New efforts!

[Ohioknight]

Updated the OP with the MOP quote.

Whelp, so much for my whole "deal may already be signed and they're just developing market, account software, etc." idea  :(

I guess it's just "No time for this now, those Nexon jerks are bustin' my chops! Tell ya' what we'll get back to you". 
Yeah. 
So that's not "dead" ...
Yeah.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Tony V's got it right.  :'(

[Joshex]

To save you all the effort of reading everything:

From Massively Overpowered:

NathanielDownes


@Domesticon - I've talked to a few people within NCSoft, and the general consensus is that we've avoided any trouble thanks to our approach (inspiration, not duplication). There is a group negotiating with them for the rights to the IP, but that has been slow going due to the ongoing Nexon drama I've been led to understand


So the Nexon mess has impacted our effort. The team and NCSoft are still moving forward - no doubt the guy in charge of selling it is being ultra careful.

So there is ongoing nexon drama, can someone summarize said drama for me, I thought they were just some form of share holder with lots of dough invested in NCSoft and may have made a request for the shut-down of CoX based on comparisons of profit margins that spawned mass concern among the shareholder board?

I would like to find out from Nexon why they don't like CoX, but they'll probably just say "it's not that we don't like it, it's that it was hurting profits" and stick with that.

[Aggelakis]

Whelp, so much for my whole "deal may already be signed and they're just developing market, account software, etc." idea  :(

I guess it's just "No time for this now, those Nexon jerks are bustin' my chops! Tell ya' what we'll get back to you". 
Yeah. 
So that's not "dead" ...
Yeah.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Tony V's got it right.  :'(

That's one way to read it. The other way is to not be a pessimistic butt. :p

[Ankhammon]

So there is ongoing nexon drama, can someone summarize said drama for me, I thought they were just some form of share holder with lots of dough invested in NCSoft and may have made a request for the shut-down of CoX based on comparisons of profit margins that spawned mass concern among the shareholder board?

I would like to find out from Nexon why they don't like CoX, but they'll probably just say "it's not that we don't like it, it's that it was hurting profits" and stick with that.

Generally speaking the point of interest for many businesses that utilize stock is that of expected profit increases and not that of profits overall.

If you look at it from that perspective it makes more sense that pressure from an impending hostile takeover might lead NCSoft or any company to want to get rid of profitable portions of their company because there is no anticipated increase in profit margin.

I lived through that at a Sprint where they basically rolled off their entire land line portion of the company because it's expected profit increases weren't high enough... they used that portion of the company to fund their entire cell phone division for years before seeing any type of actual profit.

[Surelle]

Realistically, NCSoft had over a year before the Nexon threats began to get CoX/i23 and the IP group running, had they really wanted to do that.

But screw realism, here's to "still hoping for CoX to return someday...."   :P

And a big thanks to Nate & Crew for even trying!  They seem to have gotten further than anyone else since the shutdown at least.   8)

[Cailyn Alaynn]

That's one way to read it. The other way is to not be a pessimistic butt. :p

Don't make me bring out the Seers... I hear they can put a smile on anyone's face...
;)

But I digress,
Based on what I know, including privileged information, the deal is not dead in the grave. NCSoft is dealing with things larger than us, and it seems for now they're choosing to hold off on doing some things that they otherwise would have been doing. Now I haven't dealt with them directly, however I've yet to hear/see anything that leads me to believe they have any kind of grudge against us, or malicious intent towards CoH or its community.

[Arcana]

Generally speaking the point of interest for many businesses that utilize stock is that of expected profit increases and not that of profits overall.

If you look at it from that perspective it makes more sense that pressure from an impending hostile takeover might lead NCSoft or any company to want to get rid of profitable portions of their company because there is no anticipated increase in profit margin.

I lived through that at a Sprint where they basically rolled off their entire land line portion of the company because it's expected profit increases weren't high enough... they used that portion of the company to fund their entire cell phone division for years before seeing any type of actual profit.

If I had to guess, and this is a guess, its more likely that the sale of CoH IP was something being done "on the side" and not as a strategic activity for NCSoft.  That means the people inside NCSoft that were/are working on it are doing so at least in large part on their own initiative.  They may feel that now is not the best time to be attracting unnecessary internal attention by working on a non-strategic project.

[Waffles]

This just in: Spoon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iGSAFjzBd8

[Noyjitat]

My work is in no way related to managing game worlds or sales of ip. But recently my boss was in talks with a company for some work and months went by without a call back. So when he called wondering if we had the job or not, he found out that the person in charge of giving us that job had been fired and the next person in line to deal with us had not been clued into this work, so we had to wait until they were.

So while I agree that selling us the game is likely side work and not a priority it might be a good idea for the team to check in from time to time with ncsoft. Who knows I mean with that nexon mess some people might be getting fired or moved.

