New efforts!

[Ironwolf]

Exactly Rori

Step one - get the game.

[mrultimate]

I know we have all speculated, stated wishes and such. But just getting our game (home) in whatever issue or state would be beyond beleif.
Thanks for everything Ironwolf including being a voice of reason.

[Beyorn]

I have been lurking on these boards for a long time.  I felt the need today to register and thank Ironwolf for ALL of his hard work.  Sadly I wasn't one of the ones that thought the game would ever come back.  I got so mad at NCSoft I did a charge back on my one year subscription and they banned my account.

Long story short I just wanted to say Thank You, even if something does happen and things don't work out like we planned.  Thank you for your work and time.

And if anyone reading this is one of the people trying to get our game back all I can say is "Hurry Up!!! And Take My Money!!

Allstar of Virtue

[Nealix]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Microtransactions and Pay2Win were killing the game, IMO. Sure, they made money, but it wasn't the same game and its soul was slowly being eroded. Playspan being terrible for the storefront on top of that was just the icing. I'd be happy seeing it come back as just subscription based.

I actually liked CoH more after the release of Freedom.  Simply put, the costume and power set releases were exciting and had me digging out my wallet.  For me it wasn't a Pay2Win scenario, it was a pay for great new powers and costumes to create new themed heroes.  Some of the best stuff was released in the last year of the game before the shut down.  For me it wasn't a soul draining action but a breath of fresh air which made the game better and better for me personally.  I am happy to pay for good stuff.  Its the lack of new stuff that makes a game start to stagnate.  Before freedom the pace of new content release was a bit slow for me and would cause me to take breaks from the game until something new came out.  Incarnate content kept me going for a long while.  If they do release with I24 that will keep me going for a good while too.

[JanessaVR]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Microtransactions and Pay2Win were killing the game, IMO. Sure, they made money, but it wasn't the same game and its soul was slowly being eroded. Playspan being terrible for the storefront on top of that was just the icing. I'd be happy seeing it come back as just subscription based.

Well, actually, that was one of the additions I enjoyed.  Made my in-game life a lot easier, and I was happy to be contributing extra $ to the game - I had thought all of my spending was helping to keep the game alive...

[sindyr]

I played I24 day in and day out on the test server - it was quite stable.

I24 FTW! ;)

[AlienOne]

I actually liked CoH more after the release of Freedom.  Simply put, the costume and power set releases were exciting and had me digging out my wallet.  For me it wasn't a Pay2Win scenario, it was a pay for great new powers and costumes to create new themed heroes.  Some of the best stuff was released in the last year of the game before the shut down.  For me it wasn't a soul draining action but a breath of fresh air which made the game better and better for me personally.  I am happy to pay for good stuff.  Its the lack of new stuff that makes a game start to stagnate.  Before freedom the pace of new content release was a bit slow for me and would cause me to take breaks from the game until something new came out.  Incarnate content kept me going for a long while.  If they do release with I24 that will keep me going for a good while too.

Well, actually, that was one of the additions I enjoyed.  Made my in-game life a lot easier, and I was happy to be contributing extra $ to the game - I had thought all of my spending was helping to keep the game alive...

Count me as another vote for enjoying the changes... I was (and still am) a HUGE supporter of the idea that people who aren't "forced" to pay a certain amount (I'm looking at you games that cost nearly $70 and then still expect you to pay a monthly fee) will actually wind up spending MORE if they deem a game worth it (I'm looking at Path of Exile as a standard example).

I actually enjoyed the "gambling" aspect of those packs that randomly generated things like large inspirations and buffs and such... That was a fun little "mini game" for me, and I'm sure the devs loved that I kept their families fed with my addiction to them. ;)

Give me something cool, and I'll gladly pay you for it--and it doesn't have to make me "overpowered." Pay to win implies that the things being given were allowing someone to "win" the game?

To me, "winning" at City of Heroes happened when I felt like I was getting my moneys' worth out of a game--not to mention the lasting friendships I developed while playing.

I (of all people) can testify the game's lasting impression on my life... When I was homeless for a year (back in 2009) and couldn't find a job, it was a friend I met through City of Heroes that invited me to stay with him and his family. When I couldn't afford to move across the country to finish my college degree, it was a friend I met through City of Heroes (a different one, mind you) that loaned me the funds I needed to get there.

Do I think I "won" at City of Heroes? Heck yeah.

Do I feel bad about it?

Hell to the no.

