Can The Negativity Stop? PLEASE!

[jubakumbi]

 

3 hours ago, PaxArcana said:

At the risk of being banned from this forum too, jubakumbi?

Please cease to annoy me with your 'prattle'.

 

Seriously; I have the absolute right to decide that a corporation - yes, the WHOLE corporation - is one I will not do business with.  For any reason, even just "I hate the color of their logo", let alone a specific negative experience with one or more of their employees.  Hell, I don't even need a reason at all ...!

So don't you dare go sitting there bloody judging me for it, you very annoying person, you. 

...
 

I'm not going to discuss the matter any further, especially not with you.

As I stated, I have avoided giving them any cash.

I was trying to discuss the idea of people villifying a corporation over the actions of just a few of the employees, not judging you, this happens all the time.

I don't entirely agree with your viewpoint and I was exploring the ideas.

Now that I have worked in big corporations and I have seen consumers do this more often, it's something I like to explore, I love "Why?'.

 

If the exploration of those ideas has upset you, I apologize, that was not the intent.

Be Well.

Edited August 11, 2019 by GM Fiddleback

[GM Glyph]

Keep it civil, folks.

[Blackbird71]

30 minutes ago, jubakumbi said:

Now that I have worked in big corporations and I have seen consumers do this more often, it's something I like to explore, I love "Why?'.

Whether you realize it or not, you were being provocative.  You were making accusations and assumptions of motive, and it came across as rather insulting, not just towards Pax, but towards any customer who has issue with how they were treated by NCSoft.  Maybe you were genuinely interested in understanding, maybe you weren't; it's hard to tell in this sort of communication.  I've just seen a enough people trolling under the guise of "I was just asking a question" to warrant suspicion.

Edited August 11, 2019 by Blackbird71

[jubakumbi]

4 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

Whether you realize it or not, you were being more provocative than that.  You were making accusations and assumptions of motive, and it came across as rather insulting, not just towards Pax, but towards any customer who has issue with how they were treated by NCSoft.  Maybe you were genuinely interested in understanding, maybe you weren't; it's hard to tell in this sort of communication.  I've just seen a enough people trolling under the guise of "I was just asking a question" to warrant suspicion.

I am NOT innocent of using provactive language, nor am I innocent of wanting poeple to think about these things.

I am in fact an insensitive prick quite often, both on purpose and by accident.

Why?

It gets people to think.

I do not, however, actually enjoy upsetting people.

 

I remember the poster's name well from the Retail forums and posts here, which also influenced my words. 🙂

 

I am just the kind of person that likes to challenge why people think what they think, myself included, first and foremost.

No, I don't go to parties, my friends know better than to invite me unless I am maning the grill.

 

The whole 'brand loyalty' / 'brand warfare' thing to me, even though I engage in it as a consumer, is in fact kind of silly at the same time as it is effective.

 

When I learn about someone carrying this level of vitriol for an entire organization, based on the actions of just a couple of it's employees over a non-life threating, non-service impacting issue, I find it fascinating, and I want to understand the brain chemstry behind that level of focused rage and anger. I mean, they make 'lists'...

 

The mere fact I want to discuss these things upsets some people, I have had my curiosity called a 'ballistic missle'.

I know better, I was just sitting here with my coffee and enjoying the nice morning, typing what I was thinking.

How terrible of me. 😉

 

[GM Capocollo]

What you call “challenging why people think what they think” is riding dangerously close to what I call “needling people for no reason”.  If someone is resistant to playing along with your Socratic questioning, take the hint and drop it instead of pretending derailing a thread to perform some amateur psychoanalysis is actually for everyone’s edification.

[jubakumbi]

2 minutes ago, GM Capocollo said:

What you call “challenging why people think what they think” is riding dangerously close to what I call “needling people for no reason”.  If someone is resistant to playing along with your Socratic questioning, take the hint and drop it instead of pretending derailing a thread to perform some amateur psychoanalysis is actually for everyone’s edification.

Fair enough.

 

In this case, I did not see a hint.

TBH, I thought we were discussing it rather well, then boom.

 

🖖

[Megajoule]

So, how're we doin' on that whole "less negativity" thing?

[Yoru-hime]

7 minutes ago, Megajoule said:

So, how're we doin' on that whole "less negativity" thing?

To paraphrase Edison, we have not failed, we have simply discovered one method that does not work. 😉

[Abraxus]

We are a large, and diverse group.  Differences in perspective, and opinion are inevitable.  How we handle them, is within our power to control.  Civility in expression is almost always a better way to conduct debate on any topic, and self-discipline when reacting to topics, and associated posts keeps things from spinning out of control. 

