Back when I played Lineage 1 NCSoft treated us like red headed step children and to this day my friends from then will not play an NcSoft title. I got over it eventually and tried Lineage 2 (far too much grind and severe gold farming/botting issue) which make me leary of any product developed by them. But no, I don't unilaterally avoid their titles (unlike I do for Cryptic )
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
NCsoft does not show any real respect for its western market...even to the point of disrespect. They make their games with Koreans in mind and only koreans in mind. AION was the last straw for me.
CCP have no respect for majority of MMO gamers, they make eve online which is so different from WoW. EvE Online was the last straw for me.
Sound familiar? different games cater to different people....have you check out everquest progression server? If it's not your kind of donut then leave it be. What i don't understand is bashing the donut not because the quality of the donut sucks but because you don't like donut at all. duh......
Also they have games like city of heroes and guild war for the western audience.
It's also logical that they develope korea style game because they're a korea company. If you don't like korea food then leave it be....cry somewhere else
Did you really just QQ about a poster making a QQ post in your QQ thread? I honestly thought your thread was a legit question, but after seeing this I am not so sure.
Due to Tabula Rasa. The way they literally frauded the Garriott letter to get rid of his options in NCSoft, is simply intolerable. This is way bigger scandal than what SoE did to their own game.
I don't hate NCSoft because of this. But it was very slimy.
The hate for NCSOFT stems from the fact that they don't focus enough on the Western markets. In my opinion, why should they when they have a massive subscriber base for Lineage 2/Aion in the Asian market that could only come close to rivaling WoW's numbers excluding any Chinese titles, of course.
NCSoft has the worst customer "support" I've ever experienced. Back in the days when I played City of Heroes/Villains, I decided to try Guild Wars. A problem occured with my visa when I tried to buy GW, which btw worked fine when paying for my CoH/V sub... NCSoft didn't answer any of my questions, but sent me back and forth between the UK and US support divisions, both claiming that my issue belonged on the other side of the pond.
Eventually, I got an extremely rude mail from them. What they were replying to, I still don't know, it certainly had nothing to do with my issues. And when I replied to it, I got a mail where they simply said they regarded the case as closed. After that they ignored my next mails.
A few days later I got a mail from them, saying that my CoV/H account was banned. No reason given. And again, my questions why got ignored.
So that's why I personally hate NCSoft. They'll never see a cent from me ever again.
NCsoft does not show any real respect for its western market...even to the point of disrespect.
They make their games with Koreans in mind and only koreans in mind.
AION was the last straw for me.
CCP have no respect for majority of MMO gamers, they make eve online which is so different from WoW. EvE Online was the last straw for me.
Sound familiar? different games cater to different people....have you check out everquest progression server? If it's not your kind of donut then leave it be. What i don't understand is bashing the donut not because the quality of the donut sucks but because you don't like donut at all. duh......
Also they have games like city of heroes and guild war for the western audience.
It's also logical that they develope korea style game because they're a korea company. If you don't like korea food then leave it be....cry somewhere else
Your analogies dont fit to well but I will try to put it in your terms, if mmos are the product, then I dont like the way NCSoft makes their donuts. I like donuts, I dont like most of their donuts.
What gets confusing is all the little branches of their company. Did korean NCSoft Devs make City of Heroes and Guild Wars?
I still am not sure myself. People hate them for cutting Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa, but those games were both awful. But beyond that, NCSoft does not like to continue running games that do not turn a profit. The games did not do well, and NCSoft cut them. I do not understand why this is either complicated or controversial. Companies should be allowed to do things to preserve their bottom lines. The reason they cut these games so quickly is because they were not profitable, but these games only existed because NCSoft was willing to take a risk and let people design games with their dollar that were a little different quirky and tried something very different. Those games did not work, but they did the same thing with Guild Wars, and that was a resounding success, and they let ArenaNet move with a sequel because Anet wanted to change up even more things.
My point is that even though NCSoft cuts games they fund if it is not working out, they are willing to take risks that other companies never would. I would much rather them try and have a game tank, and cut it instead of letting it become a Vanguard-style ghost-world, than to not allow the game to exist at all.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Might as well fill in the blank: Why the hate for ______ ? The answer is the same across the board. People are bored. They want entertainment. Developers across the board have been dishing out crap. People are tired of it so they hate on the latest developer dishing out crap. It will pretty much remain a round robin type of affair untill dev teams start producing decent products.
