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Ridiculous Question

Started by GUGuardian, March 30, 2015, 03:32:11 PM

FloatingFatMan

Quote from: JanessaVR on April 03, 2015, 07:56:58 PM
Ha, ha, so true.  I've worked for companies that actually said (with a straight face!) that they expected me to keep the primary copy of my source code library on a network drive somewhere.  Trying hard not to laugh, I say "Sure, will do." and then proceed to work from local copies as I always do and backup everything I've changed to the network drive at the end of the day before going home (just delete the project folders on the network and replace them with my local PC project folders - takes less than a minute typically).  I've no idea why anyone expects developers to actually not do this.

I even have a batch file that does it for me... :p

TonyV

Quote from: Arcana on April 02, 2015, 08:47:43 PM
If a City of Heroes server was a program then this objection would be valid.  But its not: its actually a constellation of programs, and any credible software developer would presume such.  As a result, even if you had the entire source tree including the make tree (in this case, Visual C++ project files) what that would buy you is the actual executables.  You would still have to determine how they worked with each other, and that would be yet another time consuming step.  Again, not impossible, but not trivial.

I know that.  City of Heroes consisted of many executables running various pieces of the back-end.  There was an authentication server executable, for example, and a database interface server, a map server (many instances of which were running at any given time for each zone instance), chat servers, base servers, market servers, etc.  City of Heroes wasn't a program, it would more accurately be described as a "system" of programs all working together, communicating with each other, to provide the game as a whole.

And in case anyone is wondering, no, I wasn't a developer and never worked on the back end.  Yes, that was proprietary knowledge that wasn't put out there in the public.  Yes, that's a fairly common setup for any kind of large software system (ever worked with SAP before? ugh...).  And yes, I may have subtly pumped developers for inside information like that while I was at Player Summits and whatnot, stuff that I would ask them out of genuine technical curiosity, stuff that I probably wouldn't say publicly if it weren't for the fact that the game were shut down because I wouldn't want anyone to get in trouble.

But there's not much difference between a single large program with a bunch of source files and a bunch of smaller programs with a bunch of source files other than whoever inherited the source code would have to determine how they interoperated with each other.  Again, it might be a bit tedious, but not what I would call "hard" if you have the source files.

Quote from: Arcana on April 02, 2015, 08:47:43 PM
And all of this is under the context of how difficult it would be for NCSoft to do, not the acquisition team, because the stated premise of my original statement was that NCSoft might not want to disclose or sell the source code itself.

I'm not sure why you would think we would interpret what you said that way.  What I was directly taking issue with was this assertion:

Quote from: Arcana on March 31, 2015, 07:23:20 PM
If NCSoft wanted us to go away, the absolute best, most obvious way to do that would have been for NCSoft to tell the negotiating team they had destroyed all copies of the server software and source code as part of the shutdown.

If NCsoft said they had destroyed all running server instances, I might find that plausible, even if a bit unbelievable.  But if NCsoft told the negotiating team they had destroyed all copies of the source code?  No way in hell would I ever believe that.  If they said that they had destroyed all copies of the executables, not just the instances that were running on the game servers, I'd be extremely skeptical of that as well.  I'm certain to the point of being willing to wager a large sum of money on the fact that they still have copies of all of the source code and various build targets, including the latest live and beta build targets, as well as probably dozens to hundreds of pages of documentation (at least soft copies) on how to set up, configure, and run those builds.

It may not be pretty, but if nothing else, Paragon Studios would have required that to account for developer turnover internally, and companies hoard that kind of stuff religiously.  I know that at my job, I sometimes still run across really arcane stuff like shift logs from a couple of decades ago documenting stuff like AS/400 batch jobs that were initiated back in the 1990s.  It's crazy.  Anyway, I'm sure that they had internal documentation on how to run the servers, and NCsoft has it stashed in a file directory somewhere of Paragon Studios archived documents.

Quote from: Arcana on March 31, 2015, 07:23:20 PM
How many developers does NCSoft corporate have that can do this and isn't doing something more important now?

