Do you remember City of Heroes?

[HumanPirhana]

"Face" in simplest terms in Asian culture is to "embarass" or to "defy in public". If you think it is trivial in Asian culture, there is little point in continuing to discuss the topic with you. If you think because you are an American that it does not matter.. you are mistaken. NCsoft owned Paragon and everything Paragon created. Paragon forgot this and wanted autonomy. The parent company said no. The child (Paragon) QQed and demanded... and was punished for misbehaving.

 

In this case, Paragon management made demands upon NCsoft management, and they thought because they were the studio.. and that the MMO was profitable, that NCsoft would have to go along with said demands. NCsoft management said no... Paragon pressed on after being told no. NCsoft decided to end the argument created by Paragon by shutting dowin the studio and the game. NOT just the game, they nuked the entire operation. The fact that NCsoft would shutter a profit making MMO exemplifies just how nasty the conflict between parties would have been behind close doors in the conference room.

 

The giant elephant in that conference room that none of us have visibility into is that the conflict points revolved around either funding, or a breech of promise. I know this only because I have been part of negotiations teams dealing with Korean companies and when there is deal breaking confrontation with Korean companies, it's over a breach of promise (ie: breaking a commitment) or money (either funding agreements, or royalties, or license or some other material form of funds). Since in this case it was Parent company and child studio (hierarchy, not behavior), based on the way NCsoft abruptly shut down the studio and the MMO... Paragon either breeched it's commitment or word, or tried to play games with money in some fashion. And once you do that.. you are toast. The Korean company will destroy you in any way they can. Which is exactly what happened here.... NCsoft destroyed a profitable studio and profitable MMO. So sorry pal, but for a Korean company to flush money down the toilet, Paragon did one or more fatal behaviors that embarassed the management team at NCsoft. In Asian culture, there are consequences in business for that, and can be severe.

 

You can disagree with me all you want.. but it is clear from your comments that you have absolutely no clue how business is conducted inside (and with) Asian companies. Claiming it is untrue because you are American is just silly. I too am an American.. but I know and understand a number of other national cultures that we share the planet with and being American means exacty squat with an Asian company in a business negotiation. You are either a customer or a supplier that benefits them.. nothing more, nothing less. They do not respect American values for the most part.. in fact they consider us barbaric and undisciplined in most things.

 

I read all of your post and I still disagree with you, and you know what? My point, you missed it entirely. When I'm your customer, whether I'm american or indian or peruvian or irish or swahili, if you come to where I live and try to do business with me, it is on YOU to understand and operate within that culture. Clearly, NCSoft does not respect american values, which is why they have a whole playerbase of pissed off former COH players who will never give them a dime again. They may not care, and you can argue til you're blue in the face that I should see it otherwise, but that doesn't change the truth of the fact.

 

You also completely missed the underlying point that what happens between NCSoft and Paragon behind close doors in a conference room doesn't matter one tiny iota to the customer (and NCSoft basing decisions that affect their customers on such things amply demonstrates their lack of concern or understanding about customer relations here), and saying that I'M ignorant and wrong because I don't take such things into account when I choose how I feel about their business decisions is what's silly. I never claimed something was untrue because I didn't understand it so don't put words in my mouth. What I claimed was that IT WAS IRRELEVANT to my opinion of NCSoft's actions, which it is. You seem to be suggesting that my relationship with NCSoft as a customer should be affected or colored by some private matter between them and Paragon when in fact it means exactly squat where said relationship is concerned. I'm not the one being silly here pal, but thanks for trying to talk down to me because I'm not intimately knowledgeable about the inner workings of foreign companies in certain parts of the world. That kind of knowledge obviously makes you feel very important. I bet mom's proud. Btw, you don't know jack about me and the extent to which I have interactions with other cultures, so before you make conclusions about such things, bring some facts or just keep it to yourself. It's not relevant, but then again, you didn't get that from the beginning.

 

Oh yeah, still not seeing one shred of evidence beyond your own words that this so called "face issue" you seem to think I had no clue about (Yes, I know what face is, and I know how important it is in asian cultures you arrogant twit) is the actual source of what happened to cause the game's shutdown. I'm not saying it is and I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just saying A) I'm not taking YOUR word from on high about it and B) In any case, it does not change NCSoft's poor handling of said shutdown or the fact they publicly lied about same or how I feel about it.

