Hey all, I just want to point out some things that I'm reading into Nate's post that I think a lot of people are missing.
First of all, regarding access to existing character data, I24, and various game improvements, I'm going to highlight a few words that I feel are more important than people are giving them credit for being:
The proposal as it stands right now (this is not a final form, just the current proposal on the table) is this:
...
The existing user database and characters are not part of this arrangement at this time, nor is the source code.
The funny thing about business negotiations is that things change. The stuff that Nate put in this post is a starting point just to get NCsoft to the table, not an ending point. So until the ink is dry and more details are released, please don't count out the possibility that these things might actually come to pass. And even after the ink is dry, don't discount the possibility that Nate and crew eventually go back to the bargaining table to get more stuff depending on how things go after the relaunch.
Speaking of which, I don't want to always be the Debbie Downer, but I'd be remiss if I didn't also point out these lines that a lot of people are ignoring:
Right now, still discussing terms, ideas, limits. The challenges we have been given we stepped up for and handled. Likely there will be discussions and adjustments right up until the moment the deal is signed. The whole thing may fall apart. For all we know, everything done so far has been nothing but a delaying tactic so they can say once again that they tried to work with the community to no avail. But until such time that becomes clear, we will continue forward in good faith.
Please always keep in the back of your mind that this is NOT a done deal. I've seen a lot of posts here and on Facebook from people essentially claiming that Nate posted about the game's relaunch. He didn't. He posted about how he and his crew are still trying to negotiate for the game's relaunch. Now, this isn't entirely bad news because personally, I think it's exciting that even on the two-year anniversary of the game's shutdown announcement people are still trying to relaunch the game. But I will reiterate again that I want to make sure that people are
cautiously optimistic.
Last, but not least, there is one thing I outright disagree with Nate about in his post:
...migrate people off of the classic game engine before it finally becomes unsuitable (we expect this to happen around when Windows 9 is released, due to binary compatibility).
I dunno, maybe he's actually tested the classic game client on Windows 9, since there are beta versions of it out there. But if not, I would be inclined to strongly suspect that the classic game client would work fine on Windows 9, just as it does on Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. To my knowledge, there aren't any binary incompatibilities unless you try to play on a different platform (such as Windows RT), and in my experience, it is highly unusual for Microsoft to do anything to break backwards compatibility to that extent. I may be wrong and end up eating those words, so as I always ask people, take my secondhand information worth a grain of salt. But I've seen a lot of posts in here about how once Windows 9 comes out, the classic CoH game client will be toast, and I just don't think that's correct and I encourage people to not worry so much about that.