New efforts!

[Felderburg]

I would hate this, actually.  If CoH is going to be stuck at Issue 24 forever, I'd want a CoH 2 to start with the arrival of the Coming Storm (i.e., where Issue 25 was going to start).  It's been such a big threat building in the background that to have them just go "Oh, that was all solved offscreen.  Sorry.  Maybe you'll get to play in the next big event that we spend nine years building up to" would be a major anti-climax and a major letdown.

Good point. But the Battalion is supposed to be a major, world changing threat, so I wonder how a low level hero would fit into that sort of story.

I still think that my preferred way of doing CoH 2 would be to do another city, or a global scope, taking place at the same time as CoH.

As of this morning it seems as if the message to calm things down has gotten through to some. If we can police ourselves that look good..

I actually finally saw a Facebook comment thread in my news feed. On the one hand, some people said things like: "NCsoft execs reading our posts is unlikely" and "if talks are being derailed by people going crazy / being negative on the internet, they were doomed from the start." On the other hand, there's the point: "Maybe NCsoft wanted the talks to be kept secret, and all the ruckus shows that the people they're talking to can't keep their mouths shut, and therefore aren't to be dealt with." Personally, I don't understand at all how Facebook discussion, even if it goes crazy with rumours, can affect NCsoft's thoughts on the matter. I just don't get it. I read in this thread (can't remember from who, not gonna search) that it hindered the first efforts, but I thought that was more of NCsoft being surprised at the backlash for closing the game, rather than anything involving buy out efforts. If someone can explain to me how or why Facebook going crazy actually affects the talks, I would appreciate it. Other than the hypothesis that maybe NCsoft thinks it means the new team can't be trusted to keep their mouths shut when they should, I don't get it.

[Golden Girl]

I still think that my preferred way of doing CoH 2 would be to do another city

No Paragon City = not CoH.

[Harpospoke]

I had Miss Anne Thrope as a dark/dark fender, but sadly never got her more than Level 10.

I didn't really like Defenders all that much...but my Dark/Dark was an exception.   Oh....my...god I loved that toon!  Debuffing awesomeness!   Seemed like it was tough going in the beginning, but at lvl 50 she just made enemies shot at their own feet.

[Taceus Jiwede]

If CoH 1 is stuck at I24 forever.  Which I am okay with if it means playing again.  Then I would expect CoH 2 just to be a continuation of CoH 1.  However if the original CoH was still in development and new issues coming out.  Then I would say CoH 2 shouldn't just be the same game with new graphics.  Similar mechanics too sure, but I would like to see new power sets, new zones, new heroes/villains.  Of course that is completely irrelevant since it sounds like CoH will remain at I24.  In which case I like a previous idea of either it being in a different city, or just starting at I25.

[Steelhelm]

I still think that my preferred way of doing CoH 2 would be to do another city, or a global scope, taking place at the same time as CoH.

Maybe the new dev team could make the two games connected just like how the company CCP is making their three games, EVE Online, Dust 514, and EVE Valkyrie, all connected. Personally, I would LOVE if the new development team did this. I wonder how would they go about connecting CoH and CoH2 if they did decide to connect the two somehow?

[Thunder Glove]

Good point. But the Battalion is supposed to be a major, world changing threat, so I wonder how a low level hero would fit into that sort of story.

The same way a low-level hero fit into the Praetorean storyline.  You don't fight Tyrant or any of the Praetors at level 1, you work your way up to fighting them.  They wouldn't start off fighting the Big Bosses, they'd start off fighting regular Shivans (like the ones in the tutorial) and other foot soldiers, and work their way up the Battalion hierarchy as their levels increased, until they'd be taking down the heads of the Battalion at level 45+ (either as a high level Task Force, or even - as I think was originally intended - an Incarnate Trial)

[Dev7on]

It appears to be the Facebook folks mostly.

If you note I did point them out expressly. I don't think this site registers on their radar. However a lot of people are linked to NCSoft. It really doesn't help when you are bashing the old boss when trying to get a new boss :)

I also as I said before saw a real difference in what I had been told and what NCSoft did and why. While I don't excuse all they did in the sunsetting - I do understand it. It does us zero good to be angry at them now, let's move ahead!

I understand that you want the CoH community to stop making noise because it's pissing off NCsoft and freaking out the Devs but, are you also saying that the people in Facebook needs to stop criticizing NCsoft's page. Stop being angry because of what they did, move on and apologise? I understand that you can't control Facebook and I understand that some people are having a hard time "trying" to stay calm. I heard people saying "I won't forgive, criticize, and stop being angry/hating until City of Heroes is sold." I have to admit that I did said that many pages ago from this thread and I'm sorry for that.  :-[

[Blue Cloak]

It seems the way COH was going was to slowly revamp all of the zones in order to have a more connected story. So COH2 could expedite that and revamp all of the zones in one go. Making a new leveling path that could quickly and much more clearly explain everything leading up to the Coming Storm^tm. 

