"Future of Online Games" - PAXEast video from MMORPG.com

[dwturducken]

If this should be in "General," since it's more about the industry than any one game, someone can mod-move it, but the number of developers from the various games is worth the watch.

http://www.mmorpg.com/showVideo.cfm/videoId/3005

[Blondeshell]

That was a good panel. Quite a variety of backgrounds and points of view with developers of Wildstar, Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter, EverQuest, Star Citizen, and Elder Scrolls.

I especially liked the question about if MMOs should ever be shut down, specifically referring to City of Heroes, and the guy from EverQuest was emphatic about how that should never have happened. It was hard to tell exactly what Jack said after that, but it sounded something like having NCsoft pick up the phone and call him to get CoH back. I'm not sure how serious he was about that comment (most likely was just ear candy chit-chat for the people in the room), but he did seem to slouch a lot during the panel, almost like he wasn't terribly excited about being there.

I also thought it was interesting that EVE Online never got mentioned in passing about being a long-running sandbox MMO.

[dwturducken]

There's a link down in the comments to the PAXEast Twitch feed for that day. I didn't post that one, because the content of the original link doesn't start until 6 hours and 40 minutes in. The sound is supposed to be better. I'm watching that one, now.

[JaguarX]

They made some awesome points in that vid. Especially with marketing, updates, community, and etc.

And the Everquest dude made the best point imo about COH followed by the guy next to him.

Side note: if the cat wasnt out of the bag prior to this it sure as hell out of the bag now.

[dwturducken]

I was kinda blown away by all the love for CoH, four months on. Emmert even said to the guy running Wildstar, "Tell NCSoft to call me." The guy's a world class douche, but that kinda shocked me.

[DarkCurrent]

Jack Emmert:  Savior of CoH???

Issue 25... Statesman Lives!

Joking aside, that's the one scenario I can see in which NCSoft and Jack could both restore their reputations and that CoX could be restored via some sort of sale.

[r00tb0ySlim]

If this should be in "General," since it's more about the industry than any one game, someone can mod-move it, but the number of developers from the various games is worth the watch.

http://www.mmorpg.com/showVideo.cfm/videoId/3005

That was a good panel. Quite a variety of backgrounds and points of view with developers of Wildstar, Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter, EverQuest, Star Citizen, and Elder Scrolls.

I especially liked the question about if MMOs should ever be shut down, specifically referring to City of Heroes, and the guy from EverQuest was emphatic about how that should never have happened. It was hard to tell exactly what Jack said after that, but it sounded something like having NCsoft pick up the phone and call him to get CoH back. I'm not sure how serious he was about that comment (most likely was just ear candy chit-chat for the people in the room), but he did seem to slouch a lot during the panel, almost like he wasn't terribly excited about being there.

The CoH question is asked @ 32:52 in the video if you guys want to jump right to it and I like how Jeremy says there is no reason not to keep them alive (MMO's) unless......it's on the business side.  I thought Jeremy was going out on a limb for a second with the first part of his comment, but then he remembered who he works for and qualified/justified accordingly 

[General Idiot]

Jack Emmert:  Savior of CoH???

Issue 25... Statesman Lives!

Joking aside, that's the one scenario I can see in which NCSoft and Jack could both restore their reputations and that CoX could be restored via some sort of sale.

He would be far from the first comic book character to be either resurrected or retconned back to life. I'm not sure putting the game back under Jack would be the best idea, though. The man has some odd ideas about game design. Though, the core gameplay of CoH was at least in part his doing, so he can't be all bad ideas. Certainly infinitely better than no game at all.

[downix]

Knowing Jack, he's serious. And my guess is for three reasons:

1) immediate access to the modified NCSoft source, allowing him to bugfix in the other Cryptic titles
2) another game which they can make more money from
3) Ressurect Statesman, because he's got that big of an ego

[Kaos Arcanna]

I don't think NcSoft would ever do it, but I do think that Cryptic would probably like getting access to some of the tech that Paragon developed.

And if COH came back, perhaps Cryptic could use their newer engine to make COH better ...

The only thing is ... and this may sound weird to post on this forum ... I'm not sure they'd want to keep both COH and CO alive, and I would hate
to see CO die. Not because I think that CO is a better game, but because I know people who really love the game and I would hate to see them go
through what we already have. And there is some fun things in CO that I have enjoyed and would miss.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Or perhaps he thinks it would look good on his resume.