If NCsoft's excuse for not wanting to deal with someone is that they don't want to take the time and effort to engage in this effort, then my simple response is to let someone else do it.  You can still give someone else the source code with the explicit legal agreement that they will not let anyone else have access to it or make changes to it that aren't strictly necessary to run the software in the state that it was running when the game shut down.

Although, with all due respect to Nate and the people who have been talking to NCsoft, this is an extremely bad deal.  In my humble opinion, there's no reason in the world that they shouldn't make having the ability to improve the game part of the deal to obtain the game--that is, at a minimum, they need to get access to the source code and at a bare minimum a license to use the IP (ideally, an outright transfer of the IP) to run the game.  If nothing else, they'll need to be able to fix bugs and exploits that crop up.

Quote from: Arcana on April 02, 2015, 08:47:43 PM
It would take longer just to make a list of all the things you'd need to stand up servers without a server instance image than its likely NCSoft would want to dedicate development staff to actually do.  So if they wanted us to go away they could have simply lied about having backups of the server images, said they didn't want to invest the time to recreate them, and that would be that.

I'm not sure how you figure this.  Like I said, the simple response would be, "Okay, then give us the source code so that we can do it instead."  I for one know that I wouldn't have just said, "Okay..." and gone away.

Quote from: Arcana on April 02, 2015, 08:47:43 PM
Its so high, that, as I said, even if the entire source tree was handed to the acquisition team and they *were* willing to invest the time, the time consumption would be, without outside assistance, extremely high.

I'll make you a deal: You find me a copy of the source code, and I'll find you someone who will can get it up and running within, say, a month at the most.

Quote from: Arcana on April 02, 2015, 08:47:43 PM
Here's a technical point: if I didn't actually state for the record that *one* of the backend databases for a City of Heroes server shard was a SQLserver, would you even know to search the source code for SQL in the first place?.

I know for a fact (unless multiple developers needlessly lied to me) that the database back-end was MS SQL Server.  The server instances running at shutdown were running on 2010 if I recall correctly, but it might have been compatible with earlier versions as well since it was initially developed, of course, before 2010.  I know that they used it in a bit of a funky way, that they didn't just store individual pieces of information in individual fields like most app developers do; that they did stuff like store things as lists or serialized binary data in columns, which is why they always complained that people didn't understand how hard it was to simply query the database for stuff and make changes to the running system.  As I recall, they didn't have much in the way of database programming talent on hand, so they used the database more like just a dumb data store instead of an honest-to-god RDBMS.  Plus, and I didn't get this directly from a dev so I could be wrong about it, but I think the databases weren't actually maintained by Paragon Studios, but by NCsoft out of Austin and/or Seattle, so it's not like Matt Miller could just pull up SQL Management Studio and run a query against the live databases--not even he had that kind of access and had to go through corporate to get something like that done.

Am I in the ballpark of what you're talking about?

Ironwolf

All of getting the pieces together was why I said that a Beta was necessary and that I would make it an open one.

It might be a 6 month long Beta, but I for one would even pay to be in the Beta or Alpha.

Ironwolf

Quote from: TonyV on April 03, 2015, 10:37:03 PM
I know that.  City of Heroes consisted of many executables running various pieces of the back-end.  There was an authentication server executable, for example, and a database interface server, a map server (many instances of which were running at any given time for each zone instance), chat servers, base servers, market servers, etc.  City of Heroes wasn't a program, it would more accurately be described as a "system" of programs all working together, communicating with each other, to provide the game as a whole.

And in case anyone is wondering, no, I wasn't a developer and never worked on the back end.  Yes, that was proprietary knowledge that wasn't put out there in the public.  Yes, that's a fairly common setup for any kind of large software system (ever worked with SAP before? ugh...).  And yes, I may have subtly pumped developers for inside information like that while I was at Player Summits and whatnot, stuff that I would ask them out of genuine technical curiosity, stuff that I probably wouldn't say publicly if it weren't for the fact that the game were shut down because I wouldn't want anyone to get in trouble.

But there's not much difference between a single large program with a bunch of source files and a bunch of smaller programs with a bunch of source files other than whoever inherited the source code would have to determine how they interoperated with each other.  Again, it might be a bit tedious, but not what I would call "hard" if you have the source files.

