New efforts!

[Ironwolf]

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.


----------------------------

Timeline of significant events:
.

The bold comments are direct communications from the team. I have edited them slightly to remove names and such.

Timeline:
March 6 - I get the information and start working on a way to possibly open source CoH.
March 12 - got letter back from Chris Chung - it showed that is WAS possible to buy the game.
March 13 - the team makes its first contact with me and says this: You are an evil, evil man. I'd given up hope after learning of the tax issue. Now here I am now grinning from ear to ear. Likely going to lead to heartbreak, but damned the torpedos. Full speed ahead.
March 21 - Honestly, we had given up hope. Now, you've given us hope, so we're discussing it.
March 28 - We have been reaching out and putting the proposal together. The concern has been the "Golden Handcuffs" option, being shackled to NCSoft again and having the sword of damocles once again hanging over our heads but this time knowing it is there.
April 5 - Made some headway. Now we know who we need to talk to, and a general idea of price. It is very doable.
April 16 - At the end we'll announce it one way or the other. For now it is just this silly business dance in order to reach [Redacted contact]
April 18 - Second studio expresses interest in the game
April 21 - investor expresses interest and is passed to the team
May 1 - third studio expresses interest in the game.
May 21 - I ask how the talks are going and if they are making the team jump through hoops:Stupid. Stupid amounts of hoops, as far as I know.
June 19 - Slow but not dead. Not a big deal, we were focusing on August anyhow.
June 24 - former paragon Dev contacts me and is forwarded to the team
July 3 - Yesterday, we were directed to the man whose signature is needed.
July 3 - after MY reading WAAAY too much into the first message - Er... we're not days away from anything. We're just now in direct contact, which means we're past another hurdle. We still have at least two months of negotiations left ahead of us, at best. This is where the monsters truly do lie.
July 7 - another investor/studio contacts me and is forwarded to the team
July 11- the fifth studio contacts me and is forwarded to the team
July 24 - Direct quote: "we're working very hard on something to show someone. things will be quiet for a bit."
August 13 - Direct quote: Things are moving along. We should have things worth showing fairly soon, made a great leap forward yesterday.
September 1 - Nate Downs announces he's heading the efforts. They're actively in talks. It's going to take a while. Be patient.
----

The Mask Comes Off Sept 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.

ORIGINAL March 6 2014:

We have some new efforts under way now and I will try and explain where we are currently with the efforts to return City of Heroes. Some folks have dropped off the stage and it is unknown if they will return. Those members are; VV and Ammon. Quinch was working on a proposal to Valve and it is unknown whether or not it was submitted.

One person was left with all of the work and Rae had some family issues arise that stalled everything further.

Now we start again and while I am do not have the stature of VV or Ammon - I am stubborn. I want this game back and I will float my idea to you folks for your input. Contrary to some things we have heard - apparently NCSoft WAS willing to sell the game. Everything was nearly complete when things went awry. The main point is they were willing to sell the IP in good faith.

Now where do we go? Rae is back in at least an advisory function and then there is myself with my wild ideas. Well guess what? I have another wild idea.

I am going to again speak to the Earth and Beyond folks and see how they managed to persuade EA to allow them to openly use the game. Then I am going to go directly to NCSoft and make our case like this:

The game while open and running had a certain value – with servers running, Developers in place, accounts paying in and players in the game – this value was roughly grossing $10 million a year. The net amount I would say could be in the $3-4 million a year if the game had been directly supported and updated alone with exploration into CoH2 taking only a few programmers.
However, that was then and this is now. Let's take a honest appraisal as one would for a house for sale. The game was based on a custom made engine that is very dated. The game no longer has servers running, there are no accounts in place and you have no players. IF - a large IF – the game returned some players would not come back feeling it just might close again and waste their time. Others have moved on to new games or have pulled back from gaming entirely (I know a few of these). So what is the value of the game now?

I would honestly say under $1 million.

It has some positives in that a lot of people have good vibes for City of Heroes and would like to see it back – even those who didn't play it. My pitch then is we ask openly for NCSoft allow the players to either openly reverse engineer the game or to allow us to host it and continue development in an open source not for profit manner much like Earth and Beyond. We can point to that game as an ideal solution to aging software. They retain all rights and IP privileges and the players get to play for a much reduced cost.

In fact I would say all AT's would be open and yet retain the cash store for items and to raise funds for servers and for developers to make updates. Do I hold out a lot of hope on this?

Honestly no, but it has worked for at least one other game.

[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. :gonk:

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.