In an unexpected bit of news that hit the Internet earlier in the month, it turns out NCSoft's legendary super-hero MMORPG, City of Heroes may be making some sort of return. City of Heroes was originally developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCSoft in 2004 and for a while held the market for super-hero-themed MMORPGs. Part of Cryptic split off and went to create Champions Online (originally scheduled as a Marvel Comics MMO), while the remaining team reformed as Paragon Studios and maintained the game.
Though for the bulk of its existence the game remained subscription-based, it adopted the free-to-play model in September 2011. Despite the competition by Champions Online and the then-newly-released DC Universe Online, City of Heroes (as well as its Villain-themed segment and the Going Rogue expansion) managed to maintain a strong user base, which allowed for frequent updates.
Despite the fact that the game was still making money, NCSoft decided to shut down the servers and the game went permanently off-line in November 2012, with barely three-months notice.
The news of a possible revival came in the form of a post by the President of Missing Worlds Media Inc, Nate Downes on September 1st, in the Titan Network's forums. The Titan Network is one of the oldest and biggest City of Heroes communities, which stood at the forefront of the campaign to rescue the game when its publisher decided to pull the plug. Their attempts failed, but the community remained strong and from its members, various projects meant as "spiritual successors" to CoH were spawned.
Downes and his company are at the helm of such a project, City of Titans, which was easily funded during a Kickstarter campaign and it's currently in production. It's because of Downes' project that the news came completely out of left field: as it turns out, Downes has been in contact with people from NCSoft for a while now and trying to negotiate the purchase of the City of Heroes license by a third party, as well as a binary copy of the game files, which would then allow them to put it back online without NCSoft's involvement.
It is of note that, according to Downes, this has already been a long negotiation and there is still the very real possibility that the deal will not go through and the license will remain with NCSoft, who will not revive the game.
But if it does go through, what does it mean? For one thing, City of Heroes will be playable again. Downes says that the available binary they are offered is patched up to Issue 23, the last live update (Issue 24 was in development). Everything about the game up to Issue 23 should be playable exactly as it was before the game was axed.
Downes clarifies in his post that character databases have not been offered, which means returning players would have to start over, but most importantly the source code for the game is not on the negotiating table either. Later in the forum thread, the Missing Worlds Media president suggested that this is because part of the source code may be shared by multiple games published by NCSoft and opening up the code to 3rd parties could be problematic for them.
What this means in practice is that, even if the game returns, the new host will not be able to patch or update it. This is obviously a problem in the long term: new content is vital to the survival of an MMO (unless they're owned by Perfect World Entertainment) and any technical issues that may arise with individual players or compatibility issues down the line will be practically unsolvable.
For all intends and purposes, this "Legacy" option would be set up temporarily. What's genuinely intriguing about Downes' post is that, if the deal goes through, the IP would have an actual future ahead of it. Downes distanced himself, claiming to only be the "salesman"; after the deal passes -if it passes- he's done. The new IP holder will be responsible.
Even more interesting is the fact that if NCSoft sells the IP, the deal is for all "spiritual successors" currently in the making to become just different interpretations that make use of elements from the City of Heroes mythology/terminology/ideas and can directly reference it.
City of Titans has decided to be its own game instead of a "City of Heroes: Redux", so a lot of the interest regarding this "share" clause is directed toward the Atlas Park Revival project. The Atlas Park Revival (APR) project started after the official game was shut down as an effort to recreate the game's central and starting area, Atlas Park, in the Unreal 4 Engine.
Since then more areas have gone into development and with this news, it seems like Atlas Park Revival could potentially become a full-fledged "City of Heroes 2" of sorts.
All of the above is extremely good news if you ever liked the game, especially considering that the three competing super-hero MMOs have never managed to fill the void Cryptic's original game left behind. However, there is reason to be skeptical, or at least cautious, even if the deal goes through.
There is no guarantee that the new holders of the IP will be able to produce a proper remake/sequel to the original game. In the Titan forum thread that Downes started, most of the attention is focused on APR (and Downes references it himself), but currently APR is headed by a single person, with the occasional input of another. That's it; two people.
I'm not pointing this out to diminish the work they've done; the lead developer Cailyn Alaynn (a.k.a. Irish Girl) has confirmed that there has been significant progress in recreating the maps on Unreal Engine 4 and has posted a few fairly impressive pictures. She also mentioned that very soon she will be "ramping up" the team in size, which is promising.
Still, though, by her own admission not even an Alpha is likely to be ready until Fall 2015, a full year from now, at the earliest.
The point is that, exciting as this news may be, cautious optimism is likely the safest course of action. Even if the IP is sold on the current terms, Alaynn will need to hire a full team to figure this out and will probably not lead to a launch for years to come.
