New efforts!

[Disected]

As i see it, the buyers will role the City of. ip into it's own company that will provide anyone who wants to release their own server can. It will be in its final official issue which is issue 23. Cot wants to have a connection to City of. however, at the moment they cannot.

So if i understand what you said, CoX will be revived so people who have enough money can purchase servers of the final state of the game for private use? A.K.A private servers and if so that is cool but they should try to only make a few private servers or one if thats the case or it could dwindle playerbase, and CoT is trying to get lore tie in's with CoX?

[Angel Phoenix77]

So if i understand what you said, CoX will be revived so people who have enough money can purchase servers of the final state of the game for private use? A.K.A private servers and if so that is cool but they should try to only make a few private servers or one if thats the case or it could dwindle playerbase, and CoT is trying to get lore tie in's with CoX?

partially, it is more like, lets say you want to make a successor game such as CoT, and you want to have a connection to City of. such as Statesman making an appearance in it. You can then go to the company and buy a license for City of. to have Statesman to appear as well as anything else. However, from reading the Mask comes off, I get the since that you can have a private server.

[Disected]

partially, it is more like, lets say you want to make a successor game such as CoT, and you want to have a connection to City of. such as Statesman making an appearance in it. You can then go to the company and buy a license for City of. to have Statesman to appear as well as anything else. However, from reading the Mask comes off, I get the since that you can have a private server.

If anyone else can put their 2cents on this, i'd appreciate it a'lot. Do you think that they will be reviving the I.P for private servers?

[Angel Phoenix77]

If anyone else can put their 2cents on this, i'd appreciate it a'lot. Do you think that they will be reviving the I.P for private servers?

Honestly, outside of what was posted we, in the other thread we have no idea if the buyers would want our 2 cents. Nate and the few other people have not been around for quite sometime. What we do know is they are under a NDA. More so, the buyers want to be able to use some of the aspects of the IP. There is another group that was/is making City of. such as Atlas Revival. Outside of that, we also know if/when the deal is done, then City of. zombie will be playable until Atlas is done making the switch to City of. that can make it playable on Windows 10.
For the exact tech details of the programing, someone better then me can tell you want that could entail.

[Disected]

Honestly, outside of what was posted we, in the other thread we have no idea if the buyers would want our 2 cents. Nate and the few other people have not been around for quite sometime. What we do know is they are under a NDA. More so, the buyers want to be able to use some of the aspects of the IP. There is another group that was/is making City of. such as Atlas Revival. Outside of that, we also know if/when the deal is done, then City of. zombie will be playable until Atlas is done making the switch to City of. that can make it playable on Windows 10.
For the exact tech details of the programing, someone better then me can tell you want that could entail.

So atlas park revival is a revival program of CoX? and if so is it an exact game of CoH? I'm just confused with all these things going on, so currently there is CoT that is trying to be a spiritual successor and wants to have some type of linking with the lore, etc, and then there is the whole thing with nate downes being under NDA regarding the revival program of the IP, but is that the same as the atlas park revival  or for other companies trying to buy the license for their own games, or is it for private servers. This is so much to understand honestly.. Sorry

[LateNights]

Fairly sure this is the result of rumor rather than fact.

Seemingly the belief CoT wanted access to the CoH lore came about due to Nates involvment - but in reality CoT is moving forward without any direct links to CoH - a revived CoH would remain its own game, the direction remains open to speculation...

[CrimsonCapacitor]

Hint: the appliances ran Plan 9.

From outer space?  Wow.  How cool is that?

[Taceus Jiwede]

Fairly sure this is the result of rumor rather than fact.

Seemingly the belief CoT wanted access to the CoH lore came about due to Nates involvment - but in reality CoT is moving forward without any direct links to CoH - a revived CoH would remain its own game, the direction remains open to speculation...

This is what I have been lead to believe as well.  CoT and CoH, even upon CoH's return, would remain independent games but the post from Nate reads as

An arrangement is to be made to license the trademarks to the various Plan Z projects, CoT, Valiance and H&V, to create a family connection, and to allow each to drop the "Spiritual" portion of successor. This means they can make references to the original game if desired, and to enable the expansion of partnerships. This could be expanded for any of them, should the desire be there.

So it seems to me if they wanted to use trademarked things from CoH they can, for example all 3 games could have reference to Statesman, or Lord Recluse or a far away land known as "Paragon City" that was destroyed to create a level of continuity.  But as LateNights said I don't think they are waiting around waiting for the CoH IP to be free'd up - they are still their own games with their own lore.

[Arcana]

Interval in milliseconds stored in a 32 bit integer?

49*24*60*60*1000 roughly equal to 2^32.

