I don’t understand how any time spent on a game is “wasted”, i assume you enjoyed all that time you played or you wouldn’t be missing the game so much. I loved Nestles alpine white chocolate bars, i don’t consider any time i ate them wasted simply because they stopped making them.
Thought you’d like to see this.
Greetings,
For those unaware, my name is Nate Downes. While I am the President of Missing Worlds Media, Inc, I am also a member of the City of Heroes community, and an advocate. A series of circumstances put me in to a unique position, to reach out to NCSoft, not as the company president, but as a member of a small group with the goal to acquire the older property in some form or another.
Early on, this group, which included a few people from MWM as well as other members of the community, made the intentional choice to not directly involve CoT in the negotiations. There are a few reasons for this. It prevented the discussions from negatively impacting the project should they go wrong. It also prevented them from distracting any development. And, most importantly, if this should work out, it would be incredibly unfair for only one segment of the community to benefit.
How it began.
In September of last year, I had lucked into a chance meeting with a few people who worked for NC Soft, including a manager. They advised me then to come back later on to talk with them. While I’d kept the dialog channel open, the general consensus was that no, the company would never sell City of Heroes complete and intact.
Then IronWolf posted the idea of buying up part of the game, but not the entire thing. This prompted me to ask my contact people, who through several discussions eventually advised me to talk to a single person, NC Soft’s Business Manager Jae Soo Yoon. In addition, we had some other people who were ex-employees and ex-partners suggest the very same person.
For those who do not know Korean business methods, it is considered highly rude to directly email someone, but to instead get an introduction from a third party business associate. This meant we had to find someone who was not part of NC Soft to formally introduce us to Mr. Yoon. Fortunately, we had two people who could do just that, a former NC West employee and a former co-worker of mine who had started a media company which works with NC Soft on developing properties for the Asian market.
Introductions in place, we made the leap from US-bound people to members of the Korean firm. This was very carefully done, very slowly orchestrated. By July, we had gotten to the point that Mr. Yoon had passed us to Sangwon Chung from NC Soft’s Strategic Partnership Development Team.
For those who are unfamiliar, this is the group which handles things such as partnering with an existing studio or the development of new partnerships. This is the group we have been working with since early July. It is a very slow process, and still will take a long time to conclude.
The proposal as it stands right now (this is not a final form, just the current proposal on the table) is this:
The CoH IP would be spun to its own company, to handle licensing. This company would itself license the existing engine from NCSoft for the creation of a maintenance mode, using a binary copy of the i23 server.
The existing user database and characters are not part of this arrangement at this time, nor is the source code.
An arrangement is to be made to license the trademarks to the various Plan Z projects, CoT, Valiance and H&V, to create a family connection, and to allow each to drop the “Spiritual” portion of successor. This means they can make references to the original game if desired, and to enable the expansion of partnerships. This could be expanded for any of them, should the desire be there.
An arrangement is also to be made for the Atlas Park Revival project. As part of the informal agreement we have with them, they would be given an official stamp of approval, and the CoT game build would be licensed to them, to create a kind of “CoH 1.5” and migrate people off of the classic game engine before it finally becomes unsuitable (we expect this to happen around when Windows 9 is released, due to binary compatibility). This can be done because both APR and CoT run on Unreal Engine 4.
By being its own firm, the licensing company can also pursue other avenues which were unavailable before.
Why this group?
Because we approached them like another Korean company. We respected their company culture. And most importantly, we were patient. We had periods where we heard nothing for weeks.
The group itself began as three people. It has grown, some people more connected to the inner workings than others. Some former Cryptic and Paragon employees have given us advise on things ranging from what is needed to run the old server binaries to how the Paragon Market worked.
So, why come forward now?
Back in March, we were advised to wait until after August as a show of good faith. It is now September, so here we are.
Since we could not give full details to anyone without jeopardizing the whole thing before now, a lot of misinformation, rumors, and flat out wrong ideas got out there. To correct them could have broken the request, and therefore the trust, built up. So we had to let them stir, and do minor nudges to fix when we could get away with it.
So where are we now?
Right now, still discussing terms, ideas, limits. The challenges we have been given we stepped up for and handled. Likely there will be discussions and adjustments right up until the moment the deal is signed. The whole thing may fall apart. For all we know, everything done so far has been nothing but a delaying tactic so they can say once again that they tried to work with the community to no avail. But until such time that becomes clear, we will continue forward in good faith.
They could have ignored us from day 1, but they did not. They may not operate at the pace we would like, but they are at the pace they are comfortable with. At this point, the ball is in their court.
Ultimately, it is not the dozen folk here who have been in talks with are important here, but all of you. Those who said what you wanted, what you’d hoped for, who did not give up. We’re still not there, may never make it there, but we are not even close to giving up. And whatever happens, we can do it together.
Thanks to all of you.
Holy crap! All I’ve wanted was to play the game with an updated graphics and engine and now it looks like I may get that…holy crap!
Sweet. This also explains the lack of updates for the last few months.
Keep up the good work, E-Sabbath.
All I can think of is the page in Dark Knight where Supes hears Bruce Wayne’s heart restart.
Wow. Just… wow. Good work!
Maybe …
“I head City of Heroes was dead!”
“It got better.”
Outstanding. Hope it works out. I’d miss my old toons, but if I could play the game again, I would.
