Author Topic: How far would you be willing to go?  (Read 19368 times)

Tubbius

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #20 on: October 18, 2013, 03:10:26 PM »
I would so be in on this, back to a subscription again even with my reduced hours and pay now.

AlabasterKnight

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #21 on: October 18, 2013, 10:53:44 PM »
From a pragmatic standpoint, it depends on who is doing the offering. Trading one overlord for another is no use for any of us. Even worse would be an effort to squeeze every last dime out of CoH fans, which is what would happen with any effort with a pocket book even large enough to consider the purchase.

So it's unfair for a company who can afford to resurrect the game to expect to manage and own the IP they paid for?
Pragmatically speaking, any company that were to resurrect the CoH property will likely have plans on some sort of evolution and need to be fiscally responsible to that investment, hence the question in the first place. They'd might even have to make the product attractive to new audiences and more likely have to develop a sequel.
Any company that could make the deal could leverage the 'full' value. That's a team capability, not a deep pockets proposition.

Quote
The only practical solution would be with a multifaceted company, like Disney or Google, which could leverage the full value of the property.Another game company, it would just be a matter of time before we wound up here again I fear. Even worse, if a company just bought the rights in order to push their own projects or ideas on to the community, like what happened with Mechwarrior Online. Buying an existing IP to then exploit the community associated with it, a shameful act, but all too common.
Right. Because we couldn't expect different results from anyone else.

To take the emotion you feel toward NCSoft and its decision and even how they chose to go about it to an emotional apex as you do is understandable, you're obviously still wounded by them. (The whole community feels this to varying degrees.)

But please, let's not try to use that emotion as an appeal to everyone's common sense here and in the next breath characterize the potential good a company might do as suggested in the original post as being some sort of ominous presence with a devious goal. I bolded all the literal manipulation in your post. Your stated philosophies over at MWM, and the same beliefs that you foster here about games owned by corporations border on political hyperbole and fear speech and the suggestions in this thread spank at paranoia as well. You and Terwyn both know who I am, I know who you are, so let's keep our politics out of the thread, eh?

It's really a yes/no question. There isn't a need for any of this fear tactic commentary to cast doubt on the question.
I'd like to just stick to the topic.

If a company brought it back, they'd have to pay to acquire it and return it to activity. It's a known quantity.
There is no magic wand to wave and get CoH back commercially in a manner that supports community and growth without such an investment. Pragmatic people know this and hence, that is the question.
If a company did, would we as players be willing to pay for it?

downix

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #22 on: October 18, 2013, 11:16:38 PM »
So it's unfair for a company who can afford to resurrect the game to expect to manage and own the IP they paid for?
Not at all, pointing out the sad reality that a company which can pay for such a property may not manage it any better than the current owners, and could in fact make things far, far worse, as Mechwarrior Online demonstrates so very clearly.

Terwyn

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #23 on: October 18, 2013, 11:24:45 PM »
Honestly, if you are successful in bringing CoH back, that's great.

It's the heavily dependence on how it was brought back that leaves me cynical. There's no politics at all involved here on my part. It's the motives of potential investors that gives me pause. They didn't step in earlier, so why should they be trusted?

If you can run it better than NCSoft, you deserve to be able to bring it back.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2013, 11:31:12 PM by Terwyn »
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JaguarX

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #24 on: October 18, 2013, 11:35:03 PM »
Not at all, pointing out the sad reality that a company which can pay for such a property may not manage it any better than the current owners, and could in fact make things far, far worse, as Mechwarrior Online demonstrates so very clearly.
Very possible.


The way COX  turned out, was a random happening of events that happened to fit together well when it was up. From the chemistry to the dev team, to each person that was part of the community the good the bad and the ugly.


That wont happen again. If some company do pick it up, they probably will be looking to coupe the money and I doubt they will simply follow the old COX path as in their eyes, it probably proved to not work, especially a major game company. 2.5 million a quarter or  a year (1%-2% of income) is not even worth bothering with to most major corporations. Most lose more than on every day normal leakage. Thus they probably will try what is proven to bring money in. Which looking in the mmo world, probably is no where near what COX was. Then on top of that you have totally different devs with a totally different idea of fun, game direction and how and what a game should be. Even if they tried to emulate COX it wouldn't be the COX as we know it especially once they add expansion that didn't exist yet. Even with some ideas that have been tossed around in old COX, some as heard were a couple of votes from being implemented or some barely got implemented. Now imagine it flipped around or all those ideas get rejected, and say they feel the game should use more lockboxes instead so they can make more money instead of content.  I can imagine the howls of "This isn't COX!!!"

