Cryptic recruits beta testers through rival's MMO

[ToxicAdam]

Cryptic Seeking CoH Players?

Massively shows the way to a forum thread on the f13.net forums discussing private messages they report some City of Heroes players have been receiving in-game from Cryptic Studios. According to the post, Cryptic (who developed City of Heroes before parting ways with NCsoft) is attempting to recruit CoH players to beta test Champions Online, leading to an extended discussion of whether or not this is appropriate. There's an official comment on this on the City of Heroes Official Forums, where NCsoft says: "Although we cannot stop someone from initially communicating with you - whether it be RMT (real money transaction) related, another game company trying to lure you to their competing product, or general spamming...we are in a position to investigate the situation (and potentially take action) once a solicitation has occurred, for it is a direct violation of our Rules of Conduct and EULA (End User License Agreement)."


http://forums.f13.net/index.php?PHPSESSID=954s84c350a93lgk5rr2p79ns6&topic=16433.0

[ManaByte]

Well, it is Cryptic's game and for all we know NCSoft could be a shit company and that's why they went their own way in the first place. This could be some revenge or something.

Edit: Didn't Blizzard do this in EQ?

Every MMO company looks at the biggest guilds out there to beta their game, and then they invite them by going to the guild's website and contacting them there. Blizzard didn't solicit people inside EQ, they just contacted Legacy of Steel, Fires of Heaven, etc. outside the game with invites.

Cryptic is basically stooping to the levels of gold spammers now. And for all we know Champions will be the same as CoH - the same boring content every 10 levels.

[ManaByte]

http://www.brokentoys.org/2009/03/19/cryptic-marcom-malreported-verify-ungood-rectify-candygive/

There’s been some movement on the Cryptic poaching City of Heroes players thing F13 turned up. Mainly, we have an Ivan Sulic sighting!

Ivan Sulic was the TOTALLY AWESOME community manager for Hellgate: London who memorably told angry players in the aftermath of a lack of LAN play, “who the fuck cares.” Given that Hellgate: London servers no longer exist, I would expect “anyone who owns a Hellgate: London box” the fuck cares. However, clearly, telling your customers to man up and deal is your path to being a straight shooter in Cryptic’s Department of MARCOM.

What’s a MARCOM? As the form letter Sulic wrote which impressed the hell out of Eric Schild until he realized it was a form letter explains, “Marcom is basically Community, PR, and Marketing.” Or, another way to put it, “Marcom is what happens when you’re too cheap and too clueless to hire seperate people for marketing and community.” But hey! Sulic’s off to a great start, explaining to Schild:

    I think I know what you’re talking about now. I’ve been reading up on recent press and some news aggregates have picked up this story. Maybe I can help clear things up a bit?

Or, in other words, “we were going to ignore this but now actual news sites are talking about it, so we have to appear as though we’re doing something!” I’m not sure if that’s the Mar or the Com of Marcom talking, but there’s definitely talking happening now, with Cryptic people flooding into the F13 forums to make absolutely sure that Unsub (the user who whistleblew the whole story) absolutely positively no really has his Champions Online beta access back. I’m pretty sure that’s the Com of Marcom. Because the Mar of Marcom managed to get this closing tag for the actual-news-site-talking-about-this:

    It’s refreshing to a see a gaming company not only own up to its mistakes but to publicly apologize for them, isn’t it?

Well, yes, it would. In fact, I’d like to see that public apology. Note to Wired: There wasn’t one. Edgy “aw shucks, we didn’t mean to do anything BAD!” wisecracks don’t really count. Although there was a mistake owned up to in the Marcom Minitrue Pressrelease:

    So, we’re currently running the closed beta test for Champions Online and a few of our employees thought it might be a good idea to contact avid MMO notables and various guild leaders floating about to see if they wanted to test. I’m certain this wasn’t meant to be a malicious attack on a competing product, nor did anyone intend to steal players, violate user agreements, kill babies, or knife hardworking farmers in the back. We had invites to send and the folks who send them figured people who play MMOs most might want them most. If a line was crossed, it was totally inadvertent and no harm was intended.

In case you’re keeping track, that admission is dead center in the middle of the paragraph, as part of a distant “well, from a distance, I don’t think any of this happened, as a disinterested observer” passive voice. Well played, Marcom, well played! Reading is hard, and it takes effort to stay with it all the way through the non sequitors about knifing agricultural workers and protestations of innocence. Note to Wired Deux: Protestations of innocence generally tend to nullify public apologies. “I’m really sorry BUT I DIDN’T REALLY DO ANYTHING WRONG” only works when you’re an AIG executive being asked gently to return bonuses.

I wonder if AIG has a Marcom department.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

IVAN SULIC

[duckman2000]

Isn't the guy from IGN?

[ManaByte]

I've had some of the most incredible facepalm moments of my professional life with Ivan Sulic

IGN had to re-record their video review of Xenosaga after he commented on how the developer made Shogo on the PC.

Different Monolith.

[Rman]

From his profile on the Hellgate wiki:

I was presumably hired at Flagship because...
I know someone here and they really like me!
I'm a capable writer.
I'm a capable video producer.
I'm a content generating machine.
I'm not shy of long work hours or arduous travel.us
I have amassed a vast collection of industry contacts.
I come from an editorial background built around community relations.
I worked for a publication with over 25 million readers and I helped start a publication with two readers that turned into an avid gamer's home and community resource.
I have a somewhat identifiable persona already established in this industry.
I'm easy to hang out with.
I'm totally and completely insane by all scientific standards.
I pretty much know what I'm doing and I don't ever really f*** off or beat around the b

[pilonv1]

Isn't the guy from IGN?

Yeah I remember him being their shitkicker intern around 2001-02.

[ManaByte]

LOL this is fuck awesome.

NCSoft takes this stuff seriously, as does any MMO company. They're considering this the same, or worse, than RMT spam. Blizzard has gone after Gold Spammers in the real world, and apparently NCSoft is considering the same and with Ivan admitting to doing it they have all the proof they need. Cryptic is about to get owned hard. 

[ManaByte]

According to an email Ivan sent to Eric Schild at F13, he only started on Monday. Hell of a way to kick things off!

[ManaByte]

It should be mentioned that there is extremely bad blood between Cryptic and the COX teams, and this apparently didn't help things at all.

[ManaByte]

Bumping this because they're apparently at it again. Now that DCUO launched and Champions Online has about ten players outside of Cryptic, they're stepping up their viral marketing by paying remaining Champions players in "Cryptic Points" to use in their item shop for trolling DCUO on forums and website comments

[ManaByte]

No, I'm sorry but I don't have CO's hard subscription numbers. They could have more than 10 players outside of Cryptic.