[Serpine]

I know it's been said quite a few times before that when/if we get the game back we'd be at I24 until the development of CoH2. But I'm hoping that there will at least be a few updates along the lines, just to keep the game going. I'm sure most of us are content with just having I24, but new players we're hoping to get on board don't have the same standards as we do.

My hope is that during the process of setting up legacy CoH and reverse engineering for CoH2 enough inroads into the old code / databases are made that small modifications will become possible, even if the tools are missing at first. That would allow a small side team to do some mini-updates (npc dialogue, maybe missions), mostly cobbled together from parts of existing content, which are set up the arrival of the Battalion. But the arrival doesn't happen there because honestly it is likely that the codebase / resources just won't be strong enough to get beyond this small tinkering to the old games rig.

Instead CoH2 opens with the Battalion arrival being launched on the beta server. The launch event of CoH2 is a massive initial assault of Battalion forces (echoing the Rikti one of the CoH beta transition). Game assets developed for it would be specifically set to up to be usable later for smaller quick attack events / missions / and larger events on the anniversary.

The arrival / attack of the Battalion unleashes a tremendous amount of potential energy and threatens a wide arrange of citizens with that potential, awakening new heroes and adjusting others. This justifies changes to the capabilities of characters, existing or new, in the sequel (as it does some city zone adjustments because... rebuilding from big ship guns). It also lets some existing npc characters shift roles because of the scale of what needs to be done to fight back the first wave / prepare for the next. Recluse could vanish (to be revealed later in surprising new form) leaving Ghost Widow in charge of Arachnos and shaking the Isles power structure. Citadel's software snaps under the pressure of the changing environment and he becomes a villain leading an army of renegade bots cobbled together from those found in all existing factions. Rikti now on Earth could come in with such numbers against the new invaders that an archetype for playing them (on either side) would be reasonable, and their ship attacks from holdouts in CoH2 would be less frequent (since the Battalion would become the defacto ship raiders in the new game).

The tutorial incidentally would be several snapshot points of the rebuilding during which you have to fight off looters, rescue some people from collapsing buildings, and fight something horrible awakened from the depths do to the bombardments. Unless of course you decided to go with the Rogue Isles version tutorial which involves killing an old enemy while they are weakened following the attack, conscripting unwilling citizens into work details for the rebuilding, and fighting something even more horrible that awakened from the depths.

[Illusionss]

I guess you are not hearing what is being said - NCSoft was upset the first time by all of the stuff that went on.

They would like this deal to be done quietly. The Devs would love to come in and welcome everyone to the new CoH! They can't and more than likely are now under NDA's.

They can't defend themselves or reply and I am also limited by what I can say. They do understand why everyone is excited. Don't make the mistake of assuming why they are being quiet as relutance to speak. Try and act as reasonable adults. I can't control Facebook - I tried to direct them here and they just run rampant with whatever they wish. I do not want to criticize people - I get excited by all of this too, I just want you to dream Paragon dreams and stay constructive.

The idea that NCSoft would hold the new buyers accountable for things complete strangers are saying on FB makes me extraordinarily nervous. People posting on FB are ~not~ variables the new buyers can control; not even FB can control what users post on FB! Or not much, at least.

Last I heard this site here was not accessible by NCSoft....? Is that correct?

"People love this game too much! We shall punish you all for loving it so much by not giving it to you!!" I can't even wrap my head around that.

The whole issue of dealing with NC makes me think this:

https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.thewestonmercury.co.uk%2Fpolopoly_fs%2F1.869883%21%2Fimage%2F2340818001.jpg_gen%2Fderivatives%2Flandscape_490%2F2340818001.jpg

Good luck to the new buyers, and I mean that sincerely.

[gypsyav]

I actually finally saw a Facebook comment thread in my news feed. On the one hand, some people said things like: "NCsoft execs reading our posts is unlikely" and "if talks are being derailed by people going crazy / being negative on the internet, they were doomed from the start." On the other hand, there's the point: "Maybe NCsoft wanted the talks to be kept secret, and all the ruckus shows that the people they're talking to can't keep their mouths shut, and therefore aren't to be dealt with." Personally, I don't understand at all how Facebook discussion, even if it goes crazy with rumours, can affect NCsoft's thoughts on the matter. I just don't get it. I read in this thread (can't remember from who, not gonna search) that it hindered the first efforts, but I thought that was more of NCsoft being surprised at the backlash for closing the game, rather than anything involving buy out efforts. If someone can explain to me how or why Facebook going crazy actually affects the talks, I would appreciate it. Other than the hypothesis that maybe NCsoft thinks it means the new team can't be trusted to keep their mouths shut when they should, I don't get it.

