New efforts!

[Tubbius]

Interesting read, that article.

Nice to see the developer's ideas about it.  Maybe that can help cool some of the flames.

[Arcana]

Interesting read, that article.

Nice to see the developer's ideas about it.  Maybe that can help cool some of the flames.

Probably not, but I've always said it is not proper to treat companies like individuals.  Companies of composed of lots of different people, each with their own ideas, personalities, priorities, and objectives.  Many people only see "NCSoft" doing something with Statesman (or Emperor Cole), and assigning ill intent to the non-existent corporate hive mind.  But I don't fault a fan of the game who works on MxM trying to get the property represented in that project.  I probably would have tried to do the same thing.  Almost certainly, in fact.  And that's *knowing* the reception it would likely get from at least some of the CoH community.

Companies don't do things.  People do.  I try very hard not to express hatred or disgust for a corporate action I wouldn't express those same feelings to the single person at that company who effected that action.  In this case, I can't.

[Brigadine]

Interesting read, that article.

Nice to see the developer's ideas about it.  Maybe that can help cool some of the flames.

It honestly makes it worse. The only thing they can ever do to knock down the flames is sell the game... they must realize that.

[LateNights]

It honestly makes it worse. The only thing they can ever do to knock down the flames is sell the game... they must realize that.

Did you see in the comments how much NC reportedly wanted?

$80 Million...

[Taceus Jiwede]

Did you see in the comments how much NC reportedly wanted?

$80 Million...

I saw that, quite the number.  Although I feel like I have heard before it was something absurd like that.  If NCsoft is cool with a 1...maybe 2 thousand year payment plan I'll pay that much.

[Brigadine]

Did you see in the comments how much NC reportedly wanted?

$80 Million...

I don't buy it... no pun intended. How much did they buy it from cryptic for?

[Arcana]

Did you see in the comments how much NC reportedly wanted?

$80 Million...

That number was rumored and "reported" going back to practically before the shutdown date, and in several different contexts.  As far as I know, it is a made-up number.

I would personally take any number outside the range of $10 million - $40 million skeptically.  Those represent the minimum and maximum valuations I would give the property prior to shutdown.  It would be worth substantially less two seconds after shutdown.

$80 million is what you tell someone when you do not want to tell them "go climb a tree."

[Sinistar]

Nothing.  I don't even believe that they know the playerbase is upset or would care if they did.

NCSoft does not care.

[Daemien]

Companies don't do things.  People do. 

True. However, I doubt that any one person or even an entire team could pull this off on their own, if negotiations were actively ongoing about said property.
... or there is a serious gap in communication between departments.

[Vee]

So I guess nobody noticed the MxM guy saying he can't personally give the game back. I was expecting wild speculation.

[skoogmik]

This comment about COH selling being 80 million dollars is withdrawn, due to Codewalker's post at Reply #27053.  He is closer the to the real sources that I am and I was probably just spreading rumors.


In spite of all of this, I still must thank Ironwolf, Nate and all the others who heroically attempted to bring COH back to us.  All of them deserve praise for the work they freely did on our behalf. Thank You.

[Surelle]

So I guess nobody noticed the MxM guy saying he can't personally give the game back. I was expecting wild speculation.

Sean Orlikowski is a brand manager for NCSoft, and he's been with them for 7 years.  He says he really loved CoH.  If NCSoft was working on any sort of CoX rez or sequel, I bet he'd know about it pretty darned early on.  Moreover, if NCSoft isn't going to listen to him, they're not likely to listen to anybody else about it, either, is my take on it.

The thing that also bothers me here is that he claims he began getting Statesman/Tyrant into MxM in 2014.  That's when talks started for the leasing of the CoX IP.  So it seems pretty obvious NCSoft wasn't taking those talks too seriously, as they ok'd the Statesman MxM thing instead.  That could certainly have muddied the legalities of the talks...unless there was no real hope for those to begin with, is my impression, sorry.

