Author Topic: Aeria Games  (Read 29059 times)

Armeros

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Aeria Games
« on: January 12, 2014, 06:58:07 PM »
Good afternoon, all.  I was messaged on Facebook by Devon Reynolds who is a member of the Save City of Heroes Facebook page.  He sent out a message to Aeira Games in regards to seeing if there was interest in trying to save City of Heroes.

This is what he wrote to them:

Is the company interested in buying a superhero MMORPG called City of Heroes from NCsoft? It's Free 2 Play and it can be added to the fantasy or action categories. City of Heroes was the most popular MMORPG and has been around for 8 years until NCsoft shut it down on November 30th, 2012. It's been over a year now and the fans are putting an enormous effort to bring back City of Heroes. Just to let you know that City of Heroes was more than just a game. The CoH community has called the game our "Home". People literally had marriages from the game. We loved City of Heroes so much that we got inspired from it. We actually made a City of Heroes documentary on YouTube.  City of Heroes had made our community kept close to our friends and family across the world. When NCsoft laid off Paragon Studios the developers of City of Heroes, the community felt so sorry for them we raised money to buy dinner for them before losing their job. I'm just asking to talk to the CEO of Aeria Games about this email I just sent and try to convince NCsoft to sell City of Heroes. Give some time to think about it. I'm very serious about this. Our die-hard City of Heroes fans will be VERY happy to see our game come back. Also Happy New Years!!!!!!!!!

He received a standard response:

Thank you for contacting us.

This is their mailing address:
Aeria Games & Entertainment, Inc.
P.O. Box 4762
Santa Clara, CA 95056-4762

http://www.aeriagames.com/

Best method of communication will be snail mail.  According to Devon, they don't monitor e-mails, he does not know why.

Just providing this information for you all.  As usual, it's a long shot...but any shot is better than none.
Thank you and I wish you all a wonderful 2014!

Tubbius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2014, 07:43:03 PM »
Tough call on this one.  Didn't Aeria have Gunz Online after Maiet had it, or was it the other way around?  Or am I mistaken?

Either way, if they were to pick up City of Heroes somehow, they would certainly have a gem in their crown that would be significantly different from anything else they offer under their PC Games.  Of their main showings, it seems that Age of Conan: Unchained is their one BIG thing here.

Anyone know Aeria's track record?

I'm not certain that Mr. Reynolds would be able to get a CEO to talk to him out of the blue, but this might give Task Force Hail Mary one more target to aim at, at least, should they choose to do so.

Reckon we'll wait and see.

Blondeshell

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2014, 08:05:48 PM »
Of their main showings, it seems that Age of Conan: Unchained is their one BIG thing here.

I'm pretty sure Age of Conan is run by Funcom, the same company that makes The Secret World.

Aeria Games just offers AoC through their gaming portal, similar to how Steam operates.

For an example of a natively-developed MMO from Aeria, check out Scarlet Blade.

Dasher

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2014, 10:28:38 PM »
I'm in for writing letters, snail mail or otherwise, and any other support this needs that I can give.

LaughingAlex

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2014, 10:38:41 PM »
I'm pretty sure Age of Conan is run by Funcom, the same company that makes The Secret World.

Aeria Games just offers AoC through their gaming portal, similar to how Steam operates.

For an example of a natively-developed MMO from Aeria, check out Scarlet Blade.

Scarlet blade is actually half the source of my skepticism towards Aeria, because the game, I hate to say it but it was trying to sell itself on NSFW almost entirely.  What kind of developer would they get on CoH, to me, is what'd matter.  If they are willing to take the approach the good modern developers are approaching mmorpgs(getting away from the holy trinity, and focusing on fun and whatnot rather than hardcore grind trapping) that'd be one thing but are they capable of doing that?  Would they learn what city of heroes was strong at and focus on that, or turn it into a korean grind?  Thats my question for this, I appreciate the idea, go figure, if they are willing i'd be willing to give them a shot, as long as they are smart about it.  I believe companies can change, so this could be an opportunity for them.  Heck, they may have learned from the mistakes of scarlet blade due to it's horrible performance.
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.

Harpospoke

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2014, 11:52:08 PM »
There is something ironic about a gaming company preferring snail mail.   You would think such an organization would be AHEAD of the curve instead of a decade behind.    :P

LaughingAlex

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2014, 12:41:03 AM »
There is something ironic about a gaming company preferring snail mail.   You would think such an organization would be AHEAD of the curve instead of a decade behind.    :P

Thats the problem with 99% mmo developers and publishers.  Why else do they make the same game over and over where you need a healer for everything, it's a repetitive take one guy on at a time by pulling him grind, and everythings only end game?
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.

Gleech

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2014, 01:40:56 AM »
Aeria games left a bad taste in my mouth, but it wasn't necessarily their fault...

They use to publish a game called Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine. It's a really cool game, it still exists too (just not published by Aeria). My friend and I were REALLY far, and had so much stuff (Stuff that is extremely rare and is mostly unobtainable). Suddenly, Aeria handed off the game to another company (At least they didn't trash it like NCSoft and CoH). That's not the problem... The problem is that once they did so, all of our stuff was gone. They didn't transfer characters and accounts, and claimed you had to transfer within a period of time (which was like, a month) in order to keep your characters. As far as my friend and I are aware, we never received emails informing us of this serious notice. So we lost all our stuff and both companies are being stubborn about it.

Now just imagine if that happened to CoH. "You lost your 100 level 50's and all your purples and everything? Too bad. :)"
(Though it was really the second publisher that acted like that. Aeria banned my account for no reason and when I got it back they claimed someone used it for illegal cash-shop money sales or something... o_O)

Anyway besides that I have no problems with Aeria.

Aviticus Gladius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #8 on: January 13, 2014, 02:13:34 AM »
It's great to see all the efforts made by our community to save City of Heroes. I happen to have a business relationship with Sun Hyunsun Cho, Director of Business Development for Aeria Games. He and I discussed business for my personal MMO project before I decided on a self-publishing path. Aeria Games is always open to acquiring profitable products, but the issue in this case isn't really about Aeria Games acquiring CoH, it's about NCSoft's willingness to sell.

For those not familiar with my older posts around the different CoH social outreaches, and here on the Titan Network forums, I have a sister who's a well-connected business manager. She revealed some of her findings to me a few months ago that put so much into perspective for me and shed some light on this matter. For the sake of not compromising my sister or her business relations, I'll point out a few things that should help everyone put this into perspective. This will take a bit of research on behalf of anyone that wants to be more informed. Investigate these conditions and I'm sure you'll have an idea of what I was told:

1) Find information on NC Interactive and their location
2) Investigate new business taxes in that state and when they were set to take effect
3) Investigate what businesses that were still active during that window would owe, in regards to taxes
4) Compare the relationship between Paragon Studios and NC Interactive and gain an understanding of their subsidiary policy

Once you combine all your findings, you'll have a broader understand exactly what is going on here. There is a reason why City of Heroes wasn't sold and a reason why the studio close at precisely the time it did. Remember how suddenly we all got the shutdown warning, with no explanation, and how quickly things progressed? That's just not how MMORPGs come to a close. Another thing I didn't point out is that you must also recognize the "fiscal year" in your conclusion. So much could be said here, but I'll just let you all come up with your own conclusion. Based on what I was told, I have no doubt in my mind that NCSoft plans to reestablish NC Interactive, and reboot City of Heroes. I was even told that a fully playable version of City of Heroes' second iteration was in there possession, and I believe in my sources. If you dig deep enough, you'll find information from various businesses that offered NCSoft outrageous amounts of money to obtain the IP, but it was never sold. As much as a lot of us hate NCSoft for its abrupt closing of CoH, I honestly believe that a strong majority of us would jump right back in if they opened it up again; I can say that I would, though I'd only play for free this time around based on principle. I'm sure they feel this way as well, and sadly, that's their advantage. Countless friends of mine that played told me they would join again even if it was under NCSoft.

It sucks, but to many of us it was more than just a game and definitely not something worth side-stepping due to it's publishing entity. I would definitely have reserved concerns regarding to dedication, but I'd still be an active participant.

Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble on so much, but I thought I'd at least share information I'd acquired over the last few months in regards to CoH's potential selling. I'll message Mr. Cho, to share my opinion, but I'm certain NCSoft is holding on to their product with plans to relaunch it in the near future.

Aviticus Gladius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #9 on: January 13, 2014, 02:21:05 AM »
One of the things that turned me off about them Gleech, well-said. Research what they did with Waren Story. Even MMOHut had a huge article and video segment where they address how one moment it was in beta, being highly-promoted and played, and then it completely vanished from their line-up with no notice whatsoever. These publishers have to show more concern for their biggest investors.... the players. I aware that businesses have to make money to operate, but wow... can you at least make it look like you care about how we feel in regards to shutting down titles? At least say, "Unfortunately this is no longer a viable financial source of revenue for our business, and we have to pursue other ventures." I'd just like some kind of closure after spending money and investing time in a product.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2014, 02:55:02 AM by Aviticus Gladius »

Ironwolf

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #10 on: January 13, 2014, 09:21:49 PM »
1. NC Interactive - Austin TX
2. $1 BILLION in taxcuts for businesses in 2013 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/27/usa-taxes-texas-idUSL2N0E80SS20130527
3. this shows no hiring for future development of games by NCSoft in America. Carbine and Arenanet are hiring gaming postions but not NCSoft. http://us.ncsoft.com/en/jobs/

Can you elaborate on your posting? The taxes in California where Paragon Studios was at have changed? You couldn'ty move the studio to Texas and take advantage of the cut taxes? It was smarter to axe the game?

I am trying to understand why shutting the game and losing about $700k a month was the best business decision available.

The only possible thing I could see is a timebomb built into the NCSoft/Cryptic/Marvel deal if that had been the case then Jack Emmert certainly would have known that and his comments about shutting City of Heroes down would have made zero sense.

Alpha Series

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #11 on: January 14, 2014, 01:26:25 AM »
Thanks for your post, Aviticus. That is some really wild stuff. Makes you just want to virtually punch someone for being a tight fisted child with a really strange set of values. Wow...if this is the way it all went down, that is some very twisted logic. Of course, it all makes perfect sense in the "business" world, I suppose. Anyway, I glad you posted that info. I would go back and play as well, but no more pay to play to that unnamable corporation. I really miss CoH and would sign up in a minute to play with my friends again. But my money is gonna be spent on Valiance, City of Titans, and Heroes and Villains. And SCORE, of course. Thanks to all you unsung heroes who are not only holding the Torch, but turning it into a fusion source for the whole planet to see. I wish you all well!

Sincerely, Rail Gun. Level 50 Energy Blaster.
"You've started an interstellar war!" "No, I didn't start it. But I'm liable to finish it."

Aviticus Gladius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #12 on: January 14, 2014, 01:44:59 AM »
Ironwolf, based on what I was informed, it was a new tax implementation, which would have been a tax application/increase not a tax withholding/omission. A new tax increase was set to be implemented at the start of the fiscal year, yet the bill had been circulating for a while before it was officially passed. However, it left a blanket of implementation to give businesses an opportunity to prepare for it after it was passed. I'm not going to definitively accuse the company of trying to avoid this tax burden, but both I and my sources believe that. You can look at it from many different angles, but to me, it seems like an accurate assumption. For a company such as NCSoft that would cost tens of millions of dollars extra, each year. That's practically the amount of money that is used to develop an MMO, so in my opinion, it's a perfect reason to try to avoid this tax.

