New efforts!

[Ankhammon]

I sorta feel like we're the audience at a theater waiting for the show to begin while the "maestros" are preparing back stage...

We know the show is about to begin any minute, and the anticipation is killing us! :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-t8PngHgWY

[Ohioknight]

The "who" has got me really curious, especially when I remember that NCSoft has had the mystery buyers proving their technical competence for the last several weeks. The chance of NCSoft asking this of an established studio seems slim, so that would seem to indicate "newcomers," for some value of "newcomers." I can't envision a scenario in which I'll be blown away by the revealing of the identity of the mystery buyers, especially if the mystery buyers are relative unknowns. Maybe my imagination isn't outta bed yet, tho...

From the "Game Changer" "You will understand" etc. comments I take this to likely be a name larger than the gaming industry.

I say Tom Cruise and John Travolta are buying it to launch a Game/Movie franchise.  Our characters will all report to a new governing Super-organization known only as "Sea Org"  :)

[Shifter]

So could Bob Dole be one the buyer? IS he one of the Devs?  Does he still do commercials???

That would be pretty epic as I actually blew off a real life meeting with Bob Dole a few years back.
"Ok, the game has been reopened and every one EXCEPT Shifter is invited back as he snubbed me a few years back." -Bob Dole

"KHAAAAAAAAN!"
"DOOOOOOOLE!"

[MM3squints]

That would be pretty epic as I actually blew off a real life meeting with Bob Dole a few years back.
"Ok, the game has been reopened and every one EXCEPT Shifter is invited back as he snubbed me a few years back." -Bob Dole

"KHAAAAAAAAN!"
"DOOOOOOOLE!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHn6b6rzFfk

[Fable]

I say Tom Cruise and John Travolta are buying it to launch a Game/Movie franchise.  Our characters will all report to a new governing Super-organization known only as "Sea Org"  :)

You also must be an operating thetan to play.

[AlienOne]

From the "Game Changer" "You will understand" etc. comments I take this to likely be a name larger than the gaming industry.

I say Tom Cruise and John Travolta are buying it to launch a Game/Movie franchise.  Our characters will all report to a new governing Super-organization known only as "Sea Org"  :)

I say it's Joaquin Phoenix, since CoH is what he was playing during his fake "documentary".... Maybe he misses it. ;P

[Shifter]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-t8PngHgWY

I suspect just below the surface it's more like this ; )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1YmS_VDvMY

[Sihada]

HOWEVER, I PAID NCSOFT FOR MY ACCOUNTS! I WANT THAT INFORMATION TRANSFERED TO THE NEW OWNERS!

You're mistaken here.  You didn't buy your accounts; you licensed them.  Section 2(c) of the last update of the End User License Agreement makes this abundantly clear:

(c) License Grant - Any Service, Content or Software supplied by NCsoft is licensed, not sold,

This point is emphasized in section 6, "Intellectual Property"...

You acknowledge, and further agree, that You have no IP right related to any Service, Content, Software, or any combination of the foregoing or parts thereof except the limited license provided in Section 2 above.

This is what you agreed to when you played the game.  You don't own your accounts.  You don't own your customer data.  You don't own the software.  It was never yours; it was licensed to you until you ceased being a customer.  No notion of entitlement changes the legal realities.  I'm sorry if you don't like it, but that's the way it is.

[MWRuger]

Point taken, never thought of what would happen to all the digital games I bought if a company would go bankrupt (Valve:Steam, EA:Orgins, UBsoft:UPlay, etc) Honestly that is a unknown I never thought about and was just conferable with the convenience of Steam. I do hope Valve will never go under, but nothing in life is certain except death

I may be late to this but Valve has addressed this in the past, stating that they will make available physical copies of games that you buy if they ever shut the service down. They even honored customers who bought copies of Prey elsewhere when those servers went away.

To other steam paranoiacs (not you MM3):

Steam also has an offline mode and any game that you buy that THE PUBLISHER does not require an internet connection to play will work just fine.

The value Steam adds is a central place for all the games you buy, regular and consistent patching that you don't have to worry about, very good sales, outlets for games that don't fit brick and mortar sales model and a good way to keep up to date on the games you like.

But hey, if you think that Steam and valve are part of some big brother surveillance system and you think doing all this yourself makes you more secure be my guest. It doesn't, but I recognize that people should be more sensitive to the information that is circulated about them.

The problem is the very fact that you are posting anywhere on line at all means you are on the grid and someone who wants to can find you and market the hell out of you. You already lost.

[Waffles]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHn6b6rzFfk

Calling your Family Guy and raising you the original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Rh-FxV_2s

[kiario]

It could be Markus "notch" Persson Minecraft  :). He has the cash for sure
That would be great. Zero latency with servers in Sweden :)

[Mindscythe]

Be happy that someone loved this game enough to fight to try and get it so that you can have your home back. I am sorry but your statement is absurd. Please think things through.

