Author Topic: I can, in fact, do this some more.  (Read 37238 times)

JanessaVR

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #20 on: September 17, 2013, 10:12:14 PM »
I am forevermore going refer to this effort as SCoRE.
Oh, hilarious!  I didn't even realize I had made an acronym!  Very well, let it be known I named the group!   ;D

dwturducken

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #21 on: September 17, 2013, 10:13:09 PM »
You know, on another forum, I would write off a post like he OP's as narcissism, because, there, it is. Some here frequent that forum and play that game, and you may disagree with me. I stand by it, though.

Here, in this place, in this time, I understand. I've been there. I used to post a lot, sometimes spending entire days surfing the various topis and threads, waiting for the next person to reply. I don't really have a good analogy for it, but it probably wasn't healthy.

Then, I go busy with things, and I would only have a chance to post or comment once or twice a day, then only stop in for a quick read of new posts. Now, I would have to look at my profile to see when the last time I posted was. It may not have even been this week.

But, make no mistake: I haven't lost hope, only zeal. It's sad to see a thread like this from you, if you're even still here to read this, because your name is one that I've seen since "the beginning." I understand where you are coming from on this, but I'm channeling my frustration by throwing myself into work and study. I'm learning to program. I rebuilt the front porch on my mom's 100 year old house. I know that the projects here will take time, so I'm finding things to take my mind off it, while maybe giving me a chance to help out. It's like the old School House Rock about Munchies. Go outside. Find stuff to do! ;)

I forget how I wanted to close this out, so I'll leave you with this. Don't take the silence as a sign of dwindling numbers. There are 23000+ registered members, here. True, most have never posted, and a majority of the rest have fewer than half a dozen to their names. But, for every person who registered, there are at least 4 more who are aware of this efforts, here, and check the forums from time to time for updates. Lurkers.

Don't think of the silence as dwindling community. Think of it as an army lying in wait, ready to ambush the MMO Bourgeoisie.  8)
I wouldn't use the word "replace," but there's no word for "take over for you and make everything better almost immediately," so we just say "replace."

Mouse-Man

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #22 on: September 17, 2013, 10:13:35 PM »
I firmly believe we will never get City out of NCsoft's hands.

I also firmly believe we will get to play City again.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

You have no idea how much I want to "Like" this post.

JaguarX

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #23 on: September 17, 2013, 10:15:17 PM »
I understand the OP's despair. We've been forced to play their game, by their rules. And we're not much more than glob flies to them. Like I've said here before, I've already been down this road with certain other communities that formed around a shared interest. I fear what might happen here, years down the line. With people telling the die-hards to give up already and move on with their lives.

There are still lessons to be learned here though. I think an MMO that is built, run and maintained by its own community and embracing the open source model is the future of multiplayer gaming. Getting away from oppressive corporate whim and putting all the power in the hands of the players themselves is the only good way to go! We might not get back City of Heroes but maybe together we could build something even better than it. And then we can show the NCSofts, the EAs and the Activisions of the world that we don't need them anymore.

Indeed.

Seen many come and go. Some lasted for 5 years before waning off some 3 months.

There is an old saying, sometimes you have to go along to get along. It's their ball game, their deck of cards. First we have to go along-build game or the sort. Then we can get along-Make the game a success that thye cant help but notice. Meaning more than a few close friends and a few friends of a friend all from one website or two. Then the game can be changed. But it will take a while, and by a while, lucky if by the end of this decade before it's back to "normal".

It's easy to say hope forever and be hope and cheering all day and cheering all night and rallying against the common enemies, and such and making noise, the fact is eventually the noise die down, the groups form groups and go different ways leaving no one or not many to actually stir the pot, then there is the silence of agreement and reality sets in. Soooo....now what? I say dont worry.

See some people believe hope is like a switch. Either you're supposed to have this blind hope that you rally all day and night and day and night forever or you're hopeless forever and should be cast.