Of course the flip side of that is everyone has a different definition of crap so there will always be some level of "hate" floating around out there. Best to just ignore it and fill your life with the good stuff in life rather than waste your precious moments digging in the muck.
I still am not sure myself. People hate them for cutting Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa, but those games were both awful. But beyond that, NCSoft does not like to continue running games that do not turn a profit. The games did not do well, and NCSoft cut them. I do not understand why this is either complicated or controversial. Companies should be allowed to do things to preserve their bottom lines. The reason they cut these games so quickly is because they were not profitable, but these games only existed because NCSoft was willing to take a risk and let people design games with their dollar that were a little different quirky and tried something very different. Those games did not work, but they did the same thing with Guild Wars, and that was a resounding success, and they let ArenaNet move with a sequel because Anet wanted to change up even more things.
My point is that even though NCSoft cuts games they fund if it is not working out, they are willing to take risks that other companies never would. I would much rather them try and have a game tank, and cut it instead of letting it become a Vanguard-style ghost-world, than to not allow the game to exist at all.
Those games were not awful; they were unique and innovative. They had faults, but were fun to play and much different from the masses of MMOs out there today.
Auto Assault did not get an effective advertising budget, and Tabula Rasa had just gotten most of the kinks out when NCSoft cancelled it. I honestly believe that BOTH of these games would still be around today if NCSoft had givn them the attention they deserved.
I have no problem that they decide to cater to eastern gamers, that's fine. BUT, with Aion, they said they would modify the game to suit the tastes of western gamers, which, judging from the final product, was a blatant LIE used to increase box sales.
I think i get the gist now why people hate NCsoft and i will respect their view. (one of the forumer is right, i'm starting to QQ in this QQ thread haha)
Fyi, i've bought and sub aion for 3 month and only played it for 1 month plus because i find aion to be too grindy for my taste but i'm not qqing that ncsoft makes a grindfest game because after giving rift a run i find that for me rift is too grindy albert too monotanous as well. It was then that i realise that i have a very low tolarant for grinding be it raid grind for gear ala wow or progression grind ala aion or quest grind ala rift. Thus i'm gonna skip swtor and just buying GW2 as i know swtor based gameplay maybe too grindy for me as well. But i will not bashes trion, blizzard or even bioware for producing game that are too grindy or require too much commitment from a casual player like me. Just want to clear that up before people start assuming i'm a hardcore grind addict for going along with aion grind curve.
About claim that korean don't know abc about making good online game...i would beg to differ. Some of the games i played and loved are from korea company eg. pangya(casual golf game) and knight online(played it about 7-8 years ago...my intro to world pvp)
Also starting this thread, some forumer have brought up the account hacked issue of ncsoft master account. I cassually browse over to ncsoft master account page and try to log in my master account and i was prompt with "you account is permenantly blocked" i contacted ncsoft support and was told that someone have hacked my account and they've locked it down for me. After 6 hours with 5 email reply from ncsoft support they're going to reset my password and send it to my designated email. Overall i'm pretty impress by their customer service as i've only created my ncsoft master account for aion 1 year ago and used it for like a month.
I'd glad that ncsoft invested in unique game like aa or tb but i'm sorry that they have not been successful.
I still am not sure myself. People hate them for cutting Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa, but those games were both awful. But beyond that, NCSoft does not like to continue running games that do not turn a profit. The games did not do well, and NCSoft cut them. I do not understand why this is either complicated or controversial. Companies should be allowed to do things to preserve their bottom lines. The reason they cut these games so quickly is because they were not profitable, but these games only existed because NCSoft was willing to take a risk and let people design games with their dollar that were a little different quirky and tried something very different. Those games did not work, but they did the same thing with Guild Wars, and that was a resounding success, and they let ArenaNet move with a sequel because Anet wanted to change up even more things.