Here's the full interview from Lorehound: 

http://lorehound.com/news/exclusive-ncsoft-responds-to-criticism-of-statesmans-return/

"I can't personally give any of that back to you, but I can pay homage to a character who acts in some ways as a symbol for those things. As I wrote in Tyrant's story, a symbol is only as powerful as the people who follow it, so I hope CoH fans can see MXM's Statesman for what I hoped he would be..."

It seems like he personally did like CoX, and while I understand that, I still hope he isn't expecting too many former CoX players to follow that symbol, because the overall reaction to the YouTube MxM "A Hero Returns" video has been pretty abysmal so far.  Somebody even pruned off tons of the negative comments, and not only is the reaction still horrible, but more negative posts are still getting added by the day.  I doubt too many are going to be on board for that.  I'm certainly not.  And although the IP is clearly NCSoft's to do with what it will, I hope they steer clear of injecting any more CoX characters into MxM or any other game besides a rez of CoX, or CoX2.

Incidentally, on a post script to MassivelyOP's financial commentary below the article(s) as of late, Bree is the Editor-in-Chief over there, and she's quoting firsthand insider info she's been given, both concerning NCSoft's original CoX purchase price from Cryptic (8 million), it's overhead (4 million a year), its income (12 million a year as of shutdown), and NCSoft's selling price for CoX at shutdown (80 million).  I'm with Arcana on that last one:  They were basically telling whomever to go jump in a lake.

Bree's quote from below the article http://massivelyop.com/2017/03/24/ncsoft-rep-says-bringing-city-of-heroes-toons-to-master-x-master-was-his-passion-project/

...sources inside the company have publicly stated that City of Heroes cost $4M annually to run/support and brought in $12M annually, at a net profit of $8M annually. Paragon was using that profit on R&D for a second game.

[skoogmik]

Due to Codewalker's post Reply #27053, I've withdrawn this post.


Also I wish to add to my above praise list: Codewalker.  Thank you very much for ICON and Paragon Chat.

[Dev7on]

This...........is just......heartbreaking...  :gonk:

MMOBomb posted a video yesterday talking about the same thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTQwBLAHvNA

[Tyger42]

Well, hell. If they're not going to play ball, I say it's time for some people willing to take the legal risk to start working on server emulation. >.>

[Codewalker]

Due to Codewalker's post Reply #27053, I've withdrawn this post.

I just deleted my original reply on the subject. Feel free to read into that what you will.

[kaaduu1280]

The thing that also bothers me here is that he claims he began getting Statesman/Tyrant into MxM in 2014.  That's when talks started for the leasing of the CoX IP.  So it seems pretty obvious NCSoft wasn't taking those talks too seriously, as they ok'd the Statesman MxM thing instead.  That could certainly have muddied the legalities of the talks...unless there was no real hope for those to begin with, is my impression, sorry.

*sigh* So it seems like it was hopeless right from the start, huh? Just a way to amuse themselves with futile efforts from us while throwing acid in our collective faces.

[Sinistar]

*sigh* So it seems like it was hopeless right from the start, huh? Just a way to amuse themselves with futile efforts from us while throwing acid in our collective faces.

All the more reason for Ship of Heroes or one of the other successors to get up and running and for perhaps one day for Paragon Chat to become a solo CoH Emulator if nothing else.

[Beyorn]

How hard would it be to make CoH a solo experience since it doesn't look like they are going to sell?  Have it play one your computer with no server.  If that makes sense.  I would rather have an mmo but if it means never playing it again I would go for solo in a heart beat.

If this is a silly question for computer and server peeps I'm sorry.  I'm not a computer guy ;).

[Ohioknight]

How hard would it be to make CoH a solo experience since it doesn't look like they are going to sell?  Have it play one your computer with no server.  If that makes sense.  I would rather have an mmo but if it means never playing it again I would go for solo in a heart beat.

If this is a silly question for computer and server peeps I'm sorry.  I'm not a computer guy ;).

If it weren't really hard, it would be done by now.  I believe some very talented people have been working on that as well as reverse engineering private servers since before the shut-down.