[Jeuraud]

On 8/10/2019 at 1:15 AM, reconfigureyourface said:

I get it. You hate NCSoft... They're a big evil corporation who shut down our favorite game. OoooooOOooooooOOooooo. 🙀

and Auto Assault, and Tabula Rasa, and WildStar.

NCSoft is four for four when it comes to Western MMOs they produced. They have earned my distrust.

 

That being said there was no negativity here about Homecoming dealing with NCSoft until you brought it here.

[PaxArcana]

48 minutes ago, Yoru-hime said:

To paraphrase Edison, we have not failed, we have simply discovered one method that does not work. 😉

Success is neither more nor less than the sum of a series of failures.  🙂

[Coyote]

2 hours ago, PaxArcana said:

Seriously; I have the absolute right to decide that a corporation - yes, the WHOLE corporation - is one I will not do business with.  For any reason, even just "I hate the color of their logo", let alone a specific negative experience with one or more of their employees.  Hell, I don't even need a reason at all ...!

So don't you dare go sitting there bloody judging me for it, you very annoying person, you. 

 

I believe that we are certainly reasonable to make our value judgments, including whether a corporations deserves a lifetime ban from our wallets.

Our... value... JUDGMENTS.

 

But similarly, people are entitled to judge us. If it bothers you that someone judges you because you lifetime-banned God's Greatest Company (tm), and posted about it on a public message board... then don't post about it on a public message board. Everything that we post here opens us up to other people judging us. We judge others, we judge companies, we judge games, and we judge posts. It's normal, and it's reasonable to accept that whatever you write that is available to the public... may then be read by said public, and may then cause said public to judge you.

 

The way to avoid it is to opt-out by not posting. But you can't force behavior upon other people, so once you put up that post, you have no control about others judging the post, and then because of it, you. That's the Law of the Jungle, my cubs... I mean, the Law of Internet Forums, which is basically the same thing 😛

[PaxArcana]

3 hours ago, Jeuraud said:

and Auto Assault, and Tabula Rasa, and WildStar.

To be fair, AutoAssault's problems were Legion ... and the product of the development team/house that made it.

 

Their hyper-PvP orientation wound up damaging the playerbase (did you ever do any of the PvE Epics questlines?  GOOD GRIEF.).

 

More than that, they hung their hopes on the endgame, cross-faction PvP zone ... which was nowhere near ready enough for primetime when the game launched.

 

Arguably as well, there were design flaws and shortcomings from a foundational level.  In my opinion, they should have started with just two of the three factions - the Biomeks and the Mutants - and added in the Human faction via an expansion.  They should also have had Contested Territory (alon the faction borders) from even lower levels (and I say this even as someone who dislikes PvP in general), not only because it would have let them test and stabilize their netcode for PvP zones in time for the official Launch, but also because it would have let people like me ease into the PvP side of the game, rather than being dropped headfirst into the deep end in Ground Zero.

 

I also argue that the vehicle classes were not sufficiently differentiated.  Take the larger trucks - instead of just "large vehicle means large weapon in the turret", how about some that had two Medium turrets?  Or a Medium and two Small turrets?  Just for variety.  (Turrets take up 1/2/3/4 spaces for Small/Medium/Large/Huge; vehicles have 1/2/3/4 spaces for turrets based on vehicle size.  SOMe vehicles might have +1 or -1 turret space (minimum 1) in return for other attributes - built-in armor or higher HP justifying fewer guns, being faster or more agile justifying fewer, etc.

... and lose the petulantly "PvP-or-else" developers.  Those PvE Epics were stupidly punitive in design, and probably cost no small number of subscribers by themselves.

The game might have at least limped on for multiple additional years, if they'd done all those things.  Shifting it to F2P (much as I hate it) would likely have helped.

...

Tabula Rasa ... I was in the closed beta for that; I even made a few suggestions that made it into the final game as permanent features.  (Example: being able to use Teleport pads to change which Shard of a zone you were in - proposed as a quick fix, re-using existing code, for a beta bug where a team in different shards, entering the same "dungeon" instance, would end up in different shards of that very-not-solo-playable instance; the very next day that exact feature showed up in the morning hotfix 🙂 ).  And a few other places where I showed there was a problem, suggested a solution, and ... the next patch, as little as 1-3 days later, BAM, there was my suggested solution, in place.

