Thoughts on Hail Mary, one year later

[Thunder Glove]

This is 50/50 hindsight, of course, but it occurs to me now that the pitches should probably have included a suggestion to get back to us directly - not because we're directly involved in the actual negotiations, but so we'd know to stop sending out pitches to other companies.  (I'm sure that Disney or Google would definitely not have wanted us to continue sending them out if they had decided to try it)

That said, of course.... is TFHM over?  The pitch to Google was sent out months ago, and despite  saying they still have many targets lined up, the heads of this endeavor - particularly VV, who hasn't been here in months, and Rae, who seems to have moved on to being MWM's press head - haven't said who they're going after next, or (as far as I'm aware) crafted any new pitches.

If it's done, I can understand why (particularly VV's reasons), but I'd like to know.

[JaguarX]

"well the person they know that know somebody that know some body that know somebody heard something that may be or may not be true but he cant say legally because the person that he know that know somebody that know somebody may get sued and it can years for these deals to work." :p


In reality I think, those pitches didn't do anything along time ago. And I think the meaning of lined up was mostly just any old random corporation they could think of. It was a nice noble try especially knowing it long shot from the get go, but it's probably didnt work. Just that they don't want to admit it. The most feared sentences around these forums for TFHM are "I dont know" and "It didn't work."

Plus do we really want to go through the corporate limbo again many of these companies they pitched too are far worse and far colder than NCSOFT could ever aspire to be. Only difference is that they are American companies and over all American corporations are kings of IP/trademark squatting. Think about all the products that came and gone throughout the industries and ever wondered, say why don't someone bring that back? No one can because the company that put it on ice isn't selling nor do they plan on bringing it back.

[Nightmarer]

They said many times that big corporations are extremely slow at this kind of things and it's almost a year after CoH was closed. At this stage, I think the spiritual projects as well as the project led by SCoRE will be finished much faster than if the game caught any interest by any big company.

All in all, it's a great effort by the people doing it and I'm personally very thankful they are taking the necessary time to do it but at the time being, I personally feel that the ongoing options will be faster. Maybe the only kind of company who could move things quick if they got interested in would be a gaming company or a developing studio, but they are also the most unlikely companies NCSoft would sell the IP to imho.-

[johnrobey]

Remember, it hasn't even been a full year yet--though I'll admit we're getting close to the one year mark.  I am hoping there is yet more to come from TF Hail Mary!  If nothing else than because we fans don't have our game back.  The community here still wants the City.  Yeah, we were warned that corporate decisions especially when pitched ideas from the outside can take a long time.  I still anticipate our fan efforts prevailing but expected that it might take more than a few months unless we happened to get super lucky (always a possibility).  Focusing on next steps and/or where to direct efforts now is what makes sense to me.  I'd really love to see City of Heroes back with all of the excellent community/communities!  Those were excellent, fun times!   /em holdtorch 

[Surelle]

I think the fact that so many former Paragon Studios employees have financially backed (and are openly tweeting about) the City of Titans project speaks volumes.  It's really all we have now besides SCoRE or however they abbreviate it. 

Not that I'm not really happy there are those two things going on; I totally am.  And if you think about it, the world's first open-source MMO is a groundbreaking thing.  I am so proud of the CoH community for even attempting it!  Not to mention that SCoRE has been silently plugging away for a year now as well.

I think Task Force Hail Mary is no more, but luckily, this community is still here and they are still individually a part of that.  And that's all we really need.  If anyone wants to do anything to further support any CoH causes, they should be helping either of those projects get off the ground.

[OzonePrime]

Check this thread http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,9171.msg132332.html#msg132332

Answers everything nicely.

[Spellcaster Hana]

TFHM is over? This is just too sad.

*sigh* I know how much people had worked hard on this but I wish they've warned us before they left us hanging. I was really hoping for it all to work out...well, there goes another hope down the drain 

[johnrobey]

I don't know that TFHM is over, so much, as perhaps taking a break while attention is focused on kickstarter and City of Titans (The Phoenix Project).  I don't see us giving up on getting our City back!  /em holdtorch

[OzonePrime]

Check this thread http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,9171.msg132332.html#msg132332

Answers everything nicely.

Read this thread! TFHM is not over!

[InOnePiece]

Here's what I am wondering... you have $10 million to spend. On the one hand you have CoH, which is quite old and at least parts of it are essentially code frozen. You'd have to assemble a very specific team to continue work on it, and that's probably neither simple or cheap.

OR... you can throw $8 million at CoT and see if you can buy it. You get the same fans either way, and you have a new engine with lots of possibilities. You can probably keep the team you have already (although they all just got a share of that $8 million and are busy booking vacations), but if not you can bring in a new team at a reasonable level.

I'm just thinking if I'm Googney (or Disnoogle?) I might just sit back and watch the KS. Maybe MWM won't sell at any price, and I sorta hope that's the case, but if someone flashed millions at me it sure would be tempting.

