Article at Dealspwn

[Victoria Victrix]

http://www.dealspwn.com/time-heroes-community-thousands-abandoned-fought-123890

[Greg Lloyd]

I commented, to up the traffic to the site. More views = more publicity = more betterer.
G

[Colette]

To quote Mr. Burns, Eeexxxssssellent!

[Septipheran]

I always chuckle when I read about how COH wasn't competitive, harsh on noobs, or end game oriented. So many people seem to be forgetting about Freedom, my server of choice. What was awesome about the game is that there was so much variety in community options, and while quite a few servers were as this author described, it was hardly the mentality of the entire player base. Personally I loved Freedom, that's where I spent most of my time as my interests were more aligned with min/max, getting to the level cap and joining efficient trial runs to get t4's as quickly as possible. That's not to say that it's all I did, but it did make up quite a lot of my time in COH and I found it enjoyable. To paint COH as a completely casual game is not doing it justice imo.

[Victoria Victrix]

I always chuckle when I read about how COH wasn't competitive, harsh on noobs, or end game oriented. So many people seem to be forgetting about Freedom, my server of choice. What was awesome about the game is that there was so much variety in community options, and while quite a few servers were as this author described, it was hardly the mentality of the entire player base. Personally I loved Freedom, that's where I spent most of my time as my interests were more aligned with min/max, getting to the level cap and joining efficient trial runs to get t4's as quickly as possible. That's not to say that it's all I did, but it did make up quite a lot of my time in COH and I found it enjoyable. To paint COH as a completely casual game is not doing it justice imo.

Hush, you.  We are tailoring the message.  It's called Spin.  Right now we are spinning for sympathy, and bringing Freedom into the mix won't get us any.

[Septipheran]

Hush, you.  We are tailoring the message.  It's called Spin.  Right now we are spinning for sympathy, and bringing Freedom into the mix won't get us any.

lol say what you will about Freedom... No one has saved Paragon City from more self resurrecting fire enemies, pumped more inf. into the economy, or stomped Praetorian gods more efficiently and frequently. It was a public service really. 

[Victoria Victrix]

lol say what you will about Freedom... No one has saved Paragon City from more self resurrecting fire enemies, pumped more inf. into the economy, or stomped Praetorian gods more efficiently and frequently. It was a public service really. 

Trust me if anyone ever asks me, "But what about us PvPers!  What about those of us who LIKED grinding?" I will answer "That is why we had Freedom server.  Something for everyone."

[Colette]

I like PvPers. I was one, until that awful issue... 13, wasn't it? When we get our city back, we should campaign to roll back those changes.

[Septipheran]

Trust me if anyone ever asks me, "But what about us PvPers!  What about those of us who LIKED grinding?" I will answer "That is why we had Freedom server.  Something for everyone."

That's fair enough. I really hate to be a naysayer, but I'm pretty pragmatic so I feel inclined to mention this. On the Disney front you made good points about the Marvel game being more diabloish and the "play as a character you didn't make" angle they're taking, but don't forget that Disney also owns Lucas Arts and by extension SWTOR now. I don't think they need a third MMO, especially when they already have two with big name recognition.

But that said, I do think it's awesome that people are still covering COH. It's just that the best plausible route to me seems like an emulator popping up and public opinion/support for the COH community being strong enough that NCSoft won't shut it down for the sake of preserving what's left of their reputation, as long as no one's making money off of it.

[Mandrake]

Read and commented. Very good article.

[Victoria Victrix]

That's fair enough. I really hate to be a naysayer, but I'm pretty pragmatic so I feel inclined to mention this. On the Disney front you made good points about the Marvel game being more diabloish and the "play as a character you didn't make" angle they're taking, but don't forget that Disney also owns Lucas Arts and by extension SWTOR now. I don't think they need a third MMO, especially when they already have two with big name recognition.

SWTOR is not owned nor run by Disney.  They will get some of the money from it, but it is jointly owned by EA, Bioware and LucasArts.  Those licensing agreements predate the merger and it is unlikely Disney is going to want to interfere with that.  That would involve lawyers and mess and cost money, when all they have to do is leave it alone, maybe ask SWTOR to slap a mouse on it, and call it done.

I can say without doubt that, whatever argument you can come up with, we've already considered and countered in our pitch package.  At least two of us have been heavily involved in the entertainment business (counting journalism as entertainment), and three of us have been in the business world for quite some long time.  We took almost two weeks on this, with two of Paragon Studios' senior people overseeing what we did.   We ran down every fact we could get our mitts on, and verified and cross checked.

While you were getting your final two weeks of playing in, we were sacrificing some of our own final hours to work on this thing.  I cannot even begin to go into the regrets I have for not getting this or that demo, this or that screenshot.  But this was more important.

Plus, this isn't our only target.  It's just the hardest, and we figured we would start with the hardest first, while everyone was still fired up from the shutdown.

[Septipheran]

SWTOR is not owned nor run by Disney.  They will get some of the money from it, but it is jointly owned by EA, Bioware and LucasArts.  Those licensing agreements predate the merger and it is unlikely Disney is going to want to interfere with that.  That would involve lawyers and mess and cost money, when all they have to do is leave it alone, maybe ask SWTOR to slap a mouse on it, and call it done.