My point is that even though NCSoft cuts games they fund if it is not working out, they are willing to take risks that other companies never would. I would much rather them try and have a game tank, and cut it instead of letting it become a Vanguard-style ghost-world, than to not allow the game to exist at all.
As with many things, this is a bit more complex. NCsoft has demonstrated that they have very little clue about the difference between the eastern and western gaming markets. Game after game, this fact remains the case. This is one of the factors that explains why some of their games are such a success in the east(Aion and Linage/Linage2 being three examples) while not being able to sustain their subscription numbers in the west. At this point I suspect its part of their corporate culture. It influences not only what games they support, but the degree to which they support them.
Guild Wars is one of the few exceptions, and I suspect its because they have allowed AN to do most(if not all) of the decision work for the game. They have taken a pretty much hands off approach, and that has resulted in the sucess that we've seen. Tabula Rasa on the other hand, shows the all too typical results of their meddling. First, they demanded an almost total re write of the game. What launched was VERY different from the original(which they initially signed off on).
Next, when it didn't become an over night success, they started cutting resources and support. Personally, I quite enjoyed Tabula Rasa. It had some serious problems, but those could have been fixed, and I suspect would have been, if NCsoft hadn't already decided the game wasn't going to make the amount of short term profit they projected. If one looks at the games they have axed over the last two or three years, they have all been western. I suspect that again this ties into their internal corporate culture.
Finally, their customer support(or lack there of...) is some of the worst I've had the misfortune of experiencing. Again, I suspect this ties into their corporate culture. CS doesn't make them short term profit, so they cut it as much as humanly possible. This is a very unwise, and short sighted perspective. It has no doubt cost them MUCH more in mid to long term profits, than it has saved them in the short term. But they would hardly be the first corporation thats driven by the old phrase "what have you done for me this quarter?".
So why did they oust Richard Garriot? It couldnt be that Tabula Rasa was lacking in financial profit alone.
The Garriotts (Robert and Richard) were running NCsoft North America and after 6-ish years of development delivered an expensive flop in TR. They'd also launched Auto Assault as a flop and City of Heroes / Villains which was a solid performer but dwarfed in a post-WoW industry.
Meanwhile, a lot of other titles bore the brunt of those costs and subsequent flop. Hell, it's arguable that pretty much the entire closure of NCsoft Europe (folded into NCsoft West) is due to TR's poor result. A new management team came in, led by ArenaNet's Chris Chung, Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain. Someone decided to clean house of the old Destination Games crew.
Reading between the lines of the time (which is to say, "I wasn't there, just read the available information") TR was given such golden child status that it made other developers resentful of it. If TR needed resources, it got it; if it wasn't TR, good luck with that duct tape and crazy glue. So someone (and perhaps word came from on high in Korea) tried to give Garriott the heave-ho while he was in space, but did an awful job of it, opening the door to the lawsuit.
Funnily enough, that ArenaNet-led management group is pretty much gone now and NCsoft West is run much more directly by Korea.
Why get rid of Garriott? TR was an embarrassment to NCsoft on top of not being profitable. Garriott was top of the tree when it came to TR, so therefore he had to bear the consequences.
After reading this article, i was wondering to myself. Why do people hate NCsoft? Compare to other publisher out there NCsoft is quite decent in my book.
City of Heroes : Started the spandex revolution. Even by today it's the most complete package albert the aged gfx
Linage Series : Considered by many to be a cult classic nowadays. Not for the softcore thou
Aion : Beautiful gfx and animation. Unique flight system. Too hardcore for western audience (I always think of this as an example when someone for example proposed an old school high grind server for games like rift or everquest II).
Guild Wars : Story driven rpg aka swtor of the year 2005 minus the backtalking function. No grind, pure skill based combat, impressive amount of build and playstyle. Only drawback is the highly instance world. THE game for working people like me who need a lot of attention for RL.
Future title : GW2, Blade&Soul Both looks good to me
Compare to other big MMO publisher out there, i would say NCsoft didn't do anything that's worth pissing me off. So i was wondering why do i see people bashing on NCsoft? Poor customer service? or something else?
City of heroes wasn't created by them, they bought the title after it's creation from another company.
I actually think NCSoft make attractive, competitive MMOs.It's just that they treat their western market as an afterthought.
