New efforts!

[Bella1006]

If this goes through successfully (*fingers crossed* *toes crossed* *legs crossed* *arms crossed* *eyes crossed*), I would gleefully surrender all my alts if I can just have my main back. I'll faint *thud* and die *death rattle* happily on the spot if I can play my beloved Stalker Shandirra again. That's literally all I want. Granted, with all her bells and whistles intact.

Because, come on, who doesn't want to Prestige Power Glide everywhere? XD

[Illusionss]

I am absolutely fine with the reopening of the game as we knew it, have that up and running and then get busy with CoX2. Even if we just get through issue 23.

Yes we all lost tons of game currency and expensive IOs and all that. Acknowleged. But we all started out in the game
With literally nothing when the game was new. We rose to the top. We can easily do it again.

It might well be start over or nothing. Im going to start over if  i get the chance. If others choose nothing then that is on them... we'll miss you during those DFB runs.

[Ironwolf]

Yes, it would be doable to get the game going again with a snapshot of code.

I see a lot of folks saying well we will have to buy what we already had - understand something profound and sobering, that game is gone. They closed it and with it all of the stuff you purchased. Now please give the new folks a chance to work out solutions to all of this. They don't have all of the stuff yet. Once whatever databases and code is in their hands - then they can start making plans and solutions.

I opened a thread in another area for just this thing - start getting input on positive things they can do to make it as fair as possible for returning players. In a real sense this is like totally crashing a car - without insurance. You can go buy a new one but it will only have standard features. You will have to put in all those things you added with aftermarket parts.

I am trying to put this out so you can see the size of the task. It is not easy. I get the easy part - talking to you folks. They get all the hard work of sorting a snapshot of spaghetti code. Working out all the financials and getting the game running. I say this and things may change for the better - but it may start at this stage. I hope for the best - but I do realize it may be that reality is a tough thing. I could sugar coat stuff - but it is not in my nature to do so. I am very direct while trying to temper it with some sense of peoples feelings. I know this is hard, I know they are trying to get everything that it makes sense to retrieve.

Give them a chance. They are players too who just so happen to love the game and be good at programming.

[Noyjitat]

Please understand - if/when the deal goes through - the new owners will not have screwed over ANYONE.

They are working with NCSoft to get as much back as possible. It won't be easy to unpack what NCSoft shutdown. The game at this stage is not on one DVD or even in one collected form that you can just load on a server and fire up. Some of the tools were custom made, account data is just about a - not going to happen at this stage, Character data is a maybe. The new group had nothing to do with how NCSoft shutdown the game or in how or what they retained.

Please also realize the group doing this is trying as hard as they can to get the game back. It maybe that Issue 24 is the farthest CoH1 will go because it may be faster and easier to make CoH2! There are many obstacles. We are still fighting and trying and that is all we can do. The pressure is very heavy and I KNOW they feel the deep responsibility to the Community. They will get the game back in the best possible form if it is possible.

If it was easy - why would you need Heroes?

Game account were separate from ncsoft master accounts. So unless they wiped the authentication server data all our characters are there as long as you remember your game account passwords.

[PSI-on]

I am saying that it is all a big mess. The game code may not even be completely up for grabs! All these things are what they are trying to get/do and if they are able to get the code - the game would likely not be able to be developed any further than Issue 24.

It just would make zero sense to spend a lot of money on a game engine you have to redo the custom tools to develop it with. Now you spend man hours and programmers making tools to build a game instead of developing the game. This means for a couple years nothing moves forward and you spend a lot of money to cobble together a 12 year old engine. I hope I am saying this correctly.

It really is in this much of a shamble. That is why the talks are taking so long as they find out things are really a mess. I know it seems incredible but things really are that badly confused.

I wonder if it would be possible to talk to BAB or Posi, or someone about any "missing" tools or stuff, or at least the tools to work on it. Note I'm not talking about licensing issues, that's a whole other story, just what's "missing" or discombobulated. Maybe they are too busy, maybe they might charge, but I know they loved this game just like we all still do. Just a thought.

EDIT: Also, can I just say this makes me hate NCSoft even more. It was claimed that they "did try to earnestly sell the game" back then, and that aren't that bad, yet they KNEW we still wanted it and there would continue to be offers and attempts. They knew that the closure was a hot ticket issue, yet they went ahead and "stored" it in a big, incomplete mess. Sounds like more disrespect to us and frankly weren't prepared to ever sell it. If this works for us I can only assume stocks, harassment, and offers finally wore them down.