Edited May 14, 2013 by HumanPirhana

[Andryah]

I read all of your post and I still disagree with you, and you know what? My point, you missed it entirely. When I'm your customer, whether I'm american or indian or peruvian or irish or swahili, if you come to where I live and try to do business with me, it is on YOU to understand and operate within that culture.

 

I read your entire post. And I got your point, even in spite of all it's pomp, arrogance and passive aggressive pesonal attacks.

 

The thing is.. your point is completely misplaced. This entire debacle had absolutely nothing to do with the customers. I know that as an American customer that may be impossible for you to grasp, but it remains a fact regardless. You, as a customer were not a factor, at all. It was an internal conflict inside NCsoft between the home office and Paragon Studios. The customers were never a consideration in the shtudown of the property. They were collateral damage because of stupidity by Paragon management. It was a business decision to solve a business conflict. Sucks for the MMO players.. and it sucks for the Paragon employees. The fault lies with the Paragon management team. Any studio that does not learn from this is destined to repeat it. As a customer, you (you personally) were not a factor in the entire debacle....no customer was.. and that is why so many customers are bent about it.. because they feel like they were not considered in the decision (which is in fact true).

 

By Contrast: ArenaNet, from all observable appearances, understands and knows how to conduct a mature and respectful relationship with NCsoft home office. And they are thriving by it, as are their customers. The success of ArenaNet is a stark contrast to Paragons demise..and yet they have the same parent company.

Edited May 14, 2013 by Andryah

[SithKoriandr]

Okay, I gotta stop you right there. Paragon did not "show up" and "buy the game" from Cryptic.

 

Cryptic wanted to move on to new projects, but NCSoft was trying to stifle them. So they sold CoH to NCSoft and left a skeleton crew of some of the primary developers from Cryptic, including Matt Miller (aka. Positron) who took over as Lead Developer. They then hired new staff and got some transfers from other former NCSoft developers to fill out their crew. They didn't even rename themselves Paragon Studios for a good six months to a year after all of these changes took place.

 

Cryptic built great games with amazing potential. The problems came from the cheapskate publishers they had to work with. Of course, now Cryptic is no longer Cryptic. They were bought out by Atari (formerly just a publisher) who then sold them to Perfect World and they have lost all of their original developers in the process.

 

 

Well, Cryptic was going to just cancel it, and NCSoft bought it and kept it going. After sometime though, there was lots of improvements!

[HumanPirhana]

I read your entire post. And I got your point, even in spite of all it's pomp, arrogance and passive aggressive pesonal attacks.

 

The thing is.. your point is completely misplaced. This entire debacle had absolutely nothing to do with the customers. I know that as an American customer that may be impossible for you to grasp, but it remains a fact regardless. You, as a customer were not a factor, at all. It was an internal conflict inside NCsoft between the home office and Paragon Studios. The customers were never a consideration in the shtudown of the property. They were collateral damage because of stupidity by Paragon management. It was a business decision to solve a business conflict. Sucks for the MMO players.. and it sucks for the Paragon employees. The fault lies with the Paragon management team. Any studio that does not learn from this is destined to repeat it. As a customer, you (you personally) were not a factor in the entire debacle....no customer was.. and that is why so many customers are bent about it.. because they feel like they were not considered in the decision (which is in fact true).

 

By Contrast: ArenaNet, from all observable appearances, understands and knows how to conduct a mature and respectful relationship with NCsoft home office. And they are thriving by it, as are their customers. The success of ArenaNet is a stark contrast to Paragons demise..and yet they have the same parent company.

 

Jesus. H. Christ. You're dense. And completely wrong. COMPLETELY WRONG. YOU are trying to turn this into a discussion of what happened behind closed doors when it's not completely relevant in the slightest to what I posted about, which is NCSoft's craptacular treatment of their US customers in this whole sorry affair, and about how I feel about them as one of those customers. Let me boil this down real simple for you and don't even try to start calling someone else arrogant with the way you came at me. (Is that not passive aggressive enough? Sorry)

 

1. NCSoft shut down a profitable game without notice, and in so doing (before, during, and after) significantly mishandled their customer base for that game, possibly due to attitudes you've alluded to, alienating a large percentage of them in the extreme.

