It is hard to keep a player base when you say there will be no more updates. The server will still need some looking after as well, they don't look after themselves. I think the players may well set up their own server, same as you are saying but by the players.

Originally posted by zohnny
why doesnt ncsoft just close all servers except one and keep it running. also stop production on the game for good. that way ncsoft will just have to run a server instead of turning the game off forever. i dont think any mmo has done this. it doesnt seem like it will cost much either. so just use one server and keep the game running as is with no more updates.

Vanguard did exactly what you described putting a skeleton screw at the helm. It worked. Then again Vanguard had subscribers where CoH is a F2P title

Originally posted by Starpower

Originally posted by zohnny
why doesnt ncsoft just close all servers except one and keep it running. also stop production on the game for good. that way ncsoft will just have to run a server instead of turning the game off forever. i dont think any mmo has done this. it doesnt seem like it will cost much either. so just use one server and keep the game running as is with no more updates.

Vanguard did exactly what you described putting a skeleton screw at the helm. It worked. Then again Vanguard had subscribers where CoH is a F2P title

COH wasn't always free to play.  Once a game goes F2P it's good as dead anyways.  These aren't the droids you are looking for.  Move Along.

Originally posted by ShakyMo


Or they should cut long time coh players a deal on gw2 or b&s or whatever

Does NCsoft owe something to those players?

Originally posted by The_Franchise

Originally posted by Starpower

Originally posted by zohnny
why doesnt ncsoft just close all servers except one and keep it running. also stop production on the game for good. that way ncsoft will just have to run a server instead of turning the game off forever. i dont think any mmo has done this. it doesnt seem like it will cost much either. so just use one server and keep the game running as is with no more updates.

Vanguard did exactly what you described putting a skeleton screw at the helm. It worked. Then again Vanguard had subscribers where CoH is a F2P title

COH wasn't always free to play.  Once a game goes F2P it's good as dead anyways.  These aren't the droids you are looking for.  Move Along.

What makes you come to that conclusion? CoH is the first F2P (from P2P) game to get shut down,  and was only about a year old. All other F2P games are still active. If they all have been closing then I can see why you think that.

CoH is being shut down because NCsoft do not know what they are doing.  Paragon Studios would  not be trying to save it, if it was dead or not profitable.

GW1 is dropping like flies  now that GW2 is out, but when they made the decision to shut down CoH, GW1 was still doing well, because GW2 was not out. Guild Wars 1 should be the game to shut down.  City of Heroes has enough pleyers to keep giving NC soft money, but if CoH shuts down, then they will end up shutting down GW1 as well,  losing out on 2 sources of income, instead of 1.  Now that GW2 is out, starting on GW1 now is rather pointless, as its future is uncertain too, with City of Heroes closing it will no doubt follow and with GW2 being the better choice, whereas Guild Wars 2 has at least 1 year of active security before then it starts fading,  and being subjective to possible closure. If people do not spend too much in the cash shops, then it too  will not be worth keeping it going.

If they keep City of Heroes then it gives a better line up / variety of games, and having GW1 and GW2 certainly does  not do  that. If City of Heroes does shut down, then I will uninstaill the NC launcher, and will not spot any new games that may interest me. All EU customers have is Lineage 2 (Lineage 1 shut down), City of heroes, GW1 and GW2, and other than CoH they are all just the usual fantasy based MMOs. NC Soft needs City of Heroes to attract more people to their games.

Without City of Heroes, I would not even think of playing GW1 or GW2. City of Heroes made me aware of  NC SOft, and that made me notice GW1, and now GW2

Originally posted by ShakyMo
NC sift should have kept it going while they worked on another superheroes mmo, as the licensing issues with the original developers seem to be the main problem.

Or they should cut long time coh players a deal on gw2 or b&s or whatever

Thye don't owe us anything.

I'm still wondering why they shut it down.  After some thought I can only come to 2 conclusions.

1.  The game was not able to pay it's bills.  To me this seems unlikely.  It seemed (IMO anyway) to be very stable up to the f2p piont with ~150k subsribers and seemed to be that way for many years.  I didn't play the f2p one, but I can't see it doing so badly that it lost all those or a majority of those players.

2.  They decided to use the resources that this game took and deploy them in another area that they believe will make more of a profit.  To me this seems the more likely because again, I don't think it was doing badly.

