State of the Titan

[jccianca]

[DrakeGrimm]

Well, at the very least, we've learned we have a plentiful supply of writing talent.

* DrakeGrimm snickers

[Hyperstrike]

Okay.  I'm hoping that Brian can pull a rabbit out of...well...SOMETHING that that the game can somehow continue.

In the event that he's unable, even with our help, to acquire the CoH property, then I agree, a new game in the spirit of CoH would probably be the next best thing.

A server emulator, however good, would open us up to legal challenge, and would probably destroy the community as everyone is god in their own little domain.  The best thing about the game was the COMMUNITY.  Individual server emulators would fracture that.  Not that I want to cast a pall over that project.

As for open vs closed source or community vs private ownership.

But the thing that keeps cheats from being especially efficacious in CoH is the server control and client validation.
If people want to mod their clients to show certain things differently, yeah, I could probably get behind making such info available.  But things that involve actual CHEATING need to be locked down.

Also, if the source code to run a server is just "out there" for anyone to pick up, we're back to the "fractures the community" problem.

Plus, it's possible that the game may be implemented with technologies that are licensed from other companies.  Tech we have NO rights to publish source to.

On top of that, with community ownership.  If we want to have a way to have their say in the governance of the property?  Cool.  Outright ownership?  Might be more difficult to justify.  ESPECIALLY if we have real players with "skin" in the game.  How do you tell a guy who's dropped six or seven figures on funding your game that, sorry, he's been marginalized by John Doe FreeToPlay's opinion?

In short, open vs closed source?  Closed source with extensive documentation for legitimate modding purposes.
Community vs private ownership?  Private ownership with a way for the wishes of the community to factor into game governance.  Possibly a player-elected steering committee that has the right to sit in on physical meetings of the company with regard to this game, and can opt to participate in online venues where governance-related decisions are made.

I love open source and free exchange of information, but I'm a realist.  But you can't simply demand that people dropping significant quantities of money essentially GIVE away the fruits of their investment.  If they WISH to?  Yeah, cool, fine.  That's voluntary.  But essentially decreeing it will cause lawsuits and/or chase off investors.

At this point, it's still kinda up in the air.  Still in the "hoping Brian pulls one off" stage so I can throw money at him.

[Viking]

Thats for some more info. Been trying to keep my hopes up, but after 3 week and little communication I'm starting to get very worried. I really hope my gut feeling is wrong, but I do think comes November 30th the servers will be going down (I really hope I completely wrong).

Keep up the good work Tony and CoHTitan.

Viking

[eabrace]

On top of that, with community ownership.  If we want to have a way to have their say in the governance of the property?  Cool.  Outright ownership?  Might be more difficult to justify.  ESPECIALLY if we have real players with "skin" in the game.  How do you tell a guy who's dropped six or seven figures on funding your game that, sorry, he's been marginalized by John Doe FreeToPlay's opinion?

...

Community vs private ownership?  Private ownership with a way for the wishes of the community to factor into game governance.  Possibly a player-elected steering committee that has the right to sit in on physical meetings of the company with regard to this game, and can opt to participate in online venues where governance-related decisions are made.

I like that option.  It gives the community both a sense of ownership and a close relationship with the developers on the other end of the software.

I do think comes November 30th the servers will be going down (I really hope I completely wrong).

I think - and have thought since Black Friday - that regardless of the final outcome, this is going to happen.  The question is not whether or not the servers will go down.  The question is whether or not they will come back up.  And if they do come back up, the next questions are:

* How long will that down time be?
* Will the game still be the same game we're playing right now, or will it have to change?

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this post are entirely those of the poster.  They do not reflect an official view of the Titan Network or represent any "insider" knowledge of the state of ongoing negotiations between former Paragon Studios employees and NCsoft.

[padathir]

I think - and have thought since Black Friday - that regardless of the final outcome, this is going to happen.  The question is not whether or not the servers will go down.  The question is whether or not they will come back up.

Black friday indeed. And yeah there never was any doubt there'd be some downtime, the question is can that downtime not be permanent.

[ukaserex]

[Manga]

I think - and have thought since Black Friday - that regardless of the final outcome, this is going to happen.  The question is not whether or not the servers will go down.  The question is whether or not they will come back up.  And if they do come back up, the next questions are:

When you say "the servers", you're actually talking about multiple parts:

Map Servers - I believe these are outsourced, hosted on a public ISP's hardware.  If that's true, they would continue operating as if nothing happened, and the new owner would take over billing.  NCSoft would not shut these down and lose the data out of spite, because they're the heart of the game, and destroying that could lead to a lawsuit for breach of contract.  Of course, if I'm wrong, and the Map Servers are hosted at a physical NCSoft owned facility, there would be some down time while the data is moved - but if it's done right, it would be only a few hours or days of downtime.

