A corporation, by its very nature is an amoral entity.
The problem is that our current laws ALLOW this sort of thing. If you dislike this, work to change the laws. Don't simply sit back and bitch because they're following the current (bad) laws.
Again. I didn't say the situation didn't need to change.
And I make no pretense that such changes are going to come "easily".
But if you expect it to happen without a LOT of PERSONAL effort on EVERYONE'S part (including YOURS), you may as well be bitching about the coaching of a football game.
As I've said elsewhere. Don't bitch to me because the road to your utopia isn't a flat, paved road with clear and concise signage and rest stops at short intervals.
Nothing "good" in this life is going to ever be easy. You need to work for it. Start working for your own dream.
Again. These companies are under no legal, moral or ethical constraint to assume the maximum tax burden possible.
They're under fiduciary constraints to maximize their shareholders' investments.
If you think that the current tax avoidance schemes are a Bad Thing, stop pissing and moaning at the companies who are simply doing what they're supposed to be doing and change the fucking laws.
May I also point out that these corporations are under ZERO legal, moral or ethical constraint to pay the maximum amount of taxes possible. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to minimize their tax liability.
What you seemed to have missed is the difference between someone who has been around since launch day - and an average player.
Ah. You're talking about the mythical "average player". Essentially the one with habits set such to allow you to "win" this argument.
Sorry, that bag was old before even *I* got into the game.
I'm talking about an average ACTIVE player in CoH. A surprising majority of them were multi-year subscribers. Driving the MATHEMATICAL average up.
And a surprisingly large minority were rocking multiple accounts for one or more years.
Plus you're still COMPLETELY ignoring the cash shop as if it didn't make any money for the game. Guess again.
Again, cluelessness abounds - I never said people weren't approached. I said there was no evidence that anyone was going to pony up the required cash.
And I'm telling you that you're mistaken. Believe it, disbelieve it. I have better things to do than argue with someone who doesn't know what they are talking about as if they were an authority on the matter.
CoH was a fantasy mmo, let's be clear about that;-p
This is why I didn't say "fantasy MMO".
I said "traditional fantasy MMO".
Y'know. Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, etc. Healers, Knights, Clerics, etc, etc, etc.
ArenaNet are worth supporting, NCSoft aside.
Undoubtedly. If only it were that simple. If there was some way to give them my money in a fashion where a company I've chosen to boycott wouldn't benfit, I'd at least look into it.
They are also physically based in the US, so it will be a bit harder for NC to wreck them if they operate on their own currency & balance sheet, even if they wanted to.
Tell that to Paragon Studios. They were in exactly the same financial and logistical position ArenaNet is. That didn't save them.
And 'grind'...you want GRIND ffs??? CoH was far more of a grinder than GW2 will ever be.
Uh. Yeah. No. Try again.
Granted, there are a lot of "hunt X of Y enemy", but a lot of that stuff was from VERY early on in the game. Badges that previously required umpty-bajillion of something (the "NO POSSIBLE WAY to get there WITHOUT farming", like the healing badges) had their numbers reduced by at least an order of magnitude.
In the last few years, Paragon's been all about giving players multiple avenues to acquisition of stuff they want. So if you don't want to have to run stuff 30 gazillion times to build up a given currency? You don't have to.
And thanks for the invitation. But my stance is fairly clear. I have less than zero interest in GW2. I don't care how cheap it is.
By that logic, everything after Outbreal/Breakout/Galaxy City was "optional".
Technically? Yeah.
Realistically, you could experience the entire game from 1-50 without the need for participating in Incarnate content. And, while slower than I liked, solo Incarnate content was being released.
The only way to have spent the amounts of money you cite are to either have played since launch, or to have multiple accounts.
1: $50-100 for a disk and the first month of play. 2: $50-100 for City of Villains and a month of play. 3: $130-ish for various Super Booster packs pre-freedom 4: Additional server slots here and there ($6 for 1, $10 for 2, or $20 for 5). And after 8 years you're going to have a LOT of alts. The game ENCOURAGED alting. 5: $150*8.5 for sub fees.
