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NCSoft lay offs - why not tell us the real reason?
Xenduli
Member Posts: 654
Is it because CoH and CoV has not been doing so well or is it the reality that Auto Assult only has 11,000 subscribers?
Numbers for you.
AA 11,000
CoH, CoV 160,000
EQ2 175,000
EQ 200,000
WoW 6,600,000
News article -->http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=65730
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/83108
Do we really believe that only 3 months since AA is released, that there are layoffs because of a much older game which is actually more sucessful?
Come on NCSoft, don't treat us as idiots!
No annoying animated GIF here!
Comments
They call their Games allways MMORPG Revolutions, but the People dont want Revolutions.
Blegh. Double post.
Well, I don't know anything about the layoffs, and I'm sure there are a
lot of reasons for them and they are complicated and we'll never be
privy to all of the information.
I am sure that Auto Assault's current performance is very disappointing
for NCSoft. Unfortunately, AA is, in my opinion, a terrible game. I
had a lot of hopes for that game, as I used to play Steve Jackson's
"Car Wars" RPG all the time when I was younger, and I loved the idea of
a car themed MMO. Unfortunately the dev group basically just took a
lot of standard MMO mechanics and stuck in cars in stead of people for
character models, and the game just feels weird and wrong.
As for City of Villains / City of Heroes, personally, I love them, and
CoV is the only MMO I'm currently playing. Whether or not it's doing
well isn't all that important to me as long as they keep the game going
and have enough people to keep at least one server up
I just wanna know what they were thinking when they made a car mmo where YOU CAN'T EVEN CHANGE YOUR FREAKING CAR!
And that sums up the rest of the game pretty well. When I played, it just didn't feel right. It's hard to explain, but it was just not a good experience.
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NCSoft is no danger of anything. Here is the most recent quarterly report
http://www.ncsoft.com/eng/ncpress/list.asp page 2, item 55
The U.S. MMO market is "soft" at best. No game really has had any success like the Asian games in terms of profits aside from WoW. And in the case of WoW only 1.5 to 2 million of those 6.6 million you all are cheering about are actually in the U.S. The rest are Asians or Europeans. Also remember AA was developed by an American company, Net Devil, specifically for the American market. NC only published it.
Its more likely to be what Cleffy said. They sucked so they dumped them. Downsizing is happening in just about every company at some point or another. Even if they are profittable.
you CAN change the vehicle you drive. just felt the need to have the truth here... dont want to be misleading....
but otherwise.... yeah it just felt wrong as an MMO... it was fun at first, but then it just felt bleh(before it was time for the subscription thank god)
you CAN change the vehicle you drive. just felt the need to have the truth here... dont want to be misleading....
but otherwise.... yeah it just felt wrong as an MMO... it was fun at first, but then it just felt bleh(before it was time for the subscription thank god)
So, I can get out of the car and walk around to adventure like inside buildings?
As for why NCSoft isn't directly pointing to AA, I'd theorize that it's because that makes them look bad. To cancel their own game like that, it's a big black mark, in many of our minds. Look what it's done for EA's reputation. It's just a bad move, so instead they're probably just going to cut funding, and let the game starve to death. That might look bad to AA players, but the general gaming public won't give it as much thought as they would to see NCSoft outright kill the game.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
you CAN change the vehicle you drive. just felt the need to have the truth here... dont want to be misleading....
but otherwise.... yeah it just felt wrong as an MMO... it was fun at first, but then it just felt bleh(before it was time for the subscription thank god)
So, I can get out of the car and walk around to adventure like inside buildings?
I believe you can get out of your vehicle in towns on Auto-Assault... I don't know how effective that was though. Kudos to the maker of Auto-Assault for attempting something new though, It was worth a shot. Personally I believe they had the wrong formula for a car game.
The layoff from NCsoft has nothing to do with Auto Assault. We probably will never know the real reason, but I believe it was simply a small change in operations at the base
Less local, more broader?
And that sums up the rest of the game pretty well. When I played, it just didn't feel right. It's hard to explain, but it was just not a good experience.
Uh what? There are tons of alternate chassis. Easily 80 or more. Did you even bother looking at a car vendor?
you CAN change the vehicle you drive. just felt the need to have the truth here... dont want to be misleading....
but otherwise.... yeah it just felt wrong as an MMO... it was fun at first, but then it just felt bleh(before it was time for the subscription thank god)
So, I can get out of the car and walk around to adventure like inside buildings?
Not really. The adventure part is outside while driving and fighting as motorzied infantry. You can get out of the car in town and goto vendors and stuff. You goto town to chnage your cars or some equipment on the car. Unfortunately NetDevil purposely skimped on the in town graphics since they didn't seem to think it was a big deal. The outside graphics are pretty good and some of the effect like weather and stuff are quite good but in town graphics are not real good.
For the most part your avatar is really meant to be the car/motorcylce/tank you are currently driving. And oustide adventuring is meant to be in open spaces. You need space to drive and most buildings can be destoyed with gunfire.
As for why NCSoft isn't directly pointing to AA, I'd theorize that it's because that makes them look bad. To cancel their own game like that, it's a big black mark, in many of our minds. Look what it's done for EA's reputation. It's just a bad move, so instead they're probably just going to cut funding, and let the game starve to death. That might look bad to AA players, but the general gaming public won't give it as much thought as they would to see NCSoft outright kill the game.
I don't really understand why you think the car part is superficial. Yes the RPG class part is pretty standard. Similar to Diablo 2 and DAoC factional classes combined. The Pet classes struck me as kinda out of place in a car game, I dunno.
But your chassis is pretty important and the effects that class can have on your driving is pretty imporant. Also all the various physics stuff is pretty important. A stealther type class can go much faster than most other classes etc. Ramming is very much diving and chassis dependent. A light motorcycle can climb hills way better than a tank.
I dunno AA is the only MMO I have played so far that hit and run tactics and chasing mobs was actually interesting. And having a motorcycle come from out of sight at 100 mph and ramming you while you are kiting is defintely soemthing. So I think the car part is fairly substantial.
Some people really wanted a more first person car experience though, which AA does not deliver on. And in some ways I think people are right, it really the class part is really too similar to the old tank and spank options. Its espeically kinda strange because you don't need a tank alot of times. I was actually surprised when I first tried the game out. It didn't bother me, but I was expecting something along a different model.
First, the action angle, touted by those who wanted driving to feel like driving. More like an arcade/sim physics model, less like super-mario cart. They tend to be the same players who want more action style combat that requires aim, coordination, timing, practice, etc, less holding the mouse button down while driving in circles, watching the "dice rolls" fly overhead.
Secondly, the Car Wars fans, who seems to hope for a more strategic game, with all sorts of mechanics to juggle, parts to swap, trade-offs to make, considering various combat tactics, etc, designing thier ultimate death racers. Probably a slower paced game, with lots of time spent socializing while tooling around with lots of options, before a big battle.
Instead, AA's vehicular element is what I call superficial, because it's neither. The car graphics could be replaced by anything else, and it wouldn't change the game all that much. Could be people running around with guns, or on mutant horses, and the rest of the game could be exactly the same, without any loss of plausibility. The car element is really minor as far as the gameplay goes.
It's really just your average MMO, with a different sort of graphics, and players who want average don't give it a second glance, while those who wanted something different were mostly disappointed, because it's not.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.