AlphaFerret

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #13 on: January 14, 2014, 02:08:07 AM »
If there is a relaunch by NCSoft, sadly enough, I will be there day one with payment in hand.  It would be impossible to stay away...

Beltor

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #14 on: January 14, 2014, 03:03:23 AM »
If NC was/is planning to do anything with NC Interactive, they're being lazy about it. The site for Blade and Soul hasn't been changed at all since December 5 2012.
 As for Aeria. They seem to focus more on selling things on the item shop than keeping the game fun. I can understand needing the shop to fund their games but they don't seem to care if it unbalances game play. Scarlet Blade was actually pretty fun once if you can get past the T&A but the item shop destroyed it. Most of their GM's seem pretty nice and helpful though. Aeria's actions with player input have been lacking but they may be trying to change that.

Aviticus Gladius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #15 on: January 14, 2014, 03:21:55 AM »
AlphaFerret, I'm right there with you. If I stopped playing games just to avoid supporting a company I didn't like, I'd probably have 2-3 games in rotation right now. It's one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations.... no real simple way to approach the matter.

Beltor, I agree with you 100%. One of the reasons I stopped pursuing a partnership with them was due to the fact that they referred to my product as "too unique and unconventional", saying that "it's outside the standard MMO convention". Something that I took to mean, we're not interested in going outside our proven practice to try to do something more unique and interesting. There is no denying that these companies need to earn money to keep these products persistent and functional, but there is a way to profit from MMOs without draining players with microtransactions.... I mean this method of funding only saw a surge in implementation 6-7 years ago. A decade ago, MMOs were well funded by subscriptions; case in point... hmmm City of Heroes haha.

I'd hate to see there monetization process with CoH in hand. It would probably degrade the overall gameplay and compromise our old environment.

Drauger9

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #16 on: January 14, 2014, 09:38:57 AM »
Quote
If there is a relaunch by NCSoft, sadly enough, I will be there day one with payment in hand.  It would be impossible to stay away...

Same here and atleast if I got all my 50s back. It'd take some of the sting away....

Quote
Based on what I was told, I have no doubt in my mind that NCSoft plans to reestablish NC Interactive, and reboot City of Heroes. I was even told that a fully playable version of City of Heroes' second iteration was in there possession, and I believe in my sources.

I really hope your sources are right. I'd love to play CoH2 and if it was sub based. Then I guess if both where up and running I'd be paying two subs. LOL!

It's just there's still a part of me that thinks. With ALL the backlash that NCSoft has suffered and is still suffering. You'd think that they'd find away to leak something to let us know. "Sorry guys didn't mean to screw you over." "Here's a sneak peak of how we're going to make up for it."

I mean, they could of hired a web site designer. Said "Hey, while your making that web page could you kinda slip this image in there." "Leave it up for 29 hours and then take it off." Something, anything to give some kind of indication, something hush hush was going on. Hell they could of done it on the Going Rogue website right before everything went down or something....

We have a very smart and resourceful community (I'm sure they've figured that out by now).They wouldn't have to leak much for us to get the hint. :P

 




 


Thunder Glove

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #17 on: January 14, 2014, 10:03:30 AM »
It really seems like a bizarre idea to make a CoH2 without anyone involved from CoH itself.  Bringing a bunch of complete strangers on board to make something (probably a generic WoW clone in disguise, like DCUO) with the CoH name slapped on is not going to bring me back.  Keeping it a secret for more than a year is also a very dumb way to go about it.

Aviticus Gladius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #18 on: January 14, 2014, 02:14:33 PM »
Drauger, I know what you mean. I'd hope they found a way to preserve the data from the original. Though I only had 2 toons and rarely ever played with the other, it would be nice to have them both back. However, most MMOs don't do that kind of thing. Lineage/Lineage II, Everquest/Everquest II, being a few examples. They usually make you start from scratch, so I wouldn't expect jump into the game with a level 50.

Thunder Glove, from what I was told the in-house CoH successor was in development before CoH's shutdown; with NDAs you wouldn't expect to hear developers talking about it either. NDAs are usually indefinitely binding, so even after a game shutdown, you wouldn't expect to hear former employees discuss matters that rest behind them. I'd heard a few rumors about it, but it's highly likely that they were true. I'm hopeful that if this iteration is ever brought to light that they will involve, or attempt to reestablish the original development team. As you said, it really couldn't be the same without them. Unless, of course, that iteration is a mechanical replica with updated visuals.

Anyway, I sent Mr. Cho a message informing him of the efforts going on. I'm never one to be negative, so I hope they can get something brewing, even if it means pushing NCSoft to make some kind of public announcement about the project and it's potential re-up. If he replies, I'll definitely post an update here.

Thunder Glove

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #19 on: January 14, 2014, 03:02:38 PM »
The developers were quoted as saying that CoH2 was something that they wanted to do, but NCSoft wouldn't let them.  The projects that Paragon were said - again, by the devs themselves - to be working on when the studio was closed were not follow-ups to CoH, but entirely different games in different genres (one was a squad-based MOBA, the other a "survival" game).

So if there was, in fact, a CoH2 project being worked on that everyone had been keeping quiet about (and which the devs would have had to outright lie about, which is not like them and is not required by any NDA in existence), I don't know how I feel about that at all, other than "not good".

Aviticus Gladius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #20 on: January 14, 2014, 03:50:21 PM »
Yea I'm sure those developers weren't a part of it, because if they were they would just not have commented on it at all. I'm hopefully waiting, and expecting to hear something in 2015 at the earliest.

Drauger9

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #21 on: January 14, 2014, 04:08:48 PM »
Wasn't Positron over seeing acouple of game's before the end? Maybe he was one of the few involved in CoH2 (if it was being made) so maybe most of the original devs. Didn't know anything about it? Since I'd imagine having one dev team keep a game up to date and create a whole other one. Would be a huge task, maybe the majority was keeping CoH running. While a different dev team was making CoH 2, just having Posi and a few others over seeing it. To make sure it stayed true to the CoH spirit?

Quote
Keeping it a secret for more than a year is also a very dumb way to go about it

Well if what I'm assuming from Aviticus's insinuations is true. I can see why they'd keep it secret for a year and maybe alittle more. Atleast until they can figure out a way to bring it back with out looking suspicious. The only thing is, the longer they silently wait. The more discontent grows and who knows. Two years, three years from now, if they brought CoH back the community might be so bitter. They might not ever return. That's why I find it odd, they haven't leaked anything, if the rumors are true. Like I said, they wouldn't have to leak much for this community to figure it out.

Aviticus Gladius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #22 on: January 14, 2014, 05:49:53 PM »
Yea Drauger, they wouldn't just drop a title while it was in it's publication cycle just to start a team on another title. Not to mention there would have been 5-6 more years of development left for the new iteration. To be accurate, the entire time one game would be in development, another team would have to be working on the sequel, for potential over half a decade. The average MMO development cycle for a fully funded MMO with 50-100 million, for 6 years of development. So yes, it makes sense that some of the original developers may not have been involved; especially since they were already working on 2 games at once (CoH/CoV). I've actually watched some video blogs where Matt Miller talked about how he wishes CoH was designed with the cooperative villain elements from the beginning. Sadly, he even said it was as if they were working on 2 separate titles.

Azrael

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #23 on: January 14, 2014, 09:14:17 PM »
Intrigue abounds.

Interesting information from Aviticus on the business decisions behind NC's closure of the Paragon Studio and Coh.  If you're suddenly hit with tens of millions of tax burden on the horizon I can see how that could torpedo something that was marginally profitable (keeping in mind Paragon were working on two other projects and that must have been eating money...)

It seems that 2015 will be like some alignment of planets with H&V, Valiance, CoT, SCORE...  And if there's any truth to Coh 2(!) then it should break cover eventually?  I have my doubts about the latter.  But having said that, Gladius' info' on the closure sounds plausible and if you 'do it right' 100K worth of subscribers is a decent base of subscribers to build on for any potential relaunch.  Would 'ill will' matter then?

As for Coh/CoV.  Duplication and expensive duplication of efforts at that. CoV should have been(!) Coh 2.  Updated engine, maps and challenges and an end game.  (Along with the dreadful incarnate system...) resources were spent on stuff that only took the game sidewards or had it spinning it's wheels.  i.e. 'Same old.'  Coupled with C.O seemingly being worked on in secret while Coh seemed to grind to a halt before the sale to NC Soft...  Even Cryptic couldn't give us Coh '2'...so I don't have high hopes that NC can.  Unless they just update the graphics engine.

I'd settle for the same mechanics but with an updated graphic engine across the board.  But if Coh '2' was just modelled on grind to end game grind some more riddled with instore payments and anaemic gameplay I'd be out.

It's possible any project can be done in secret.  Score is?  CoT aren't talking much?  H&V are keeping their cards close to their chest to a degree.  Only Valiance seems to be transparent about their objectives on pre-alpha feedback. 

Interesting thread.  Spice and intrigue.

Azrael.

Kaos Arcanna

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #24 on: January 14, 2014, 10:12:40 PM »
I'm honestly not sure I'd go back to COH if it was ran by NcSoft at this point.

I dearly miss some of my characters and some of the ATs, but a large part of the game were there the people I played with more so than the mechanics or lore.

I guess it depends on what they came up with, but I would never trust them which would hamper my willingness to buy items from their market.

Drauger9

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #25 on: January 15, 2014, 01:18:49 AM »
Quote
I'm honestly not sure I'd go back to COH if it was ran by NcSoft at this point.

I'm a pretty forgiving guy. To me, NCSoft didn't do a bad job with City of Heroes except for the way they handled the closure. Now if what Aviticus Gladius is proposing turns out to be true. I'd go back, I'd probably try not to get as attached as I was and I would be more cautious with my money. When it came to buying items from the cash shop.

It really does make a lot of sense to me. I mean, it seemed to me. That they was fully supporting City of Heroes right up to the very end. When they did a 360 and closed it down. There was a new Issue being worked on, everything seemed normal.

But with all that said, They don't have any other titles that I'm interested in and I don't plan to give them any more of my money. Until we get the game back or some kind of closure (an actual honest statement of why they closed City of Heroes).

It'd also be nice if as a peace offering, they gave the game an offline mode. So we don't have to worry about going threw this again. ;)

Ironwolf

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #26 on: January 15, 2014, 03:17:06 PM »
I completely disagree - City of Heroes was never advertised - never.

I remember interviews with the advertising dude at Paragon he had a budget of less than $10k a YEAR. How exactly do you promote a game and add players if they don't even know it exists?

NCSoft bought the game and then very quickly acted as if it was a mistake - maybe some personell changes were made and this was the outgoing persons deal - who knows!

FatherXmas

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #27 on: January 15, 2014, 04:28:29 PM »
I disagree.  The game was advertised, in the beginning and after CoV and GR.  But the "traditional" advertising medium, PC gaming mags, all died during the same period.  The few (one) that remained simply didn't cover MMOs much since WoW was the 800lbs gorilla with ever rising subscription numbers.  I challenge you to point out other NCSOFT games in NA that were treated any better in that time frame in terms of advertising.  And I don't want to hear they didn't have a TV spot.  It never made enough money to afford a TV spot.