 

2. While NCSoft was within their rights to shut the game down as the owner, as the customer, I'm entirely within my rights to feel however I damn well please about it. As far as I'm concerned, they can go to hell. Anything that happened between NCSoft and Paragon is not relevant here in the slightest because I DON'T CARE WHY NCSOFT SHUT DOWN THE GAME. I only care that they did so, and how they went about it. Get that through your thick skull, you keep trying to insist it's somehow relevant but it's not. As I stated the first time around, you can blame whoever you want, I blame NCSoft for the way they treated me. Paragon doesn't enter into that and your reasoning in arguing they somehow do is flawed, period. Paragon did not ulitimately make the decision to shut the game down, and your insistence that it's somehow their fault when it clearly wasn't their call is poor at best and at worst not relevant in the slightest to my relationship with NCSoft as a customer.

 

As a last thought, don't try to tell me my point was misplaced, you're just refusing to accept it. This mentality right here shows EXACTLY what's wrong with your thinking: "This entire debacle had absolutely nothing to do with the customers"

 

Eff that. We played that game and loved it for 8 years, then some @#$holes in Korea got butthurt over what happened in a conference room and shut the whole thing down just to spite a small group of people. That juvenile, shortsighted I'll take my ball and go home because I don't like the way you play decision didn't just affect the people who offended them, if affected all of their customers. Stupid. Just plain effing stupid. "The customers were never a consideration in the shutdown of the property." This statement shows exactly why NCSoft effed this up. On this one thing, we agree. We were never a consideration when we absolutely should have been. Now NCSoft will never be in consideration for my business again. When you try to tell me something that was a part of my life for that long going bye bye without apology, explanation or recourse doesn't have anything to do with me, don't be surprised when I tell you to get bent. NCSoft screwed the pooch, plain and simple, and all you've tried to do in this thread is rationalize that and tell me I've got to see things from their point of view. Yeah yeah yeah, face is very important in asian cultures, blah blah blah. I'll start caring about face when they start taking their customers into consideration on major decisions that dramatically impact said longtime paying customers. Stop trying to sell me a bunch of BS about an internal conflict having nothing to do with me. It's a crap arguement and if you've got half a brain you know it.

Edited May 14, 2013 by HumanPirhana

[La_Trix]

------- Edited May 14, 2013 by La_Trix

[HelinCarnate]

Is that why people suck at RP in TOR? "You're a Jedi Guardian. You're our Guilds Tank." "Huh?"

 

CoH proved you could do without the holy trinity. What keeps people thinking they need it, is because all the other games have it.

 

And that most other games that try to do away with it, do a terrible job. CoH was the only game I have seen where it was an exception. They had the holy pentagon. Tank, buffs/debuffs, heals, CC, and damage. With each of the classes having 1 primary and 1 secondary roll. They limit what the characters can do so they don't to a little bit of everything but there is some overlap and it works. They still will never admit it but I13 with the pvp changes is what was the beginning of the end for the game. When you give into the crybabies on the forums, that is what you are left with.

[ekimmak]

And that most other games that try to do away with it, do a terrible job. CoH was the only game I have seen where it was an exception. They had the holy pentagon. Tank, buffs/debuffs, heals, CC, and damage. With each of the classes having 1 primary and 1 secondary roll. They limit what the characters can do so they don't to a little bit of everything but there is some overlap and it works. They still will never admit it but I13 with the pvp changes is what was the beginning of the end for the game. When you give into the crybabies on the forums, that is what you are left with.

 

Weird. I didn't think that healing was considered a class, just a byproduct of buff/debuff.

 

At least someone here isn't going into a massive debate about who to blame for CoH's shutdown.

[SithKoriandr]

 

Jesus. H. Christ. You're dense. And completely wrong. COMPLETELY WRONG. YOU are trying to turn this into a discussion of what happened behind closed doors when it's not completely relevant in the slightest to what I posted about, which is NCSoft's craptacular treatment of their US customers in this whole sorry affair, and about how I feel about them as one of those customers. Let me boil this down real simple for you and don't even try to start calling someone else arrogant with the way you came at me. (Is that not passive aggressive enough? Sorry)

 

1. NCSoft shut down a profitable game without notice, and in so doing (before, during, and after) significantly mishandled their customer base for that game, possibly due to attitudes you've alluded to, alienating a large percentage of them in the extreme.