And lastly they WILL have to attract new players to be or aim to be majorly profitable to justify even investing much more than minimum or shutdown (again) meaning new types of players with different ideas of what they find fun and what they find not so fun. What may be considered popular opinion fun in the old community may be considered outdated and stupid and should be thrown out to the new ones coming in. And since they would be by definition part of the community then, the devs cant say, "we are just going to listen to the old heads always, the same cliques that ran old COX." That probably will sink the game and two create a lot of hostilities in the community  and thus wouldn't even be a fun community to be in. Imagine the way the old forum was in the last three months of COX and imagine dealing with that every day for years in game and out of game except on a bigger scale of us vs them. It's all possible especially when dealing with new people new company new people and new way to gain a big population and money and different vision of the people that is developing the game. Hell, look at the different views of what made COX special even among people who played the old COX. Imagine outsiders view?

In short I think that it's unlikely any buyer especially a major player in the game industry IF they manage to buy it in the first place, would simply try to follow the footsteps exactly as it was heading before it got shutdown and settle for the exact, probably less now, amount of profits that COX was making when it got shutdown. More than likely they will try to figure out how to make more than it did and in their view change what didn't work and add what worked for them in the past for better or worse in the eyes of old cox players.

AlabasterKnight

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #25 on: October 19, 2013, 12:48:33 AM »
Honestly, if you are successful in bringing CoH back, that's great.

It's the heavily dependence on how it was brought back that leaves me cynical. There's no politics at all involved here on my part. It's the motives of potential investors that gives me pause. They didn't step in earlier, so why should they be trusted?

If you can run it better than NCSoft, you deserve to be able to bring it back.

I'm sure you mean "you" in general, meaning some company and not me personally. As far as investors, the game had no exposure in mass advertising worth a damn, so why would you even think anyone knows there is a reason to invest?
EDIT: If you have trust issues with an investor of any kind for their motives, theirs will be simple. They want to make a return on their investment. Nothing more.
« Last Edit: October 19, 2013, 01:26:24 AM by AlabasterKnight »

AlabasterKnight

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #26 on: October 19, 2013, 01:24:50 AM »
...far, far worse...
I don't really see a far worse management scenario that the current state of not existent.

JaguarX

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #27 on: October 19, 2013, 01:28:29 AM »
I don't really see a far worse management scenario that the current state of not existent.

open world pvp and all grind. The time it used to take to get to level 50 street sweeping greens conned mobs if they 10 xp a pop is the time it takes to get to level 4. and one leveling path for heroes and one leveling path for villains to cut down on maintenance and possible bug areas. And only way to get enhancements and inps is by lockboxes and buying keys. :D

downix

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #28 on: October 19, 2013, 01:41:37 AM »
I don't really see a far worse management scenario that the current state of not existent.
Then you lack imagination. JaguarX only went for the most obvious ones. There are far worse scenarios possible.

Terwyn

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #29 on: October 19, 2013, 02:08:03 AM »
I'm sure you mean "you" in general, meaning some company and not me personally. As far as investors, the game had no exposure in mass advertising worth a damn, so why would you even think anyone knows there is a reason to invest?
EDIT: If you have trust issues with an investor of any kind for their motives, theirs will be simple. They want to make a return on their investment. Nothing more.

Correct, I'm speaking in the general sense. And no, it's not trust issues, it's accountability. Their goal is to make a return on their investment, which means that they will have to do their due diligence. I am concerned as to what they would find.
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Golden Girl

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #30 on: October 19, 2013, 02:19:44 AM »
The best way to decrease the chances of it being a trainwreck would be to have at least one senior member of Paragon Studios in a leadership role.
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Tahquitz

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #31 on: October 19, 2013, 02:53:19 AM »
I'm with Downix, it depends on the circumstances at this point.  I would have been more receptive to a takeover closer to the "End of the World". Now that it's been gone for almost a year, I'm thinking a default no with a "But...".
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downix

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #32 on: October 19, 2013, 04:15:57 AM »
The best way to decrease the chances of it being a trainwreck would be to have at least one senior member of Paragon Studios in a leadership role.
And with all of them having stable jobs now, highly unlikely.

healix

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #33 on: October 19, 2013, 04:44:43 AM »
Well, maybe I might be wrong about this...but if you look between the lines of GG's statement, could it mean that she has already such a marvelous being on her team?



Listen to the 'mustn'ts'. Listen to the 'don'ts'. Listen to the 'shouldn'ts', the 'impossibles', the 'won'ts'. Listen to the 'you'll never haves', then listen close to me... Anything can happen . Anything can be.

Segev

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #34 on: October 19, 2013, 10:56:02 PM »
Honestly, I think the biggest "it depends" is on whether or not it's being run as it was, or being changed drastically.

