SinergyX_EU

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And yes, I am looking forward to hearing everything GR has to say about this decidedly very welcoming community, the good and the bad. For lurking on these boards a wee bit over the 4 years I've been playing CoH though, I can say it's provided a place for some really good people to interact and I intend to carry on this tradition!

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Be prepared.. be afraid.. be very afraid. From the darkest places of Europe the greatest villains have gathered on this place called 'forums'. The united goal of conquering the world (we start at US side), no mortal will be spared.

But most of all, be welcome

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Avatea's role will be different from mine (although what you all will see will be similar), and she'll be based in the NCNC office. I had the option of making that move or taking voluntary redundancy, and I've chosen the latter.

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How will she ever comply to the timezone difference? Afaik thats 8 hours (or was it 7? meh wintertime and stuff), making quite some gaps in rolling out and moderating the forums. (we are already pretty active when US side still is in a deep sleep).

Hm, sad to keep asking questions to you though, knowing we soon loose you too. Only some PR notice to a MMO website was apperently sufficient to give a reply to the EU.

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What makes you think that the servers are out dated? as far as we know there the same speck as those used in the US and for a time were better speck than the US ones.

Unless your doing something really intensive servers don't tend to go out dated very quickly and have a much longer life span than a home PC.

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Yet still, Freedom going 1000 concurrent quite often, while if we hit 500+ (afaik during double exp) its rubber-band galore. Server, network, whatever.. its not working, thats the problem.

(yes, germany has node problems atm - but the rubberbanding on large numbers have been an issue that go way before any node issues).

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OK rant over.

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Funny how history repeats itself. Tabula everyone disliked, it was bad, lousy, [censored], but hardly anyone made it beyond lvl 10 before trying. Kinda like the hype of AoC lvl1-20, but the oposite. (where AoC was plain [censored] beyond lvl20).

Maybe i point out that all the 'failures' were US made product, Auto Assault, Dungeon runners, Tabula and that gundan style game. True, they had a winner on GW, but that glory died months ago, the big winners remain Asian products (LA/LA2).

Aion may been based on LA, but why wouldnt you make a game that rely on a insane succes of the past years (afaik only that spacesim can beat LA on oldest, yet still succesfull game).

But, as i play it, the game is great. It has a mixture of great features and a huge mix of aspects of other games. Added, you think NCsoft would even care about how Europe/US think about Aion, if nearly 80% of their income is generated in Asia? (wich assumable will go beyond 90% this quarter)

GW people already forgot GW2, specialy after the announced delay to maybe even 2011 (it aint on the list of 2009 anymore), those who are waiting for Aion got dissapointed, also delayed to far 2009, perhaps even 2010.

CoX remains a 'self sufficient' game, they can keep it up though with a few cuts here and there, but doesnt make the rest of the world stop making games.

But no news about the DC/lag, no news about our new GM (may take a bit), no news for anything towards us. Empty (or low) servers never do good on new players, put a player in Freedom or put one in Defiant, where you think he would stay? (or even consider to continue playing?)

Strange that another MMO, wich most prob would near the same datacenter is playable just fine. Even doing 100vs100 big fight.

So what is that in GMT+1?

Moon, well grab a cave mission, call it 'secret lair of council', there ya go. Add some tech-map along it for the 'research facility' on the moon, another one.

aka, i really dont expect much of it. (like that chimora is 99% of the time deserted).

So yeah, i got used to this stupid bug, i got used to the time out. When you get the magic error 'form is not valid anymore', a simple Previous will put you back at your post, so you can copy/paste it to resummit.

But now i noticed then whenever i get the error, i go back and my entire post is blank again.

So apart from the whole 'current' situation, i get less and less interest of actualy being on these boards.

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She is tall.

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Yeah, I'm 5'9" and I'm sure I remember her being taller than me.

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What's that in the metric system?

Ah, 1.80m. Ok, considered tall o.0

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*hugs everyone* I love you all. Now back to work.

There's justice to be done.

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Justice? OMG someone forgot to lit the toiletseat again?

She is mine.. period.

