Comic Books? Novels? Figures? Other Mechandise?

[Sajaana]

I think CoH shares a lot in common with Star Trek.  Even though the original series was cancelled in 1969, it was kept alive by the fans.

Perhaps the same thing can be done with CoH.  Just because we don't have the city doesn't mean that Manticore, Sister Psyche, the Ritki or Arachnos are gone.  They live, and they can still live if people want them to.

Is there anyone here that might want to write a novel?  Or a comic series?  Or make some resin figures?  While a lot of this would still be trademarked by NCSoft, I think they would be open to a merchandising license far more readily than selling the game.

Plus, it would keep the interest in the IP high...perhaps it would even grow it so that NCSoft might want to open up CoH again, or do a CoH2.

Remember, Star Trek: The Motion Picture debuted ten years after the last episode of the original series aired.  It did, because good ideas don't die.  And CoH is, as we all know, a great idea!

[Tubbius]

There've been novels, comics, and HeroClix figures.  The novels are on eBay, the comics are available for download from the City of Heroes site, and the Clix figures can be picked up in the COV box set, mostly (although there's a separate, capeless Statesman available otherwise).  There was, I believe, talk of a film that never got off the ground, but I could be mistaken (although I'd love to see one!).

Me?  Other than the game staying around, I'd love some of the music on a cd--the opening Atlas Park music when you first step out of City Hall, the funky "bow-chick-a-wow" music of Blyde Square, and more.

[Olantern]

I really like this idea.  I even believe some of the game's story and art might flourish more thoroughly in the absence of the game itself.

I imagine there are plenty of people around here who are interested in creating CoH related fiction and art.

The problem, of course, is getting NCSoft to license such things.  Writing and distributing a new CoH novel is just as much a violation of NCSoft's IP rights as running a CoH MMO.  (In a display of similar thinking, most discussion of the idea of obtaining the right to create such derivative works has been shot down because it's just as difficult as persuading NCSoft to sell the right to operate the game for a smaller "payoff."  I'm not sure I agree with that assessment, but that's what I've seen.)  As with saving the game, the devil is in the details.

[LT. Couper]

I fin this idea to be quite interesting. And I for one would love to have some sort of figurine of my characters although I dont know how reasonable that would be on a large scale, seeing as there were literally millions of costume combinations. Ah well, food for thought.

[Segev]

Technically, I believe as long as you kept the serial numbers filed off of things you didn't create, you can use your own characters from CoH in ongoing fiction. You'd have to play a careful game along the lines of how anime often shows name brand stuff to keep CoH out of it, but it could be done.

[Victoria Victrix]

Technically, I believe as long as you kept the serial numbers filed off of things you didn't create, you can use your own characters from CoH in ongoing fiction. You'd have to play a careful game along the lines of how anime often shows name brand stuff to keep CoH out of it, but it could be done.

YAY!  Something I can actually speak with full knowledge on!

FANFICTION (e-published, no profit):  Fan fiction has always been permitted and encouraged in COH, and I very, very much doubt given the precedent of allowing it, NCSoftcore could get away with turning around and banning it.  If you want some place to post stories, may I suggest the RPCongress site www.rpcongress.com as one place I know specifically created for posting it.  There's about 20 novels worth of stuff there already and I, personally, would LOVE to see the fiction sections come back to life.

DERIVATIVE FICTION (e-or-paper published, for profit):  BIG nono.  Star Trek and Star Wars, for instance, allow metric tons of fanfiction to be published, but the second you put your Lulu-published or Scribid-e-published Star Trek or Star Wars novel on Amazon or iTunes for sale, they will hit you like a bag of hammers from orbit.  There will be nothing left of you but a little hole in the ground.  I suspect the same will happen with NCSoftcore.  Always remember, they have lots of lawyers just sitting around like hellhounds waiting to be unleashed.  You....don't.

