TimTheEnchanter

Also, people tend to do what is in their capability, which keeps the life-saving 'Superhero' population rather small. Most vigilantes are not Kung Fu masters with self-regenerating bio-armor and a telepathic sensor array that can lock onto a purse-snatching from 5 blocks away.

Unless you somehow think that the server is going to be run from Sealand, you don't have much to worry about there. And assuming for a moment that someone could run a server in secret that NC doesn't find out about, the number of individuals who could be trusted not to leak the address would be so infinitesimally small, NC might as well be flipping out over a LAN party. And since most of the allure of MMO's is the ability to interact in a living world populated by thousands of other people, the only purpose for such a secret server would be a fun little diversion or to experience a little nostalgia by flying over an empty city. (and the latter could easily be granted by any company as a parting gift with just a couple days of coding)

As for the "release the code into the wild" comment, link pls.

Only absurd because the Naysay Clan wants any excuse to villify the Titan Network.

MMO publishers in particular have no valid grievance here since the games require an active server.

A book or movie can be enjoyed indefinitely once someone has pirated it. With an MMO this is not the case. If NCsoft wishes to resurrect CoH sometime down the road, the private servers can be terminated and players will migrate back to the official one.

If I'm selling it, you're robbing me.

If I'm not selling it, and you are selling it, you're robbing me.

If I'm not selling it, and you're not selling it, just credit your source.

Robbing implies a financial loss.

I thought that early on to, until I noticed the gradual shift in the MMO business model. Many see F2P as the future standard, not the exception. The problem is likely not that the ships are sinking. Taking the metaphor full circle, it's that the salinity in the ocean is decreasing and more buoyancy is needed to stay afloat. In other words, the economy sucks right now and players dishing out monthly subs for entertainment are a lot less realistic than they were 10 years ago. From this standpoint, it makes all too much sense for MMO's to use the F2P model. Older games that started out as P2P can either convert to hybrid, or risk being undersold. Even the demigod WoW, has some degree of F2P now. The number of times I've seen that frigging green guy dancing for joy over the game being free until level 15, to any average joe would suggest that Blizzard is desperate for new players. But those of us who have actually been following along know fully well that WoW is in no danger.

If you think the only image links one can post that defines someone as a troll, are troll images, you are sorely mistaken.

Your little 'animal cuddles' tirade from a few pages back tells us that you take pleasure in the misery of others. That is one of the defining characteristics of a troll. And what better way to guarantee even more misery to feed off of than by snuffing out every candle of hope you can find?

Considering there are some games that rely ENTIRELY on micro-transactions and are doing well enough, how can you use low subs to justify claims that CoH was performing poorly?

Is it just because subbing was an OPTION and many chose not to go that route?

In your first estimate a couple of posts up, you ignored microtransactions completely and judged the game's success solely on subscriptions. That doesn't justify you dictating to anyone what is unreasonable.

Texas?

Hey, genius, subs are practically irrelevant in a microtransactions-based model. Using giant smileys doesn't give your weak troll attempt more validity. Maybe you should try typing in all caps.

Any business defenders out there want to once again use the "vote with your wallet" argument as a basis for saying the business vs. customer relationship is balanced?

Pretty sure what's being implied here is more like AFTER the last minute.

I can't see how PvP could ever really be feasible in CoH.

#1, if PvP balance were a serious issue, there's probably no way the current system of powers would ever survive. SWG had an equally complex system for choosing skills, and it got scrapped for something much simpler because it would have been impossible to balance otherwise.

#2, PvP always seemed to be all about inspirations, which is pretty silly.

#3, If PvP in CoH was good enough, that it started drawing crowds, it would have probably shredded the existing community to pieces as trolling, ego-drama, and "lolrp" became the norm instead of the exception. Remember that one of the commonly-held beliefs of vocal PvP'ers is that roleplay has no place in online role playing games.

I lol'ed.

And no more outrageous than certain people assuming that was the entire basis for the "ignoring offers" claim.

Now who's making outrageous assumptions? :P

From another company it would be much more likely accepted. NCsoft's history in legal matters does nothing for their credibility when giving such a short answer.

To keep more of the community intact until that can happen?

People are antsy, that much I know. And if there's something I've learned from standing in lines at themepark attractions, or waiting on results from commissions, lots of little updates generally keep people happier than waiting for one big one.

When you compare the experiences of people who are standing motionless in line for an hour, to those who have to wait an hour and a half, but the line moves every minute or so... the second group will feel like they've had to wait less time, because there is more perceived progress.

Well if you've ever gone to a monorail or a ferry and occasionally you see more than one of a certain zone... "Atlas Park" "Atlas Park 2" etc. The servers limit how many characters can be in one zone, to prevent computers from melting down and player bandwidth from getting overloaded.

When the Unity Rally to keep CoH running happened back in September, it was done by everyone going to Atlas Park and holding torches. This made it necessary for Virtue server to create 33 different Atlas Park zones to handle the load.

Heh. I'm sure that's temporary until a better title can be found. The original was actually Phoenix City (for obvious metaphorical reasons), I think, but a lot of folks, myself included, just didn't like the sound of it.

You likely wouldn't believe it even if the devs came to your house and stapled their intentions to your forehead.

Well, I do agree with this to a point. I think it's poor use of time (right now anyway), whether it succeeds in the end or not. But I'm not going to tell the others how to spend their time. I personally haven't investigated Plan Z heavily to see if there's anything I can/want to contribute to it. But I'm not going to bother doing that investigation until AFTER Nov 30.