 

2. While NCSoft was within their rights to shut the game down as the owner, as the customer, I'm entirely within my rights to feel however I damn well please about it. As far as I'm concerned, they can go to hell. Anything that happened between NCSoft and Paragon is not relevant here in the slightest because I DON'T CARE WHY NCSOFT SHUT DOWN THE GAME. I only care that they did so, and how they went about it. Get that through your thick skull, you keep trying to insist it's somehow relevant but it's not. As I stated the first time around, you can blame whoever you want, I blame NCSoft for the way they treated me. Paragon doesn't enter into that and your reasoning in arguing they somehow do is flawed, period. Paragon did not ulitimately make the decision to shut the game down, and your insistence that it's somehow their fault when it clearly wasn't their call is poor at best and at worst not relevant in the slightest to my relationship with NCSoft as a customer.

 

As a last thought, don't try to tell me my point was misplaced, you're just refusing to accept it. This mentality right here shows EXACTLY what's wrong with your thinking: "This entire debacle had absolutely nothing to do with the customers"

 

Eff that. We played that game and loved it for 8 years, then some @#$holes in Korea got butthurt over what happened in a conference room and shut the whole thing down just to spite a small group of people. That juvenile, shortsighted I'll take my ball and go home because I don't like the way you play decision didn't just affect the people who offended them, if affected all of their customers. Stupid. Just plain effing stupid. "The customers were never a consideration in the shutdown of the property." This statement shows exactly why NCSoft effed this up. On this one thing, we agree. We were never a consideration when we absolutely should have been. Now NCSoft will never be in consideration for my business again. When you try to tell me something that was a part of my life for that long going bye bye without apology, explanation or recourse doesn't have anything to do with me, don't be surprised when I tell you to get bent. NCSoft screwed the pooch, plain and simple, and all you've tried to do in this thread is rationalize that and tell me I've got to see things from their point of view. Yeah yeah yeah, face is very important in asian cultures, blah blah blah. I'll start caring about face when they start taking their customers into consideration on major decisions that dramatically impact said longtime paying customers. Stop trying to sell me a bunch of BS about an internal conflict having nothing to do with me. It's a crap arguement and if you've got half a brain you know it.

 

 

Kinda like how that one company said SGR companions. More class stories. Lots of new planets? >_>

[SithKoriandr]

And that most other games that try to do away with it, do a terrible job. CoH was the only game I have seen where it was an exception. They had the holy pentagon. Tank, buffs/debuffs, heals, CC, and damage. With each of the classes having 1 primary and 1 secondary roll. They limit what the characters can do so they don't to a little bit of everything but there is some overlap and it works. They still will never admit it but I13 with the pvp changes is what was the beginning of the end for the game. When you give into the crybabies on the forums, that is what you are left with.

 

Was able to do all Scrapper (DPS) Taskforces. CoH had no trinity for 99.9% of the game. Only Incanate Level Raids needed a bit more of the trinity setup.

 

You could be right on the PvP. But I hate it when I need a PvE and a PvP build/gear, when before I could have one build and go!

[DragonSire]

This old thread got me thinking about good old COH. Sure it had it's problems, and I came and went...but it was, still is my favorite MMO. How it was shut down, means I will never purchase anything NCSOFT again, period. I don't care the reasons, whatever they are, it was done poorly.

 

But as I said it got me thinking, and the more I did, the more I noticed what it was I disliked about this game. In fairness I do like a lot of things, but sometimes the bad makes me forget the good. I wont get into too much detail, or this would take a very like time to read and let's face it...no one wants that. So:

 

City of Heroes Pros

-----------------------

Smarter Mobs - Single Mob Snipe, no elastic snap back to original position and health. Difficulty/Group Scaling

 

Death - Self Rez possibilities, Teammate Rez to Keep fighting, XP Debt (No HUGE credit sinks, no Stat damage, merly slowed progression) Just get up and finish off the bad guy if u can. Can't remember for sure but don't think timers other than self rez.

