Memir Quinn

The bots in the latest culling have been perma-banned, but like in any other MMO more will come because people are stupid and purchase gold which leads to accounts being stolen, card information stolen, and leads to the creation of more.

That said though they have been doing a really great job of dealing with them over the last 3 weeks and they are far less noticeable than before and the regional and game wide channels are rarely spammed any longer. I've seen GMs clear out the plazas on two separate servers of gold sellers several times and to a great amount of cheering of those in the area.


As to the future of Aion check out the following trailer -Customizable housing, Legion housing, mounts (for multiple passengers), combat mounts, full graphics upgrade, metric ton of new epic content, and dynamic weapons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAM0wr7cZ8

Those rumors most certainly were addressed last time.

http://www.warcry.com/news/view/85669-Tabula-Rasa-Unaffected-by-NCsoft-Layoffs

http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?rwsiteid=2&newsbit=9919

and there are a pile more reports from from other news sites which actually chose to vet sources...

http://kotaku.com/5036705/ncsoft-lays-off-21


"Today NCsoft confirmed to Kotaku that they are indeed laying some folks off from their Austin offices.

"We are announcing that 21 positions are being eliminated in the Austin office of NCsoft in the area of product development," an NCsoft spokesman told Kotaku. "Primarily this is related to products which we have not previously announced and were in prototype phases. We are also cutting some positions on the Dungeon Runners team after deciding not to port the client to other platforms at this time."

Among those let go, Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings.

The news comes a day after parent company Korean-based NCsoft announced a bump in sales but a drop in operating profit and net income. The news is a stark contrast to rumors that surfaces earlier this week that 140 to 160 people were going to be let go and the office possibly shuttered. At the time NCsoft told Kotaku that the rumors were "not accurate at all" and "pretty outrageous.""

I'm not sure I should be surprised you lot forgot that rebuttal after the last time you went to press with naught but rumor mongering. Perhaps you or your editors suffered mass-amnesia, or simply a really, really selective version of the condition (one favouring covering up sloppy reporting), but one would've thought you'd vet your sources after your last fiasco.

"At the time NCsoft told Kotaku that the rumors were "not accurate at all" and "pretty outrageous."

Ringing any bells yet? Still pretty outrageous your coverage.

http://www.warcry.com/news/view/8566...NCsoft-Layoffs

Looks like warcry got it right too, not all blogging sinks to the level of Zenke's rumor mongering tabloid "journalism" or is based on fabricated and/or unvetted "sources" with manufactured "authority" of "thrust worthy" third parties or citing already disproved, unsubstantiated, korean hack pieces every bit as unverified and laughable as this article has become throughout the blogasphere.

Maybe this low standard of tabloid journalism will even coin a new catch phrase for lazy, sloppy, substandard "blog journalism" hmm? We could call it "pulling a Zenke", or maybe "milking the purple carrot juice".

Quick! Change the article title, and bury the story 4 pages in, they're on to us!

Californiadreaming trolling sock puppet says what?

Facts remain the supposedly "verified" through "third parties" and "highly placed NcSoft employees" as well as every element of this rumor mongering unverified, unsubstantiated, unvetted, partially fabricated tabloid dreck piece of non-journalism was disproved and disproved soundly. Even after trying to bury their goof with a title change and follow up pieces admitting by proxy their egregious coverage of this story.

http://kotaku.com/5036705/ncsoft-lays-off-21
"At the time NCsoft told Kotaku that the rumors were "not accurate at all" and "pretty outrageous." Thats the thrust of it and how a real journalist reports as opposed to rumor mongering wannabe's.

Hey Capn King? why not post under your usual nomenclature?

How do you figure?

http://www.massively.com/2008/08/12/rumor-ncsoft-austin-to-be-shut-down/

Day before yesterday's post Zenke said he'd verified through third party "thrustworthy" sources and "highly placed NcSoft Employes" That any or all of the following would be happening:

-NCSoft Austin will be closed, with work on Tabula Rasa to be moved to the West Coast. Dungeon Runners is apparently to be closed. TR to be headed to Arena.net (implying the DG shop would've been closed and shuttered).

*Patently false.

-Future collaborations between NCSoft and the Garriott brothers will be very limited in scope due to "frustrations" between them and Korea.

*Wholly fabricated baseless supposition.

-Tabula Rasa may see closure by this time next year, if team fails to turn tide of subscribers and expectations.

*Utter bollocks, in particular given the current development cycle, 7% quarterly gain in profit and seems more like the fervent wish of the author (in particular given his statements on podcasts) rather than being based on anything based in reality or that of a vetted source, which in point of fact that whole article smacked of.

Finally, the alteration of the above's title about a hour after it'd been posted from "Rumor: NCsoft Austin, to be shut down" to "Rumor: NcSoft Austin, Dungeon Runners to be shut down". In point of fact none of the tabliod-esque rumour mongering in the above article proved to be remotely factual.

It'd be like taking a report of a incident along the American-Mexican border where a single illegal immigrant slipped across and then reporting that Mexico had invaded Texas, its that order of exaggeration and sensationalisms which a responsible journalist would've avoided by taking time to take a statement by or paying attention to, the repeated statements issued minutes after that "article" went to press by NcSoft representatives before going to press. It was and is nothing less than unfounded, unvetted tabloid rumor mongering drek and the editor at massively should've stepped in long before it got to press.

To quote another poster comments from said article:

Wraith:
"Solid reporting = doing footwork to get verification before spreading potentially damaging, unsubstantiated rumors. For example- from
http://kotaku.com/5036705/ncsoft-lays-off-21

Today NCsoft confirmed to Kotaku that they are indeed laying some folks off from their Austin offices.

"We are announcing that 21 positions are being eliminated in the Austin office of NCsoft in the area of product development," an NCsoft spokesman told Kotaku. "Primarily this is related to products which we have not previously announced and were in prototype phases. We are also cutting some positions on the Dungeon Runners team after deciding not to port the client to other platforms at this time."

The news comes a day after parent company Korean-based NCsoft announced a bump in sales but a drop in operating profit and net income. The news is a stark contrast to rumors that surfaces earlier this week that 140 to 160 people were going to be let go and the office possibly shuttered. At the time NCsoft told Kotaku that the rumors were "not accurate at all" and "pretty outrageous.""

Note how Kotaku spoke to NCSoft? And not some highly placed source?"


"At the time NCsoft told Kotaku that the rumors were "not accurate at all" and "pretty outrageous." indeed, quite so. Quite so.

Spot on, well said.

Right here sunshine ...and if this "article" was the one that went to press yesterday in lieu of Zenke's tabloid rumour mongering drek no one would've said a thing. Nice to see Zenke's unvetted, rumour mongering was further invalidated by the latest Massively "article" on the subject as well.

Not quite a retraction but at least there is some truth in there rather than baseless supposition dressed as verified through "thrusworthy" "third parties" and self-arse covering with liberal use of a "rumour" tag and subsequent "article" title change.

Additional falsehood as to bogtrotter I can access PlanetTR.com sans registering/or subscription and see those posts just fine as can anyone whom clicks those links.

According to NcSoft's own quarterly report:
7% TR growth over last quarter's figures. TR being the only other game showing increases in numbers a part from CoX.

Denials issued;
Statements from the NcSoft Community rep:
http://www.planettr.com/forums/showpost.php?p=105990&postcount=5

From QA DG dev (expounding on increasing of hires for his department at the Austin office):
http://www.planettr.com/forums/showpost.php?p=106005&postcount=16

...both already linked in this thread.

I hear lenscarfters has a sale going on for the next few weeks, on both frames and lens mayhap you ought to give their site a look as well.