JohnRobey

War is often the best option? How about war may be unavoidable, such as when invaded. Or war is the option of last resort after diplomacy and all negotiations have failed?

The sense in which there are no "winners" in war is well summarized by English poet John Donne: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/no-man-is-an-island/

Nice seeing you on these forums again, Voodoo Girl! I've been pretty happy with the quality of the forums over at Titan Network and increasingly disappointed in the quality of forums here; sad too, since they started so great. See ya over at Titan.

I appreciate that you're angry. I feel however that the language you chose to express your displeasure is as offensive as if you'd used racist pejorative derogatory language. If you can't bring yourself to apologize for it, at least please refrain from using such language on the forums again. Thanks!

Oh well, that's wonderful info!! Thank you!!! (and yes, none of my characters that I reviewed for Incarnate stats was in Dark Astoria or on an Incarnate trial.)

*Blink* Either I don't know the meaning of the word "sirrah" or am lacking to the context to understand why you are using that term. Please pardon my reply and intrusion on your comment. Going back to being blissfully ignorant now....

Thanks for the history on this, Burnt the Toast. If you or others have more on that history and Fansy "being an imposter", that might help us evaluate Fansy's recent statements. The past 24-48 hours is the extent of my reading anything posted by Fansy. If Fansy is a former NCSoft employee that would support his/her claim to having a confidential source inside

Since I don't know the EQ character Fansy, I'm presuming the person posting as Fansy is emulating that NPC's style of talking. Some of what Fansy has said the past day or two to my mind is quite vague and purposefully so; other statements have been very direct with little doubt to my mind about how said statements are intended to be understood.

If Fansy is a pulling a prank or hoax, I'll be annoyed; and unless the others in the Community Consumer Action(s)/Save CoH player response think as I do that Fansy is legit, then it would be wise to proceed taking Fansy with a grain (or pound) of salt, depending on one's skepticism. False hope at this point truly would be cruel; however, Fansy's main points (imo) are 1. NCSoft is listening to us, whether they want to or not; 2. the Save CoH movement is working and should continue, albeit imo judiciously and intelligently; 3. CoH expiring on 11/30 terminates various contracts that will permit NCSoft to negotiate in a way we player-fans/customers are more likely to prefer.

Whether this is a hoax, sad joke, delusion, ego trip, corporate ruse, or a completely legitimate informed person with insider information who needs to maintain the cover of a facade, there's no way for me to know for certain barring some Reveal. As the Oracle told Neo in Matrix II "It is a pickle, no doubt about it. You'll just have to make up your own damn mind." That said, I've decided to put my trust and faith in Fansy and Fansy's purported source(s). (I've done all the research I personally can easily do.) If I'm deceived, I'm deceived. I won't like it, but it won't hurt nearly as much as Labor Day weekend (8/31 - 9/2) when 90-100% of us felt stunned and hurt first by the sudden Sunset Announcment and immediate layoff of all/most Paragon Studios personnel (most 'cause I don't know that is was all initially), and later as it sunk home even more deeply that our friends could no longer log in to game with us due to the emotional pain they're feeling and the active SGs and then servers started emptying out.

For me, this is about Saving CoH. It's also about treatment of customers by a major MMO publisher. For my part, I find it entirely credible that a former employee would have one or more contacts among his/her former colleagues willing to give some info on the QT (second definition: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=qt)

Quite apart from our (reasonable) speculations: a steady customer base, an estimated $10 million annual revenue, the relative profit/value of selling rather than taking a depreciation write off on the IP, the potential cost of negative publicity, etc, I think it's entirely possible that there are some, perhaps many, within NCSoft who take the company's Vision and Mission Statements to heart: to promote human happiness worldwide, to do the Right/Correct thing, etc. Whether any of these are ranking executives in NCSoft would be speculative and perhaps doubtful. Whether they play MMORPGs or not, these employees may rightly understand that we are a community and might also share the feelings many of us do or at least empathize that City of Heroes is more than a game, it's also an art form. On bad health days, I used to joke that CoH was my favorite coloring book! I could design costumes, bases, and after power customization even specialize many of my character's abilities including activation emotes and colorization.

Maybe there are Costume Competitions in other MMORPGs, but in MMOs where one selects from 8 or a dozen faces, a few hair styles, and costuming choices are selected by equipment worn, I tend to doubt it. I only once encountered a character who looked much like one of mine in CoH and even then there were significant differences. In the few MMO's I've tried outside CoH, one routinely encounters characters that are near doppelgangers of one's toon in how they look.

Congratulations and Best Wishes to the happy couple! =D

(Weird I know and possibly pure nostalgia but despite having plenty of transfer tokens I find I'm loathe to shift any character from their current server and SG affiliation.)

I have two 50s on Victory, a Gravity/RE controller with Tier 4 everything except for Hybrid which is still locked (IIRC). I'd really have to double check as well as play the character a bit since it's been a couple of weeks and i want my play refreshed if I'm on this toon for this purpose. I also have a blaster, has all incarnate powers but for Hybrid, however, I'm fairly sure some of his incarnate powers are Tiers 2 and 3. I'll check on level shifts and the thiings my memory is vague about before posting here again, but barring unforeseen events, I'm up for this!