I'm not sure why you would think we would interpret what you said that way.  What I was directly taking issue with was this assertion:

If NCsoft said they had destroyed all running server instances, I might find that plausible, even if a bit unbelievable.  But if NCsoft told the negotiating team they had destroyed all copies of the source code?  No way in hell would I ever believe that.  If they said that they had destroyed all copies of the executables, not just the instances that were running on the game servers, I'd be extremely skeptical of that as well.  I'm certain to the point of being willing to wager a large sum of money on the fact that they still have copies of all of the source code and various build targets, including the latest live and beta build targets, as well as probably dozens to hundreds of pages of documentation (at least soft copies) on how to set up, configure, and run those builds.

It may not be pretty, but if nothing else, Paragon Studios would have required that to account for developer turnover internally, and companies hoard that kind of stuff religiously.  I know that at my job, I sometimes still run across really arcane stuff like shift logs from a couple of decades ago documenting stuff like AS/400 batch jobs that were initiated back in the 1990s.  It's crazy.  Anyway, I'm sure that they had internal documentation on how to run the servers, and NCsoft has it stashed in a file directory somewhere of Paragon Studios archived documents.

If NCsoft's excuse for not wanting to deal with someone is that they don't want to take the time and effort to engage in this effort, then my simple response is to let someone else do it.  You can still give someone else the source code with the explicit legal agreement that they will not let anyone else have access to it or make changes to it that aren't strictly necessary to run the software in the state that it was running when the game shut down.

Although, with all due respect to Nate and the people who have been talking to NCsoft, this is an extremely bad deal.  In my humble opinion, there's no reason in the world that they shouldn't make having the ability to improve the game part of the deal to obtain the game--that is, at a minimum, they need to get access to the source code and at a bare minimum a license to use the IP (ideally, an outright transfer of the IP) to run the game.  If nothing else, they'll need to be able to fix bugs and exploits that crop up.

I'm not sure how you figure this.  Like I said, the simple response would be, "Okay, then give us the source code so that we can do it instead."  I for one know that I wouldn't have just said, "Okay..." and gone away.

I'll make you a deal: You find me a copy of the source code, and I'll find you someone who will can get it up and running within, say, a month at the most.

I know for a fact (unless multiple developers needlessly lied to me) that the database back-end was MS SQL Server.  The server instances running at shutdown were running on 2010 if I recall correctly, but it might have been compatible with earlier versions as well since it was initially developed, of course, before 2010.  I know that they used it in a bit of a funky way, that they didn't just store individual pieces of information in individual fields like most app developers do; that they did stuff like store things as lists or serialized binary data in columns, which is why they always complained that people didn't understand how hard it was to simply query the database for stuff and make changes to the running system.  As I recall, they didn't have much in the way of database programming talent on hand, so they used the database more like just a dumb data store instead of an honest-to-god RDBMS.  Plus, and I didn't get this directly from a dev so I could be wrong about it, but I think the databases weren't actually maintained by Paragon Studios, but by NCsoft out of Austin and/or Seattle, so it's not like Matt Miller could just pull up SQL Management Studio and run a query against the live databases--not even he had that kind of access and had to go through corporate to get something like that done.

Am I in the ballpark of what you're talking about?

I think when Nate and the group started in all honesty - NCSoft at that point didn't know what it had. The people who knew that were in the US and were gone. I truly believe the people they have are basically middle management and file clerks. It would have taken them a while into the deal to try and gather all the parts together. In fact I would be curious if it didn't violate the NDA to simply know is it stored in the US or in South Korea? If in the US - I think you have a better chance of getting most of it back.

primeknight

#124
Quote from: GUGuardian on March 30, 2015, 03:32:11 PM
I specialize in ridiculous questions, so I'm going to ask this (or, rather, these):

How big a waste of time would it be for the entire CoH-loving community to BOYCOTT NCSoft?  Are the other games they offer really that good that no one would put them aside to demand NCSoft stop dictating to us what's playable and what's not?  Would anyone be willing to make the effort to demand either a re-release, a sequel inside of a year, or a standalone game (standalone or able to link up with people without servers)?

How much do we want our City back?