NCSOFT bought the IP and formed Paragon in late 2007.  They poured a ton of money into it expanding from the FREEM 15 to 80-100 people within a year or two.  Then two things happened in 2009.  First Tabula Rasa sank after it burst into flames and crashed into an iceberg over the previous year.  Second CO came out and game CoH direct competition in the superhero genre space which caused a rabid drop in subscriptions.  This left NCSOFT with only three western game studios.  One, ArenaNet, two years into a 4-5 year development cycle; two, Carbine Studios who like ArenaNet was founded by ex-WoW employees working on a long term MMO and Paragon.

So two studios with nothing new in the foreseeable future and one that's hemorrhaging players all in a market (NA + EU) that's shrinking rapidly.  It's my opinion that NCSOFT didn't expect GW2 to do the numbers it did and didn't trust the cash shop only model.  So they had to choose who to fund, the studio founded by members of the original WoW team that have a game that they felt could play in the East and West, or Paragon whose only game crashed and burned during beta in Korea and whose trailing 12 month income numbers have continued to fall to under $11 million USD a year despite all the things they've done to bolster the game including F2P with a cash shop.

From a purely business PoV it comes a time to put Old Yeller down.  The meager profits from CoH couldn't support Paragon so they shut Paragon down and the game was collateral.  Harsh.  Terrible.  Tore me up to see it go but that's business.

Sadly if the decision to close was held off for another year, I think NCSOFT would have kept them open due to all the money coming in from GW2, they wouldn't have felt forced to trim the studio budget.
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Codewalker

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #28 on: January 15, 2014, 04:55:58 PM »
Add in friction between Paragon management and NCSoft management about what direction to take the studio and you've got a perfect storm. What information I've been able to piece together indicates that they had some level of approval from NC Interactive's US division to produce the "secret projects" that over half the studio was working on, but that corporate HQ overseas was not pleased when they found out about it.

Yes, I do firmly believe that corporate politics played a major role. Maybe not the sole factor, but once GW2 was completed and they didn't need the extra income anymore, the mediocre financial balance of COH supporting the development of 2 unrelated games wasn't enough to save it from the ire of the bigwigs peeved at their seemingly insubordinate underlings.

FWIW, none of the sources I have access to (which I'm not at liberty to disclose, so in the end what I say has as much weight as the ramblings of an internet madman) have indicated that there ever was anything related to a COH2 beyond some concept art and proposals that were rejected by NCSoft corporate. Certainly nothing that was even close to a playable state. If someone was working on it, it wasn't the original devs or anybody in Mountain View, CA.

Aviticus Gladius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #29 on: January 15, 2014, 05:53:14 PM »
It was far beyond the conceptual stage Codewalker, it was well into the playable prototype stage. If I could share more proof without compromising my contacts I would definitely do so. Here is something I told a friend of mine recently after telling him, in detail, what I found out. It makes no logical sense to hold on to a software IP that you've been openly offered hundreds of millions of dollars to sell, if you're not going to use it. With that said you have to ask yourself, "Why are they holding on to something that is earning them no profit, when they've been offered millions of dollars?" Add to that the idea that this entire occurrence has sparked a public relations dilemma for them, and you have to consider the fact that they are holding on to it for a reason; not saying the reason has anything to do what my educated assumption. They hold massive majority of the the Korean and Chinese MMO market by statistics, they are well established, and are in no financial bind by record; though their stocks have experienced record lows recently. Just based on the reality of MMO development and server handling cost, it's obvious they are capable of aiding in the development and publication of MMOs. I've seen a few people suggest that they feel it's just because CoH got old/dated, and they have no desire to continue promoting and publishing an outdated/aged IP. To me that's equivalent to Nintendo killing off Mario because he has been around for so long; if it's generating revenue, it's maintaining the business' upkeep.

From what I was informed, 2015 is when information is expected to surface, so hopefully around that time something will surface.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #30 on: January 15, 2014, 06:06:42 PM »
It makes no logical sense to hold on to a software IP that you've been openly offered hundreds of millions of dollars to sell, if you're not going to use it.

By whom? I've seen no one openly claim that.

The few definitive offers I know about (none of which have been discussed openly), pre and post shutdown alike, were nowhere near hundreds of millions. No one in their right mind would offer that because it would be impossible to recoup.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #31 on: January 15, 2014, 08:00:49 PM »
I have heard of 2 offers $3 million and $6 million.

Not to be harsh but this game has never been worth hundreds of millions. I think I recall correctly NCSoft paid $10 million and a short profit split with Cryptic

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #32 on: January 15, 2014, 08:17:47 PM »
Just saw an article by Kotaku about budgets in MMO.

http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649

Could answer a few questions about money.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #33 on: January 15, 2014, 08:57:07 PM »
Also, if you visit http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ and look at News & Press, the bottom left of the website it still have City of Heroes on there. That's a hint that something is suspicous about them.   

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #34 on: January 15, 2014, 09:11:48 PM »
15?  Expanded to 80-100?  A lot of people added to the '15'..!

Perception wise.  I remember being frustrated many times during my 8 year+ tenure on Coh the glacial pace of Coh itself almost seemed to stall before NC Soft bought it from Cryptic.  I don't think secretly working on Champions ('Coh 2') and CoV helped the main game of Coh at all.  Nor Going Rogue which just repeated the same mistake of CoV for me.  It compounded it.  Evidences by a very linear progression to L20 and some poorly tested maps.  (I did enjoy it to a degree...but my duo partner got fed up of it real quick...and I guess he wasn't the only one...)

Eventually Paragon got into their stride and in the last year or so development was picking up a pace.  But for me?  From the moment NC Soft bought Coh the scramble should have been on to update the actual engine of Coh (while keeping the mechanics...) graphics to give it a more modern feel.  They had 4-5 years?  We got Going Rogue and 'Mushroom/fungus/Plant' power set and the beta flavoured 'Beam' set which sucked instead.  (Sure, we got 'lots' of other stuff...but not the 'stuff' that was going to 'save' it.)

Given the size of that team I would have expected more.  Much more.  I always got the feeling feeling that Paragon were 'tight' with progress.  e.g. Stamina standard?  Should have happened years sooner than it did?  Speed up the 'slow' game play (I never felt it was...but some did!) with Hasten as the 'fifth' power in the Stamina set.  Create more tertiary power sets.  (There were loads of 'bonus' powers in the game like Sands of Mu etc which could have been cobbled into tertiary sets which had sat, cob webbed since the game launched...)  Defenders with poor solo ability.  By the time I discovered Dominators I didn't care about Defenders any more.  PVP?  Not important to me...but I never heard the last of it being 'broken.'  Free to play?  As a VIP I didn't care.  But for to get the F2P crowd in?  Too many restrictions.  It seemed to take ages to actually develop new power sets to add to and spruce up the combat with something new.

Paragon did some great work.  The ITF being a sound example.  But it was tempered by a ridiculous fractured Incarnated system which bore no resemblance to the original interface.  Far too confusing...and the lofty and unreal Legion super TFs to get random rewards and generic looking powers through an archaic interface which seemed ashamed of the standard interface.  Meh.

75-85 extra employees and that's all you've got?  I probably sound harsh.  But I think if we're all honest there were things about Coh that we loved and hated.  Or got bored with.  For me, PStudios got into their stride too little too late.  (And seemed to noodle about with the 'little' things, nickel and diming the player over issues instead of addressing them, while the city of Rome was burning subscribers...)

For me?  I just liked the game pre: issue 4.  I'd still take that now.  500 mb patch vs a 4.5 gig client?  Surely one would be 'easier' to reverse engineer the server than the patch 24 beta?  But then I'm no Coder.  That's for sure.

http://evilasahobby.com/2013/03/17/city-of-heroes-villains-putting-claims-to-the-test/

It's probably being discussed or has been elsewhere but an interesting read.

...and another link on the enormity of the task to rebirth Coh in any form (in the author's view...)

http://evilasahobby.com/2013/10/08/city-of-titans-i-disbelieve-the-illusion/

I think any spiritual successors have it 'all on' to recreate the magic and feel of Coh.  But nothing's impossible and I wish them the very best.

Some talented and clever people out there evidenced by 'gift' of Icon. :)

Another interesting link...

http://evilasahobby.com/2012/11/26/city-of-heroes-villains-top-5-under-realised-systems/

...and on it's closure...

http://evilasahobby.com/2013/09/17/city-of-heroes-villains-an-addendum-of-sorts/

On Coh 2...?

http://evilasahobby.com/2012/09/14/city-of-heroes-villains-there-was-no-cohv-2-0-because/

On that engine...

http://evilasahobby.com/2012/09/02/that-cryptics-licensing-of-its-engine-is-shutting-down-cohv-rumour/

http://evilasahobby.com/2012/09/08/city-of-heroes-villains-cryptic-isnt-stopping-cohv-from-continuing-a-lore-bible/

The End of the World...(a look at the 'numbers'...)

http://evilasahobby.com/2012/09/01/city-of-heroes-villains-an-end-of-the-world-event/

More on that Coh2 'Battalion' game morphing into some 'Dark Heroes' realism...

http://evilasahobby.com/2012/10/05/city-of-heroes-villains/

...ironic words in the following link from NC's P.R...

http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/04/06/ncsoft-trademarks-city-of-heroes-2/

Food for thought.

I do rather miss City of Heroes.

Azrael.

PS.  Memories...(of Coh's development...)

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/10/26/the-making-of-city-of-heroes/



« Last Edit: January 15, 2014, 09:36:38 PM by Azrael »

mikenovember

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #35 on: January 15, 2014, 11:53:44 PM »
It was far beyond the conceptual stage Codewalker, it was well into the playable prototype stage. If I could share more proof without compromising my contacts I would definitely do so. Here is something I told a friend of mine recently after telling him, in detail, what I found out. It makes no logical sense to hold on to a software IP that you've been openly offered hundreds of millions of dollars to sell, if you're not going to use it. With that said you have to ask yourself, "Why are they holding on to something that is earning them no profit, when they've been offered millions of dollars?" Add to that the idea that this entire occurrence has sparked a public relations dilemma for them, and you have to consider the fact that they are holding on to it for a reason; not saying the reason has anything to do what my educated assumption. They hold massive majority of the the Korean and Chinese MMO market by statistics, they are well established, and are in no financial bind by record; though their stocks have experienced record lows recently. Just based on the reality of MMO development and server handling cost, it's obvious they are capable of aiding in the development and publication of MMOs. I've seen a few people suggest that they feel it's just because CoH got old/dated, and they have no desire to continue promoting and publishing an outdated/aged IP. To me that's equivalent to Nintendo killing off Mario because he has been around for so long; if it's generating revenue, it's maintaining the business' upkeep.

From what I was informed, 2015 is when information is expected to surface, so hopefully around that time something will surface.

The beauty of all conspiracy theories... is that you can, if you search long enough, with a desire to find something, find something that makes sense.

I'm not saying you're grasping at straws and putting two and two together to make five by using unusual values of two... but I suspect this is the case.  I also suspect that your sources who have to remain nameless, who are well connected, etc., -- who contradict everything we've been told by actual devs and people who we know to have been involved - - I don't doubt they have told you exactly what you've said here.  I don't doubt that a bit.  I'm sure you've been told things by people 'in a position to know'.   