Actually I think hope is one of the most complicated fleeting emotions and or thought process out there. It comes and goes some days it will be strong some days it will be weak other days it will be middle, and like many things, it needs to be fed. Some people learned to self feed their hope. Other's hope will starve to death without a proper meal here and there. And some will be in 102 years if they have to still saying "Dont give up hope. NCSOFT cant hold out much longer!" Other after a year, their hope feel expired and exhausted. It happens. Nothing for anyone to be ashamed of. BEcause no matter how long it go, someone to someone else will always be giving up too early in someone else eyes. Someone give up in 5 years, the 6 years hope person will call them quitter while the ten year hope person will call them quitters while the 102 year hope person while gumming his apple sauce will call them all quitters too early. The good thing about hope is whileit can go away, it can always come back. So even those that lost hope now, shouldnt be counted out. All they need is a spark and or a sign and that hope will return just as strong as ever.

And also one the main reason way back in the beginning I said do not look down on the ones that lost hope. Because with the long road ahead, anyone can lose hope at one time or another and be in the same boat feeling the same way that the people they used to look their nose down and called all sorts of names ("oh they just roll over and die." "Quitters" and etc.) with contempt on in Nov. 2012. I don't think we are even at half or even at the quarter point yet. Have to stay strong at the same time humble. Because those that people poke fun at then and now for "having no hope", could be same one posting they have lost hope by next year.   
« Last Edit: September 17, 2013, 10:52:40 PM by JaguarX »

Angel Phoenix77

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #24 on: September 17, 2013, 10:29:28 PM »
I left city of before, when it needed me the most. I will not give up playing city of again. I want to thank tony keeping the faith and all the hard work he and his team is doing.
despair is a bad thing, but like others have suggested find something to occupy your time, for me im going to college and I went back to playing sto; till I get back and rise from the fire like a phoenix
One day the Phoenix will rise again.

Alpha Series

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #25 on: September 17, 2013, 11:34:17 PM »
What I will not do is give up hope of being in our City again. I will wait patiently for all of us to reunite in our city. I will NOT go quietly into that good night and I will not back down! However long it takes, I'll stay right here waiting to log on with the rest of you. I thank you all for your steadfastness and your awesome efforts!
"You've started an interstellar war!" "No, I didn't start it. But I'm liable to finish it."

Pinnacle Blue

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #26 on: September 18, 2013, 01:22:04 AM »
Thanks to everyone who replied.  Please accept my apology for my original post; let's just say I was in a thoroughly unproductive frame of mind when I made it.  What I really wanted, and what I should have just come out and said, was, "I need a reason to believe."

Even though that's not what I said-- y'all came through.  Big-time.  I might not have the zeal I used to, but I've certainly got my hope back.
Warshades don't take Alphas.  They give Alphas.

Brightfires

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #27 on: September 18, 2013, 01:24:30 AM »
I'm with Aggelakis on this one... I don't believe we'll ever get NCSoft to budge. But then, I don't think getting them to blink is our only hope, either. There are other possibilities, and personally? I'm willing to wait around to see what comes of them.

In the meantime, I have a massively huge collection of screenshots, dozens of demo files and multiple-terabytes of FRAPs videos to tinker around with. It's not the same as playing, true, but patience is a virtue and I'm still confident that with enough time, I'll get to stalk around and be heroic again. Maybe not this year, or next, or even the one after... but I'm in this for the long haul. It'll be worth the wait. ^_^
Taker of screenshots. Player of bird-things.

Alpha Series

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Re: I can, in fact, do this some more.
« Reply #28 on: September 18, 2013, 01:37:43 AM »
We're right there with you, Pinnacle. And a whole lot closer than you think. I got a feeling a whole lot of heroes and villains are standing shoulder to shoulder with you ready to lend an ear, a hand, and a place to talk about it. Like a lot of folks have already said, yea, it can look dark from time to time, but that's just temporary. We go on, we support our group and all the efforts to restore our City. So you ain't alone by a long shot. We'll hang in there with you.

And naming SCoRE? How cool is that? Wow...and it was on the fly, too, in response to your OP!
"You've started an interstellar war!" "No, I didn't start it. But I'm liable to finish it."

Razy

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Re: I can, in fact, do this some more.
« Reply #29 on: September 18, 2013, 02:05:13 AM »
Is a long road, but we will remain strong. Our city will be back to us one of these days *keeps up the hope* :)

healix

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #30 on: September 18, 2013, 02:10:20 AM »
When I think of the miracles that have happened in my life, and when being in the right place at the right time have proved wondrous, I can't give up believing we will have our City back. My desire to don my cape and hit the streets of Paragon have not diminished one bit since shutdown. So, no matter what the time frame is of a triumphant return to the game, I will be happy beyond words....till then, I will busy myself with life and never lose my faith and hope. Every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope, and the one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable. There is a saying in Tibetan, 'Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.' No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster.