Downes has confirmed that APR will receive part of City of Titans source code to help them build their game, which is definitely reassuring. At the same time, City of Titans itself seems like "City of Heroes 2" in spirit but not a direct sequel in design or mythology, so things are looking up.
It needs to be stated again, though, that all of this is still in a state of flux and nothing has been confirmed beyond hopeful planning by the involved parties. NCSoft may yet block the deal and even if they don't, Downes acknowledges that it may take several more months for it to go through. Even then, the Legacy game will undoubtedly come with problems due to the deal's restrictions and an almost predetermined expiration date, while APR may not be able to deliver, despite the developers' best intentions. City of Titans remains the best bet for fans of the original game and the icing on the cake, should Missing Worlds Media chose to go through with it, is that it will be able to directly reference City of Heroes even if it's not a direct sequel or remake.
This is certainly good news. If all goes well, even the chance to replay the old game for a while is a bonus. Champions Online hasn't seen a significant content update in years and Perfect World Entertainment has reduced it to a glorified ZEN market for cosmetic items across the company's games. DC Universe Online and Marvel Heroes both have their strong points, but they're significantly different approaches to the genre. A return of City of Heroes would be one undoubtedly beneficiary to the genre and gaming in general.
More than that, it would mean not just a win for the Titan Network's great efforts to keep the game alive (even if just in spirit) and a reaffirmation of years of loyalty, but also a positive precedent for the industry. NCSoft are a juggernaut in the MMO scene. They know the genre, they understand their customers and they comprehend how to set-up their pricing models. They are obviously more in-tune with the Asian (particularly the South Korean) markets, but they are good at distancing themselves from newcomers into the scene that miserably fail (see: EA with The Old Republic, Zenimax with Elder Scrolls Online) and their serial-developer cohorts that fart out a new MMO every other month (like the aforementioned Perfect World Entertainment).
If this deal goes through it means freeing a license from a major company and passing it on to a smaller party that will then have creative control over it (or at least part of it). In an industry that big publishers buy out old studios and put their IPs on the freezer until they can abuse them in the future, this deal would be near-revolutionary.
City of Heroes was a great game and actually a much larger and more popular game than many may have thought. There is some understandable fear that the over-saturation of MMOs may cripple City of Titans, but proper timing wasn't the only reason CoH made it back in the day and nostalgia is not the only reason to follow up with it.
It may take a while until we have more news, but it is an exciting prospect that warrants much-earned praise for Downes and the Titan Network community in general.
Though for the bulk of its existence the game remained subscription-based, it adopted the free-to-play model in September 2011. Despite the competition by Champions Online and the then-newly-released DC Universe Online, City of Heroes (as well as its Villain-themed segment and the Going Rogue expansion) managed to maintain a strong user base, which allowed for frequent updates.
Despite the fact that the game was still making money, NCSoft decided to shut down the servers and the game went permanently off-line in November 2012, with barely three-months notice.
The news of a possible revival came in the form of a post by the President of Missing Worlds Media Inc, Nate Downes on September 1st, in the Titan Network's forums. The Titan Network is one of the oldest and biggest City of Heroes communities, which stood at the forefront of the campaign to rescue the game when its publisher decided to pull the plug. Their attempts failed, but the community remained strong and from its members, various projects meant as "spiritual successors" to CoH were spawned.
Downes and his company are at the helm of such a project, City of Titans, which was easily funded during a Kickstarter campaign and it's currently in production. It's because of Downes' project that the news came completely out of left field: as it turns out, Downes has been in contact with people from NCSoft for a while now and trying to negotiate the purchase of the City of Heroes license by a third party, as well as a binary copy of the game files, which would then allow them to put it back online without NCSoft's involvement.
It is of note that, according to Downes, this has already been a long negotiation and there is still the very real possibility that the deal will not go through and the license will remain with NCSoft, who will not revive the game.
But if it does go through, what does it mean? For one thing, City of Heroes will be playable again. Downes says that the available binary they are offered is patched up to Issue 23, the last live update (Issue 24 was in development). Everything about the game up to Issue 23 should be playable exactly as it was before the game was axed.
Downes clarifies in his post that character databases have not been offered, which means returning players would have to start over, but most importantly the source code for the game is not on the negotiating table either. Later in the forum thread, the Missing Worlds Media president suggested that this is because part of the source code may be shared by multiple games published by NCSoft and opening up the code to 3rd parties could be problematic for them.
What this means in practice is that, even if the game returns, the new host will not be able to patch or update it. This is obviously a problem in the long term: new content is vital to the survival of an MMO (unless they're owned by Perfect World Entertainment) and any technical issues that may arise with individual players or compatibility issues down the line will be practically unsolvable.
