New efforts!

[ShadowMokadara]

I thought I read somewhere City of Heroes' servers were $18 million/year.

[Ironwolf]

That can't possibly be right.

If I get a DayZ server for 64 players it is EXTREMELY data intensive more than 2 TB a month and yet I can host one of those servers for about $75 a month and DayZ is CPU intensive rather than memory and so quad server setups are the normal (4x4 cores).

I can't see how you would pay more than say $1,000 a month for all of the servers together. The servers were virtual shards and not separate machines. I think from the way they would go down it was all the servers on 2 machines and 1 Test/Dev server. The expensive part is the bandwidth and that would be billed all at once not per server.

[Cobra Man]

I thought I read somewhere City of Heroes' servers were $18 million/year.

CoH was making $2.75 million per quarter in the year before it closed - and it was considered to be profitable.

Not sure where you're remembering this $18 figure from?

[Ironwolf]

I haven't got any major updates today - however we do have some folks looking at a new option and it could be very promising. If nothing else the we are finding lots of friends outside of our community who want the same thing we do! I personally am very excited, I really for the first time in a long time think we may be getting somewhere!

A lot of folks were thinking binary - buy it all or nothing - now they are thinking buy the IP, lease the engine and convert to possibly another engine after a short time. This is all at the starting stages but it may bear fruit!

[alphajaybo]

I haven't got any major updates today - however we do have some folks looking at a new option and it could be very promising. If nothing else the we are finding lots of friends outside of our community who want the same thing we do! I personally am very excited, I really for the first time in a long time think we may be getting somewhere!

A lot of folks were thinking binary - buy it all or nothing - now they are thinking buy the IP, lease the engine and convert to possibly another engine after a short time. This is all at the starting stages but it may bear fruit!

Iron Wolf thank you sooo much! When I personally thought the Torch in this part of the forums had fallen, you came and picked it up. For the first time in a while i too think that we may be getting somewhere. After looking at certain forums it seems more and more people are trying to find some way to help get CoH every day!

[BenshowSly]

Ironwolf, it is a serious question from a noob on all this thing about IP and Engine and such...

Your last post is not clear for someone like me who has been on City of Heroes since Day 1 without questionning the "behind the scenes" of all this.

So thank you to not shoot me down and to correct me if I'm wrong (I know some people can be very intense here).

From what I understood so far, getting the IP means we get the characters, names, and all the "creative stuff", right?

So if the IP is bought and not the engine, it means that, like you said, the game must be adapted in a new engine but it means it will be another game, right?

I bring my example to extreme even if I know it is what you mean... but we could make a whole Civilization game with all the content of CoH if we buy the IP (I got inspired by the mod on it). I know it's not the goal but what I am worried a bit is the fact we will end up with just a game that doesn't play the same and work the same.

I'm not sure if you get my point. I'm not trying to bring down your effort but it's just a little worry of mine. A game where there is a tag "City of Heroes" doesn't mean it is City Of Heroes. It's not because we would put a "City of Heroes" sticker on DCUO and would include the characters of CoH and its environnements that it would interest me more to play that "DCUO-CoH" mix.

Is my point clear? I'm not even sure I explain it right.

However, with that said, I applaude your effort and I encourage you to go as far as you can

[Ironwolf]

Getting the IP means all of the game characters, stories, writing and artwork. The "engine" means the means the way to display it in an MMO setting. There are tons of engines out there.

However NCSoft was willing earlier to "lease" the engine out for an unnamed amount per month/year or whatever duration they set.

Now if you run the game under the engine lease and make say $500,000 a quarter profit  while you are porting it to a new engine - with improvements you have City of Heroes 2.

[Lucretia MacEvil]

Just seeing the title of this thread made my heart soar! Keep up your noble efforts, Ironwolf (and others involved).  I'll be keeping an eye on this thread, waiting to see if there's anything I can do to help.

[BenshowSly]

Getting the IP means all of the game characters, stories, writing and artwork. The "engine" means the means the way to display it in an MMO setting. There are tons of engines out there.

However NCSoft was willing earlier to "lease" the engine out for an unnamed amount per month/year or whatever duration they set.

Now if you run the game under the engine lease and make say $500,000 a quarter profit  while you are porting it to a new engine - with improvements you have City of Heroes 2.

Oh. So it would be a different game... Well, I personally would prefer the same game since I assume CoH 2 wouldn't get at all the same feeling of CoH since the people making it would, like the three projects on work, take what they like the most of CoH only instead of making a whole like it was before.

