A comparison, for inspiration

[Grower]

I would like to draw a comparison between our movement and the closest event I can think of in MMO history, so that it's more clear just how awesome this community is.

Last year, in EVE Online, a series of events drew the ire of the playerbase.  CCP, the 400 plus employee strong developer and publisher of the game had spent over a year developing an amazing new character animation system for the game, so that players could leave their ships and walk around among eachother.  The product was absolutely breathtaking.  The problem was that they had spent all that time doing ONLY that - and nothing else for the existing game.  In addition to this, they were attempting to transition to a microtransaction based system which was handled extremely poorly.  Finally, a leaked memo speaking about the profits to be had from microtransactions, as well as a leaked email from the CEO stating that he did not care what players thought of the game's direction, were the straws that broke the camel's back, sparking the Jita Riots.

The Jita star system is one of the game's trading hubs... hundreds of people are there, twenty four hours a day, every day.  It has its own dedicated server group.

In EVE, the logical thing to do when you want to get someone's attention is to shoot things, so that is exactly what they did.  Thousands of players converged on Jita, and managed to overwhelm a server group specifically designed for that kind of load, to shoot at an invulnerable statue.  When that system would no longer accept incoming traffic, people were redirected to other systems... where they shot more statues.

The result?  CCP, a company easily the size of NCSoft, completely stopped its development path.  Entire departmental budgets were reassigned, updates in development were shelved, and new ones planned in their place.  They saw... they listened... and they responded.  The CEO issued a formal letter of apology.

Why is this important to us, you ask?

Because not only was our saturday Unity Riot - by all accounts I can find - physically significantly larger than the entire Jita Riots event... but we're not just in the game.  We're in the blogosphere... we're on Twitter, we're on Facebook... we have the devs, we have celebrities, and we're about to have traditional media coverage.

And that is all because of ALL OF YOU - an absolutely amazing group of people.

So log into our game... and know that we have a real and honest chance to save it, if we keep doing what we're doing now.  Because of you, a longshot has turned into a reasonable expectation.  Know that we outdid the Jita Riots with 1/4 of the active peak playerbase, because YOU have more dedication and perserverance than any who have walked this path before.  Know that no matter what happens, we are making history, and what we are doing will forever change the face of online gaming.

Know this, stand proud, and /em holdtorch.

[Knightslayer]

Thanks for that link!
It's good to see an example of previous actions that led to something! 

[Thirty-Seven]

It bears mentioning that what we had was a Unity Rally, not a riot.  There is a pretty vast gulf between those terms. 

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

It also points out quite distinctly the difference between a community based on cooperation in PvE, and a community based on competition in PvP. Both can foster camaraderie and a sense of community, but it has always been my belief that keeping the "them" largely as opponents with no living person behind a keyboard builds a stronger community. That is not the only difference in focus between the two which is coming into play here, but in my judgement it is one of the more important ones.

All that aside, the important point is that we are not sailing into uncharted waters here. A player base HAS backed down a gaming company before. From the sounds of it, using tactics much less inclined to garner support and sympathy from those outside their community. TonyV and everyone else who realized quickly that heroes need to fight "heroically" were right on SO many levels. Keeping our efforts focused and taking the high road is reaping benefits far beyond what some of the more vindictive approaches might have yielded. (Not a single statue was assaulted in the filming of this movie...)

[Soundtrack]

Well said, Hunter.

I don't know the full "EVE" story, or the details behind their riots, but (and I don't mean any disrespect at all), the action almost seems more like a tantrum, kicking and screaming to get one's way.

I'm proud of our movement. We ARE taking the high road and this way...regardless of the outcome, we can say with pride that we acted maturely and responsibly.

And, dare I say it... that means more than getting our game back, in my humble opinion.

[DashaBlade]

It bears mentioning that what we had was a Unity Rally, not a riot.  There is a pretty vast gulf between those terms. 

Yeah. I wasn't rioting, I know that. If I had been, I'd have run over to Icon and looted some costumes in the chaos while the PPD were busy with the ones beating up cars and putting bags of flaming dog poo in front of the City Representative.

But that isn't the way it happened. It was more like a sit-in. We hung out, sang some songs, and got all groovy. Riots are all negative vibes, man, and our event was decidedly mellow. Like Woodstock for MMOs, only with new toons being born instead of babies, and plenty of access to plumbing facilities at our disposal. It wasn't a riot, it was a celebration. And we were all holding our torches up like candles in that old Coke commercial.

Far out, man.

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

You just gave me an idea for an aerial shot we should demoedit. Didn't one of those old Coke commercials using that "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" have a crane shot of a huge mob of people all standing around the base of a hill or something holding candles? Hmmmn. Not quite sure how to stage this, but a "night" aerial shot at about a 3/4 down angle with thousands of heroes holding torches around say the Atlas statue... that could be pretty cool.

I wonder if Leandro saved the extracted characters he used in that video, that would be a fairly fun... doh. Sorry, struck by a thought in mid sentence. Which is a little off topic so I am gonna post it where it makes more sense.

[Penguin]

I remember those riots. CCP even changed the monument that got shot up in the protest to reflect the event. I'm not entirely sure, but I think subs dropped at that time as well as part of the backlash. Shame we can't hit NCsoft in the paycheck like that. We may be dealing with a different kettle of fish, but at the same time, this has been a much bigger push than even the Jita protest. We can do this, we just have to hold our ground like the Battered ******** of Bastogne. Maybe Patton will show up, lol

[voodoogirl]

Essentially the hair is a cloth fabric. CoH could have used their cape tech, possibly, to animated hair.