New efforts!

[Noyjitat]

Not really sure how the number of pages relates to update frequency

It shows how much time has passed and it's very depressing.

[darkgob]

It shows how much time has passed and it's very depressing.

MST3K ended in 1999 and is only now after 17 years being relaunched.

[Brigadine]

Once we get a second and third update, there'll probably be some math to explain it.

I'm placing my bets on something exponential.

That makes sense...

[pinballdave]

Once we get a second and third update, there'll probably be some math to explain it.

I'm placing my bets on something exponential.

I can handle exponential, even parabolic progressions. I just hope it isn't a hyperbolic curve striving to reach the asymptotic value of having the game back.

[ivanhedgehog]

MST3K ended in 1999 and is only now after 17 years being relaunched.

mstk is a fairly unique tv show that only needs advertisers. COH is an mmo that has plenty of competition and requires subscribers. people are still watching green acres reruns. dont expect any mmo to last that long

[scope.creep]

Great. Now I've got the Green Acres song stuck in my head.

[ivanhedgehog]

Great. Now I've got the Green Acres song stuck in my head.

here ya go!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umS3XM3xAPk

[Sinistar]

mstk is a fairly unique tv show that only needs advertisers. COH is an mmo that has plenty of competition and requires subscribers. people are still watching green acres reruns. dont expect any mmo to last that long

Would rather watch Gilligan's Island reruns. 

Mary Ann..... 8)

[darkgob]

mstk is a fairly unique tv show that only needs advertisers. COH is an mmo that has plenty of competition and requires subscribers. people are still watching green acres reruns. dont expect any mmo to last that long

EverQuest was released in 1999 and is still active.

Anyway, my point was more that negotiations take time.  It took Joel 5 years to get the rights away from Best Brains, which is a) not even a large corporation (does it even consist of anyone but Jim Mallon?), 2) is a company he used to work for, and z) he co-created the show.  Even if Jack Emmert himself were leading TFHM (and I'm not suggesting this would be a good thing by any stretch of the imagination) negotiations might still take this long.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

EverQuest was released in 1999 and is still active.

Anyway, my point was more that negotiations take time.  It took Joel 5 years to get the rights away from Best Brains, which is a) not even a large corporation (does it even consist of anyone but Jim Mallon?), 2) is a company he used to work for, and z) he co-created the show.  Even if Jack Emmert himself were leading TFHM (and I'm not suggesting this would be a good thing by any stretch of the imagination) negotiations might still take this long.

A valid if somewhat unfortunate point. i'm still hopeful that it will still be a relatively quick deal because it's for a property that is literally earning nothing for the owners right now. MST3K still moved merchandise long after the show went off the air. City of Heroes, like most MMOs, not so much. Now, that said, it's an unfortunate reality that even if the negotiations continue at full speed it could be years before a final deal or relaunch. If any of the successors launch in the interim it's possible that they will have more of my loyalty and time, but i'll still play CoH. After all i still occasionally play games from when colored ASCII characters represented state of the art graphics for PCs. Nonetheless every year that passes with the game still shut down does diminish the initial player base when it comes back. In my opinion APR remains the best hope for a CoH resurgence. Although with the way technology continues to progress adapting classic CoH to mobile devices is another possible approach...

[Felderburg]

... and z)

What happened here?

[Arcana]

Anyway, my point was more that negotiations take time.  It took Joel 5 years to get the rights away from Best Brains, which is a) not even a large corporation (does it even consist of anyone but Jim Mallon?), 2) is a company he used to work for, and z) he co-created the show.  Even if Jack Emmert himself were leading TFHM (and I'm not suggesting this would be a good thing by any stretch of the imagination) negotiations might still take this long.

Not to mention ¼) the potential for cross licensing complications, †) the difficulty in facing face to face negotiations, ƒ) the lack of prior business relationships, and ¿) the relative uncharted territory of this kind of negotiation.

[darkgob]

... and z)

What happened here?

Z is the last letter of the alphabet, you silly goose.

[Vee]

After all i still occasionally play games from when colored ASCII characters represented state of the art graphics for PCs.

Those were before i had a PC, but given that I'm currently hopelessly hooked on SanctuaryRPG i could see that.