It doesn't help that NCWest doesn't seem to play the game they're localizing. One recent fiasco is that the US Aion players are just discovering that a pvp rule that was recently enforced by the NCWest CMs under the guise of following the Korean ruleset was actually made up.
Aside from TR there's also the botting and RMT problem in L2 where you can report ppl as much as you want, but they will never be banned / punished for breaking the EULA, though I was quite surprised to see NCSoft keep the amount of RMT's quite low in AIon (dunno about botting there though).
Actually ncsoft gave me a 2 week ban for reporting bot trains taking all the leveling spots in lineage 2. They gave me a 2 week as a warning to stop reporting bots or the next ban will be perminant. NCSoft is and has never been for it's customers, but for whatever makes profit. RMT companies pay for more accounts so they get more profit for supporting the RMT companies, while doing a 6 month wave ban to "show the customers they care and are banning bots."
They are the biggest 2-faced company liars you will ever run into. This is why people hate them.
Blizzard does the same thing with these chinese farmer outfits. Only with them, the degree of account theft is so high, it is almost like they have someone on their staff selling accounts to these people in bulk.
Aside from TR there's also the botting and RMT problem in L2 where you can report ppl as much as you want, but they will never be banned / punished for breaking the EULA, though I was quite surprised to see NCSoft keep the amount of RMT's quite low in AIon (dunno about botting there though).
Actually ncsoft gave me a 2 week ban for reporting bot trains taking all the leveling spots in lineage 2. They gave me a 2 week as a warning to stop reporting bots or the next ban will be perminant. NCSoft is and has never been for it's customers, but for whatever makes profit. RMT companies pay for more accounts so they get more profit for supporting the RMT companies, while doing a 6 month wave ban to "show the customers they care and are banning bots."
They are the biggest 2-faced company liars you will ever run into. This is why people hate them.
Blizzard does the same thing with these chinese farmer outfits. Only with them, the degree of account theft is so high, it is almost like they have someone on their staff selling accounts to these people in bulk.
I and many many people I know lost Aion accounts through some pretty suspicious circumstances. I used only the official game site and the official game client and have always had excellent security measures on my computer and about 8 people in my guild got hacked in the same day. There's never been a question in my mind that game companies (or at least individuals inside them) sell account information from the inside.
Edit: And yes, Blizzard does fully restore EVERYTHING when your WoW account is hacked, and they offer authenticators for 99.999999% effective security. When I was hacked in Aion I had to jump through 13 flaming hoops only to wait over a week for the unfreezing of my account, which was left bare of all items and kinah.
Blizzard does the same thing with these chinese farmer outfits. Only with them, the degree of account theft is so high, it is almost like they have someone on their staff selling accounts to these people in bulk.
Actually i had my WoW account hacked before. Blizzard gave the curtousy of emailing me saying they locked my account due to it being hacked. I called them up and they:
re-activated my account
restored all my items and gold
whitelisted me from further bans due to the mass reports of spam advertising
I had 2 friends who got their accounts hacked on lineage 2 and here were the results:
got their accounts back 2 months later
NCsoft told them they could not restore their items because they had already been sold on the market
NCsoft said if it happens again they are banned perminantly.
I see a major difference here.
Same thing happened to the three that I used to operate (don't ask, I used to have a major dependency problem), I had them all restored and secured out of spite for the insects that partake in the farming industry. Not having any accounts on any fan sites, as most people claim is the high reason for account theft in that game, I am more willing to believe that there is an element inside Blizzard that is selling off unused accounts without the knowledge of the support staff. Keeping up appearances for the company overall, as it were.
Edit: that, or the support staff is fully aware, and they just keep up business as usual for the same aforementioned purpose.
While I don't 'hate' them my dealings with them regarding my time in Lineage II did leave me with a foul taste. I was a Level 5 clan leader for years and well respected on the server I played on(Bartz). I had a serious problem with some asshat impersonating me to scam my clannies out of their gear(A direct violation of the EULA). When I petitioned the GMs for help all I got was the standard 'canned' answer from the GMs...."Player Conflict". When I explained to them exactly what Section, Paragraph and Line of the EULA this person was violating the GM responded with, "It's not the GM's job to uphold the EULA". To which I replied, "Then what exactly is your job, getting stuck newbies out of trees?". To which the GM replied, "Pretty much, Yeah."