Hmmm. Even more amusing or ironic. No, I am no Fansy, not even remotely, though I did get a reply from my private message thanking Fansy for what she or he posted here and on the Titan Network forums. In my private reply, Fansy said someone was claiming I'm Fansy. I'm not. If I need to prove it, I'm not sure how to go about it other than saying I've had only ONE account with NCSoft ever (this one). When the servers go dark I'll have NO NCSoft account nor need of one since the publisher is discontinuing "my cup of tea." Apologies if you found my attempts to mimic the style of Fansy confusing. It must be because I'm a ROLE-PLAY GAMER, and if someone is going to be whimsical and humorous while sharing potentially good news and encouragement to NOT RELENT, to instead continue our Save CoH efforts, and further claims to be a Bard, I'm role-play gamer enough to attempt to reply in kind. (The few hours I played EQ one afternoon in the late 90s didn't introduce me to the EQ character of Fansy. For me THE Bard is sweet William, otherwise known as Shakespeare, though for others that title would go to Taliesin, or if German Goethe or perhaps Schiller.)

On to the meat of your post. You call B.S. That's fair and your call. I also would take umbrage at anyone offering false hope or (worse) perpetrating a hoax. I can't prove Fansy's not doing that, but I can attest that it's my opinion the person writing as Fansy isn't. It's my sense after reviewing every Fansy post I could find on this and on Titan Network's forums that Fansy is legit and has a confidential source who perhaps risked their job so Fansy could "leak" to us that our Save CoH efforts have NOT been in vain and further to continue them. Yeah, I'd like more constructive advice from Fansy or anyone as to how to direct our community consumer activities even more effectively, and am hoping Fansy can perhaps divulge privately to TonyV, Victoria Victrix or whomever info to help hone our response and efforts in a way NCSoft will hear and respond to favorably, by which I mean either continuing to publish CoH and rehire the Dev team (ok unlikely) or to SELL the IP etc. so CoH continues and any devs looking for work might get jobs with the new publisher.

My goal as a customer is for NCSoft to treat me like I'm a valued customer. Apparently, I'm not. Valued customers have replies to their letters. Additionally, I do NOT mean rank and file NCSoft employees--I've had nothing but positive experiences with both game staff and tech support--I mean the executives who sold me and all of you various products from the Paragon Market as add-ons for a product that will soon cease to exist, marketing new items no less than 10 days prior to the Sunset Notice. That and few other things such as the treatment of the development team formerly known as Paragon Studios is why I am angry at NCSoft. I would feel mere disappointment if City of Heroes closed because almost no one ever played it and the meager revenues generated failed to offset production costs, that I could understand and would find infinitely more palatable.

Well, I'm sure I've rambled on quite long enough. Have a good day, Happy Gaming and STAY SUPER!!

P.S. Thanks to everyone posting who's managed to stay positive and seriously constructive. I don't think I've managed to be either of these as well as I would have liked.

OK. I'm good with that. :-)

I agree: Plan Z is a long shot and one those involved truly wish wasn't needed.

As to TSW or SWTOR: Why not play both as Free to Play to start (or where you have friends already playing) and see which if either appeals to you?

What sounds like bollocks to you, Scarlet Shocker? My post (above) or Fansy's original post?

Hmmm. Interesting post, Tim. 1. how did the Boston Legal episode turn out? I assume the elderly couple lost/had no case. (Sounds like a frivilous lawsuit to my layman's ears.) and 2. I had a funny image of the Entertainment Industry dressed as Marie Antionette saying "Let them eat poop!" Not exactly enticing, and no doubt the reason why I find comparatively little on television worth watching or even in the movie house.

I'm confident my wanting to know more about NCSoft's reason(s) for "sunsetting" City of Heroes is NOT so that I have more to argue about.

It doesn't work as an analogy for the reasons you cite. My point in posting this is that sometimes customers can get discontinued products restored. Perhaps the small number of City of Heroes fans makes the analogy to Surge more apt, since Surge is a soda pop I've never heard of nor tried.

That said, why did Coca-Cola discontinue Surge? Was it profitable?

Congratulations to Nate!! I'm hoping all the Devs drop in on the evening of 11/30 if not before, so we can party in Pocket D and visit virtually until the servers go dark. If the Devs say yes, just pick a server and I'll move a toon there if I don't have one already.

Yes, I believe I am 100% ready to hear NCSoft's explanation right now. Yes, their two Public Relations statements qualify imo as examples of "EPIC FAIL". No, I don't think NCSoft or any company should single out my communication as the one to reply to. Rather, I think any reasonable customer letter, one that omits bombastic language, ought to be responded to, and many companies have a department dedicated to customer relations. Perhaps my communication was "lost in the shuffle" as you suggested or "not important enough" or otherwise slipped thru the cracks. Be that as it may, NCSoft dropping the ball on this reflects on them, and signals clearly how important my business as a customer is to them or isn't! Unless you're suggesting that NCSoft cannot distinguish between one customer's letter and another's? I'm not certain about "entities" but I expect businesses to act business-like, which means reading one's mail, sorting and filtering it, perhaps discarding/ignoring bombastic rants, but otherwise responding business-like to customer letters. (Presumably NCSoft still wants customers.)

Re: appeasing the angry crowd aka all of us, did you read the link I posted on "New Coke"? I actually like the Coca-Cola company version better than the Wikipedia synopsis. The reason I posted that is that Coca-Cola angered and upset MANY of its customers. Coke chose NOT to ignore it's customers. Coke wanted to win/survive the "cola wars" -- hence the "bold" step of New Coke/Coke II -- and Coke had the wisdom to see it had made a bad decision in doing away with its "failing" product and brought it back. "Classic" coca-cola came back ONLY because of customer action and letters.

What you suggest might be the case but we won't know unless NCSoft decides to continue CoH. I know many players who stopped playing CoH shortly after the Sunset Notice of 8/31 who would return, but concede some wouldn't. Some of the dev team have new jobs, others don't. I personally have no problem with CoH continuing with an entirely different publisher than NCSoft. NCSoft which I regarded favorably until 8/31 has managed thus far only to alienate me further by their public relations statements and lack of courtesy of a reply to my customer letter.