And the mask comes off.

[dpawtows]

I disagree with the bolded part. If you were in any global channel or teamed at all after the shutdown announcement, you'd be hard-pressed not to have heard at least somebody talking about Sentinel. Everyone I knew was going out of their way to try and spread the word. You'd have to have either stopped playing prior to that or have your head buried pretty far down in the sand to not even be aware of it.

I'm not so sure about that.  One the actual last day of the game, I made an offhand remark about Sentinel+ files to some fairly hard-core CoH player friends and was shocked when they hadn't heard of it.  And then the promptly logged off to go install it and make a lotta copies.

[JanessaVR]

IO slotting, Influence, and salvage might have been duplicated by one character taking all the good stuff out of base storage, making a Sentinel file out of it, then passing the IO's, Inf, etc. off to another character who is then backed up by another Sentinel file, rinse repeat. So I don't know if they would allow that.

For me, it's the BADGES and the COMPLETED STORIES and ARCS that I want back. I would be sad if my characters did not have all of their hideously expensive IO's still slotted, but the badges and records of the stories completed are that character's history. I would feel comfortable re-creating my characters if I had that at least. IF character date is never obtained, I would be very, very grateful if the new devs allowed us to use the Sentinel files to at least re-load our character's story history.

I am one of those for whom regaining all that history is very important.

I suspect you will be disappointed.  The Sentinel files don't contain your story history, and I really wouldn't bet on being able to upload them to a static copy of i23.

See here:  http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,10284.msg160734.html#msg160734

It would be nice to get our characters back, but at this point, it doesn't look like that will happen.  But half a loaf is still better than none.  If I have to work up my characters again from scratch, I can live with that.

[opprime2828]

It would be nice to get our characters back, but at this point, it doesn't look like that will happen.  But half a loaf is still better than none.  If I have to work up my characters again from scratch, I can live with that.

And truth be told, there are a few characters I'm excited to do again and to do them properly this time.  My main, Warrior 2, was originally a energy/fire blaster. The combo has zero synergy, and honestly didn't fit with his concept overall, anyway, but I was new to MMOs and had no idea what I was doing.
 
Now I'll recreate him as either a fire melee/energy aura brute or a fire/energy melee blaster.
 
I'll definitely be keeping my kinetics/dual pistols corruptor, but will likely change several of his power choices. 
 
And I can't wait to finally be able to try my dark/nature affinity or dark/time troller. :-)
 

So...this is all happening on Friday, right? I need to get this stuff done!  ;-)   

[Ohioknight]

As an example, if I had the choice of playing on the official servers and starting over from scratch, or importing all of my characters on a private server with a dozen of my friends, I can tell you that I wouldn't be spending much time on the official servers. The canon and continuity of my small group is more important to me than the overall population, and I know I wouldn't be the only one to make that choice.

That's a pretty nice scenario, IMHO.

Personally I'm hoping that the new IP corporation makes it possible that fans who know the SCoRE are empowered to help all the rest of us... as a new  CoRE to the community.
 

[Sinistar]

 
 
But...but Justice.  It was...Justice.  It was where I knew 9 out of 10 teams I'd get on knew what they were doing but were still in it just for the fun.
 
I know it was lonely, but still...
 
 

I only cited Freedom and Virtue as examples, I would expect Justice to return as well.

[Apogee]

Mark me down as another who never heard of Sentinel until after the shutdown.  I pretty much only grouped with a small circle of friends who had all quit by the end.  I am not too upset about having to start over but I am quite sad that I will lose many of my names.  I had quite a few names that were 'grandfathered' and would no longer be available if the character was reset.  I can only assume that I will not be able to get the names again if/when we get I23 back.

[Sinistar]

IIRC City of Heroes granted you 8 free slots per server.  When City of Villains came out they added another 4 free slots for a total of 12 useable slots per server.  You could then get more slots via anniversaries and rewards or just paying money for additional slots.

I believe the max amount of slots per server was increased to 48, purchase/earn slot tokens to open them.

If half the servers returned and still had that many possible slots that would be fine.

[Ankhammon]

I believe the max amount of slots per server was increased to 48, purchase/earn slot tokens to open them.

If half the servers returned and still had that many possible slots that would be fine.

I think that's right. If memory serves, I had 4 full pages of characters for Infinity and had to delete several to make new ones... damn altitus.

[Power Gamer]

I think that's right. If memory serves, I had 4 full pages of characters for Infinity and had to delete several to make new ones... damn altitus.

Let your inner Alt flow through you my young apprentice! 

