Amazon reviews for GW2.... bear with me here

[Starsman]

That's a lot of assumptions.

I am making no assumptions there. An assumption is "an unmentioned lawsuit threatened them to close overnight"

Large enough companies being under heat of a potential lawsuit every few months is not an assumption. It's corporate America. Lawsuits constantly lure from plenty of directions, from patent lawsuits, to copyright claims, to the janitor breaking a leg.

Again: the chances of an IP related lawsuit not coming up in 8 years, but being serious enough to force a shutdown are next to none.

If I was in a position to think NCSoft had 8 years of profit from some IP or patent I owed, you think the cancelation of the game and closure of the studio would in any way stop me from demanding reparations for those 8 years of profits?

[Little Green Frog]

I am making no assumptions there. An assumption is "an unmentioned lawsuit threatened them to close overnight"

Large enough companies being under heat of a potential lawsuit every few months is not an assumption. It's corporate America. Lawsuits constantly lure from plenty of directions, from patent lawsuits, to copyright claims, to the janitor breaking a leg.

Again: the chances of an IP related lawsuit not coming up in 8 years, but being serious enough to force a shutdown are next to none.

Yeah, that's the important part. In corporate America. In other parts of the world it looks much different. For example in all my years working for a few corporations operating mainly in EU, none of them was sued. Even once. So when a group of angry lawyers pops at your door ready to draw your blood, you have the right to feel a little bit stressed. NCsoft knows that being dragged to court can hurt a lot, too.

[Kistulot]

So far the few chests I've open in GW2 with free keys hadn't had anything worth the 115 silver (roughly $1.15) it would cost to buy a bundle of keys in the first place.  I got like 8 chests sitting in my bank and their market value is roughly 2 bronze a piece.  So I think in the long run most players have already figured out it really isn't worth spending any gems/converting gold to gems/spending real cash for gems just to buy keys in GW2.

True.

Though one amusing thing, if you take a potion that transforms you into a mob, walking sideways will often not trigger a sideways walking animation... So you move around as though standing still. Especially funny on Dolyak.

[Starsman]

Yeah, that's the important part. In corporate America. In other parts of the world it looks much different. For example in all my years working for a few corporations operating mainly in EU, none of them was sued. Even once. So when a group of angry lawyers pops at your door ready to draw your blood, you have the right to feel a little bit stressed. NCsoft knows that being dragged to court can hurt a lot, too.

Irrelevant when you do business IN America, keep studios all over america, and have been doing so for 8 years.

BTW: Korea is also a rather litigious country. Samsung sues left and right over there, and NCSoft themselves have sued the developers of Tera

I dare bet money that Paragon's liquidation has nothing to do with NCSoft being lawsuit-shy.

[Little Green Frog]

I pointed out that NCsoft may not have wished to fight for CoH in case some legal issues surfaced, not that they did. The company is known to be particularly trigger happy when it comes to their games and in the past they were quick to pull the plug on games they didn't feel like supporting any longer. But more importantly it all comes from the notion that we don't know jack  - neither you nor I - about the real motive behind the closure of CoH and Paragon Studios. We can argue all we like, but unless an NCsoft employee joins in and says "guys, the reasons were...", it would be an exercise in futility.

[Starsman]

I pointed out that NCsoft may not have wished to fight for CoH in case some legal issues surfaced, not that they did.

My point is: that is as likely as them closing the studio in fear of a metheorite hitting the buildilng and being forced to pay metheorite insurance to the families.

But more importantly it all comes from the notion that we don't know jack  - neither you nor I - about the real motive behind the closure of CoH and Paragon Studios. We can argue all we like - unless an NCsoft employee joins in and says "guys, the reasons were..." - it would be an exercise in futility.

We actually know a bit.
We know it had nothing to do with profits, for one. CoH was bringing in more money than GW1 (shocking given CoH was mainly a US-only game).
We also know it had nothing to do with Cryptic and legal action from that side.
We also know until the last day they were still had job postings that got approved by NCSoft.
We know they were working on an additional title and also that they keep other studios running in pure development mode (so CoH could have been canceled without closing Paragon Studios.)

We know enough to at least discard lawsuits, is my point. Also to discard any economic woes. That does not leave much in the table (as far as valid reasons go.)