Without buying a single server slot and foregoing the purchase of Paragon Points after Freedom launched, that's $1505. The equivalent of $2/day
Some people spent quite a bit of disposable income on CoH post-Freedom too. For years, the community was going "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!" asking for new stuff. Freedom gave people an outlet for that cash surplus.
And I know multiple people with multiple accounts. Several of the "outliers" had 7 or more. One of the people I regularly teamed with had 7 accounts. And played on all of them regularly.
Let's not even get started on what the actual "average" for players was.
While there has been endless talks between people "interested" in doing so. There's no actual evidence that anyone was ever actually going to pony up the millions required to acquire the game.
Actually. I was one of the people approached to work for financing a new studio. The amount being asked for, and the way NCSoft responded to the notion of a buyout made it quite clear that they weren't interested in selling at that point. FACT.
Yes, the game was currently making (small amounts of) money - but the subscriber base has been declining for years (peaking, IIRC, about the time of COV's launch). Even going "free to play (but costs to get everything) didn't alter the downward curve. It wasn't going to be making money for very much longer.
Part of the reason the returns were lower, compared to outlay was that the studio was financing a second development team for another project. So yes, straight-line profit out of the studio was down. This would have corrected once the project itself reached release. Also, what's the difference between the studio funneling money, under their owner's direction, into a new INTERNAL project and the owner taking the profits and funneling the money to a different subsidiary for development of another property?
1: It's NCSoft. NEVER investing time, interest, or MONEY into one of their products again. Yes, yes. I know that ArenaNet is who made it. But NCSoft owns ArenaNet, lock stock and barrel.
2: It's STILL a traditional fantasy gear n' grind. Albeit, with some of the rough edges of other gear n' grinds sanded down.
I have exactly ZERO interest in Fantasy MMOs. I have even less interest in MMOs where my gear determines what I can do and what I look like. I have exactly NO interest in endless grinding.
When accommodating my tastes, CoH got a LOT of stuff right, right out the gate. And, through further refinement over 8 years, they dialed it in more and more. Yeah, the game spoiled the fsck outta me. So everything's gonna play second fiddle. Especially in rosy hindsight.
But, when I want a McLaren F1, the answer isn't "Go buy a Subaru. Or a Kia."
Look, for those who just have to have their spandex fix, Champions Online & DCUO are still going strong & are F2P (mostly).
Now, neither CO or DCUO are BAD (though DCUO has some major problems as a PC-based MMO).
But this argument is essentially "We've closed down your favorite pizza place. But you have options for pizza! This other place run by a guy who USED to work for your favorite place and has a knock-off product that's so-so (CO). Or this other place that'll serve you a mean sandwich! (DCUO)"
As a five year resident of the City - no, it really wasn't. There was considerable grind, and unless you wanted to play only a limited handful of the available archetypes that could solo well... you pretty much had to play on a team.
Casual != Solo
Also, some changes were coming up that were tweaking some of the ATs that were having difficulty soloing in certain ranges in the game. Unfortunately that Damocles guy started swinging.
Anyhoo, the only ATs I didn't play a heck of a lot were Dominators. But I've solo'ed tanks, brutes, defenders, Controllers, Arachnos Soldiers/Widows, Kheldians, Blasters, etc.
Did I NEVER team? No. But I had relatively few problems soloing when I wanted to solo.
And after the release of the Mission Architect and the game transforming into the City of Farmers... that could be difficult, even on Freedom. (By far the most populated server.) When the Incarnate system launched, along with the raid based WoW style endgame, life was pretty much over for the casual player.
As was pointed out, endlessly, in the forums, if you expect to stand around in Broadcast and go "Gimme Team!", yeah. Teaming is going to be tough. But nothing about finding a couple of your chosen server's active channels negates the game remaining "casual".
Additionally, the end-game raiding system was optional. Just the way PVP is optional.
True, mostly. QOL improvement lagged greatly as the dev team was wedded to an iron schedule and consistently committed to new shiny over polishing the dulled and older bits.