This is exciting, but there’s still some bitters in the sweet. The old CoH code is old and beyond repair. The life cycle for its server requirements is nearing the end; think months, not years. And with the loss of character data, the former glory of the game will be gone.
The real news is that the characters and lore of CoH can be licensed. That is the legacy I am very excited to see get continued. It’ll make a tangible connection between CoH and its successors. My hopes for a playable game going forward is with City of Titans and having some crossovers with CoH properties is very exciting.
I’m very happy with the work MWM has done on CoT so far and this persistent effort to get what can be got from CoH is further encouraging.
Could someone explain what this means, in plain English? Thanks.
If the deal goes through, they’ll be able to set up servers hosting City of Heroes for people to make new characters and play on. There won’t be any updates or bugfixes, since it’ll be stuck at Issue 23, and your old characters won’t be there, but it’s a way to play the game.
They’ll also have the IP rights, which means City of Titans could use characters and backstory from City of Heroes, or even call itself City of Heroes 2.
All true, but just being able to play and re-form the core of the community is priceless.
My last couple of years were less serious playing than just… hangin’. I pull everything up via Icon every once in a while, but it got harder to bear. I will be delighted to run around the creaky old place and beat down some more of the same foes. 
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The old CoH will be back, albeit without the legacy accounts and characters (yet… stay tuned).
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A new version of CoH, rebuilt on the Unreal 4 engine, might be along soon. (Think new Mini vs. old Mini.)
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City of Titans aka City of Heros 2.0, fully upgraded, running on the modern engine and fully licensed to exist and reference the old game, will be along… eventually.
I’d call it a win.
You should probably reverse 3 and 2. It’ll take a lot of time to bring CoH to Unreal. Even if they don’t need to make the assets - there’s nothing under them.
It’s my impression that engine-porting is a relatively straightforward task, especially with engines/platforms like Unreal, which evolved to be an upgrade platform.
My impression could be - could be, mind you - uh, you know, wrong.
Another spiritual successor of City of Heroes is doing a Kickstarter campaign, ending early on Nov 28. It’s called Valiance Online.
I’ve pledged to it, but not nearly as much as for the City of Titans pledge drive. They don’t seem as polished as CoT’s dev team.
Wait, what? Is this a third group with the same idea? CoT, Golden Girl’s “Project Z” (or whatever it was called), and now Valiance Online? Or is VO the new name of Golden Girl’s project?
If this is indeed a third group, this has to be completely unprecedented. Supposedly “unprofitable” game property gets shut down, and three different groups spring up to create a successor?
And since I brought up Golden Girl …
Can somebody who played CoH longer than I did explain to me the apparent animosity between GG and the rest of the community? I only got to play the game for a year, and I encountered GG on the official forums, then on Deviant Art, and then finally met her in-game (her main “Golden Girl” character lived on one of my servers), and everything about her struck me as “positive ambassador” for the game. I even communicated with her a few times, both in-game and on the Deviant Art site, and she seemed like a very pleasant person and a great representative of the community.
She seemed to spend a great deal of time, in character, hanging out in Atlas Park, welcoming new players, offering assistance and helpful advice to noobs, and doing everything in her power to bring positive attention to the game. From everything I saw, she personally did a better job of marketing the game than NCSoft did.
And then, toward the end, I started coming across all sorts of acrimonious posts directed at her. When the first “spiritual successor” project started up, GG was in there, and then the next thing I knew the whole thing had split because of some problem people had with her.
I have no dog in whatever fight went on; I’m just curious as to what the problem was.
From the City of Titans/Missing Worlds Media FAQ on FaceBook:
Heroes and Villains is Golden Girl’s project (I have no firsthand knowledge of her; no idea why there’s acrimony). Valiance Online is the third spiritual successor. I think Atlas Park Revival is more of an environment resurrection, than a MMO game development.
As a charter-minus-one-week player who generally avoided the official forums and hung out on the still-active alt.games.coh instead, I have only a vague recollection of the name Golden Girl and no clue as to why she was so polarizing.
I do wish the efforts could combine forces. There’s enough working against even one success that three “seperate” (sigh) efforts can only be… less good. I understand commitment to a vision you’ve worked on for many months, even years, and being unwilling to toss that to go with someone else’s ideas… but if any of us are to meet again in that Valhalla of the mind, there are no resources to be wasted.
I do plan to spend 11/30 exploring all the old familiar places with Icon. Join me in your own spirit realm if not in avatar.
I remember Golden Girl being very opinionated. She was very pro-game which was good – as opposed to people who go onto game forums just to bitch about how the game is terrible and the devs are idiots. However, her manner left little room for “Well, you have a point but…” If, to make up an example, she felt that the 5th Column/Council split was good story telling then that was the only answer and anyone who thought otherwise or had criticisms of it would be told that they were flat-out wrong. Usually in a blunt manner that gave an impression of “You’re wrong because you’re just wrong and now you’re wasting everyone’s time by talking about it after I informed you that you were just wrong”.
I think if you get into enough of those “debates” over minor things over time then you’re bound to alienate a good number of people; both those who you directly talked to and others who read the threads and thought you were way too narrow minded. She also posted A LOT so she had more opportunities to present this image. I remember she had one or two pet contentious issues but damned if I can remember what they were (she also wanted animated hair which wasn’t really a fierce debating point).
All that said, it’s been years now so take it all with a grain of salt.