Given the amount of negativity expressed by some people over what the new devs might do with the game it may make NCsoft question the support the new devs really have for bringing the game back. After the bad publicity they received when they shut down CoH they may be sensitive to creating even more bad publicity for them themselves by selling it to people the CoH community hate.

[Harpospoke]

If it were possible to use that command on someone else, believe me, I would have.  I didn't want to open the dialogue tree that starts, "Boy, I wish I could un-stick you" in that situation, though...

Hee hee...I'm going to start using "dialogue tree".

[Wyrm]

I heard people saying "I won't forgive, criticize, and stop being angry/hating until City of Heroes is sold." I have to admit that I did said that many pages ago from this thread and I'm sorry for that.  :-[

I'm guilty of saying unkind things about NCSoft in the past as well.  Having learned more about the underlying story of the shutdown from this thread, I regret what I said in anger.

It's easy to hate a faceless entity.  Not particularly good for us in the long term, since hate is kind of a useless emotion/path to the dark side, but easy.

What I've come to realize over the course of this thread is that the "faceless entity" of NCSoft really isn't that meaningful a target.  The company will make the decisions the company needs to make.  We - I - need to keep in mind that what matters is finding the living human beings who work within NCSoft, and considering how they feel about what's going on.  That's what IronWolf and the team have managed to do:  Find the person/people within NCSoft who care about the game like we do, and are willing to work with the larger entity to get it released back into the wild.

Companies don't care about the same things individual employees do, or to the extent that they do, it's not the same kind of "caring."  I don't know how many people at NCSoft are truly invested in moving this process forward, whether it's one or a hundred, but it's those people and their reactions that we have to be cautious of.  NCSoft will do what is right from a business sense; the individuals will do what they think is right at least in part based on their feelings.  It's human nature, and as we've seen from IronWolf, it only takes one person who believes to get this process going.

I appreciate those folks at NCSoft who have made the time to talk with the team about the potential purchase.  They are almost undoubtedly taking on some level of personal career risk by putting their necks out for a property that, for a variety of reasons, probably gave their employer a PR "black eye" less than two years ago.  And I appreciate the folks higher up the corporate ladder who are considering the possibility of the sale.  It is my sincere hope that the passion of a community like ours will ultimately be viewed as a positive thing by those responsible for making the decision.

[Harpospoke]

I understand this; I WAS this, in CoH. There are nerfs that have me thinking, "This is a superhero game, and they don't want us feeling super-powered? That's ridiculous!" But in the end, I recognize that they're working to keep the game balanced: challenging and fun, without being cakewalk easy or frustratingly hard. And I'm behind them on that.

I think they pulled it off.

Problem #1 is that there is no such thing as the perfect balance between challenging and fun because every player can feel differently about what that is.

So....no matter what you thought was "hard enough", you could pretty much find it.   For instance, if I wanted to kill things, I could sign on with a Blaster or a Scrapper.    I was far safer on my Scrapper...I just waded in and started swinging.   Not really a lot of thought had to go into it.   If I wanted more of a challenge?   The Blaster was the way to go.   I could kill a lot of things with my Fire/Fire, Ice/Ice, or AR/Dev...but I had to think to stay alive.

So which one of those was "balanced"?     Just depended on my mood at sign in really.

And that's just the beginning.   You could choose  other AT's for a completely different kind of "challenge".   A MM is going to kill and be a lot safer than a Defender.   Just depended on what my mood was that day.

And...then add in the ability to set the difficulty on missions?   Oh my....they seriously nailed "balance" for just about everyone imo.

[Tyger]

This news isn't making me feel good; it's making me angry.

People have been whipped into a frenzy like dropping blood in a tank of pirahnas and now it's "we need to stop because it might not be sold". ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

EA still carries on their business practises despite MASSIVE negativity surrounding them, Microsoft carries on despite all the negativity of the Xbone and if NC is so scared of a few people chatting on FB about the "maybes" after a sale... then maybe news like this shouldn't be shared until after the deal is done.

[Metal Mountain]

Man I just want my game back - i dont know what all this is about things changing or coh 2 etc  :o.. I think i am going to avoid this  thread and your discussions for awhile..

[HEATSTROKE]

 I just hope things havent been screwed up..

[blacksly]

don't even joke about that

we already have enough pony characters in CO

But... does CO have Pony Summoning?

[Dev7on]

People posting on FB are ~not~ variables the new buyers can control; not even FB can control what users post on FB! Or not much, at least.

The reason why Facebook itself can't do anything about it because it's Freedom of Speech in the USA. I don't know about other countries.

[Aggelakis]

The reason why Facebook itself can't do anything about it because it's Freedom of Speech in the USA. I don't know about other countries.

Freedom of speech applies to preventing government censoring of citizens speaking out against the government. Facebook can silence anything they want.