Sorry to get off topic, but I'm going to answer the original question:

I have yet to purchase anything form NCSoft since the closure.  I was the kind of player who just left the subscription active for months without playing because I wanted to support the game.  Very coincidentally I stopped my subscription a month before the closure announcement because my life was so busy I hadn't really played in over a year other than to log on an get anniversary badges. 

The closure jaded me for any MMO:  I've played Star Wars (TOR), Star Trek, And Final Fantasy XIV (awakened) since then and I couldn't get attached to any of those games knowing full well my game could be taken away at anytime.  I'm also the kind of person that holds onto every video game I've ever owned in the off chance that I'll have a chance to play one of them.  Tonight I could go home and play Zelda OoT on the N64 or the Game Cube (or technically the Wii), Mario Kart on the SNES, or Smash Bros.  (pick one).  I miss playing as my Hero Avatars and saving the world of Paragon City from Evil, or giant robots, or even boredom. 

If NCSoft republished the game right where it left off I'm not sure I'd purchase a subscription.  The trust is gone, and I also lost respect for the company as a whole.

I think of NCSoft like this:  they went out of their way to purchase the game from Cryptic: as in they wanted the property, and at one time they wanted to do something with it.  Paragon Studios did a wonderful job developing the title: I enjoyed the game more under their direction  than under what Cryptic was turning the game into.  The game itself was profitable.  And the studio wasn't, but it was making headway on several other projects.  NCsoft took profitable system and closed it much to the disappointment of many people.  NCSoft fired a successful team of talented people who loved their work: NCSoft took away their livelihood.  So NCSoft and are aren't really cool anymore. 

I like games, I play them when I get a chance.  And I'm selective.  NCSoft has yet to sell another product I want to try, and they got rid of the one I did like.   They have nothing I want. 

Power Gamer

Quote from: primeknight on April 04, 2015, 12:10:45 AM
Sorry to get off topic, but I'm going to answer the original question:

I have yet to purchase anything form NCSoft since the closure.  I was the kind of player who just left the subscription active for months without playing because I wanted to support the game.  Very coincidentally I stopped my subscription a month before the closure announcement because my life was so busy I hadn't really played in over a year other than to log on an get anniversary badges. 

The closure jaded me for any MMO:  I've played Star Wars (TOR), Star Trek, And Final Fantasy XIV (awakened) since then and I couldn't get attached to any of those games knowing full well my game could be taken away at anytime.  I'm also the kind of person that holds onto every video game I've ever owned in the off chance that I'll have a chance to play one of them.  Tonight I could go home and play Zelda OoT on the N64 or the Game Cube (or technically the Wii), Mario Kart on the SNES, or Smash Bros.  (pick one).  I miss playing as my Hero Avatars and saving the world of Paragon City from Evil, or giant robots, or even boredom. 

If NCSoft republished the game right where it left off I'm not sure I'd purchase a subscription.  The trust is gone, and I also lost respect for the company as a whole.

I think of NCSoft like this:  they went out of their way to purchase the game from Cryptic: as in they wanted the property, and at one time they wanted to do something with it.  Paragon Studios did a wonderful job developing the title: I enjoyed the game under their direction than under Cryptic was turning the game into.  The game itself was profitable.  And the studio wasn't, but it was making headway on several other projects.  NCsoft took profitable system and closed it much to the disappointment of many people.  NCSoft fired a successful team of talented people who loved their work: NCSoft took away their livelihood.  So NCSoft and are aren't really cool anymore. 

I like games, I play them when I get a chance.  And I'm selective.  NCSoft has yet to sell another product I want to try, and they got rid of the one I did like.   They have nothing I want. 


Wow. Good response.

I'm not boycotting but like primeknight, NCSoft has no properties I'm interested in. Other than CoX.
It takes a village to raise a child. And it takes a villain to explain the value of lunch money.

-Random CoHer: "Why does the sky turn green during Rikti invasions?"
-Me:"Rikti Monkey farts"
-Random CoHer: "I'm going to you for all my questions from now on!"

