I'm thinking that we need to make as much, if not more, of a show -and as much noise- as we did immediately following August 31.
So, we get the press release yesterday, and it could seem like it meant something bad.
Really though, you look around and everything is pretty much situated right back where it was after the first announcement.
Yeah, NCSoft, you made an announcement of doom. We didn't buy it then and we're not buying it now.
More importantly, our activities and our pressure led them to do something that could prove to be rather important.
They publicly brought up the notion of selling the product, the IP and the studio.
Well, if there are interested parties with the financial capability of doing such business, they might be a little surprised to hear that such efforts are already exhausted, when they hadn't even begun for them yet!
But we look around... and everything is like it was on August 31. Some may feel as though it is worse.
Oh, the doom criers are doom crying.
The vultures are circling.
And all of the news media outlets that I've seen so far are taking what NCSoft said and running with it: "NCSoft Crushes CoH Player's Hopes", "City Of Heroes Can't Be Saved".
And this is the real point I wanted to get to.
Do we need to make an unmistakable show (again) to inform the news outlets that NCSoft's words are not to be taken too seriously?
Do we need to show our unity as we did directly after the first announcement? (Do we think we can get an impressive enough turn out right now?)
Do we need to start collecting, pointing to, composing and sending any and all information to discredit NCSoft's trust right now?
And... I ask, somewhat fearfully, might we encounter news outlets that are no longer interested in publishing negativity towards NCSoft? (I'm certainly not going to assume any such thing, until/unless it actually happens... it just struck me as a little odd that the latest announcement came and it was just, "Oh, okay. That's over with!").
Uh... after surprising the gifted, young and beloved Paragon Studios with a "You didn't see this coming, but... leave today and never come back" firing, the lovely company (that forged a goodbye letter from the leader of another MMO they shut down) informed us that these silent efforts have been exhausted after only a few weeks.
And their release was full of pompous ridiculousness (the likes of which Senator Palpatine would have been proud of... "I love democracy. I love The Republic."):
"...holds a special place in our hearts"... "end on a high note."
Wait, wha??
End on a high note?? E'chuta!!
On a high note, you say? You betcha we will do our very best, NCSoft. You've already proven that you will do this on as lowly a note as possible.
A high note would have been retaining the staff to properly close things out.
Exhausting efforts would have involved trying to maximize profit by negotiating while everything was still intact and running. Not by burning everything down to the ground and waiting for the community to pick it all up, clean it off and politely inform you (and the rest of the world) that it deserves to live, only to be followed by lip service and a quick exit from any such proceedings.
I say that we contact each and every news outlet that we contacted before.
And we tell them this and more about this most recent message from NCSoft.
Let's pile it up.They want to try and show the world that they tried?
So, we made enough noise, so far, to warrant such a response.
Good. We won some battles. The war is far from over.
They let the word out that a sale was possible.
Now we need to pressure them into saying that a sale is still possible.
Now we need to pressure everyone to point out the serious, valid reasons to doubt NCSoft's words.
Now we need investors to stand up and declare their interest.
We need to show everyone, including some of our own, that we're not right where we started out... We're actually stronger now.