But, when they announced the schedule for release?  The entire forums erupted in UNANIMOUS protest (seriously, when every single beta tester you have says "you are not ready" ... you are probably not ready!!) that the game was nowhere near ready for launch, and couldn't BECOME ready in the just-a-few-weeks timeframe they outlined.  Whoever it was that didn't care, they ignored us all and rushed the game out the door .... where it's flaws, it's serious lack of polish, and it's dearth of varied content doomed it before it was finished being born.

...

I never tried Wildstar, so I cannot speak to that one.

But of the two I discussed above, NCSoft didn't really have much do do with either's failure, except perhaps to say "we are not throwing more money down that hole - either you have a game, or you don't".  Which I can't blame an investor for saying, when the budget has been extended twice or more, already.

Edited August 11, 2019 by PaxArcana

[mousestalker]

If it helps any, please remember that just about everyone who was involved with City of Heroes when it was Live, lost their jobs.

 

Also, I'm a moderator on another gaming board. Not a week goes by that I question my judgment in accepting the job. And we're one of the nicer boards. I cannot imagine how the WoW mods feel. Be kind to your mods and cut 'em some slack.

[GM Fiddleback]

Speaking of judging....

 

In my judgement, it is best if we all agree that a thing happened in this thread that was not the best thing that could have happened. But, by the same token, let us all agree to leave that thing aside and move on from there to a better discussion. Rather than, say, bringing it up further. Pretend all relevant parties have been spoken to. Pretend it was a lapse in judgement that is better overlooked. Pretend, in fact, that the negativity can stop.

 

Because I really don't want to have to do the big 'J' sort of judgement.

[GM Fiddleback]

31 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

To be fair, AutoAssault's problems were Legion ...

 

<---snip--->


Tabula Rasa ...

 

<---snip--->

I never tried Wildstar, so I cannot speak to that one.

<---snip--->

 

I beta'd (possibly even alpha'd, can't remember for sure) AutoAssault and yes. There were problems galore with that monstrosity. Frankly surprised it lasted as long as it did.  The core mechanic was pretty fun, but goodness was everything else around it terrible.

 

As for Tabula Rasa....you guys'd tell me where the secret hidden server for that is if there was one? Right? Right....?  Guys?

 

I have the curse of having my two favorite MMOs of all time being closed by the same company. Bitter? Me?  Oh yes please, two plates full. With extra gravy.

 

Wildstar I recall playing for about a week or so and being terribly unimpressed with. YMMV

 

 

But, more to the point, City of Heroes is back! Did you know that?!  I'm very, very pleased about that. And maybe it'll get to stick around long term!  That's good, too!

 

(But seriously, Tabula Rasa...c'mon guys....)

 

 

 

[reconfigureyourface]

 

1 hour ago, Jeuraud said:

and Auto Assault, and Tabula Rasa, and WildStar.

NCSoft is four for four when it comes to Western MMOs they produced. They have earned my distrust.

 

That being said there was no negativity here about Homecoming dealing with NCSoft until you brought it here.

No, the forums have had it well before I got here, and your attitude right there is basically what my original post was addressing. 

 

2 hours ago, Megajoule said:

So, how're we doin' on that whole "less negativity" thing?

Not so well 😞

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by reconfigureyourface
Addition

[PaxArcana]

5 minutes ago, reconfigureyourface said:

What has Pax done that is a bannable offense? He and Juba had a disagreement. End of story. No rules were broken.

To be fair, I did break rules.  No details, per Fiddleback's request to let it lay.  But, honesty compels me to admit, yes I did.

Edited August 11, 2019 by PaxArcana

[Jeuraud]

9 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

Whoever it was that didn't care, they ignored us all and rushed the game out the door

I was also a part of the Tabula Rasa beta, and you know who this was... NCSoft.

Now that being said I felt that the TR Devs were sabotaging their own game with some of the decisions they were making about the game.

I had no interest in Auto Assault, but I have no doubt that NCSoft pushed it out to early, and I know they pushed WildStar out early, because I was also in that beta.

 

NCSoft shut down newer MMOs, while Sony was still running EQ, EQ2,  hells, Sony even allowed a failed release called Vanguard to make a fairly descent MMO, as long as you like grouping.

We know that CoHV was profitable, and I'm pretty sure WildStar was as well. I have no clue about AA and TR, but if Sony could keep ancient MMOs running why couldn't NCSoft. These four NCSoft MMOs were niche MMOs and they were never going to make it big, and they were also western MMOs, and NCSoft has absolutely no loyalty to their western costumers. Thats why not.