[Ironwolf]

Don't make me bring out the Seers... I hear they can put a smile on anyone's face...
;)

But I digress,
Based on what I know, including privileged information, the deal is not dead in the grave. NCSoft is dealing with things larger than us, and it seems for now they're choosing to hold off on doing some things that they otherwise would have been doing. Now I haven't dealt with them directly, however I've yet to hear/see anything that leads me to believe they have any kind of grudge against us, or malicious intent towards CoH or its community.

Now let us for a moment be realistic - if you are a middle-level management guy selling or maintaining old software and you see that another company is trying to do a takeover - would you sell an asset they might look at if the takeover is successful and go - why did you sell that? You are fired.

This is what people do, they wait and see what happens and then which ever side wins they say - I am glad you won you were always my favorite boss. This middle management dude isn't going to make waves.

[Inc42]

So there is ongoing nexon drama, can someone summarize said drama for me, I thought they were just some form of share holder with lots of dough invested in NCSoft and may have made a request for the shut-down of CoX based on comparisons of profit margins that spawned mass concern among the shareholder board?

I would like to find out from Nexon why they don't like CoX, but they'll probably just say "it's not that we don't like it, it's that it was hurting profits" and stick with that.

This is what I have pieced together from news articles and these forums over the past few months, that does not mean that this is 100% accurate, but maybe it will at least get you in the ballpark.

The Nexon vs NCSoft thing has nothing to do with CoX or the talks to purchase the IP, it is just a MUCH larger issue that NCSoft is having to deal with. In fact if I remember correctly Nexon made an offer on the CoX IP back when the shutdown was announced (not the people I would want running the game...).

Basically Nexon is trying to do a hostile takeover of NCSoft, to the point where to my understanding on some news articles earlier this year they control more than 50% of NCSoft's stock. NCSoft responded to this by basically telling them to screw off and refusing to listen to them, work with them, anything. Now I imagine they are acknowledging it, and trying to fight it.

What does this mean for CoX and the revival attempt? Speculation I have seen on the boards that does make sense is that NCSoft may not even technically own the property if another company basically owns them. Now do the efforts to buy the IP go through NCSoft like before, or Nexon? Would Nexon even want to go through with a plan like that, or would they prefer to republish the game themselves? I assume/hope the people doing the negotiations know a lot more than I do, but the feeling I got from multiple instances that I read news articles about, NCSoft is being a bit childish and spiteful about the entire thing and I would not put it past them to keep up the talks knowing full well they do not have the authority to deliver anymore.

[Fanta]

Now let us for a moment be realistic - if you are a middle-level management guy selling or maintaining old software and you see that another company is trying to do a takeover - would you sell an asset they might look at if the takeover is successful and go - why did you sell that? You are fired.

This is what people do, they wait and see what happens and then which ever side wins they say - I am glad you won you were always my favorite boss. This middle management dude isn't going to make waves.

So....... it seems at the rate this is going, by the time the game is back someone will be able to run all the servers on their smart phone. :D I keed, I keed.

[Arcana]

What does this mean for CoX and the revival attempt? Speculation I have seen on the boards that does make sense is that NCSoft may not even technically own the property if another company basically owns them.

That actually doesn't make sense, sorry.  That would be like if Pepsi was in the process of conducting a hostile takeover of McDonalds, your local Mcdonalds became afraid to sell you fries.

Also, in a voluntary takeover its often the case that management tells people to stop what they are doing while the acquisition takes place, because they want the acquisition to take place and they don't want to do something the prospective owners might not approve of, or might conflict with some new directive that might be coming very soon which would cause all that work to get nullified.  But when you're in the middle of a *hostile* takeover, management tends to tell the troops to just keep doing what they would have done if the hostile takeover wasn't happening, on the assumption that it will get thwarted.  And if it doesn't, its not like management wants to make it any easier anyway.

For a publicly traded company like NCSoft, a "takeover" happens through the acquisition of voting stock.  Owning a controlling amount of stock would theoretically give you control of the company, but even so such companies are run by management teams appointed by the board of directors.  There would still be corporate governance rules in place that would dictate how a new owner could install a new executive team.  Meanwhile, the current executives would still have fiduciary power** to run the company.


** Meaning: they couldn't just trash the place before they got fired because that would be illegal: they would be acting outside their fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of the company.  But they could continue to do business until replaced, and would in fact be legally obligated to do so, including buying and selling assets as part of the normal operational process of running the company.  Projects in existence before the takeover could still be conducted up to the moment the executive team was replaced with no negative legal ramifications.  Particularly about an asset no one likely thinks is worth much.

[Arcana]

So....... it seems at the rate this is going, by the time the game is back someone will be able to run all the servers on their smart phone. :D I keed, I keed.

