New efforts!

[Thunder Glove]

NCSoft selling the IP but keeping the engine is not like buying a document and having to look for a new word processor to open it in; it's more like NCSoft keeping the document, but selling the outline and notes that the document was written from.  The outline would be a big help, but we'd still have to both find a new word processor and write a whole new document from scratch based on the outline, our memories, and nothing else.

That said... I may be sounding pessimistic in this thread, but I am interested to see where this is going, and I am glad we're being kept up to date.  I just want to make sure that I'm excited for the right reason, and that everyone is on the same page as far as the reasons to get excited.

[NightWolf]

The good news - things are moving forward. They have been given a price for the game - I don't know what that price is but it is within a decent range apparently.

This is interesting news. The next big question is: Do they have the money or resources to get the money together, are they willing to pay that price for what they will get (as we don't know exactly what has been negotiated) and what are the next steps gonna be. Of course only time will tell, but it is interesting to think about. Personally I think it's great that they have been able to approach NCsoft and got a price. Let's hope this will be start of something promising.

[Ironwolf]

I am trying to keep you updated because I find it exciting too!

The fact that this has moved so rapidly forward is really a surprise to me, I know it may slow down once they start talking as the framework to go forward is laid out. I guess it is all down to what plans if any NCSoft now has for CoH - if they consigned it to the dead software locker - coming along after a year and not having the same people in place as earlier (on both sides) might make this a no brainer for them.

They might say xxx dollars for something we don't expect to use is better than nothing - something we all have been saying now for what 16 months?

Heck, for all we know they might say $250,000 and it's yours.

[MWRuger]

My desire is simple. I want to play City of Heroes again. That's all.

Private Server? Sure,  fire it up and let's get to arresting bad guys or thwarting heroes!

Restored as a F2P or PtP MMO? Of course! send me a link so I can sign up.

Solo Only Single Player? Naturally! Not as good as the others, but better than what I have now.

Spiritual Successor? I'll give it a whirl. No way to tell until you play it if it is a new home or not.

I don't know if any of these can truly restore what we had in COH. I don't know if anything will come from this latest effort or not. I suppose this could all be a cruel, elaborate grief. But, true or not, successful or not how could we ever know unless we try?

I am happy to admit to feeling hopeful. Certainly, it's safer to quash any sunny impulse that may flicker within you, but all that does is give you a constant low background hum of endless despair. You can live that way, but why would you want to?

So I say, bring it! Bring the slim chance, the impossible, the unlikely, the difficult, the monstrously huge task of getting the City back. What tales we will have to tell! It may take months or years. But consider this, how old will you be in five years if you don't try?

[Triage IV]

WOW, thank you, Ironwolf...and friends behind the veil.

Just curious...in saying, "They have been given a price for the game," by "game"are you meaning the IP, engine, both, neither?

Even after all this discussion and explanation on IPs and engines and code, my brain is just not hard wired to even BEGIN to comprehend what any of this means...and, truthfully, I don't care...just that things are looking better and better...AND, with this last message, SO much more promising than EVER before.

/em calm down

"Breathe, Triage, breathe..." 

/em hyperventilate

Where's a paper bag when you need one?

This is like those old Mega Bucks commercials with Robyn Leach saying, "JUST IMAGINE!"  All this news is truly champagne wishes and caviar dreams.  Just being able to dream, WHAT IF, has been a welcome distraction!

Thank you for what you have been able to pass on to us.  And, thank you for everything you and the heroes and heroines behind the scenes have been doing for our community. 

This is just AMAZING!

[Solitaire]

Sorry folks I have been away from the thread a few days as I have a new house, barn and 7 acres of land to tend to!

Understand you could get the code and NOT use the same engine. You could convert it and have all of the same mechanics and even more. The good news - things are moving forward. They have been given a price for the game - I don't know what that price is but it is within a decent range apparently.

I honestly don't have a time period but the folks doing this love the game as much as we do.

This is interesting news, fingers crossed all goes well.

[Azrael]

Sorry folks I have been away from the thread a few days as I have a new house, barn and 7 acres of land to tend to!

Understand you could get the code and NOT use the same engine. You could convert it and have all of the same mechanics and even more. The good news - things are moving forward. They have been given a price for the game - I don't know what that price is but it is within a decent range apparently.