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Anyway, Never had any lag states-side, often loads of lag to the always-raining-islands-that-doesn't-quite-wanna-be-part-of-Euope. Bring it on, virtual server taking a fraction of any of the US server must be better than the current lag-fest!

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Since those godly pipelines for internet crosses my country first, we just randomly.. err.. 'pull em out', just for the fun of it I mean, an island ok.. we got islands too. But driving at the other side of the road? You guys need a slap around the head once in a while so we pull a few 'strings' here and there

Anyway, on a more normal way, several MMO's hosted in Germany having latency issues atm, said it was a faulty node along the line to the servers.

Ok, the conference call question part, in short...

Aion this, aion that, aion this, aion that. Then finaly at 47minutes they asked GW2, why the huge delay. Basicly, they rewrote bunch of stuff to even make it bigger, better and anything that GW could have been. Now to link this to NCWest, the issues.. interesting.

Anyway, City of Heroes was never mentioned.. Again.

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for anyone that finds the conference call streaming link doesn't work (and the download seems to be disabled) it's here too http://1.x10hosting.com/NCsoft_20090...rence_Call.mp3

I found too boring to listen to all of it but maybe someone else can point out highlights I dunno

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*listening atm*

See if i get some interesting things.
(if i can understand him correctly, they saved 1.8billion wan by dropping Tabula and redo of NC Europe).

Few things already dont make sence, if you compare it with the PDF file. (they refer to 'finished launching' Aion by 2nd half - so they have to start earlier).

Even LA2 is pretty old, they even got a 24% increase of sales of this game. damn. But, City of Heroes was mentioned! Wooo.

Once again they say headcount havent changed, so those lost at the NC Europe has been assumable filled up on the US side in the same quarter.

They estimate a 35-44% total increase of income for this year, they really putting their bets on their racehorse Aion, along a steady going LA/LA2, but a 'trend' declining GW. City of heroes.. not mentioned.

Their aim for 2009 is to be come number 1, not only domestic but also global. They think they will make more succes on their 'blockbusters' in development globaly. (me thinks he aims on GW2 Soul&blade and maybe another?).

Question round is starting, i edit later

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Boy would I hate to be a NC shareholder right now.,...... although I hate holding the shares I do already so more of any would probably upset me.

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Actualy shareholders are quite happy, NCsoft made a succes launch in Korea, if their guessing for 2009 is true they could hit way higher profit then they did past 2 years. Higher profit -> higher stock -> happier stockholders.

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I thought it was a reference half of us becoming GenericHero483284829s when we find Americans have already used our characters' names

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That i will celebrate once NCsoft finaly give out an official statement

(with the irony that probably i get generic names due my own US account )

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An interesting article Mumsy.

Sorry Scarlet but who is this Jeff Strain fellow?

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He's co-founder of Arena.net, executive programmar or such on guildwars.

Today i recieved my copy, pretty cool that its a numbered issue, i have 452/500

Some sketches are really awsome, the 2 blank pages at the end will continue my quest of getting my own character drawn if i ever get the chance.

I would buy the book anyway, so helping charity also with it is a win-win for me

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I think you're all overreacting rather strongly to be honest.

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NC is bigger then this forum. Along with Q4 reports, several fansites of Aion already expressed their 'feeling' about the ongoing delay, GW2 getting refered to Nukem Forever, and those are even confirmed to be delayed.

Aionsource, 1 of the biggest Aion fansites, have 1 of NC Brighton posting quite regular, also gave the 'news':
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A number of the people in our office's cut were offered similar positions in the US, but unfortunately not everyone. I'm still looking into solutions and alternatives (perhaps there will be unsimilar positions that end up appropriate) and wanted to wait with writing here until I knew more about my own future and path. Well, I still don't know exactly what will happen, except that my time working with you guys has come to an abrupt end.

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So this 'cleaning' alone might not be that big, but along with Q4 reports, damage is considering big. I think for NC, the DOOOM of friday the 13th may actualy be true.