Its probably not outside the realm of possibility that with the right code conversion a top of the line smartphone could run a CoH server instance.  It wouldn't handle very many players, but possibly enough to run an incarnate trial.  The original CoH software was written to be run on conventional server hardware of 2002-2003.  Those would be the days of single core 2Ghz Xeons and K7 Athlons.  Although the Issue 24 software was significantly modified from that, at its heart its probably still possible to run it on very small platforms (albeit slowly and with less capacity).

Heck, in many ways my iPhone is significantly more powerful than the computer I first used to play City of Heroes.

[Sinistar]

This is what I have pieced together from news articles and these forums over the past few months, that does not mean that this is 100% accurate, but maybe it will at least get you in the ballpark.

The Nexon vs NCSoft thing has nothing to do with CoX or the talks to purchase the IP, it is just a MUCH larger issue that NCSoft is having to deal with. In fact if I remember correctly Nexon made an offer on the CoX IP back when the shutdown was announced (not the people I would want running the game...).

Basically Nexon is trying to do a hostile takeover of NCSoft, to the point where to my understanding on some news articles earlier this year they control more than 50% of NCSoft's stock. NCSoft responded to this by basically telling them to screw off and refusing to listen to them, work with them, anything. Now I imagine they are acknowledging it, and trying to fight it.

What does this mean for CoX and the revival attempt? Speculation I have seen on the boards that does make sense is that NCSoft may not even technically own the property if another company basically owns them. Now do the efforts to buy the IP go through NCSoft like before, or Nexon? Would Nexon even want to go through with a plan like that, or would they prefer to republish the game themselves? I assume/hope the people doing the negotiations know a lot more than I do, but the feeling I got from multiple instances that I read news articles about, NCSoft is being a bit childish and spiteful about the entire thing and I would not put it past them to keep up the talks knowing full well they do not have the authority to deliver anymore.

Hm,  if Nexon takes over and decides to reactivate CoH, would that be a good thing aside from the fact that we get to play again?  Not 100% sure I'd want Nexon/NCSoft as our CoH overlords.

[Manc]

I'll be honest a re-animated Hitler could be our CoH overlord for all I care, I just want our sodding game back.

Manc (former Looney Toon, former Iron Monkey, currently a Looney Monkey missing CoH more than ever).

[Thunder Glove]

Last time I played KoL it was just "Meat" and "Slightly Spoiled Meat" and maybe sometimes "Jerky".

But I gave up on KoL years ago. . .

Heh, I was just playing it last night.

They've revamped the whole game (except for The War, the Level 12 quest, but that's about to get a revamp very soon), and ... you can now play as Ed the Undying (aka Ed the Undrowning), which is just plain awesome.

UNDYING!

[Joshex]

Hm,  if Nexon takes over and decides to reactivate CoH, would that be a good thing aside from the fact that we get to play again?  Not 100% sure I'd want Nexon/NCSoft as our CoH overlords.

looking at it from an unbiased point of view, we really don't know Nexon's point of view. for all we know they could be some romantic freedom fighter type of corp that is targeting NCSoft for a take over because it keeps shutting down things.

then again it could be just as intuition tells us and they just want money.

[Surelle]

Hm,  if Nexon takes over and decides to reactivate CoH, would that be a good thing aside from the fact that we get to play again?  Not 100% sure I'd want Nexon/NCSoft as our CoH overlords.

Nexon first entered the NCSoft scene in June of 2012 when they bought 14% of NCSoft.  Two months later we got the CoX sunset announcement.  I have always thought Nexon was one of the reasons for the CoX shutdown, but that they likely only pushed the closure along a little sooner than it might have come otherwise.   Fact is, NCSoft previously had a history of shuttering their MMOs before their time (many, like Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa, within a year of launch) so CoX was probably a goner anyway.

To the person who said Nexon made a bid to buy CoX, I think you're completely wrong there. But this Nexon hostile takeover just finally exploded this past winter, with Nexon buying another bit of NCSoft's stock to push them over the 15% ownership barrier.  Originally they claimed the 14% was for investment purposes, but now that they've hit over 15% NCSoft stock ownership they've changed their tune.  They're saying now that they want to take over and run NCSoft; Nexon is not happy with how NCSoft runs their games or their profit levels.

The CEO of Nexon and the CEO of NCSoft were childhood friends who went into the gaming industry together years ago.  This current hostile environment has caused a big rift between them, and NCSoft is really scrambling to put family members into upper management positions and buy and trade stock with other gaming companies like Netmarble (mobile games) to shore themselves up against Nexon's attack.

[LaughingAlex]

I'm personally not all that impressed with Nexon.  When I look at what they do, accordin to wikipedia, it's nothing in america.  They are exclusively for South Korea and sometimes Japan when it comes to the games they distribute.  The games they themselves own they do publish in america but none of them are games I even recognize nore got any press whatsoever.  And primarily generic mmorpgs, so I wouldn't trust them with CoH.  They'd probably like so many idiots out there nerf all the powersets save empathy to near uselessness and make the game into a holy trinity grindfest.