Read this carefully, because it's very important and I don't want anyone to misunderstand and take it personally.
This is no time to be picky.
The odds are stacked firmly against us being able to pull off a buyout, though we'll do everything in our power to try.
Putting together an "underground" game server before Nov 30th is almost as unlikely, and even harder is telling players and convincing them it's safe, AND assuming they will be able to modify their CoH installs so it works.
Designing a replacement for CoH using the same social principles in that timeframe? Impossible.
So a game company buyout, ANY game company buyout, is worth it RIGHT NOW.
The problem is not that we're unable to do any of the above, it's that we were ambushed with a very tight deadline. We could still try all those things, and assume a game company buyout is a temporary reprieve. But for now, time is a luxury we don't have. We succeed or fail before Nov 30th.
After that, any efforts we make are amount to starting over, and we may as well treat it as such.