[Starsman]

GW2 is happy to drop their pay-us-for-keys chests (you can win keys in game too, its just rare as heck) but CO drops them as a majority of your drops! After having some pretty bad ongoing glitches that make some of the game a mess, CO releases... hover tanks! Which may be the ugliest thing I've ever seen.

I think I actually like the key model. It is entirely optional, can be ignored, but it can be also tempting.

I think it would work better if the drops where a bit more rare. You sure would feel more tempted to pay for the key if you didnt have 100 of those lockboxes in your backpack.

[HarvesterOfEyes]

Well my feeling is because it wouldn't/didn't test well in Asia, their primary market.  If you are going to cut back on R&D (which is really what a game studio is from a MBA perspective) spending, they it's only sound to spend it developing products for your primary market.  And when push comes to shove it appears that the Asia marketplace enjoy swords, magic, cute tiny people and PvP style fantasy games rather than one set in a modern environment with spandex clad heroes.  So you spend your limited R&D money developing similar style games that have shown to do well in Asia. 

If NCSoft came out and said they closed Paragon and therefore CoH because Paragon repeatedly didn't show them an MMO idea that could "play in Peoria" (or whatever city in Korea that's analogous to Peoria), I don't believe people's opinion of NCSoft would be any different than it is today.

This analysis only works if CoH isn't clearing a profit. Closing a going concern only cuts current term costs if it's losing money. There was apparently no R&D money going in to CoH that wasn't generated by CoH. So when they close CoH they lose 100% of that R&D money, not to mention the 10 million/year in profit. So there's no savings in that respect rather there's a net cost in excess of 10 million/year.

The only way there's any savings to NCSoft is if there's some new regulatory or tax liability about to hit in the new year in excess of the projected profits.

[DarkCurrent]

.. it shouldn't have been a surprise that MMOs can be shutdown and your characters can end up in the great bit bucket in the sky...

And this should be accepted by the paying customer?

Perhaps in order for this industry to survive it needs to face the inevitability of customer backlash when games are closed.

[Little Green Frog]

My point is: that is as likely as them closing the studio in fear of a metheorite hitting the buildilng and being forced to pay metheorite insurance to the families.

I do not subscribe to that point of view, but again - arguing over it given how little we know wouldn't be very productive.

We actually know a bit.
We know it had nothing to do with profits, for one. CoH was bringing in more money than GW1 (shocking given CoH was mainly a US-only game).

We only think it's not about money. Paragon Studios were making modest profit with CoH, that much we know. But they were also, as you pointed out, working on other titles (two, if I recall correctly). That costs money. NCsoft was also realignining their western operations. Again, that costs money. In the long run, the profits could have been too little to justify supporting existence of Paragon Studios in the eyes NCsoft's management.

As for GW1, it wasn't bringing that much money, but it did bring tons of it in the past. And there was a fresh sequel in the wild that NCsoft was heavily betting on. CoH on the other hand was never a goose laying golden eggs. We also know for sure that its younger sibling wasn't CoH2, but an entirely new product with no recognizable IP franchise attached to it. GW2 easily trumps that.

We also know it had nothing to do with Cryptic and legal action from that side.

How do we know that? This is a genuine question. I'm not trying to be snarky.

We also know until the last day they were still had job postings that got approved by NCSoft.

Unfortunately this only means that NCsoft was okay with deceiving the staff of Paragon Studios. Not something to be proud of, but perfectly legal.

We know they were working on an additional title and also that they keep other studios running in pure development mode (so CoH could have been canceled without closing Paragon Studios.)

Unless they decided the title PS was working on didn't have a bright future. Just like they did it with Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa and others. This time, though, they decided to pull the plug before the release, not after. That's new, but entirely possible.

We know enough to at least discard lawsuits, is my point. Also to discard any economic woes. That does not leave much in the table (as far as valid reasons go.)

I'm afraid we know nothing of the sort. As stated previously, there's plenty of assumptions up there in your posts and most of them are very hard to verify.

