JKedan

I don't have a crystal ball to know if Plan Z will turn out to be anything more than a pipe dream, and I don't wish the project ill, but the quoted statement is false. The City of Heroes community dies the moment they turn off the servers and shut down the boards. It won't, and can't, be saved. If it was ever possible to save it, and I'm not convinced of such, that time is well past, and could only be done by NCSoft. All you'll have managed to do, for an indeterminable amount of time, is enlarge the Titan forums community. The two are not synonymous, and it is naieve at best and arrogant at worst to believe they are. The Titan forums are no more the inheritor of the City of community than the Unleashed forums, NcSoft's Facebook page, or a random fan's twitter.

Most of you post is filled with random hyperbole and such, but this part shows a fairly fundamental lack of basic business knowledge. Companies don't exist to just make a profit and whatever they get is 'good enough' so they just accept it. That's what beggars do. Companies exist to maximize their profits, and in the case of publicly owned firms, they have a legal obligation to financially perform as best they can in the market or their investors can take action against them. When you see a phase like "Changing company focus", it absolutely does not mean "because we felt like it" as though it were some whimsical pre-morning coffee idea. What it means is that they have analyzed their products and the market and determined that they can get a better return on their investment, thus maximizing their profits, by doing something else with their money.

So this constant droning on about how CoX may or may not have been eking out a profit is irrelevant. What matters is if it was generating the best return on the funds they were investing in it, and the answer is clearly "No".

It's as simple as that.

As an aside, most companies hate having to do this. Even with the most compelling evidence they can get, it's still a huge risk to shift from a longstanding product to a new one. Until the new product(s) is out, all a company has is projections and forecasts, all of which can crumble in the face of actual market performance. Coca Cola did extensive market research, focus groups, test markets, surveys, everything they could to be sure the consumer wanted a change, and New Coke still tanked. It happens, but companies do everything they can to make sure it won't before they pull the trigger.

As good a use as any other post on any message board. I come here to discuss and converse, don't you?

In my opinion, if it were a large enough player base to make developing a new game worth it, CoX never would have gone Freedom. Any investment team looking for a new game to bankroll is going to look at the performance of the offerings in the Super Hero MMO genre and move on.

Those members of SaveCoX who are continually spouting the 'if we don't get our way, we're just going to keep screaming at NCSoft until we hurt them forever' line are also doing a pretty good job of making sure it never happens. Strange as this may seem, companies aren't really interested in saddling themselves with a group of consumers who have been proven to make a stink at the first sign of injury, real or imagined. It just not worth getting into a position where you have to appease people who have demonstrated that they'll attack your image at every opportunity if you don't bow to their demands.

I share this assessment. I don't think there's been enough of CoX left to save since about a week after the announcement. It's just a matter of time vs consumer interest. Anything short of a complete reversal of shutting down on Nov 30th would have meant a lengthy time frame between shut down and restart, and the the majority of the player base would have (and already has) simply found something else to do.

Because to most people it was just a game that they liked playing, not some quixotic stand against corporate behavior. If there was a chance of keeping the status quo, that's worth some time and effort. When that's off the table, it's just not worth the investment. They shrugged and moved on to one of the countless other entertainment alternatives.

It doesn't help that the SaveCoX has never really had anything like a unified mission statement or measurable goals that an interested party could be directed to and identify with. Ask ten people what 'Saving CoX' means, and you'd get five different answers and five combinations of those answers. Keep NCSoft from shutting down Paragon. Get them to sell the IP. Shutter Paragon but keep the servers on. Release the code for emulators. And so on.

And sorry to say it but "Do *insert whatever my permutation of wants is here* by Nov 30th" isn't a measurable goal, it's just an ultimatum.

Take the Call to Actions. I applaud the concept, but not the execution. Which of the several definitions of 'saved' were they supposed to enable, and what measurement was used to determine how successful they were, or, just as important, weren't, at bringing those ends to pass?

Did anyone do any research on letter writing campaigns, for example, to determine what the effectiveness threshold was? Statistically, how many needed to be sent? What, historically, has been the best format? or Tone? or Content? Is it better to send them individually, or get a lot of them together and send them all as one package? Was there even an attempt to keep an accurate tally of how many were sent? And the letter writing campaign is followed up with the capes and masks attempt, which is basically the same thing. And what do you have to show for either? That the company set up an email account for you to send to directly, and speculation as to why that might be the case? So you have no idea who did what, or what it did or didn't accomplish, and nothing real to use as good or bad press.

"A bunch of people sent letters" is mumbled heresay. "We received 10,000 letters and packages from fans that we sent on to NCSoft" is a usable data point.

People and groups seriously working towards meaningful outcomes have defined and measurable goals, and systems in place to do those measurements. It's what makes them effective, because they know exactly how well something did or didn't work, and can focus their efforts appropriately.

Further, because the movement is fractured, anything short of a complete reversal of the decision to shut down Paragon/CoX (which is impossible now in any case) leaves you with a portion of the group feeling like their want wasn't catered to. That's a no-win situation for NCSoft.

And since there are still no clearly defined and measurable goals, how will you know you are successful in whatever you choose to do post-Nov 30th? How will you know your efforts had an effect on Blade and Soul, or Wildstar, or GW2? If Blade and Soul fails, for example, how will you know it's because of the negative press against NCSoft, and not because it is a crappy game, or even just a game that doesn't fit the current market? Or are you just going to take credit regardless of the truth and 'prove' it with anecdotes? Is there any consensus on when NCSoft has suffered enough? One different style game sunset? One failed game? NCSoft leaving the Western market? NCSoft going bankrupt? What's the unified end goal? When does the group think "justice" is done?