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Are you really suggesting that NC wait until the end of a 90 day consultation period to let the players know whether we're being shafted to the US servers or not? How many players will they have left at the end of such a period of non-communication?

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If they reply now, or later, in both ways it wont a) be good news or b) too 'vague' news that it sounds like yet another 'empty promiss'.

a - version one: EU gonna close kkthxbb. EU gonna merge.
b - No worry EU, we have huge plans this year for u guys, hang in and we gonna rock this boat!

But my initial question remains, who are actualy left at Brighton now? At least no one for us.

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What really interested me about the financial highlights were the revenue projections. Now unless I'm reading it wrong the revenue for CoX in 2008 was 23,227m Won but the projections for 2009 fall drastically to 15,000m Won. I wonder what their analysts know that we dont.

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Your reading it wrong, that's Guild Wars, the cyan block on the graph.

CoX 2008 is 24,218 with a projection for 25,000 in 2009. The Purple block on the graph.

Unless *I'm* reading it wrong

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YOu're right, they think CoH will continue a nice steady line on sales, players, unlike GW that will continue the 'steady trend' of ups and downs and slowly loosing players untill release of GW2 (this was already confirmed by A.net).

Yes, totaly different post.

As some may know, tonight the Unix timestardard is reaching the magical number 123456790. For those who dont know, check wikipedia

So for everyone i may not see tonight, HAPPY 1234567890!!

Follow the time at:
http://www.coolepochcountdown.com/

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but how long will it take to gain back the purchase of AI of CoH before they even hit break-even? (afaik no numbers of purchase are known)

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Well i have more faith in them than to think they'd buy the IP (by Ai i assume you mean the IP) even though they thought they couldn't break even or turn a profit. The fact is they did buy it which means they thought they could make something out of it. Which is why i think this game as a bit of life in it yet and i doubt they're just going to shut it down and cut their losses.

P.s. even if you didnt mean the IP my point still stands sorta

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Ah yes, IP. Mixed up a few words here

Agree on your point, combined with the 'omg payed expensions' posts on the US, microtransations is 'hot', little effort, big profit. Apply this to CoH, you got a steady (though small) healthy future of the game. If players will like this.. i dont mind, but thats me

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True - but I would have thought that they would be if they weren't going down the tubes.

Seriously: Are you reading the signs and portents as pointing to NCSoft going down the tubes?

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I don't like to talk things down, as it tends to make them worse, but in this case, yes.

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Whoaaa.

Things going from downsizing EU division to NCSoft going belly up? Isn't that a bit to premature?

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By looking at the past events of last year, it is an option to be 'reconized' as possible. As US/Europe are a real minority of sales (specialy for 2009), the huge money sink called TR being dev'ed in US, the fail of CoH (again US product) in Asia, Auto Asault, in a nutshell, everything NC(US) had made is, was or will be 'end of life' (GW is dying, period).

So what does NCWest do? A.net still does GW2, other then that they merely 'maintain' the non-asia side of the games. CoH is done by US, but how long will it take to gain back the purchase of AI of CoH before they even hit break-even? (afaik no numbers of purchase are known). LA1/2, Aion, Soul&blade are all done by NCasia, they could also just sell the 'rights' to any other publisher in US/Europe (like ESTsoft does with Cabal online, or basicly any f2p game for that mather). You create a fail-save, if a game fails in a region only the publisher gets hit, the developer will still get their royalties from the publisher, unlike now sharing the cost of failure, closedown or possible merges.

Short, what does NCwest/Europe/NorCal contribute to NCasia? Problems, failed games and region issues. So maybe they are better off with only their Asia region.

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Also, thier have been no posts (on anything) by deveropers/community staff on the US forums since the news broke. My inference is they are uncertain about thier own jobs.

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Uncertain or possibly just told to keep their mouths shut if they want to keep their jobs.

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Last reply was indeed on the 11th, but wouldnt they just continue their job? Reply on bug issues, or testserver patches, anything?

Its not like this whole issue is 'hot news' on the US side, they kinda continue as if nothing happening (oh oh the irony).

Althought Castle might have a reason:
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As sick as I am at the moment

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