I am. Deliriously so. And hopeful. And grateful. Characters, no characters, the thought that I could, once again, fly around Paragon City listening to John William's Theme from Superman, and come as close to actually flying as I will ever experience, makes me smile every single time. I don't care what character I embody to do that, it's the setting and the action that matters.

[MM3squints]

Calling your Family Guy and raising you the original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Rh-FxV_2s

Was trying to find the original where these came from, but I can't :( so you win

[Fable]

It could be Markus "notch" Persson Minecraft  :). He has the cash for sure

You know, I could actually see that. He seems like a "for the gamers!" type.

[MM3squints]

I may be late to this but Valve has addressed this in the past, stating that they will make available physical copies of games that you buy if they ever shut the service down. They even honored customers who bought copies of Prey elsewhere when those servers went away.

Well that's good to know. Would hate too loose my Steam Library. Again not that I want Valve to go under in the first place. (I need my DoTA 2 fix xD)

[Biz]

From the "Game Changer" "You will understand" etc. comments I take this to likely be a name larger than the gaming industry.

I say Tom Cruise and John Travolta are buying it to launch a Game/Movie franchise.

I would LOVE to see Tom Cruise star as Statesman in a CoH movie.

Although I don't think that Tom Cruise is really involved in the current effort.

My personal guess for who is spear-heading our mystery buyer team: https://images.weserv.nl/?url=user-cdn.spring.me%2Fphotos%2F20120806%2Fn50203aae30c71.jpg
Mr. Sins himself

[BadWolf]

This is what you agreed to when you played the game.  You don't own your accounts.  You don't own your customer data.  You don't own the software.  It was never yours; it was licensed to you until you ceased being a customer.  No notion of entitlement changes the legal realities.  I'm sorry if you don't like it, but that's the way it is.

Strictly speaking, most EULAs don't really represent the "legal realities" so much as "what our legal team fervently hopes will be the legal realities, and is crossing our fingers that nobody ever challenges this in a court of law, because we threw in everything but the kitchen sink into this end user agreement, and Bob actually wanted to throw in a claim to your actual freaking kitchen sink just to see if anyone reads these things, but we all shouted him down, and he sulked for about a week or two because he's still sure it would have been funny as hell to send people cease and desist letters from using their own kitchen sinks"...um, where was I?

Oh, right. Until a court actually rules on whether an end-user agreement is legally enforceable, it's just a bunch of text. Not that I'm saying anyone would or should sue NCSoft to get their character information back, but stating, "Oh hey, you clicked 'Accept' on the Terms and Conditions so it's settled now" is not actually correct. There've been a lot of courts pushing back on overly aggressive, unenforceable EULAs (the KlearGear people come to mind) and I, for one, would like to see the "EULA is law" mentality not take hold.

[skoogmik]

The secret is out of the bag far sooner than I thought it would be.... We have some very shrewd members in our ranks... ;)

It kinda of like hiding things out in the open.  Reminds me of the old show "The Prisoner".  In the intro, the Prisoner (who is Number 6) asks the new warden (Number 2) Who is Number 1.  Number 2 reply seems to be "You are Number 6".  What he was actually saying "You are, Number 6".  At the end of the series, it was revealed that Number 6 was Number 1, so I guess it meant that Number 6 was his own keeper/tormentor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlFiHhN8aew

[Harpospoke]

Yes, this would be the easiest for the new owners. No baggage from the old. And, as it has been stated by others, according to the EULA NCSoft owns your characters. So the return of those is unlikely.

HOWEVER, I PAID NCSOFT FOR MY ACCOUNTS! I WANT THAT INFORMATION TRANSFERED TO THE NEW OWNERS! There are many things I paid for besides my Vet rewards. Costumes, Expansions (boxed and virtual), Character Slots, etc.... There needs to be some way to log in to your Master NCSoft account, and get a unique key-code (like the Key Codes you get when you bought something in a box or online). You give that key-code to the new owners and you get your account stuff back. From there, I don't know how difficult it will be attach the characters to the new accounts made with the new owners.

If the characters are lost, I feel it will be an understandable loss. If the account information is lost, then I will blame both NCSoft and the new owners. And I know that there are a lot of veterans that feel the same way!

Heck...if they can bring all that back, the characters should be easy.   They are tied to my account too.

[Husk]

The ONLY thing that matters is that we get the game back.....NOTHING ELSE MATTERS !!!!

Did I make that clear...ooh but what about the accounts...immaterial and unfair/off-putting to potential new players.

"But I ran three accounts with many alts and trillions of stuff"..... That game ended,this the new Phoenix edition....naysayers getting the message now?

Basic maths : 3 accounts + 0 game = anyone?

1 Game + 0 accounts = Best game ever ready to play with mk2 to follow.

The Game is everything.....

Many tnx to Ironwolf for showing tenacity in the face of naysayers,trolls,meanies,etc.
Perhaps a little statue of a wolf made from iron can appear in atlas when the game comes back....