All this talk of "it'll be months before it's up!" ?
Oh, p'shaw.
The game can be 'lightswitched' on. It's just a program, and all it needs is the proper servers and setting up, IP addresses changed for the downloading and communications, the proper authorizing servers for login purposes (credit card/time card/? method of payment, and the account info, which as I understood it were all on a different authorization server from the game servers), and of course the pipe to the internet... put the startup command on 'auto', and turn it/them on.
I don't even know how the servers worked beforehand. But I do know this: OS has to be up. Databases have to be ready to go, and any software needed to run them if applicable. Then you run the servers.
Done. Game is up.
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Of course, there's the old servers themselves such as Protector and Pinnacle and Champion and such, as well as the authorization/login servers with the account information, I think... But you just run 'em. After you get all the hardware/OS/other software done.
Shouldn't be more than a week. I'd say two days, but that's me.
It would depend greatly on if we're talking about them getting the code and databases, as well as specifications at end of game of the server hardware and internet needs, and the instructions for getting it to work... or if we're only talking about the IP, and nothing to do with the code/databases.
Of course we're hearing the code comes with... Wouldn't surprise me if it's just the IP, and NCSoft says "go make your own."
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Now, that doesn't have *anything* to do with getting a studio up and running, getting a new dev team up. It's JUST getting the game operating again. That's all.
The bigger problem will be the hoops to get the accounts working. As in the credit card/time card/? way to pay or just get the account started in the first place. The logistics behind THAT might need a little time.
So we'll go with 1) Game is purchased by unnamed entity. 2) Entity gets colocation, servers, and payment methods hammered out. 3) Hire enough staff to deal with GM in the game and payment tech support. 4) Website to deal with new accounts, or reloading old ones if possible, however that's going to happen 5) Start the game servers up. 6) Invite people to make accounts and play the game as it was pre-shutdown, no changes, no additions, just whatever was running at shutdown.
WAAAY simplistic on that. Still, should be only a month or two after the dotted i's and crossed t's, if people are serious about it. The rest of it, the additional lore, the new missions, the new zones, etc, ad nauseum, will come 3-6 months afterwards... or more. Studio doesn't need to exist to keep the game going.
That was proven with the 3 month shutdown.
The biggest hurdle, I think, is 4). For that is the stickler to any of this, I believe... account authorizations.
Besides getting the game from NCSoft that is. Heh.