I honestly don't have a time period but the folks doing this love the game as much as we do.

A price for the prize.  This IS good news.  Once you have that.  You have a starting point for talks.  How to raise the money, how to support the game and draft an acceptable business plan so NC Soft don't think the latest bid is fly by nighters.

By the sounds of it...if we could get all 100K (more?) of CoH fan base to give just one month's sub each e.g. £10 that's £1million.  If each gave £40 for the game to come back on a kickstarted?  That would be four month's subs and bring in £4 million.  I'm guessing that would be enough to buy the IP and at least lease the use of the engine...with a royalty back to NC Soft.  For an old game that is out of commission 16 months now, I guess £4 million ($6-8 million dollars?) would be more than enough to buy it outright.

The problem would be created a united front fulcrum shift for the whole Coh fan base.  Get everyone involved.


As for quibbles about using the engine.  Codewalker (and it sounds like he'd know...judging by his work on Icon...he certainly speaks with authority on the game...) has said the IP and the engine are so closely tied together given the lack of 'leasable' engine for MMOs when CoH was being made.  Functionality is hardwired in.

That functionality could be emulated.  APIs retrofitted onto a new engine.

If the IP bid includes all the models made in Studio Max, all the textures, all the animations, the sounds, the interface, the zones, the server, the client assets that hook (intimately) into the engine, game logic, combat, spawns, NPCs, the characters, the missions, the music, the lore/story etc.  If the IP includes all of that then, yes, an IP price of £1million or less would be a steal for THE Coh community.  This is less about making millions and more about securing legacy of just about the best MMO ever.  (And you can put that in anybody's WoW pipe and let them smoke it...) 

All the assets above could indeed by transferred to a new engine.  It wouldn't be without work.  'Good luck with that' said Codewalker.  As in, no small task.  But even he realised...better that as opposed to NC Soft sitting on the IP and having no option at all?  It's a bargain.  If the IP, Code and assets were sold with a clause not allowing the use of the engine...  CoH would be back.  In time.  There'd be a schedule for it.  Ie it could be transferred to the Unreal 4 engine.  (As opposed to now where there is only 'death' and no schedule for Coh's return at all...)

What this would allow is pretty much emulation of the original engine functionality plugging into the assets.  But uncoupling those 'hardwire' hooks from Cryptic/NC's engine and transplanting them into the Unreal 4 engine would take time.  BUT.  You'd get the original game back. It would be pretty much emulation in that context.  At least as far as the engine and the 'hooks' linking the Unreal Engine and the Coh Assets are concerned.  Massive work.  But it would finally allow Coh to sit on top of a modern engine.

If you have the code?  You understand how the server works.  You have the maps.  The missions.  You can look at how (!) the engine is coupled into the Coh assets.  You can look at that and form a plan.  Not being able to use the original engine isn't a show stopper at all.  It merely delays things.  (But is that worse than having no game?)

Many C64 games now sit on Windows and Mac OS systems.  *shrugs.  It's only code.  Time.  Programmers.

The hardest part of any emulation is of course, the legality, the emulation of a server when you don't know exactly what those code calls are...(i.e. trying to guess at an empty target?)  But if you have bought the server code and the assets then you can port those assets over and replicate the plugging in of those assets into a new engine.

I hate car analogies...  (So, sue me...)  It would be like getting a car but the previous owner saying you can't use the engine.  You'd just drop in another appropriate engine and tweak things and off you drive.  Not a trivial task.  But not an impossible task for a mechanic...and not for one that specialises in hot rodding the car he's in love with.

What does this give you? 

It gives you 'retro' mode Coh as is...basically CoH as it was.  Pretty much.  Coh 1.0

What it also gives you is the option to beef up the textures and models in an 'Ultra Mode 2' capability.  Coh 1.5.  i.e. new higher def' model and texture assets could be created in Max, Maya, LWave and Photoshop etc.

And what it also gives you going forwards is Coh 2.0 with whole new concepts and gameplay that maybe the original engine couldn't have given you.

Unreal 4, just as an example, could keep all camps happy from the original game to modernising its appearance...to adding spectacular new game options.  eg.  A space end game in glorious graphics, textures and models with more refined sound and music and upping the level cap to L60...then 70...then 80 etc in time.  Some of the glorious new particle fx in Unreal 4 could be added (see the City of Titans preview...)