[sindyr]

Here's my 2 cents

If the best option is to revive base game at wat was developed for I24, then i say go for it. While new team works toward continuing everything with CoH2, everything available up to I24 should be open to everyone since the old wont be developed on anymore. All the extra sever slots, costumes, powers, temps, auras, insp, enhancement and recipe slots every... single... thing. At the same time, new team can also think up proper pricing for things that will of course help towards funding the CoH2 effort.


As for whether getting back all my alts....hey at this point ill be happy to start all noob up in this game again...


"LVL 8 Scrp formin all day FF mish team in hollows pst 4 inv."

VERY good idea!

[Remidi]

Here's what I think it all boils down to - what the new owners are really trying to buy are the intellectual property rights to the CoX game.  IP (but not Independence Port) are the story parts of the game, the in-game characters, the zones, the missions, and so forth.  They have to have the IP rights to develop CoX2.  But to get the IP, they also have to buy a certain amount of the code part of the game.  By re-opening CoX Classic, they are building excitement for the new game, scoring good PR with the former players, and giving themselves a source of income while the new game is being developed. 

Look, the previous posts are right.  The game as we knew it is gone.  Our accounts are gone.  If we are really, really lucky and do believe in fairies, they might find a way to get our characters back on some level.  What we will be getting from the new owner is a chance to have fun and fire up our hero/villain mojo to get us all tasted up for the real game that's coming.  And I'm okay with that.  They've got my money.

[Myrmydon]

Starting from scratch at Issue 24 even without a store or vet perks would be totally acceptable.

It's having our home back again that matters most. :D

[Odimodus]

 Step One: Get the game

Step Two: rejoice and play what we thought was lost forever. Even if it's from scratch with new characters.

Step Three: COx 2

Got it.

[PSI-on]

Here's a question. If they don't get the rights to the engine and don't get the tools to work on it, then how well they "finish" i24 or handle any bugs that this "snapshot" might have? Also I know that i24 was close to release, but it was still on the test server, so I don't know, I just wonder if they'd be able to do basic maintenance.

[HEATSTROKE]

If the accounts are gone.. they are gone.. I'll lament over it.. be upset about it.. and move on..

STEP ONE... GET THE GAME....

[Thirty-Seven]

This is an issue, but a one off "buy the virtual box" fee if there's no ongoing development (which I wouldn't begrudge them) plus selling extra character stuff which will always be bought by people that didn't have it should keep the wolf from the door. It will also give them a flying headstart of contacts for CoH2.

Hmmm.  I forgot about the virtual box.

Package it as "City of Heroes: Resurgence" and sell us initial access at $20 to 30 or something each... Then smack a $5/month subscription on there, add in selling character slots... And you may just have something.  Plus it'd be cheap enough that most folks could handle both it and some other subscription game.  I wonder if the systems they'd be getting would even enable them to sell pack and powers like they used to.  Maybe wed all have full access to all the options from the get go since nothing could ever be developed for it... Hmmmm.  Hmmm, indeed.

[Ohioknight]

I also kinda wanna see what the game's economy would look like without the years of built up influence preceding the market.

The sobering thought I'm getting is that there very well might not BE a game economy. Based on what we're hearing I could easily imagine being able to go into Wentworth's, talk to a sales rep, and just not have anything show on the screen when the Wentworth's inventory comes up. 

Which would still be a vast improvement over ICON (no disparagement to ICON)

Sounds like there's a real possibility of "non-maintenance" mode

[Ghost Hero]

The way I see it, if Ironwolf says they wont be able to develop the game beyond Issue 24 then they cant afford to just give us everything that they didn't develop.  If they gave us all the character slots, and powers and what nots, then there is nothing for us to buy.  Then again they could be planning on just going with a subscription model instead of the Hybrid business model but I personally believe they have more opportunity to fund a CoH2 with the Hybrid model.  Of course they could just do kickstarter but that doesn't seem right to me for some reason.