You talk about having proof and that you've seen things that indicate there was a fully playable COH2 prototype.  I find this to be questionable, but I've seen people create mockups of all kinds of things.  I do it myself for prospective prototypes.  I can create a very convincing COH mock up in probably a couple days.  So I'm not sure what your proof is - but until it can be verified by someone other than you it's just a good story, like Bigfoot.  No offense, but if you have some kind of proof of this, you should cough it up so everyone can judge it for themselves. 

Otherwise this is just a really good story that will probably hurt a lot of people by getting hopes up.  Like I said, I don't doubt any of what you've said - or that you believe it totally.

But I do doubt the entirety of all of this for a variety of reasons.   A primary reason is that NCSoft has never been one to play the long game, they tend to make decisions based on short term stratagems without a consideration to reaping a reward down the road.  Their stock, their corporate decisions, everything about them indicates they think at best, no more than one maybe two moves ahead.  To reap the rewards of a strategy like this implies planning not just two or three years down the road but 4 or 5, and it relies on planning based on tax planning which, would not have been completely locked down at the time these decisions would have been implemented. 

Logically - its possible.  But it's not very likely.  And it's certainly way outside of NCSoft's method of operations. 
« Last Edit: January 16, 2014, 12:01:43 AM by mikenovember »

Twisted Toon

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #36 on: January 16, 2014, 08:09:49 PM »
15?  Expanded to 80-100?  A lot of people added to the '15'..!

...

75-85 extra employees and that's all you've got?  I probably sound harsh.  But I think if we're all honest there were things about Coh that we loved and hated.  Or got bored with.  For me, PStudios got into their stride too little too late.  (And seemed to noodle about with the 'little' things, nickel and diming the player over issues instead of addressing them, while the city of Rome was burning subscribers...)

There was at least one other project that Paragon Studios was working on, other than City of Heroes. They didn't have the entire staff of 80+ people working on just City of Heroes. I would estimate around 30 or so were working in various departments on the game, and the rest were working on the other super secret project(s).

Also, the lack of advertising probably played a fairly big role in the perception that CoH was doing poorly. Kind of hard to get a lot of new players when there is next to no advertising going on, letting people know that there is a game that they would like to play out there.
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ShadowMokadara

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #37 on: January 16, 2014, 08:26:33 PM »
I hate to be this guy but...

Since when was "Thank you for contacting us", or even giving an address, translated to "We're buying your game." And it's not our game, NCsoft owns it. I'd LOVE to see NCsoft sell it, of course.

Also, I loved City of Heroes to death but it was nowhere near the most popular MMO ever : P.

I feel like the pitch would go better with things mentioned such as:

"The hero market is under sold and is just begging for a company to pick up on. You would have an immediate interest in the game from a dedicated community who would practically do the advertising for you."

Aviticus Gladius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #38 on: January 16, 2014, 11:48:34 PM »
Regarding my reference to "hundreds of millions" I was referring to the collective of companies/individuals that I've seen discuss prices or speak about offered prices; one company offering 10 million, another company offering 12, and I've saw many more. Regardless of how crazy some offers I saw seemed, doesn't mean they weren't genuine. A company can purchase an IP and turn around and use it another way and recuperate well from it. Purchasing the IP wouldn't require them to open up the old servers and release the same title. By open, I meant these weren't things that were hidden, and sure it's safe to assume a lot of the articles and content I read across different media outlets could have been inaccurate or formulated. I'm not going to believe things aren't real simply due to it's potential to be untrue. Either way, I feel it's hard to not assume something secretive is at play here. It's as if someone had a historical artifact and museum owner offered them "1" million dollars for it, and the owner said, "No, but thank you. I'm just gonna leave it in my closet... I don't plan to do anything with it, I just don't want to sell it."

Regarding my statement about having what I feel is "proof", is all based on my sources. I see no logical reason for people in certain positions to lie to someone, when there is no reason to have brought up the matter at all. Sure people do odd stuff for no reason all the time, but I highly doubt it in this matter. Notice that I said "I", as this is my personal opinion of this particular instance. And it's about as much of a conspiracy as all the rumors going around saying NC Soft didn't invest in advertisement for City of Heroes. From a reasonable business perspective, what company in their position, launches a game with no advertising budget? I've seen this said on various, well-known media platforms, and even referenced here. I don't believe that at all.

Ultimately it's what I believe, it's in no way meant to give people false hope. I simply shared information that I felt could shed light on the potential of Aeria Games not being able to acquire the product. Accept it or reject it, your decision.

r00tb0ySlim

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #39 on: January 17, 2014, 01:18:09 AM »
Something smells in Smellsville all right!!!  My gut tells me that NCsoft will re-launch the game in some updated form at some point in the future.....I'm all-in if and when they do, but I am also supporting CoT ;D

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #40 on: January 17, 2014, 02:45:16 AM »
Even if it's 100% true, a "re-launch" of a secret updated version of the game (so secret, that not even Paragon Studios knew about it, which is already a big red flag) doesn't at all mean that they'll reopen the game as it was, with all of our characters in place, just with better graphics.  Quite the contrary, it more likely means that they'll have some generic WoW clone (or, worse, some generic cutesy Maple Story clone) in superhero clothing with the City of Heroes name and featured characters slapped onto it.

And that wouldn't be an improvement over the game not being open at all.  It'd be worse.

LadyVamp

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #41 on: January 17, 2014, 03:36:33 AM »
Something smells in Smellsville all right!!!  My gut tells me that NCsoft will re-launch the game in some updated form at some point in the future.....I'm all-in if and when they do, but I am also supporting CoT ;D

I'm full of doubts.  Though I hope you are right and they do.
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LadyVamp

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #42 on: January 17, 2014, 04:01:19 AM »
Even if it's 100% true, a "re-launch" of a secret updated version of the game (so secret, that not even Paragon Studios knew about it, which is already a big red flag) doesn't at all mean that they'll reopen the game as it was, with all of our characters in place, just with better graphics.  Quite the contrary, it more likely means that they'll have some generic WoW clone (or, worse, some generic cutesy Maple Story clone) in superhero clothing with the City of Heroes name and featured characters slapped onto it.

And that wouldn't be an improvement over the game not being open at all.  It'd be worse.

I don't believe you'll have to worry about that.  My guess is our toons live on backup tapes and the code itself in a repository under cvs, subversion, git or one of the others.  While the code repository is likely to live for years, the backup tapes will be off to the industrial shredder in a couple of years.

I'll place my bet on CoT or Heroes and Villains.  Nothing short of a corporate raid of ncsoft will we have any chance of seeing our beloved paragon city return.  A tragedy really.  I miss my toons and the base we, my toons and me, built together, the battles we fought, the friends we made, and yes even the ppl who pissed us off enough to put them on the global ignore list.

I miss all the things like watching suzie palmer jump on her defender and tank hami.  A stone tank stood by ready to take over if she fell which she didn't.  Running no retreat hami runs.  The time I had flying snow mouse hold hami and 2 yellow orbs agro all at the same time because yellow agro was short a couple of tanks.  The nights I took green team and worked the green orbs even beating yellow damage a couple of nights.  Sorry Quiller P.  The day I altered one of my tiny map missions in ae to allow farmers to keep running ae farms for a few hours until someone who knew how to make an ae farm could build one.  Running rwz mother ship raids.  The day I demo'd an illusion/storm troller to some friends who thought ill/sto was too weak.  handling 54+8 scrappers changed their minds quickly.  lol.  I actually felt like a used car salesman that night. "Now see how hurricane protects me from them.  Now watch as freezing rain weakens their defenses while my 3 PA pets make short work of them....  As you can see, nothing short of a ranged attacker can really hurt us and you guys are very safe standing next to me.  Feel free to attack the mobs."

Brings a tear to my eye that I will likely never play with those toons again.  They brought me much joy.

You know?  It's like the first time you fall in love with a woman.  You never love another quite like that.  (guy in rl btw).
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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #43 on: January 17, 2014, 04:37:51 AM »
I would welcome a new COH...or even a ressurected one....and yes...though I am still bitter on the asshattery displayed b y NC on this...I would most likely be right there again to register and start playing.  I Miss the game...and the people who I came think of as Family  (Shout outs to the Knights..the Gurus and the Sinners!)  But I am also strongly supporting CoT...so perhaps there will be some boon for us all.   

Arcana

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #44 on: January 17, 2014, 06:42:58 AM »
Ironwolf, based on what I was informed, it was a new tax implementation, which would have been a tax application/increase not a tax withholding/omission. A new tax increase was set to be implemented at the start of the fiscal year, yet the bill had been circulating for a while before it was officially passed. However, it left a blanket of implementation to give businesses an opportunity to prepare for it after it was passed. I'm not going to definitively accuse the company of trying to avoid this tax burden, but both I and my sources believe that. You can look at it from many different angles, but to me, it seems like an accurate assumption. For a company such as NCSoft that would cost tens of millions of dollars extra, each year. That's practically the amount of money that is used to develop an MMO, so in my opinion, it's a perfect reason to try to avoid this tax.

I'm afraid you're going to have to lay out your theory in more precise detail before I can lend them credence.  At the time of the shutdown many economic theories pertaining to the shutdown were tossed around, and I investigated most of them very carefully.  None of the proposed or passed tax code changes I'm aware of would be capable of generating a multimillion dollar increase in tax burden for NC Interactive or Paragon Studios.  The only theories I can think of that would lead anyone to that conclusion would be the nexus changes in the tax code for Texas, or the 6203 revisions to the California tax code (the so-called "Amazon tax.")  But if that's the case, I don't think tax law works the way you think it does, if you believe they had any possibility of generating eight-figure tax bills.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #45 on: January 17, 2014, 07:24:01 AM »
I'm afraid you're going to have to lay out your theory in more precise detail before I can lend them credence.  At the time of the shutdown many economic theories pertaining to the shutdown were tossed around, and I investigated most of them very carefully.  None of the proposed or passed tax code changes I'm aware of would be capable of generating a multimillion dollar increase in tax burden for NC Interactive or Paragon Studios.  The only theories I can think of that would lead anyone to that conclusion would be the nexus changes in the tax code for Texas, or the 6203 revisions to the California tax code (the so-called "Amazon tax.")  But if that's the case, I don't think tax law works the way you think it does, if you believe they had any possibility of generating eight-figure tax bills.

When I looked the "Amazon tax" was the only one that was significant.  And then only if they expected large US sales (I mean more like WoW than CoH) in the future and wanted to remove their "substantial business nexus" from the state.

To me it still looks like a largely personal decision by NCSoft's leadership to get rid of a studio they just didn't want any more; with CoH as collateral damage.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #46 on: January 17, 2014, 08:16:50 AM »

Arcana

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #47 on: January 17, 2014, 09:17:34 AM »

Arcana

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #48 on: January 17, 2014, 09:53:38 AM »
You talk about having proof and that you've seen things that indicate there was a fully playable COH2 prototype.  I find this to be questionable, but I've seen people create mockups of all kinds of things.  I do it myself for prospective prototypes.  I can create a very convincing COH mock up in probably a couple days.
There was a time where a playable build was a measure of the amount of work that was already invested into a project, at least a little.  But today, for a while now, dev tools have existed that blur that line significantly.  For example, a small team of developers using something like this could have a playable *something* running in days to weeks.  It might still require huge amounts of work to make the gameplay itself function, but its theoretically possible for someone to see something that looks like and feels at a glance like a playable demo that's actually closer to Icon in its functionality. 

