Note that someone’s pledged $10,000.
Also, the total of $550,000 reached another stretch goal.
Over $600,000 now and another stretch goal. Counting down the final hours!
Inn case you hadn’t heard:
That’s a player initiative to toss an extra $5 onto existing pledges to help out. One of those players has selected the “custom weapon” level of reward and will be giving it out to people who pledge the additional $5; plus there might be a building and a supergroup, so you will probably get something for that $5 extra.
This is nuts. This is nuts. This is nuts.
I love everyone right now.
And the SEVENTH stretch goal has been achieved and quickly surpassed! The original goal of $320,000 reached in just the first 5 days (of 33), the 6th stretch goal (of $600K) reached late last night, the original goal DOUBLED just a short while ago, and $650K passed a few minutes ago as the Phoenix Project KS steams full speed ahead into its final feverish hours!
It’s true that other KS projects have pulled in far more in the way of pledgers and monies pledged (coughStar Citizencough25 millioncough), but considering our original goal, all expectations have been wildly exceeded! Congrats to all backers! WE’RE GOING HOME!!!
sighs. stares out window. waits for spring.
Ooh-RAH, MA-rines! Nice surge.
It is done.
Maybe MWM should just quietly knock on some door at NCsoft and see what might be for sale… now. Seems like $600k should be enough… leaving a little to… clear the way.
I am excited. But I was getting annoyed by the frequency of the project updates, so I finally had to shut them off this weekend.
I saw reports (or rumors) that the Devs had several millions lined up to offer NCSoft to get the IP and avoid the shutdown, NCSoft wouldn’t sell. Better to go their own way at this point.
They are far from the worst I have backed WRT frequency of updates. It should be pretty quiet for a while now, although I hope they check in at least once a month. The worst thing a KS project can do is not communicate with the backers.
The devs have stated they’re going to take a week off to decompress (since this is an all-volunteer effort, they’re still attending to their ‘normal’ lives ;> ), then get back to it. Frequency of future updates is unknown at this time, but it’s been speculated that they’ll likely be weekly or monthly. Any announcements will be made on their forums.
As an aside, their stand-alone Avatar Builder, which will be in essence a character creator program, should be available next summer or so. This software program will be available for both PC and Mac, and there will be apps for both Android phones and iPhones.*
*E-Sabbath, please correct me if I’ve misstated anything.
Uh.
I understand cross-platform programming just gets easier by the year, but of what possible use is an avatar builder for a mobile device? Gimmicky and a waste of development time, IMVHMSO.
That’s …Minor Shareholder…
Personally, I’m happy to read as many updates as they put out. But I can read their forums for that.
I think the Character Creator on mobile devices is a cool idea. I spent many hours playing with costumes in CoH. Having it on my phone will be a lot of fun, and great for spending time when I’m not at my computer.
Business-wise, I expect they’ll charge some nominal fee for it, so it’s additional revenue. Plus, it’s a great marketing tool, even if there’s no net profit from it.
I don’t presume to speak for Missing Worlds Media as to their planning, but the first and second stretch goals were to produce this Avatar Builder app for Android Phones and iPhones, with having Mac capability at launch as their third goal. Almost everything I’ve read about their plans for creating the game has made me believe they’ve put a very great deal of thought into what they want to do, with an eye towards building components of the game foundation now to better accept changes/improvements/additions in the future.
To be sure, not all of the things they’re doing or planning to do sit well with everyone. Not meaning to sound callous, but you can’t please everyone. To the best of my understanding, this is a group of 100+ volunteers, some giving more effort than others due to all of them fitting the creation of this game in around their personal lives. They’d already been at it for over a year before the Kickstarter even, uh, kicked off.
Later down the line, their stated plan (paraphrased) is to approach professional funders (banks, established game companies, etc.) with a game in the Alpha or Beta stage, along with the results of this Kickstarter showing the number of potential players ready to support the game and the amount of pledges raised. Also, it’s hoped that the success of the Avatar Builder, released as a stand-alone program that will be able to port creations directly into the game when it launches, will further strengthen MWM’s professional & financial position. Since these volunteers were almost all players of City of Heroes themselves, one absolute statement MWM has made is that control of this game will never be handed off to anyone else.
If the game launches and sadly has to shut down later, plans reportedly are already in development for players to keep playing in some manner. The sunsetting of City of Heroes left a bad taste in its playerbase’s mouth, so to speak, and underlined what everyone should understand: you, the player, regardless of the game or company behind the given game, may at any time lose without recourse the fruits of hundreds or thousands of hours of your creative efforts. Speaking for myself, I believe that should change, that players should be able to somehow keep control of their creations and continue legally playing the game, even if the game servers are shut down.
I will now sit down and shut my fanboy mouth. 
Disclaimer: Again, I am not affiliated in any way with Missing Worlds Media, and any errors or misstatements are mine.
Personally, I love the idea of a smartphone Avatar Builder. With CoH, I often wasn’t able to play, but had time to do some minor CoH-related stuff. This app would be great for that.
And speaking of marketing tools, I hope they do some sort of webcomic in the lead up to going live.
From what I have read, they are in fact going for a comic comic at some point.
That’s because “sunsetting” is a polite circumlocution for what did happen. Here’s a documentary video of the actual event:
“No one will miss City of Heroes anyway…”
(Note: old, very racist WB cartoon from 1938… skip directly to 7:55. If anyone knows how to change the link to start playback at that point, please post correction.)
I like to think today’s update was in the spirit of the best of what CoH was.
There is now a webcomic based in City of Titans, called HiJinx. It’s supported by donations which also helps the development of the game.