NCsoft - Resurrection of City of Heroes IP

Couchpotato

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If yoju were a fan of the online RPG game City of Heroes then the following news will be exciting as NCsoft is in talks to resurrect the City of Heroes IP.

And the Mask Comes Off

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.
Read the link for the full story, and contract details.


More information.
 
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I have a ton of nostalgic affection for this game. I bought it at launch, but I had set it aside for years before finally deciding to get back into it -- literally a week before the announcement was made that the servers were being shut down.

I'd be thrilled to see a version of it go live again -- but I suspect NCSoft is just going the motions in this negotiation.
 
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I still miss this game - nothing else like it.

But this maneuvering reminds me of the twisted spiral of ownership that Hellgate London went through following its [initial] demise. Obviously, all of the original Cryptic/Paragon developers have moved on with their lives - any further development of the game (if it even happens) simply won't be the same. Even if everything goes well and a another studio is founded to license and 'maintain' the game, I'm very leery on what will happen after that.

I'm also disappointed in the unequivocal loss of my game characters, but it's not like I haven't had time to come to terms with that part of it.
 
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City of Heroes wasn't some unknown, third rate MMO. I remember its launch, and it had all the fanfare Guild Wars had. I was as stunned as anyone to see the servers go offline - it felt like someone said that the state of Oregon was being shut down and everyone had to leave.

I'll be really surprised if this doesn't get resurrected somehow. But then again, seeing it shut down in the first place was a surprise...
 
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Don't forget The Phoenix Project - City of Titans.

It was a successful kickstarter from the community, and was funded last year.
We present City of Titans, a spiritual successor for the superhero MMORPG City of Heroes, being developed by Missing Worlds Media.
 
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I backed CoT, but I'm keeping my hopes about the project pretty grounded - as far as I know, it's being worked on by people scattered the world over, with and without any prior industry experience in their respective assignment.

Cool that negotiations are in place for City of Titans to have its lore reference back to the original City of Heroes though…
 
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I played CoH for years, and I'll be back if they ever revive it, even if I have to start over. Looking forward to CoT as well, in a perfect world they'll both exist and be most excellent!
 
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I played CoH for years, and I'll be back if they ever revive it, even if I have to start over. Looking forward to CoT as well, in a perfect world they'll both exist and be most excellent!

oh, starting over is the only way I would play it again. I loved City of Heroes, I always joined a pickup group full size and went into instanced missions, haven't had that much fun in any other MMO I've played after that.
 
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I played for 10,000 hours (roughly) before leaving. My demos don't work anymore but I've still got hundreds of screenshots.

Regarding getting the original devs on board... Elder Scrolls Online is about to do a lot of lay-offs. I wonder if that might free a few up?
 
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