Abraxus

I think I am on-board with the whole "NCSoft has nothing I want" sentiment.  The exception, of course, would be the IP for CoH to be sold to Nate and company.  At that point, they become a vendor who provided a product to the people to whom I would be paying a subscription.  I know NCSoft would likely benefit from that, and while that aspect does not please me at all, it is a demonstration of how much I am willing to compromise to get my game back.
What was no more, is now reborn!

Ohioknight

Quote from: Burnt Toast on April 01, 2015, 04:57:02 PM
If the negotiations fall through it will be posted.

Even if that is prohibited by an NDA? 

NDAs disappear when deals fall through?
"Wow, a fat, sarcastic, Star Trek fan, you must be a devil with the ladies"

Ohioknight

Quote from: Sinistar on April 02, 2015, 09:16:04 PM
This brings up an interesting question: What features of CoH could we go without having to get the game back up and running, and just let these features be rebuilt for the CoH 1.5 instead.
1. The Market
2. Email
3. Global Chat, this one should be a must restore if nothing else.
4. Supergroups
5. The Arena
6. The AE
and some others that I am not able to remember at the moment.

That might not be the point.  If they are trying to stand up a server set and the systems are looking for the Email and it's not obvious (as apparently may be the case) what the systems are looking for, they might not be ABLE to stand up the server without email or to easily stub out that function.
"Wow, a fat, sarcastic, Star Trek fan, you must be a devil with the ladies"

Codewalker

Don't forget that most people working at Paragon were not programmers and would have no reason to have source code lying around, or even have access to it to begin with. The vast majority of staff were designers, along with some artists, writers, and QA testers. From what I've been able to gather, the number of actual programmers working there varied from 5 or 6, possibly down to as few as 1 at some points. That's one of the reasons so many things were deferred because they would require programmer time to fix, and why they tended to go for hacks and workarounds in the data instead.

Designers wouldn't need to (or want to) have source code. They would have the spreadsheets and the text version of the data files that the spreadsheets were used to create, probably using some scripts. Those data files were compiled into binary format and packaged into piggs. There's no reason to believe the process was any different for the client and the server, as on multiple occasions they demonstrated just how easy it was to relocate data from one to the other, such as when badge hint descriptions were removed from the client, or when the full power effects magically appeared in the client data around I11 to make real numbers possible.

Designers most likely had a debug version of the game to compile those data files. The release version that we have does contain some vestiges of it and is capable of compiling text to bin, but the only way to access that is by hacking the exe to rewrite the code to call normally unused portions. But they wouldn't need the source code to do that, just the debug exe provided by the programming team. I doubt most designers knew how to compile the thing or even had Visual Studio installed; there would be no reason to license it for people who would never use it.

Anyway, point to my story is that with so few people having access to the code, I highly doubt anyone would risk leaking it, even if they had kept a copy locally. It would cast suspicion on a very small group of people.

You'd be somewhat more likely to encounter a developer setup, which consists of debug builds of the client and server executables (loaded with performance killing sanity checks / monitoring hooks and asserting at the first sign of trouble), and an data tree with text files versions of the game data. While you could use that to set up a server, it would be less than optimal and people would have to use the debug client to connect -- I highly doubt the I23 or I24 release clients would work with it.

Rejolt

Quote from: Ankhammon on April 03, 2015, 04:28:33 AM
I think if you stayed teamed often you will get the swift fun effect and be ok. You'll get your drops and then be able to IO a toon in a month.

Just make sure the first one is something good. Not like an elec blaster or anything. :)

I... ah.. um...

MEAN!

(runs to Icon to make sure elec/shield brute is good to go)
Rejolt Industries LLC is now a thing. Woo!

Twisted Toon

Quote from: Ohioknight on April 04, 2015, 01:43:49 AM
Even if that is prohibited by an NDA? 

NDAs disappear when deals fall through?
That would depend on what the NDA was for, I would guess.

I have signed a few NDAs that are still on going, despite the fact that I am no longer working at the company for which I had signed the NDA, and I don't know whether the projects that were going on while I was there are still going on. However, the NDAs I signed are persistant NDAs that will never go away until the government decides that they will...which will be about the week after the end of the Universe.

