New efforts!

[Samuraiko]

I used it for telling stories and creating arcs. Personal favorite is a tie of "Clerical Errors", where you help BAB prove his membership in the Freedom Phalanx after they lost the paperwork, and "Too Clever By Half", where you help Vernon von Grun after he accidentally transplants Dr. Aeon's intelligence into the Devouring Earth. (Although to this day, I'm amazed that the devs didn't pull my arc "Positron Gets Some"...)

Those sound great!  I hope you kept backups?

Yep, I kept the originals of all my arcs. (Including the ones I'd had on the test servers from WAAAAAY back when I-14 was in beta.) :D

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

[CoyoteSeven]

SQL injection is a vunerability so well known and documented that it takes a special breed of incompetent fool to not take the one, tiny step needed to prevent it.

Little Johnny Tables?

[Golden Girl]

No reason for this to be true. Even if they open all ATs and power sets, people could still buy inspirations, tailor tokens, character renames, etc.

As much as CoH encourages alting and costuming, I really don't see that being enough to earn the cash needed to run the servers.

[Sermon]

I don't really understand the talk about COH2. Is that a continuation of COH once it is converted onto the Unreal engine? (a la Runescape 2) If it is its own game (from the ground up), why bother converting CoH to Unreal engine to begin with? 

[LaughingAlex]

This is a great point. However, when we're talking about this, we also have to keep in mind something else: Those of us who were "haves" are most likely the minority in any scenario. Why? Because of the influx of people who may be joining the game--supposing it becomes big news that "City of Heroes Has Returned!" That will most likely be the majority (new players) coming to check out what the game is about.

Now, we've already been discussing in another thread (created by Ironwolf) that there may possibly be some kind of scenario that allows vets (at least in the beginning) to get some sort of unlock of "everything possible" that this new team was able to negotiate for. Now, granted, this may not be the case. However, since we're speculating (isn't this fun), wouldn't that already be creating the same scenario? Wouldn't people who came to the game 2 months late (or heard about it for the first time--maybe the next generation of gamers) start complaining that they were late to the party and "why do those guys get everything?"

See? There will ALWAYS be "haves" and "have nots." You can't appease everyone. So, why not appease the longest-running supporters of the game? You know, the people who have been around supporting the game since 2004? The vets? A clean slate start is the most likely scenario (from what I can gather from Ironwolf), but if there were some sort of appeasement offered to this community (the vets), wouldn't that automatically create a sect of "haves?"

Well I'm not that worried about groups being have and have nots(besides, this isn't real life), just the initial fairness and the feelings of things if a minority of players got there characters back due to a majority not having sentinel.  I'm kind of surprised people missed that.  I wouldn't mind some rewards for people who been around since the beginning or even those of us who were 3-5 year vets even.  I'm mostly just looking at the very initial days of the reboot, tbh, as it was, the paragon store allowed people even to get veteran rewards much more quickly and "catch up" to those who'd been around a while, long term players just had more badges.

I know that "haves and have nots" will occur in the game, though I see it'll be more due to how people become haves being a factor than anything.  I already have my plan, it's something I did to go from being a total have not to a have in less than a few months using alignment merits and alignment missions and even the normal merit to alignment merit system.  It works, big time.  As I said, i'm not at all concerned about that, initial phases of things :).

[MWRuger]

So we have completely gone from "Let's try to get all the characters back" to "Only Sentinel people get them back" in this conversation?    How did that happen?

At least now no one can use the "We can't use Sentinel because a few people might abuse it" argument.   Clearly a minority is not a factor now.   ;)

No Agenda. Rein in the paranoia.

One More Time

No one is using Sentinel+ for anything at this point and is very unlikely to do so. The people who wrote it said it's not useful for that.

It doesn't contain everything connected with your character like status of contacts, souvenir's unlocks, etc.

That is isn't going to change. The data is not there. No amount of questioning agenda is going to restore data that doesn't exist. In fact, nothing is going to make Sentinel+ useful in that regard. It was designed in case of private servers, not return of the game.

[kiario]

The problem is that server maintenance and bandwidth are expensive, so the new owners would need to have enough players prepared to pay for playing a static version of the game to make it economical - with no further development, there'd be no cash shop, so it'd be sub only to access a static  game - and while in think there'd be enough players at first who'd be willing to do that, several years of zero development would very likely see those numbers fall, possibly to a point where it was no longer profitable to keep the servers open.
But with CoH II as the main game of the franchise, it's continued development and larger player-base would very likely be enough to keep the legacy game up and running in a static state - they could even include access to the legacy game as perk for subbing to CoH II, for example.

My affection to the City is very high. Just want to be home in the game again. As good as this game is on so many levels the content is enough for a very long time. I am not one of those who levels as quickly as possible yo 50. It is the soul of the City that attracts me.

I agree with you that perhaps it is necessary with some development to keep all type of players subbing. We are all different minds:) I like your idea with perks for CoH 2.

I hope that if the deal is made that lots of people will sub and then most probably the new owners will make high revenue and that will automatically trigger  new content and perhaps work on 2

[Sermon]

As much as CoH encourages alting and costuming, I really don't see that being enough to earn the cash needed to run the servers.

I am not sure server costs are as expensive as they are frequently imagined to be. The founder of Path of Exile estimated on reddit that, for an indie game, 1 penny per concurrent user per day was a good way to estimate server costs. Assuming a single player is on constantly, that is only $3.65 per year. (source: http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1hhbim/how_much_would_it_cost_to_set_up_servers_for_a/caueian). The greater costs will be associated with any salaries and the acquisition of the game.

[LaughingAlex]

Will say right now, everyone, regarding the games economy, it'll be recipe drops that matter most if we all had to start over.  I wouldn't advice against trading at any time, but be aware that as more influence enters the market, prices will rise if recipe supply doesn't rise with it.  More recipes and less influence will mean cheaper prices.  More influence and less recipes will mean higher prices.  Basic economics.