[Tahquitz]

MST3K ended in 1999 and is only now after 17 years being relaunched.

Got another one for you: My Bloody Valentine entered development hell in 1991 and finally released an album in 2013... 22 years later.  How's that for an exercise in patience?

[Surelle]

MST3K ended in 1999 and is only now after 17 years being relaunched.

That's a TV show.  X-files got a rez last year, too, and it's 25 years old or so (The six new Season 10 episodes are awesome, too).  Still, they're not MMORPGs owned by NCSoft, who is notorious for killing their games and never releasing/rezzing those IPs ever again.  Sorry, but that's not a very good comparison, especially when you factor in 10 million lines of spaghetti code, all the server/back end work and costs (requiring very old servers, tough enough to keep running in their own right), being able to pay a whole team to run them and run the game, etc.  It's a WAY more complicated process than TV shows or movies, and requires constant, continual maintenance, money and work besides. 

At the end of the day, while a small group of MMOers would likely play here and there for free, only a very small portion of people would pay to play CoH again.  We've had discussions like that here before, and out of the maybe 30 of us that post on CoH Titan, multiple peeps immediately gave this or that excuse why they wouldn't pay to play it.  If even the rabid fans here are not willing to pay, I doubt too many casual MMOers are going to, either.  How would a server cluster even keep running?  Is it fair to ask everyone to volunteer to run CoH? And who would pay millions of dollars to lease the IP, with the investors knowing they would never get that money back?

[Twisted Toon]

That's a TV show.  X-files got a rez last year, too, and it's 25 years old or so.  Still, they're not MMORPGs owned by NCSoft, who is notorious for killing their games and never releasing/rezzing those IPs ever again.  Sorry, but that's not a very good comparison, especially when you factor in 10 million lines of spaghetti code, all the server/back end work (requiring very old servers, tough enough to keep running in their own right), being able to pay a whole team to run them and run the game, etc.  It's a WAY more complicated process than TV shows or movies, and requires constant, continual maintenance, money and work besides. 

And at the end of the day, while a small group of MMOers would likely play here and there for free, only a very small portion of people would pay to play CoH again.  We've had discussions like that before, and out of the maybe 30 people that post on CoH Titan here, there were even a good amount of those peeps who immediately gave this or that excuse why they wouldn't pay to play it.  If they're not paying here, I doubt too many casual MMOers are going to, either.

The Realm online has been around longer, I believe, any other graphical MMORPG (doesn't count MUDDS) and it's still going to this day. I think CoH would have a chance at lasting quite a while.

[Surelle]

The Realm online has been around longer, I believe, any other graphical MMORPG (doesn't count MUDDS) and it's still going to this day. I think CoH would have a chance at lasting quite a while.

Age isn't the main issue here:  It's MONEY, lol.  Did those games have to pay millions of dollars to lease their IPs, or even try to convince a game-killer MMO publisher (who is, at this very moment, getting ready behind the scenes to shutter yet another of its MMOs that has only been around about a year) who has never leased or rezzed one of its dead IPs ever, to finally do so?

Nope, sorry, these comparisons are not valid to our situation here.

[Kaos Arcanna]

I'm a firm believer that any investors for buying the COX IP are banking on nostalgia as a factor in its profitability. In a world where the game of Battleship can get a movie made about it I think there's a decent chance that there's money to be made from the COX IP. (Not just as a game, but also as possible fodder for things like T-shirts, merchandise, maybe even animation.)

Honestly, there are people who have moved on. But I also think that some of the people saying they won't go back if they don't get their stuff back will reconsider if the game makes it live again.

If the IP is obtained ... if someone finds a way to bring it back to life ... then I think it will find a market. Maybe not a large market, but one that's profitable enough for a relatively low cost investment.

[Sinistar]

Honestly, there are people who have moved on. But I also think that some of the people saying they won't go back if they don't get their stuff back will reconsider if the game makes it live again.

Well, I can understand being upset at having lost everything, but by now I think many realize that when the game returns it will be starting over again. 

The big deal breaker is whether or not NCSoft would have any control at all over the game's rebirth and future.

NCSoft prone to killing MMO's and they did make many CoH players rather.....irate....with the shutdown.