For all intends and purposes, this "Legacy" option would be set up temporarily. What's genuinely intriguing about Downes' post is that, if the deal goes through, the IP would have an actual future ahead of it. Downes distanced himself, claiming to only be the "salesman"; after the deal passes -if it passes- he's done. The new IP holder will be responsible.
Even more interesting is the fact that if NCSoft sells the IP, the deal is for all "spiritual successors" currently in the making to become just different interpretations that make use of elements from the City of Heroes mythology/terminology/ideas and can directly reference it.
City of Titans has decided to be its own game instead of a "City of Heroes: Redux", so a lot of the interest regarding this "share" clause is directed toward the Atlas Park Revival project. The Atlas Park Revival (APR) project started after the official game was shut down as an effort to recreate the game's central and starting area, Atlas Park, in the Unreal 4 Engine.
Since then more areas have gone into development and with this news, it seems like Atlas Park Revival could potentially become a full-fledged "City of Heroes 2" of sorts.
All of the above is extremely good news if you ever liked the game, especially considering that the three competing super-hero MMOs have never managed to fill the void Cryptic's original game left behind. However, there is reason to be skeptical, or at least cautious, even if the deal goes through.
There is no guarantee that the new holders of the IP will be able to produce a proper remake/sequel to the original game. In the Titan forum thread that Downes started, most of the attention is focused on APR (and Downes references it himself), but currently APR is headed by a single person, with the occasional input of another. That's it; two people.
I'm not pointing this out to diminish the work they've done; the lead developer Cailyn Alaynn (a.k.a. Irish Girl) has confirmed that there has been significant progress in recreating the maps on Unreal Engine 4 and has posted a few fairly impressive pictures. She also mentioned that very soon she will be "ramping up" the team in size, which is promising.
Still, though, by her own admission not even an Alpha is likely to be ready until Fall 2015, a full year from now, at the earliest.
The point is that, exciting as this news may be, cautious optimism is likely the safest course of action. Even if the IP is sold on the current terms, Alaynn will need to hire a full team to figure this out and will probably not lead to a launch for years to come.
Downes has confirmed that APR will receive part of City of Titans source code to help them build their game, which is definitely reassuring. At the same time, City of Titans itself seems like "City of Heroes 2" in spirit but not a direct sequel in design or mythology, so things are looking up.
It needs to be stated again, though, that all of this is still in a state of flux and nothing has been confirmed beyond hopeful planning by the involved parties. NCSoft may yet block the deal and even if they don't, Downes acknowledges that it may take several more months for it to go through. Even then, the Legacy game will undoubtedly come with problems due to the deal's restrictions and an almost predetermined expiration date, while APR may not be able to deliver, despite the developers' best intentions. City of Titans remains the best bet for fans of the original game and the icing on the cake, should Missing Worlds Media chose to go through with it, is that it will be able to directly reference City of Heroes even if it's not a direct sequel or remake.
This is certainly good news. If all goes well, even the chance to replay the old game for a while is a bonus. Champions Online hasn't seen a significant content update in years and Perfect World Entertainment has reduced it to a glorified ZEN market for cosmetic items across the company's games. DC Universe Online and Marvel Heroes both have their strong points, but they're significantly different approaches to the genre. A return of City of Heroes would be one undoubtedly beneficiary to the genre and gaming in general.
More than that, it would mean not just a win for the Titan Network's great efforts to keep the game alive (even if just in spirit) and a reaffirmation of years of loyalty, but also a positive precedent for the industry. NCSoft are a juggernaut in the MMO scene. They know the genre, they understand their customers and they comprehend how to set-up their pricing models. They are obviously more in-tune with the Asian (particularly the South Korean) markets, but they are good at distancing themselves from newcomers into the scene that miserably fail (see: EA with The Old Republic, Zenimax with Elder Scrolls Online) and their serial-developer cohorts that fart out a new MMO every other month (like the aforementioned Perfect World Entertainment).
If this deal goes through it means freeing a license from a major company and passing it on to a smaller party that will then have creative control over it (or at least part of it). In an industry that big publishers buy out old studios and put their IPs on the freezer until they can abuse them in the future, this deal would be near-revolutionary.
City of Heroes was a great game and actually a much larger and more popular game than many may have thought. There is some understandable fear that the over-saturation of MMOs may cripple City of Titans, but proper timing wasn't the only reason CoH made it back in the day and nostalgia is not the only reason to follow up with it.
It may take a while until we have more news, but it is an exciting prospect that warrants much-earned praise for Downes and the Titan Network community in general.
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