I don't feel like this team of buyers owes us anything.  They don't owe us our characters back, they don't owe us everything we purchased, cause right now we have nothing and they are trying to get us the game back with the best intentions possible.  Would it be great if our characters got back? No doubt.  I am also fine with getting a lot of free stuff as long as it doesn't take away resources for the future of the game.  Perhaps for those who want a level bump then perhaps you can get one, although I imagine if you got a level bump and some inf to go with it, it would mess up the market in game for a bit.  Maybe the group of people could also give us a some sort of stipend enough to cover 3 costume sets and 2 powers.  Maybe on top of that or not, they could have a discount in the store 50 to 75% off everything for the first 30 to 60 days.  Maybe they will give us all the Vet rewards, seeing as how it would take awhile to build that back up.  Who knows, but if they just decide to start up the game and give us nothing more.  I am fine with that, they got us the game and they owe us nothing. (Also, we don't owe them anything so if your not happy about it you are entitled to not play, or play and be disgruntled  :P)

For me personally I would like everyone to start fresh.  A few reasons that come to mind is first off there probably wont be as many servers as when the game left.  So lets say there are only three.  There are bound to be many characters with the same names rolled onto any particular server.  That means only one person is gonna get their character name back.  The rest will have to rename their character and for some that is as bad as not having your character back at all (made worse by the fact that someone is running around out there being you).  Second, I am not quite sure how the market would work.  If the game came back, would everything on the market when we left still be on the market?  Assuming no then for those of us who want to play our shiny new character concepts (with or without Bio Armor and Psi Melee being available) would have to compete with people who had insane amounts of INF previously (assuming INF comes back aswell) (not that I didn't have my fair share of inf).

On a personal reason.  I had about 17 or so heroes in my own little personal "supergroup" and when the game shut down my three strongest psychics used their abilities to save about 7 of them by incasing them in a cocoon of psychic energy and they have since been trapped in "the void", waiting to find a new dimension to wake up in.  So technically all my other character besides those 7 are dead.  Now we know in true comic book fashion they could all come back somehow but opening up the game to see them all there would be odd to me.  If we start over new then the 7 characters that were saved would have been stripped of all but the most basic of their powers due to the long exposure to the high psychic field and have to train up to regain their former strength all the while as serving as mentors for the new group of heroes that I have already started planning out.  (Which oddly have been mostly non-humans which is weird because previously I had only 4 out 17 were non-human counting one PB and now I already have 5 non-humans).

So that my little rant, lets just get the game back and go from there.  I have complete faith that whatever the buyer group does will be the best they can do for us.  I am just so excited for the possibility of the game coming back that I am grateful to even be thinking about making new characters.  As you can probably tell I loved making stories for my characters and their group and so even though I don't have the time like I used too.  Getting in there with a fresh start and replaying all my characters to 50 (without PL) and playing through their stories all over again while creating new ones is what truly has me excited.  I just hope you all don't burn out on incarnate content before I get there :D

Lastly I would like to say how happy I am to recognize so many former Pinnbadgers on these boards.  Whoo, Represent!

[FloatingFatMan]

Hey all.  Forgive me for a series of potentially dumb questions (I have a slight hangover).  The game comes back at I24 and we play and build up our characters back to their original greatness.  All the while CoH2 is being developed behind the scenes.  When CoH2 launches, what happens to our re-built CoH I24 characters (you managed to earn all that good stuff back  ;D) that run on the old engine?  Will we just "move" the character info over to CoH2 and be assimilated into the UR4 engine?  Will CoH2 recognize all of CoH1's achievements and goodies?  Just curious and wondering if we would need to start over again.  I'm good with either option as I want to super jump my big a$$ all over town  8)

This is step 289, we're still working on Step 1. How can anyone answer you?

[sindyr]

If they gave us all the character slots, and powers and what nots, then there is nothing for us to buy.

That's mostly but not entirely accurate. We could (and I often did) buy *consumables* - boosts to xp, damage, defense, etc. Also, the superpacks/IOs were fun sometimes if I recall correctly. I seem to recall quite a few consumables in the store I availed myself of.

But it would be awesome for the new game to make available to us all the get-once stuff, like prestige powers, all vet awards, unlockables, etc.

[PSI-on]

That's mostly but not entirely accurate. We could (and I often did) buy *consumables* - boosts to xp, damage, defense, etc. Also, the superpacks/IOs were fun sometimes if I recall correctly. I seem to recall quite a few consumables in the store I availed myself of.

But it would be awesome for the new game to make available to us all the get-once stuff, like prestige powers, all vet awards, unlockables, etc.

Even if it was just for say the first two weeks or month that the game restarts. We're clearly gonna keep inviting friends and loved ones into the game even after so there will always be someone new to come in and buy after that.

[Rayderoth]

I am saying that it is all a big mess. The game code may not even be completely up for grabs! All these things are what they are trying to get/do and if they are able to get the code - the game would likely not be able to be developed any further than Issue 24.

As someone who has experience with MMO client/server stuff, I'd kinda like to add the following:

Despite the fact that the development tools may not be available, since pretty much every calculation in MMOs is handled server-side, the fact that it may not progress beyond I24, does not necessarily mean that the game cannot be tweaked or improved upon.

