Post by spikes on Apr 19, 2014 12:14:57 GMT -4
Didn't see this posted or I forgot someone posted, either way . . . some news from another front.
COH Titan Forum
Ironwolf
New efforts!
« on: March 06, 2014, 03:01:32 pm »
We have some new efforts under way now and I will try and explain where we are currently with the efforts to return City of Heroes. Some folks have dropped off the stage and it is unknown if they will return. Those members are; VV and Ammon. Quinch was working on a proposal to Valve and it is unknown whether or not it was submitted.
One person was left with all of the work and Rae had some family issues arise that stalled everything further.
Now we start again and while I am do not have the stature of VV or Ammon - I am stubborn. I want this game back and I will float my idea to you folks for your input. Contrary to some things we have heard - apparently NCSoft WAS willing to sell the game. Everything was nearly complete when things went awry. The main point is they were willing to sell the IP in good faith.
Now where do we go? Rae is back in at least an advisory function and then there is myself with my wild ideas. Well guess what? I have another wild idea.
I am going to again speak to the Earth and Beyond folks and see how they managed to persuade EA to allow them to openly use the game. Then I am going to go directly to NCSoft and make our case like this:
The game while open and running had a certain value – with servers running, Developers in place, accounts paying in and players in the game – this value was roughly grossing $10 million a year. The net amount I would say could be in the $3-4 million a year if the game had been directly supported and updated alone with exploration into CoH2 taking only a few programmers.
However, that was then and this is now. Let’s take a honest appraisal as one would for a house for sale. The game was based on a custom made engine that is very dated. The game no longer has servers running, there are no accounts in place and you have no players. IF - a large IF – the game returned some players would not come back feeling it just might close again and waste their time. Others have moved on to new games or have pulled back from gaming entirely (I know a few of these). So what is the value of the game now?
I would honestly say under $1 million.
It has some positives in that a lot of people have good vibes for City of Heroes and would like to see it back – even those who didn’t play it. My pitch then is we ask openly for NCSoft allow the players to either openly reverse engineer the game or to allow us to host it and continue development in an open source not for profit manner much like Earth and Beyond. We can point to that game as an ideal solution to aging software. They retain all rights and IP privileges and the players get to play for a much reduced cost.
In fact I would say all AT’s would be open and yet retain the cash store for items and to raise funds for servers and for developers to make updates. Do I hold out a lot of hope on this?
Honestly no, but it has worked for at least one other game.
COH Titan Forum
Ironwolf
New efforts!
« on: March 06, 2014, 03:01:32 pm »
We have some new efforts under way now and I will try and explain where we are currently with the efforts to return City of Heroes. Some folks have dropped off the stage and it is unknown if they will return. Those members are; VV and Ammon. Quinch was working on a proposal to Valve and it is unknown whether or not it was submitted.
One person was left with all of the work and Rae had some family issues arise that stalled everything further.
Now we start again and while I am do not have the stature of VV or Ammon - I am stubborn. I want this game back and I will float my idea to you folks for your input. Contrary to some things we have heard - apparently NCSoft WAS willing to sell the game. Everything was nearly complete when things went awry. The main point is they were willing to sell the IP in good faith.
Now where do we go? Rae is back in at least an advisory function and then there is myself with my wild ideas. Well guess what? I have another wild idea.
I am going to again speak to the Earth and Beyond folks and see how they managed to persuade EA to allow them to openly use the game. Then I am going to go directly to NCSoft and make our case like this:
The game while open and running had a certain value – with servers running, Developers in place, accounts paying in and players in the game – this value was roughly grossing $10 million a year. The net amount I would say could be in the $3-4 million a year if the game had been directly supported and updated alone with exploration into CoH2 taking only a few programmers.
However, that was then and this is now. Let’s take a honest appraisal as one would for a house for sale. The game was based on a custom made engine that is very dated. The game no longer has servers running, there are no accounts in place and you have no players. IF - a large IF – the game returned some players would not come back feeling it just might close again and waste their time. Others have moved on to new games or have pulled back from gaming entirely (I know a few of these). So what is the value of the game now?
I would honestly say under $1 million.
It has some positives in that a lot of people have good vibes for City of Heroes and would like to see it back – even those who didn’t play it. My pitch then is we ask openly for NCSoft allow the players to either openly reverse engineer the game or to allow us to host it and continue development in an open source not for profit manner much like Earth and Beyond. We can point to that game as an ideal solution to aging software. They retain all rights and IP privileges and the players get to play for a much reduced cost.
In fact I would say all AT’s would be open and yet retain the cash store for items and to raise funds for servers and for developers to make updates. Do I hold out a lot of hope on this?
Honestly no, but it has worked for at least one other game.