And the mask comes off.

[Burnt Toast]

I THINK I have this right:


CoHi23 comes back as is...and in the meantime they will work on putting CoH1.5 onto Unreal 4. Once CoH1.5 is ready to go they will TRY to port over all our data from CoHi23. Once we are in CoH 1.5 then they can add stuff to it....


That is how I am understanding it. so basically CoHi23...for about a year-ish while they make CoH1.5. So CoH will still be around even after Windows 9 since CoH1.5 can run on Windows 9.


So for example.. I run Windows 7...and if I decide to upgrade to Windows 9... I need to wait for CoH1.5 to come out.




Am I right?? close??

[Ohioknight]

Depends on negotiations. My hope is to self-host by the holding company.

Thanks for the clarification, Downix {and again, just a general "THANK YOU"}

I guess for now its "The Holding Company"

_{(how about WHIP for We have IP)}

[Kistulot]

It's really hard to be certain. most of  reports I've had on the game part of the engine has not been what I would call kindly spoken of.  That said, the community has a lot of collected data that can be examined.  Even with that and careful study, the number of variables are such that I have to expect that it will be "mostly" alike and hopefully that will be adequate for everyone.  The question becomes one of what is a better use of time?  Rebuilding Paragon and Co in another mechanics engine ( H&V, CoT, etc ) or doing the best to emulate CoH in a new codebase.

I don't envy the decision makers there.

If I had it my way, I'd be fine with indefinite maintenance - and that's honestly something I wish was on the table. One of those ways its just enough 'off' may be something that makes it a whole lot lesser in some way... but hope springs eternal, and I have faith that with enough time and effort, something fun can come out of all of this

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Thanks so much, Irish Girl, for even attempting to salvage CoH.  Who exactly will be reverse-engineering it and  running it, and do they have any sort of time frame of how long that will take?

Right now it's pretty much just me working on it, and unfortunately I'm spending the next week packing and cleaning to move. (I should be packing right now, actually. Heh)
I don't have a time frame, I wish I did. It kind of depends on if it stays just me, or if...and how many...people join the project.
Really, I think that's going to depend on talks between myself and the licensing company that (hopefully) picks up the license.

[Mentalshock]

It's been a long, long road from the forming of TFHM till now.

I'd like to thank everyone involved, from IronWolf to Rae to Nate. I like to think I helped here and there, as well.

Irish, there's a lot of work to do, but I can't wait to see you guys do it.

It's just such a relief to finally be able to talk about it.

- Warcabbit

  No kidding.   Considering it was my initial idea that triggered VV and the others to make the inital attempt, to see someone else pick up the ball and run with it as far as it will go makes me proud.

[Ohioknight]

Lmao! Thanks. Yeah, I'm going to be picturing myself very politely screaming in everyones faces all day now!

Hey Irish Girl, thanks to you too for your part in this.

If you rebuild AE functionality, may I suggest that when you rebuild Base Builder you use a variant of AE rather than re-create as it was originally developed??? -- just a thought/suggestion (I hope you have the opportunity for it to be a problem)

[SypherVendetta]

I was one of those naysayers that believed coh was dead, i believed at the time that nothing would happen and was frustrated with people who followed this ideal that it could be revived, looking back on my decision to be that way well i hate to admit it but maybe i was wrong, and i applaud everyone's faith and hope in the revival of city of heroes.

That being said i have a question, it was my understanding that even 2 years ago NCSoft were looking to make COH2 anyway, the acquisition of Unreal Engine 4 and the unnamed titles they had in the pipeline suggested this, Matt Miller referenced this in his youtube video about buying the game when they knew months in advance which prompted them to be asked by NCSoft to make COH2 but that quickly fell on it's head once the shutdown was confirmed outright, can you confirm if there was any mention of this at all?

I made a facebook post on the coh survivors page (before being perma banned) about the proof i had that this is what they were doing, i know it won't happen now, but maybe getting funding approval from NCSoft to help the revival team may be a good option in the long run and could be the best move for everyone, but my main concern is that will make it 4 super hero online games, some of us work, some of us don't have the time to log in to all of them including games we currently play now, will there be some kind of integration between the 4 if all of this goes the way we want it to?

