New efforts!

[Blackout]

The first rule of Fight Club is you dont talk about Fight Club.

Except when telling others about fight club and informing them that they can't talk about fight club :P

[AmberOfDzu]

I appreciate the update.

I know we're all impatient, but it's not like we can affect it by griping. I'm comfortable the negotiators are doing their best, and I suspect it's more of an uphill struggle than we realize.

[rebel 1812]

After 8 months of negotiations, I beginning to suspect more incompetence rather than professionalism in this deal.  This is taking ridiculously long now.  I'm sorry, but no. Business just does NOT take this long for something as simple as an obsolete IP sale.

Hell, the entire company I work for was sold to an Irish firm in far less time that this deal is taking, and that was an international, multi-million euro deal involving the sale of a large software development studio, including many patents.

I have been feeling that way since the new year.  Also from a business perspective you want to build interest and the game is getting more obsolete by the day.  Every month there are new titles gamers will flock to and less interest in COH.  I know most here will talk about the fanatics, but for the business to be viable you need casual gamers.  If it takes till the summer or longer to get the deal done they will need a very generous payment model to attract gamers. 

[Stealth Dart]

If this were just a simple IP sale it probably would be done by now.  But this is not just about the IP.  The inclusion of the disk server image for I23 did complicate things.  Before everything gets signed we need to know can they get the disk image of the servers even running.  If they cannot then this will be a real setback.  If all they can get is the IP then we have several more years ahead of us while they write code for a brand new game using the purchased IP.  I am assuming that the TFHM team has sufficient resources at its disposal to see if resurrecting the disk server image is possible.  Even if they get the disk server image working there is still the need for a new launcher, a new store and working out any kinks in the process.

While NCSoft has licensed server images before, this is the first time for a shuttered game.  We are breaking new ground here.  So I for one am not surprised at the glacial pace this is taking.  No need to start leveling charges of incompetence when we do not know where the delay is coming from.  Take a deep breath.  Keep a positive outlook.  Keep looking up.  For one day we will all fly the skies of Paragon City once again.

[Kaos Arcanna]

I had a dream last night I was at a family gathering and Matt Miller showed up. He showed me some emails on his phone that he said were an indicator that COX was coming back.


It was a nice dream.  ;D

[rezulin]

  Personally, I do find it interesting that Irish_Girl has not posted in the normal public areas since Feb 2, 2015.  I think this has the signature of someone having been read into the NDA.  As the Lead in the Atlas Park Revival, having her in the discussions is a VERY good sign.  While she has been active on the forums, it is in areas that I am not allowed into.  I'm ok with this, as I really do not have a "need to know" what is going on specifically with the deal.

  However, I think the problems they are encountering with the "deal" is that they very well can't get the Issue 23 Image up and running.  Remember this thing had spaghetti code and a whole lot of working parts, and was not shut down with the expectation that it would be run again.  The delay in the announcement may be the inability to "let go" of the prior now non-functioning game we all loved. 

  We were "promised" we would get the game back as it was at shutdown.  Many people will be very angry at a perceived broken promise.  Not me personally, mind you, I'll only be sad and disappointed, but I understand that the promise was contingent on getting it working again.  I am sure that THeM are working very hard to get it working, I just don't know if they can with the pieces they have left.

  I will continue to read the forums for new information and be entertained by the random topics, while hoping that the next time I log in I will see a new post (or likely many) that says that the deal is done.

Fuegocito

[Sinistar]

I had a dream last night I was at a family gathering and Matt Miller showed up. He showed me some emails on his phone that he said were an indicator that COX was coming back.


It was a nice dream.  ;D

I had the dream again that I had won Mega Million/Powerball and after taking care of other objectives such as relocating, retirement, helping friends and family,  I then became the new owner of CoH and brought it back.

Fun dream being the one that brings the game back......

[HEATSTROKE]

  Personally, I do find it interesting that Irish_Girl has not posted in the normal public areas since Feb 2, 2015.  I think this has the signature of someone having been read into the NDA.  As the Lead in the Atlas Park Revival, having her in the discussions is a VERY good sign.  While she has been active on the forums, it is in areas that I am not allowed into.  I'm ok with this, as I really do not have a "need to know" what is going on specifically with the deal.

  However, I think the problems they are encountering with the "deal" is that they very well can't get the Issue 23 Image up and running.  Remember this thing had spaghetti code and a whole lot of working parts, and was not shut down with the expectation that it would be run again.  The delay in the announcement may be the inability to "let go" of the prior now non-functioning game we all loved. 

