New efforts!

[Perplexite]

Downix brings up a very interesting point - if the game is basically finished with development on CoH1 - it might be an interesting thought to do 2 things at once. Do a one time purchase to play as long as the central server is going and then perhaps fling some money to a standalone that may or may not be in the works and have that as a future benefit.

Many games have this model. I play DayZ and it has both official and unofficial servers and especially if they allowed mods to be run. The players would quickly start to make custom servers and that could be fun as well.

Seriously if they charged a one time price of $39.99 for both permanent CoH1 and a future standalone - I would pay this in a heartbeat.

A little math then tells you 100,000 buyers gets you a cool $4 million. I could really see this an an option. I don't know any inside secret was just spinning possibilities.

As long as there's still the "try for free" feature so people can try it before buying it. It annoys me so much that most games don't do that these days.

For the record, I'd pay a bit more too, dollar is going cheap atm ^^

[Von Krieger]

Too many people participating in roleplaying didn't really understand that it's a "give and take" performance. In the Professional Wrestling business, there's a term known as putting another guy "over," meaning you make him look good by succumbing to his verbal assault or making his offensive maneuvers look more devastating to you so the crowd will "pop" for him. I rarely centered on myself as Luna unless it was centric to the topic we were working with. I spend more time putting over the other people involved because it would get them more invested in what they were doing and justify their character ideas they were trying to present. If they're into it, I'm into it and I have more to work with.

Oddly enough my main hobby since the late 90's has been e-fedding, where you're literally roleplaying a professional wrestler or eight. Probably the only thing that I've done where my main character has been a male.

I'm also weird in that I had to RETIRE from e-wrestling for a few years due to a legitimate injury, that being the development of chronic joint pain in my hands and feet. It's under control with medication.

[Kistulot]

Whatever happens, I want to thank everyone responsible for this new effort, names we know, and names we dont, for breathing new hope into the CoH community. I'd given up hope, but reviewing the facts here I'm well... hopeful, and eager, to get back to Paragon City for more than Icon.

I just hope it won't be too hard to get that PB leveled back up again, and full of sweet -Rech IOs :3

But you will have me hoping for a very economical option, as well, I keep planting money but the trees wont sprout!

[primeknight]

Well, there are always options available after they'd get the game I'd think, like possibly getting in contact with the original developers where they may be and see if there are notes and whatnot to that were left over.  Not a 100% thing but generally any engineer keeps notes for himself know?

All the software/hardware would have been at Paragon Studios.  It all depends on what was done with the code.  The company computers were probably wiped and reused or scrapped already.  There might not be a standard company policy on what is done with a subsidiary's assets when it's shut down.  It's all speculation, but if the guys making the deal don't know what happened to it then I'd tend to believe the code as being gone until I heard otherwise. 

I know at my company, there's backups upon backups and all the important stuff is saved on our servers (which are backed up).  If someone asks for code, I know right where to look or whom to ask to get an answer within a few minutes. 

I would think, keeping the custom code would have been worth keeping to someone.  There was a lot of man hours in that, and there were a lot of potential programming solutions that could have been utilized. 

Depending on security I'm sure someone has it, but technically anyone that does and isn't working for NCSoft has probably committed a crime as all code belonged to NCSoft.  Someone else would have to get into the legalities of someone coming forward with software that could magically edit CoH.  Maybe NCSoft would be cool and give a pass to someone that could help out with the deal. 

Here's to hoping someone at NCSoft was like me and would have made backups, if for no other reason, that there was a decade of investment and work, and at some point that investment could pay off again or that past solutions could fix future problems. 

[LaughingAlex]

All the software/hardware would have been at Paragon Studios.  It all depends on what was done with the code.  The company computers were probably wiped and reused or scrapped already.  There might not be a standard company policy on what is done with a subsidiary's assets when it's shut down.  It's all speculation, but if the guys making the deal don't know what happened to it then I'd tend to believe the code as being gone until I heard otherwise. 

I know at my company, there's backups upon backups and all the important stuff is saved on our servers (which are backed up).  If someone asks for code, I know right where to look or whom to ask to get an answer within a few minutes. 

I would think, keeping the custom code would have been worth keeping to someone.  There was a lot of man hours in that, and there were a lot of potential programming solutions that could have been utilized. 

Depending on security I'm sure someone has it, but technically anyone that does and isn't working for NCSoft has probably committed a crime as all code belonged to NCSoft.  Someone else would have to get into the legalities of someone coming forward with software that could magically edit CoH.  Maybe NCSoft would be cool and give a pass to someone that could help out with the deal. 

Here's to hoping someone at NCSoft was like me and would have made backups, if for no other reason, that there was a decade of investment and work, and at some point that investment could pay off again or that past solutions could fix future problems.