[Electric-Knight]

Electric-Knight, I can see where you're coming from on your previous post. I have to ask whether this is fully legal for either party to massively upvote or downvote comments. It's certainly dishonest on the corporation's part. In the event it isn't legal, well... I find it idiotic that a business can get away with so much more than private individuals, purely because of their deeper pocketbooks and the spreading of accountability away from the individuals making up that organization.

it sounds dishonest... it is, in my opinion, but that fits rather well for companies trying to sell you something.  Look at the millions spent paying celebrities to endorse products they never tried... or paying actors to stage fake testimonials in ads... or exaggerated, carefully-worded claims of their effectiveness.  Companies have gone far as to make fake 'independent foundations' to issue awards to their products.  Entire industries that focus on "online reputation management" will upvote your product and downvote your competitors.  Have you ever noticed the hundreds of "consumer reviews" of products start appearing long before the product even SHIPS?  Heck, in the gaming industry, many have pointed out the dilemma of the gaming magazine that reviews products when they rely on the ad revenue of said products to stay afloat.

There are few national laws in the US about what a huckster can say about most products (an item's medicinal or nutritional value... if it falls under FDA purview... is a good example of the exception to the rule). 

I'm not encouraging anyone to approve lies here, and the OP hasn't either.  I don't want to promote lies with lies.  We're saying to look at the reviews that put the spotlight on NCSoft's bad practices and rate them as helpful.  Bring those honest statements to light.   If a reviewer says glowing things about the parts of the game that you also approve, by all means, vote your conscience on them as well... but don't forget about the parts those reviewers missed- the publisher's quality of service.  Remember how important those parts are in delivering a game, and uptick the reviewers that remind us of that, too.

I agree with pretty much everything said, but I just figured I'd add in this slant...

Maybe what is dishonest is the thought process of noticing/listening-to/being led/misled by any such tactics at all, hehe.
We all know that the information we have to research is limited by the sources of that information... Most often, we must take the risks of exploration and actual experience in order to discover the truths. Or get secondhand experience by using your friends as test subjects!

Hehe, it is an interesting aspect of business, consumerism and humanity, really. In the end, I suppose we can only fall prey to it if we are guilty of it ourselves.

[Starsman]

How do we know that? This is a genuine question. I'm not trying to be snarky.

Came up in the forums (in the form of a rumor that Cryptic and Perfect World were holding back the license or not renewing or some other theory.) BABs asked Jack "Statesman" himself and he was shocked by the rumor. The license was a lifetime license that didn't just cover CoH, it also covers one more game, again: lifetime.


Oh and the CoH profits: what we have heard from Paragon management is that the whole studio was profitable enough to cover both, CoH and Secret Project's development.

[Little Green Frog]

Oh and the CoH profits: what we have heard from Paragon management is that the whole studio was profitable enough to cover both, CoH and Secret Project's development.

Welp, apparently it wasn't profitable enough.

[Ceremonius]

We actually know a bit.
We know it had nothing to do with profits, for one. CoH was bringing in more money than GW1 (shocking given CoH was mainly a US-only game).
We also know it had nothing to do with Cryptic and legal action from that side.
We also know until the last day they were still had job postings that got approved by NCSoft.
We know they were working on an additional title and also that they keep other studios running in pure development mode (so CoH could have been canceled without closing Paragon Studios.)

Can't agree with that! CoH has a large global community, it wasn't US only. But the whole patriotic stuff is something what was taken up by the US Comics first, wich means as a origin of CoH it just seems like it's pretty much US. The fanbase mostly doesn't care about the Stars'n'Stripes .

Remember: It doesn't matter where you are from, it only matters what you do .

As of numbers: sure the US had more player than any other country (or the EU at a whole, but that's something I don't know )

[Kistulot]

Welp, apparently it wasn't profitable enough.

These posts really aren't helpful.

[TonyV]

Welp, apparently it wasn't profitable enough.

I don't know why people still continue to say this.  I can tell you that I have multiple sources that have repeatedly and emphatically said that this is not true, and several members of Paragon Studios management have said it publicly.  The amount of money that City of Heroes was making, practically speaking, was not an issue.

Please don't counter with the old "Yeah, but if it was making $10 million a day..." facetious argument, that's why I said "practically speaking."  City of Heroes was doing very well.  It wasn't a gushing oil well of cash, but it was consistently meeting or exceeding market and internal expectations for revenue.

Plus, NCsoft has in the past come right out and said that games they've killed weren't making enough money.  That was not the case here; NCsoft has never complained about the amount of money City of Heroes making.  In the shutdown announcement, they specifically mentioned that the game no longer fit in the long term goals of the company.  Financial concerns have never been on the table, and that's not by accident.