 

Rest - Run Around corner and rest, as long as not attacked.

 

Appearance - Huge Amounts of Customization, without affecting stats. Color options without $20.00 One use Dyes. In game appearance change without real money. Multiple costume options.

 

Multiple Builds - Granted had to equip enhancements for each build, but atleast you could swap.

 

Travel - My god this game is slow getting around. Time Sink (Engine excuse not buying it) Super Speed, Flight, Teleportation. we have mounts with rocket engines that go the speed of a skateboards or bikes. Exit Mssion when completed.

 

Mission Instances with Scaling - Solo possible for almost all things.

 

Bases - They needed some love, but pretty awesome early on.

 

AE - Abused but was cool system.

 

AuctionHouse - Blind Auction with history of what an item is selling at...god that would be nice to have.

 

The really god thing, a community that was friendly and helpful, and didn't care about dying. You run a mssion and you die a few times...so what, worst case you level a little slower. Now you die a few times and your poor unless siting on a mountain of raid cash.

 

When asked about this game, I say it's W O W with a light saber, with high end grinding and crafting that makes less and less sense each patch.

 

I hope over time the game gets better. but EA being involved makes me think it ill be milked as it is, just repeating makeb style new content aka more time sink grinding, for the sake of grinding and other than the hinted ship system nothing will really change where it counts.

 

Just my opinion.

[Excise]

I'm always disappointed that other games didn't copy CoX more. It had some great things:

 

1. Costume customization without affecting stats, with getting new costume options as you level.

 

2. Sidekicking/mentoring, letting you always play with a friend.

 

3. Mission scaling. Make the game as hard as you can manage or easy as you like it. Good risk vs reward with better XP on the harder difficulties.

 

4. Easy grouping. Due to the two things above, finding a group in CoX was so easy. I've never seen it in any other game.

 

5. Soft holy trinity. Rather than 1 healer, 1 tank, 2 DPS, CoX had 8 man groups. Have 2 tanks? No prob. Zero healers and instead Controllers and Bubble Defenders? Done and done. Groups felt nice and varied.

 

6. Mayhem & Safeguard missions. This kind of open style mission rather than the normal Kill / Click X mobs / items was so much fun.

 

Any of the above would be great for SWTOR.

[Dysehunter]

Good luck to the community that is staying hopeful that the game will get better. But, I doubt that. It is after all EA and it's not in the game.

 

Why did Bioware have to get involved with EA, EA ruin games

[Drake_Hound]

Well I still remember city of heroes , and I still remember and will remember how the bioarmour setwas going to sell like mad !

them closing it down was all cause of a internal conflict with NCSOFT , I am blaiming NCSOFT for it .

no other reason , there are a lot variables why they closed it down .

But remember Paragon Studios was also making CoH2 in development , that was a overhead sight .

Still as long a balance is in the + maybe not the + publisher wanted . They should have let it stay online .

 

Now starwars Licenses has been renewed , this mmo will go till 2015 cause of possible profit prospect in 2015 .

So you want to jump the boat , by all means go ahead , but the more I quit threads I read .

The more I know in this thread OP won't quit .. Even with character deletion , even with giving away stuff .

You just want to burn your bridges for your own purpose !

So be it , BURN them , you are talking to a new group of people who will play if something usefull is given out for free.

 

Man sometimes I wonder why people who don't even understood CoH closing are still playing GW2

But makes a CoH thread , man shennigans these days .

[DKNS]

Why did Bioware have to get involved with EA, EA ruin games

 

As much as it pains me to say this; without EA, Bioware wouldn't have the had the budget for this game. Bioware was a good studio but not a rich studio until EA took over.

[DragonSire]

As much as it pains me to say this; without EA, Bioware wouldn't have the had the budget for this game. Bioware was a good studio but not a rich studio until EA took over.

 

Perhaps, but smaller might have been better in the long run. Would have been more player orientated, less financial. EA nickle and dimes everyone these days, and delivers bug ridden projects just to meet deadlines. And focuses on simpoints/cartel coins etc as quick revenue then long term customer satisfaction.

