New efforts!

[Ironwolf]

[Omega Mark V]

Sounds like something, at least.

I have been sort of 'hovering' anonymously over the forums the past few months, looking for a news update in the "TF Hail mary" forums, so I thought I'd give my thoughts.

If we can show that people are willing to play the game again on a non-profit basis, I would not see why NCSoft wouldn't re-host the game again, or allow the players to have the source code to host it themselves. If it's all non profit, there usually is no harm done.

Getting CoH back, for me personally, would be the icing on the cake with all of the new indie super hero MMO's that got their start from our game's closure.

Thanks for bringing initiative back to the table, Ironwolf.

[alphajaybo]

I think going with the most honest and genuine attitude is probably our best bet. I have simply given up hope of a company picking up CoH, If we are going to do anything it should be to try and deal with ncsoft directly. Going behind their backs is probably going to make them even more hell bent on not giving CoH up!

[Ironwolf]

I was considering a "Not for Profit" model. That means you can make minimal money as you use the money to pay for hosting servers and for Development work once the game is up and going.

This is not just "my game" it is OUR game. Personally I think it is time for such an attempt. It has been a year and the game is long gone and for most gamers completely off their radar. I am coming to the community and asking should we try this? I could in no way do this alone and I would not want to. I want others from the community to share in trying yet again to shrug off despair and dare to hope.

Let us once more try to be heroes - it's what we do.

[NightWolf]

I'm really curious if NCsoft is open for these kind of discussions / offers and if you are able to get in contact with them at all.  Are they still waiting for an offer that they would be okay with? Do they have secret plans for the game themselves? Do they want to keep it off the market permanently? I wonder what they would really want in return for City of Heroes....

[alphajaybo]

Im all up for talking With Ncsoft directly, We just need to get some of the people that. Hate them to try and get on board and help out, we need to show them that all in all we have stopped hating them and that we are still willing to negotiate!

[Ironwolf]

I will give you the facts as I get them,  filtered to protect sources.

A company did offer to buy the IP and NCSoft was willing to sell it for very little. However they wanted to keep the game engine rights. The company decided the IP without the engine wasn't what they wanted.

So to my point, if we offer to run the game with minimal costs, letting them retain all rights it would be worth more to a potential buyer. Why buy a dead game if you could buy a working one?

[alphajaybo]

I will give you the facts as I get them,  filtered to protect sources.

A company did offer to buy the IP and NCSoft was willing to sell it for very little. However they wanted to keep the game engine rights. The company decided the IP without the engine wasn't what they wanted.

So to my point, if we offer to run the game with minimal costs, letting them retain all rights it would be worth more to a potential buyer. Why buy a dead game if you could buy a working one?

In that case we just need to try and get the game Im alright with letting them lease the engine, they deserve at least some part of the game

[OzonePrime]

Worth a try! This hero will support any effort to bring our game back!

[alphajaybo]

Ok so we kinda have a base of what we need to do, i think the hardest part is going to be getting Ncsoft's attention/Contacting them

[JaguarX]

I will give you the facts as I get them,  filtered to protect sources.

A company did offer to buy the IP and NCSoft was willing to sell it for very little. However they wanted to keep the game engine rights. The company decided the IP without the engine wasn't what they wanted.

So to my point, if we offer to run the game with minimal costs, letting them retain all rights it would be worth more to a potential buyer. Why buy a dead game if you could buy a working one?

Good stuff here and in the first post.

Now with the non-profit, make sure the costs to run the server and other stuff is figured out and make clear on how deep development can go, whether little things, or major changes or unlimited. With unlimited I supposes any extra funds are easy to transfer into development as then bigger money bigger development. But if say as rights holder they do not want major changes done, then have to make sure the money that is taken in is not sitting around and can be misconstrued as profit making especially if it end up proving more popular than intended and the right holder decides "hey, we want that cash now for ourselves. Lets hit them with breach of contract for making profits."


But I think the approach you propose is very good. It's not threatening, it's not going in there like entitlement. And it's along the lines of what I said long time ago, simply just ask them. No telling what they may say. They may say nay, they may say yeah.

[alphajaybo]

Good stuff here and in the first post.

