And the mask comes off.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Sadly, we'll probably never know what Paragon had planned for Pretoria in the future.  Of course, with a new team at the helm, there's no reason that Issue 25 (or, more likely, Vol 2, Issue 1) can't have some Incarnates dealing with Pretorian Hamidon while the majority deals with the Battalion.

Hrm... if only there was someone in this thread who might end up in a position of authority on such matters...

Oh wait. ;P

[Arcana]

That story was... impressive. It really is one of those moments where a part of me goes "how did CoH never just randomly implode from someone walking backwards, to the left, and then hopping twice?"

In July (I think) of 2004 Triumph randomly imploded.  I was logged in, playing, and poof, d/c.  I logged back in and discovered that everyone else had been kicked simultaneously. 

Also, I was stuck in a mountain and couldn't get out.  At all.

No one I knew with teleport logged back on for quite some time, so while I waited for a friend to teleport me back to the surface world I flew around under the map and randomly shot at the feet of spawns that other players were street sweeping.

That's some serious mind screw there when the game is only a few months old, most of the players aren't really sure what's normal and what's not, they can't see you, you're playing an energy blaster with a lot of knockback, and you can actually shoot critters that are standing on the ground.  If you were a player on Triumph in July of 2004, were logged in on crash day, and had critters randomly erupt from the street in Talos Island while you were street sweeping: sorry.

I think after that day, developers were no longer allowed to hop in the office.

[Safehouse]

In July (I think) of 2004 Triumph randomly imploded.  I was logged in, playing, and poof, d/c.  I logged back in and discovered that everyone else had been kicked simultaneously. 

Also, I was stuck in a mountain and couldn't get out.  At all.

No one I knew with teleport logged back on for quite some time, so while I waited for a friend to teleport me back to the surface world I flew around under the map and randomly shot at the feet of spawns that other players were street sweeping.

That's some serious mind screw there when the game is only a few months old, most of the players aren't really sure what's normal and what's not, they can't see you, you're playing an energy blaster with a lot of knockback, and you can actually shoot critters that are standing on the ground.  If you were a player on Triumph in July of 2004, were logged in on crash day, and had critters randomly erupt from the street in Talos Island while you were street sweeping: sorry.

I think after that day, developers were no longer allowed to hop in the office.

The mental images that I have from that story are pretty hilarious. I keep imagining someone trying to fight off Hellions and then seeing them go flying back for no apparent reason. There must've been chaos on Triumph that day!

[Lava-Lad]

I am so tempted to fire up Mids and start planning. I'm holding back to be safe and not get caught up by expectation. But after being away from CoH for so long, I really hope the deal goes through.

I have started rolling leveling SO builds (it's like a blast from the past - pre the invention system)!

[CrimsonCapacitor]

That quote always makes me gigglecackle like a mad scientist uncontrollably.

And that's different than normal... how, exactly?

[blacksly]

3a.  Without the source code, are we crippled in terms of adding or altering content?  Not necessarily.  The game content was not explicitly "programmed" into the game engine, it resided in database files that its no secret people have been decoding and reverse engineering since the days of Iakona (and me, and Codewalker, and lots of others).  It is possible, if difficult, to add things like power sets to the game without the explicit source code.  It might require some hacks to make work, but nothing outside the wheelhouse of, say, Icon's developers.  When Codewalker threatens to keep nerfing regen in I24, that's not just possible, but way too easy for him.  Without the appropriate dev tools, some things would be a lot harder than others - like say making those damn escort critters actually follow your ass correctly - but nothing's impossible, even without source.  Difficult, possibly prohibitively so in some cases, but anything that only involves data (geography, entity definitions, power definitions, basic mission design) is probably at least somewhat modifiable without source.

That's kind of what I thought... we may be able to keep adding new powers and powersets (animations may be more of an issue), and thus keep issuing new Issues for a while.

Another possible advantage may be that the tools used to edit the databases... may well be separate from the rest of the source code. Frankly, they really should be. So it may be possible to acquire database-editing tools for the powers, NPCs, maybe even sounds & animation databases, without having to delve into source code. Especially since we wouldn't want/need to adjust them, so getting an executable database-editing module is good enough, we would not need the source code for it.

[downix]

Honestly I just want to understand what they mean by a central company licensing the CoX IP, tbh.  Would NcSoft still own the IP or are they licensing to the central company liscencing the CoX IP to the successors?  To my understanding the company owns the IP but I want to make sure I understand it right.

Central company owning the IP, licensing it out to other entity.

And yay on Arcana knowing the RAND model.

[downix]

That's kind of what I thought... we may be able to keep adding new powers and powersets (animations may be more of an issue), and thus keep issuing new Issues for a while.

Another possible advantage may be that the tools used to edit the databases... may well be separate from the rest of the source code. Frankly, they really should be. So it may be possible to acquire database-editing tools for the powers, NPCs, maybe even sounds & animation databases, without having to delve into source code. Especially since we wouldn't want/need to adjust them, so getting an executable database-editing module is good enough, we would not need the source code for it.

Database editing, not worried about it.

[KennonGL]

7.  About that game server.  If they get it, I wish them luck making it work.  Its not impossible, of course, but I know a little something about how the game servers worked, and without saying something that will get me banned from the ... oh wait, I forgot, I'm not rambling on the game forums this time.  Because I'm not affiliated with any group or team, I can't get anyone in trouble but myself here, so I'll just say for those speculating, no, the game server wasn't a bunch of Linux boxes or anything like that: it was Windows based.  It had several moving parts.  It was clunky.  When someone decided to herd up all of Crey's Folly and nuke it and crashed the entire Freedom server, someone was probably RDPing into something and restarting something.  Like manually.  Running CoH servers on a large scale (i.e. enough players to run a Magisterium or more) is not just about spinning up some AWS instances and running the installer.  Its about loading the right hamsters in the right wheels next to the right water bottles and then cleaning their cages periodically while making sure they don't fall asleep or eat each other.

