There's nothing wrong with discussing details now...It's not like any of us can do anything to expedite the game being sold and set back up. -shrugs- Well, I suppose instead of posting this I could be working on Revival instead...but...That's not the same. lol.
Exactly, Irish Girl. No harm discussing ideas. I thought the Oro' Unreal 4 engine demo was top drawer. It showed that there is life beyond the Cryptic engine. Keep going with the revival work.
Classic vanilla.
The whole community wants the game back. As is. I do.
The feel. The unique, easy pick up and play. The modulating mission difficulty settings. (Can I make this alt do +2 x 3 or x 4? At which point will my alt fall over...) The zones (...Steel, Brickstown and Hollows and Talos...Atlas...). The chat window (and the yellow text with back space 'beep.' I miss that 'beep...') The interface (easy to use). The teaming. (Awesomely easy.) Classic CoH IS a design classic. It's my 2nd all time favourite game...and my 1st MMO. As a life subber (or sucker...life sucker...heh, heh...) to Champions I know which I'd rather have.
Money and Community.
And as long as it makes money to keep the servers open it will stay open if there is less of a corporate mentality and more of a community mentality and focus in the next 'home' of the IP. And there is the option for private servers and handing the classic code over to the community in time if numbers drop below break even. And, so we never lose it again, an offline mode. (Something I favour.) Again, I guess it depends on how or if the devs who get the game...involve the community to share the development burden.
Dreams, Death and Priorities.
Sure, it sounds like getting ahead of ourselves even discussing anything. But in the sleep of death there are no dreams. (Looks at CoH 'in state.')
Getting the game 'back' is a priority. And as long as the new developers, whoever they end up being, understand the power of the CoH community then the CoH legacy will be in safe hands.
eg. Just getting the basic issue 23 game back up and running will take a great deal of work and they could involve the community in this process.
Lucky Developers.
Whoever gets the CoH IP is in a very fortunate position. They'll have an existing base, a fiercely loyal base of customers to draw upon with a 90% retention rate. That may not be enough for a big MMO company or developer. But for a smaller team/company..?
I believe there is money to be made from classic CoH. 70-100k subscribers were clearly making enough money for Paragon and the CoH. Just not enough for NC Soft or for an 'over weight' Paragon Studio development team working on two other 'non' CoH projects, perhaps. But in maintenance mode or 'death watch' mode as it was once described with a team of 15(?) I think the game would make more than enough money...
To sequel or not to sequel?
I thought you (Irish Girl) made a great point while we want the game back, obviously, at some point, whoever acquires the IP will turn there attention to a sequel. And I'd rather play the original CoH rather than some half baked CoH2 sequel e.g.. Design train wreck Champions. (Something Jack heralded as '...better in every way than CoH.' I'd contest that.
)
How many people does that appeal to? 75-100k before it shut? Even with a 90% retention ratio rate...you will lose customers and erode the base over time if you don't update the game to boost custom and community. Stoke the fire so to speak.
I'd play CoH classic until hell froze over. Whether there are enough of 'me' or 'us' to going another ten years? I don't know. I'd argue, 'yes.' I think the game has another ten years in it. It's that good. It's better than good. It's lightning in a bottle. Even if we go to community funded servers or open sourcing of the code...private servers and an offline mode (yes please...) CoH appealed to people who'd never gamed in their life. I know some of these very special people. *waves.
Heck, what's Eve Online got? A game with far more technical envelope than CoH and developers who are really on the ball with a vision for the future. 125k players? I played it for a little while. It takes some getting into. But it has its own style. Given those numbers...CoH shouldn't have been shut down. But you had a Korean company with access to far more MMO players than that who get off on the whole fantasy thing. A mis-match of sorts.
What am I getting at?
I think the community would want (I do...) further development of CoH. Classic Vanilla mode. This could mean finishing issue 24 beta. (Are the community really going to wait 5 years for a CoH 2? If they got the game back tomorrow? I think it would take them the best part of 6 months to get the game back online. I'll be happy to be told otherwise. And they'd need community help with that too! Just getting the game back online will be all hands on deck!!!) and have issue 23 only in that time. Especially when the new Dev's could consult old developers and the community to help finish issue 24 and even other work not finished that was on the board.
Is this a waste of time? That would be for the new developers and the community to decide!
Eg. Look at Codewalker's efforts on Icon. Sure. He's not doing the MMO from scratch. But it shows what an individual with talent can do. What if the new Developers handed over the 'source code' and gave it to the community to create mods, mission designers and even issue patches for future Classic CoH development? There's a debate right there. That's what I'd like to see happen. Some of the modding community do incredible work and talented coders can stretch things far in excess of what original developers thought could be done.
Case in point. One year, coloured powers in Coh was impossible. One NC Soft buyout later and a dev' team boosted from 15 to 80+ and 'hey presto' we have coloured power choices! Time and code. And talented people.
I'm sure from a 75k-100k CoH community...there will, no doubt, there will be enough funds efforts for a sequel.
Sequels.
