes with me to walk our dog 2 miles a day now and I am doing everything I can to help her recover from the nasty mess that adults made of her life.

She has a few characters either she plays or I level up for her when she is doing other stuff.

Flying Turd Flinger (she is 10 after all)
BlackVeil Bride
Scarey Clown Bunny
Electric Chelsea
Chelsea Bean

I even have her starting to read Arrows of the Queen!

I wish I had her courage at her age. 

[Victoria Victrix]

I even have her starting to read Arrows of the Queen!

I love her already.

But yeah, hold off on the second AND third books.  The trilogy was written for adults so...ahem.  There is sex.  And a lot of trauma.

HOWEVER the new Collegium Chronicles series WAS written to be YA friendly.  So no sex or excessive trauma.

Also for a fun read, Rosemary Edghill and my zombies and Wild Wild West tribute, Dead Reckoning from Bloomsbury.  She's gonna love Honoria and Jett.

I strongly recommend Diane Duane's "Wizard" series--begins with So You Want To Be A Wizard. 

And of course, Diane Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle.

[Terwyn]

I'd like to post the second entry tomorrow.

Is there anything that should be changed or added?

[Victoria Victrix]

I'm good with it, just as long as you guys know I don't think I'm all that and a bag of chips.  Deal?

[Terwyn]

I'm good with it, just as long as you guys know I don't think I'm all that and a bag of chips.  Deal?

I respect you as much as I respect any of my teachers (you have certainly already filled that role in several ways). You have no need to worry about ego-stroking from me. ^_^

Also, I made two changes - I linked directly to the October 2nd announcement, and mentioned that the stock price is down 19% from its position on the day it was announced the game was closing down, linking to the company's stock register via Reuters.

This may be risky, but I do not care. I have not lied.

[Mentalshock]

I respect you as much as I respect any of my teachers (you have certainly already filled that role in several ways). You have no need to worry about ego-stroking from me. ^_^

Also, I made two changes - I linked directly to the October 2nd announcement, and mentioned that the stock price is down 19% from its position on the day it was announced the game was closing down, linking to the company's stock register via Reuters.

This may be risky, but I do not care. I have not lied.

   I think it might be a little unhealthy that way that you were indulging in loud maniacal laughter at the same time as posting it.   That said, I gleefully joined in, but I think that says more about me than it does about you.

[Terwyn]

http://missingworlds.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/voices-from-paragon-part-ii/

The post is now live. I would encourage commentary and sharing as much as possible.

I am hoping that my contacts in the publishing world notice the very alarming information VV provides. That could help us build momentum.

[Victoria Victrix]

Thank YOU my friend.  I'm going to be linking your blog post over on CCCP in the next article I do, which will be about NCSoft's failed "strategies."

[Rae]

Shared with the FB troops, and about to tweet it to #saveCOH :)

[WolfSoul]

Who knew that The Coming Storm (tm) would be the Rise of COH Community?  8)

[QuantumHero]

Awsome project and a very good article...real life has all but eaten me alive this week so I'm just catching up now...but fantastic job.  I just really hope we break through to mainstream soon...we are*so* close I can feel it.

[DrakeGrimm]

I'm good with it, just as long as you guys know I don't think I'm all that and a bag of chips.  Deal?

You are all that and the bag of chips, VV. Not the little ones that come with a value meal at Subway either, I mean a whole big Family Value bag of chips you get at Walmart or the grocery store. You've been a big help with this community, and helped bolster us more than once. You've proven a valued friend, and an invaluable mentor to several of us--intentionally or not.

You're just going to have to come to terms with it some day. The horrible, awful truth, that sits at the center of your being, that terrible secret you silently dread: you are actually an awesome person.

It's horrifying, I know, but I'm sure with time and strong support you'll come to terms with it. ;)

[The_Rottweiler]

Nacho Cheese Doritos, even.