Yep.  And just like I know a day is 1440 minutes because of IPsec, and a year is about 30 million seconds because of a trivia game, I will go to my grave knowing that four billion milliseconds is about 49.7 days because of an idiot Plan 9 programmer.

[Arcana]

If anyone else can put their 2cents on this, i'd appreciate it a'lot. Do you think that they will be reviving the I.P for private servers?

That's an odd question, so I'm not sure if you understand all of the details of the situation.  It might be helpful to define some terms and some context.

City of Titans, which is one of the current development projects going on, is a successor game.  They are writing an entire new game from scratch.  It is a spiritual successor to City of Heroes in that the goal of the project is to recreate the overall feel of the game and how it played.  They cannot actually duplicate the game because that would be illegal.  City of Heroes as a game was protected by intellectual property laws (primarily copyright) in two distinct ways: its actual code was protected and the creative expression within the game was protected.  That means even if you saw the game code you could not copy it and use it: you have to write your own.  But it also means that the characters and storylines and appearance and sound of the game was also copyright protected, no different than if City of Heroes was a movie or a song or a painting.  You can't copy that stuff without permission either, so no Statesman, no Rikti invasion, no Paragon City.  You can't even directly copy a cape design or the way Fire Blast looks and sounds.  All that stuff has to be replaced and not copied in any new game built without permission.

The licensing project in question was an attempt to get NCSoft to either sell or license or both the actual City of Heroes game, whole or in part, to a third party.  Specifically, the goal was to buy the content IP (Intellectual Property) and to license the software.  This would mean this third party would be able to do two things that no one can legally do now.  One: they could spin up actual City of Heroes servers that looked and acted exactly like how the game looked on the day of shutdown, except they would be empty.  No player data, no characters.  It would be like a clean slate brand new game server.  Licensing the game software means they are buying the rights to run the server.  It is highly unlikely that anyone would go through all this trouble to run a private server: the goal, as I understand it, would be to open this to players in some (not yet discussed) way.  They would be essentially permanently maintenance mode live City of Heroes servers.

Two: buying the content IP means this third party could use, or license to others the right to use, the actual content of the game.  The names "Statesman" and "Lord Recluse" for example.  The story of the Rikti invasion.  The name "Paragon City."  Maybe even the way Energy Blast looked.  Owning those rights opens the door for other projects like City of Titans to gain the permission to use that IP.  City of Titans would not have to reinvent the wheel if they did not want to: they could remake Paragon City and the Rogue Isles.  They could recreate the Freedom Phalanx in their own game.  It would look and feel a lot more like the original City of Heroes because they would have the right to use what they currently must stay completely away from.

So to answer your question as stated, no one would need to license the content IP to run private or public servers.  That is neither necessary nor sufficient.  What they would need to do is buy or license the right the use the actual software (and actually get a copy of it).  Implicit in that right would be the right to use the content within the server instances.  Directly licensing the content IP only makes sense if you want to use the game content in a completely different game.  Either a successor game or a similar project.  Or if you wanted to expand the game world in other ways.  If you want to write a City of Heroes novel, say.  That would be a reason to attempt to acquire or license the content IP of the game.

The only reasonable reason I can think of would be to make a new game look like City of Heroes.  I don't see a lot of people pining for the right to compose a new ballad dedicated to City of Heroes or anything like that.

[Taceus Jiwede]

  I don't see a lot of people pining for the right to compose a new ballad dedicated to City of Heroes or anything like that.

haha ya that would be crazy.....*crumbles up sheet music and holds back tears*

[LateNights]

Update September 30 2015: NO, WE DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE DEAL. YES, THEY ARE UNDER AN NDA. YES, EFFORTS ARE STILL ONGOING. STOP ASKING. JUST CHAT AND WAIT. THANKS.


Update March 4 2015: Check the first post in this thread for a timeline of events.


Update October 2 2014:
CITY OF TITANS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS "RESCUE OPERATION". NATE DOWNES IS OPERATING OUTSIDE OF ANY POSITION HE HAS WITHIN MISSING WORLDS MEDIA.


Original September 1 2014:
Greetings,

For those unaware, my name is Nate Downes. While I am the President of Missing Worlds Media, Inc, I am also a member of the City of Heroes community, and an advocate. A series of circumstances put me in to a unique position, to reach out to NCSoft, not as the company president, but as a member of a small group with the goal to acquire the older property in some form or another.

Early on, this group, which included a few people from MWM as well as other members of the community, made the intentional choice to not directly involve CoT in the negotiations. There are a few reasons for this. It prevented the discussions from negatively impacting the project should they go wrong. It also prevented them from distracting any development. And, most importantly, if this should work out, it would be incredibly unfair for only one segment of the community to benefit.