What I'm saying, by grabbing the IP (if it includes all I have listed...) would allow the Coh community to have their cake and eat it.  The new 'owners' could open up the game to the community and allow modding.  Allow the community to create new missions that could be fed into the game itself.  The possibilities are endless.

Getting ahead of myself/ourselves.  Not really.  Hope.  I've always had the hope that it's a matter of time.  Whether that be 'certain projects' that break cover...or the successors, or NC Soft revives it...or sells it.  It's a matter of time, for me, to get this City back.  CoH fans aren't going anywhere.  Stubborn bunch...

It should also allow us to have an offline mode once and for all.  The true tragedy for me in all this...is after £1000 worth of subs and spending in Coh I still can't play the game.  After buying any normal game you can still play it long after you are bored.  And I'd expect this functionality of off line mode, Peer to peer mode and ofc, MMO mode.

Ironwolf obviously isn't going to give specifics.  Nor should he.  He doesn't have to justify himself to anyone.  I commend him for getting off his posterior and being unconventional.  His 'thinking different' may just have set the wheels in motion to get our City back.

So, if this all comes off, I'll owe him a debt of gratitude for thinking the impossible and stepping up to do it.

We finally have a price.  That's great news.  Now comes the business plan.  And NC Soft will want assurances that the company or 'people' in this 'group' aren't fly by night and can deliver the game back to the community.

And if the talks break down.  So what?  Somebody else will pick up the torch.  Each battle brings us forward.

We'll know a heck of a lot more than we did before.  i.e..  NC Soft has a price they'll accept for it.

That's a massive start.

Azrael.

In case anyone would like to see an idea of what Atlas Park looks like in a newer game engine...
Unreal Engine 4, to be precise.

https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/t31.0-8/1966260_274962145997342_2074759972_o.jpg

I like the look of that.  Was that modelled in a 3D app and ported to Unreal 4 or assets from Icon ported across?  Tell me more, Irish Girl...

I'm curious and intrigued by that...

[Angel Phoenix77]

NCsoft bought a license for the Cryptic engine 'in perpetuity', meaning they could use it for CoH for as long as they needed to, and were allowed to add to/change/remove from it with impunity.

thank you for clearing this up for me.

[ShadowMokadara]

We can't use kickstarter to fund ourselves to buy the rights to City of Heroes.

[Azrael]

Sorry folks I have been away from the thread a few days as I have a new house, barn and 7 acres of land to tend to!

Understand you could get the code and NOT use the same engine. You could convert it and have all of the same mechanics and even more. The good news - things are moving forward. They have been given a price for the game - I don't know what that price is but it is within a decent range apparently.

I honestly don't have a time period but the folks doing this love the game as much as we do.

If they have the love for the game that the community has?  Game on.

As outlined in my post above, I now see a scenario where you could get the code but not be allowed to use the engine.  (There may be legality of them passing on a perpetual license from Cryptic.  I don't know.  I'm guessing there...)  So I can see that they could sell on the game IP and assets with code and it would be up to the new team to port it to a more modern engine.  i.e. translate those 'hard wire' api/functionality tendril hooks or emulate them as a bridge to a more modern engine.

(I can kinda see what Ironwolf is saying there.)

That, people, opens more options and doors for CoH to move forward.  In fact, even if they acquired the engine...it would still be a good idea to port the assets to a modern engine for the future of the game.  Even if they could acquire and use the original engine and let us play the game as it was.  Either way.  We'd get the game back in time.  But porting to Unreal 4 engine would open up a 'we can have our cake and eat it situation.'

Azrael.

I really do feel the same way.

This weekend I was extremely busy hanging a new 12x12 barn door, mowing 7 acres and doing general winter pickup and so I didn't get on the computer for more than a few minutes. I logged in this morning to see that things are looking good - but in all sales there may be a hitch that causes it to fall through. In this case if it does fail - I think we will know why and if it can be worked around in a different effort.

I really do wish I could share everything but the reason people are telling me stuff is that I do filter it.

You are wise to filter it.  Negotiations can be like 'glass' as we found out last time around... 

And your point is sound.  i.e. that even if talks fail, we'll know why this time and that would be a massive stumbling block overturned...

Good luck with those 7 acres.  Sounds like paradise.