Some may presumptuously dismiss the community's concern over a sequel being faithful as 'fear' but clearly a lot of players didn't make it over to Champions for a reason. There aren't any guarantees that a sequel will have that unique flavour. For me, that's irrelevant for the most part. I just want to play the original. Not only that. The community is clearly still in trauma over the loss of 'not another 'merely' MMO...' The anxiety, 'fear' or 'concern' over a sequel is palpable. Clearly CoH wasn't perfect at close. Everybody has something they didn't like about the game. But for many, me included, it was 'perfect' in all the ways that counted...(nit picking aside...) Sure the graphics would look shiny on Unreal 4 (and they look damn good, actually...*waves to Irish Girl...) But then, I never got to play in 'Ultra Mode.' And they graphics still look competitive to me in that context. It's the game play that counts for me anyway! I missed out on Ultra Mode by a month after closure. Ironic that I got my new rig after. :/
I note in Valiance and City of Titans projects they are having debates over classic CoH 'root' play vs 'pump' stamina builders with 'moving' dynamic play. So, a large part of the CoH community want the game back...but some want changes and once you change a bit here...a bit there...is it the same game? No.
But you could argue CoH wasn't the same game. It changed drastically from before Beta, to launch, to pre-Ed...to post Ed...to AE to...the combat system on Dual Blades (which I loved...ie pushing the old engine to do NEW things...)... i.e. the game evolved. Instead of moving to a shiny new engine they pushed it to its limits and could have done more. Will the new Developers be able to cope with the morass of CoH code and the old engine? Sure it will look like spaghetti. It had 23 issues of evolution. It wasn't static in many ways. In some ways it was. Some may see a sequel as a natural evolution many/some might not. I remember the fights on the CoH forums. You can't please everybody.
Does it matter..? As long as the original is still available. 'No.' Though some will be passionate about the franchise and any successor.
Many in the community realise that a sequel on a more modern engine can take the game forwards.
...and...
As for 'CoH2'...
That depends on who gets the game. IF they get the game. And what they imagine for a sequel. Will they, as a matter of priority, port all assets to Unreal 4 engine? (Non-trivial as noted by Codewalker...) This would give it a fidelity boost from what I've seen from your work, Irish Girl. Or will they rebuild from the ground up (MMOs from the ground up aren't trivial either!) ..?
It won't matter if they can retain that magical 'feel' of the original. But how many sequels top the original? *(Discuss movies...) Who knows...it could happen. And the likeliest boost to revenue would be a smoking hot sequel. People like 'new' especially the dynamic and fickle(?) running rivers of the MMO population who seem easily bored judging by the amount many play? How big is the market for Superhero MMOs anyhow? Will we get to find out?
Do the developers want to retain the feel with a direct port to a new engine or 'same' kinda design direction using the assets as inspiration but starting all the work from scratch?
That's for the developers to evaluate. One gives the game a beautiful 'Ultra Mode 2' boost and some possibilities on the new engine but has the constraints of previous design directions (which gives the game it's unique feel...) The other runs the risk of getting further away from the original design but could, if they pull it off...offer an inspired take on the original, keep it's essence but offer a visually mind blowing sequel with boosted game play modes and easier expansion?
If an MMO takes 5 years to develop (Look at Phosphor's 'Awakened - Hero' game...experienced industry vets and they've been at it ages AND they had a failed kickstarter...lord knows why...the concept looks amazing...) from the ground up a sequel is going to take a long time in coming anyway..! It's non-trivial. (Though Jack Emmert's team did CoV in 8 months? But he kinda had a head start there...)
What happens to Classic CoH in the mean time. ?Especially if a small team of developers gets it? Do they involve the community? Do they kickstart? How much do they have to fund the sequel? Will classic CoH fund this development? Will classic CoH players be happy to fund the sequel while CoH stays in 'stasis' mode? Developing two games is expensive? Sure. (Who doesn't know that...kind of like pointing out the obvious?!) However, maybe CoH can fund it's own development (will the community want the classic CoH to be developed? I would. Is this a waste of time? Would the developers think it a waste of time? Do the community who would fund the game think that?
Maybe CoH 2 will kickstarter itself? Maybe all funds from CoH will go to it.
Maybe CoH 2 will be a completely new game. With some design nods. Maybe they'll use the old game design and assets as a template and just rebuild all the assets, zones, interface, powers etc from the ground up..? And sure, whizzy particle effects and realism in Unreal 4 would look 'hot...' but will they retain that 'soul' or 'magic' from the original game? Will it still play the 'same?' Again, if we want a broader community, I think a sequel for the IP is essential at some point. And it will have to address the concerns of MMO gamers who left CoH and perhaps didn't come back.
Maybe they'll just port the 'game' and assets over to Unreal 4 for an ultra mode 2 'boost' to the assets. But as some have noted it can be easier to start from scratch than fix a mess (yes, well, that's kind of obvious too...)
It comes down to 'Feel' vs 'Inspiration.' The original with a 'capped' audience and the sequence with 'potential' audience. Part of me still feels the original CoH didn't get the audience it deserved. It was a mainstream pick up and play MMO. Easy to get into. I'm amazed it didn't have 300k subscribers. If WoW is on 8 million plus? No justice in the world from my point of view. Having played and looked at many other MMOs (I'd test them on my friend's rig...but I was a CoH kinda guy...) I was rather bemused more people weren't playing the more feature packed CoH. Clearly a perception and marketing issue for any new dev' to fix. And part of that will be perceived modernisation regardless of what I or die hards like me say.
Perhaps that depends on how the developers feel in consultation with the community (will they even listen to the community..?)
Lots of questions. Speculation. (Yes, I love rampant speculation. And I do like the discussions.) That's the whole point of a community. Sharing of ideas and viewpoints.
Right now? I'd take the game back as is. That's what I miss.
I'm pretty sure the first priority will be to get the game back (all being well) from the potential(!) talks.
I wish H&V, Valiance, City Of Titans, Irish Girl well in their efforts.
But most of all, I wish the current talks 'all the best' in their quest to bring CoH back. *Tips hat to Ironwolf.
Azrael.