If it's just being run "as it was," that's really mostly a "put out there with no plans for future development" condition. It may satisfy nostalgic feelings for a while, but it would also not really bring in new players. It would be a dose of pain killer for the wounded community, but it would not be a solution in and of itself. That said, it would always be there, as long as it was supported enough (by the players as much as if not more than the new owners) to not be a money hole for the new owners.

If it is being "re-started" with intent to expand it, it's riskier. It will change. Compare CoH on the day it launched to CoH on the day it was shut down: can you honestly say that they look identical? If the game had shut down in 2004, and in 2012 a new company had bought the IP and released the game with everything up through I24 added in, I imagine there would be a lot of people who'd cry foul, that it wasn't the same game anymore, that they'd "ruined" it with the F2P monetization model and all the new mechanics in Incarnate trials and the like. Heck, CoV would still be new (if not UTTERLY new), and there would be outcry of how it totally isn't the direction the "real" CoH would have gone.

 To be fair, any company that bought the IP and restarted it would LIKELY restart it at I23 or I24. That's all ready-made content and material, and they'd need time to familiarize themselves with it anyway. But if they planned to make it a viable, growing game with a healthy, growing community, there WOULD be new development, and it would always be subject to the claims that it's "not what Paragon would have done." Fair or not, true or not (and I think it would be true almost be tautology since it wouldn't BE Paragon running it), it will be said.

If it came back as something to be further developed, it would be interesting to see how well the community accepted it.

I do think the community would be happy to have it back, at first, and for at least a little while - maybe a year or so, before any major updates could be developed and released - we'd "have our game back." It would be up to each of us individually to determine if that's enough, and if what came next was a good change or not.

downix

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #35 on: October 19, 2013, 11:20:07 PM »
Honestly, I think the biggest "it depends" is on whether or not it's being run as it was, or being changed drastically.

If it's just being run "as it was," that's really mostly a "put out there with no plans for future development" condition. It may satisfy nostalgic feelings for a while, but it would also not really bring in new players. It would be a dose of pain killer for the wounded community, but it would not be a solution in and of itself. That said, it would always be there, as long as it was supported enough (by the players as much as if not more than the new owners) to not be a money hole for the new owners.

If it is being "re-started" with intent to expand it, it's riskier. It will change. Compare CoH on the day it launched to CoH on the day it was shut down: can you honestly say that they look identical? If the game had shut down in 2004, and in 2012 a new company had bought the IP and released the game with everything up through I24 added in, I imagine there would be a lot of people who'd cry foul, that it wasn't the same game anymore, that they'd "ruined" it with the F2P monetization model and all the new mechanics in Incarnate trials and the like. Heck, CoV would still be new (if not UTTERLY new), and there would be outcry of how it totally isn't the direction the "real" CoH would have gone.

 To be fair, any company that bought the IP and restarted it would LIKELY restart it at I23 or I24. That's all ready-made content and material, and they'd need time to familiarize themselves with it anyway. But if they planned to make it a viable, growing game with a healthy, growing community, there WOULD be new development, and it would always be subject to the claims that it's "not what Paragon would have done." Fair or not, true or not (and I think it would be true almost be tautology since it wouldn't BE Paragon running it), it will be said.

If it came back as something to be further developed, it would be interesting to see how well the community accepted it.

I do think the community would be happy to have it back, at first, and for at least a little while - maybe a year or so, before any major updates could be developed and released - we'd "have our game back." It would be up to each of us individually to determine if that's enough, and if what came next was a good change or not.
Indeed. I keep coming back to the issues that Piranha Games has been having with its property Mechwarrior Online. They bought-into an existing property, and over the past year have managed to turn what was excitement at a cherished property being returned to life into an all out riot of consumer resentment. What was a promising MMO has turned into an absolute mess on their hands.

And it did so over what are honestly trivial changes to the underlying game, adding a third person camera mode and a cash store option for rapid cooloff. Yet due to these trivial changes, MWO is now suffering a serious cash-crunch as the fans they counted on supporting them flee to alternative titles, or abandon the property entirely.

saipaman

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #36 on: October 20, 2013, 12:30:52 AM »

It's the heavily dependence on how it was brought back that leaves me cynical. There's no politics at all involved here on my part. It's the motives of potential investors that gives me pause. They didn't step in earlier, so why should they be trusted?


Perhaps investors would come forward now because of the massive decline the value of the property.  In fact, the more you believed in the dedication of the player base, the more cushion you have to wait for the value to decline.