I find it highly unlikely a unified goal or a way of measuring the success of the post closure actions will suddenly emerge from the confusion. And honestly, without real focus you're going to be easily dismissed as just more random internet rage amongst the sea of it that shows up on every single comment thread ever made.

That has been the most frustrating part of the SaveCoX movement to me. I understand, respect, and agree with not wanting something you care about to go away. That is a fine and worthy sentiment. But without structure, that's all it is. Sentiment. And right now, the only thing that seems to be a unifying factor in the SaveCoX movement, at least if you go by the vocal posters, is general anger at NCSoft, and that's not really going to be an effective catalyst for change.

The loud, antagonistic, 'we will attack you if you/because you don't do what we want' crowd that currently dominates the loudest group of SaveCoXers would be what they aren't interested in, and is pretty much acting anything but sensible or mature, regardless of "(somewhat)" qualifiers.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to convince anyone not to be angry. Anger is a perfectly respectable response to what's happened and motivation to change it. I just don't think venting anger is a useful method to get what you want. I think it's the exact opposite, in fact. And if people are just waiting for Dec 1 to unleash some vaguely defined internet justice on NCSoft, that says to me that they've already given up on CoX and any potential future iterations of the Super Hero MMO that, in time, might have replaced it.

Ah, so you'd rather be ignorant than educated about the actual facts. Fair enough, that's your choice and I respect it.

Read further.

Actually, the situation is not uncommon in larger corporations, though the length of time differs. People who are laid off, rather than fired, are given a certain grace period to look for new jobs while still being paid. They aren't actually allowed to come into the office, or access company assets, because, as impending former employees, they might harbor some ill will and enact criminal mischief on the company's property. Be that physical or intellectual.

Of course, in Miller's case, there may have been stipulations in his contract that said they had to pay him X amount upon termination of his employment. We'll never know.

That sucks. Keep trying DR, someone will pick you up. You're too good to leave on the vine, so to speak.

Sooo, it's not over when you trot out the ad hominem, only when other people do it. Yay double standards!

Honestly, I find this exceedingly unlikely. Potential new players will look at the developer, and if NCSoft even enters the review equation, it'll be "Yeah, they closed an 8 year old game that was in decline, and that had some of the most hardcore of its small player base upset, but they are clearly committed to GW2 and look how well it is doing."

Passion aside, SaveCoH has neither the numbers nor the popular support to make a difference in future NCSoft releases. You don't even have the full support of the current CoH player base. Those products will succeed or fail on their own merits and the state of the market, not because of anything former CoX players say.

For it to be immoral, there would have to be some conflict with generally held morality. What facet of morality is being conflicted here? What taboo are they breaking, what intent to harm was their goal?

The answer is none. There is no moral conflict in discontinuing a luxury entertainment product. There is no malice, and no intent to harm. Any lasting trauma on the part of the individual is not the fault of the product or the company.

As for your last point, you see scorn and belittlement where I see stages of acceptance. There are no sour grapes. There is no schadenfreude. Everyone here is in the exact same situation, namely, they won't be able to play CoX past the end of the month. Some people have accepted it, and some have not. Each at their own pace, and for their own reasons. I have plenty of friends who were upset about the closure, and I consoled who I could by helping them understand that this is not personal. It is not some directed attack at the CoX players, their life choices, their belief structures, or anything else that matters. It is a business making a decision about how best to invest their limited funds to maximize their returns. The perceived intelligence of such a decision, and the ultimate success or failure of the attempt are outside the scope of the discussion. NCSoft will either be right or they will be wrong, and neither will bring CoX back.

If you want to project some dark glee at the expense of others onto that viewpoint, that's your prerogative, but no such feeling exists, at least on my part. The worst I've seen is some frustrated retaliation after being attacked for daring to not still be in the denial or anger stages of grief.

Edit: I'm sorry, I know this has nothing to do with anything, but I can not help but giggle at your icon. The spread eagle after the jump is what does it.

Why is it people assume stupidity or malice when the opposite is the most reasonable conclusion?

NCSoft is taking the funds they were spending on a disappointing performer and deciding to use them on a project or projects that have the potential for a higher rate of return. It's that simple.

We're not talking about a situation where Blizzard decided to shut down WoW because they got tired of printing money. CoX has been a disappointing performer for some time, and it has reached a point where the business has decided that it is no longer worth investing in. You may not like it, but that doesn't mean it's the wrong decision.

Is there a risk involved on their part? Sure, every business decision contains an element of risk. But they have already weighed the possibilities and consider it a sufficiently low risk to take, and time will tell if they're right.

Please. Morality has nothing to do with it. They aren't killing puppies or withholding the cure for cancer in order to drive the price up. They're discontinuing an under performing product line in an increasingly difficult market.

So what you're saying is that you've decided that people aren't allowed to invite other CoXers to come play GW2 with them, and you would rather spend the final days of the CoX boards miserable while making sure everyone else knows it.

That's fine, and you won't have to put up with it much longer. My understanding is that all these terribly objectionable posts will be gone by Dec 1st, so you have something to look forward to.

Regarding GW2 itself, I enjoy the event well enough. What I love about the game is the exploration and jumping puzzles. I thought the player story was also great....up to a point. Sadly, it went from great to pttthbpt over the course of about 3 missions, and it's been hard for me to work up the drive to finish it off. :/

You're suggesting that comic fans can't/won't also be fantasy fans? I'm not even sure where to begin with that failure in logic.

A pity, since early on there were rather valiant attempts at creating a serious roleplaying community. Sadly, the social features, like chat, were so underdeveloped it proved too daunting a task for most.

I have.

Not only are you just stalling a weapons depot and an experimentation facility, but it takes between 8 and 24 people at various levels of godhood to even accomplish these slight delays.