[Wraiven]

Tanker Herding Halloween event.

 

Wraiven Movie

 

Wraiven Movie II

 

Wraiven Movie III

 

Wraiven Movie IV

 

Man, I almost forgot I even had those, haha. Brings back memories.

[ImpactHound]

 

City of Titans kickstarter, already a massive push to bring it back. /salute

[CosmicKat]

 

City of Titans kickstarter, already a massive push to bring it back. /salute

 

Cool. Pretty funny that they need $320,000 to fund it. Wonder what the extra $199,680,000 to fund TOR was spent on.

[ImpactHound]

Cool. Pretty funny that they need $320,000 to fund it. Wonder what the extra $199,680,000 to fund TOR was spent on.

 

Spike TV ads, and bad budgeting. Actually reading their budget plan on exactly what they need and how much it costs for City of Titans is refreshingly transparent, I'm very optimistic. I just hope it doesn't end up anything like a washed-out version of Champions Online.

 

EDIT: It's probably a deeper issue than that for TOR's $300 million budget, I have no doubt that bare-bones budgets were used for most MMOs, and the reason they get off the ground with no money is because the people launching them used to be so passionate about them, and making a living breathing world, they probably break all sorts of OSHA and company stardards. It would not surprise me if the original WoW team worked 80+ hour weeks, not because they had to, but because they were so obviously passionate about what they were doing.

 

Yeah, TOR had some passionate devs tattoo themselves in that famous pic, but that's Star Wars passion and not "good game" passion.

 

This is of course purely speculative, but shouldn't surprise anyone that has ever programmed something they love vs. something they did for a paycheck.

Edited October 4, 2013 by ImpactHound

[JLazarillo]

Cool. Pretty funny that they need $320,000 to fund it. Wonder what the extra $199,680,000 to fund TOR was spent on.

 

Well, it's being done by a volunteer staff, among other things, and is still another two years or so in the making. Two years of developer salaries, while probably not making up the entire difference, is nonetheless a sizable chunk'o'change, I'd imagine.

 

Of course, some may worry about how reliable people who aren't being paid to work on this might be. The people working on the new game are pretty driven, to the point I think that perception will probably be their biggest hurdle to clear.

[WSRB]

Well, it's being done by a volunteer staff, among other things, and is still another two years or so in the making. Two years of developer salaries, while probably not making up the entire difference, is nonetheless a sizable chunk'o'change, I'd imagine.

 

Of course, some may worry about how reliable people who aren't being paid to work on this might be. The people working on the new game are pretty driven, to the point I think that perception will probably be their biggest hurdle to clear.

 

There's a real reason to worry about the reliability of those involved in the project because everything in their promotional materials comes across as a bunch of butthurt CoH fans who are essentially trying to recreate that game.

 

Ignoring the fact that the very first line on their page admitts to the fact that they're making a "spiritual successor" to an IP they have no legal claim to, look at the words they use: "City of Titans", "Missing Worlds Media", "The Phoenix Project", "Giving back to the community what was taken from it". After reading the first couple sentences, I caught the same whiff of fanboy desperation that I get from the SWGemu project: only this is sadder because they're trying to get hundreds of thousands of dollars out of fellow butthurt fans whereas the emu guys at least did it mostly under their own finances (barring small donations in order to maintain their server).

 

I'm sure that there are several people at the core who are deeply committed to the project, but that's going to be maybe 20 to 30 guys who will be trying to build an entire MMORPG from scratch in their spare time. Real life is going to come along and quickly snatch more than a few of them away before long: on their website there is an announcement thread where they discuss how one of their core founders is seeking a masters degree and will be unable to contribute much to the project over the next two years. These people aren't telling us who they are: they're literally anonymous forum posters, so the people whom they're asking to give them money have no idea of who they're giving the money to or just exactly how qualified they are to even attempt a project like this. I'm not saying that a small group of dedicated "amateurs" can't build good video game, but I'm positive that can't do a game on the scale that they want to without having a professional core that is actually able to work on the game full time.

