Thursday, September 27, 2012

An update on the whole "City of Heroes" debacle

The sudden announcement that popular and commercially successful MMO "City of Heroes" was closing down was met with reactions that ranged from shock and sadness to complete disgust. I've made my own feelings toward the matter abundantly clear.

There was (and theoretically still is) a very big and organized attempt by the Titan Network (a huge CoH player community) to save the game. I myself signed a petition, on principle, but I didn't report on it, because it's a losing battle. Not because petitions and fan efforts are axiomatically useless and not because the Titan Network's effort is misdirected. On the contrary, they make great points and any half-way intelligent businessman would listen to them.

Unfortunately, NCSoft doesn't fall under that category. The folks over there are out of touch with reality-- something I will continue to support until the company comes out with a clear response, including numbers, about the costs of maintaining or at least selling the IP to another company.


A call from TN to active players to log in and show their support.
They were hoping for a thousand attendees, they got 5000 instead.


How much doesn't NCSoft give a fuck about a dirty western-based and developed game? They came out with details about the game's "Sunset". Most of it is about refunds and I won't touch on those, as they don't affect me directly. You can read the FAQ here.

Here is where my mind just explodes: the game shuts down in the end of November. So, instead of allowing more people to come in and pay for VIP or, damn, just have a look at the fucking game which may actually give some credence to the developers with the audience (since you are dropping them on THE STREETS OUT OF NOWHERE AND ALL, YOU FUCKING DICKS), you've decided to close the game off completely.

No VIP, not even new free-accounts. Not Paragon Store, which is the right decision, but at the same time no unlocking the previously locked-for-microtransactions costumes, powers and packs. I am STILL trying to unlock one of my VIP characters to use her until the game ends, which is now pretty much impossible. 

The entire game is shot in the head already and cut-off from anyone that doesn't already have an account. Not even the basics of pretending you ever gave a damn about the game? At all? About the customers that supported it for so long? Just an opportunity to give some last glimmer of attention before you kill it, preferably with an event. SOMETHING.

Sony assassinated "The Matrix: Online" a few years back, thanks to their shitty business handling and people were rightfully pissed off. But the stupid thing got at least an ending that made news

I am sorry NCSoft, but if this is your business strategy for anything outside of Korea, then you deserve a proportionate middle finger from anyone outside Korea as well. 

And you deserve death-- as a business, I mean. Your buddies over at Perfect World were a big fat nothing until they expanded to the West. They have the other big super-hero MMORPG now (a market in which they will have an almost monopoly of, as DCUO is a different beast altogether), they scored the Star Trek license and now they're making "Neverwinter Online"; you know, fucking Dungeons & Dragons.

Sure, launch your fucking martial arts-themed MMO with visual style stolen from Street Fighter IV, about which you had the audacity to e-mail me a week after the news of killing CoH. And which has a name so utterly generic, I can't even remember it at the moment. Something about blades and shit.

You're really contributing to the market. 

When I'd rather give my money to EA, of all people, instead of you, you need to reevaluate your strategies. 

PS: And since we're on it, fuck your stupid, buggy mess of a universal launcher that has brought nothing but trouble to the players. The only good consequence from this whole thing is that I'll never have to deal with this piece of shit of a program. 

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