Database Servers - Just as sensitive as the Map Servers, they're in pretty much the same situation.

Global Servers - We may have to deal with anything from a partial to a total Global Server loss.  The data used here is tied to NCSoft's account system.  It's possible to separate it, because it used to be separate.  But that depends on factors such as how much time there is to separate it.

Account Servers - We WILL lose these.  NCSoft is not going to hand over control of their account servers.  They may hand over a backup of user account data pertaining to keeping CoH subscriptions active, but it's almost certain that every single player will have to resub via an entirely new system that has to be set up quickly.  My own suggestion would be to flag everyone for VIP access until it's set up, and give the formerly freemium players a little taste. 

Paragon Market - This will work, because it's operated independent of other NCSoft shops, but Paragon Points will not be purchaseable until the Account Servers are finished.

Patch Servers - Because the old Patch Servers were disabled when the NCSoft Launcher took over, new ones will have to be set up.  The good news is, this doesn't have to be from scratch, because there are existing ones that are just not being used.  And a temporary one could be set up pretty quickly that doesn't actually send patches, but allows the CoH client to continue on and log in.

Another thing to note about Patch Servers and Account Servers - if NCSoft is feeling uncooperative, they can and will cut those off the day the contract is signed.  That may mean some additional downtime while accounts are VIP-flagged, the patch server is worked around, and the game is generally set up to allow people to log in and play normally.

The part where we'd be lucky in the case of CoH independence from NCSoft is that NC never got around to completely integrating the game into their systems, like they have with other titles.  The relative separation will help with the transition.

[Hyperstrike]

I like that option.  It gives the community both a sense of ownership and a close relationship with the developers on the other end of the software.

Exactly.  Part of the whole "thing" with CoH has been "investment".  HeroCons, convention support, Player Summits and open communication on various media have been one way to convey that.  I think a player steering committee might be the way to go to help retain some of that.

The question is not whether or not the servers will go down.  The question is whether or not they will come back up.

Exactly.

[SithRose]

4)  If Plan Z proceeds ahead of schedule, and is capable of producing a compelling demo before I finish mine, so be it.  I may or may not still produce my demo, if only because everything can be reused and recycled when it comes to 3D. 

5) I don't hate open-source.  I only say it's not appropriate for this type of project, starting out.

I hope that clears things up...

It still sounds like you're trying to produce something different than Plan Z, and would intend to try to take over the Plan Z work if you can produce a working demo before Plan Z does. I'm not sure that's the intent you're going for, because it does sound initially like you're planning on either directly competing or attempting to take over. I don't think either would go over very well, but I DO think that we'd like to have your skills involved with Plan Z should it be needed. Can we chat a bit in messages or a different thread and try to clear up the misunderstanding a bit better? (In the spirit of not wanting to hijack this thread, mind.)

[RogerWilco]

First I'd like to thank TonyV for his efforts and organizing all this. It must be taking a lot of time next to whatever he usually does.

I have a few cents of my own to add to this discussion:
1) I think the best way to keep the game is if we can find a solution where the existing clients (and servers) can be used. I have a little experience in 3D modelling and the amount of time it would take to recreate the costume designer alone is staggering. Not just that, but tools like Maya and 3DS Max are very expensive and take a lot of time to learn. The open source/free alternatives have the problem of not reading/writing the standard formats (mostly Blender). The custom character design is at the core of this game, without the player, costume and power models that currently exist in the game, it will be a long time in making any replacement.

2) I worry about the legality of running private servers. I think it would otherwise be a possible solution, at least for a while, as it means we can at least keep using the current artwork/client. I'm part of a gaming community that's been running their own game servers for more than 10 years now and used to run MUDs before that. It can work if you have an organized community. www.conclave.cc is our website.

3) As far as organizing a community, I think that for an effort like this, you need a studio with paid staff at the core. I like the Mojang/Minecraft model, where there are official releases of the game, but also a large modding community. Mojang actively talks to it's modding community and even has hired some of the most talented modders. On the other hand, Mojang closely keeps control of the "official" game, as they have seen what went wrong with InfiniMiner. They have central player database servers, but anyone can run their own world server after authenticating. I think it would make a good model for our future. Revenue would need to be based on selling updates to the engine and content to the players. Something like what Guild Wars does, but having the community run the map servers.