SORTA KINDA DERIVATIVE FICTION IN A NEW SETTING:  Done this, as some of you are aware.  We took some of our old CoH characters, revamped them, removed EVERY SINGLE TRACE of CoH from them, put them in a new setting and made first a podcast, then a 5 novel series with them.  Or, in another genre, Fifty Shades of Grey was once Twilight fanfiction.  The author of that underwent the same scrubbing procedure when it became wildly popular and she was invited to do Real Publishing.  Now...you must be vigilant about removing every single trace of CoH from your characters and setting.  We don't even call our characters Heroes, we call them Metahumans.  And your setting must be original (or at least nothing like CoH).  But this is a well-established route for writing and as long as there is nothing NCSoftcore can point to and say "that is indisputably ours" you are free and clear to navigate.  Now as it happened, since we still HAD a Paragon Studios to talk to at the time, when we sold the novels, I went to Paragon and said, "Hey, we got a contract on this, and since our characters began their life in CoH, how about if we cross-promote?" thus neatly deflecting any possible shadow of trouble for the future, since they loved the idea.  (I actually think they got more advertising out of it than we did  )  In future cases...I am going to say that you are still probably not going to get any grief out of it, so long as you are vigilant.  At this point there is a fair amount of superhero prose fiction out there, and I very much doubt that the legal department of NCSoftcore is going to be scouring the bookstalls, hunting for stuff that might have been derived from City.

HOWEVER: Marvel and DC will be looking for things that infringe on their trademarks.  So be just as vigilant about making sure you don't step on those capes.  Be especially careful of heroic names.  (You would not believe how many times we have had to rename someone because there was a DC character with the same name in Issue #27 of Obscure Justice Teamups).

[voodoogirl]

Figures... like... figure printing... your City of Heroes character... from ingame?

*darts eyes around the room*

I may know something about that.

[Victoria Victrix]

I'm 98% certain, and so is Larry (who is the artist) that making and even selling figures and other art of YOUR characters would be completely legal.  Making and selling customized figures and other art of THEIR characters to other people would be completely legal.  Making and selling figures and other art of the signature characters....gets into a gray area.  Plenty of people do it at conventions, even of famous comic characters; Marvel and DC have long recognized that pursuing fan artists is a stupid thing to do.  Strictly speaking it is not legal, but it is never pursued unless someone is mass marketing the things.  I would hope NCSoftcore would not be stupid/greedy enough to go after you, but that is just a hope.

[Kheprera]

<shameless_plug>
Reaper Miniatures has a line of superhero minis and a pretty fantastic forum of minipainters and gamers (many have or do play CoH).

</shameless_plug>

Mini conversions can be done to make them more like your character, and the Reaperites are generally willing to help with advice and how to guides.

Plus there's Reapercon, which is always a blast (though I haven't been in several years due to timing/cost/kids).

I once spoke with Sandra Garritty on the price of a custom piece.  Just for a green (non-cast model) you're probably looking at $400-$800, depending on complexity.  This doesn't include mold creation or casting.

That's why conversions are popular.  Much cheaper.  It's not that hard once you learn the basics.

[chaparralshrub]

Roleplay, roleplay, Roleplay!

I am planning on asking the moderators for a new subforum of Titan to host CoH-themed play-by-post roleplay once the servers go down. I haven't asked yet because I don't want to detract from the game itself while the lights are still on. But here's yet another very important way to keep our favorite characters alive (and resurrect some of them from the dead)!

[Segev]

My signature necromancer would be delighted to make a return.

[epawtows]

Figures... like... figure printing... your City of Heroes character... from ingame?

*darts eyes around the room*

I may know something about that.

So, if we know someone who has a 3D printer, is there a way to import the 3D data of what a CoH character looks like into any sort of modeling software, or is the only way to artistically attempt to duplicate it? 

And even if there was a way to export it, would that be illegal?  (even in the 'technical' sense of 'illegal, but nobody will care if you just put it on a shelf or use it as a figure in your personal PnP game').

[Felderburg]

National Novel Writing Month is November (http://www.nanowrimo.org/). It sure is a daunting task to even attempt to write 50,000 words in a month, especially when that month you might rather be playing the game, rather than writing about it, but if a few people write CoH fan fiction novels it might be worth a little publicity.

So, if we know someone who has a 3D printer, is there a way to import the 3D data of what a CoH character looks like into any sort of modeling software, or is the only way to artistically attempt to duplicate it? 

And even if there was a way to export it, would that be illegal?  (even in the 'technical' sense of 'illegal, but nobody will care if you just put it on a shelf or use it as a figure in your personal PnP game').

Info on 3d printing is here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=296033

[Kheprera]

I am far too busy at work writing training guides due to go to print to write fiction in my "free" time (wife/mom≠free time). 

[downix]

So, if we know someone who has a 3D printer, is there a way to import the 3D data of what a CoH character looks like into any sort of modeling software, or is the only way to artistically attempt to duplicate it? 