I can say without doubt that, whatever argument you can come up with, we've already considered and countered in our pitch package.  At least two of us have been heavily involved in the entertainment business (counting journalism as entertainment), and three of us have been in the business world for quite some long time.  We took almost two weeks on this, with two of Paragon Studios' senior people overseeing what we did.   We ran down every fact we could get our mitts on, and verified and cross checked.

While you were getting your final two weeks of playing in, we were sacrificing some of our own final hours to work on this thing.  I cannot even begin to go into the regrets I have for not getting this or that demo, this or that screenshot.  But this was more important.

Plus, this isn't our only target.  It's just the hardest, and we figured we would start with the hardest first, while everyone was still fired up from the shutdown.

I didn't say Disney ran SWTOR, I said they owned it. Lucas Arts IS Disney. I'm not saying "don't try," I think it's great that people are trying so many things. I'm just speaking in terms of likelihood of success. It doesn't seem constructive from Disney's perspective to acquire a third MMO when they already own two, and with big name recognition. Again, just my opinion and I think it's a reasonable one. I think the best hope we have is a strong defense for an emulator when one surfaces- I think it's important to keep our community in the public eye so that we have a lot of public support to prevent a cease and desist.

[Victoria Victrix]

I didn't say Disney ran SWTOR, I said they owned it. Lucas Arts IS Disney. I'm not saying "don't try," I think it's great that people are trying so many things. I'm just speaking in terms of likelihood of success. It doesn't seem constructive from Disney's perspective to acquire a third MMO when they already own two, and with big name recognition. Again, just my opinion and I think it's a reasonable one. I think the best hope we have is a strong defense for an emulator when one surfaces- I think it's important to keep our community in the public eye so that we have a lot of public support to prevent a cease and desist.

Well, that's a lot like saying "Disney doesn't need another theme park when they already have one."  In fact, Disney has a lot of MMOs already.  As I said, we thought of and countered every possible argument you can think of, and that was one of the first.

I will absolutely guarantee you that if an emulator pops up in the public, and NCSoft still owns the IP, NCSoft WILL shut it down.  They've already proved that they will pursue emulators vigorously.  They've done so for every single other game they shut.

[Terwyn]

[V-Mink]

Well, that's a lot like saying "Disney doesn't need another theme park when they already have one."  In fact, Disney has a lot of MMOs already.  As I said, we thought of and countered every possible argument you can think of, and that was one of the first.

Is there a timeframe where a response from Disney should be reasonably expected?  I half suspect that they may choose not to respond at all, but I don't know much about entertainment industry practices and law.

[Victoria Victrix]

You know, something occurs to me.

Does this mean that contacting Disney can be directly attributed as being my brother's (Mentalshock, who made the post in question) initial idea, on which others capitalized?

Damn right it is, Terwyn.  I just didn't recall who it was that made the post.  At first it sounded crazy, but after we talked about it, we figured if we were going to start working our way through a list of possible buyers, we might as well stop at the top and least likely.

Is there a timeframe where a response from Disney should be reasonably expected?  I half suspect that they may choose not to respond at all, but I don't know much about entertainment industry practices and law.

Brian Clayton, who knows folks over at Disney Interactive, says not to expect anything like movement, sluggish or otherwise, until after the New Year.

[Rae]

That's fair enough. I really hate to be a naysayer, but I'm pretty pragmatic so I feel inclined to mention this. On the Disney front you made good points about the Marvel game being more diabloish and the "play as a character you didn't make" angle they're taking, but don't forget that Disney also owns Lucas Arts and by extension SWTOR now. I don't think they need a third MMO, especially when they already have two with big name recognition.

But that said, I do think it's awesome that people are still covering COH. It's just that the best plausible route to me seems like an emulator popping up and public opinion/support for the COH community being strong enough that NCSoft won't shut it down for the sake of preserving what's left of their reputation, as long as no one's making money off of it.

 http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,6367.0.html

[johnrobey]

I can say without doubt that, whatever argument you can come up with, we've already considered and countered in our pitch package.  At least two of us have been heavily involved in the entertainment business (counting journalism as entertainment), and three of us have been in the business world for quite some long time.  We took almost two weeks on this, with two of Paragon Studios' senior people overseeing what we did.   We ran down every fact we could get our mitts on, and verified and cross checked.

While you were getting your final two weeks of playing in, we were sacrificing some of our own final hours to work on this thing.  I cannot even begin to go into the regrets I have for not getting this or that demo, this or that screenshot.  But this was more important.

Plus, this isn't our only target.  It's just the hardest, and we figured we would start with the hardest first, while everyone was still fired up from the shutdown.

  Emphasis added

I think the entire community thanks you and Team Wildcard for your personal sacrifice.  I know I do.  Thank you!   

[Sarge Morris]

Its actually quite a shock to see me being quoted. 

[Mentalshock]

Its actually quite a shock to see me being quoted.

I can imagine.   It's much more of a shock to me to realize that this whole thing is directly out of my idea.   It's intimidating, but awesome!