New efforts!

[Remaugen]

Maybe just a detail but an important one, we don't expect the announcement in question tomorrow or next week or anything closely. Just saying so we don't get tons of impatient people asking "When?" every two posts.

Are we there yet? ;D

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself!)

[Gamerchamp]

Wow didn't realize I had an account from way back.

Anyway just wanted to give you Iron Wolf and the team working on these efforts a big thumbs up with what you are all doing to bring us all back our game I really do miss it like the rest of you guys and I do have the biggest faith that we will get it back if not now then somewhere down that line. No matter what we are not quitters we are the opposite never ever give up on our game one of our biggest strengths is this amazing community I'm glad to be apart if it since Beta back in the days to the end and yes I actually grew up with this game.

It has been one of the things I will never forget and if there is absolutely anything I can do for you Iron Wolf and the team please don't hesitate to say so again a big thank you for all the efforts you and the team are putting into this.

Hope to see you all in the skies of Paragon City, Praetoria and The Rogue Isles in the future :).

[Triage IV]

the quick synopsis.

There are a group of people trying to buy the game
They have a contact and NC Soft
There has been a price of some type set (no details of how much or what that price entails)
There is a meeting set with no timetable having been made public (obviously known to the potential buyers)
 

  We expect some announcement to be made whether the answer from NC Soft is yay or naw..

Thats about it..

AND, the part that got ME EXCITED:  The group said the price was "doable."    ;D

[BenshowSly]

Are we there yet? ;D

(Sorry, I couldn't help myself!)

*Slaps you hard until you cry*  ;D 8)

[downix]

Maybe just a detail but an important one, we don't expect the announcement in question tomorrow or next week or anything closely. Just saying so we don't get tons of impatient people asking "When?" every two posts.

Based in negotiations I have seen, could take months.

[Lightslinger]

I hope that when something is ready to announce they do it. CoH's relaunch would be better served as simply when it's ready, E3 could be detrimental to a relaunch because it would get lost in the noise.

[Ironwolf]

You see here is where the big companies get very careful - possible liability.

An offer is made and if tenitively accepted - send in the clowns, err lawyers. On BOTH sides they will make sure they respect any past legal issues the game had - from the Marvel lawsuit to any other legal challenge we might not even know about.

The bid money may be put in escrow with the terms of cancellation of the sale for either side outlined.

Once the sale is made it may still take time to get things rolling and in honesty it could be Nov 30th before we see it sold and a bit longer for it to be out.

Or they could try just walking in with one of the huge checks they use for golf tournaments and say, "Hi guys here is the money!"
"How do we know this check is good?" NCSoft asks.
"Well duh - its really big!"

[MWRuger]

But Ironwolf, these are all the details we really want to know!



But of course they must be kept quiet for very good reasons.

I suspect we will hear almost nothing until the deal is set or until it is clear the deal is untenable. The only thing that points to a quicker pace than normal is that NCSoft has already identified most of the issues that concern them from previous attempts to sell the game. They will need to investigate the new potential buyers, but other than that, most of the concerns they had when the game was still running are same now as then.

The buyers basically have to start from scratch unless someone who was involved in a previous effort is involved here. That is good and bad. The good of course is that they know what to look at and what concerns were raised last time. The bad of course is that they were involved in failed effort and nothing smells worse than failure. (In business anyway)

The earliest I would expect some kind of announcement is August. But I am willing and hoping to be surprised.

[Ironwolf]

I can tell you the group doing this has sought out key people from the initial offer. They do have people experienced with the code on their team.

The news is the same unfortunately that we have a price that was and I quote again "very doable" - we have a contact and a meeting but it isn't an instant process. I don't know at what stage we are but there is movement - we have an effort being made. I just know how big companies work since I work for one myself.

NCSoft will make sure no liability comes back to them. The new buyers will make sure they are free of entanglements as well. Then we have all the normal dickering and manuevering people do when trying to buy something and not pay the asking price. I will again say - I intentionally am not asking for these details and add pressure to those doing the deal.

I will if I hear something let you know as much as humanly possible! We may be in for a mini seige here - just get off the red flashing floors.

[r00tb0ySlim]

I hope that when something is ready to announce they do it. CoH's relaunch would be better served as simply when it's ready, E3 could be detrimental to a relaunch because it would get lost in the noise.

I hope they announce the relaunch when ready as well; however, IMO an E3 announcement would not be detrimental because the CoH relaunch announcement would be the "noise".   

[chuckv3]

An offer is made and if tenitively accepted - send in the clowns, err lawyers.

You brought up a vague recollection from an "Eek the Cat" episode in which an evil genius commands that the captive heroes be thrown into the "seething pit of lawyers."

[MWRuger]

I can tell you the group doing this has sought out key people from the initial offer. They do have people experienced with the code on their team.

The news is the same unfortunately that we have a price that was and I quote again "very doable" - we have a contact and a meeting but it isn't an instant process. I don't know at what stage we are but there is movement - we have an effort being made. I just know how big companies work since I work for one myself.

NCSoft will make sure no liability comes back to them. The new buyers will make sure they are free of entanglements as well. Then we have all the normal dickering and manuevering people do when trying to buy something and not pay the asking price. I will again say - I intentionally am not asking for these details and add pressure to those doing the deal.

I will if I hear something let you know as much as humanly possible! We may be in for a mini seige here - just get off the red flashing floors.

Ironwolf, I seldom do a good job of conveying humor on the internet, but I do understand and I was kidding with that first sentence. 