JaguarX

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #37 on: October 20, 2013, 01:43:46 AM »
Perhaps investors would come forward now because of the massive decline the value of the property.  In fact, the more you believed in the dedication of the player base, the more cushion you have to wait for the value to decline.

Maybe, but at the same time with the decline in value or not if NCSOFT don't budge on their price or what they, the holder of the property, say the value is, then the value could be $1 in the buyer's eyes but it wont matter if the one that is holding the only one says they want $40 million for it. Like anything. When a buyer wants to dump an item fast, they price it low enough that people are falling over themselves to get to the steal. If they meh either way, they may set a price and wont change it for years. If they don't want to sell it yet, they may ask for some crazy amount knowing they wont be flooded with offers. Kind of like houses. Some people want move fast they sell below what other sell similar house for, if they are no rush they sell at market value if not a little bit more. Then you have the ?make me move people." Usually seen many of those priced anywhere from 2-3 times the actual value of similar houses. The main difference though, as people been saying since the days and after COX, there is nothing like COX out there. Thus, if it is truly the only one, then the one that have the power to say what the true value is, is the seller in this case. It's one of a kind, still in demand with people talking about it. Whether it's about the CoT or other projects, business proposals, etc. that IP is getting more attention now within the past year than it ever did in it's entire 8 year existence. 

People keep saying that there is a ready made community for it waiting and still trying to get it back. That adds great value in anyone eyes and that seem to make it more valuable than ever. As long as we remember it and keep going for it, the more valuable it will be, at the same time though if we give up the less valuable it will becomes and that is when less other things will be interested in buying and more buried it will actually become. Thus, not giving up is probably best even though it is what is holding the value of the IP in reality.  As long as we are here, going for it, the value will never sink. Just need someone willing to pay and a willing seller. It takes two. Hence the key word- Negotiations. Not "give it up or else we'll say bad things about you." That is not proper negotiation.

And keep in mind, people and businesses are more willing to lower prices and more lax with people that doesn't seem hostile in the approach or approaches with both parties in mind instead of what they get from the seller. AKA, they are more willing to be more lenient on the terms and price with friends rather than strangers and or hostile people. Like anything.

If came to a person's house and said you will sell me your house for market value right now! Or I will go to the media saying you are a porn addict and abuse your family and other gossip around the neighborhood. So SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!" more than likely I would imagine, the person probably would look at me like I was nuts, even if they don't even use the house, and probably would say no and not too keen on the offer even if I should up with cash money in many cases. Now if I worked with them be patient and not storm off because they "refuse to sell" and not started going around town saying they are stupid and putting memes up about them online, then when it came down to sell they might even have me on their brain and actually give me a lower price than what I was initially offering. Sometimes the actual approach is more important than the actual offer.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2013, 01:50:00 AM by JaguarX »

Segev

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #38 on: October 20, 2013, 02:07:12 AM »
Indeed. I keep coming back to the issues that Piranha Games has been having with its property Mechwarrior Online. They bought-into an existing property, and over the past year have managed to turn what was excitement at a cherished property being returned to life into an all out riot of consumer resentment. What was a promising MMO has turned into an absolute mess on their hands.

And it did so over what are honestly trivial changes to the underlying game, adding a third person camera mode and a cash store option for rapid cooloff. Yet due to these trivial changes, MWO is now suffering a serious cash-crunch as the fans they counted on supporting them flee to alternative titles, or abandon the property entirely.
...okay, I need to know more about this. How on earth did such minor changes so grossly destroy the love the fans had for the game?

Especially a third-person camera. Just don't use it if you don't like it!

What did Pirannha Games ignore from their customers?

I will say the pay-for-cooldown is treading too close to pay-to-win, but it's still not something that, by itself or even in conjunction with an optional camera mode, should be driving customers away in droves.

JaguarX

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Re: How far would you be willing to go?
« Reply #39 on: October 20, 2013, 02:13:13 AM »
...okay, I need to know more about this. How on earth did such minor changes so grossly destroy the love the fans had for the game?

Especially a third-person camera. Just don't use it if you don't like it!

What did Pirannha Games ignore from their customers?

I will say the pay-for-cooldown is treading too close to pay-to-win, but it's still not something that, by itself or even in conjunction with an optional camera mode, should be driving customers away in droves.

WHat is considered a minor change by some is considered a make or break major change to some.

Like say if COX buyer made a minor change and started to charge real money for the market. To me, that would be a minor change. To others that could cause people to simply stop playing.

Or COX buyer did had a pay to win option, keyword-option. Just like the camera, they could simply not use it, but the fact that type of minor addition might be enough for some to say it's a major change and leave even though they could still use the old way and ignore the pay to win stuff if they chose to.