Most companies, and most certainly, MMO production companies don't normally need infinitely perpetual NDAs for negotiations. So, I would guess that once the negotiations are finished, for better or worse, the NDA forbidding the discussion of the negotiations will, most likely, lapse.
Hope never abandons you, you abandon it. - George Weinberg

Hope ... is not a feeling; it is something you do. - Katherine Paterson

Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy. - Cynthia Nelms

Ankhammon

Quote from: Twisted Toon on April 04, 2015, 07:02:37 AM
That would depend on what the NDA was for, I would guess.

I have signed a few NDAs that are still on going, despite the fact that I am no longer working at the company for which I had signed the NDA, and I don't know whether the projects that were going on while I was there are still going on. However, the NDAs I signed are persistant NDAs that will never go away until the government decides that they will...which will be about the week after the end of the Universe.

Most companies, and most certainly, MMO production companies don't normally need infinitely perpetual NDAs for negotiations. So, I would guess that once the negotiations are finished, for better or worse, the NDA forbidding the discussion of the negotiations will, most likely, lapse.

Even if it were in affect and negotiation fell through there would be ways of saying it without breaking any contract. If Nate were to jump on and say that he was now able to focus solely on CoT that would spell it out clearly and still not recognize any negotiations ever took place.

Cogito, Ergo... eh?

Ankhammon

Quote from: Rejolt on April 04, 2015, 06:01:02 AM
I... ah.. um...

MEAN!

(runs to Icon to make sure elec/shield brute is good to go)

My first victory against Jolty... and it's a forum post.

Does this help my pvp cred?
Cogito, Ergo... eh?

Ultimate15

Quote from: Arcana on April 01, 2015, 08:48:12 PM
I have no direct knowledge of what is happening with the buyout team.  But I suspect that two different things are happening.  The first is that the technical details of how to even get everything up and running - and whether they have enough to do that at all - is being worked out.  The second is that I suspect there were conditions to the buyout that the buyout team may have needed time to satisfy.  For example, if I was NCSoft I would not negotiate with a bunch of individuals.  I would only negotiate with an actual corporation, and that corporate entity would need to satisfy a set of basic requirements.  Official incorporation, officers, audited financials or statement of financial viability, etc.  Those things could have taken significant time to materialize.

Plus, if this is something that their contacts at NCSoft are doing unofficially in their spare time, and not as some actual official NCSoft project, its possible *everything* is taking longer just because its no one's top priority.  You might send someone an email and you might get a reply days later.  Something that could be hashed out in a two hour conversation could take three weeks to ping pong back and forth.

Agreed.

I think the majority of us are at a stage now where we're divided into two camps: there's one camp that believes that we've reached a point of no return and if NCSoft had wanted to 'fork it over', they would have done it by now - and there's the camp that fights to maintain the notion that it's SUPPOSED to take this long, and insists on reminding people that there could/can be countless, COUNTLESS factors at play here that could very well be incredibly valid reasons for why no outcome has been concluded. I personally find myself more in the latter camp as opposed to the former, but the patience thing only gets more and more difficult as time goes on.

But yeah - I do too believe that if I were NCSoft, I would be incredibly reluctant to negotiate with just Nate and Nate alone regarding something as serious and grand as this. Admittedly, I was even a little disheartened when I first heard it was Nate who was running this whole shindig - of course, I maintain gratitude and confidence in all that he's doing...but when IronWolf initially came forward and gave everyone here on the Titan Forums the skinny regarding what was going down, I thought for SURE that it was a financially prosperous and reputable/well-known gaming COMPANY that had been driving the ship. Now, I'm not sure who else Nate has on his team besides IrishGirl - for all we know, there could be other 'heroes' who have since then come to his aid in providing assistance (whether it be as financial backers or just in the way of tips/advice as to how to go about this in the best way possible).

Also - the notion that this has only been operating in an 'unofficial' capacity on NCSoft's end has crossed my mind multiple times. There's no way to tell just how serious or not serious they're taking Nate, and I don't think - as many people want to believe - that the NDA's are a sign that the deal is 'going somewhere'. I would LIKE to believe that, as a generally optimistic person *laughs* - but I don't believe this to be the case. I think there are most likely NDA's in place because NDA's are common practice with negotiations such as this, regardless of the level at which such negotiations currently stand.

