If by some miracle someone were to buy the COH rights and relaunch the game ..

[doc7924]

I would imagine we would all be starting over from zero.

Unless NCSoft kept the client data for some reason and we could use our old accounts to have our characters back.

Mind you I would not be upset in the slightest if I had to redo all my heroes. I would be too happy just to be back playing again.

I would be upset at having lost 8 years of vet perks but I could live with it.

[JaguarX]

More than likely it will be a start over.


Beside I actually would prefer it that was. That way it seems like a new game all over again instead of merely returning to a game I played for 6 years and coming back to with everything in place just where I left off. I would probably would last maybe six months-year if it was merely a continuation of where I left off.

Not to mention I might have to recreate a new account anyway. The old information to log in is very very fuzzy if still there at all.

[Stone Daemon]

Would be completely opposite for me. I've made too many characters over the years that I was very fond of. Starting off on a clean slate might keep me around for a month or so...and then I would log on less and less. The last couple years of coh had me making a few concept characters here and there, but I mostly played my 50's.

And re-rolling them would be depressing.

[Ironwolf]

I have never had that issue. I often would reroll characters that hit 50 and play them as another AT.

Occassionally I would find one that was perfect:
Carillion: Sonic/Ice blaster
Spike the Guppy: Claws/Willpower scrapper
Moo Jooz: Water/Kin corruptor

But on the whole I would try various ATs on the same character.

[JaguarX]

Would be completely opposite for me. I've made too many characters over the years that I was very fond of. Starting off on a clean slate might keep me around for a month or so...and then I would log on less and less. The last couple years of coh had me making a few concept characters here and there, but I mostly played my 50's.

And re-rolling them would be depressing.

Yeah. starting over can be a bane for someone that play their 50s alot.

Usually at 50 I ran out of stuff to do I like (i.e not farming) and or able to do (Team based TFs that wasnt popular and wasnt able to form or join a team.) so I rolled on to another character. I can always delete my characters or even start new account and get my desired effect but it would be hard to bring back a 50 that isnt there anymore due to involunatary (player perspective) missing data.

[Thunder Glove]

I created a new character - an Earth/Ice Dominator - a few days after the shutdown was announced, and got her to 50+3 weeks before the game closed - and I wasn't playing her even close to exclusively, and I wasn't power-leveling her in AE.  (I was teaming more than usual - but I also found that I *like* teaming in CoH)

If the game were to reopen without any of our characters, I could easily do the same again.  (Especially since I'd like to reroll most of my first few characters anyway.  My Elec/Invuln Brute as Elec/Elec; my Stone/Stone Tanker as Willpower/Stone; my Elec/Elec Blaster as Elec/Martial)

[dwturducken]

I would definitely reroll a few characters. My one 50 was a dark/dark corruptor that just has not translated to any other game, so he would be the first. The vast majority of my characters were the product of altaholic whimsy, and most would probably be left to the Elysian fields of fond memory.

[AlphaFerret]

I would remake my mains.  A restart would allow me to clean up my roster.  CoH was the only game where I became an alta-holic.  It was always great finding out what a hero's strengths and weaknesses were...kinda like in the comics.

[Pinnacle Blue]

I'm pretty sure that they're keeping everything-- from the actual program itself to our characters-- as is.  The characters are all associated with accounts which are in turn all associated with valuable (as in "worth money to someone") customer data.  That value plummets sharply if they erased our characters.

But let's say NCSuck did delete all our characters.  That would indeed be unfortunate.  However, I've always maintained that out of all the projects going, the one that will get my money is the one that allows me to fly around in a manner most like that of City of Heroes.  I ended a 5 year hiatus from the game just before Going Rogue came out for no other reason than this: one day I had an overpowering need to fly around like I used to.  I still have that need.

Also, I don't think it's going to take a "miracle" to get our game back.  It will take focused, sustained effort, but we've already proven we can do that.  Even closed, CoX has a number of things going for it (such as the best costume creator to have ever existed).  With a respectable advertising budget I think it could have very easily been the #1 MMO and probably still can.

[JKPhage]

I might be mildly irritated that I'd have to start over from scratch simply because I put so much time and effort into my characters, even to the point that I spent HOURS making their initial costume. I made sure that they looked perfect out of the gate, and the only time I tweaked a costume was if I was suddenly given a new costume piece that was absolutely perfect. None of my toons had alternate outfits aside from a civies costume for roleplay or a swimsuit for the same. I did have a lot of influence tied up in them though, including a SS/Inv tank that had so many purples/set bonuses that he had nearly capped DEFENSE on top of ridiculous resistance. Plus the time and frustration I poured into getting him top-tier Incarnate slotted. And that was just ONE of them.