4) We don't live in 2004 any more, there are currently a lot of available engines for building 3D games. The top of the line stuff like the CryEngine and Unreal Engine, which could be troublesome in licensing, but I've been recently looking at the Unity 3D engine (works on my Mac) and GarageGames just released the new version of the Open Source (MIT licence) Torque 3D engine. I haven't looked at Torque 3D yet, but something like Unity 3D or any of the other engines is advanced enough and pretty easy to develop for. I don't think that the 3D engine would be the biggest stumbling block in developing a successor, there are even decent Open Source solutions. As I said in my first point, the amount of Art needed and the costs to make that (motion captured animations?), would be a much biggest stumbling block.

5) My experience in writing Client/Server games is limited to old MUDs. I don't know how hard it is to get right, but I see that some of these game engines even come with the building blocks for these kinds of things. Heck, I think I even saw a tutorial on how to build an MMO with either Torque 3D or Unity 3D. I think with a clear leader and sufficient resources, this is not unsolvable.

6) Finally I want to point at what ActiVision did years ago with Call to Power, when they stopped development on that. They licensed the source to the community (Apolyon Network), but kept full rights to the art and IP. This basically allowed the community to patch and mod the game, but without losing the IP rights. They didn't use an Open Source licence. Bringing this up in any talks with NCsoft about licensing details might be useful if we ever get that far. It would allow anyone who has the client to continue playing. I have seen efforts like this also fail in the past, just because of the costs of writing such a license, someone still has to pay the lawyers that NCsoft would need to set this up.

In short, I think there can be some leverage of Open Source, maybe through things like Torque 3D, but I think there needs to be a studio in control, with central player administration and things like that. I think maybe running the servers could be done by external hosting and local communities, like it's done for MineCraft and a lot of FPS games. My biggest worry would be the need for a lot of 3D art development, and the time and costs associated with that if we can't find a way to use the existing CoH artwork.

[Manga]

It still sounds like you're trying to produce something different than Plan Z, and would intend to try to take over the Plan Z work if you can produce a working demo before Plan Z does. I'm not sure that's the intent you're going for, because it does sound initially like you're planning on either directly competing or attempting to take over. I don't think either would go over very well, but I DO think that we'd like to have your skills involved with Plan Z should it be needed. Can we chat a bit in messages or a different thread and try to clear up the misunderstanding a bit better? (In the spirit of not wanting to hijack this thread, mind.)

Let me summarize so I don't wander off into side topics and confuse things:

 - I was going to produce a 3D game anyway.  My friend and 3D artist has been nagging me since, oh, May or so to learn Blender and a 3D engine or two in preparation for making a game.  It was going to contain an outdoor environment, story arcs, and customizable costumes, much like CoH does.  But it was not a superhero game, nor related to CoH.

 - When I read about the CoH shutdown on Black Friday (I like that name), my first thought was a buyout.  My second thought was, this is going to open a hole in the superhero game genre, and since I'm already working on learning 3D gaming, I may as well change the focus.

 - Shortly after, I chose a 3D engine and started learning how a city zone is built.  To be honest, that's about as far as I've gotten so far aside from a plan.  So I kept quiet about it at first, afraid of making promises that I can't keep.

 - My plan is to try to produce a 3D demo *before* Plan Z is supposed to begin.  As I said above, because 3D objects like characters, clothing, and city areas are all completely recyclable, it's worth my time to do so *even if it's not used in a super-hero game*, because I can use them in another unrelated 3D game.  It's also very ambitious for 2 people to produce while at the same time learning a game engine, so I don't even know yet if it's even possible to beat that deadline.  Either way, it's a huge incentive to do what I've been putting off for a long time. 

 - IF I do beat that deadline, and it's still a BIG if, I will then see if the demo raises enough interest to possibly become Plan Z.  So basically what I'm offering is to save everyone a lot of work and time, if we have overlapping interests.  If not, I move on and the demo becomes something else later on.  Pass or fail on its own merits.

 - It should not prevent me from working on Plan Z, but as with the demo and/or my own game, it would depend on availability and time.

 - I am not attempting to halt Plan Z or hijack it.  I can't say I won't compete with it, because in a way every 3D MMO competes with every other 3D MMO.  I'm not going to promise that I'll never develop anything 3D or MMO, because that would be unreasonable - unless, of course, Plan Z turns out to be a lucrative source of work that requires a non-compete agreement in exchange for a decent amount of money. 

Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions.

