Hi all, sorry for the english, I'm from europe and english's my "second" language. I won't be short, and these may be random thoughts, apologize in advance for any confusion and mistakes.
Came here pointed probably by a Massive article and read TonyV ideas. The ideas are good, but I'd share my thought on this issue.
I'm 40 years old, I work as an IT consultant (not in games but I have quite decent server and network programming skills) a master degree in engineering and CS with 15 years experience.
This is not to boast but only to say that my opinions are based on the hard facts of software developments and companies.
I see a passionate community, but I'd really like to pinpoint one word that very few raised in this discussion.
Money.
And lot of it (think million $).
CoH wont "move" from NCSoft/Nexon hands if we can't raise such amounts. No less.
Some ideas on the shutdown reasons:
* CoH was shut down because it wasn't anymore a profitable enterprise [but see note 1 below]. I was told CoH was running fine, but I never saw real figures (but I remember they shutting down french and german operations just a couple month back).
* CoH may have been profitable but it was endangering NCSoft/Nexon business plans (eating revenues from other games for example). In this case it would be *really, really* hard to strike a bargain.
* CoH was shut down because its operation costs were raising and its owner didn't want to encouragre this trend and Paragon Studios wasn't able to improve the operating costs.
* CoH was shut down because Paragon Studios and NCSoft entered a sort of unresolvable litigation. We may strike a bargain with NCSoft, but not with Paragon.
* CoH was shut down for legal issues. If really Cryptic owns CoH engine, then we may be screwed again: Perfect World - Cryptic's owner - could possibly have revoked the licence from Paragon Studios hands. Why? Licence may have expired and not renewed. Why? Champions Online is strong, why not suffocate the competition?
Note 1: Are there available in US public figures for Paragon Studios balance sheet? Here in Italy all companies must give their balance sheet at the end of the fiscal year at the local "Chamber of Commerce" so that's available for everyone to see. To see it you have to pay a small fee (15E) but can shed some lights on revenues and expenses.
Plans? Honestly I wasn't an active player anymore, but I still logged every now and then just to poke around. I still kept up with the updates and the developments. I still consider myself part of the fantastic community and still have fun memories of the 2+ years I roamed the streets of Paragon.
Anyway, I'd share my thougths on the plans:
A) Acquiring COH. I repeat myself: think millions. And possibly all the possible legal issues that I stated above. Possible, but not really. Would you find thousands of people investing thousands $ in such operation? What would they want then? Revenues? Just a permanent VIP status? I really don't see so many people willing to give all this money and not getting anything back at least worth the money.
A2) Rewriting a spiritual successor. Providing that we won't have any kind of legal issue in writing it, god knows how much I would like that dream to be true, but then I stop, thinking to all the effort needed: programmers are the least. You need game designers, graphics, sound artists, level designers, ... oh, and marketing, you would want that people know you exist, don't you? Again, think millions. And many years. As long as this game *is* the community, would you stick around for 5 or more years if not directly involved in the development? For those who knows planeshift, I still wonder how that goes on, if not for the fact that it's just a playground of some friends that spend part of their day job money on this kind of entertainment. And then don't forget one thing: disappointment. What would the spiritual successor be? Would it appeal to the old players, would it have changes, improvements, betterments, ... Beware, I don't want to bash the idea neither play the doomsayer, just to be realistic in the possible expectations.
B) Another Studio. That would be probably the "shining knight" but I really doubt it. CoH is 2004 technology. Handing over software to someone that wasn't involved in making it only means trouble. The studio would only buy it if they were certain that the game would be profitable in the really short term (< 1 year). I doubt it really much.
C) Reverse engineering. This is no different than A2. Plus all the legal issues. And the fact that when you'll have it up and running would it remain "fixed" or would it evolve? Will there be new "Issues"? MMO works because they are all living and evolving beasts. A static beast would not be interesting for anyone. And bandwith and server all have a cost and bills need to be paid. No, we're not talking about the 15$ of a wordpress account, it's something at least in the 100k/year order.
Other ideas?
Until we know what's really caused the sudden closure of the game, we can only speculate. I'd add my idea, provided that NCSoft *and all other interested parties* can be conviced to let CoH live.
If it's real what you said, that CoH at certain moments was running with 40 people behind it (I include all the necessary people in it: programmes, game designers, support and operations, ...) to replicate it we either would need 40 paid people with the same skills. Or maybe 200 volunteers distributed in all the different areas to equal them. Working 8x5 can be achieved nearly with 5 times the people. I'd give 5-10 hours of my time to such a project, as long as I have a job on my day hours. Younger people may give more hours but I'm basing my estimates on an average. Anyway, I would pay them a little, why? All the Open Source projects that work are generally those funded at least in part by a company. Pure volunteering means that you can leave your tasks unfinished simply because you're bored, you found something more interesting, or because your "real life" brings you away from your "hobbies". Money can keep people focused and directed toward an objective. It would not be a "permanent contract" but only task based. Giving the right quotation can be the hard part, but let's say that this model can work.
Then we'd have server, bandwidth, et cetera.
Then we'd have to protect the IP as per NCSoft willing. IP is NCSoft propriety and if they won't relinquish it, we would have to keep it protected. No Open Source, then. No Creative Commons for the artwork. No revealing of possible industrial secrets. And that would be really hard especially with volunteer which you cannot control or arent behind the same company firewall.
Then as per plan B) we'd have to learn the operation an the inner facts (and WTFs) of the code and game. No easy task.
All this means the game won't be free or at least it would follow the same F2P revenue model it had just before shutdown. We'd have to make it "profitable" or at least run at its costs. How? I don't know if a "no profit" organization could run this (that depends on laws and the country in which this resides, I'm no expert in US laws) or we should have a company: who'd own the company? Who'd run the project anyway? Who'd give directions, orders, recruit people, ... and we'd have expectations of customers to meet...
Things aren't easy at all...
How we can convice NCSoft? Only with money. And this means that they should have a licence cost paid. Either we have to pay them a flat licence or they get a share of the revenue, bast for us would be for example be give a big share but only if we make revenue. This last idea could save us: if we fail, it's only us that lose. If we keep it up, NCSoft will get some money without any effort from her side.
Anyway even if we and NCSoft would agree tomorrow on the contract terms, I wouldn't see a "beta" of the thing available before feb 2013. And live operation not before april/june 2013. And those months we'd still have bills to pay for server and bandwith...
Can we do this? I don't know. There are many passionate people around here, but I'm not so positive. This would be a "second unpaid job" and I don't know how many people would do it.
That's all, hope I shed light on what my thought are. Feel free to comment and ask clarifications.