How it began.

In September of last year, I had lucked into a chance meeting with a few people who worked for NC Soft, including a manager. They advised me then to come back later on to talk with them. While I'd kept the dialog channel open, the general consensus was that no, the company would never sell City of Heroes complete and intact.

Then IronWolf posted the idea of buying up part of the game, but not the entire thing. This prompted me to ask my contact people, who through several discussions eventually advised me to talk to a single person, NC Soft's Business Manager Jae Soo Yoon. In addition, we had some other people who were ex-employees and ex-partners suggest the very same person.

For those who do not know Korean business methods, it is considered highly rude to directly email someone, but to instead get an introduction from a third party business associate. This meant we had to find someone who was not part of NC Soft to formally introduce us to Mr. Yoon. Fortunately, we had two people who could do just that, a former NC West employee and a former co-worker of mine who had started a media company which works with NC Soft on developing properties for the Asian market.

Introductions in place, we made the leap from US-bound people to members of the Korean firm. This was very carefully done, very slowly orchestrated. By July, we had gotten to the point that Mr. Yoon had passed us to Sangwon Chung from NC Soft's Strategic Partnership Development Team.

For those who are unfamiliar, this is the group which handles things such as partnering with an existing studio or the development of new partnerships. This is the group we have been working with since early July. It is a very slow process, and still will take a long time to conclude.

The proposal as it stands right now (this is not a final form, just the current proposal on the table) is this:

The CoH IP would be spun to its own company, to handle licensing. This company would itself license the existing engine from NCSoft for the creation of a maintenance mode, using a binary copy of the i23 server.

The existing user database and characters are not part of this arrangement at this time, nor is the source code.

An arrangement is to be made to license the trademarks to the various Plan Z projects, CoT, Valiance and H&V, to create a family connection, and to allow each to drop the "Spiritual" portion of successor. This means they can make references to the original game if desired, and to enable the expansion of partnerships. This could be expanded for any of them, should the desire be there.

An arrangement is also to be made for the Atlas Park Revival project. As part of the informal agreement we have with them, they would be given an official stamp of approval, and the CoT game build would be licensed to them, to create a kind of "CoH 1.5" and migrate people off of the classic game engine before it finally becomes unsuitable (we expect this to happen around when Windows 9 is released, due to binary compatibility). This can be done because both APR and CoT run on Unreal Engine 4.

By being its own firm, the licensing company can also pursue other avenues which were unavailable before.

Why this group?

Because we approached them like another Korean company. We respected their company culture. And most importantly, we were patient. We had periods where we heard nothing for weeks.
The group itself began as three people. It has grown, some people more connected to the inner workings than others. Some former Cryptic and Paragon employees have given us advise on things ranging from what is needed to run the old server binaries to how the Paragon Market worked.

So, why come forward now?

Back in March, we were advised to wait until after August as a show of good faith. It is now September, so here we are.

Since we could not give full details to anyone without jeopardizing the whole thing before now, a lot of misinformation, rumors, and flat out wrong ideas got out there. To correct them could have broken the request, and therefore the trust, built up. So we had to let them stir, and do minor nudges to fix when we could get away with it.

So where are we now?

Right now, still discussing terms, ideas, limits. The challenges we have been given we stepped up for and handled. Likely there will be discussions and adjustments right up until the moment the deal is signed. The whole thing may fall apart. For all we know, everything done so far has been nothing but a delaying tactic so they can say once again that they tried to work with the community to no avail. But until such time that becomes clear, we will continue forward in good faith.

They could have ignored us from day 1, but they did not. They may not operate at the pace we would like, but they are at the pace they are comfortable with. At this point, the ball is in their court.

Ultimately, it is not the dozen folk here who have been in talks with are important here, but all of you. Those who said what you wanted, what you'd hoped for, who did not give up. We're still not there, may never make it there, but we are not even close to giving up. And whatever happens, we can do it together.

Thanks to all of you.

It sounds as though NC have significant power to guide whatever direction a revived CoH will take - meaning anything we've heard as possible at this point is just that - a possibility...

[Arcana]

It sounds as though NC have significant power to guide whatever direction a revived CoH will take - meaning anything we've heard as possible at this point is just that - a possibility...

I'm not sure how you got that from downix's post, except insofar as since no deal has been reached or had been reached at the time of the post, NC has significant power to guide the direction of a revivied CoH only insofar as they currently are not allowing any such thing from taking place at all.  Had the licensing deal gone through, they would have had the theoretical ability to include licensing terms that would regulate how the resurrected servers were operated, but would have no influence at all on how the IP was licensed.