Now with the non-profit, make sure the costs to run the server and other stuff is figured out and make clear on how deep development can go, whether little things, or major changes or unlimited. With unlimited I supposes any extra funds are easy to transfer into development as then bigger money bigger development. But if say as rights holder they do not want major changes done, then have to make sure the money that is taken in is not sitting around and can be misconstrued as profit making especially if it end up proving more popular than intended and the right holder decides "hey, we want that cash now for ourselves. Lets hit them with breach of contract for making profits."


But I think the approach you propose is very good. It's not threatening, it's not going in there like entitlement. And it's along the lines of what I said long time ago, simply just ask them. No telling what they may say. They may say nay, they may say yeah.

If they go down the road of releasing the source code on the condition no real profit/Big money is made, then we could split the money into 2 categories

1 Server up time/maintenance. People running the servers will need some form of income to keep the server up and running, For instance donations. Like many wow private server they get income from having donator points, which gives donator's access to a wide variety of Donator only dungeons.

2 Development, im sure for a certain amount of time people wont be too bothered with no updates. However eventually it will need some form of updates, Like new Missions/areas

This is just one idea, however it could be effective to keep servers up and running. Provided we even get that far

[Ironwolf]

There would need to be a very clear and very detailed description of what is allowed.

I would for instance insist on language similar to this (obviously transferred into legalize):

Any and all hosting costs are covered after the initial startup by money generated by the market. The development costs after initial startup can be no more than 25% of the profits earned by the game. The remaining money is transferred quarterly to NCSoft directly.

Now let's say it is possible to do this, we then will need to find out the exact costs of servers and hosting and have a Kickstarter or some other crowd sourced way to fund the initial cost. Then after 1 quarter IF we have profits we can continue development. I have thoughts on that as well - we contact a local College. I live in Michigan and we have Michigan, Michigan State and Western Michigan in very close range from me. Also other Universities could be contacted and we could perhaps pay for a Dev to oversee the work of STUDENTS.

Now we have a unique and perhaps awesome project. We have a real game training programmers and developers and in time marketers and other game based skills. I know this is a long ways off but every journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

[healix]

I am all for getting our game back, and I pulling for every effort you make, Ironwolf. It is my belief that the only failure would be in giving up, and surely there has to be a way to fly the skies of Paragon once more.

[Styrj]

Ironwolf, I, for one, am all for this. Provided we get the game back, has any thought been given to the subscription process, and, will we get the game at I23, I24?  I do realize that, we probably won't get our toons (and I am perfectly OK with starting over on toons) but how many servers/toons per server? My, and probably others, biggest, concern is "Will NCSoft pull the plug again?".

I don't how else to support you guys, I'm just a CoHV player that misses his game.

Best of luck with this effort!

[Ironwolf]

Well once this is going the deal will be that we "lease" the game from them.

They could pull the plug but with zero staff, zero outlay and zero work they will get a check every 90 days. They also get the chance to see new workers without cost to them. In my head anyways, I can't see where they lose anything?

The plan is to offer them an alternative to kill games off. If a group is willing to take the game over and run it in plae of killing it, NCSoft wins. The main selling point is at all times the property belongs to them. The costs are finite and set. X dollars for hosting and servers and x dollars to develop/repair the game.

Looking at moving to a new Issue is far outside of the scope of the startup. That would take a minimum of 3-6 months to raise funds for development. It was nearly done but had some bugs. A lead developer would have to be hired to maintain the game at the very least.

[Codewalker]

In my head anyways, I can't see where they lose anything?

In their minds, negative publicity and making them look bad if the people running it do a poor job of things.

[Kaos Arcanna]

I will give you the facts as I get them,  filtered to protect sources.

A company did offer to buy the IP and NCSoft was willing to sell it for very little. However they wanted to keep the game engine rights. The company decided the IP without the engine wasn't what they wanted.

So to my point, if we offer to run the game with minimal costs, letting them retain all rights it would be worth more to a potential buyer. Why buy a dead game if you could buy a working one?

Hm. I wonder how hard it'd be to recreate the game and powersets using a different engine...

[Artillerie]

I'll support any serious effort to get our game back. Doesn't matter if it's dated or if it's not under development. I play a few games at the moment that are much more modern than CoH but i'd give them up in an instant if someone could guarantee that i  could play my favourite again.

Good luck in your efforts Ironwolf. I will follow this with great interest.

[tomborocks1]

I'm always lurking and watching and waiting. Just my two cents, but I'm for just about anything to get our game back. I would love for my daughter to come home from school one day and I get to tell her to log on ...

I will keep coming back for updates and instructions.

Thank you for this.