I quit and never went back shortly after that incedent. I would probably play another NCSOFT game in the future but I would go in knowing full well that other players can scam, cheat, bot and do whatever other nafarious activities with relitive impunity. The GMs will not help you at all if you are a target of any of these things.
Publishing one disappointing game can ruin a company's reputation, even if other games published by the same company may be some of the best games ever created.
Wasn't published by NCSoft but by a different company of greater infamy.
Comments
As a publisher(Gw, Gw2) I don't mind them. As a developer, I haven't been a fan of their work.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't hate them. I've just never enjoyed any game they've published. I do think GW2 will be the first product I like... I hope, anways.
Well that one shocked me tough , and almost made me resubscribe back to city of heroes .
But then I tought what they did to Tabula Rosa (while technical not there fault , still the players have to suffer)
And how they fired City of Heroes moderators , Crew , developers team ... greedy game packs .
Then nah enough is enough ... but lets say they are back at neutral again .
CCP have no respect for majority of MMO gamers, they make eve online which is so different from WoW. EvE Online was the last straw for me.
Sound familiar? different games cater to different people....have you check out everquest progression server? If it's not your kind of donut then leave it be. What i don't understand is bashing the donut not because the quality of the donut sucks but because you don't like donut at all. duh......
Also they have games like city of heroes and guild war for the western audience.
It's also logical that they develope korea style game because they're a korea company. If you don't like korea food then leave it be....cry somewhere else
Did you really just QQ about a poster making a QQ post in your QQ thread? I honestly thought your thread was a legit question, but after seeing this I am not so sure.I don't hate NCSoft because of this. But it was very slimy.
The hate for NCSOFT stems from the fact that they don't focus enough on the Western markets. In my opinion, why should they when they have a massive subscriber base for Lineage 2/Aion in the Asian market that could only come close to rivaling WoW's numbers excluding any Chinese titles, of course.
NCSoft has the worst customer "support" I've ever experienced. Back in the days when I played City of Heroes/Villains, I decided to try Guild Wars. A problem occured with my visa when I tried to buy GW, which btw worked fine when paying for my CoH/V sub... NCSoft didn't answer any of my questions, but sent me back and forth between the UK and US support divisions, both claiming that my issue belonged on the other side of the pond.
Eventually, I got an extremely rude mail from them. What they were replying to, I still don't know, it certainly had nothing to do with my issues. And when I replied to it, I got a mail where they simply said they regarded the case as closed. After that they ignored my next mails.
A few days later I got a mail from them, saying that my CoV/H account was banned. No reason given. And again, my questions why got ignored.
So that's why I personally hate NCSoft. They'll never see a cent from me ever again.
Your analogies dont fit to well but I will try to put it in your terms, if mmos are the product, then I dont like the way NCSoft makes their donuts. I like donuts, I dont like most of their donuts.
What gets confusing is all the little branches of their company. Did korean NCSoft Devs make City of Heroes and Guild Wars?
I still am not sure myself. People hate them for cutting Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa, but those games were both awful. But beyond that, NCSoft does not like to continue running games that do not turn a profit. The games did not do well, and NCSoft cut them. I do not understand why this is either complicated or controversial. Companies should be allowed to do things to preserve their bottom lines. The reason they cut these games so quickly is because they were not profitable, but these games only existed because NCSoft was willing to take a risk and let people design games with their dollar that were a little different quirky and tried something very different. Those games did not work, but they did the same thing with Guild Wars, and that was a resounding success, and they let ArenaNet move with a sequel because Anet wanted to change up even more things.
My point is that even though NCSoft cuts games they fund if it is not working out, they are willing to take risks that other companies never would. I would much rather them try and have a game tank, and cut it instead of letting it become a Vanguard-style ghost-world, than to not allow the game to exist at all.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
Might as well fill in the blank: Why the hate for ______ ? The answer is the same across the board. People are bored. They want entertainment. Developers across the board have been dishing out crap. People are tired of it so they hate on the latest developer dishing out crap. It will pretty much remain a round robin type of affair untill dev teams start producing decent products.
