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Post by The Bobby Llama on Aug 31, 2012 14:57:58 GMT -5
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Post by Hollowpoint Heroism on Aug 31, 2012 15:30:41 GMT -5
I think a moment of silence is in order...
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Post by The Cheshire Cat on Aug 31, 2012 16:25:39 GMT -5
Well that fucking sucks.
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Post by Warp Factor on Aug 31, 2012 16:47:34 GMT -5
Last time I touch an NCSoft game. This is bullshit. Fuck NCSoft.
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Post by The Bobby Llama on Sept 1, 2012 0:32:26 GMT -5
I needed some time to collect my thoughts on this, but suffice it to say that I am deeply saddened. It's like hearing an old, close friend that you hadn't gotten a chance to talk to in awhile is in the advanced stages of cancer.
City of Heroes/Villains was my first MMO, and it's the yardstick by which I judge all others (most, if not all, games fall short - consider how many still don't have some form of sidekicking!). More than that, there was a time in my life where I struggled with depression, and CoX was a consistent positive beacon - something in my life that didn't suck, somewhere I could socialize on my own terms. It was an invaluable release valve while I turned things around. Losing that kind of 'safe haven', even though I rarely drop by any more, has been much harder to take than I imagined it would be.
That said, I'm currently playing GW2 for now, but medieval fantasy is terribly overdone and it's never really grabbed me. Odds are that TSW will be my new home base once all the shininess wears off.
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Post by Warp Factor on Sept 1, 2012 1:31:42 GMT -5
I take back the NCSoft hate. I'm still upset, but now that I'm not foaming at the mouth I'm sure there are a lot of reasons for this to happen that aren't necessarily the result of NCSoft being either stupid or assholes.
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Post by The Bobby Llama on Sept 1, 2012 2:54:27 GMT -5
I take back the NCSoft hate. I'm still upset, but now that I'm not foaming at the mouth I'm sure there are a lot of reasons for this to happen that aren't necessarily the result of NCSoft being either stupid or assholes. I'm afraid I have to disagree. There was no indication that CoH was losing money for them, which really should be the crux of the decision. NCSoft is largely focused on the Asian market, and CoH, or any superhero game for that matter, has never made much of an impact there. The genre just doesn't resonate in Asian culture. I fear the game was the victim of cultural differences rather than economic difficulties. You might think this sounds ridiculous, but I've seen regional differences within the US cause people to value things differently; expanding that to different cultures on different continents is no big stretch. The NCSoft execs likely saw CoH as an underperforming niche game that they could burn to save a few bucks in the short term. |
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Post by Warp Factor on Sept 1, 2012 10:43:00 GMT -5
That's what I was thinking before. Then someone pointed out (in significantly less polite terms, not that I blame them) that NCSoft has a licensing agreement for the game's engine with their chief competitor, Cryptic/Perfect World. It says right on the screen when you load CoH, the Cryptic engine is licensed from Cryptic. Licensing agreements end and need to be renewed, and if the two parties can't come to some agreement on that, the license expires. There are any number of reasons that might not have worked out. And that's just stuff we can figure out, outside the industry and outside of Korean law (remember, Perfect World is a Korean company too, so Korean law may play a bigger role now than it did when Cryptic was owned by an American company). We don't know.
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drjackwolfe
SG Members 
On ur forumz, stereotypin ur wifez
Posts: 236
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Post by drjackwolfe on Sept 1, 2012 17:40:20 GMT -5
Well son of bitch. I was a monthly player at best lately but it's still the best world and engine I've seen and Jack...what the fuck am i gonna do with a Paul Dini type Superman clone to make me feel better on a really bad bad day?
I'm afraid CoH is a victim of NCSoft's not doing well in other areas, and culteral bias discused above. To bad really, given this is the summer of the Avengers and Bataman.
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Post by Warp Factor on Sept 1, 2012 18:56:34 GMT -5
I just hit up the forums for a read. For those who care, interesting developments. One, BaB showed up, he's working at Cryptic again and says he hasn't heard a word about licensing issues. Two, Nexon (a Japanese company) bought a controlling interest in NCSoft earlier this summer.
I'm sure there's shittiness here somewhere, but the hell with it. I'm too old to be fussing over stuff I'm never going to know the facts about when I'm choosing what games to play.
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Post by The Cheshire Cat on Sept 1, 2012 20:14:21 GMT -5
My hope at this point is that someone decides to buy the IP and keep the game going. The fact that it's lasted for 10 years in a very competitive market shows that it's still a strong game.
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Post by The Bobby Llama on Sept 1, 2012 21:03:26 GMT -5
Two, Nexon (a Japanese company) bought a controlling interest in NCSoft earlier this summer. A bit of an exaggeration. Nexon bought roughly 15% of NCSoft's stock, becoming the largest shareholder. I doubt that's large enough to have any pull in NC's business decisions. Even if it was, there's no good reason for Nexon to try to coerce NC into canning CoH, which is irrelevant to the Asian market that they're both so heavily invested in. My hope at this point is that someone decides to buy the IP and keep the game going. The fact that it's lasted for 10 years in a very competitive market shows that it's still a strong game. Highly doubtful, unfortunately. NCSoft has little incentive to sell off an IP that will be used to compete against them. True, it would not compete against anything in their portfolio directly, but the MMO market is tough enough that there's no reason for them to take chances. The only scenario I see something like that happening would be if NC is on the verge of collapse and gets desperate for funds. |
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Post by snowdog on Sept 4, 2012 7:22:31 GMT -5
totally bumed on this , I had just gotten back into it. Don't think i'll try Champions again. DCU olnline is free to play also, and it doesn't suck. Plus you get to beat up the Joker, or if you're a villian, try to kick the Goddamn Batman's ass.  I'm still in WoW too, the recent changes and graphics tweaks have really made it seem like a new game in some ways. If anyone wants to give it a go again, I can toss ya one of the scrolls of resurection, lets you instantly level a char to 80 to try the new shiny stuff. |
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Post by shadewing on Sept 8, 2012 7:41:43 GMT -5
Paragon Studios had a stream going on twitch the other day where they answered some questions.
One is that Cryptic has nothing to do with the decision: NC had full rights to everything about the game.
Two is that SoE doesn't care about CoH and isn't looking to buy it at all.
Soooooo...Yeah, it's entirely NCSoft's fault.
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Post by Warp Factor on Sept 9, 2012 11:52:26 GMT -5
What Pin said. BAB is working for Cryptic and has been on the forums, he's also confirmed that the license for the CoH engine was indefinite and applied to any game NCSoft wanted to do with it. Right now it looks like the game's best hope is in the former Paragon staffers negotiating a deal with NCSoft, they're supposedly trying to come to an agreement where they can take the game and go independent with it. That's very pipe dream-y, so I wouldn't assume it's going to happen, but here's hoping. TonyV is still working on a deal for Titan Network to pick it up, but as awesome as he is and as much as I appreciate his efforts, I don't see that happening. I would LOVE to be wrong about that, though.
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