As long as the new team has access to the actual code server-side (and provided that CoX was logically built), then they can still make adjustments and tweaks to stuff like powersets, IOs, drop rates, mobs, etc.

What the lack of development tools does mean, is that no new major content will be implemented client-side. Depending on how the client is put together (and how much code the new team has access to), new costume pieces, NPCs, and other sort-of minor stuff might pop up. It might even be possible for new arcs or quests. What will most likely be impossible is stuff like new powersets and areas (though if I24 is going to be the issue we do get, I think it's a very fitting last major update).

Furthermore, depending on how much the new devs have access too, it could go a long way to making Co(H/X)2 the true sequel to CoX. If they can really sort through the spaghetti, and find the calculations (both client and server-side) that make CoX feel and play the way it does, they have the major advantage of being able to just directly translate those calculations into a new engine. The alternative, of course, is guessing, approximating and developing by feel. Which is what the "successor" teams have to work with.

Now, I know this is probably better suited to the other thread IronWolf keeps mentioning. But I'm gonna drop a suggestion based on the hypothetical situation where I24 is truly the last major update:

Have a Hybrid subscription/F2P system.

Except do NOT limit Powersets. One of the worst things you can do is have F2Pers feel like they're lesser players because they don't have access to character creation content.

AE on the otherhand, can be limited. AE didn't affect the rest of the game, but it did give people who wanted to experience new arcs a neat place to go, or otherwise allowed people to farm and grind. My personal suggestion would be not even having it locked out of F2P play, just limit it to one AE Arc a week (or something).

The subscription fees?

$15 a month for VIP access, which gives players access to everything plus some extra goodies like maybe cash store discounts.

And.

$5 a month for unlimited access to game content.

Of course, add in a cash shop for additional costume sets, VIP powers, character slots and whatnot the way it was before (if you really want to entice people to buy from the cash shop, I would suggest offering things that can boost EXP gain or Drop rate for everyone in a group).

All of this while Co(X/H)2 is being developed. Once the development process is far-enough along, character names can be put on reserve based on if they exist in CoX (IE: If I made a toon in CoX, then that hero's name would be put on reserve in CoX2). Additional funding can be brought in through crowdfunding at this step. Crowfunding rewards can vary from an in-game badge, to advanced alpha/beta access (and several tiers in between including advanced access to powersets in CoX2 like what happened with the GR pre-order).

A closed beta could happen for those whom have payed a certain amount in subs in CoX (plus those who crowdfunded at a certain level), then a second closed beta for those who have existing CoX accounts at a certain date (and again, those who crowdfunded at a certain level). Finally followed by an open beta. Throughout this beta stage, people could have the chance to try Co(H/X)2 and claim their toon's name. Names can be reserved for a month after release, at which point they're freed up. If people aren't impressed with the release, or want to wait until later on, then they get priority on that toon's name if they ever go back later (or perhaps you could pay some annual fee to keep all names tied to that account on reserve) with the existing toon being issued a rename token.

I feel, at this point with the information we have, that getting CoX back is kind of going to be more of a step to having a proper sequel, as well as getting our home back. I think there's a good chunk of us who agree that there's no point struggling to develop brand new content for CoX, when that time and effort could be better spent developing a brand new experience with CoX2.

Again sorry for my wall-of-text posts. I tend to lurk for a few days, then let it all out at once.

[r00tb0ySlim]

This is step 289, we're still working on Step 1. How can anyone answer you?

You obviously cannot......now remove that stick and have a better day  ;)

[Risha]

I would love I24.  I strained to my limit to fund COT during the kickstarter.  BUT IF I GET CoX IN MAINTENANCE MODE AT i23 I WOULD SUBSCRIBE FOREVER.  If I got it as as an-offline not-nearly-as-fun-as-teaming game, I would be ecstatic.  When I became a full-time writer, I played CoX every day for years.  This has been an incredibly difficult time for me with the game being gone and IRL issues.

I never explored everything.  I never did many of the builds.  I was seriously behind in keeping up with the game when it closed.  I made incarnate on 1 of my toons about 2 weeks before it closed.  Yes, there are some maps I played so much I remember them (the Midnighter Missions), and some missions I always did to get the reward (the wedding band), so I know those to nearly nausea.  But, as a writer, the stories drew me in and I DIDN'T know all the stories.

I will support the new successor projects, I will support COH2, but, again, I don't see myself walking away from the game as it was even if it's only in maintenance mode.