I mean jeez, this thing is actually free.  If I had the time and energy to write a Plan Z CoH clone, I'd probably do it in something like that.

As an aside, everything I know strongly suggests that none of the CoH2 efforts (there was more than one, depending on how you count) reached a legitimate play-testable alpha, although its possible there was some code written for it.  Paragon didn't have the resources to drive three separate full projects, and if Paragon Studios managed to survive about a month longer than it did, I think we would have gotten to see that Island-hopping game Matt Miller mentions in this article that Azrael linked to upstream.  I was told we were probably days away from PS spilling the beans to CoH players as an early sneak peek when the shutdown decision came down.  There was really no time for a CoH2 with CoH1 still in development and that other game also spinning up.  From 2007 to about 2010, CoH2 was a possibility.  After 2010, it wasn't really anymore (before that, Cryptic was working on the aborted MUO).

I was never told this, nor did anyone ever imply it to me, but I have often wondered if one of the reasons NC decided to pull the trigger on PS was that they knew if they didn't do it then, it would look much worse after PS announced Island-hopping-crafting-game-I-wish-I-could-use-the-name-for-but-probably-shouldn't.  It might have looked even worse after PS, well, did the next thing after announcing it, which Matt aluded to in this interviewThey were going to Kickstarter it.

Aviticus Gladius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #49 on: January 17, 2014, 10:51:17 AM »
Arcana, I was informed that matter was in relations also to their NC Interactive branch in Austin, TX:

http://us.ncsoft.com/en/jobs/austin.php

As CoH and CoV was still being sold in boxes, the California law would still apply. I knew server players that bought the on-shelf releases even though the game was free 2 player, as a starting point due to their internet limitations or bandwith caps. So going free 2 play didn't mean boxes were just removed from shelves. Another thing to note is that in the blog you reference included this quote:

"So what else had Paragon Studios been working on? Another super-powered being MMO set in a modern world, but much darker than CoH/V and more towards something like The Secret World. That was scrapped. "

Source: http://evilasahobby.com/2012/09/14/city-of-heroes-villains-there-was-no-cohv-2-0-because/

Though the author blanketed his source for the sake of professionalism and confidentiality, he seemed to have information from a credible source. The project that he referred to in that quote sounds oddly similar to what I was told. During my conversations quotes such as, "it was planned to be more serious", and "it would have been a bit more realistic take on the franchise" were used. It was further referred to as "COH 2 prototype" in my conversations. I made sure that I was clear in my inquiries as to whether the individual was referring to just an expansion/update or a full product as not to be misled, myself. As someone working on a spiritual successor to CoH, I felt the information was helpful and enlightening, so I figured I'd share what "I" believe with anyone that was interested to hear. It's not a battle and I'm not trying to convince anyone to believe it; it's simply information.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #50 on: January 17, 2014, 11:58:15 AM »
There were almost no box sets left.

Certainly not many left in Texas alone to cause this kind of a drain on the game. Arcana hit it on the head that if things were taxed it would be passed to the end users. Texas has some of the lowest taxes in the country and the most business friendly so I find it very hard to believe that was the source of the closure.

It looks very simple - City of as a franchise did not bring in the multimillions that NCSoft hoped for. They had already signaled the end of the game by adding a second team that was NOT working on a CoH2. I could far more readily believe they wanted to escape the California tax burden than the Texas one. Moving the studio would have fixed that.

I can't buy an elaborate cloak and dagger reason when a far simpler one is right there - a staff that had gone rogue working on stuff that wasn't approved by the upper management. A game that after going Rogue and the Praetorian expansion did not sell well. F2P helped but it did not set the house on fire with sales.

Please look at this game honestly - it is a small budget, small niche game. Yes, for you and I making a $10 million a year in cash with an overhead of likely around half of that would be great. NCSoft does not have emotional attachment to the product. That is smart business in truth and it wasn't enough money being made to keep the staffing in their eyes.

I just had to move because in less than 5 years they were closing the office I was in - my company had no anger towards me or those in our office - it just is not good business to maintain our expensive office at that location. They are offering relocation - which I took. I work n a very large company (State Farm) and I know how big business thinks and works. They do not get angry or personal in most cases and if they hated calling and talking to you - if you made them enough money - you would still be on their speed-dial.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #51 on: January 17, 2014, 02:32:00 PM »
Island-hopping-crafting-game-I-wish-I-could-use-the-name-for-but-probably-shouldn't.

It is truly a Mystery.

Codewalker

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #52 on: January 17, 2014, 02:35:54 PM »
NCSoft does not have emotional attachment to the product. That is smart business in truth and it wasn't enough money being made to keep the staffing in their eyes.

Actually, I think they do, sort of. Not the same as you or I, of course. They have an attachment to it because it has their name attached to it, and if they were to sell it to someone else it would be akin to admitting failure -- especially if it became successful after the sale.

Besides just pride, that also looks bad to shareholders and could negatively impact the value of the company. That's a financial reason right there not to sell, even for reasonable offers.

Arcana

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #53 on: January 17, 2014, 06:31:25 PM »
As CoH and CoV was still being sold in boxes, the California law would still apply.

Only to those sales explicitly.  Based on the number of boxes they were likely selling to California residents, my taxes were probably higher.

Quote
Another thing to note is that in the blog you reference included this quote:

"So what else had Paragon Studios been working on? Another super-powered being MMO set in a modern world, but much darker than CoH/V and more towards something like The Secret World. That was scrapped. "

Source: http://evilasahobby.com/2012/09/14/city-of-heroes-villains-there-was-no-cohv-2-0-because/

Though the author blanketed his source for the sake of professionalism and confidentiality, he seemed to have information from a credible source. The project that he referred to in that quote sounds oddly similar to what I was told. During my conversations quotes such as, "it was planned to be more serious", and "it would have been a bit more realistic take on the franchise" were used. It was further referred to as "COH 2 prototype" in my conversations. I made sure that I was clear in my inquiries as to whether the individual was referring to just an expansion/update or a full product as not to be misled, myself.
All that stuff happened circa 2008 to 2009ish.  And while some code was written, CoH2 did not reach what I would describe as "a playable prototype."  The game it evolved into eventually did, minimally, before it was scrapped in 2010.  Everything after that is of the Island-Hopping-Minecraft-Kinda-Game lineage.

Thing you have to remember is that MMO development happens in parallel.  You have guys doing conceptual design while the programmers work on code.  The concept guys can keep changing their ideas all the while the programmers just keep chugging along.  By the time they write milestone code for Concept Alpha, the concept team can already have ditched Concept Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and already be working on concept Mu.  Also, "playable demo" in this day and age can literally be Icon with concept art, meaning its possible to whip up something with modern tools where a character you can't change walks around in a 3D world that doesn't change based on concept art the paint is still drying on in a weekend.  I consider that more "interactive concept art" but it could be described as a playable demo - but it also means nothing in terms of how far along development is.  It basically means "Task: Chosen a devkit: Successful."

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #54 on: January 17, 2014, 06:45:03 PM »
It is truly a Mystery.
If only we could have seen that game Land on our computer screens back in the Fall of 2012.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #55 on: January 18, 2014, 03:03:55 PM »
This whole Tax burden Theory for the closing of Paragon Studios is kinda silly, considering that their game Guild Wars II continues to be played in America (and elsewhere) and continues to be subject to American tax laws, just like CoH would have been. If this tax thingy was the reason, they would have zero presence outside of Asia.

 And, under no circumstance is not selling (zero dollars gained) worth more to any company than selling (any price more than zero = some profit) and so it would appear than the closure was not about business reasons at all. I do not pretend to know what those reasons might be. Maybe it was just too much trouble to run a studio full of folks they didn't really understand their motivations, and do so from basically the other side of the planet.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #56 on: January 18, 2014, 05:19:16 PM »
I think the difference with GW2 is that it, with millions of players rather than thousands, can support itself in a new tax structure, whereas CoH/V would not.
I wouldn't use the word "replace," but there's no word for "take over for you and make everything better almost immediately," so we just say "replace."

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #57 on: January 18, 2014, 09:14:34 PM »
I think the difference with GW2 is that it, with millions of players rather than thousands, can support itself in a new tax structure, whereas CoH/V would not.
yeah.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #58 on: January 21, 2014, 05:45:03 PM »
I highly doubt that taxation was the issue. I personally believe that they found out that Paragon had started development on CoH2 without permission (obviously a dev could correct me on that).

NCSoft stepped in and said when did your staffing grow to 80 people?
Paragon - well we needed a few people and found some really good workers to start on CoH2
NCSoft - City of Heroes 2? Whose idea was that? What budget is paying for it?
Paragon - well it was our idea and it comes out of the City of Heroes game.
NCSoft - we need to talk to your management alone now.

Door closes on the devs.

NCSoft - you don't talk now - you listen, CoH2 is not what we were paying for.
Paragon - after being berated for some time - well do you have anything you would like us to work on?
NCSoft - how about this Minecraft thing
Paragon - What about..............(they stop when about to mention CoH2 was greeted by a scowl).
Paragon - minecraft thing, huh?

Then Paragon tried to buy the game. It was the deathknell when they cut production of the next game. Paragon knew it and tried to salvage what they could. They had spent NCSoft's money on a project they didn't want and then tried to undercut NCSoft by buying out the game. This could have seriously ticked off some upper management guy.

I have heard this kind of conversation and let me say this - in a big company it is not a good idea until it is upper management's idea. I had an idea 8 years ago to save $800 a month and also the cost of a $20k server and $80k router by joining 2 buildings at a cost of $3,000 and sharing the infrastructure. It was shot down with a vengence. Then 8 years later one of the management guys said - hey - why don't we join those buildings?

They suddenly said - Great Idea! For a mere $20,000 we can do this and save some money.

I said, man what a great idea why don't we do it like this............pulling out my old proposal. Yes, we did it.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #59 on: January 21, 2014, 06:40:25 PM »
This could have seriously ticked off some upper management guy.

Though I have no evidence to back this, I strongly suspect that this what happened.  Some pompous *** got a bug in his shorts and someone had to suffer for it.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #60 on: January 22, 2014, 01:44:04 AM »
I highly doubt that taxation was the issue. I personally believe that they found out that Paragon had started development on CoH2 without permission (obviously a dev could correct me on that).

It is possible, but I doubt that Paragon Studios was working on a project behind NCSoft's back. NCSoft could have gotten a bee in their shorts about Paragon trying to buy CoH from them. Possibly because they were afraid that Paragon Studios would probably do a better job with the game without NCSoft's "supervision". I'm fairly sure that PS was chaffing under NCSoft's "guidance" from almost the time that NCSoft bought Cryptic's portion of CoH. Minor complaints from a subordinate coupled with said subordinate trying to buy the project they work on might twist an upper management panty or two and lead to the closure of the subordinate and all of the projects it is working on.

It is just a theory, mind you.
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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #61 on: January 22, 2014, 02:42:54 AM »
You know.  It's very unlikely we will ever know why ncsoft decided to pull the plug.  But, I think I understand why they did it.  It's speculation at best.  I'd called it educated speculation.  You see, I used to work in the construction world.  Heavy construction like power plants or chemical processing.  I've seen projects that would be profitable turned down because while they would be profitable, they wouldn't be profitable enough.  That's what I always thought killed Coh ultimately.  It does fit the pattern.