There are always backups however.  Theres always the question a networker asks is that what to do with the backups?  Thing is though its bad practice to just wipe data endlessly without some means of retrieving it and it depends on the medium the backups were made on.  Backups made on just tape drives, the tape may last a long time or a short period of time depending on things like weather and air conditions.

[sindyr]

DING!

300!!  (+)

[sindyr]

I really appreciated being able to play so much of the content solo. Some of us enjoy being the lone hero, as well as a member of a team.

I *love* being in an MMO, *even though* I solo quite a LOT. (Love soloing newspapers and radios with minimaxed builds I have tweaked on the way from 1 to 50.)

[primeknight]

There are always backups however.  Theres always the question a networker asks is that what to do with the backups?  Thing is though its bad practice to just wipe data endlessly without some means of retrieving it and it depends on the medium the backups were made on.  Backups made on just tape drives, the tape may last a long time or a short period of time depending on things like weather and air conditions.

That's exactly my thoughts.  My main worry on retrieving data is:  Paragon was completely shutdown.  And they were the only one with the tools.  So the question is, what happened to the physical tape drive or harddrive back ups?   And why does NCSoft only have an image of the playable version of CoH at I24 which supposedly wasn't quite ready for release. 

It's all fun to speculate.  I just wish I had a solution.

So here's a fun fact.  I perused through the archives of the message boards to try to find my account.  And I found it which is great, with my signature and everything that has the names of 3 of my level 50's.  But then I found this:  my user account data was incomplete and some of it was incorrect: specifically it doesn't seem to have my actual name and my birthday is wrong:  so either there was a glitch on my birthday or I was being weirdly paranoid when I entered my birthday info.  Anyway, I hope there's a way to prove what we had.  At this point all I've got are credit card statements, screen shots, and my install files.

I think I have a screenshot with my main in his incarnate armor and sporting the incarnate barrier shield and world of confusion. 

Also, here's another unfortunate thought.  I'd like to play again all incarnated up:  but in a bizarre coincidence: I stopped paying a subscription a month before the shutdown due to not having played in about a year and a half.  So I was unable to play my 50's at full power or have access to the full game.  I hope they figure out how to activate that subscription bit so I can access to all the incarnate (and all subscription) stuff again.  I'm fine with paying for it, I apparently just picked the worst time ever to take a break from the game.  I'm sure there's plenty of others in the same type of situation.  Has this issue been addressed?

[Perplexite]

300!!  (+)

You know what this means? [Self Destruction] (or atleast that's what we did when we dinged 50)

[Thunder Glove]

The loss of the code is baffling, considering that at least two groups tried to buy the game (with one starting before the game even closed), and the fanbase has been clamoring for the game non-stop ever since it was closed.  Did they just go "The first couple of groups failed, nobody will ever try again to buy the game, might as well chuck this"?

I'm baffled enough by the now-confirmed statement "City of Heroes was profitable, but Paragon Studios as a whole wasn't, so instead of trimming down the studio to just the profitable part, they just shut the whole thing down, profitable part and all, because *pancake* profit".  That's pretty much the definition of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I don't know whether I'm angry at NCSoft, but I'm definitely confused.  The more you explain how it was "just business", the less sense it makes.

[Perplexite]

The loss of the code is baffling, considering that at least two groups tried to buy the game (with one starting before the game even closed), and the fanbase has been clamoring for the game non-stop ever since it was closed.  Did they just go "The first couple of groups failed, nobody will ever try again to buy the game, might as well chuck this"?

I'm baffled enough by the now-confirmed statement "City of Heroes was profitable, but Paragon Studios as a whole wasn't, so instead of trimming down the studio to just the profitable part, they just shut the whole thing down, profitable part and all, because *pancake* profit".  That's pretty much the definition of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I don't know whether I'm angry at NCSoft, but I'm definitely confused.  The more you explain how it was "just business", the less sense it makes.

For me the easiest thing is to think that it is the way it is. If the New Devs can get their hands on code that we currently think is unavailible then yippiedeedoodah. But if not, then there's nothing we can do about it but look towards the future and be happy with what we end up getting.

But I was never a fan of speculating either, you should hear my friends when they wanna rant about possible outcomes in whatev's floating their boat at the moment. I'm like "meh, why speculate when I can wait for fact?" XD They're like *implodes*

[Kistulot]

I *love* being in an MMO, *even though* I solo quite a LOT. (Love soloing newspapers and radios with minimaxed builds I have tweaked on the way from 1 to 50.)

What's funny, is I've been playing FFXIV because a friend bought it for me and the slow pace reminded me of Paragon, and while SO MUCH of the content is forced solo on the way to 50 (which was a familiar number to be eager for) the characters are not built to be solo, so you're constantly relying on poorly programmed AI backup or crossing your fingers they designed this mission with that in mind.