However...I do remember IronWolf stating that they were talking to the 'right person', or something? And there was a figure thrown out there, and that figure was 'doable' from Nate's end? Granted, I'm pretty sure I had read that back in the fall, so who knows what's changed since then. 

I just hope that if/when a 'point of no return' is reached with this and it is 100% obvious and evident to Nate that the deal isn't going to happen and we need to go back to the drawing board...that he would communicate that somehow. Of course, he doesn't HAVE to communicate anything he doesn't want to. That's just my personal hope with it all.
Viva la Virtue!

Rejolt

#135
Quote from: Ankhammon on April 04, 2015, 03:50:23 PM
My first victory against Jolty... and it's a forum post.

Does this help my pvp cred?

Probably but more for the rarity. I hardly pvp'd and those that did fight me brought 20 blues... Jerks! Also, I plan on remaking Rejolt as a dominator so you just did that annoying trick of telling me what to do when I was already doing it.

Original point: I'm in the camp of nothing else NCSoft makes that makes them big bucks has interested me. I gravitate toward modern-era rpg (city of heroes), Sci-fi (tabula rasa, exsteel, auto assault) and NCSoft shut them down.

The one thing that they have is Wildstar. If COH comes back I may give their "wow in space" a shot.

Edit: I've harped on making shuttered Mmos into iPhone games before and exsteel is a perfect candidate. It was already freemium, arena/counter-strike based and best played in short bursts.
Rejolt Industries LLC is now a thing. Woo!

Ironwolf

The new group that would run the game is not Nate.

They had the backing to buy the game at the price offered or nothing further would happen and NCSoft would certainly make sure the money is in Escrow at this point.

Nate wants the IP. I believe he is still in the conversations - but possibly not as much as you might think. Unless there has been a change he was not planning to be the one running the old game. Irish Girl as far as I know works for no one but herself with CoH APR. CoT has offered to help with the costume creator - but the development is Irish Girl's.

Cailyn Alaynn

It's not just Nate working on the sale, there are more people involved and have been from early on. He's just the person in charge, so he's the one that's talked about most. Nobody's named names yet, and it's not really my place to. and while I'm privy to details that most people aren't, I'm not directly involved with the sale.

I think for better or worse is the truth is that most gaming companies aren't very interested in a deal like this. Unless they had a vested personal interest in CoH. Most gaming studios tend to want to either work on their own I.P., or a big name I.P. that they're fans of. Add on top of that the incredible financial burden that something like this would place on the company. Buying the I.P., Overhauling the game, Q/A and testing, Promotional costs...and having to still maintain overhead (Paying for office space, paying the people working on it). It's big, it's expensive, and risky...there's no guarantee that anyone beyond our little community would come play.

Money's not the issue, and you're remembering correctly. NCSoft gave a rough estimate cost near the beginning and it was, to quote Nate, "Very doable."

Based on all the information I have, I do not think NCSoft is stringing us along when it's much easier to just say no.
But we're dealing with something they've never done before...and they keep getting hit with other, larger issues... like WildStar failing, and Nexon trying to steal their Pie, and then of course finding out that people were embezzling from them.
"Let's get dangerous..."
Lead Developer and Master of Mischief - Revival Project.
Revival website: APR.Pc-Logix.com

Noyjitat

I gotta admit, I am seeing unexpected posts from some people here.

Morale feels kinda shot so hopefully we'll get some sort of actual news soon.

Burnt Toast


It may seem like morale is down; especially considering the statements from some people...but... I will say it again and again.


Nothing CAN be reported officially at this time due to the NDA, but the negotiations are ongoing and as soon as something can be disclosed...it will be. I know it's frustrating, but there is nothing that can be done about the lack of new information. You just have to have trust in Nate et al that they are fighting for everyone to return to Paragon... and that no matter what happens...as soon as something can be said...it will be said.





Quote from: Noyjitat on April 05, 2015, 03:48:59 AM
I gotta admit, I am seeing unexpected posts from some people here.

Morale feels kinda shot so hopefully we'll get some sort of actual news soon.