[LaughingAlex]

No Agenda. Rein in the paranoia.

One More Time

No one is using Sentinel+ for anything at this point and is very unlikely to do so. The people who wrote it said it's not useful for that.

It doesn't contain everything connected with your character like status of contacts, souvenir's unlocks, etc.

That is isn't going to change. The data is not there. No amount of questioning agenda is going to restore data that doesn't exist. In fact, nothing is going to make Sentinel+ useful in that regard. It was designed in case of private servers, not return of the game.

Know, that, clears some things up.  Thanks.

[MWRuger]

Fair or unfair, Sentinel+ is a non issue. That horse is dead. It  had been quartered and roasted. Feed on it if you must, but Sentinel+ is not going to screw anyone for all the reasons the people who wrote have said about a dozen times on this thread.

You can save all us reading a lot of time if you just post every 5th post that you want your characters back. That way the people who are doing the bargaining are sure to see it and we won't have to pick through to see if there is something new.

I am sure that until you do, they will have no idea how you feel.

[Harpospoke]

What did YOU use the Architect Entertainment system for?

Were you a farmer?  An author?  A player who dabbled in it?  A player who reveled in it?  A player who ignored it?

The dumbest most zany missions I could dream up.   I made one where Madonna kidnapped a bunch of famous rock stars and hide them on an island.  You had to go rescue them.  (David Lee Roth's kidnappers were happy when you took him away from them)

It was really stupid and only I ever got anything out of it.   :D

[kiario]

I hope that when the last signature is signed and all is positive that the new theam will lets us help them in financing the start up via donations or similar  :)

[MWRuger]

The dumbest most zany missions I could dream up.   I made one where Madonna kidnapped a bunch of famous rock stars and hide them on an island.  You had to go rescue them.  (David Lee Roth's kidnappers were happy when you took him away from them)

It was really stupid and only I ever got anything out of it.   :D

Now that sounds like fun.

[Dev7on]

What did YOU use the Architect Entertainment system for?

Were you a farmer?  An author?  A player who dabbled in it?  A player who reveled in it?  A player who ignored it?

My answer to that comes in just a moment--a handful of sentences, really.  First, a little background: I teach English.  I write for fun.  I read a great deal.  I love comic books.  Put all that together, and I was an avid writer of AE arcs, releasing 8 over the time that the AE existed and that I was able to do so without slacking on my work obligations.  Arguably, I believe I wrote the final arc in the AE system: PENGUIN Part 4, Waddle On, which went live around 8 p.m. Eastern on the last night.  It saw 6 total plays and held a 5-star average rating.

To me, the Architect Entertainment system represents a great source of hope for the future of City of Heroes if the game returns.  Even if we have the risk that the developers cannot craft future material, if the Architect Entertainment system is live and functional with the game's possible rerelease, what can WE, the players, truly do for our game, our developers, and our community?

Thank you.

I use my AE systems to make story arcs. I'm a HUGE AE fan I've ALWAYS wanted to my make my own story arcs. It was a dream came true when AE came to City of Heroes. Everytime I get bored I go straight to the AE building and make missions. When people send me tells and ask me "do I want to do a TF?" I will tell them "no thanks." I get SO attached to it sometimes I'm not in the mood to do anything. I just want live in the AE building. I would love to share my story arcs to the community. I just found this thread where players share their stories and post them here.

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,2233.0.html

I also wonder...if/when the City of Heroes comes back will players will still use this thread to share and post their story arcs with the community or use this......?

https://web.archive.org/web/20120904100456/http://boards.cityofheroes.com/index.php

[CoyoteSeven]

I used to scour the AE for any and all Willy Wonka related arcs. I played them all. I miss them.

[LaughingAlex]

What did YOU use the Architect Entertainment system for?

Were you a farmer?  An author?  A player who dabbled in it?  A player who reveled in it?  A player who ignored it?

I didn't like to use it to farm, though I did sometimes PL with it, admittedly.  But I didn't like using it to farm, ultimately, as you were mostly just getting influence and tickets.  Sure, you could use the tickets to get orange recipes, but not purples.  Most of my income came from purple recipe drops, alignment merits and normal merits were used behind that to purchase and sell high price orange recipes.

Instead, I was trying to use it to create missions, I had a mission string in the making, it couldn't be finished in time, unfortunately.  I'd have to have started over as it was with issue 24.

[Without_Pause]

I don't really understand the talk about COH2. Is that a continuation of COH once it is converted onto the Unreal engine? (a la Runescape 2) If it is its own game (from the ground up), why bother converting CoH to Unreal engine to begin with?

We don't know. My guess would be put up CoH and use the Unreal engine for CoH2. It isn't like CoH's graphics are that outdated.

[Remidi]

I agree that the whole Sentinel file issue is a waste of time.  It was never meant for this sort of situation. 

Now, to the real issue at hand.  Yes, I want my characters back.  I really, really want them back.  Logging into the game and not seeing them waiting for me would be heart-breaking.  So on the question of "should the buyers fight to get our characters?", my answer is a resounding YES.

But I'm also a mature adult who knows that you don't always get what you want.  So New Guys, fight like hell, but I won't be mad if it just isn't feasible. 

[r00tb0ySlim]

Will say right now, everyone, regarding the games economy, it'll be recipe drops that matter most if we all had to start over.  I wouldn't advice against trading at any time, but be aware that as more influence enters the market, prices will rise if recipe supply doesn't rise with it.  More recipes and less influence will mean cheaper prices.  More influence and less recipes will mean higher prices.  Basic economics.

True true.  It will be fun to watch the market during the first couple of months to see which way it goes!!