However, I still encourage anything that brings us close to it Don't see what I'm stating previously as something negative. It's just not CoH to me but could be close enough to please me and I still encourage it

[Ironwolf]

No sorry, what I am saying is it would possibly return the old game for us while they worked on a new game based exactly off the old game

[Ironwolf]

Just seeing the title of this thread made my heart soar! Keep up your noble efforts, Ironwolf (and others involved).  I'll be keeping an eye on this thread, waiting to see if there's anything I can do to help.

I just picked up the torch - already others are lighting more torches. If what I think may happen - happens, then I will quietly fade back  into the woodwork

[AlphaFerret]

I am really digging all the positive vibes throughout this thread:)  Just the thought of a return to Paragon City has my mood uplifted and my torch sparked up again.
Thanks for all your efforts Ironwolf.

[r00tb0ySlim]

No sorry, what I am saying is it would possibly return the old game for us while they worked on a new game based exactly off the old game

This ^...It would be nice to play "catch up" on the "old" game while a new version was possibly in the works, because, let' s face facts, if the game was still around today the graphics/engine were overdue for an upgrade at some point anyway.  We all would have been looking at changes and more than likely loving it.  I am actually starting to forget what the combat looked like in my mind and find the need to YouTube it to refresh my thoughts.  I really hope this effort pans out for all us.  Many thanks Ironwolf and all involved

[Mister Bison]

I'm sorry, there has been confusion What I found phony is not your person, but rather the prospect of this working, and for a moment the sources of your informations (pardon my care). My opinion shouldn't have deterred you, but with the information you now disclosed, I changed it and I'm heartfully with you Sorry for the confusion again, good luck

[Drauger9]

\m/ just because I'm so excited.

This seems so promising, my financial future right now is kinda wishy washy but when and if things settle down. If I have extra time to dedicate to this, I'll be more than happy to help. Right now if you need anything, let me know (also include a time frame) and I'll either say I can't or do my best.

[Styrj]

Here's to hoping the torches see the light.  Fingers crossed!

[Ironwolf]

I'm sorry, there has been confusion What I found phony is not your person, but rather the prospect of this working, and for a moment the sources of your informations (pardon my care). My opinion shouldn't have deterred you, but with the information you now disclosed, I changed it and I'm heartfully with you Sorry for the confusion again, good luck

It was still a fair question and I really wasn't offended by it at all.

I am trying to give you as much information as I can without walking too far. I know it changed my attitude towards NCSoft. They, I believe now had all of the ardent Executive supporters for City Of Heroes leave to go to other studios. Then when time came to merge with Nexon another huge company - they pulled back in the US. Part of the pull back was City of Heroes.

I know to us it felt an big F' You to the players but it turned out they heard us and so did other folks in the community. Someone tried to buy the game and keep the Paragon Studio running it. Then when that failed - a second company tried but stopped when they wanted to keep the engine and sell the IP - lease the game engine. Other than the one effort with VV, Ammon, Quinch, Brian Clayton and Matt Miller with setup by Chris Chung - I don't know the names of the folks in the second attempt.

What appears happened is one of those huge impersonal Corporate decisions. IF - the word you cannot allow to freeze you in time - things and people had been in different places - it may have gone differently. To our advantage now, it may be possible to turn the game over to hands that love it and want the community back.

But, your questioning honestly didn't bother me and I can only keep trying! I really do believe there are enough people and some of those people in the right places to get this done now.

[BenshowSly]

No sorry, what I am saying is it would possibly return the old game for us while they worked on a new game based exactly off the old game

Ah forgive my misunderstanding then All this is chinese for mesometimes lol

This ^...It would be nice to play "catch up" on the "old" game while a new version was possibly in the works, because, let' s face facts, if the game was still around today the graphics/engine were overdue for an upgrade at some point anyway.  We all would have been looking at changes and more than likely loving it.  I am actually starting to forget what the combat looked like in my mind and find the need to YouTube it to refresh my thoughts.  I really hope this effort pans out for all us.  Many thanks Ironwolf and all involved

I don't know... Even if it would be overdue, I like how it works. I would take back the whole system and graphics and engine anything over many things. I'm not against evolution of things but in this case, it would be like trying to modify something perfect (it was the closest of it to my opinion) and risk to make something worse in the end. If it was just of me, I would keep the whole thing like it is. The "old feeling" of it is what gave its charm to me

[Alpha Series]

Ironwolf, I certainly think you're working in a good direction. That is very interesting data you've presented already. This whole effort seems to have workable written all over it. I said earlier that heroes would line up to get behind this movement, and you'll only see this increase. Thank you again for your adding a little fire to that torch! And thanks for your postings! Have been following this thread with great interest! Best wishes to you!

[Peacemaker]

Ironwolf - Thank you for sharing your information and your efforts.  You have renewed my waivering hope that I may one day get to enjoy this game again.