And the mask comes off.

[Ironwolf]

I guess a lot depends on what the image looks like - is it the image of the final with all servers or is it each seperate server. How quickly could the server be running again - honestly hardware wise in a week or less - an all nighter could likely get it up in one day. What I would do after that is to immediately proceed into an open Beta period.

Then while it is being play tested you write the interface and launcher and build the accounting system. This does a lot of good things - gets interest back - gets players flooding in - free advertising and maybe sponsors! Once the game is stable and running fine and all is in place a full Pre-Launch day and account purchasing.  After the short Pre-Launch - you fire it up for production. I personally see a timeline of closing the deal to Beta testing - 1 week to 1 month. Then a 3-4 month period while accounting is being set.

I would say full production in 3-4 months roughly. Server images are not hard to load - that is what they were made to do. Setting up a long term infrastructure takes longer but that is why you have a Beta period to work out the bugs.

[Scendera]

16. When one registers their new account, is it going to be hero only and one would need to purchase a Villain code and a Praetorian code or will it just be all three?  Also will key codes from any old CoH packages still work? I have some of my coh boxes and codes still floating around.

Free accounts had access to Villains before. I was never anything but F2P, with the exception of purchasing my Kheldian unlocks. Why would we start with less, on that?

[Surelle]

Speaking as a former service tech, I doubt restoring the servers will take that long. We use disk images for a reason - restoring a system from scratch can take days and customers don't like being out of service for even an hour, let alone a week. With a good disk image we can have a system up and running again in a few hours.

The more difficult bits will be writing the new code to handle accounts, etc. How long that takes will depend on the people involved and how much time they have. If it were me, I would have started working on it months ago - as soon as the deal looking like a reasonable possibility.  Don't forget that our new devs aren't just doing this as a business - they're fans too and want this game to return just as much as we do.

All that said, speculation really doesn't do us any good - there are just too many variables involved. The game will be up when it's up, but it won't take a year. The best thing we can do is give them time and our support.

This is a super post.  5 stars!

[Surelle]

I guess a lot depends on what the image looks like - is it the image of the final with all servers or is it each seperate server. How quickly could the server be running again - honestly hardware wise in a week or less - an all nighter could likely get it up in one day. What I would do after that is to immediately proceed into an open Beta period.

Then while it is being play tested you write the interface and launcher and build the accounting system. This does a lot of good things - gets interest back - gets players flooding in - free advertising and maybe sponsors! Once the game is stable and running fine and all is in place a full Pre-Launch day and account purchasing.  After the short Pre-Launch - you fire it up for production. I personally see a timeline of closing the deal to Beta testing - 1 week to 1 month. Then a 3-4 month period while accounting is being set.

I would say full production in 3-4 months roughly. Server images are not hard to load - that is what they were made to do. Setting up a long term infrastructure takes longer but that is why you have a Beta period to work out the bugs.

Problem being that you'd actually need the account system finished first, or else how could all these eager beta testers log in?   

Such a pain am I, hehe.

But still a nice list of ideas anyway.

Personally, my biggest concern is that no one really cares enough over at NCSoft to allow this to pick up enough steam for it to really happen.  I am hoping against hope that they are not just politely stringing Nate & crew along (as he even mentioned they might be in his original post) with no real intent of letting anything happen, rather just hoping we'll all give up and move on quietly if they make us wait long enough.

[darkgob]

Free accounts had access to Villains before. I was never anything but F2P, with the exception of purchasing my Kheldian unlocks. Why would we start with less, on that?

Once upon a time, CoV was a standalone game, so older players may have forgotten (or not even noticed) that the two games were combined into one.

[Sinistar]

Speaking as a former service tech, I doubt restoring the servers will take that long. We use disk images for a reason - restoring a system from scratch can take days and customers don't like being out of service for even an hour, let alone a week. With a good disk image we can have a system up and running again in a few hours.

The more difficult bits will be writing the new code to handle accounts, etc. How long that takes will depend on the people involved and how much time they have. If it were me, I would have started working on it months ago - as soon as the deal looking like a reasonable possibility. Don't forget that our new devs aren't just doing this as a business - they're fans too and want this game to return just as much as we do.

All that said, speculation really doesn't do us any good - there are just too many variables involved. The game will be up when it's up, but it won't take a year. The best thing we can do is give them time and our support.

You are right in that server restoration should not take long, the main thing will be creating the accounting system.

Still, we shall see.   

Forever Hope.

[Jorge Firebomb]

Problem being that you'd actually need the account system finished first, or else how could all these eager beta testers log in?   

Such a pain am I, hehe.

But still a nice list of ideas anyway.

Personally, my biggest concern is that no one really cares enough over at NCSoft to allow this to pick up enough steam for it to really happen.  I am hoping against hope that they are not just politely stringing Nate & crew along (as he even mentioned they might be in his original post) with no real intent of letting anything happen, rather just hoping we'll all give up and move on quietly if they make us wait long enough.

Honestly, if they had no intention of selling the game, why would they have an executive (presumably reasonably high up in the hierarchy) waste his time talking to anybody at all? It's not like they would get any significant bad press for just ignoring a small group of Americans who happen to have liked one of their old games. I really do think that the only reason they would have taken the process this far is if they are serious about getting at least some value out of a property that is basically dead to them.

I mean right now the City of Heroes IP (and associated game) are assets on their ledger that are rapidly losing value. The smart business decision is to sell it sooner rather than later, and to get as much value as they can out of it for themselves. NCSoft has made some questionable moves lately, but they are still a pretty successful business, and they didn't get that way by accident.

[Rejolt]

Any super hero social-type mmo game needs to get out there while the current movie trend is super hero universes! There's so much momentum right now. Get it, advertise it and make the money while you can!

/slapsself

Sorry.. carry on.

[duane]

With today's technology instead of 2004's technology, I'd say one server is enough. Maybe two if people are REALLY needing "server flavor wars"

Strawberry!!
No! Blueberry!

No! Bacon!!!

We need 3.

[BraveStar]

I'm told we will need 3.14159265358979 servers...

Oh wait, no, wrong kind of pie. In that case, I vote for dutch apple. I love dutch apple pie.

[Paragon Avenger]

You need a session state server a database server an intrusion detection server a whole farm of web servers and a game server.
So, all that said and calculated, I got no clue what I'm talking about.

[Teikiatsu]

Strawberry!!
No! Blueberry!

No! Bacon!!!

We need 3.

Paragon, Titan and FREEEM

[Remaugen]

Waffle, Bacon & Cake.

[Power Gamer]

Don't forget pie and coffee.

[Remaugen]

I would really prefer, "Champion", "Not Champion" & "Wannabe Champion". . .

[Jorge Firebomb]

I was probably one of the only people that played on Victory, I suppose. To me it doesn't matter what the server is named, or if there are multiple servers what they are named. I think I'd actually prefer it if whatever name(s) got chosen was brand new.

I'm also skeptical that it will be necessary to have more than one, but if they do need a theme I'm all for very silly choices.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

I was probably one of the only people that played on Victory.

Victory was actually my home!

[LaughingAlex]

Don't forget pie and coffee.

No, Ice cream and coffee.....

[Iron-Emerald]

Victory was actually my home!

Mine too! I spent many hours patrolling the streets mostly alone there. Especially being a New Zealander so in a quiet time zone anyway.

[Cailyn Alaynn]

Mine too! I spent many hours patrolling the streets mostly alone there. Especially being a New Zealander so in a quiet time zone anyway.

So...Likely when I was on most of the time. Hah.