[JaguarX]

Maybe MWM won't sell at any price,

Sound very familiar except it was about a different company.

[Thunder Glove]

As excited as I am about CoT (and VO and, yes, even HaV), I really want CoH back.

See, CoH already exists.  It already has classes and powersets and eight years worth of content to play through, even if nothing new ever gets added again, and I know it can run on my current computer because that's what I was running it on.  All someone has to do is set up the servers and flip a switch, and the game is back.

With CoT and the other projects, we're talking about something that might be in a playable form in two or three years, at which point it will have very little content (most likely with all the classes not even released) and will probably require a much better computer than the one I have, and I don't have the money to just go out and buy a new computer.

So there's an excitement with the Plan Z projects, but it's muted.  Until they're open, and I'm logged in and playing them (at full speed, not the laggy crashy mess that Champions Online is), I can't get as excited about them as I would be about the revival of CoH.

I really wanted and still want TFHM to work.

[JanessaVR]

Yes, I think it's time to announce TFHM as officially dead and buried.  It was, in fact, a complete failure and CoH as we knew it will stay dead; we will not succeed in persuading anyone to purchase it.

Which is too bad, as I participated in it, wrote dozens of letters, and got my friends in on it as well.  But it was all for nothing.  They doubtless circular-filed our letters and promptly forgot all about them.  It's over.

At this point, it's time to look forward to City of Titans and whatever SCoRE will come up with.  CoH as we knew it is dead forever - it will not be revived.

[JaguarX]

Yes, I think it's time to announce TFHM as officially dead and buried.  It was, in fact, a complete failure and CoH as we knew it will stay dead; we will not succeed in persuading anyone to purchase it.

Which is too bad, as I participated in it, wrote dozens of letters, and got my friends in on it as well.  But it was all for nothing.  They doubtless circular-filed our letters and promptly forgot all about them.  It's over.

At this point, it's time to look forward to City of Titans and whatever SCoRE will come up with.  CoH as we knew it is dead forever - it will not be revived.

Yeah even if revived, it probably wont be the same anyways. Still probably have to update that engine to be competitive in the market, game or not it's still business. Then, find new devs, which more than likely have a completely different method and chemistry that the old dev team had, and even different view on the direction of the game. Not to mention probably have to learn and untangle a lot of messy code. While mitt hands were bearable for old COX players, it probably wont fly too well if they plan on bringing in profits and new gamers. And lastly they probably would make chances to try to increase profits better than before. Meaning there probably will be changes to reach a wider audience that wasn't there in game before, that may be standard in other games that are frowned upon in the classic COX community, but brings in more people.

[JanessaVR]

If they'd just left the darn thing in maintenance mode for us, we would have avoided all this.  If they'd actually let them finish I24 (and iron out the bugs for a bit) and then announced that it was going into maintenance mode, a lot of us would have been pretty happy with that.  With just that, I'd have faithfully subscribed for the rest of my life - I was always a VIP subscriber for 4.5 years and had no plans to ever not be.

[JaguarX]

If they'd just left the darn thing in maintenance mode for us, we would have avoided all this.  If they'd actually let them finish I24 (and iron out the bugs for a bit) and then announced that it was going into maintenance mode, a lot of us would have been pretty happy with that.  With just that, I'd have faithfully subscribed for the rest of my life - I was always a VIP subscriber for 4.5 years and had no plans to ever not be.

true but even maintenance mode cost money.
One, people will eventually leave but not many people would join a game in maintenance mode. Still have to pay some sort of tech support for bugs that pop up, servers (which I don't think cost much so it may be miniscule in the grand scheme of things), then still have to have moderators and over all still have to somewhat run the game.

And people will still be pissed either way saying it was dirty of them to let the devs release i24 and dump them like a bad habit. They still would have been pegged evil corporation and many still would have vowed to give NCSOFT another cent which means even less players on top of those that jump ship because maintenance mode means death shakes for a game. Which probably means it would barely even be worth running in maintenance mode in the long run.

But I think it would have been less hate if they did the maintenance mode thing, but even then, it's just staving off the inevitable that eventually it will close and whether they did it then or 3 years from then, the result would have been the same. So why not get out now and get it over with before running into the red?

[JanessaVR]

Because if I'd had even another 6 months I could have recorded much, much more of the content for archival purposes.  I recorded fairly intensively for 3 months, and I still curse how much I could not get as I just ran out of time.

[JaguarX]

Because if I'd had even another 6 months I could have recorded much, much more of the content for archival purposes.  I recorded fairly intensively for 3 months, and I still curse how much I could not get as I just ran out of time.

Those three months did seem to fly by.

[CoyoteSeven]

staving off the inevitable

Stave it off, one two three. And now you can count to three.

[wyldhunt]

I would have rather NCSoft said this: "I24 will be the last issue. At that point, CoX will go into maintenance mode for one year."

I would have still not liked CoX closing, however it would have been more respectful of the players to allow a year after I24 than what actually happened.