Thankfully I still have all my costumes saved, and from there I honestly wouldn't mind grinding everyone back up to fifty and doing it all over again. I loved doing it the first time, and if the whole community was behind the effort to restore our heroes to their former glory, I'm sure there would be many new friendships to be made, and old ones to be rekindled. Honestly I think it'd make the community even stronger. I would hope that NCSoft kept some kind of records/customer database info so that if someone bought out the IP or they re-opened in maintenance mode or anything we'd at least be able to maintain our veteran rewards. I would not at all like to be locked out of the ability to wear a trenchcoat again, nor lose my Zeus helmet, as that was an integral part of one of my favorite heroe's costume.

Either way, if we had our city back I wouldn't care. Hell, I'm sure the RP community would jump at the chance to pull a DC "Crisis" reboot on the community, revamp old backstories, origins from years ago that became inconvenient/cheesy, perhaps even an excuse to give established characters a whole new powerset. I can see nothing bad coming from COH re-opening.

[Kyriani]

I'd be fine with starting over if it means having the game back.

[Pinnacle Blue]

I'd be fine with starting over if it means having the game back.

I thought about it, and I would too (provided NCSoft was not allowed to have any further say in whether or not the game existed).  But a lot of people would be mouth-frothingly po'd about all their hard work gone down the drain.

[goodtime]

I want my bases back, dammit.   :(

[Lenya]

I wouldn't mind recreating my characters. In fact I enjoyed leveling them up more than playing them as 50s, so I'd be happy about it.
As long as I get The City back.

[General Idiot]

I wouldn't mind starting fresh. I'd remake some of my favorite old characters with different powersets first, then some of the ones I've made in CO since the game shut down. And there's plenty more ideas waiting in the wings to become characters after that.

[Chance Jackson]

I would hate to have to recreate my characters but I would be willing to I use to recreate characters on whim (Hmm this combo would play better as a brute rather than scrapper, scrapper rather than brute, Hmm I think StJ makes more sense than MA for a shield tank etc)

[Kistulot]

My only thing would be wanting my Peacebringer unlock asap. I never spent enough time on one, and I was just learning how fun they were before the notice hit.

[Tenzhi]

I'd be fine with making all new characters, but I think the missing power sets, costume pieces, ATs, etc. that I had already purchased might dim my interest considerably.

[Kurrent]

Ideally, all info would have been stored and re-enabled as it was November 30, 2012.  But even if everything has been wiped, we could still have ways to create a limited number of characters at lvl 50 so we wouldn't have to grind all our old characters from 1 to 50 again.  People could receive one or more options to create characters at lvl 50, say one at the time of subscribing and the option to purchase (or earn) a few more.  Somehow linking the uses of an Insta-50 Creator to paid time earned previously would be very cool, but if all data had been wiped, all the veteran badges and time subscribed would likely have been wiped as well.

[Kyriani]

Ideally, all info would have been stored and re-enabled as it was November 30, 2012.  But even if everything has been wiped, we could still have ways to create a limited number of characters at lvl 50 so we wouldn't have to grind all our old characters from 1 to 50 again.  People could receive one or more options to create characters at lvl 50, say one at the time of subscribing and the option to purchase (or earn) a few more.  Somehow linking the uses of an Insta-50 Creator to paid time earned previously would be very cool, but if all data had been wiped, all the veteran badges and time subscribed would likely have been wiped as well.

If I were in a position to buy the IP I'd make two offers one for the IP itself and a higher offer if they include all the customer data (assuming it still exists) from when the game was running so I could at the very least give customers back all their unlocks that they rightfully paid for/earned over time.

With that said, if COH makes a return it will almost certainly be as a private run server. Either an individual solo client that will allow you to restore yourself exactly as you were with dev hacks or as a server hosted by someone else who can use dev hacks to at the very least give you all the unlocks if not outright level you. Consider though there would be things that couldnt be done, at least not without time consuming work that I doubt anyone would be willing to do, such as editing the character data to show you've completed this or that mission at least once etc. Just being bumped to 50 won't tell the client about all the things you've done or in this case didnt do since this would be a recreation of your character.

If it were me hosting a server that others played on, I would basically make everything unlocked for everyone but not give out any free levels. If the store was kept at all it would be changed over to an in game currency since it would be a legal nightmare to charge real money from people for playing/buying. It would likely serve only to acquire things that were only acquirable via the store. Essentially everyone's vet tiers would be filled out, but I see no reason not to give every player the monthly vet token (assuming the process could be automated) so they can get the repeatables every month.

For myself... I'll play no matter what as long as the game still plays as it did before the shutdown. The prospect of remaking my toons is actually exciting to me. It would be a chance to see old characters with new eyes.