What Can We Really Expect if CoH is Saved?

I'm a bit of an overthinker, admittedly. So, lets all pretend that from whatever outside source City of Heroes is actually bought out...

Realistically speaking... what can we expect it to look like?

It won't be a Studio of people still making 3 or 4 major updates every year, numerous costume options and awesome new storylines at any rate of frequency like we currently have...

... Will it?

I just can't see anyone being able to just flat buy out EVERYTHING we currently have in place. I mean, if it is just a "game is still on and playable as is" move... I am not willing to fork over $14 a month for that. Something, perhaps, but it can't possibly sustain a F2P mentality and still make money after such a big hit.

... Can it?

And the shear amount of people needed to maintain a game, its forums, its bugs, its maintence, its in game gold-spammers and exploits... Whatever is left might still LOOK like what we have, but there can't possibly be any way it will be the same game with the same EXPECTATIONS we had before for whats around the corner...

I think those expectations are also what made me want to play. Looking forward to something new, a new power set or costume set or storyline... if those are just simply gone, it might be a rather tough sell for anyone to justify keeping the doors open with a skeleton crew. (let alone paying to be here for an extended period of time)

I am by no means all knowing about any of this, but my logic seems sound. I have played since Oct after launch and been around for many many years and am truely saddened by whats going on... But I just can't let meyself get too excited about a possible future of this game I love if it is on a respirator and feeding tube in a state of stasis. Sure, it looks like Grandma, but Grandma doesnt do anything anymore...

Thats not really something I wish to revisit everyday and slowly watch it fall apart if good intentions fall short and we just have to go through all this again if the buy out doesn't meet up to what very high expectations (clouded with years of love and emotion to boot)

So, what will the State of the Game actually be?
Anyone care to correct me if I am wrong?

Our goal is for the game to be bought out entirely with a development staff comparable to (and consisting of as much as possible of members of) Paragon Studios. There's no reason such a staff couldn't continue the current update schedule.

We know (or at least, have every reason to believe based on published numbers) that such a set-up is profitable, so there's no particular reason to think this is implausible.

If it's on a skeleton crew of a handful of people with a couple servers, then no, it won't be the same. But I'm not sure who would buy it with that intention, since it would pretty quickly cease to make money.

My take on the best case scenario is this;

1. First and foremost have the CoH IP secured by a new company.

2. Secure the playerbase that we still have, and perhaps evaluate F2P versus subscription only to determine what's best financially for the new company - and start marketing this game properly.

3. Carry on as before - in the short term, but shift staffing and design emphasis to the future (see point 4 ... )

4. Start work on a replacement for CoH - lets call it CoH2. This is absolutely vital. As much as we all love CoH as it is, it is an old game and it's starting to show. Even the most ardent fan knows that no game has an infinite life and CoH is rather long in the tooth these days.

5. Once CoH2 is ready (and before that) really push the marketing campaign out there. The Superhero genre has a mass appeal, but people need to know about this game - or rather it's replacement.

So .... that's my take on it.

If this game is saved - CoH2 is the only way forward IMHO

The best scenario I heard was the rumor of a (fairly big name) business owner who wants to take over and host the servers himself, and hire as much of Paragon as he can to run the game. He expected that to be about half of the current crew until the revenue stream stabilized (i.e., everyone who was subscribed before the announcement learned that the game was back), at which point he'd bring the studio back to full size and productivity. (I believe this scenario also involves the game data - accounts and characters and such - being intact. The rumored buyer in question is himself a CoH player, as well as the owner of his own game company, and he was looking forward to I24 as much as the rest of us, so he'd definitely want the updates to continue, under the same team if possible)

Since it's just a rumor, I won't name the business-owner in question.

That would, of course, be among the best of the best-case scenarios. (Even if the rumor is true, that's just what he wants to do, and whether NC Soft would play ball is another matter entirely) So I don't expect that.

But I can hope for it, or something like it, even as I prepare for the worst.

I would be most concerned about player retention. Things of this nature (especially in the current climate (gaming and MMO decline) has a distinct chance on making a permanent dent on how many players would stick with the game even if it were saved.

Combine that with the normal decline...

Which translates directly into potential revenue sources and subsequently; the business model that would best serve that variable.


Once those things get hammered out; the priority list would probably be dramatically changed. And if I were business-minded, my priority focus would be how to remain relevant and competitive. How to diversify. How to take keep up and take advantage of tech advances. How to keep my customers investing into my brand and product.

Any in-game changes would need to reflect this.

I don't think that this game is one that would have much of a community if development ceased and a skeleton crew was put on to manage it. City Of Heroes was never huge and never had the success of Everquest or World Of Warcraft. WOW will be around in some form for a very long time, just as Everquest still sputters along to this day. COH would always retain some core of players, but not in the realm of justifying paying people or for servers to keep the game in operation.

Not to mention that I feel MMO's are dieing; the demographic for MMO's is somewhere between 30 and 40 years old at this point. Last I read the average player was 35 years old. The demographic that made MMO's big, my generation, Generation Y, has grown up and is past even the aimless post college days and are starting serious careers and families. I've noticed that while my generation has its core of gamers, video game players simply aren't as serious as say Generation X.