Of course the flip side of that is everyone has a different definition of crap so there will always be some level of "hate" floating around out there. Best to just ignore it and fill your life with the good stuff in life rather than waste your precious moments digging in the muck.
Those games were not awful; they were unique and innovative. They had faults, but were fun to play and much different from the masses of MMOs out there today.
Auto Assault did not get an effective advertising budget, and Tabula Rasa had just gotten most of the kinks out when NCSoft cancelled it. I honestly believe that BOTH of these games would still be around today if NCSoft had givn them the attention they deserved.
I have no problem that they decide to cater to eastern gamers, that's fine. BUT, with Aion, they said they would modify the game to suit the tastes of western gamers, which, judging from the final product, was a blatant LIE used to increase box sales.
NCSoft is not to be trusted.
I think i get the gist now why people hate NCsoft and i will respect their view. (one of the forumer is right, i'm starting to QQ in this QQ thread haha)
Fyi, i've bought and sub aion for 3 month and only played it for 1 month plus because i find aion to be too grindy for my taste but i'm not qqing that ncsoft makes a grindfest game because after giving rift a run i find that for me rift is too grindy albert too monotanous as well. It was then that i realise that i have a very low tolarant for grinding be it raid grind for gear ala wow or progression grind ala aion or quest grind ala rift. Thus i'm gonna skip swtor and just buying GW2 as i know swtor based gameplay maybe too grindy for me as well. But i will not bashes trion, blizzard or even bioware for producing game that are too grindy or require too much commitment from a casual player like me. Just want to clear that up before people start assuming i'm a hardcore grind addict for going along with aion grind curve.
About claim that korean don't know abc about making good online game...i would beg to differ. Some of the games i played and loved are from korea company eg. pangya(casual golf game) and knight online(played it about 7-8 years ago...my intro to world pvp)
Also starting this thread, some forumer have brought up the account hacked issue of ncsoft master account. I cassually browse over to ncsoft master account page and try to log in my master account and i was prompt with "you account is permenantly blocked" i contacted ncsoft support and was told that someone have hacked my account and they've locked it down for me. After 6 hours with 5 email reply from ncsoft support they're going to reset my password and send it to my designated email. Overall i'm pretty impress by their customer service as i've only created my ncsoft master account for aion 1 year ago and used it for like a month.
I'd glad that ncsoft invested in unique game like aa or tb but i'm sorry that they have not been successful.
As with many things, this is a bit more complex. NCsoft has demonstrated that they have very little clue about the difference between the eastern and western gaming markets. Game after game, this fact remains the case. This is one of the factors that explains why some of their games are such a success in the east(Aion and Linage/Linage2 being three examples) while not being able to sustain their subscription numbers in the west. At this point I suspect its part of their corporate culture. It influences not only what games they support, but the degree to which they support them.
Guild Wars is one of the few exceptions, and I suspect its because they have allowed AN to do most(if not all) of the decision work for the game. They have taken a pretty much hands off approach, and that has resulted in the sucess that we've seen. Tabula Rasa on the other hand, shows the all too typical results of their meddling. First, they demanded an almost total re write of the game. What launched was VERY different from the original(which they initially signed off on).
Next, when it didn't become an over night success, they started cutting resources and support. Personally, I quite enjoyed Tabula Rasa. It had some serious problems, but those could have been fixed, and I suspect would have been, if NCsoft hadn't already decided the game wasn't going to make the amount of short term profit they projected. If one looks at the games they have axed over the last two or three years, they have all been western. I suspect that again this ties into their internal corporate culture.
Finally, their customer support(or lack there of...) is some of the worst I've had the misfortune of experiencing. Again, I suspect this ties into their corporate culture. CS doesn't make them short term profit, so they cut it as much as humanly possible. This is a very unwise, and short sighted perspective. It has no doubt cost them MUCH more in mid to long term profits, than it has saved them in the short term. But they would hardly be the first corporation thats driven by the old phrase "what have you done for me this quarter?".