 

I played City of Heroes for six years and I loved it. From an industry perspective, it is important because it shows that a theme park MMORPG can exist without being built from the WoW blueprint; it also show that you can attract a large and committed audience without building an endgame designed primarily around raiding and PvP (I'm not saying that either of those things are bad, or that no game should do that, I'm simply saying that alternative models can be successful). I would love to see someone come in and purchase the IP from NCSoft to launch an actual sequel or create a "spiritual successor"; but in order to build a game on that type of scale, they're going be professional and I just don't see that in these guys.

[Spatology]

There's a real reason to worry about the reliability of those involved in the project because everything in their promotional materials comes across as a bunch of butthurt CoH fans who are essentially trying to recreate that game.

 

Ignoring the fact that the very first line on their page admitts to the fact that they're making a "spiritual successor" to an IP they have no legal claim to, look at the words they use: "City of Titans", "Missing Worlds Media", "The Phoenix Project", "Giving back to the community what was taken from it". After reading the first couple sentences, I caught the same whiff of fanboy desperation that I get from the SWGemu project: only this is sadder because they're trying to get hundreds of thousands of dollars out of fellow butthurt fans whereas the emu guys at least did it mostly under their own finances (barring small donations in order to maintain their server).

 

I'm sure that there are several people at the core who are deeply committed to the project, but that's going to be maybe 20 to 30 guys who will be trying to build an entire MMORPG from scratch in their spare time. Real life is going to come along and quickly snatch more than a few of them away before long: on their website there is an announcement thread where they discuss how one of their core founders is seeking a masters degree and will be unable to contribute much to the project over the next two years. These people aren't telling us who they are: they're literally anonymous forum posters, so the people whom they're asking to give them money have no idea of who they're giving the money to or just exactly how qualified they are to even attempt a project like this. I'm not saying that a small group of dedicated "amateurs" can't build good video game, but I'm positive that can't do a game on the scale that they want to without having a professional core that is actually able to work on the game full time.

 

I played City of Heroes for six years and I loved it. From an industry perspective, it is important because it shows that a theme park MMORPG can exist without being built from the WoW blueprint; it also show that you can attract a large and committed audience without building an endgame designed primarily around raiding and PvP (I'm not saying that either of those things are bad, or that no game should do that, I'm simply saying that alternative models can be successful). I would love to see someone come in and purchase the IP from NCSoft to launch an actual sequel or create a "spiritual successor"; but in order to build a game on that type of scale, they're going be professional and I just don't see that in these guys.

 

Lol you called CoH successful in the last paragraph. The hilarity continues.

[Andryah]

Cool. Pretty funny that they need $320,000 to fund it. Wonder what the extra $199,680,000 to fund TOR was spent on.

 

Kickstarter funding campaigns have absolutely no objective correlation to AAA studio projects and funding.

 

It's nice to see that seed funding can prosper in the social media age.. but watch your wallets IMO. Like many grass roots movements in the internet.. most will come to nothing at all. Some do of course.. but most do not. And those that do.. for the most part are simply looking to become successful enough to sell out to a AAA studio at the earliest possibility.

[NyxNoxNothing]

Out of curiosity.. has anyone here besides me ever done business negotiatons with a Korean company?

 

The sequence of events surrounding the shut down of CoH is very typical and in fact predicable once Paragon decided to take an aggressive approach with company management in Korea. Paragon created a face issue for NCsoft and NCsoft dealt with it in a predictable way (from a Korean business standpoint).

 

The reason the MMO was not sold off to a 3rd party, not sold to Paragon, and the copyrights are frozen is NCsoft decided to teach Paragon management (and the studios in general) a lesson. The game was still profitable as far as I can tell... but not enough to keep it open under the circumstances precipitated.

 

The playerbase are the ones that suffered because of this... but it's actualy Paragons fault. I blame Paragon for the mishandling of all of this. There is a right way and a wrong way to negotiate business with Korean companies. NCsoft management was just doing/being what is normal in Korean business. Western studios need to learn from this debacle.

 

So basically everyone should just learn the Korean way of doing things and capitulate on all matters to their approach? It certainly makes sense if you're trying to operate in the Korean market, but it eventually leads to failure and ill will if you insist that a product that is primarily aimed at the Western market and staffed by Western employees do everything in the Korean manner. Not that NCsoft couldn't do so, but taking that insular and xenophobic approach to games that were aqcquired for the purpose of breaking into Western markets was rather shortsighted. Consider that the near absence of an advertising budget and general lack of support for the game and studio coincided with a time where superheroes were exploding in international popularity. It's not unlikely that City of Heroes could've been something of a hit if there had been interest in promoting it.