[sindyr]

Downix brings up a very interesting point - if the game is basically finished with development on CoH1 - it might be an interesting thought to do 2 things at once. Do a one time purchase to play as long as the central server is going and then perhaps fling some money to a standalone that may or may not be in the works and have that as a future benefit.

Many games have this model. I play DayZ and it has both official and unofficial servers and especially if they allowed mods to be run. The players would quickly start to make custom servers and that could be fun as well.

Seriously if they charged a one time price of $39.99 for both permanent CoH1 and a future standalone - I would pay this in a heartbeat.

A little math then tells you 100,000 buyers gets you a cool $4 million. I could really see this an an option. I don't know any inside secret was just spinning possibilities.

*I'm* hoping I can have a monthly subscription (possibly in addition to the one time cost) so I can keep getting my paragon point allotment as well as full access to all goodies - as well as support on an ongoing basis a great effort!

[Shadowe]

Somewhere, on some disks, or in a data storage facility, or on a tape, is a complete backup of every single line of code for CoH. There's also employee emails, logins, and a huge variety of other things.

Which doesn't make the blindest bit of difference if nobody currently at NCSoft knows where it is.

[hufish]

Somewhere, on some disks, or in a data storage facility, or on a tape, is a complete backup of every single line of code for CoH. There's also employee emails, logins, and a huge variety of other things.

Which doesn't make the blindest bit of difference if nobody currently at NCSoft knows where it is.

...Did they check the freezer?  :D

[Ironwolf]

The loss of the code is baffling, considering that at least two groups tried to buy the game (with one starting before the game even closed), and the fanbase has been clamoring for the game non-stop ever since it was closed.  Did they just go "The first couple of groups failed, nobody will ever try again to buy the game, might as well chuck this"?

I'm baffled enough by the now-confirmed statement "City of Heroes was profitable, but Paragon Studios as a whole wasn't, so instead of trimming down the studio to just the profitable part, they just shut the whole thing down, profitable part and all, because *pancake* profit".  That's pretty much the definition of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I don't know whether I'm angry at NCSoft, but I'm definitely confused.  The more you explain how it was "just business", the less sense it makes.

The first group who tried to buy the game was the Paragon Studio buyout with VV and company and they were buying the game still running.
The second group never got past the preliminary stages before they stopped - I am not sure if NCSoft stopped or they did - I believe it was NCSoft seeing they were not capable of running the game.

Why did they cut a profitable game?

Paragon Studios was making roughly $10 million a year gross. They also were making 2 other games as well as developing CoH. Paragon Studios was not profitable, they were losing money due to the other 2 titles. During this time NCSoft merged with Nexon another multi-billion dollar company. They changed focus to consolidating their assests. CoH was the game making the least money with Paragon Studios losing money. They closed Paragon Studios. CoH was Paragon Studios and when they shut - there was no one to develop the game.

So the 2 things were not seperated by NCSoft. They could have waded through how many people they needed to keep it running - but they chose simply to close the studio and also cut management. Downix also reminded that NC Interactive - whose head was Chris Chung a friend of the game was closed shortly before. I was very angry at NCSoft but once you see what was happening it makes sense. They were pouring way too much money in management of something that technically was losing money.

[Ironwolf]

*I'm* hoping I can have a monthly subscription (possibly in addition to the one time cost) so I can keep getting my paragon point allotment as well as full access to all goodies - as well as support on an ongoing basis a great effort!

What if you can buy a one time purchase and get everything - for free? You won't need paragon points then! Then if they do make a store for extras - BONUS!

[Fanta]

New team stipulates in the agreement to buy the game from NC. We reserve the right to use any missing code, tools, data that may come to light after that guy signs at the given price. Hokey smokes, where'd that come from :D

I can hope can't I :D

[primeknight]

...Did they check the freezer?  :D

Whomever finds the code gets the honorary:

"Detective" Badge

[MWRuger]

LOL! I hope Spielberg never lives down "jiggabytes". Serves him right for not doing his homework. And the same with Lucas and "made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs". Being an "artiste" doesn't mean you shouldn't have your facts straight.

First, it was jiggawatts, not jiggabytes. Second, it was actually gigawatts. The word can and has been pronounced with a hard G or a soft J. Soft J is the correct style according to Merriam-Webster 
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gigawatt)

While I agree with you about parsecs, I have heard the explanation that the ship actually warps space by bending it. The more it's warped the less physical distance it actually travels. If so, then 12 parsecs is a measure of distance. A less capable ship might make the run in say 21 parsecs because it could not warp space sufficiently.

But I think he just screwed up.