An idea if you do see this a business venture is that each time you log in to a game you get a boost on your account for the next game to use for leveling then once you log in to game b you get a double boost for game B and so forth, you catch my drift? that could be a potential time shaver for people who are paying gold customers or even F2P if you wanted and are too busy to play all of them, it gives them the incentive to play them then.

Thanks again Nate and everyone else for their hard work, if you're ever in cardiff wales, i will personally buy you a beer 

[Kistulot]

If you rebuild AE functionality, may I suggest that when you rebuild Base Builder you use a variant of AE rather than re-create as it was originally developed??? -- just a thought/suggestion (I hope you have the opportunity for it to be a problem)

You mean you don't love stacking gray counters?

[themamboman]

Ok....

--CoH comes back, frozen at issue 23. Nothing new to ever be added to it. Also, it will be gone again with the arrival of Windows 9, this time never to return.

--When the Coming Storm (Windows 9) arrives, players will have to choose one (or more) successor to continue playing. Each successor will take the IP and go off on their own, effectively as alternate universes that can (but may not) reference the original game. So CoH will die again, but live on in altered form. Analogy: Superman the comic is cancelled, but you can continue on with Christopher Reeve Superman, Brandon Routh Superman, Tom Welling Superman, Henry Cavill Superman, DCAU Superman, or some other iteration, as you prefer.

About right?

Highly unlikely that they'd tell the players to upgrade the day Win9 is released.  That would be extremely uncool.  However, depending on the state of the CoH1.5, it may, in fact, cause many players to avoid the upgrade (or keep an older machine around).

[MM3squints]

You mean you don't love stacking gray counters?

For some reason I forgot what the number of max pieces you are allow to have in a SG base before it crashes

[Kistulot]

For some reason I forgot what the number of max pieces you are allow to have in a SG base before it crashes

It is insanely high. I did a lot with my small little one-room-and-a-secret-alcove (mostly just for IO storage because I was saving purps for my PB)

[Shard]

CoHi23 comes back as is...and in the meantime they will work on putting CoH1.5 onto Unreal 4. Once CoH1.5 is ready to go they will TRY to port over all our data from CoHi23. Once we are in CoH 1.5 then they can add stuff to it....

I would expect that CoHi23 will live as long as we can rationally keep it up. None of the conversations I have been in have suggested anything resembling a full cutover.  That said, we all have to realisticly expect that CoHi23 is on life support.

[Blackshear]

Well, I will stick to my previous strategy:  Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, wait patiently.  Ironwolf did a good job reporting what he could of the situation in a way that kept my expectations realistic.  His posts were so informative that Downix's post contained no bombshells at all for me.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I won't give up hope even if this effort fails.  CoH will continue to devalue the longer it remains inactive, and NCSoft's personnel will change over time.  I think sooner or later NCSoft will be willing to let the property go.

[Risha]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  Thank you, Nate and team.  Thank you Irish Girl.  Thank you Ironwolf.

If I had it my way, I'd be fine with indefinite maintenance - and that's honestly something I wish was on the table. One of those ways its just enough 'off' may be something that makes it a whole lot lesser in some way... but hope springs eternal, and I have faith that with enough time and effort, something fun can come out of all of this

Well, I just took an XP computer offline but kept for some other old programs.  I would probably be there for CoX I23 in maintenance mode forever, as well as subscribing to new game(s), until the new games won me over.   I understand that as an old and cranky program it might break, and, as someone said, having backups would be good (I am not a tech).

Thank you

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Hey Irish Girl, thanks to you too for your part in this.

If you rebuild AE functionality, may I suggest that when you rebuild Base Builder you use a variant of AE rather than re-create as it was originally developed??? -- just a thought/suggestion (I hope you have the opportunity for it to be a problem)

There are some really cool ideas floating around for A.E. and Bases, but those are both beasts that will be tackled much later on. They might not even be present in an initial release.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

I know the details arent final yet, but  I have to be the downer here.

1.How much will it cost for subscribers to get on  the revived COH ?

2. Will it be monthly plans agian or some one time fee?

3.If the game is free to play again, will subscribers at least get something special for paying month after month again until the shift over to REVIVAL? I know incarnate content is the reward and all, but $15 a month for a relaunched 2003 game is gonna be kinda hard to sell to folks without incentives .