[ag88t88]

I actually liked CoH more after the release of Freedom.  Simply put, the costume and power set releases were exciting and had me digging out my wallet.  For me it wasn't a Pay2Win scenario, it was a pay for great new powers and costumes to create new themed heroes.  Some of the best stuff was released in the last year of the game before the shut down.  For me it wasn't a soul draining action but a breath of fresh air which made the game better and better for me personally.  I am happy to pay for good stuff.  Its the lack of new stuff that makes a game start to stagnate.  Before freedom the pace of new content release was a bit slow for me and would cause me to take breaks from the game until something new came out.  Incarnate content kept me going for a long while.  If they do release with I24 that will keep me going for a good while too.

I give a big thumbs up to this.   Honestly I loved Freedom, if for no other reason than opening up the F2P system seemed to give the Devs all the money they needed to crank out a TON of content. Look at the amount of content they released after Freedom launched. It was up for less than a year before they got shut down but so many power sets were released, monthly SSA arcs, new costume pieces like every month.  Seriously a LOT of additional content came from going to the micro-tx pay style and those of us who kept our Subs got a fair amount of additional content for free and money to play with in the auction house ever month.  The sheer amount of content they were making made the system worth it IMO.

That being said, I never agreed with the statement that putting the F2P element in the game made it "pay to win."  Sure I'd rather it stay to content and costume pieces and inspirations and the like, I wasn't thrilled to see high end sets being sold for money, but even then it wasn't "Pay to win."  The game never got harder because of Micro-tx or stuff for sale on the market, the devs never withheld or made certain recipe's exclusive to the market, really it was just a "shortcut" for people who didn't want to grind to get those very rare sets and the what not.

That being said, I never bought anything other than costumes, powers and the trading cards. I stuck to the cosmetic stuff, my characters all still performed great, I still found and used or sold recipes, and I never felt like I was getting a raw deal because there might have been others with set enhancements they bought.  The game play didn't change a bit except for a lot more cool stuff being released more often.

Its really a shame that NCSoft shut it down because it also seemed like the whole Freedom model brought a lot of new people into the game. I remember seeing Virtue as being way more active in those last few months, new life was coming into the game and that is when they chose to pull the plug. I still don't get it. 

[Golden Girl]

anything these peeps can do to make money to get into the black should be fair game.

Absolutely not - that's the road to lockboxes, pay walls and the kind of corruption that's polluting current gaming - bringing CoH back and turning it into a cheap
and nasty nickel and dime operation would be an insult to the original devs and the community.

[mrultimate]

I too loved Freedom with the store and kept my subs going. I loved being able to buy enhancemet sets at the store. The packs wre a stroke of genius just opening them was so much fun.

[ag88t88]

I mostly bought the packs for the costumes, but they had lots of helpful items in them and I loved getting all those inspirations and other goodies.  I really did enjoy those packs, and you are right, opening them was a lot of fun. 

[r00tb0ySlim]

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Microtransactions and Pay2Win were killing the game, IMO. Sure, they made money, but it wasn't the same game and its soul was slowly being eroded. Playspan being terrible for the storefront on top of that was just the icing. I'd be happy seeing it come back as just subscription based.

^^^ Agreed ^^^  I subscribed yearly and will do so again!!!  Hate Pay2Win  >:(

[Harpospoke]

I was part of an all-melee ITF.  spent forty five minutes beating on Rommie, we gave up.  Could not maintain enough beating on him and healing ourselves.  :(

That sounds like a fun thing to try.    Maybe it deserves another chance?   You would so high five yourself if you did it after failing.

Reminds me of the first time I managed to do the respec trial after failing several times.  (yeah...my first character was built terribly...slots in brawl, rest)    I was sooo happy.

[Harpospoke]

So I started looking over my old Mids builds and what not...and it got me pondering.

Does anyone else feel like they would be a total noob and slightly lost on Day 2 if the game ever relaunches?

Especially if we have to start brand new accounts from scratch and I don't have my old builds to work from.

I will be totally and completely blind as far as putting together a decent IOed build.

Hopefully it'll be like riding a bike, and I'll remember once I hear the music as I load in.

I like to think I would be fine, but I'll bet some things would be forgotten.   Hope I get to find out.  :)

[Fanta]

Absolutely not - that's the road to lockboxes, pay walls and the kind of corruption that's polluting current gaming - bringing CoH back and turning it into a cheap
and nasty nickel and dime operation would be an insult to the original devs and the community.