Unfortunately either way, you'd have some convincing to do to explain to them that it is worth the resources to keep this game going vs deploying them somewhere else.

While NCSoft does not owe the City of Heroes customers anything in the contractual sense, from a goodwill standpoint it makes good business sense to not alienate your customer. The method in which City's shutdown was announced and its developers tossed out the door implies NcSoft doesn't care about this group of customers.

In turn, this group of customer may decided to not buy any future NcSoft games and tell their friends about their treatment from NcSoft. I know of one person so far whose not bought Guild Wars 2 because of this and I'm not likely to spend a dime in Guild Wars 2 cash shop. I would not have bought GW2 if I had known NCSoft was going to do what they did.

Owing the customer isn't the point, making the customer feel like you want their busniess IS. NCSoft either doesn't want or doesn't care if the City of Heroes customer ever buy from them again.

Check out www.cohtitan.com or www.paragonwiki.com for information on the efforts to save City of Heroes.

We are heroes.

This is what we do.

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

I'm still wondering why they shut it down.  After some thought I can only come to 2 conclusions.

1.  The game was not able to pay it's bills.  To me this seems unlikely.  It seemed (IMO anyway) to be very stable up to the f2p piont with ~150k subsribers and seemed to be that way for many years.  I didn't play the f2p one, but I can't see it doing so badly that it lost all those or a majority of those players.

2.  They decided to use the resources that this game took and deploy them in another area that they believe will make more of a profit.  To me this seems the more likely because again, I don't think it was doing badly.

Unfortunately either way, you'd have some convincing to do to explain to them that it is worth the resources to keep this game going vs deploying them somewhere else.

It does help that Paragon Studios are aiding in  the efforts to keep the game going. They know more about the state of the game than the players do. That should also speak volumes to EVERYONE that the game should really not be shutting down, and not only puts people off NC Soft, but also other MMOs by other companies. If companies see that NC Soft got away with shutting down CoH, then other comapnies will do the same with their MMOs, and all MMOs will be at risk of shutting down, even if doing well. MMOs will only really be safe for about a year, then after that and you have not played it, no point getting stuck into them then, as may get shut down before you have gotten the most out of it.

One of the options they are seeking is selling the game, and if that happens, then Pargaon Studios may still be out of work, unless the new company wants to take on Pargaon Studios.

The game may have been out of about 8 years, but has only been F2P for a year, which no doubt attracted more new people.

Originally posted by Starpower

Originally posted by zohnny
why doesnt ncsoft just close all servers except one and keep it running. also stop production on the game for good. that way ncsoft will just have to run a server instead of turning the game off forever. i dont think any mmo has done this. it doesnt seem like it will cost much either. so just use one server and keep the game running as is with no more updates.

Vanguard did exactly what you described putting a skeleton screw at the helm. It worked. Then again Vanguard had subscribers where CoH is a F2P title

Vanguard is F2P too

F2P, as it is called, is suppose to SAVE all MMO's. Why did it not work with CoH?

Originally posted by Gruug

F2P, as it is called, is suppose to SAVE all MMO's. Why did it not work with CoH?

 

 

NC soft being too busy creating more MMOs, instead of concentrating on the ones they have. It will all end in tears for them. They close sure things for new MMOs not yet released where thay have no clue it will be a sure thing 

 Also bad timing with their latest financial report:

At the time CoH was announced to close, GW1 was doing well, as probably people playing it to get a taste of GW2, but now GW2 is out, people are all playing that now instead of GW 1, and GW1 is now dropping like crazy.

If they looked at their financials now, (assuming COH has not been announced to close) CoH may end up doing better than GW1, although CoH is probably dropping now too because of the closure.

Originally posted by superniceguy

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

I'm still wondering why they shut it down.  After some thought I can only come to 2 conclusions.

1.  The game was not able to pay it's bills.  To me this seems unlikely.  It seemed (IMO anyway) to be very stable up to the f2p piont with ~150k subsribers and seemed to be that way for many years.  I didn't play the f2p one, but I can't see it doing so badly that it lost all those or a majority of those players.

2.  They decided to use the resources that this game took and deploy them in another area that they believe will make more of a profit.  To me this seems the more likely because again, I don't think it was doing badly.

Unfortunately either way, you'd have some convincing to do to explain to them that it is worth the resources to keep this game going vs deploying them somewhere else.

