New efforts!

[MWRuger]

You like it until someone has your character name already... ;)

I'm OK with it even then. Plenty of Variants to be had. I had like 75+ alts and never had to try for more than 3 or 4 before I found one that fit. Plus it really encouraged creativity. I would rather see one guy running around with the name I wanted than 125 Captain Amazing's.

Besides, I'm pretty sure that because of the way globals work and the characters are associated with it, changing to a Champions or Star Trek style is not trivial. Not saying its impossible, just that it might be more expensive than it's worth. Sorta like SG Base Design overhaul.

Every system in CoH that refers to Characters name would have to be changed. AE, Costumes, Badges, everything tied to it. Undoubtedly, one of those changes will break something in a horrible way. For example, badges that are linked to a specific character and provide access to TF might break it so that you can't do that TF. I'll bet it's not easy or they would already have done it. Plenty of people didn't like the system and certainly complained about it.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Something I have been thinking about a lot is server merger, name retention and player retention. (Everything in this post is conditional on the game reopening and account data being restored)

At first it seemed to me that the best way to deal with low pop servers would be to simply merge them. BUT, I quickly realized this might not be a good idea, at least not at first.

If the idea is to get back as many of the old player base as possible, how can this be done if we just merge the low pop servers? All those character names that were specific to a specific server will be lost. Sure, we can hand out transfer tokens and rename tokens, but remember what happened when the European servers were merged with the US servers and the conflict between global arose? It upset a lot of people.
Merging servers will be at least as bad as players with names on say, Liberty lose them when transferred to Champion.

Also, I have seen many discuss freeing up old names that have been held on non-playing accounts. I like the idea of freeing up names. I guess the question is how far back do you go?  It can be difficult to judge, but Going Rouge might be a decent cut-off point.

Or maybe a grace period? No matter how long ago you played if you go to www.CoHMysteryBuyers.com and enter your old global or even you old email it will preserve you old account data for 6 months after the launch.

I think our new CoH overlords will need to come up with a least horrible way to do this. One thing is certain, no matter what the solution is, someone will hate it and someone will likely get the short end of the stick.

What if the "restored" characters are all plopped on one server? The chars get special tags or titles to identify their server of origin. In-game, explain it as multiple parallel timelines of Primal Earth merging into one (could be the start of a new story arc, perhaps?). All "grandfathered" characters would come from the parallel Earths, all "new" characters would be native to the "merged" Earth. :)

[blacksly]

Personally, I would want my old characters to remain, but I worry that demanding old data may complicate the legal matters. And anything that simplifies and speeds the process of acquiring the rights to the game, and thus makes the attempt more likely to succeed, is a good thing IMO. My characters would not be too high a price to pay if it meant that I get to play the game significantly sooner. I mean, if the negotiations for the prior account and character information only slows the acquisition by a month or two, it's one thing... but if we're talking 4-6 months, frankly, I'd rather play sooner.

Theoretically speaking, of course.

[Styrj]

The Fifth Horseman:  I just tried the link in your post & got this: This page can't be displayed. :o Any ideas?

[darkgob]

The Fifth Horseman:  I just tried the link in your post & got this: This page can't be displayed. :o Any ideas?

That link was in a quote of a post by TheDevilYouKnow, and it wasn't intended to be a link to a real site, just a placeholder for the site of whoever ends up buying the game.

[microc]

looks like ncsoft may be needing of  some new cash inflow.
http://games.mxdwn.com/news/ncsoft-to-open-classic-lineage-ii-server/
if were lucky there sell coh or listen to us and bring it back.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

Personally, I would want my old characters to remain, but I worry that demanding old data may complicate the legal matters. And anything that simplifies and speeds the process of acquiring the rights to the game, and thus makes the attempt more likely to succeed, is a good thing IMO. My characters would not be too high a price to pay if it meant that I get to play the game significantly sooner. I mean, if the negotiations for the prior account and character information only slows the acquisition by a month or two, it's one thing... but if we're talking 4-6 months, frankly, I'd rather play sooner.

Theoretically speaking, of course.

Most other MMOs that have legally changed owners when both companies were functioning entities also included account data as well, so i wouldn't be that surprised if it was part of the deal. Even if it wasn't i would have little to no difficulty starting over, but it would affect to some extent which ATs i started leveling up first. Also, i agree that it would be much harder to bring back old players if everyone has to start from scratch.
Of course it's all moot until the game is acquired/revived, and there's no way to know until that happens first.

[HEATSTROKE]

looks like ncsoft may be needing of  some new cash inflow.
http://games.mxdwn.com/news/ncsoft-to-open-classic-lineage-ii-server/
if were lucky there sell coh or listen to us and bring it back.