 

7 minutes ago, GM Fiddleback said:

(But seriously, Tabula Rasa...c'mon guys....)

Sorry, I bought TR and played the first month, and then the last month. Was not happy with what the Devs had done to the game.

WildStar I really liked but was burned out on MMOs, so only got back into it just in time for NCSoft to shut it down.

[reconfigureyourface]

2 minutes ago, PaxArcana said:

To be fair, I did break rules.  No details, per Fiddleback's request to let it lay.  But, honesty compels me to admit, yes I did.

I will just amend my post... oops? 😄

[PaxArcana]

3 minutes ago, Jeuraud said:

I was also a part of the Tabula Rasa beta, and you know who this was... NCSoft.

Yes.  But ... I can't really fault them for it.  As I understand it, during Alpha, Garriot scrapped the entirety of what had been done so far, and started over completely.  Even changing some of the fundamental concept of the game.

Then they ran out of money to develop it further, and NCSoft said "no, I'm not giving you even more money now."
 

5 minutes ago, Jeuraud said:

I had no interest in Auto Assault, but I have no doubt that NCSoft pushed it out to early,

The AA developer bit off more than they could chew, IMO.  They were too ambitious, spread themselves too thin, and - though for different reasons - ran out of money just like TR did.  With the same response from NCSoft.

...

In both cases, despite my negative feelings for NCSoft, I can't blame them.  There's a saying about "throwing good money after bad" for a reason, after all.  NCSoft had already provided the money they felt each project was worth, and weren't going to pour even more in, without some seriously compelling evidence that the game was going to be even more awesomely profitable than originally assumed.

Which neither of those games could do.

So, while NCSoft gets a sliver of the blame for those games' failure ... they only get a sliver.  The developers in both cases get the lion's share of it.

[Black Zot]

39 minutes ago, GM Fiddleback said:

 

But, more to the point, City of Heroes is back! Did you know that?!  I'm very, very pleased about that. And maybe it'll get to stick around long term!  That's good, too!

 

 

Not for long, if NCSoft is involved.  They killed it once, just for daring to be something other than a Korean-style grindfest.  They WILL kill it again, given the opportunity, for the exact same reason.

[GM Sijin]

1 hour ago, PaxArcana said:

I never tried Wildstar, so I cannot speak to that one.

Wildstar was a game that had issues with it's launch and a design team that missed the mark for player expectations vs reality. They wanted to sell an idea to a market that wishful thinking from a very small part of the available pool of players, of the "good ole days". Unsurprisingly to me, their decisions proved unpopular and they made adjustments as time went on.

 

Their biggest folly though? Trusting NCSoft to be their publisher. Allow me to explain my reasoning:

 

Wildstar had a fantastic art/aesthetic design and a decent story going for it. In fact, it's lore on launch day was far more in-depth than any other MMO I've played to date that didn't have a world class writing team behind it already. The gameplay loop was just as fun as any other MMO, there weren't any massive innovations but there were little things that I thoroughly enjoyed personally. The player housing, though? That was something else. Had the game received the support it needed by way of investment I have no doubt it would still be going today. Not as strong as the giants of the genre, but a game that pulled its own weight and was enjoyed, even beloved by its fans, no different than CoH.

 

It did not receive that support. It's publisher does what it does, and when it didn't prove to be a 'WoW killer' in the western market, it was dropped to life support status grossly prematurely and the studio was left to slowly die.

 

I truly hope that, for its fans, something like Homecoming is made reality.

 

Be excellent to each other.

[GM Fiddleback]

5 minutes ago, Black Zot said:

 

Not for long, if NCSoft is involved.  They killed it once, just for daring to be something other than a Korean-style grindfest.  They WILL kill it again, given the opportunity, for the exact same reason.

You, sir, are a party pooper and a naysayer. And you also assume facts not in evidence. Nor do you demonstrate a knowledge of or particular insight into the present process. There are threads for you elsewhere out there. This one is about attempting to be less negative.

 

Thank you and good day.

[reconfigureyourface]

59 minutes ago, Black Zot said:

 

Not for long, if NCSoft is involved.  They killed it once, just for daring to be something other than a Korean-style grindfest.  They WILL kill it again, given the opportunity, for the exact same reason.

Sigh...

 

51 minutes ago, GM Fiddleback said:

You, sir, are a party pooper and a naysayer. And you also assume facts not in evidence. Nor do you demonstrate a knowledge of or particular insight into the present process. There are threads for you elsewhere out there. This one is about attempting to be less negative.

 

Thank you and good day.

😎👍