It does help that Paragon Studios are aiding in  the efforts to keep the game going. They know more about the state of the game than the players do. That should also speak volumes to EVERYONE that the game should really not be shutting down, and not only puts people off NC Soft, but also other MMOs by other companies. If companies see that NC Soft got away with shutting down CoH, then other comapnies will do the same with their MMOs, and all MMOs will be at risk of shutting down, even if doing well. MMOs will only really be safe for about a year, then after that and you have not played it, no point getting stuck into them then, as may get shut down before you have gotten the most out of it.

One of the options they are seeking is selling the game, and if that happens, then Pargaon Studios may still be out of work, unless the new company wants to take on Pargaon Studios.

The game may have been out of about 8 years, but has only been F2P for a year, which no doubt attracted more new people.

 

 

This really shouldn't be difficult to understand but NCSOFT are shuting COH down because either it wasn't turning a profit or they couldn't find a way with how the game is for it to be profitable again.  That's about it.

They don't owe anything to you or me or the industry to keep something going which isn't profitable to their company.

The F2P model was a disaster, the game was too old and haggard to attract new players long term and old players were put off from trying it by how much they had to fork out to play a game they'd left behind.  F2P is a cash grab for most former P2P games, COH simply didn't have enough to hook people to pay up long term. 

Honestly I wish people would just let this one go, I enjoyed the game for about two years but most people up in arms about this aren't current players, just those wearing rose tinted specs. Time to move on.

Originally posted by Omnifish

Originally posted by superniceguy

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

I'm still wondering why they shut it down.  After some thought I can only come to 2 conclusions.

1.  The game was not able to pay it's bills.  To me this seems unlikely.  It seemed (IMO anyway) to be very stable up to the f2p piont with ~150k subsribers and seemed to be that way for many years.  I didn't play the f2p one, but I can't see it doing so badly that it lost all those or a majority of those players.

2.  They decided to use the resources that this game took and deploy them in another area that they believe will make more of a profit.  To me this seems the more likely because again, I don't think it was doing badly.

Unfortunately either way, you'd have some convincing to do to explain to them that it is worth the resources to keep this game going vs deploying them somewhere else.

It does help that Paragon Studios are aiding in  the efforts to keep the game going. They know more about the state of the game than the players do. That should also speak volumes to EVERYONE that the game should really not be shutting down, and not only puts people off NC Soft, but also other MMOs by other companies. If companies see that NC Soft got away with shutting down CoH, then other comapnies will do the same with their MMOs, and all MMOs will be at risk of shutting down, even if doing well. MMOs will only really be safe for about a year, then after that and you have not played it, no point getting stuck into them then, as may get shut down before you have gotten the most out of it.

One of the options they are seeking is selling the game, and if that happens, then Pargaon Studios may still be out of work, unless the new company wants to take on Pargaon Studios.

The game may have been out of about 8 years, but has only been F2P for a year, which no doubt attracted more new people.

 

 

 

This really shouldn't be difficult to understand but NCSOFT are shuting COH down because either it wasn't turning a profit or they couldn't find a way with how the game is for it to be profitable again.  That's about it.

They don't owe anything to you or me or the industry to keep something going which isn't profitable to their company.

The F2P model was a disaster, the game was too old and haggard to attract new players long term and old players were put off from trying it by how much they had to fork out to play a game they'd left behind.  F2P is a cash grab for most former P2P games, COH simply didn't have enough to hook people to pay up long term. 

Honestly I wish people would just let this one go, I enjoyed the game for about two years but most people up in arms about this aren't current players, just those wearing rose tinted specs. Time to move on.

It only gets difficult when people like you keep spewing BS, because you are completely clueless

The game should not be shutting down, and the proof is that Paragon Studios themselves are helping in saving CoH

They know better than you or I whether it is profitable or not, and if it was a lost cause in being saved, they would not go out of their way to save it, and just concentrate on the closure. They have not even officially announced the close date yet, let alone started work on end game events.

Just because you do not like it, does not mean there is need to trash it for everyone else, and if this goes ahead then maybe your favourite game will shut down too, despite being popular, and seemingly turning a profit.

GW2 has no subscription package what so ever, and relies soley on people buying from the stor, but people who do play it have said they can play it easily without buying anything. City of Heroes need tio buy stuff to make it playable.

GW2 with 2 million players paying $0 is less profitable than Coh with 15K people spending at least $5 in the store or subbing.