  • Project starts up and pulls in a lot of money quickly blowing past minimum requirements.
  • Then it levels off and begins growing slowly or not at all.
  • Then it starts to produce less and less profit over time.
  • Then it gets into a probationary period and the company starts trying things to encourage it to generate more profits
  • Those things it tries having failed cause management to kill the project even though it is still making profits

I've seen corporate divisions be wiped out despite making profits.  Simply put, not enough profit and a lower ROI.

I don't know that ncsoft did these things.  But I've worked in companies with multiple divisions.  I've seen this pattern both in those divisions and in our game.  Sure I think poorly of ncsoft for killing our game, but I also understand they likely felt the money could be invested in better places for higher ROI.

I do the same thing in investing.  If an investment I have isn't making my requirements even if it is profitable, I'll cut its throat.  It's not personal.  It's just business.

Now we have an opportunity to make a new home for us and a way to protect ourselves from such thinking.  Two such projects are looking more and more promising everyday.  If it weren't already taken I'd say we should call our projects FUBUs.  For Us By Us.  But, a company already has that.  They make Jeans for African-American men.  It's owned and operated by African-Americans hence its name.  In fact, they did that because pretty much all other jeans don't fit correctly so I've been told by a coworker who wore them.
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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #62 on: January 22, 2014, 07:35:07 AM »
Or ncsoft is just stupid...

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #63 on: January 22, 2014, 09:43:07 AM »
The Plan Z projects have a lot to live up to (and a lot to catch up with), which just makes me all the angrier that the game I loved is gone.

Even if there is a super-duper-secret CoH2 in the works that NCSoft has decided to hide instead of using to try to win us over (doubtful), a brand-new game is not going to have the eight years worth of content that CoH had.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #64 on: January 22, 2014, 09:58:13 PM »
You know.  It's very unlikely we will ever know why ncsoft decided to pull the plug.  But, I think I understand why they did it.  It's speculation at best.  I'd called it educated speculation.  You see, I used to work in the construction world.  Heavy construction like power plants or chemical processing.  I've seen projects that would be profitable turned down because while they would be profitable, they wouldn't be profitable enough.  That's what I always thought killed Coh ultimately.  It does fit the pattern.

  • Project starts up and pulls in a lot of money quickly blowing past minimum requirements.
  • Then it levels off and begins growing slowly or not at all.
  • Then it starts to produce less and less profit over time.
  • Then it gets into a probationary period and the company starts trying things to encourage it to generate more profits
  • Those things it tries having failed cause management to kill the project even though it is still making profits

I've seen corporate divisions be wiped out despite making profits.  Simply put, not enough profit and a lower ROI.

I don't know that ncsoft did these things.  But I've worked in companies with multiple divisions.  I've seen this pattern both in those divisions and in our game.  Sure I think poorly of ncsoft for killing our game, but I also understand they likely felt the money could be invested in better places for higher ROI.

I do the same thing in investing.  If an investment I have isn't making my requirements even if it is profitable, I'll cut its throat.  It's not personal.  It's just business.

Now we have an opportunity to make a new home for us and a way to protect ourselves from such thinking.  Two such projects are looking more and more promising everyday.  If it weren't already taken I'd say we should call our projects FUBUs.  For Us By Us.  But, a company already has that.  They make Jeans for African-American men.  It's owned and operated by African-Americans hence its name.  In fact, they did that because pretty much all other jeans don't fit correctly so I've been told by a coworker who wore them.

I didn't think the incarnate system was really failing, but honestly I blame NCSofts all or nothing mentality.  Fact is if the game isn't the top of the market even if it's making a profit they want to shut it down first chance they got.  Odds are something with Cryptic expired so NCSoft shut it down like they always wanted to.  In short, NCSoft didn't care, why else would they not advertise?  It's spiteful of them, but they are spiteful and all or nothing.  I still hope they'll get themselves liquidated sooner or later, at least then the IPs would be freed of them.
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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #65 on: January 23, 2014, 07:16:04 PM »
Regarding the insufficient ROI theory: why shut it down when they could have scaled back support from active development to maintenance?  They could have made a lot more money without all the dev staff (and associated costs) to pay.  With Issue 24 which was about to go out the door + Player Made Missions the game could have run for a couple of more years with a much bigger ROI.

The fact that they went from Active Development to Shutdown without the interim Maintenance period is what makes me think it was about something more than just the studio's profitability.  What that could be, I don't know.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #66 on: January 25, 2014, 05:22:10 AM »
That's simply my guess as to what happened.  The truth is we will never know for certain and likely many of us wouldn't believe it if ncsoft did come out and spoke candidly about it.

I've heard about the license theory as well as the they hated coh theory.  I tend to discount the hated theory as they could have killed it years ago and certainly had reason enough to do it a couple years after cov came out.  The license theory is plausible.  I always figured they didn't know where to take the game next, looked at the cost of modernizing all the zones and decided to hang it up.  I don't know if that's the right theory.

Personally, I think they should have contacted us, the players, and given us some choices like keep the game but no new content and reduced number of servers to play on.  I'm sure quite a few people would have accepted that.
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Arcana

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #67 on: February 20, 2014, 08:01:14 PM »
I highly doubt that taxation was the issue. I personally believe that they found out that Paragon had started development on CoH2 without permission (obviously a dev could correct me on that).
Unlikely for one show-stopper reason: Paragon had tried several times to spin up CoH2, but that was in the past: that was *not* what they were working on when they were shut down.

I believe with the benefit of hindsight and a much better awareness of the context of the situation than I had before, I have a very good theory on why Paragon was shut down, but unfortunately understanding it requires knowing facts its probably not appropriate for me to spill.  I believe, though, that the shutdown wasn't an instantaneous decision, the wheels that ultimately led to the shutdown had started turning as much as a year before, but the surprise was that no one really knew where those wheels would eventually lead.  I think a lot of people at Paragon genuinely believed they would lead to a completely different result instead.

Pedantically, I think Paragon was shut down because while everyone assumes this was a decision based on the facts as they existed at the moment of the shutdown, I believe the shutdown happened because someone at NCSoft made a decision that amounted to "X, or Y" where Y was shutdown (and X was something else) long before, and Paragon thought the choices were X, Y, and Z, where X was something, Z was the next best option, and Y was shutdown and the last thing that could happen.  X didn't happen, Z was an option NCSoft hadn't really considered to the degree Paragon did, and that triggered Y basically automatically.

Also, I think NCSoft Korea really didn't like Paragon Studios or City of Heroes.  CoH didn't make enough money to counterbalance the fact that NCK didn't really like PS or CoH all that much.  People assume that money is everything to businesses, but its not.  Its often just as important that you're proud of your business lines, that you're praised for your business lines, that you aren't questioned about your ability to manage your business lines.  I think it burned them that they couldn't make CoH succeed in Korea.  I think it annoyed them that they couldn't use CoH or Paragon to expand their North America footprint as much as they wanted to.  I think ultimately PS and CoH had no defenders in Korea, so it didn't really take a lot of effort to shutter them.

That's actually how business decisions are made.  When the numbers are big enough, the accountants have enormous power.  But when the numbers aren't big and the bean counters step aside, its all politics.  To put it another way, Paragon Studios didn't go bankrupt, it lost an election.

Dev7on

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #68 on: April 18, 2014, 02:54:41 AM »
Hey guys if you're having a hard time trying to send a letter to California the problem was that the address didn't exist anymore and Aeria Games didn't bother to change the address for some reason. Now they finally change the mailing address. This is their new address.


                         Aeria Games Europe GmbH
                          Schlesische Str. 27, Aufgang C
                          10997 Berlin, Germany
In order to ship a letter to Germany you need to buy Global Forever Stamp. It can go anywhere across the world with that stamp. It's also affordable. It only cost $1.15.

Sorry for the problems you're experiencing.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #69 on: April 21, 2014, 04:18:15 PM »
The Plan Z projects have a lot to live up to (and a lot to catch up with), which just makes me all the angrier that the game I loved is gone.

Even if there is a super-duper-secret CoH2 in the works that NCSoft has decided to hide instead of using to try to win us over (doubtful), a brand-new game is not going to have the eight years worth of content that CoH had.

Agreed.

Like everyone else, I was happy to hear of all the Plan Z works in progress around the time of shutdown, but it seems as more time passes the clearer it becomes that even 'if' these other games actually make it... are we really satisfied?
Although fellow CoH/V players are making these games, I think it's easy to get caught up in 'let's make OUR game' with an initial plan to make a CoHv2.0 that evolves into making a game that we may not even recognize or relate to anymore.... vs. let's do as much as we possibly can (legally) to revive CoH/V in our new game, and staying as close as we can to that idea.

Who can really say what the future holds, but I'm realizing that I don't expect to be satisfied until all the things that we KNOW we loved about our home come back to us.  And the only realistic way of that happening is if CoH/V is brought back to life. 

After all, it's every little thing that we loved about CoX.  From Archetypes and powersets,  to costume pieces and auras, to city zones, to contacts foes and npcs, to the fighting mechanics, to signature architecture throughout all of the game, to the beloved music from zone to zone, and I could literally go all day....

In the end, without CoH/V we have nothing but our memories in some new game.   

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #70 on: April 29, 2014, 09:11:11 PM »
IF NCSoft is truly, secretly working on CoH2 and IF they plan on releasing it in the next 2-3 years, what would be a better "Deluxe Edition" of the game than a virtual box set that could recognize the Sentinel files of our old characters, allowing us to recreate them in the new game?

I'm not even addressing workability or even feasibility, just the mere possibility of having that option.  If Secret World and AoC can sell their Grandmaster versions at $100-$150, you better believe lots of us would pony up similar amounts to have our old characters back.  Yes, something like this would likely require enormous effort to convert the CoH powers and enhancements to CoH2, but it could be a selling point like nothing else ever seen in the industry--

NCSoft Rep:  "We care so much about our [insert positive adjective here] CoH fanbase, we gave them their old characters back!  Hugs all around!" 

Whether true or not, it'd generate absurd amounts of positive press and likely win over quite a few players still smarting from the closure.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #71 on: April 30, 2014, 03:53:51 AM »
IF NCSoft is truly, secretly working on CoH2 ..

Stop there. They're not. Guaran-damn-teed.
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chuckv3

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #72 on: April 30, 2014, 05:37:27 PM »
My guess is "sour grapes" when Cryptic went off and made Champions Online, and had to buy the Champions card game to avoid getting sued for it.

All it takes is one person in a position of power who wants to give the former collaborator (or the player base, or the entire world) a giant two-finger salute.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #73 on: April 30, 2014, 06:47:23 PM »
Honestly looking at the information I had gathered it was less of a spiteful or malevolent thing rather than exactly what they said - a strategic reassigning of resources.

NCSoft had just merged with Nexon and most of their interest was in Asia. They were expending money to keep a game and a studio going that was just breaking even or slightly losing money - 80 on staff with some working on 2 other games. Paragon Studios had gotten too big and the CoH game could not fund all of it.

After the buyout attempt by Paragon, I really think it soured the upper management. They looked and said why divert resources from our main breadwinners? I know its hard but if you say we expend those management and other resources in another direction we can make twice as much money as on CoH - it makes sense.

Some of the folks trying to buy the game were fly-by-night types with money but no clue on how to run the game. NCSoft was not willing to look even worse selling the game to someone who screws it up.


The main point is don't blame evil intentions on things that often are just incompetance.