If Jack Emmert is getting out of the MMO business, as with other developers from what I understand, and if you factor in that most MMO's now are free to play because no one is interested in paying a monthly subscription anymore, things aren't boding well for the future of MMO's. Games nowadays are moving to a much more casual format. People don't want to have to dedicate hundreds of hours to games anymore because they've simply grown up and have grown away from that kind of playing. I'm 28 years old now and I don't know anyone who is a serious video game player anymore. I certainly don't spend anywhere near as much time as I used to playing video games. Even the hardest of the hardcore that I knew stopped playing video games seriously and I think that says where the future of games that require a hefty time investment is going.

But thats sorta my point... best case scenario is a true rarity is the real world.
SOmeone has to pony up enough cash for 40 devs and the game, and then whats the time frame before initial incvestment is returned and said company starts to turn a profit?

Thats a huge gamble by any means.

I mean, hell, I HOPE it works, but the simple reality of it happening seems to be a bit much to fathom IMHO.

Which is why I am somewhat concerned for a possible City of... -lite version. Not sure it will do what sneeded with so much of an uphill climb already in its face...

I just want to keep playing the game.

I would not mind no new development; it would be nice to have but it is not necessary.

I would not mind if I have to start over with new characters.

I would not mind if the player population is low. I tend to solo anyway.

I would pay a monthly fee. I am doing.. er, was doing that anyway.

So, if someone is negotiating for a (semi-) private server, I would like to play.

Best case scenario is that somebody picks up the game and is able to devote the large amounts of money it would take to pick things up as if nothing had happened.

I don't see this happening


Bare minimum I could be happy with is that the game is run and supported as it is right now. Even if this means no new content for some time, there is still thousands of hours of content in the game.

Something I forgot about...

An official forum does not need to exist. Several third party websites (why 3rd party? Who's the 2nd party?) exist now and such could work as a forum as well. But I guess the cost to have an offficial website & forum is minor compared to the cost of everything else?

f2p can be very successful look at fifa. This game could be a potential gold mine for some company just by charging for things - new issues - new power sets - io sets - costumes - They could even position the game for pve and pvp - selling two different things - want a 50 with acollades and incarnates? 49.99 - want to respec that? 14.99 - MMOs have long been making off shore gold farmers money for PLs and Infamy (or gold in other mmos) - why not sell it themselves. Sure you can grind for everything and if pve is your thing then pay for new missions and arcs, new pve content and issues..same model.

I just hope that if/when it is saved...if it is put into an almost maintenance like state that Issue 24 is pushed to the server. There were so many awesome changes/fixes in i24 that if nothing new were ever created for the game...I would want those changes in place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paladiamors I love you, I Burnt the Toast!

*sigh*

Pay whatever NCSoft demands for this game only to work on a replacement?

Nahh... you may be playing on the latest high-end hardware and feeling that City of Heroes doesn't live up to your standards, but my current machine still chokes on a lot of the new content that THIS engine is capable of throwing out. And frankly, having the game run at higher framerates on newer hardware is more appealing than having it use more superfluous effects at a choppy 30fps or less.

The plan Paragon seems to have had since the 2010 engine overhaul of gradually replacing old zones and other resources with higher resolution and poly-density versions, complete with expanded gameplay, was plenty to give this game long legs without rebuilding from scratch.

Yes, according to leaked info, the original plan was to reboot with a completely new engine, and port over everyone's existing characters so as not to have two games competing for the same small audience. But that was before ultra mode.

Reality is, the City of Heroes IP is not terribly valuable in itself. It's just another bunch of generic superheroes without the game to support it. So a publisher would be more inclined to develop around either something with a large crossover audience (Marvel/DC) or their own generic properties that cost nothing, than buy CoH only to shelve it at the earliest opportunity just to gamble on a new game anyway...

I strongly believe City of Heroes, with the current engine, can maintain a viable (perhaps not stellar, but steady) audience for another decade by following the development course plotted by Paragon two or three years ago. The hybrid f2p/subscription model only becomes more attractive in time, as more market items are developed and more of the game is updated to take advantage of the revamped engine. There is no good reason to suggest that any publisher willing to invest in acquiring this game from NCSoft do otherwise.

I would be thrilled if they:

1. kept the servers running
2. released i24 patch
3. fixed critical bugs that came up

I really hope the game can be saved, but unless steps were immediately taken to preserve the code base, the art, the writing, and all the other work in progress, it may already be too late to save the game in a way that would keep it moving forward.

There is a lot of institutional knowledge that was lost when the development team was let go. If they scatter to the four winds, how can someone new pick up all the pieces? Will there be anyone who can figure out, for example, how to move the code that's on beta to a live server and fix all the extant bugs?

What happened to all the computers and servers that the designers, artists, writers, QA and programmers did their work on? Were these all carefully backed up and warehoused against the day that someone would buy the IP and continue work on the game? Or did the corporate honchos send all the machines off to Texas and Washington to be scavenged for high-end graphics card and big hard disks?

If the lease on the Paragon Studios offices has some time left on it all that computer equipment is still intact, the build software is all there and the source code and art repositories have been preserved we have some hope. But if all that's been dismantled, there's no going forward: what we've got on live is what the game will always be, nothing more.

That means no blaster changes, no nuke changes, no snipe changes, no power pool customizations and no new incarnate powers.

If that's the case, is it worthwhile trying to save the game? Is what we have now a good stopping point?