Aeria Games

[Ironwolf]

It is a business.

I wrote up in the other thread what positions all would need to be filled and the game would likely require at a minimum of 20 people.

Cryptic ran it with 15 Devs and programmers but they had accounting folks as well. It is awesome to have this debate but part one is simple - get the game. I am certain that NCSoft will ask about the organization of the team trying to buy it. The best case scenario is that if Cryptic is not content to sell it as the group is currently established they will allow the talks to continue as the team is filled in.

I really do get it that your vision is not being fulfilled and that you would like a say in what is happening. It is not my choice, everyone who has made a contact on the board has had their information forwarded - including you. You see I know of several different visions that people have for the game:

1. Acquire the game and find a large company like Valve or Epic to run it - selling the game for a profit but giving it a bigger home.
2. Acquire the game and never change it outside of finishing I24 - keep it in maintenance mode.
3. Acquire the game and start the old game up - using it to fund CoH 2.
4. Acquire the game and move it to an open source programming system using students and others to fill positions and maintain the game.

I have even seen MORE than these roughly about 10 or so visions of where the game should go.

Right now - the first team is working on it and why on earth would we want to skew their efforts? Trust me their vision is not mine - but you know the Old Devs often had different ideas than I did. I can work with that. I get it you feel that your ideas are important and once the game has been purchased - with patience you may get the chance to voice your views and let them be heard.

As for the Bootstrap budget - Earth and Beyond did it with almost nothing. Reality? The reality is this is NOT a blockbuster title that is going to bring in $500 million in its life time. It was at its peak likely bringing in for a short time $5 million a quarter and at the end it was $10 million gross a year.

Do you think it can start at $10 million? I would imagine getting ROI in 5 years is reasonable to assume. Basically for 4-5 years the game won't have paid for itself - I could be vastly wrong and it suddenly is rolling in the dough, I highly doubt that. Now if the game is ported to another engine - many of which exist but UnReal 4 seems the likely fit - a second game in 3-4 years MIGHT be a blockbuster.

You ignore that passion and love for the game kept those that are trying to get it back - here. We stayed, we fought and the heartless entity thing was done - it failed us. NCSoft for all of their billions of dollars - walked away and closed the game.

It wasn't personal, it was strictly business and it sucked.

[Codewalker]

5. Turn the game over to a community-run organization to manage as a non-profit donation driven enterprise. Open source of the existing engine probably isn't possible due to third party code and license agreements, so turn the source over to a small group of unpaid volunteers pulled from the community who sign NDA agreements. The game itself would be free to play and stay open as long as the donations were enough to cover the costs.

It's worked for other games and I'm 100% certain that it could work for COH. We have the management capability, the technical expertise to maintain and develop the game, and the dedicated community who would be willing and able to cover the cost of servers and bandwidth.

However, I am not naive enough to believe that NCSoft would ever go for that in a million years.

[downix]

5. Turn the game over to a community-run organization to manage as a non-profit donation driven enterprise. Open source of the existing engine probably isn't possible due to third party code and license agreements, so turn the source over to a small group of unpaid volunteers pulled from the community who sign NDA agreements. The game itself would be free to play and stay open as long as the donations were enough to cover the costs.

It's worked for other games and I'm 100% certain that it could work for COH. We have the management capability, the technical expertise to maintain and develop the game, and the dedicated community who would be willing and able to cover the cost of servers and bandwidth.

However, I am not naive enough to believe that NCSoft would ever go for that in a million years.

Ryzom springs to mind there.

[Ironwolf]

5. Turn the game over to a community-run organization to manage as a non-profit donation driven enterprise. Open source of the existing engine probably isn't possible due to third party code and license agreements, so turn the source over to a small group of unpaid volunteers pulled from the community who sign NDA agreements. The game itself would be free to play and stay open as long as the donations were enough to cover the costs.

It's worked for other games and I'm 100% certain that it could work for COH. We have the management capability, the technical expertise to maintain and develop the game, and the dedicated community who would be willing and able to cover the cost of servers and bandwidth.

However, I am not naive enough to believe that NCSoft would ever go for that in a million years.

See your vision is very close to my own. By doing it this way several things happen - you can train Developers. You can take students on and let them learn coding, marketing, accounting and all of the various positions. Look at who we have out there folks!

We have Rick Astley who is a musician and also an avid CoH player (Rick Rolls not included)
We have a best selling writer.
We have a world reknowned Internet marketing specialist.
We have many skilled and talented people and all we need is the game - we do need organization - that is why one team is going forward currently and not a mob of various folks. I see so very many folks making plans for this and that and it is wonderful to dream.

But we need the game first.

[TonyV]

Look at who we have out there folks!

I can juggle.

[Ironwolf]

My one redeeming skill is I have a talent for hitting people with sticks

[MWRuger]

I think (at least I hope) that most everyone on the other thread understands that getting the game is the biggest single, important step.

For all the talk of what we would like and what we will do, it's just navel gazing until there is an announcement from, not the buyers, but NCSoft that "an agreement has been reached with (whoever) and former customers can take to the skies once more".