Or - just maybe - he actually cares about something he helped create. No matter how big a jerk someone is, he's still nominally human.

[Kaos Arcanna]

Or perhaps he thinks it would look good on his resume.

Or - just maybe - he actually cares about something he helped create. No matter how big a jerk someone is, he's still nominally human.

And just by saying this he's garnered some goodwill for himself and Cryptic at a cheap price. ('Cause I'm sure he'd be stunned if NCSoft said, "Sure. We'll sell it to you.")

[DarkCurrent]

If it were in his thought process I would imagine a fusion of the 2 worlds.  Harness the superior aspects of both games.  CoX with the Nemesis System would be a fun thing to pull off as an example.  CO with access to all of CoX's costumes and auras.

Not sure if the Champions IP is open to the sort of world fusing I'm thinking, but if both Paragon and Millenium City were on the same world both games could be expanded immensely with minimum amount of creative effort.  Of course the entire backbone of the systems would have to be worked together, or one would have to be recoded for the other engine.  I imagine there are similarities given they came from the same original developer.

I don't think NcSoft would ever do it, but I do think that Cryptic would probably like getting access to some of the tech that Paragon developed.

And if COH came back, perhaps Cryptic could use their newer engine to make COH better ...

The only thing is ... and this may sound weird to post on this forum ... I'm not sure they'd want to keep both COH and CO alive, and I would hate
to see CO die. Not because I think that CO is a better game, but because I know people who really love the game and I would hate to see them go
through what we already have. And there is some fun things in CO that I have enjoyed and would miss.

[Aggelakis]

1) immediate access to the modified NCSoft source, allowing him to bugfix in the other Cryptic titles

Of course the entire backbone of the systems would have to be worked together, or one would have to be recoded for the other engine.  I imagine there are similarities given they came from the same original developer.

Both of these are EXTREMELY unlikely. CoH was their first attempt. Its engine sucks (code-wise - they were all noobs), and all updates to it were terrible hacks. (From the devs' mouths.) CO and all their newer games are on a new engine (updates to those games are either terrible hacks or not as terrible hacks). They would have to be recoded entirely to do any kind of bugfixing (downix) or combining (DarkCurrent).

[Kaos Arcanna]

If it were in his thought process I would imagine a fusion of the 2 worlds.  Harness the superior aspects of both games.  CoX with the Nemesis System would be a fun thing to pull off as an example.  CO with access to all of CoX's costumes and auras.

Not sure if the Champions IP is open to the sort of world fusing I'm thinking, but if both Paragon and Millenium City were on the same world both games could be expanded immensely with minimum amount of creative effort.  Of course the entire backbone of the systems would have to be worked together, or one would have to be recoded for the other engine.  I imagine there are similarities given they came from the same original developer.

Well, let's see. We'd have Paragon City on the East Coast, Millennium City in the Midwest (Detroit), and then we'd need a third super hero game centered on the West Coast.

[Brou]

Many of the Paragon devs are already at Cryptic. It would seem like the perfect lineup of circumstances.

Except that NCSoft owns it all, or so much that "pretty please with some money on top" may not be enough.

I can certainly see the CoH setting being a bronze dagger to end the perpetual silver age of CO, but Champions already has its own lore in sourcebooks that is as gruesome as CoH can be. I would rather see CO grow into its darker side with its own lore.

[dwturducken]

I'm not sure I put much stock in it, but it was a hell of a pleasant surprise to hear him say it.

[Maressa]

Went to this panel. It was the best one I attended. And after the City of Heroes question I just wanted to jump up and hug all the panelists. I actually got some time to talk to Dave Georgeson (Everquest) and Jack Emmert both. It was pretty awesome talking to two guys who are so passionate about what they do.

[UruzSix]

Or - just maybe - he actually cares about something he helped create. No matter how big a jerk someone is, he's still nominally human.

Have you been to Champions lately?

Again, I have no idea if Jack is serious, but bringing City back with an actual dev staff would, um, not go over very well with CO's playerbase - and for very good reasons.

[Lightslinger]

Have you been to Champions lately?

Again, I have no idea if Jack is serious, but bringing City back with an actual dev staff would, um, not go over very well with CO's playerbase - and for very good reasons.

Its very possible that after NWN launches more of the dev staff at Crpytic can spread around to the other games again. Even if CoH was purchased with only the intention of maintenance mode for a while, I'd personally be ok with that.