  We were "promised" we would get the game back as it was at shutdown.  Many people will be very angry at a perceived broken promise.  Not me personally, mind you, I'll only be sad and disappointed, but I understand that the promise was contingent on getting it working again.  I am sure that THeM are working very hard to get it working, I just don't know if they can with the pieces they have left.

  I will continue to read the forums for new information and be entertained by the random topics, while hoping that the next time I log in I will see a new post (or likely many) that says that the deal is done.

Fuegocito

I dont recall being promised anything by anybody...

[Ultimate15]

We were "promised" we would get the game back as it was at shutdown.

...Don't know what you're talking about here. No one was promised anything.

[MM3squints]

I dont recall being promised anything by anybody...

^ I agree, there was never a promise, just an effort.

[Vee]

Rezulin did put scare quotes around 'promised' and if you read the next couple of sentences it's clear what was meant - i.e. mention of possibility + internets = promise.

[MWRuger]

  Personally, I do find it interesting that Irish_Girl has not posted in the normal public areas since Feb 2, 2015.  I think this has the signature of someone having been read into the NDA.  As the Lead in the Atlas Park Revival, having her in the discussions is a VERY good sign.  While she has been active on the forums, it is in areas that I am not allowed into.  I'm ok with this, as I really do not have a "need to know" what is going on specifically with the deal.

  However, I think the problems they are encountering with the "deal" is that they very well can't get the Issue 23 Image up and running.  Remember this thing had spaghetti code and a whole lot of working parts, and was not shut down with the expectation that it would be run again.  The delay in the announcement may be the inability to "let go" of the prior now non-functioning game we all loved. 

  We were "promised" we would get the game back as it was at shutdown.  Many people will be very angry at a perceived broken promise.  Not me personally, mind you, I'll only be sad and disappointed, but I understand that the promise was contingent on getting it working again.  I am sure that THeM are working very hard to get it working, I just don't know if they can with the pieces they have left.

  I will continue to read the forums for new information and be entertained by the random topics, while hoping that the next time I log in I will see a new post (or likely many) that says that the deal is done.

Fuegocito

This is just speculation, pure and simple. There are any number of reasons that Irish Girl may have gone dark that have NOTHING to do with CoH. I could speculate that she has been whisked away to Barsoom, entered  a nunnery or joined ISIL. Heck, she may have classes she needs to attends to or her computer may be broken. She may have personal issues that are more important APR. Stick to what we know, which is almost nothing at all.

Further. no one has been promised anything except that we will be told one way or another when negotiations conclude. That's it.

[MM3squints]

This is just speculation, pure and simple. There are any number of reasons that Irish Girl may have gone dark that have NOTHING to do with CoH. I could speculate that she has been whisked away to Barsoom, entered  a nunnery or joined ISIL. Heck, she may have classes she needs to attends to or her computer may be broken. She may have personal issues that are more important APR. Stick to what we know, which is almost nothing at all.

Further. no one has been promised anything except that we will be told one way or another when negotiations conclude. That's it.

I understand what your trying to say in your post about taking speculation to the extremes (as you did in your post to prove a point), but probably not a good example to use anyone joining ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) as an example. It's just not a good look.

[Viking Queen]

Nothing is going to happen. Cryptic posts about an N.D.A. are just a smokescreen. Other NCsoft games are ALREADY starting to tank. Why wouldn't they just sell it if they were willing to ? ...ongoing negotiations about future royalty payments ? Who's kidding who, they are earning zero dollars on it now and have done zero about it for what, 2 years already ? Don't get me wrong, I'd love for CoH to resurface, even if I had to start from scratch 'cuz they wiped the old servers for Wildstar.....but....

Somebody is just jerking your chain guys, the only question is exactly who this "somebody" might be. But no business makes it this hard on themselves to divest themselves of a property they don't even want to own nor manage. Besides, if they retain the rights to original IP, when/if one of the successor project goes live, THEN they can file copyright lawsuits. "Successor based on City of Heroes, we still own that, and even if we'd lose, we got the cash to just bury small time operators....." sound familiar to anyone here ? We'll see what happens when something new goes live.

[kiario]

I remember  a year ago approx. when I followed this thread in hope to see news about this returning.
I can understand the frustration, but I sure have faith in the guys working to get the game back.