A lot of these  kind of posts for me are really just reiterating what You have already said or just the same speculation again for the sake of people who don't want to wade through 60 pages of posts.

I've worked in the past for big corps and now the vacillate between glacial slowness and lightning speed. We'll find out when we do. I'm fine with that.

Of course, baseless speculation is an internet specialty so you should expect to see lots more of it as time goes on.

[MWRuger]

BASELESS SPECULATION:

Assuming we get our accounts and characters back (big assumption, I know) I think that the market will be wiped just as it was when the markets were merged. It wasn't anything to get excited about at the end anyway with even the most common slavage going for huge amounts, simply because of low supply.

But that means that if we also get our bases back there will be an opportunity to sell a lot of stuff that usually doesn't. Anyone (besides me) given any thought to how the market will work?

[LaughingAlex]

BASELESS SPECULATION:

Assuming we get our accounts and characters back (big assumption, I know) I think that the market will be wiped just as it was when the markets were merged. It wasn't anything to get excited about at the end anyway with even the most common slavage going for huge amounts, simply because of low supply.

But that means that if we also get our bases back there will be an opportunity to sell a lot of stuff that usually doesn't. Anyone (besides me) given any thought to how the market will work?

Personally if we get the game back, something I'd do is limit the maximum amount of influence and bars of experience you can get from AE per day.  I'd even make AE give patrol experience instead of actual experience, so people didn't just power level on it, after say a level in a day(with patrol experience at the max being the limit).  I'd even suggest a guild wars 1 style drop penalty for clearing the same area over and over without finishing the mission as to encourage people to actually finish content instead of farming it, but thats me.  (Though that second one here wouldn't be as important, as peregrine island farms did in fact get purple drops and salvage, which helped the prices a bunch).

Way I see it, influence inflation was CoH's biggest problem, as people weren't getting enough drops(purple recipies especially, but I also saw common drops being way to expensive), since they were doing AE all the time.  AE didn't get you drops it got you tickets, but the influence you got per ticket was still insanity.  With the huge influx of influence into the market and the reduction of supply, things like even common salvage and purple recipies ended up over priced.  So you had a pretty annoying problem.

Limiting the influence gains from AE would mean yeah you could get drops via but you'd not be able to pay excessively high prices on a whim, so prices would have to go down, especially since, another idea i'd say should be implemented was maybe the 26-39ish salvage drops should drop sometimes at higher levels to.  More drops overall due to people playing content besides just AE + less influence from excessive AE farming would inevitably lower the prices to something more reasonable.  I only suggest it for AE and repeat clearings and even then I'd prefer it such as to not drive people away.  I'd also if implementing something like that, explain WHY it's being implemented.

[PSI-on]

I wonder though at this point, if it'd be ok to ask at what stage we're at. Perhaps they've had the meeting and it's signed, now passed onto the next phase and they've just been too busy to come tell you how it's going?

[BenshowSly]

I wonder though at this point, if it'd be ok to ask at what stage we're at. Perhaps they've had the meeting and it's signed, now passed onto the next phase and they've just been too busy to come tell you how it's going?

No it wouldn't be ok. If we give too much pressure, it would be bad. We just have to trust them!

[doc7924]

If the price is good I don't see why NCSoft wouldn't sell it. The IP is making them zero money now and if they have no desire to do another super hero game or maybe revive it themselves, then there isn't fear of competition. So if they can get money from a dead game, I don't understand why they wouldn't sell it off.

Business wise it makes no sense for them to just hold onto it and earn nothing.

[PSI-on]

Really? Just asking casually 3 weeks later would be too much pressure? Let's not be paranoid here. They're just trying to buy a game not defuse a bomb :P Pressure is all in both timing AND in the way one asks. If they'd explode or give up just cause they were asked casually weeks later then how would they handle other pressures of setting back up the game or handling working with this big a passionate community. I think you need to give them a little more credit than that, just saying.

No it wouldn't be ok. If we give too much pressure, it would be bad. We just have to trust them!

[BenshowSly]

Really? Just asking casually 3 weeks later would be too much pressure? Let's not be paranoid here. They're just trying to buy a game not defuse a bomb :P Pressure is all in both timing AND in the way one asks. If they'd explode or give up just cause they were asked casually weeks later then how would they handle other pressures of setting back up the game or handling working with this big a passionate community. I think you need to give them a little more credit than that, just saying.

Some people who were working on similar opportunities stopped because people kept bugging them and even getting upset at them. I just don't want that to happen again.

EDIT: Yes, people here by the way... not people at random places. Sometimes, passionate fans are a bother. They bug you, they bug you, they bug you and when they don't get what they want, they get upset at you. It happened elsewhere, it happened here, it always happens with passionate fans.

[PSI-on]

Some people who were working on similar opportunities stopped because people kept bugging them and even getting upset at them. I just don't want that to happen again.

EDIT: Yes, people here by the way... not people at random places. Sometimes, passionate fans are a bother. They bug you, they bug you, they bug you and when they don't get what they want, they get upset at you. It happened elsewhere, it happened here, it always happens with passionate fans.

I'm sure, but it's not like I'm saying "Would it be ok if you asked every 5 minutes." I'm simply suggesting in the course of conversation one could ask how it's been going, seeing as how long he's gone without asking at all, asking ONCE at this point wouldn't be harassment. I know how important it is to be patient, but any thing new to know would go a long way towards knowing it's still going on or that since the last news it's remained positive.