[ShadowMokadara]

If they have the love for the game that the community has?  Game on.

As outlined in my post above, I now see a scenario where you could get the code but not be allowed to use the engine.  (There may be legality of them passing on a perpetual license from Cryptic.  I don't know.  I'm guessing there...)  So I can see that they could sell on the game IP and assets with code and it would be up to the new team to port it to a more modern engine.  i.e. translate those 'hard wire' api/functionality tendril hooks or emulate them as a bridge to a more modern engine.

There would be no legalities from Cryptic. It's been stated before that the engine Cryptic uses in CO/STO/NW is different than the one tied to City of Heroes. NCsoft entirely owns City of Heroes' code, which is directly intertwined with the engine and vise verse. They are literally the same thing in this case. Cryptic would have no say in what happens to the CoH code or who gets it because they already sold it to NCsoft.

Except that there's no difference between the two. The code is the engine is the engine is the code.

COH is not like most games these days where they buy a prebuilt engine and add their own logic on top of it, often managed code like C# and Java, or even JavaScript.

When it was developed, MMOs were in their infancy. No suitable engine for such a game existed. The engine that was created for COH has no separation from the game itself. All of the logic is hardcoded into the engine, since it's not an off the shelf product -- it's something that was developed exclusively for COH.

[Cobra Man]

There would be no legalities from Cryptic. It's been stated before that the engine Cryptic uses in CO/STO/NW is different than the one tied to City of Heroes. NCsoft entirely owns City of Heroes' code, which is directly intertwined with the engine and vise verse. They are literally the same thing in this case. Cryptic would have no say in what happens to the CoH code or who gets it because they already sold it to NCsoft.

This is what I thought and why I'm a bit confused about the statement that the IP will be bought without the engine.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Based on what I understand NCSoft leased the engine from Cryptic, they don't own it. If I leased a 2012 car from a dealership, I can't sell that car beause I don't own it.

As for the subject of moving the game to a new engine... The code that drives the game logic would have to be coded from scratch. I don't think there's any way around that.
Lets say...even in the extremely unlikely event that all the CoH source just happened to be created in C++ (which is the language used for Unreal 4) then I'm sure that it's prolly so tightly coded to work in the CoH engine that trying to modify the code to run in UE4 would prolly take just as long to do as simply re-writing it.
(I should note that I'm not a programmer, altho I do have something resembling knowing what I'm talking about)


Azrael, That is a project I started not long after the servers closed that I've neglected a little too much called Atlas Park Revival. Basically I'm taking the CoH assets...Models, textures, etc... Cleaning them up a little in 3DS Max, and sticking them into UE4. In some cases I've built new assets from the ground up (I built the model I'm using for the War Walls from scratch).
While It's currently lacking in the code dept. it's a decent look at the idea of CoH in a newer engine.

[ShadowMokadara]

Based on what I understand NCSoft leased the engine from Cryptic, they don't own it. If I leased a 2012 car from a dealership, I can't sell that car beause I don't own it.

I thought it was more they fully bought the engine, but still have to credit Cryptic for it, which is why the Cryptic logo still showed in the log in screen after NCsoft started publishing City of Heroes. I could be wrong, though.

[Kaos Arcanna]

Even if someone just got the rights to the IP that'd be something that'd present the possibility of COH opening again.

[Tubbius]

Here's hoping, folks.  I'll be hoping and praying on this one.  Ironwolf, best wishes to you and your companions.

NCSoft, please let my Waddle the Penguin go again so he can get back to his lovably pithy statements of "Waddle hate snowmans!" and "Waddle hero!"

:)

[dwturducken]

We can't use kickstarter to fund ourselves to buy the rights to City of Heroes.

There are other ways to crowdfund, but that hasn't been floated, unless I missed something. The current effort appears to be more "professional," involving backers and business plans and all that kind of stuff.

[ShadowMokadara]

There are other ways to crowdfund, but that hasn't been floated, unless I missed something. The current effort appears to be more "professional," involving backers and business plans and all that kind of stuff.

Ahh. I just thought I had read someone suggesting kickstarter is all. That's what the comment was aimed at.

[Ironwolf]

The only word I had on the price was - Doable.

[HEATSTROKE]

 well a price is a start.. hopefully it will continue to move forward..