Well, new shiny pays bills. Tweaks to existing stuff, while important, happen as a convenience unless something breaks. Still, the issues where they went to town on QOL, they REALLY went to town! And i24 was looking to be another Big QOL issue.
I'd like to know the REAL reason for closing it down.
City of Heroes 2. Same reason Bioware/EA went out of their way to get Galaxies taken down just before the release of The Old Republic: they want to create a demand for a certain type of game, then provide it soon after.
Nope. Matt Miller, the senior developer at NCSoft has repeatedly said that NCSoft shot down the idea of CoH2 numerous times. And, as the game sank like a stone in the asian market, it's doubtful that they were going to build sequel to it with another in-house studio.
Sadly, too many MMO companies just don't understand the value of community.
Yeah. That was one of the great things about Paragon Studios. They DID understand the value. These guys went out of their way to make sure we knew how much they understood and appreciated the community.
Too bad their parent company were a bunch of oblivious morons.
It was RIDICULOUSLY casual-friendly. And it was widely acknowledged that PVP in the game was a half-hearted attempt at best. Far FAR more development time went into PVE and MAJOR QOL improvements, where you don't have to worry about competing with "A. Random Kid" on the internet. Just play how you want to. Team when you want to. Do whatever you want in the game. No competition unless YOU desire it.
Slashdot Mirror
Idiots are some of the most dangerous and creative individuals on the planet (though most of them don't know it).
Since not one of my co-workers or clients are on Windows 8 at the moment.
Oh!
You guys were SERIOUS?
Really truly and for-sure?
Windows 8?
Noshitiswear?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Patent trolling is a descriptive (and perjorative) used to describe an opportunistic use of patent litigation.
This can be applied to a person or company.
And there's no prerequisite that that's ALL they do.
Know what you're talking about before you decide to start yapping son.
No. No they're not.
A corporation, by its very nature is an amoral entity.
The problem is that our current laws ALLOW this sort of thing.
If you dislike this, work to change the laws. Don't simply sit back and bitch because they're following the current (bad) laws.
Again. I didn't say the situation didn't need to change.
And I make no pretense that such changes are going to come "easily".
But if you expect it to happen without a LOT of PERSONAL effort on EVERYONE'S part (including YOURS), you may as well be bitching about the coaching of a football game.
As I've said elsewhere. Don't bitch to me because the road to your utopia isn't a flat, paved road with clear and concise signage and rest stops at short intervals.
Nothing "good" in this life is going to ever be easy. You need to work for it. Start working for your own dream.
So you're now bitching because the process for rectifying what you see as a problem is non-trivial and not handed to you on a silver platter.
Boo hoo.
This is reality. Nothing worthwhile is EVER going to be "easy".
Because when someone else sues *Apple*, they're a "patent troll".
But when *Apple* does the same thing in suing others, they're just "protecting innovation".
Ow. Need to see an ophthalmologist now. I just rolled my eyes so hard I strained something.
Again. These companies are under no legal, moral or ethical constraint to assume the maximum tax burden possible.
They're under fiduciary constraints to maximize their shareholders' investments.
If you think that the current tax avoidance schemes are a Bad Thing, stop pissing and moaning at the companies who are simply doing what they're supposed to be doing and change the fucking laws.
May I also point out that these corporations are under ZERO legal, moral or ethical constraint to pay the maximum amount of taxes possible. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to minimize their tax liability.
As much as it burns my butt that some of these companies can get away with paying a pittance (or no) taxes, "fair" never even enters the equation.
"Fair" is whatever they can get away with, within the framework of existing tax law.
Don't like it? Don't bitch. Fix the laws.
What you seemed to have missed is the difference between someone who has been around since launch day - and an average player.
Ah. You're talking about the mythical "average player". Essentially the one with habits set such to allow you to "win" this argument.
Sorry, that bag was old before even *I* got into the game.
I'm talking about an average ACTIVE player in CoH. A surprising majority of them were multi-year subscribers. Driving the MATHEMATICAL average up.
And a surprisingly large minority were rocking multiple accounts for one or more years.