                                 

Listen to the 'mustn'ts'. Listen to the 'don'ts'. Listen to the 'shouldn'ts', the 'impossibles', the 'won'ts'. Listen to the 'you'll never haves', then listen close to me... Anything can happen . Anything can be.

HEATSTROKE

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Re: I can, in fact, do this some more.
« Reply #31 on: September 18, 2013, 02:12:24 AM »
 I think you are making a mistake in assuming that 21,000 people was all that was playing CoH. Thats people who signed the petition. The devs have gone on record to say that CoH was making far more during the period where it was F2P than when it was purely subscription. I know I spent more money on the game AND I was still subscribing. Thats why there was so much development going on and power sets being released etc etc.. The game was in the black.. that much is without question.

 And I agree.. City of Heroes will be back in one form or another. Its not going to happen overnight... but its going to happen..

TonyV

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #32 on: September 18, 2013, 02:21:25 AM »
Thanks to everyone who replied.  Please accept my apology for my original post; let's just say I was in a thoroughly unproductive frame of mind when I made it.  What I really wanted, and what I should have just come out and said, was, "I need a reason to believe."

'Sall good.  How about this:  We now have a project name for the reverse engineering efforts.

healix

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Re: I can, in fact, do this some more.
« Reply #33 on: September 18, 2013, 02:27:06 AM »
...thanks to the cleverness of you, Tony! Proceed to crow for us!

When I discover the cleverness of a remarkable me,
How can I hide it
When deep down inside it just tickles me so
That I've gotta let go and crow!

From Peter Pan
Listen to the 'mustn'ts'. Listen to the 'don'ts'. Listen to the 'shouldn'ts', the 'impossibles', the 'won'ts'. Listen to the 'you'll never haves', then listen close to me... Anything can happen . Anything can be.

LadyVamp

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Re: I can, in fact, do this some more.
« Reply #34 on: September 18, 2013, 03:08:05 AM »
I can understand how each feels about this.  It's touchy.  It's a painful sore for many of us.  To have our "meeting hall and hunting grounds" ripped away from us, surely leaves scares that won't heal for a long time.  My toons gave me 8 good years of fun and enjoyment and brought me some of the best people I know.   People I'm proud to call my friends.  That's you.

What gives me real hope though is something related.  See, another MMO was ripped out of the hands of a group of Aussies a few years ago.  And like our community, some of them moved on too.  Some gave up.  But, some did not give up.  Some "fought" back.  They pulled together and started their own MMO.  Now, I don't remember the name but I'm betting one of our friends here does.  They built their own look alike MMO.  It's free to play and free of any corporate influences.  The genre isn't my cup of tea so I didn't put much effort into learning about it.

Now, ff they did it, we can too.  Now my talents aren't so much in the technical anymore so I personally can't help with coding.  I'm more IT PM/BA now.  My artistic skills and musical skills suck.  But I also know we have friends here who are just as committed to making our world live again who have the talents.  It will take much time and somethings will be different.  Some things won't be quite as we remember them.  And, you know what?  That's ok in my book too.

The important thing is we don't give up.  As my mice would tell you, "No Surrender!"

LV
No Surrender!

Twisted Toon

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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #35 on: September 18, 2013, 04:02:33 AM »
Thanks to everyone who replied.  Please accept my apology for my original post; let's just say I was in a thoroughly unproductive frame of mind when I made it.  What I really wanted, and what I should have just come out and said, was, "I need a reason to believe."

Even though that's not what I said-- y'all came through.  Big-time.  I might not have the zeal I used to, but I've certainly got my hope back.