I'll be there of course and your plan for the game sounds great overall. I just am curious as to the three questions I asked thats all

Unfortunately, I think it's way to early for there to be answers to these questions.

[LaughingAlex]

Rebuilding AE, hmmm, my suggestions.  Allow for map designing.  Really.  Alot of the warehouses and the office maps, sewer maps to were all very linear, i'd love to see people including z axis and more interesting non-linear map design.  Non linear map design is the pre-requisite in many ways to non-linear multiple choice gameplay to, in many ways.  Imagine being presented with a multiple choice scenario, where the choice you make isn't in the dialogue, but in what pathway you chose to do simply from moving down that pathway know?

[Cailyn Alaynn]

I would expect that CoHi23 will live as long as we can rationally keep it up. None of the conversations I have been in have suggested anything resembling a full cutover.  That said, we all have to realisticly expect that CoHi23 is on life support.

The hope is to make it so that when Revival launches people don't look at it and go "Ugh, since I23 doesn't work well anymore I GUESS I'll go play that P.O.S." and instead go "Hey! It's City of Heroes, but with new and awesome stuff!"
If it's not home, I haven't done my job well enough.

[The Fifth Horseman]

The whole Windows 9 thing is confusing me... are you saying that when Windows 9 hits... CoH Issue 23... won't work??
Can someone dumb it down for me?

CoH was originally released when Windows 98 was not entirely off the market yet. No software exists on its' own - and the problem here is it's not just old, it's built for old supporting packages. After a while backwards compatibility is dropped - or outright breaks due to other changes, and nobody gets around to fixing it.
The "maintenance mode only" deal means that they can't patch any issues that may appear when running the game in Win 9.

Thanks Nate, I am grateful for the efforts. Is source code access completely off the table? This "holding company", they are the ones to basically port the existing i23 binary to a new updated engine? Or did I not understand what you posted..?

If source is off the table, so is porting the game. APR would not be a "port" but a recreation of the game from scratch using completely different engine and tools.

Is it possible to elaborate upon the code situation?
1: without the source code, is it possible to add new powers to the game (with or without new animations), or are the various databases hard-coded into the source code rather than maintained in an external database?
2: if it is possible to add new powers, does the studio intend to add future issues with new powers, powersets, etcetera, or is there no chance, or is it still up in the air depending on what tools are found that can be used to edit the databases?

Without source code, nothing can be added. Whether powers can be modified (balance etc) depends on how much of the numbers and power mechanics are hardcoded into the server.

Here's my question [rhetorical only at this point]: if we get the game back, are we going to be able to use the game version we have DLed on our PC, the original one I mean? Or would we have to buy and install a new one?
Is the old version so tied to our original accounts that we could not use it? I would happily buy a new copy, I'm just curious

From what I understand (and I might be wrong), it's just a matter of pointing the client to a new authentication server. This can be done without the need for anything but a specially made shortcut.

So, why is it assumed that Windows 9 will be incompatible?  Do they drop support for ancient OpenGL?

It's not assumed, but if it turns out to be so, there won't be any way to patch the game.

I remember reading somewhere that the community used to help with coding and stuff when we played CoH? Correct me if I am wrong.  Maybe when we finally get the game, and see what there is there are those who are much more cleverminded to sort/fix any faults in the code that would prevent implementing it? Or is it a problem that noone actually has the update, because it wasn't downloaded or patched into the game??  Sorry if that was really neanderthal.

Reasonably sure that either you misread something, or the parties involved are under NDAs regarding the source code. TFHM would have a running copy of a server, but not the source code. Thus, no fixes, ever.

[Xenos]

Thank you Nate (et al) for the update and your efforts. And thank you giving us hope that CoH might return to life.

I know there will be time for questions later, but as you mention Windows 9, I am wondering if any consideration been given to the Mac version of COH? I fully realize that it represents an additional layer in what I am sure is a complex deal, but with a growing base of Mac users, it might be something worth considering. If its too complicated, no biggie, but if the Transgaming Mac client could be part of the deal it might be a nice asset.

In any case, best of luck.