This just makes me even more angry...

[HEATSTROKE]

Most other MMOs that have legally changed owners when both companies were functioning entities also included account data as well, so i wouldn't be that surprised if it was part of the deal. Even if it wasn't i would have little to no difficulty starting over, but it would affect to some extent which ATs i started leveling up first. Also, i agree that it would be much harder to bring back old players if everyone has to start from scratch.
Of course it's all moot until the game is acquired/revived, and there's no way to know until that happens first.

I have decided if I had to start over I will admit.. I wouldnt be as excited... Would I play yes.. Would I enjoy it.. Yes...

Would i scream with piercing utter glee like a 10 year old school girl like I would if we got everything back... no...

[Remaugen]

I have decided if I had to start over I will admit.. I wouldnt be as excited... Would I play yes.. Would I enjoy it.. Yes...

Would i scream with piercing utter glee like a 10 year old school girl like I would if we got everything back... no...

That's where I am too, though I still might let a little squeal slip. . .


Are we there yet?  ;D

[Fanta]

Long time lurker here. I can't imagine a group trying to draw in long time players in as a base, with which to build on, and not making an effort to restore our former glory. Heh, I'd love to see my prestige  and SG restored as well. Do it right, after it was done so wrong! I'm more than willing to pay my sub again and more after all the crap I've seen being offered these days as far as MMOs!

.

[HEATSTROKE]

Long time lurker here. I can't imagine a group trying to draw in long time players in as a base, with which to build on, and not making an effort to restore our former glory. Heh, I'd love to see my prestige  and SG restored as well. Do it right, after it was done so wrong! I'm more than willing to pay my sub again and more after all the crap I've seen being offered these days as far as MMOs!

.

It might not even be up to them if the data is gone

[Fanta]

Meaning, how much is it worth?

[MWRuger]

The data isn't gone. The question is really is it available, and what will it cost to restore it.

As many have noted, storage is cheap. I strongly doubt that all the character and account data is more than a few terabytes. No one deletes anything anymore. Look at the case in Europe where a court ruled that 12 year old links had to be removed at the request of the person involved. Even that doesn't get rid of the data, just the links and only in European servers.

No one deletes anything.

The data is there. How accessible it is, that is another question. It could be stored in an obsolete data base system (unlikely since it was all available not even two years ago) or it may be archived somewhere that is not active. It could have been reduced to optical medium (DL Blu-rays hold about 50GB of data, 20 of those are roughly a terabyte) and then stored offline.

My person belief is that it is stored in some variant of SQL with no front end to access that data at the moment (the front end would be COH and the admin consoles that used to be at Paragon.) The real question is how much will it cost and are the www.mysterybuyers.com willing to expend the extra funds to acquire it.

But as many have said, speculation. But informed speculation based on how I've seen data retained by organizations. Even before computers, it was not uncommon for businesses to hold archives going back decades.

[Solitaire]

This just makes me even more angry...

Had a look at this and other articles related, looks like there opening this up only for the Asian arena at present.

My question would be this, when did they think about restarting this up? And how long has it taken to get it back online after first thinking of getting it back up and running?

[Kaos Arcanna]

If we get the game back, and we get our accounts back, I will make sure that every existing character I get back that isn't 50 gets there even if I never play them again after that.  'Cause if they get a second chance I owe it to them.  ;D

[Lucretia MacEvil]

I was playing around with the Issue 24 Icon yesterday, and after some tinkering with the cyberpunk and cosmic corsair pieces, I ended up with an AWESOME costume and character concept.
[whine]  >:( I WANT TO PLAYYYY!!!   :'(  :'(
God (and whatever other powerful entities may be listening), I hope this effort works! [/whine]

[MWRuger]

If we get the game back, and we get our accounts back, I will make sure that every existing character I get back that isn't 50 gets there even if I never play them again after that.  'Cause if they get a second chance I owe it to them.  ;D

Me too. I had like 4 50's out of like 75+ alts. Some really deserved more of a chance.

[HEATSTROKE]

All my creations made it to 50. Two however needed attention. My Dark/Staff Brute and my Water/Cold Corrputor never got a true final build. I also was considering remaking my Rad/Rad defender into a corruptor..

Also wanted to make a Grav/Dark Dominator.. and a Fire/Rad Controller...

Then I would have had

an all human Warshade.. an Widow/Fortunata.. and a Stalker.. then I would have had one of every AT @ 50...

NC Soft will bring back Lineage.. but it doesnt care about the US market.. and CoH is mostly US and EU market..

[downix]

this is not bringing back Lineage. it is a "retro-server", so think "Issue 1 CoH" here. It is just a way to play "the way it used to be."