And why try to extort money from what most likely would be your loyal player base? Silly.

[LaughingAlex]

Absolutely not - that's the road to lockboxes, pay walls and the kind of corruption that's polluting current gaming - bringing CoH back and turning it into a cheap
and nasty nickel and dime operation would be an insult to the original devs and the community.

I kind of agree on that to.  Quality content is more important than annoying lockboxes and especially hindering pay walls.  I'll be honest CoX was alot better about it than CO(CO is pure pay wall/lockboxes, no new content).  City of heroes continually got new content and kept getting new stuff, I mean the devs clearly thought about every range of player when they were making an issue.  You'd see content made for 20-40 players, you'd see content made for incarnates, sometimes you'd see content made for 1-20 players, and it was content that was fun, diverse, and had a little depth to it.

It may be odds are NCSoft doesn't want what happened to CO to happen to CoH to and may be why they may have declined some previous offers.

[Atlantea]

Ironwolf - Just want to get some clarification.

I've only skimmed the last couple dozen pages of this thread (I had been following it more closely, but IRL issues curtailed my online time).

So let me see if I've got this right:

-- IF there's a deal made, then the closing of that deal is most likely in August sometime.

-- Don't expect THE GAME to start up at that point, because the above would be just the beginning of getting a studio/dev team and the resources set up to get COH running again. From the point where NCSoft signs on the dotted line, it could still be many months away from re-launch. Possibly as much as a year?

-- COH re-launch theoretically would start with Issue 24? Or for stability would start with I23 with I24 debugged and added within a couple of months after launch?

-- And don't get hopes up TOO high because the deal could still fall through. Etc etc...


Basically correct, right?



Now - for some wild-ass stuff I've heard about

I'm hearing some noises about the possibility of using a new rendering engine for the game? Like one of the Unreal series or something?

I've seen some short movies of Ouroboros rendered with Unreal and it looked great, but I fully understand those are NOT official or part of these potential buyers of COH efforts - they are just fan renderings.

I assume things like that in combination with the possible re-opening of COH are the source of these rumors.

Or is there some real talk about a graphics and/or game engine upgrade by the people you are in contact with?

(I fully expect I may have missed an important post or two since I did skim the thread as mentioned above- if this info is stated clearly somewhere else within this thread, anybody who wants to is welcome to just link me directly to it.)

[Fanta]

I kind of agree on that to.  Quality content is more important than annoying lockboxes and especially hindering pay walls.  I'll be honest CoX was alot better about it than CO(CO is pure pay wall/lockboxes, no new content).  City of heroes continually got new content and kept getting new stuff, I mean the devs clearly thought about every range of player when they were making an issue.  You'd see content made for 20-40 players, you'd see content made for incarnates, sometimes you'd see content made for 1-20 players, and it was content that was fun, diverse, and had a little depth to it.

It may be odds are NCSoft doesn't want what happened to CO to happen to CoH to and may be why they may have declined some previous offers.

If the new team wants to see money coming in right away I'd rather see them offer us something like a rebirth cape ($50)or something along those lines when they launch the game. How about a selling us a limited edition t shirt for $50 or a$100(numbered) I'd rather do that than pay for my data.  I'm sure other have better ideas. Just off the top of my head.

[downix]

Ironwolf - Just want to get some clarification.
I'm hearing some noises about the possibility of using a new rendering engine for the game? Like one of the Unreal series or something?

I've seen some short movies of Ouroboros rendered with Unreal and it looked great, but I fully understand those are NOT official or part of these potential buyers of COH efforts - they are just fan renderings.

I assume things like that in combination with the possible re-opening of COH are the source of these rumors.

Or is there some real talk about a graphics and/or game engine upgrade by the people you are in contact with?

The Oroboros video is from the Atlas Park Revisited team, who are working to recreate the city maps in Unreal. For gameplay, City of Titans is building a new game using Unreal inspired by City of Heroes without being a direct copy. Since there are two Unreal-based efforts out there, it is not hard to make the leap into rumor and speculation.

[Atlantea]

The Oroboros video is from the Atlas Park Revisited team, who are working to recreate the city maps in Unreal. For gameplay, City of Titans is building a new game using Unreal inspired by City of Heroes without being a direct copy. Since there are two Unreal-based efforts out there, it is not hard to make the leap into rumor and speculation.

Right - that's pretty much what I thought. *nod*