[Fable]

Doesn't it make sense that the APR/1.5 team should also be the ones to run the legacy i23 servers? Monthly sub costs will help cover the 1.5 development costs as well as keep the i23 servers running. It would also mean that the APR/1.5 devs will have access to the database so that eventually they can figure out how to make a script/tool that ports the i23 users over to APR/1.5 once its ready.

I was under the impression that ARP=1.5 and they'd more than like be running legacy. Was I wrong?

[bugzee]

I was under the impression that ARP=1.5 and they'd more than like be running legacy. Was I wrong?

Yes, its my understanding that the Atlas Park Revival project is aka 1.5. I'm suggesting that they be the ones to run the i23 servers as well, if that wasn't the plan already.

[MM3squints]

I was under the impression that ARP=1.5 and they'd more than like be running legacy. Was I wrong?

From my understanding 1.5 will be almost (not exact) carbon copy of CoX with a clean code. The almost is factored by the limitation and possibility from translating over engines. The plus side of having 1.5 they said they can then make updates to the game. The i23 version can't be manipulated. That was my take on the conversation so far.

[Harpospoke]

Also folks, I wouldn't count on getting the same number of servers we used to have. Those of you with 80+ chars might have to settle for way less.

True.   I got lucky on that one.   2 accounts on Freedom with all the slots.

[Ohioknight]

From my understanding 1.5 will be almost (not exact) carbon copy of CoX with a clean code. The almost is factored by the limitation and possibility from translating over engines. The plus side of having 1.5 they said they can then make updates to the game. The i23 version can't be manipulated. That was my take on the conversation so far.

I gather APR/1.5 will actually be a special instance of CoT's code modified to be a work-alike for CoH (however close that can actually be).  Now mind you, there are things I'd LIKE them to not do exactly like CoH (the alphabetical/numeric chest insignias always struck me as too large and kind-of crappy looking for one) -- but it will be something to see how close to the actual game they can get (assuming 1.5 or CoT actually succeeds in implementing at all)

[Harpospoke]

Aye, I would anticipate the number of servers being halved, and the ones that do return would the names of the servers that tended to bigger populations such as Freedom and Virtue. 

I can't see the euro servers returning, one of them maybe.

Since this is a unique situation, I wonder if different servers could be funded by different groups of people and have the various servers still all work together?    If there are enough European players, maybe there is a way for them to run it?

[Shard]

I was under the impression that ARP=1.5 and they'd more than like be running legacy. Was I wrong?

The conditions of running legacy are still on the negotiating table. That said, presently I would expect that is unlikely, purely as a staffing and infrastructure situation.

[Ankhammon]

I gather APR/1.5 will actually be a special instance of CoT's code modified to be a work-alike for CoH (however close that can actually be).  Now mind you, there are things I'd LIKE them to not do exactly like CoH (the alphabetical/numeric chest insignias always struck me as too large and kind-of crappy looking for one) -- but it will be something to see how close to the actual game they can get (assuming 1.5 or CoT actually succeeds in implementing at all)

This seems a bit strange to me. Were the MWM folks far enough along for this? I didn't get the impression they were up to this stage.

Last word on their CC I'd heard was that they were having issues with the character model. It was showing its seems or something like that.

And If they were going to share their engine, it would need lots of rework to fit the CoH gameplay. The forums over there are full with differences planned to "improve" the CoH model but not a lot of showable pieces. 

[Blondeshell]

I believe the max amount of slots per server was increased to 48, purchase/earn slot tokens to open them.

Truth.

http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Character_Slot

[Zombie Hustler]

Huh. I actually liked the store, but then again, my exposure to MMO stores is extremely limited, so I'm probably not a good judge.

[Zombie Hustler]

My question for APR and any direct successor (taking place in Paragon itself, in the same universe) would be how they're taking care of the old missions. APR I guess I can see including them, but I kind of think it would be nice to start fresh. Rather than including older "go here, kill 10 guys, go there" type missions, start from the very beginning with more innovative stuff. And build in a way to accommodate changing NPCs / story - whether that's phasing or what, I don't know, but making the NPCs of the world a little less static.

In terms of APR, I'd imagine it would be simplest, and probably bring less grief to the development team, to simply port it all over as is. After all, there are likely still those who love even those "go here, kill 10 guys" missions and would miss them.

What I think would be cool, though, would be to try and consolidate a lot of those different missions and things into newer, revised story arcs that could then also be added to the game, much the way some of the older content was revised by the Paragon devs. It would bring a freshness and replayability to the game while not removing something someone else might still enjoy.