[chaparralshrub]

Well, to be fair, I'm interested to see what TheManga comes up with. My thoughts on it and Plan Z are as follows: so far, the things that I have been most involved with in Plan Z are content-related: design of the city where the game takes place, design of the timeline, some enemy groups, two signature heroes, and a partial story arc. I do know that other people are drafting an engine, but I don't know how far they've gotten. The content part at least could be transferred to any engine we wish, in theory. I'd be concerned most of all with how close what you are working on is to CoH - what content are you using, i.e. is it CoH, CoH-inspired, CoH-implied, or your own altogether based on CoH's roots in comic books?

Right now, Plan Z I'm treating as CoH-implied: my signature characters have stories that easily tie into CoH (they're the twin children of Manti and Psyche), but I never explicitly say that in any of their 'official' stories, so I should be save legal-wise.

Now, I don't want to hijack this thread either, although it does seem to me to have served its purpose in what TonyV was trying to tell us, sadly.

[frostcoh]

[Victoria Victrix]

I'm going to try one more approach to Dr. Yoon at NCSoft to try and bridge the gap of understanding that seems to exist.  I am going to show her that this is not just "a game" but an ongoing exercise in improvisational theatrics, and is a whole lot like K-Dramas (한국드라마) (otherwise known as "Korean Soap-operas").  My goal is going to be to get NCSoft to understand why we are making all this fuss, and hopefully persuade them that as a work of ongoing art--and we can argue how"artistic" all that RP and so on is some other time--it is laudable of them to take their claws out of it and release their death-grip on the IP be willing to sell it to some other party interested in bringing it back to life.

Wish me luck.

[chaparralshrub]

Good luck, VV! May all the gods who have ever been worshiped by man, beast, or Elder Thing aid you!

[DrakeGrimm]

I'm going to try one more approach to Dr. Yoon at NCSoft to try and bridge the gap of understanding that seems to exist.  I am going to show her that this is not just "a game" but an ongoing exercise in improvisational theatrics, and is a whole lot like K-Dramas (한국드라마) (otherwise known as "Korean Soap-operas").  My goal is going to be to get NCSoft to understand why we are making all this fuss, and hopefully persuade them that as a work of ongoing art--and we can argue how"artistic" all that RP and so on is some other time--it is laudable of them to take their claws out of it and release their death-grip on the IP be willing to sell it to some other party interested in bringing it back to life.

Wish me luck.

Good luck, and may $deity go with you!

[LastRonin]

 Long.... long shot in the dark, but I work with people that have the funds we need. I would need to know one thing before i even thought to approach any of them. What are the actual numbers? By that I'm asking how much did City of Heroes make and cost to run per quarter for the last few years. Truthfully, this is what any investor is going to need to know before taking the first step. These people are not fans. They don't love the game like we do. They are happy to put up money if it gets them a return on their investment. Yes they will take risks and this is a risk.

So if someone has that information please e-mail me at chuckvick44@hotmail.com. I don't want guesses. I don't want what Ncsoft made annually. Just what the game makes and costs. Please include the source of the information.

After I get these I will talk to my co-workers.

Thanks

[downix]

Long.... long shot in the dark, but I work with people that have the funds we need. I would need to know one thing before i even thought to approach any of them. What are the actual numbers? By that I'm asking how much did City of Heroes make and cost to run per quarter for the last few years. Truthfully, this is what any investor is going to need to know before taking the first step. These people are not fans. They don't love the game like we do. They are happy to put up money if it gets them a return on their investment. Yes they will take risks and this is a risk.

So if someone has that information please e-mail me at chuckvick44@hotmail.com. I don't want guesses. I don't want what Ncsoft made annually. Just what the game makes and costs. Please include the source of the information.

After I get these I will talk to my co-workers.

Thanks

emailed with questions.

[jccianca]

Don't let a thin language barrier stop you from posting, and while there are people working on trying to save the game, right now the most helpful thing we can do is 1) send physical letters to NCSOFT  encouraging them to sell the game 2)  email NCSOFT with the same requests & 3) play the game.

Don't lose hope, we've still got a couple of months and a lot of fight left, every new post I see here from someone that took the time & effort to come here from the official forums, or wherever just proves our point to NCSOFT (and/or potential investors) that our community is strong and dedicated.

I' m still working in the letters to NCSoft, and about playing the game I play every single day at least 2 hrs. and thats why I noticed a decrease in the population. I had to move from champion to Freedom because of that. And you can se people saying their good byes  because dont wanna spend more time in something that have their days counted.