Plus you're still COMPLETELY ignoring the cash shop as if it didn't make any money for the game. Guess again.
Again, cluelessness abounds - I never said people weren't approached. I said there was no evidence that anyone was going to pony up the required cash.
And I'm telling you that you're mistaken. Believe it, disbelieve it. I have better things to do than argue with someone who doesn't know what they are talking about as if they were an authority on the matter.
CoH was a fantasy mmo, let's be clear about that ;-p
This is why I didn't say "fantasy MMO".
I said "traditional fantasy MMO".
Y'know. Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, etc. Healers, Knights, Clerics, etc, etc, etc.
ArenaNet are worth supporting, NCSoft aside.
Undoubtedly. If only it were that simple. If there was some way to give them my money in a fashion where a company I've chosen to boycott wouldn't benfit, I'd at least look into it.
They are also physically based in the US, so it will be a bit harder for NC to wreck them if they operate on their own currency & balance sheet, even if they wanted to.
Tell that to Paragon Studios. They were in exactly the same financial and logistical position ArenaNet is. That didn't save them.
And 'grind'...you want GRIND ffs??? CoH was far more of a grinder than GW2 will ever be.
Uh. Yeah. No. Try again.
Granted, there are a lot of "hunt X of Y enemy", but a lot of that stuff was from VERY early on in the game. Badges that previously required umpty-bajillion of something (the "NO POSSIBLE WAY to get there WITHOUT farming", like the healing badges) had their numbers reduced by at least an order of magnitude.
In the last few years, Paragon's been all about giving players multiple avenues to acquisition of stuff they want. So if you don't want to have to run stuff 30 gazillion times to build up a given currency? You don't have to.
And thanks for the invitation. But my stance is fairly clear. I have less than zero interest in GW2. I don't care how cheap it is.
Depends on who made the fries.
http://youtu.be/e8pLQvzHFow?t=3m13s
By that logic, everything after Outbreal/Breakout/Galaxy City was "optional".
Technically? Yeah.
Realistically, you could experience the entire game from 1-50 without the need for participating in Incarnate content. And, while slower than I liked, solo Incarnate content was being released.
The only way to have spent the amounts of money you cite are to either have played since launch, or to have multiple accounts.
1: $50-100 for a disk and the first month of play.
2: $50-100 for City of Villains and a month of play.
3: $130-ish for various Super Booster packs pre-freedom
4: Additional server slots here and there ($6 for 1, $10 for 2, or $20 for 5). And after 8 years you're going to have a LOT of alts. The game ENCOURAGED alting.
5: $150*8.5 for sub fees.
Without buying a single server slot and foregoing the purchase of Paragon Points after Freedom launched, that's $1505. The equivalent of $2/day
Some people spent quite a bit of disposable income on CoH post-Freedom too. For years, the community was going "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!" asking for new stuff. Freedom gave people an outlet for that cash surplus.
And I know multiple people with multiple accounts. Several of the "outliers" had 7 or more. One of the people I regularly teamed with had 7 accounts. And played on all of them regularly.
Let's not even get started on what the actual "average" for players was.
While there has been endless talks between people "interested" in doing so. There's no actual evidence that anyone was ever actually going to pony up the millions required to acquire the game.
Actually. I was one of the people approached to work for financing a new studio. The amount being asked for, and the way NCSoft responded to the notion of a buyout made it quite clear that they weren't interested in selling at that point. FACT.
Yes, the game was currently making (small amounts of) money - but the subscriber base has been declining for years (peaking, IIRC, about the time of COV's launch). Even going "free to play (but costs to get everything) didn't alter the downward curve. It wasn't going to be making money for very much longer.
Part of the reason the returns were lower, compared to outlay was that the studio was financing a second development team for another project. So yes, straight-line profit out of the studio was down. This would have corrected once the project itself reached release. Also, what's the difference between the studio funneling money, under their owner's direction, into a new INTERNAL project and the owner taking the profits and funneling the money to a different subsidiary for development of another property?
No thanks.