The Garriotts (Robert and Richard) were running NCsoft North America and after 6-ish years of development delivered an expensive flop in TR. They'd also launched Auto Assault as a flop and City of Heroes / Villains which was a solid performer but dwarfed in a post-WoW industry.
Meanwhile, a lot of other titles bore the brunt of those costs and subsequent flop. Hell, it's arguable that pretty much the entire closure of NCsoft Europe (folded into NCsoft West) is due to TR's poor result. A new management team came in, led by ArenaNet's Chris Chung, Patrick Wyatt and Jeff Strain. Someone decided to clean house of the old Destination Games crew.
Reading between the lines of the time (which is to say, "I wasn't there, just read the available information") TR was given such golden child status that it made other developers resentful of it. If TR needed resources, it got it; if it wasn't TR, good luck with that duct tape and crazy glue. So someone (and perhaps word came from on high in Korea) tried to give Garriott the heave-ho while he was in space, but did an awful job of it, opening the door to the lawsuit.
Funnily enough, that ArenaNet-led management group is pretty much gone now and NCsoft West is run much more directly by Korea.
Why get rid of Garriott? TR was an embarrassment to NCsoft on top of not being profitable. Garriott was top of the tree when it came to TR, so therefore he had to bear the consequences.
City of heroes wasn't created by them, they bought the title after it's creation from another company.
Because NCWest are terribad.
I actually think NCSoft make attractive, competitive MMOs.It's just that they treat their western market as an afterthought.
It doesn't help that NCWest doesn't seem to play the game they're localizing. One recent fiasco is that the US Aion players are just discovering that a pvp rule that was recently enforced by the NCWest CMs under the guise of following the Korean ruleset was actually made up.
Blizzard does the same thing with these chinese farmer outfits. Only with them, the degree of account theft is so high, it is almost like they have someone on their staff selling accounts to these people in bulk.
its because of greed, Exteel was shut down since it had a slow year. If a game doesn't make what profit the expect, it gets shut down.....
I and many many people I know lost Aion accounts through some pretty suspicious circumstances. I used only the official game site and the official game client and have always had excellent security measures on my computer and about 8 people in my guild got hacked in the same day. There's never been a question in my mind that game companies (or at least individuals inside them) sell account information from the inside.
Edit: And yes, Blizzard does fully restore EVERYTHING when your WoW account is hacked, and they offer authenticators for 99.999999% effective security. When I was hacked in Aion I had to jump through 13 flaming hoops only to wait over a week for the unfreezing of my account, which was left bare of all items and kinah.
NCSoft for a major developer suffers from the same things that plague f2p games. Botters, account/gold sellers, and grind.
When did you start playing "old school" MMO's. World Of Warcraft?
Same thing happened to the three that I used to operate (don't ask, I used to have a major dependency problem), I had them all restored and secured out of spite for the insects that partake in the farming industry. Not having any accounts on any fan sites, as most people claim is the high reason for account theft in that game, I am more willing to believe that there is an element inside Blizzard that is selling off unused accounts without the knowledge of the support staff. Keeping up appearances for the company overall, as it were.
Edit: that, or the support staff is fully aware, and they just keep up business as usual for the same aforementioned purpose.
While I don't 'hate' them my dealings with them regarding my time in Lineage II did leave me with a foul taste. I was a Level 5 clan leader for years and well respected on the server I played on(Bartz). I had a serious problem with some asshat impersonating me to scam my clannies out of their gear(A direct violation of the EULA). When I petitioned the GMs for help all I got was the standard 'canned' answer from the GMs...."Player Conflict". When I explained to them exactly what Section, Paragraph and Line of the EULA this person was violating the GM responded with, "It's not the GM's job to uphold the EULA". To which I replied, "Then what exactly is your job, getting stuck newbies out of trees?". To which the GM replied, "Pretty much, Yeah."
I quit and never went back shortly after that incedent. I would probably play another NCSOFT game in the future but I would go in knowing full well that other players can scam, cheat, bot and do whatever other nafarious activities with relitive impunity. The GMs will not help you at all if you are a target of any of these things.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
Publishing one disappointing game can ruin a company's reputation, even if other games published by the same company may be some of the best games ever created.
Wasn't published by NCSoft but by a different company of greater infamy.