 

To my way of thinking it would've been far smarter of NCsoft to make some effort to understand how Western culture and businesses operate if they were really interested in getting a stronger foothold. Still, when you're the one in charge and rarely have to interact directly with outsiders it is easy to overlook that sort of thing. More's the pity.

 

At least that aspect isn't an issue with SWTOR. While i do think that things like the Cartel Coin pricing is excessive (and is a large part of the reason that now that i have characters high enough level to easily afford most items on the galactic market i'm saving my coins for account unlocks) at least EA management is unlikely to use the same sort of arrogant, high-handed approach to the developers and players that NCsoft did. i recall reading about the surprise and shock among NCsoft executives over the reaction to their handling of the shutdown; it was a lesson in how ignoring the culture you're operating in can lead to unanticipated effects. Cultural conflicts for the lose/lose.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on that whole debacle.

 

--------

 

Now, in terms of game design, i do think CoH did a number of things that made it more varied and enjoyable in terms of gameplay than most MMOs without suffering from CO's tendency to homogenization. It's my opinion that CoH still had a holy trinity of sorts, but at a higher level of abstraction. It was handled as more of a DPS/mitigation/aggro control trinity. What mostly made it work in my opinion was the strength and stacking of buffs, debuffs, and crowd control. The different classes and trees/powersets were balanced around trading off strengths in one area for strengths in another at both a class and powerset level. Of course it helps that the sort of gear/enhancements that could be used allowed for building towards different approaches even when using the exact same classes. Considering that SWTOR is locked into an even narrower range of roles and playstyles than even most other MMOs it's probably not really relevant to a discussion in the SWTOR forums since it's so far from where SWTOR is currently.

 

However, i do still think that CoH's social UI/chat/teamfinder and markets were interesting innovations that could be useful references points for additions to SWTOR. i was somewhat surprised at how little attention Bioware seemed to pay to the design of current MMOs when SWTOR was in production. Many of the things they've added since launch (that made the game worth playing again for me after staying away for nearly a year) had been in use in other MMOs for 5+ years when SWTOR was in development. It still puzzles me when developers seem to keep reinventing systems after launching without them when every game around them has been using them since long before the game was in production.

"Look, our new ox-powered cargo sled has awesome skids!"

"Uhm, everyone else has been using wheels for a while now. It's a lot easier and more enjoyable."

"Really? Since when?"

"Not sure, a couple thousand years, I think?"

"Oh. Maybe we should try that."

"Yeah, maybe."

[Runeshard]

Out of curiosity.. has anyone here besides me ever done business negotiatons with a Korean company?

 

The sequence of events surrounding the shut down of CoH is very typical and in fact predicable once Paragon decided to take an aggressive approach with company management in Korea. Paragon created a face issue for NCsoft and NCsoft dealt with it in a predictable way (from a Korean business standpoint).

 

The reason the MMO was not sold off to a 3rd party, not sold to Paragon, and the copyrights are frozen is NCsoft decided to teach Paragon management (and the studios in general) a lesson. The game was still profitable as far as I can tell... but not enough to keep it open under the circumstances precipitated.

 

The playerbase are the ones that suffered because of this... but it's actualy Paragons fault. I blame Paragon for the mishandling of all of this. There is a right way and a wrong way to negotiate business with Korean companies. NCsoft management was just doing/being what is normal in Korean business. Western studios need to learn from this debacle.

 

I'm sorry but all this talk of "face issue", "teach them a lesson" as well as some of the things you put in later posts only makes NCSoft look even worse, since it makes them look petty. Saying that it's Paragon's fault that NCSoft, and according to you, Korean business practice in general is like this is a bit far fetched. In the end NCSofts behaviour and tactics in this matter don't seem to have served them well. There are a lot of gamers that are sceptical of this company because of it, and quite a few who have boycotted them as a result. Even the industry itself reacted to the way this was handled, there were even newspapers in Korea that criticised NCSoft over this.