Wow, guess the fire to fight for our game is going out... accept and move on ? Wow... just... wow.
I'm going to take off my NCSoft-hating hat for the first time since August 31. I have a feeling this'll be a long post but I don't really have a TL;DR for you. Read until you're bored, then stop.
Originally I came here to say something short and nasty and mean. The "Grow up and smell the world" comment really irked me for some reason. If someone lives their life and pays their bills on time even when they're distressed about something, I think they're grown up just fine. Being a spreadsheet analyst is one way to cope, but it doesn't make you any more grown up than someone who is just real damn angry about it right now.
Of course, "right now" has lasted for several months. I don't know if I'm doing anything useful for this "thing" that used to be a cool part of my routine. There have been five times (off the top of my head) when I was invited to contribute to projects alongside other people who are very focused on the future. I would have been right in my element. Instead I got cold feet and slowly backed away.
I remember when a bunch of us Earth and Beyond fans were helping to bring that game back. This was way back in the early days, when all of us testers had to use LAN servers and the bug reporting tool was, like, screenshots and the forums. Anger toward EA was still fresh, wounds still felt deep. You were either with us or against us in our
hatred (okay intense dislike) of EA. Bringing EnB back was more than just bringing EnB back. You also had to go post on EA's forums and harass them whenever new games were coming out. We were a little army. Eventually the mods on EA's main forums gave in and we ended up with a thread that went on for almost a thousand pages. It was glorious.
Well, there was a problem. Some of my friends who came over for big EnB LAN testing parties, finding bugs, exploits, fixes--were absolutely LOVING SPORE, and a couple of them still played Ultima Online. It took all of about one night to figure out that not all of my friends were going to join me and my Internet forum army in our EA boycott. Obviously, I wasn't about to choose between some pals I've known for years and my boycott. So I had to shut up about it, basically.
It got worse when I discovered that some very smart coders had become involved with the project; coders who didn't share everyone's animosity for EA, and didn't want to be held accountable for the perceived crime of liking some EA games. But when I say it got worse, I really mean it got better. At some point, those of us with good sense realized that some of these EA fans were working very hard to bring our game back. They were able to do amazing things, like writing huge gobs of server code from scratch.
That probably prepared us for the time when we had to agree on some necessary rules for the forums anyway. As the project progressed, and more people showed up to download the local server, we gained more attention. Enough talk had circulated onto that thousand-page thread on EA's website--something people were repeatedly asked not to do--and we got a couple of pointed mod responses. So it wasn't like we were hiding anything. Anyone could come read the forums. And this is just the sort of thing that happens. Mark my words.
In gearing up for the first stress test on an actual player server, the community was faced with a choice. We could either continue to spit in the face of the publisher who could shut us down any moment they wanted to...or we could show some humility and respect for those who had once helped make the IP and client a reality in the first place.
Most people chose the latter, because having our game back was more important to us than being angry all of the time. So any mention of the publisher was banned from forum discussion for a long time. Some people didn't like the more "rules rich" environment at first, but no one really left over it either; and if you look at that game today and its community, you'll see a dignified bunch of friendly, helpful people. It also forced us to focus on the future more than the past. (And which kind of community would you rather be stuck with?)
Of course, we didn't just go from A to B overnight. The people who come here and defend NCSoft's decisions and possible motives might be doing the right thing for themselves. Well I'm boycotting NCSoft and I feel pretty darn heroic about that too.
But I also know that a big publisher isn't a supervillain. It's not a person. It's made up of many different people and moving parts. Many of those people and parts don't deserve our ire. I don't believe they're all "guilty by association." That would be tantamount to believing that all of those people should have quit their jobs after August 31. For our sakes. Nevermind any family they have to feed.
In fact, after all of this time, we have no idea who actually deserves our ire. There was speculation early on that Taek Jin Kim might have had less to do with CoH's closure than shareholders or Nexon suddenly becoming the largest shareholder with almost $700 million.
On the other hand, there are people here who still feel honest-to-goodness emotional disress about this. Specific facts may never be important to some of these people, all they care about is their loss. We are one big family here, we're all on the same side, but about the publisher, there is going to be division, and it will be strong for a while. We can't all reason it away. We're only human.
But I have tremendous respect for those who are working on spiritual successors, community servers, ongoing efforts to find a buyer, and anyone who organizes something around a group. They're too busy helping each other to bicker, too busy lifting their friends up to condescend down to them. And I believe, just from watching history, that more of us will take up that stance as the months roll on and people get their fire back.