Getting a little perspective on things, the prolonged time this takes it more looks like a world changing political decision instead of a decision getting a computer game back up and running.

[umber]

My 10 year old asked me about CoT's progress this morning.

Son: "when are we getting the CoT costume creator??"
Me: "Soon™, son.  Soon™."

Time perception is different for kids, do you remember when days stretched out and summer vacations felt like an eternity?  Patience is not something easily obtained by children.  Now this old man is patient, I believe I'll be playing CoH again sometime this year, I believe I'll be playing some early form of CoT next year, all in good time. 

[duane]

My 10 year old asked me about CoT's progress this morning.

Son: "when are we getting the CoT costume creator??"
Me: "Soon™, son.  Soon™."

Time perception is different for kids, do you remember when days stretched out and summer vacations felt like an eternity?  Patience is not something easily obtained by children.  Now this old man is patient, I believe I'll be playing CoH again sometime this year, I believe I'll be playing some early form of CoT next year, all in good time.

I remember a 3 month summer vacation was an eternity.  Hell, I can do a whole year with just a sneeze these days.  Watching friends' kids grow up?  That is when you start to see time fly when it's no longer measure in your terms.

[Stealth Dart]

That is why up till now the successor projects have called themselves "spiritual successors".  I.E. similiar in playstyle but with new and original IP.  The whole point of the original deal was to purchase the City of Heroes/Villains IP so that a new holding company could be formed which would then license the COH IP to anyone who wanted to make use of it.  For games, merchandise or whatever.  So NCSoft would have no say after the sale is complete.  If the deal falls through then they all go back to the original plan.  Making their own projects without the COH IP and continue along the "spiritual successor" path.  By the successor projects  having their own game engines, their own lore, their own IP.  NCSoft can try and sue...but good luck to them.

Their are other superhero games out their with somewhat similar features to COH that are still around.  This is why Missing Worlds Media is NOT directly responsible for the negotiations for bringing COH back.  So they don't get distracted from completing City of Titans and in case the deal falls through it will not impact the release of COT or any of the other successor projects.  I hope that the TFHM team can get the disk server image working.  For all we know it could be NCSoft's legal department that is putting out legal contract drafts which are then handed to the TFHM lawyers who make changes and then hand it back to the NCSoft lawyers and so on and so forth.  Talks are continuing.  We just need to see how it all works out.

[Remaugen]

There have been recent Irish_Girl sightings on her home turf, including her recent announcement of Fangoria's retirement as Lead 2D Artist from the APR. She is around, just very busy with real life stuff.

[FourSpeed]

Nothing is going to happen. Cryptic posts about an N.D.A. are just a smokescreen. Other NCsoft games are ALREADY starting to tank. Why wouldn't they just sell it if they were willing to ? ...ongoing negotiations about future royalty payments ? Who's kidding who, they are earning zero dollars on it now and have done zero about it for what, 2 years already ? Don't get me wrong, I'd love for CoH to resurface, even if I had to start from scratch 'cuz they wiped the old servers for Wildstar.....but....

Somebody is just jerking your chain guys, the only question is exactly who this "somebody" might be. But no business makes it this hard on themselves to divest themselves of a property they don't even want to own nor manage. Besides, if they retain the rights to original IP, when/if one of the successor project goes live, THEN they can file copyright lawsuits. "Successor based on City of Heroes, we still own that, and even if we'd lose, we got the cash to just bury small time operators....." sound familiar to anyone here ? We'll see what happens when something new goes live.

While I'm not fully in agreement with this position, I'm certainly getting much, much closer to it.

With Q1-2015 nearly in the bag now, I can't help but wonder if anything is happening at all.

Having worked in Fortune 500 companies for most of my adult life, I'm fully aware of the amount of time that projects and negotiations can drag on, but I'm equally aware that simple projects can happen very quickly when motivated parties have a vested interest in the outcome.

I don't get a sense that latter point is the case here.

I was excited as anyone with Nate's announcement but, that was SIX months ago...on a property with minimal value and upside, that the owner honestly doesn't give a rat's pattootie about in comparison to pretty much anything else they have going on.

782 pages into this thread, I've got minimal expectation of seeing CoH ever again... I hope they prove me wrong.

I know the "anthem" is "No news is good news", however to me it's looking far more like "...any sufficient amount of silence is indistiguishable from complete inactivity".

To quote The Princess Bride, "Have fun storming the Castle boys!"

I'm out,
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