One of the ways that I keep hope alive, no matter what I'm going through, is by looking at all the brightly burning candles of hope and generosity in the world. The firemen then brave the dangers of a burning house to rescue the people (or pets) still inside, the police that put themselves in harms way to keep others safe, and the "regular joes" that give a kid some soup. All of that shows me that there is always reason to hope. If they could do that, then why are we sweating the small stuff? We'll get our city back...or one much better.
Hope never abandons you, you abandon it. - George Weinberg

Hope ... is not a feeling; it is something you do. - Katherine Paterson

Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. - Cynthia Nelms

Triplash

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Re: I can, in fact, do this some more.
« Reply #36 on: September 18, 2013, 06:39:27 AM »
Everyone has bad days, man. That's what friends are for. :)

FatherXmas

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Re: I can, in fact, do this some more.
« Reply #37 on: September 18, 2013, 07:03:28 AM »
Sorry Tony, I don't think we are every going to get THE game back.  We are going to get something like it.  Maybe even a close copy of it.  But Paragon City in name?  No.  Not unless there is some big change of heart at NCSOFT, which will happen when their baseball team wins their league (not likely for years).

There may be some attempts at a reversed engineered private server, one that can use the existing client.  That isn't beyond the realm of possibility.  Codewalker has done some wonderful work on understanding the client.  But it wouldn't be something we could publicly crow about.  Not like what we could with either of the Plan Z projects.

We should be looking at keeping the community together, not ostracizing those who are simply realists.  We lost the battle but that doesn't mean we are tossing in the towel.  We are waiting.  We are remembering.  We are keeping the meaning of CoH alive, here and in other MMOs. 

There is no shame in spending time elsewhere.  Even ones made by studios under NCSOFT's thumb.  I spent over a thousand on the game they decided to close on me.  The one that started three days before the announcement, $50 retail.  I even got it on sale.  Not a penny since. 

It has shown me alternatives to the traditional quest, craft and market structure that we had.  Some things are better (gasp!) and some things are worse but unless you examine what else is out there and "borrow" what works better the question of making a Super Hero genre MMO that has a significant long term following is just wishful thinking and I want that for a Super Hero genre MMO. 

Not even Super Hero.  Just Hero.  That was the fascinating part of CoH to me.  It was multi-genre and not just capes and masks.  We had whatever the player could imagine without being fenced in by some massive IP the game is forced to work within but not interfere with.  All we had was the modern world, one where super heroes existed, one where multiverse travel was discovered, one which an "alien" invasion was fought off but at the cost of nearly all the heroes on planet.  Now take that player and go.  Unleash your creative juices.  Given these classes, these power sets, these costume pieces, this character editor, do what you will.  Pull from myth, from fantasy, from science fiction.  I had characters that ranged from a prototype hero assist robot who yearning to be treated as a real hero; a former sequestered alien from Roswell; a female Hanyo who is much older than she appears; a 19th century retired British soldier now scientist/engineer who's experiment (which was funded by a mysterious Prussian nobleman) caused him to time skip to our century; a young women on the verge of death until she joined with another being not of this Earth.  Even a young engineer who took the prototype fire and rescue power armor he was working on out one night to "field test" against some Hellions, disguising it in the the Santa suit that was used for the company Christmas party to hide the fact from his boss. 

You simply don't have that liberty, that freedom in most other MMOs.  The world is tightly defined.  Races, classes, back story.  You are from their here and now.  Pick one of these tragic backstories.

That's what we have to keep alive here.  The hope that such a creative MMO will return in some form.  That this tight knit group of players who tasted this, who know that this approach to a world is really the way to go, that we were just ahead of the curve.

It's just this instance of such a world is over.  It will rise again.  We just have to be willing to wait a bit longer.
« Last Edit: September 18, 2013, 07:09:22 AM by FatherXmas »
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Aggelakis

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Re: I can, in fact, do this some more.
« Reply #38 on: September 18, 2013, 07:36:49 AM »
Sorry Tony, I don't think we are every going to get THE game back.  We are going to get something like it.  Maybe even a close copy of it.  But Paragon City in name?  No.  Not unless there is some big change of heart at NCSOFT, which will happen when their baseball team wins their league (not likely for years).
NCsoft doesn't have to be involved to get City back. THE City. OUR City.
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Re: I can't do this any more.
« Reply #39 on: September 18, 2013, 08:22:09 AM »
... but I'm telling you that we will have City of Heroes back again at some point.  And when we do, the people who stuck with us through thick and thin, those will be the people who get to bask in the epicness of whatever we manage pull off...

I have renewed hope now. My [Bask] power is green-ringed!
History shows again and again
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