MWRuger

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #74 on: April 30, 2014, 08:21:04 PM »
Honestly looking at the information I had gathered it was less of a spiteful or malevolent thing rather than exactly what they said - a strategic reassigning of resources.

NCSoft had just merged with Nexon and most of their interest was in Asia. They were expending money to keep a game and a studio going that was just breaking even or slightly losing money - 80 on staff with some working on 2 other games. Paragon Studios had gotten too big and the CoH game could not fund all of it.

After the buyout attempt by Paragon, I really think it soured the upper management. They looked and said why divert resources from our main breadwinners? I know its hard but if you say we expend those management and other resources in another direction we can make twice as much money as on CoH - it makes sense.

Some of the folks trying to buy the game were fly-by-night types with money but no clue on how to run the game. NCSoft was not willing to look even worse selling the game to someone who screws it up.


The main point is don't blame evil intentions on things that often are just incompetance.


I'm sure you're right. But they could have put the game in maintenance mode and just let store purchases and those who wanted to subscribe finance like two guys to keep it running.

It would have bought oodles of good will and cost them nothing. Instead many people, myself included, have made vows swearing off their games in perpetuity until the situation is remedied. It was badly managed and explained and no matter who is blame, they are the public face that is being blamed.

But they could still make it right and I hope they do.
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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #75 on: May 01, 2014, 03:35:55 AM »
It's always been about business.
Much in the way you said this -
(Ironwolf: "NCSoft had just merged with Nexon and most of their interest was in Asia. They were expending money to keep a game and a studio going that was just breaking even or slightly losing money - 80 on staff with some working on 2 other games. Paragon Studios had gotten too big and the CoH game could not fund all of it.") - a corollary holds true:

The fact of the matter is that this community while loyal and dedicated and worth ten times its weight in heart and soul, on paper isn't enough to support a competitive game on its own. Whatever that game is that captures the genre just right, that causes us to endear ourselves in the same way, while at the same time needing to attract a larger audience to sustain and compete, requires resources.

Something I noticed at MWM and in this community is that the bad taste generated by the whole thing has spawned a distrust in "evil corporations". It has been fostered by some of the most influential people here.

I am not afraid to say that it takes immense financial resources to actually develop a real quality product and bring it to market. 5100 backers and $680K~ is a good start but a long way from done; I applaud the effort and optimism, the hope. I feel that to ultimately succeed in giving the enthusiasts what they want in replacement is going to require a reality check on what the community really wants. Every Plan Z may eventually come to the fork in the road where they might have to decide to think in broader, riskier terms.

Any company that can buy back CoH, that can develop a quality replacement is going to be managing serious capital.
At the end of the day, they will listen to the community to a point, but will without question, obey their shareholders. Fans are last to be considered; in this scenario, they are looking for paying customers who will help pay the cost to bring to market.

And even spending the millions doesn't guarantee success.
But we can hope right?

Happy Anniversary community. I miss it; beta until even now.
Regards, AK

Nyx Nought Nothing

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #76 on: May 01, 2014, 03:53:38 AM »
My guess is "sour grapes" when Cryptic went off and made Champions Online, and had to buy the Champions card game to avoid getting sued for it.
Uhm, just so you know, Champions has been a tabletop roleplaying game for 30+ years. Pencils, dice, character sheets and all that. To the best of my knowledge it's never been a card game, but it's possible i missed that version of it at some point.
So far so good. Onward and upward!

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #77 on: May 01, 2014, 09:38:45 PM »
Honestly looking at the information I had gathered it was less of a spiteful or malevolent thing rather than exactly what they said - a strategic reassigning of resources.

NCSoft had just merged with Nexon and most of their interest was in Asia. They were expending money to keep a game and a studio going that was just breaking even or slightly losing money - 80 on staff with some working on 2 other games. Paragon Studios had gotten too big and the CoH game could not fund all of it.

After the buyout attempt by Paragon, I really think it soured the upper management. They looked and said why divert resources from our main breadwinners? I know its hard but if you say we expend those management and other resources in another direction we can make twice as much money as on CoH - it makes sense.

Some of the folks trying to buy the game were fly-by-night types with money but no clue on how to run the game. NCSoft was not willing to look even worse selling the game to someone who screws it up.


The main point is don't blame evil intentions on things that often are just incompetance.
Keep in mind that NC Soft was also in the middle of a lawsuit with the former design team from Lineage II. the team had left to make a new game, TERA. A similar happening with Paragon, just not kosher.

This is one of the big lessons which many ignore - Capital is more than just money. The biggest capital in any studio is human capital, the men and women who are on the team. Those who ignore the team while focusing on theoretical money are losing sight of the big picture. NCSoft knows this, investment in people not product. When the people cannot do the job, time to cut ties. ie Lord British.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2014, 09:43:56 PM by downix »

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #78 on: May 02, 2014, 03:07:51 AM »
I agree with both thoughts - it will require money and managing money, but even more the reason no one made a private server far earlier is people trusted the Devs. They knew even if we disagree with passion in the end - they loved the game and the community.

Flipping the game to Steam to linger on as yet just another of hundreds of Valve acquisitions would be a crime. The same with giving it to some other large heartless entity. It is not a charity and we the players want them to make money, even moreso we want the heart of people who see it for what it is warts and all - unique among all MMO's ever made.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #79 on: May 02, 2014, 03:16:30 PM »
This is one of the big lessons which many ignore - Capital is more than just money. The biggest capital in any studio is human capital, the men and women who are on the team. Those who ignore the team while focusing on theoretical money are losing sight of the big picture.

Yea, that's not really a lesson, but a business reality; the largest cost for a studio is salary and employee related expenses. And in the management of that, it's about production and performance on an individual basis. The right people to do the job, and replacement of those who don't meet performance goals.

If you want a lesson, it's actually right there. This is business we're talking about here. Love, friendship, loyalty, and other emotional ties don't matter; you have to pay the right people to do the right job. The "large heartless entity" is the one who can afford to run it properly and maybe even develop it more; the "large heartless entity" is the one you want. The culture inside the locker room of that dev studio will be the one the reflects to a relationship with the community, so why get down on the company that pulls this off.

The part about "love me warts and all" is baggage we can't afford to bring into a discussion about who revives the game and on these forums it is a recurring theme. The community has all the faith and trust of a jilted lover, along with the crew of "best  friends" whispering in its ear.

No game that ever reached public exposure to the scale of CoH and can afford to sustain that has a bootstrap budget. The bigger the budget, the more "heartless" the business needs to be to not only protect the investment but to sustain and grow. And trust me, when they make that acquisition, they will have considered the "warts and all" and if they're a well run company that won't matter.

We're still talking about reality, right?

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #80 on: May 02, 2014, 06:15:34 PM »
It is a business.

I wrote up in the other thread what positions all would need to be filled and the game would likely require at a minimum of 20 people.

Cryptic ran it with 15 Devs and programmers but they had accounting folks as well. It is awesome to have this debate but part one is simple - get the game. I am certain that NCSoft will ask about the organization of the team trying to buy it. The best case scenario is that if Cryptic is not content to sell it as the group is currently established they will allow the talks to continue as the team is filled in.

I really do get it that your vision is not being fulfilled and that you would like a say in what is happening. It is not my choice, everyone who has made a contact on the board has had their information forwarded - including you. You see I know of several different visions that people have for the game:

1. Acquire the game and find a large company like Valve or Epic to run it - selling the game for a profit but giving it a bigger home.
2. Acquire the game and never change it outside of finishing I24 - keep it in maintenance mode.
3. Acquire the game and start the old game up - using it to fund CoH 2.
4. Acquire the game and move it to an open source programming system using students and others to fill positions and maintain the game.

I have even seen MORE than these roughly about 10 or so visions of where the game should go.

Right now - the first team is working on it and why on earth would we want to skew their efforts? Trust me their vision is not mine - but you know the Old Devs often had different ideas than I did. I can work with that. I get it you feel that your ideas are important and once the game has been purchased - with patience you may get the chance to voice your views and let them be heard.

As for the Bootstrap budget - Earth and Beyond did it with almost nothing. Reality? The reality is this is NOT a blockbuster title that is going to bring in $500 million in its life time. It was at its peak likely bringing in for a short time $5 million a quarter and at the end it was $10 million gross a year.

Do you think it can start at $10 million? I would imagine getting ROI in 5 years is reasonable to assume. Basically for 4-5 years the game won't have paid for itself - I could be vastly wrong and it suddenly is rolling in the dough, I highly doubt that. Now if the game is ported to another engine - many of which exist but UnReal 4 seems the likely fit - a second game in 3-4 years MIGHT be a blockbuster.

You ignore that passion and love for the game kept those that are trying to get it back - here. We stayed, we fought and the heartless entity thing was done - it failed us. NCSoft for all of their billions of dollars - walked away and closed the game.

It wasn't personal, it was strictly business and it sucked.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #81 on: May 02, 2014, 07:19:27 PM »
5. Turn the game over to a community-run organization to manage as a non-profit donation driven enterprise. Open source of the existing engine probably isn't possible due to third party code and license agreements, so turn the source over to a small group of unpaid volunteers pulled from the community who sign NDA agreements. The game itself would be free to play and stay open as long as the donations were enough to cover the costs.

It's worked for other games and I'm 100% certain that it could work for COH. We have the management capability, the technical expertise to maintain and develop the game, and the dedicated community who would be willing and able to cover the cost of servers and bandwidth.

However, I am not naive enough to believe that NCSoft would ever go for that in a million years.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #82 on: May 02, 2014, 07:46:25 PM »
5. Turn the game over to a community-run organization to manage as a non-profit donation driven enterprise. Open source of the existing engine probably isn't possible due to third party code and license agreements, so turn the source over to a small group of unpaid volunteers pulled from the community who sign NDA agreements. The game itself would be free to play and stay open as long as the donations were enough to cover the costs.

It's worked for other games and I'm 100% certain that it could work for COH. We have the management capability, the technical expertise to maintain and develop the game, and the dedicated community who would be willing and able to cover the cost of servers and bandwidth.

However, I am not naive enough to believe that NCSoft would ever go for that in a million years.
Ryzom springs to mind there.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #83 on: May 02, 2014, 07:59:38 PM »
5. Turn the game over to a community-run organization to manage as a non-profit donation driven enterprise. Open source of the existing engine probably isn't possible due to third party code and license agreements, so turn the source over to a small group of unpaid volunteers pulled from the community who sign NDA agreements. The game itself would be free to play and stay open as long as the donations were enough to cover the costs.

It's worked for other games and I'm 100% certain that it could work for COH. We have the management capability, the technical expertise to maintain and develop the game, and the dedicated community who would be willing and able to cover the cost of servers and bandwidth.

However, I am not naive enough to believe that NCSoft would ever go for that in a million years.

See your vision is very close to my own. By doing it this way several things happen - you can train Developers. You can take students on and let them learn coding, marketing, accounting and all of the various positions. Look at who we have out there folks!

We have Rick Astley who is a musician and also an avid CoH player (Rick Rolls not included)
We have a best selling writer.
We have a world reknowned Internet marketing specialist.
We have many skilled and talented people and all we need is the game - we do need organization - that is why one team is going forward currently and not a mob of various folks. I see so very many folks making plans for this and that and it is wonderful to dream.

But we need the game first.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #84 on: May 02, 2014, 08:07:20 PM »
Look at who we have out there folks!