So seriously, unless you honestly believe that there was some grand conspiracy afoot to hide how lousy Paragon Studios was doing, given what Paragon Studios management has said publicly, what NCsoft has deliberately not said, and (though you don't have the benefit of this) having had conversations directly with people who would know this from firsthand information, "City of Heroes wasn't profitable enough" is way off, an unequivocally false statement.  If you choose to believe it then fine, but I just want to make sure that it's well-known that there is zero evidence that City of Heroes was performing poorly, countered by much evidence to the contrary.

[Little Green Frog]

These posts really aren't helpful.

I think you may have misunderstood my intentions behind that sentence. I am not arguing that the closure of Paragon Studios was okay and that we should be fine with that. It related to a discussion whether economical reasons could or could not be behind the situation. Sorry, not trying to crush anyone's spirit.

[Little Green Frog]

I don't know why people still continue to say this.  I can tell you that I have multiple sources that have repeatedly and emphatically said that this is not true, and several members of Paragon Studios management have said it publicly.  The amount of money that City of Heroes was making, practically speaking, was not an issue.

Please don't counter with the old "Yeah, but if it was making $10 million a day..." facetious argument, that's why I said "practically speaking."  City of Heroes was doing very well.  It wasn't a gushing oil well of cash, but it was consistently meeting or exceeding market and internal expectations for revenue.

Plus, NCsoft has in the past come right out and said that games they've killed weren't making enough money.  That was not the case here; NCsoft has never complained about the amount of money City of Heroes making.  In the shutdown announcement, they specifically mentioned that the game no longer fit in the long term goals of the company.  Financial concerns have never been on the table, and that's not by accident.

So seriously, unless you honestly believe that there was some grand conspiracy afoot to hide how lousy Paragon Studios was doing, given what Paragon Studios management has said publicly, what NCsoft has deliberately not said, and (though you don't have the benefit of this) having had conversations directly with people who would know this from firsthand information, "City of Heroes wasn't profitable enough" is way off, an unequivocally false statement.  If you choose to believe it then fine, but I just want to make sure that it's well-known that there is zero evidence that City of Heroes was performing poorly, countered by much evidence to the contrary.

Please, calm down. What you said is true and I didn't at any point argue over that. But apparently that one sentence I posted draws attention like a shining disco ball, while the context is lost. So let me explain: I know Paragon was making money. There was profit and they had no reason to expect the closure. But in the eyes of NCsoft management this profit wasn't a good enough reason to withhold the execution. Which is true, because that's what happened. No conspiracy theory here.

I hope if I state it like that it would be a little bit less inflammable.

[Illusionss]

coforciea: On balance, I think I still had more fun playing City of Heroes, but to beat on Guild Wars 2 and claim it is some Korean grindfest is a disservice to all of the developers in Washington who built it. They didn't close your game down.

The experiences I have had in-game lead me to believe that it is indeed a grindfest; its certainly much more grindy than any aspect of CoX other than Incarnate stuff; I will agree that you had to grind to fill your Incarnate slots. And it was a cross to bear, but I did it.

However, this is not the gist of my original post. I almost don't CARE that GW2 is a grindfest. That is besides the point. The POINT that the unaware need to become aware of is that NCSoftheaded is not a reliable publisher, and they have amply proven that their customer base is meaningless to them.

THAT'S what people need to be aware of.

Some of us ended up deciding that the scale of Guild Wars 2 made it likely to be safe for a long time from the headsman's axe of NCSoft and haven't found anything else to fill the gap left by CoH. You're pushing ever so slightly in the direction of getting us kicked out of another home.

Sweetie, NCSoft will kick you, me and every last other player in the game out of GW2 AT ANY TIME THAT SUITS THEIR FANCY. And that is why people are mad. They don't need rhyme, reason or financial incentive: if they decide to pull the plug, they will pull it even if there are negative financial consequences.

I think its a thing others need to know about.

[Kistulot]

I think you may have misunderstood my intentions behind that sentence. I am not arguing that the closure of Paragon Studios was okay and that we should be fine with that. It related to a discussion whether economical reasons could or could not be behind the situation. Sorry, not trying to crush anyone's spirit.

No, I dont think you're trying to crush spirits, I just think that posts like this by their nature appeal to an emotional place that will want to lash out at you. People obviously can be responsible and hold this out, but it feels a little bit like flame bait.

I don't mean your intent was such, but the effect really feels it. Sorry if this comes out as mean, it just feels that such posts could end up fairly divisive by nature.