And they get hungry.

I don't want to be a worry-wart or a nay-sayer, because I really, really want to go home again...

But I'm pretty much in the habit of "if Arcana says it, I believe it" from the old forum days.

And this statement reads to me like: "Even IF they manage to get the I23 binaries, there's a good chance things still won't work and we won't be getting back to Paragon anytime before 1.5 and/or the successors"

I certainly hope and pray that's not the case.

[AlienOne]

I don't want to be a worry-wart or a nay-sayer, because I really, really want to go home again...

But I'm pretty much in the habit of "if Arcana says it, I believe it" from the old forum days.

And this statement reads to me like: "Even IF they manage to get the I23 binaries, there's a good chance things still won't work and we won't be getting back to Paragon anytime before 1.5 and/or the successors"

I certainly hope and pray that's not the case.

I read that as "because we have Arcana around, we can get pretty much anything to work."

:P

[ObsidianPhoenix76]

Amazing stuff.   As a person who got emotionally attached to characters, your Crystal character must have meant the world to you.  Got me all choked up thinking about you and your daughter.

Yep.  I spent the last days making sure she hit 50.  The clip in my video of her leveling was when she hit 50.  It took me 5 fdays after the shutdown to compile all of the video I recorded, and another 3 to get the video made.

And my new Avatar here on the forums is my re-build of her.  I just can't wait to get her started again.  Changing her from nrg/nrg blaster to titan weapon/nrg aura scrapper.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

I certainly hope and pray that's not the case.

I doubt Nate and the team would be trying to get the I23 server image if they didn't think they could get it to work.
I don't know the exact condition of the server image, myself. (This is what I get for not being rich, or speaking Korean. I don't get to go to the really interesting meetings.)

[Ironwolf]

I've gotta re-iterate this as well. There's still no guarantees. Don't start spending a bunch of money on stuff just yet.

I see this a little differently, I see that a LOT of work is going to have to be done to get any of these games working. Anything we can add to the mix means less work for whatever one of these things makes it into production. I do see a possibility that we have 4 failed games and the Original chugging along alone.

However since WE are making things - not NCSoft if one part fails we can hand the work over to a remaining part.

[SemanticAntics]

Sadly, we'll probably never know what Paragon had planned for Pretoria in the future.  Of course, with a new team at the helm, there's no reason that Issue 25 (or, more likely, Vol 2, Issue 1) can't have some Incarnates dealing with Pretorian Hamidon while the majority deals with the Battalion.

I really like the sound of this.

[Turjan]

An arrangement is to be made to license the trademarks to the various Plan Z projects, CoT, Valiance and H&V, to create a family connection, and to allow each to drop the "Spiritual" portion of successor. This means they can make references to the original game if desired, and to enable the expansion of partnerships. This could be expanded for any of them, should the desire be there.

And this is what makes the CoH community unique among all the MMO communities I've encountered over the years - CoH people are a family

This has always been our strength, and what has given us hope for the future :)

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Nate and I do have to make sure that if this deal falls through... We don't want to have a mob of people with fire and pitchforks calling for one, or both, of our heads because people spent money.

Personally, If people want to learn Unreal Engine 4...Go and buy it. Drop 20 bucks, then cancel your sub. I encourage people learning this stuff. It's a lot of fun, and you learn a lot about how/why certain things are they way they are in games.
However, if you're buying it because you want to contribute to Revival. Wait. I'd hate to have people pony up cash, just for us to get a no-go from above. That is only partially due to the above listed fear of Pitchfork-wielding mobs.

I will warn you, however. Something nobody thought to tell me when I got into learning Game creation. Get into it far enough, and you'll never look at games the same way. You start to look at how you think things were built, and how you might build them better/differently. Seriously, I look at games and I like...see Wireframes and scripts, lol.

[SemanticAntics]

That's an EXCELLENT suggestion. Putting some kind of functionality for saving a costume you created within the app and importing it into the game would be invaluable. I'm imagining some people in the community having jobs where they travel and can't always log in. But, while they're in a hotel, they can tinker around on the app on their iPad or Android device and come up with some ideas for a new toon.

I know some of the coding members of our community's heads would explode, but wouldn't it be cool to have an app for Mid's Hero Designer as well? Or....even better, make the costume creator and Mid's into one standalone "Hero Designer" app that allows you to literally design your hero from the ground up (costume creation AND power selections)! I'd pay for that!

I'd pay for such a thing, too. Twice, even.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Of course, with a new team at the helm, there's no reason that Issue 25 (or, more likely, Vol 2, Issue 1) can't have some Incarnates dealing with Pretorian Hamidon while the majority deals with the Battalion.

I kind of like the whole "Volume 2, Issue 1" thing. I've wondered.. Would Revival's first issue be...Issue 1? or Issue 24?
and either way, isn't that a little confusing?

[Safehouse]

I'm just hoping that, if this deal works out, We can finally see what Battalion was going to look like!

[FloatingFatMan]

I will warn you, however. Something nobody thought to tell me when I got into learning Game creation. Get into it far enough, and you'll never look at games the same way. You start to look at how you think things were built, and how you might build them better/differently. Seriously, I look at games and I like...see Wireframes and scripts, lol.

I'm the same with application software. I've been an app developer for 20+ years, so every app I use, I start to pick apart...  Even Windows!

If I wasn't busy studying hard for some annoying Microsoft certifications my work are insisting I take (if I want to keep my job!), I'd love to take a look at game devving... But at my age, I've only got so much space in my brain for new stuff! :p