I can juggle.

Ironwolf

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #85 on: May 02, 2014, 08:48:52 PM »
My one redeeming skill is I have a talent for hitting people with sticks :)

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #86 on: May 02, 2014, 10:51:43 PM »
I think (at least I hope) that most everyone on the other thread understands that getting the game is the biggest single, important step.

For all the talk of what we would like and what we will do, it's just navel gazing until there is an announcement from, not the buyers, but NCSoft that "an agreement has been reached with (whoever) and former customers can take to the skies once more".

Give us some credit. We're just happy to a little hope. I talk to about 10 RL players and when I tell them I can see them get excited and then immediately say "I'm going to wait to get excited". I know the net is full, and I mean to the brim, with clueless and crazy people. But despite some people asking questions already answered and not reading the thread, on the whole I think it's been pretty well balanced between optimism and realism. No one is talking about it being a done deal, just if it is done, this is what will be awesome/cool/awful, etc.

I'm more than happy to support a new company to the tune of 500 dollars a year not counting store purchases, if it has a store. But if these efforts fail then on to the next plan. Another company, private servers, non-profit, whatever it takes.

I have said often and I continue to say: I just want to play COH again before I die.

It's not eminent as far as I know but that's what I am hoping for. I think that's doable.
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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #87 on: May 02, 2014, 11:29:31 PM »
Of course I'll take any arrangement that lets me play, and I'll play hoping that the new owners don't start making changes that ruin things.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #88 on: May 05, 2014, 03:21:51 AM »
I really do get it that your vision is not being fulfilled -
My vision is doing just fine. :)

Quote
Right now - the first team is working on it and why on earth would we want to skew their efforts?
The "first" team or "just another" team?
Gosh, Ironwolf, who exactly are the first team?
I agree; why skew efforts? But that is what everyone seems to do around these parts. This 'community' is skewed all over the place. The fact that only certain people can be in the know and that there are so many different efforts speaks volumes. Each one its own agenda, but somehow every one is altruistically only interested in bringing the game back for the love of the community?
At least I'm open about my stance.
I'll bet there's far less of the "for the love of the community" than advertised on that first team, or else if they were all about the community, it would be well documented who they are and what their plan really is.

Quote
The reality is this is NOT a blockbuster title that is going to bring in $500 million in its life time. It was at its peak likely bringing in for a short time $5 million a quarter and at the end it was $10 million gross a year.
If it was grossing $10M a year and needs 15 devs:
At $100k per dev, that'd be $1.5M, call it $2.25M annually including ERE; double it for rent, ops, server and transaction fees... what about the other $5.5M?
And what would real marketing do for it?
Is that not enough reality for you?
I have no illusion that someone might have ulterior motives for trying to buy and run the new beast.

Quote
Do you think it can start at $10 million? I would imagine getting ROI in 5 years is reasonable to assume. Basically for 4-5 years the game won't have paid for itself - I could be vastly wrong and it suddenly is rolling in the dough, I highly doubt that.
Somehow I think the numbers support that it would easily pay itself off...

Quote
Now if the game is ported to another engine - many of which exist but UnReal 4 seems the likely fit - a second game in 3-4 years MIGHT be a blockbuster.
Hmmm, you think maybe the "first" team is a team that's using Unreal 4?

Quote
You ignore that passion and love for the game kept those that are trying to get it back - here. We stayed, we fought and the heartless entity thing was done - it failed us. NCSoft for all of their billions of dollars - walked away and closed the game. It wasn't personal, it was strictly business and it sucked.
Geez.
I'm not ignoring anything.
This bears repeating for those who have never heard it.
The people who log into forums on the internet are not the whole CoH community.
They're not even half of it; or a third; or an eighth.
The implication is really arrogant when you say "We stayed, we fought"; though it's awesome that a significant fraction of all the people who played stayed to hold a torch; I was/am one.
No one "failed" us anymore than we failed us or the devs failed us.
If the game had better development, it might have gained a larger audience.
If it had gained more funding, it might have been too profitable to close.
If when it went free to play, everyone had stayed on subscription anyway, maybe it would have made it.
If everyone who came back when they heard it was closing to play the last month of the game had never left, it might have lasted...

Whatever is happening, I hope it achieves success.

And along with it, I hope the exclusionary attitudes that certain people seem to exhibit when they start measuring 'who has the best interests of the community' begin to fade just as fast as the game cranks up again.
TonyV here is no more qualified than my wife (the best empathy ever to play on Protector :) ) to represent the community; whose to say he loved the game more than she, or you more than I, or I more than Downix? (Although I would totally say without question TonyV has demonstrated he is a better webmaster/site specialist and has put in a crap ton of work and dedication on this site!).

Tubbius

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #89 on: May 05, 2014, 04:10:55 AM »
Rick Astley played CoH?  :o

Cool.

Nyx Nought Nothing

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #90 on: May 05, 2014, 04:12:57 AM »
TonyV here is no more qualified than my wife (the best empathy ever to play on Protector :) ) to represent the community; whose to say he loved the game more than she, or you more than I, or I more than Downix? (Although I would totally say without question TonyV has demonstrated he is a better webmaster/site specialist and has put in a crap ton of work and dedication on this site!).
For all your rhetoric i'm going to judge TonyV on his actions. He may not be more qualified to represent the community of everyone who ever played and enjoyed City of Heroes than your wife, but until you present some example of what your wife has done to try to keep the fanbase connected and revive the game i will say that he is far, far, far more qualified to represent the community of people who are trying to make it possible to play the game again than your wife is. i mean, for all i know your wife has organized and/or been working to code a server replacement for CoH and/or has put together a website and helped coordinate a campaign to acquire and revive CoH. But i haven't encountered any mention of her doing so from you or anyone else, and, well, there's this site and the posts here in the forums as indications of what TonyV has been doing. So, as far as qualifications go i'd say what TonyV has done so far suggests somewhat greater qualifications  to represent the people who would like to actually play the game again; although, as you pointed out, that doesn't necessarily mean he is more qualified to represent the group of people who liked the game back when it was still running.
So far so good. Onward and upward!

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #91 on: May 05, 2014, 04:15:01 AM »
My vision is doing just fine. :)
The "first" team or "just another" team?
Gosh, Ironwolf, who exactly are the first team?
I agree; why skew efforts? But that is what everyone seems to do around these parts. This 'community' is skewed all over the place. The fact that only certain people can be in the know and that there are so many different efforts speaks volumes. Each one its own agenda, but somehow every one is altruistically only interested in bringing the game back for the love of the community?
At least I'm open about my stance.
I'll bet there's far less of the "for the love of the community" than advertised on that first team, or else if they were all about the community, it would be well documented who they are and what their plan really is.
If it was grossing $10M a year and needs 15 devs:
At $100k per dev, that'd be $1.5M, call it $2.25M annually including ERE; double it for rent, ops, server and transaction fees... what about the other $5.5M?
And what would real marketing do for it?
Is that not enough reality for you?
I have no illusion that someone might have ulterior motives for trying to buy and run the new beast.
Somehow I think the numbers support that it would easily pay itself off...
Hmmm, you think maybe the "first" team is a team that's using Unreal 4?
Geez.
I'm not ignoring anything.
This bears repeating for those who have never heard it.
The people who log into forums on the internet are not the whole CoH community.
They're not even half of it; or a third; or an eighth.
The implication is really arrogant when you say "We stayed, we fought"; though it's awesome that a significant fraction of all the people who played stayed to hold a torch; I was/am one.
No one "failed" us anymore than we failed us or the devs failed us.
If the game had better development, it might have gained a larger audience.
If it had gained more funding, it might have been too profitable to close.
If when it went free to play, everyone had stayed on subscription anyway, maybe it would have made it.
If everyone who came back when they heard it was closing to play the last month of the game had never left, it might have lasted...

Whatever is happening, I hope it achieves success.

And along with it, I hope the exclusionary attitudes that certain people seem to exhibit when they start measuring 'who has the best interests of the community' begin to fade just as fast as the game cranks up again.
TonyV here is no more qualified than my wife (the best empathy ever to play on Protector :) ) to represent the community; whose to say he loved the game more than she, or you more than I, or I more than Downix? (Although I would totally say without question TonyV has demonstrated he is a better webmaster/site specialist and has put in a crap ton of work and dedication on this site!).

I just read you saying "if the game had better development", well, it did have a TON of development.  Seriously what was issue 22, 23 and 24?  What were issues 12-22?  What of all those archs hmmm?  Seriously, city of heroes was shut down for all the wrong reasons, it had far more then CO did.  CO didn't have any development, whatsoever, while CoX existed and guess what?  It's still got almost no development at all after CoX has been shut down and a few of us were forced over to CO only to either leave or end up staying but only rping rarely.

I mean really could you explain, perhaps whaat you mean by better development?  :/

Edit: Sorry if I seem confrontational here, just kind of in an eh mood atm :/.

Another edit: I am hopeful whatever is happening will move forward myself, I still have plans to end my CO sub the instant any announcement comes that concretely means CoX is coming back sooner or later.  I've so many reasons to wanna leave CO, heck, heres a funny video of that game I stumbled across.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioT6En4B13s

Yeah, apparently it's not fixed.  The guy quit over that, cannot blame him.  Though I wonder if he was also banned for some other reason, who knows.  I suspect there is a plot going on with CO's moderators and the trolls there anymore since why else would a "create a villain" entry with a freon clone win the whole contest?
« Last Edit: May 05, 2014, 04:24:07 AM by LaughingAlex »
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.

Nyx Nought Nothing

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #92 on: May 05, 2014, 04:20:46 AM »
I just read you saying "if the game had better development", well, it did have a TON of development.  Seriously what was issue 22, 23 and 24?  What were issues 12-22?  What of all those archs hmmm?  Seriously, city of heroes was shut down for all the wrong reasons, it had far more then CO did.  CO didn't have any development, whatsoever, while CoX existed and guess what?  It's still got almost no development at all after CoX has been shut down and a few of us were forced over to CO only to either leave or end up staying but only rping rarely.

I mean really could you explain, perhaps whaat you mean by better development?  :/

Edit: Sorry if I seem confrontational here, just kind of in an eh mood atm :/.
Actually, in light of how huge superheroes had become in pop culture a little while before the game was shut down i think the "development" that was most lacking was an advertising budget. Although that's still no guarantee of mega-success.
So far so good. Onward and upward!

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #93 on: May 05, 2014, 04:40:05 AM »
Actually, in light of how huge superheroes had become in pop culture a little while before the game was shut down i think the "development" that was most lacking was an advertising budget. Although that's still no guarantee of mega-success.

I can see what you mean there, it did need more advertising, something that, odds are if it was advertised it'd probably been as popular as EVE online(if it really does have half a mil subs atm).
Currently; Not doing any streaming, found myself with less time available recently.  Still playing starbound periodically, though I am thinking of trying other games.  Don't tell me to play mmohtg's though please :).  Getting back into participating in VO and the successors again to.

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Re: Aeria Games
« Reply #94 on: May 05, 2014, 06:27:41 AM »
This thread has run its course - actually, it ran its course MONTHS ago and is only back on the top of the stack due to necro-posting. At this point, we're getting really close to e-peen comparisons, so we'll just stop that before it actually happens. Stay positive, folks! Picking at each other does nothing to bolster the community - so don't. :)
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