[LateNights]

That depends on the particulars of the deal. There are a half-dozen possible structures laid out, with different possible people depending on the structure.

It could be a lot of different combinations of bits and elements and ideas. We simply do not know yet where the cards will fall. All we do know is that we are sitting at the table, and that the cards are being shuffled before dealing.

That is still one of the negotiating points, ownership percentages as well as control, and a lot of that depends on other conditions. They trade x for y, that kind of thing.

Simply put, as this area is still one of the major negotiating points, could majorly derail if I go into details.

There are a lot of options for setting up a company which makes "ownership" a complex and confusing thing. Is it set up as a standard IP Holding Company or as an Active Trust? Just two of the dozens of options on the table. I'd rather put this down when it is more clear what direction things will be going in.

A subsidy, no. The specific ownership details are still very much up in the air. I know what my preference would be, but this is an area where we can expect NCSoft to have a lot of say in the particular legal structure. My goal (being very specific here, this is my personal goal) is to have this be a form of trust.

Not at all. This is negotiation for what they are willing to sell. They are going to try and get the maximum payout for the minimum handout. That's normal business. Conversely, the opposite side is looking for the maximum handout for the minimum payout.

My mistake - it wasn't that post alone.

[Arcana]

My mistake - it wasn't that post alone.

The "Active Trusts" mentioned in that post probably refer to the situation where NCSoft licenses exclusive rights to sublicense the IP.  In effect, the third party would become sort of like a wholesaler of licenses for the CoH property.  That would theoretically give them (NCSoft) some ability to exercise control over how licenseholders operate, by virtue of constraining how the third part administers licenses in the first place.  But short of nuclear options (i.e. terminating the entire deal for cause) it is usually the case that with deals like that the owners are limited in the amount of micromanaging control they have.  Because usually no one would be willing to sign a contract in which the original owners had significant ability to tamper.  There'd be no point in tying one's self to such an agreement.

But it does happen.  The devil would be in the details, and I get the impression that those details did not get beyond the hypothetical.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Yep.  And just like I know a day is 1440 minutes because of IPsec, and a year is about 30 million seconds because of a trivia game, I will go to my grave knowing that four billion milliseconds is about 49.7 days because of an idiot Plan 9 programmer.

Look at the bright side if someone ever ask's you to commit to a 50 day project you can say "but that is a little more then Four Billion milliseconds!"

Or something a long the lines of "I made 4 Billion Mill over 4 Billion Milliseconds" 

[LadyVamp]

Yep.  And just like I know a day is 1440 minutes because of IPsec, and a year is about 30 million seconds because of a trivia game, I will go to my grave knowing that four billion milliseconds is about 49.7 days because of an idiot Plan 9 programmer.

I happen to remember 1440 as the priority command in JCL to tell MVS the job is to run in real time.  Got an administrator in trouble with that one when I was in college.  Can't believe he allowed a real time cobol job to run for a student but he did.

[Mageman]

To me, it looks like the wheels have come off the "New Efforts".  :gonk: CoX has been offline so long, and yet I come back here at least once a week to see if there is anything new. After CoX was taken down over 4 years ago, I still want to go and play. I have even thought about starting a go fund me page to get the money to purchase CoX as an alternative to Nate and Co.'s efforts. The problem is I don't know the status of their efforts. Maybe they were successful and they are waiting for something so they can bring it back. The major down-side I see to bringing back CoX is that it would hurt their (including Nate) efforts to bring CoT online, as this would probably hurt their potential future users.

[Tahquitz]

The major down-side I see to bringing back CoX is that it would hurt their (including Nate) efforts to bring CoT online, as this would probably hurt their potential future users.

City of Titans touts itself as a spiritual successor to City of Heroes.  If the game came back, they'd still develop their MMO anyway. Nothing would change.  If it doesn't, all the more reason for them to do it.

[Taceus Jiwede]

To me, it looks like the wheels have come off the "New Efforts".  :gonk: CoX has been offline so long, and yet I come back here at least once a week to see if there is anything new. After CoX was taken down over 4 years ago, I still want to go and play. I have even thought about starting a go fund me page to get the money to purchase CoX as an alternative to Nate and Co.'s efforts. The problem is I don't know the status of their efforts. Maybe they were successful and they are waiting for something so they can bring it back. The major down-side I see to bringing back CoX is that it would hurt their (including Nate) efforts to bring CoT online, as this would probably hurt their potential future users.

I'm not so sure that money is the real issue.  The impression I got was Nate and Co had enough money to make NCSoft at least interested enough to listen, but money isn't the end all be all of the deal it seems like.  I imagine if someone offered them an insanely obtuse amount of money maybe they would just up and sell it, but other then that it seems money is only one of the many factors of this deal.