Give us some credit. We're just happy to a little hope. I talk to about 10 RL players and when I tell them I can see them get excited and then immediately say "I'm going to wait to get excited". I know the net is full, and I mean to the brim, with clueless and crazy people. But despite some people asking questions already answered and not reading the thread, on the whole I think it's been pretty well balanced between optimism and realism. No one is talking about it being a done deal, just if it is done, this is what will be awesome/cool/awful, etc.

I'm more than happy to support a new company to the tune of 500 dollars a year not counting store purchases, if it has a store. But if these efforts fail then on to the next plan. Another company, private servers, non-profit, whatever it takes.

I have said often and I continue to say: I just want to play COH again before I die.

It's not eminent as far as I know but that's what I am hoping for. I think that's doable.

[chuckv3]

Of course I'll take any arrangement that lets me play, and I'll play hoping that the new owners don't start making changes that ruin things.

[AlabasterKnight]

I really do get it that your vision is not being fulfilled -

My vision is doing just fine.

Right now - the first team is working on it and why on earth would we want to skew their efforts?

The "first" team or "just another" team?
Gosh, Ironwolf, who exactly are the first team?
I agree; why skew efforts? But that is what everyone seems to do around these parts. This 'community' is skewed all over the place. The fact that only certain people can be in the know and that there are so many different efforts speaks volumes. Each one its own agenda, but somehow every one is altruistically only interested in bringing the game back for the love of the community?
At least I'm open about my stance.
I'll bet there's far less of the "for the love of the community" than advertised on that first team, or else if they were all about the community, it would be well documented who they are and what their plan really is.

The reality is this is NOT a blockbuster title that is going to bring in $500 million in its life time. It was at its peak likely bringing in for a short time $5 million a quarter and at the end it was $10 million gross a year.

If it was grossing $10M a year and needs 15 devs:
At $100k per dev, that'd be $1.5M, call it $2.25M annually including ERE; double it for rent, ops, server and transaction fees... what about the other $5.5M?
And what would real marketing do for it?
Is that not enough reality for you?
I have no illusion that someone might have ulterior motives for trying to buy and run the new beast.

Do you think it can start at $10 million? I would imagine getting ROI in 5 years is reasonable to assume. Basically for 4-5 years the game won't have paid for itself - I could be vastly wrong and it suddenly is rolling in the dough, I highly doubt that.

Somehow I think the numbers support that it would easily pay itself off...

Now if the game is ported to another engine - many of which exist but UnReal 4 seems the likely fit - a second game in 3-4 years MIGHT be a blockbuster.

Hmmm, you think maybe the "first" team is a team that's using Unreal 4?

You ignore that passion and love for the game kept those that are trying to get it back - here. We stayed, we fought and the heartless entity thing was done - it failed us. NCSoft for all of their billions of dollars - walked away and closed the game. It wasn't personal, it was strictly business and it sucked.

Geez.
I'm not ignoring anything.
This bears repeating for those who have never heard it.
The people who log into forums on the internet are not the whole CoH community.
They're not even half of it; or a third; or an eighth.
The implication is really arrogant when you say "We stayed, we fought"; though it's awesome that a significant fraction of all the people who played stayed to hold a torch; I was/am one.
No one "failed" us anymore than we failed us or the devs failed us.
If the game had better development, it might have gained a larger audience.
If it had gained more funding, it might have been too profitable to close.
If when it went free to play, everyone had stayed on subscription anyway, maybe it would have made it.
If everyone who came back when they heard it was closing to play the last month of the game had never left, it might have lasted...

Whatever is happening, I hope it achieves success.

And along with it, I hope the exclusionary attitudes that certain people seem to exhibit when they start measuring 'who has the best interests of the community' begin to fade just as fast as the game cranks up again.
TonyV here is no more qualified than my wife (the best empathy ever to play on Protector ) to represent the community; whose to say he loved the game more than she, or you more than I, or I more than Downix? (Although I would totally say without question TonyV has demonstrated he is a better webmaster/site specialist and has put in a crap ton of work and dedication on this site!).

[Tubbius]

Rick Astley played CoH? 

Cool.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

TonyV here is no more qualified than my wife (the best empathy ever to play on Protector ) to represent the community; whose to say he loved the game more than she, or you more than I, or I more than Downix? (Although I would totally say without question TonyV has demonstrated he is a better webmaster/site specialist and has put in a crap ton of work and dedication on this site!).

For all your rhetoric i'm going to judge TonyV on his actions. He may not be more qualified to represent the community of everyone who ever played and enjoyed City of Heroes than your wife, but until you present some example of what your wife has done to try to keep the fanbase connected and revive the game i will say that he is far, far, far more qualified to represent the community of people who are trying to make it possible to play the game again than your wife is. i mean, for all i know your wife has organized and/or been working to code a server replacement for CoH and/or has put together a website and helped coordinate a campaign to acquire and revive CoH. But i haven't encountered any mention of her doing so from you or anyone else, and, well, there's this site and the posts here in the forums as indications of what TonyV has been doing. So, as far as qualifications go i'd say what TonyV has done so far suggests somewhat greater qualifications  to represent the people who would like to actually play the game again; although, as you pointed out, that doesn't necessarily mean he is more qualified to represent the group of people who liked the game back when it was still running.