And even if there was a way to export it, would that be illegal?  (even in the 'technical' sense of 'illegal, but nobody will care if you just put it on a shelf or use it as a figure in your personal PnP game').

*Raises hand*

I have a 3D printer

[Moonfyire101]

So, if we know someone who has a 3D printer, is there a way to import the 3D data of what a CoH character looks like into any sort of modeling software, or is the only way to artistically attempt to duplicate it? 

And even if there was a way to export it, would that be illegal?  (even in the 'technical' sense of 'illegal, but nobody will care if you just put it on a shelf or use it as a figure in your personal PnP game').

Yes!! Send me one of those i need a car too. But seriously, i wish we could print our characters as figurines, that wold be awesome!

[Mister Bison]

Did someone think of Pepakuras ? With some low-poly models high-res texture it should be doable and nice to look at, plus, you get kudos for making it yourself.

Should also be inexpensive to send to NCSoft, hurt and bloodied, or even more, stabbed with a knife through a note that reads "NCSoft killed me".

[chaparralshrub]

I think CoH shares a lot in common with Star Trek.  Even though the original series was cancelled in 1969, it was kept alive by the fans.

Perhaps the same thing can be done with CoH.  Just because we don't have the city doesn't mean that Manticore, Sister Psyche, the Ritki or Arachnos are gone.  They live, and they can still live if people want them to.

Is there anyone here that might want to write a novel?  Or a comic series?  Or make some resin figures?  While a lot of this would still be trademarked by NCSoft, I think they would be open to a merchandising license far more readily than selling the game.

Plus, it would keep the interest in the IP high...perhaps it would even grow it so that NCSoft might want to open up CoH again, or do a CoH2.

Remember, Star Trek: The Motion Picture debuted ten years after the last episode of the original series aired.  It did, because good ideas don't die.  And CoH is, as we all know, a great idea!

I have a couple of things that I can point out, with the limited parts of the save CoH effort that I can attend to. I also have a request.

1. I now have downloaded all of the comics myself. If they become unavailable when the site goes down, I can help. I'm sure others here can, too. They are pretty good comics, although it's interesting to note how often the members of the Freedom Phalanx can come back from the dead (Manticore and Sister Psyche have died twice and come back both times - do you really think Psyche's third death is going to be any more permanent than the last two? )

2. We're going to have a p&p roleplay setting. Count on it.

3. I'm sure we all know about Plan Z.


Now, the request. There are a number of sections currently missing on Paragon Wiki, most notably some of the signature story arcs, as well as a lot of the alignment-related missions. Eabrace is busy at work with the signature arcs, but it's a daunting task. I've already posted a thread that's currently on the wiki discussions imploring anybody with characters of appropriate level to document these things while we still can. I, sadly, cannot, because my characters are too low-level (I was, and really still am, a fairly casual gamer due to RL constraints, and am also fairly new to CoH - I wish I had been here for the long haul, given how good this game is!).

These are things that will only live on with us if we have means to remember them, source material with which to write our own fanfiction, storyboard our own roleplays, and otherwise do the things necessary to keep the world alive once the servers go down. And, depending on what happens, we may need these things even if the servers come back up again - who knows what might get lost while we are lost in time and space?

As an added note, this quest will also accomplish an important point: keeping server traffic up!

[SithRose]

I'd also STRONGLY request that people *play the game*. Document what you love. Document what you hate. Document what mildly annoys you. Document what you mostly like.

Add to the wiki if you can. Fill it up. Fill it in. That's part of the game...and an invaluable resource. Get as many screenshots as you can - get them on the Wiki. Preserve as much as possible. Save the knowledge. I suck at Wiki editing. I'm horrible at taking screenshots. But there are people here who CAN. Please do.

If all else fails, we're going to need that as reference material. Especially the first half. Because that's going to be things that Plan Z *needs* to know from players.

[eabrace]

I suck at Wiki editing.

Allow me to throw this out there:

The most time consuming part of adding material to the wiki is going through and copy/pasting or typing in the text.  If you're running something and you notice it's not documented on the wiki or is missing pieces, by all means, copy and paste whatever you can into the appropriate page.  Even if that's all you feel comfortable doing, that's a huge step in the documentation.

We patrol the recent changes constantly, so if you can get the text onto the page, we'll see it and someone will go back over it and format it appropriately.