1: It's NCSoft. NEVER investing time, interest, or MONEY into one of their products again. Yes, yes. I know that ArenaNet is who made it. But NCSoft owns ArenaNet, lock stock and barrel.
2: It's STILL a traditional fantasy gear n' grind. Albeit, with some of the rough edges of other gear n' grinds sanded down.
I have exactly ZERO interest in Fantasy MMOs.
I have even less interest in MMOs where my gear determines what I can do and what I look like.
I have exactly NO interest in endless grinding.
When accommodating my tastes, CoH got a LOT of stuff right, right out the gate. And, through further refinement over 8 years, they dialed it in more and more.
Yeah, the game spoiled the fsck outta me. So everything's gonna play second fiddle. Especially in rosy hindsight.
But, when I want a McLaren F1, the answer isn't "Go buy a Subaru. Or a Kia."
Look, for those who just have to have their spandex fix, Champions Online & DCUO are still going strong & are F2P (mostly).
Now, neither CO or DCUO are BAD (though DCUO has some major problems as a PC-based MMO).
But this argument is essentially "We've closed down your favorite pizza place. But you have options for pizza! This other place run by a guy who USED to work for your favorite place and has a knock-off product that's so-so (CO). Or this other place that'll serve you a mean sandwich! (DCUO)"
As a five year resident of the City - no, it really wasn't. There was considerable grind, and unless you wanted to play only a limited handful of the available archetypes that could solo well... you pretty much had to play on a team.
Casual != Solo
Also, some changes were coming up that were tweaking some of the ATs that were having difficulty soloing in certain ranges in the game. Unfortunately that Damocles guy started swinging.
Anyhoo, the only ATs I didn't play a heck of a lot were Dominators. But I've solo'ed tanks, brutes, defenders, Controllers, Arachnos Soldiers/Widows, Kheldians, Blasters, etc.
Did I NEVER team? No. But I had relatively few problems soloing when I wanted to solo.
And after the release of the Mission Architect and the game transforming into the City of Farmers... that could be difficult, even on Freedom. (By far the most populated server.) When the Incarnate system launched, along with the raid based WoW style endgame, life was pretty much over for the casual player.
As was pointed out, endlessly, in the forums, if you expect to stand around in Broadcast and go "Gimme Team!", yeah. Teaming is going to be tough.
But nothing about finding a couple of your chosen server's active channels negates the game remaining "casual".
Additionally, the end-game raiding system was optional. Just the way PVP is optional.
True, mostly. QOL improvement lagged greatly as the dev team was wedded to an iron schedule and consistently committed to new shiny over polishing the dulled and older bits.
Well, new shiny pays bills. Tweaks to existing stuff, while important, happen as a convenience unless something breaks. Still, the issues where they went to town on QOL, they REALLY went to town! And i24 was looking to be another Big QOL issue.
I'd like to know the REAL reason for closing it down.
City of Heroes 2. Same reason Bioware/EA went out of their way to get Galaxies taken down just before the release of The Old Republic: they want to create a demand for a certain type of game, then provide it soon after.
Nope. Matt Miller, the senior developer at NCSoft has repeatedly said that NCSoft shot down the idea of CoH2 numerous times.
And, as the game sank like a stone in the asian market, it's doubtful that they were going to build sequel to it with another in-house studio.
What if "not even close"? Even accounting for a second development team on a new project that had brought no money in yet.
Sadly, too many MMO companies just don't understand the value of community.
Yeah. That was one of the great things about Paragon Studios. They DID understand the value. These guys went out of their way to make sure we knew how much they understood and appreciated the community.
Too bad their parent company were a bunch of oblivious morons.
This was one of the beauties of CoH.
It was RIDICULOUSLY casual-friendly. And it was widely acknowledged that PVP in the game was a half-hearted attempt at best. Far FAR more development time went into PVE and MAJOR QOL improvements, where you don't have to worry about competing with "A. Random Kid" on the internet. Just play how you want to. Team when you want to. Do whatever you want in the game. No competition unless YOU desire it.
That's a HELL of a lot of content!