[LaughingAlex]

My vision is doing just fine.
The "first" team or "just another" team?
Gosh, Ironwolf, who exactly are the first team?
I agree; why skew efforts? But that is what everyone seems to do around these parts. This 'community' is skewed all over the place. The fact that only certain people can be in the know and that there are so many different efforts speaks volumes. Each one its own agenda, but somehow every one is altruistically only interested in bringing the game back for the love of the community?
At least I'm open about my stance.
I'll bet there's far less of the "for the love of the community" than advertised on that first team, or else if they were all about the community, it would be well documented who they are and what their plan really is.
If it was grossing $10M a year and needs 15 devs:
At $100k per dev, that'd be $1.5M, call it $2.25M annually including ERE; double it for rent, ops, server and transaction fees... what about the other $5.5M?
And what would real marketing do for it?
Is that not enough reality for you?
I have no illusion that someone might have ulterior motives for trying to buy and run the new beast.
Somehow I think the numbers support that it would easily pay itself off...
Hmmm, you think maybe the "first" team is a team that's using Unreal 4?
Geez.
I'm not ignoring anything.
This bears repeating for those who have never heard it.
The people who log into forums on the internet are not the whole CoH community.
They're not even half of it; or a third; or an eighth.
The implication is really arrogant when you say "We stayed, we fought"; though it's awesome that a significant fraction of all the people who played stayed to hold a torch; I was/am one.
No one "failed" us anymore than we failed us or the devs failed us.
If the game had better development, it might have gained a larger audience.
If it had gained more funding, it might have been too profitable to close.
If when it went free to play, everyone had stayed on subscription anyway, maybe it would have made it.
If everyone who came back when they heard it was closing to play the last month of the game had never left, it might have lasted...

Whatever is happening, I hope it achieves success.

And along with it, I hope the exclusionary attitudes that certain people seem to exhibit when they start measuring 'who has the best interests of the community' begin to fade just as fast as the game cranks up again.
TonyV here is no more qualified than my wife (the best empathy ever to play on Protector ) to represent the community; whose to say he loved the game more than she, or you more than I, or I more than Downix? (Although I would totally say without question TonyV has demonstrated he is a better webmaster/site specialist and has put in a crap ton of work and dedication on this site!).

I just read you saying "if the game had better development", well, it did have a TON of development.  Seriously what was issue 22, 23 and 24?  What were issues 12-22?  What of all those archs hmmm?  Seriously, city of heroes was shut down for all the wrong reasons, it had far more then CO did.  CO didn't have any development, whatsoever, while CoX existed and guess what?  It's still got almost no development at all after CoX has been shut down and a few of us were forced over to CO only to either leave or end up staying but only rping rarely.

I mean really could you explain, perhaps whaat you mean by better development?  :/

Edit: Sorry if I seem confrontational here, just kind of in an eh mood atm :/.

Another edit: I am hopeful whatever is happening will move forward myself, I still have plans to end my CO sub the instant any announcement comes that concretely means CoX is coming back sooner or later.  I've so many reasons to wanna leave CO, heck, heres a funny video of that game I stumbled across.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioT6En4B13s

Yeah, apparently it's not fixed.  The guy quit over that, cannot blame him.  Though I wonder if he was also banned for some other reason, who knows.  I suspect there is a plot going on with CO's moderators and the trolls there anymore since why else would a "create a villain" entry with a freon clone win the whole contest?

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

I just read you saying "if the game had better development", well, it did have a TON of development.  Seriously what was issue 22, 23 and 24?  What were issues 12-22?  What of all those archs hmmm?  Seriously, city of heroes was shut down for all the wrong reasons, it had far more then CO did.  CO didn't have any development, whatsoever, while CoX existed and guess what?  It's still got almost no development at all after CoX has been shut down and a few of us were forced over to CO only to either leave or end up staying but only rping rarely.

I mean really could you explain, perhaps whaat you mean by better development?  :/

Edit: Sorry if I seem confrontational here, just kind of in an eh mood atm :/.

Actually, in light of how huge superheroes had become in pop culture a little while before the game was shut down i think the "development" that was most lacking was an advertising budget. Although that's still no guarantee of mega-success.

[LaughingAlex]

Actually, in light of how huge superheroes had become in pop culture a little while before the game was shut down i think the "development" that was most lacking was an advertising budget. Although that's still no guarantee of mega-success.

I can see what you mean there, it did need more advertising, something that, odds are if it was advertised it'd probably been as popular as EVE online(if it really does have half a mil subs atm).

[Aggelakis]

This thread has run its course - actually, it ran its course MONTHS ago and is only back on the top of the stack due to necro-posting. At this point, we're getting really close to e-peen comparisons, so we'll just stop that before it actually happens. Stay positive, folks! Picking at each other does nothing to bolster the community - so don't.