NCSoft: City of Heroes Can't Be Saved

[rembrandtqeinstein]

It would be a huge PR win and wouldn't cost them anything since "generic superhero universe" as an IP is fundamentally worthless.

Okay, let me clear this up right now. NCsoft couldn't give it away even if they wanted to. That would literally be the same as giving away a functional intellectual property. Just because the game is essentially worthless, doesn't mean the IP is. That IP is still worth a whole heap of money until the expiry on the copyright.

My internet law degree tells me that they can release the code and the IP on a non-commercial, revocable license. So that means they retain control and could prevent porn versions of the game, or pro-nazi servers or whatever.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

No they killed of COX because it was no longer profitable: The fact that they are also bringing out a different game in the same year is a correlation, not a causation. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc mate: Correlation passed off as Causation.

Not profitable? The game had a few hundred thousand players generating about 3 million dollars per year, in what universe is that not profitable?

 

[Neino Ranatos]

Dudes, you got to get over this. COX was a mediocre game, with pretty poor graphics, a terribly designed game engine, worse team design, terrible clunkyness & same old same old map designs. It was a progenitor of much better but equally flawed games, who extended its life by including a mission archetect that kind of allowed you to design adventures for people, but not really.

I highly disagree with this statement.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Seriously? Suckage. I just got back into it, too, when I found out I could finally make my favorite concept character with one of the newest powersets.

Eh, bien...looks like Umbramancer is gonna be in for some looooong game sessions in the next two months.

 

[likalaruku]

Only a paltry 20,000? I think they'd have needed 200,000 to make NCSoft think twice. I've seen some alternative theories on "why NCSoft is REALLY shutting it down."

http://mmogrinder.net/2012/09/02/r-i-p-city-of-heroes/

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

It was an excellent game, a rare gem in a field polluted by the same old Orc/Elf/Wizard clones that are out there.

 

[Studsmack]

It's a bit trickier than just open source.

Paragon/NCSoft were still licensing technology from Cryptic to run the game. Cryptic probably had some sort of deal to let NCSoft/Paragon use the engine, but given that Cryptic has their own superhero MMO, they might not want to let someone else use their stuff for free while they have their own MMO for the using.

I mean, NCSoft can still huff a dong, huff all the dongs, but I don't think it's a straight up issue as letting someone else have the code...

That's what I had figured, as well. The problem lies in the fact that there are some many pieces in play that it's not just a matter of keeping the servers up on NCSoft's end. They'd most likely have to communicate and piece together deals with all powers involved to get the game to continue running.

I doubt there would be a single person of whom were involved in City of Heroes' that wouldn't want some type of royalty or payout in the game's continued existence out of NCSoft's hands, and at this point it's just not profitable for anyone behind the game to continue running the servers.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Dudes, you got to get over this. COX was a mediocre game, with pretty poor graphics, a terribly designed game engine, worse team design, terrible clunkyness & same old same old map designs. It was a progenitor of much better but equally flawed games, who extended its life by including a mission archetect that kind of allowed you to design adventures for people, but not really.

I highly disagree with this statement.

You can disagree to your hearts content, it is nonetheless true. The game was a grab bag of poor design choices, the mission structures were disinteresting, the grouping feature almost non existant. Heck even the animation was that of the previous generation: It did not age well.

true in YOUR opinion, it was the only good super hero MMO out there, have fun with the shit that's left

 

[Neino Ranatos]

You can disagree to your hearts content, it is nonetheless true. The game was a grab bag of poor design choices, the mission structures were disinteresting, the grouping feature almost non existant. Heck even the animation was that of the previous generation: It did not age well.

An opinion is not a truth. You have equal right to say the game was terrible to your heart's content. Doing so is not going to alter the reality that it is still an opinion and not a proven fact.


I liked the game. That's just my opinion. That's all there is to it.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Not really. It was actually a pretty terrible game. Lets not talk it up guys: It was a dodgy cool down engine, running graphics that were a generation old by the time of its release. It was generally an uninspired game domain, with little in the way of set dressing. It was clustered with open source bad guys, predicated almost entirely on fetch quests, had a terrible musical score (only slightly better then Champions Online) & was generally pretty turn key & snooze.

Not to mention how silly the power up & item creation system was.

Lets be honest here folks: The dislike of the idea of shutting down this game doesn't come from people liking the game: It comes from people who like the "IDEA" of the game. From people who don't like the idea of someone coming along & taking away the thing they hold nostalgic feelings about.

Yeah well, that's your opinion. One a lot of people don't share.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

It was an excellent game, a rare gem in a field polluted by the same old Orc/Elf/Wizard clones that are out there.

Not really. It was actually a pretty terrible game. Lets not talk it up guys: It was a dodgy cool down engine, running graphics that were a generation old by the time of its release. It was generally an uninspired game domain, with little in the way of set dressing. It was clustered with open source bad guys, predicated almost entirely on fetch quests, had a terrible musical score (only slightly better then Champions Online) & was generally pretty turn key & snooze.

Not to mention how silly the power up & item creation system was.

Lets be honest here folks: The dislike of the idea of shutting down this game doesn't come from people liking the game: It comes from people who like the "IDEA" of the game. From people who don't like the idea of someone coming along & taking away the thing they hold nostalgic feelings about.

I liked the game. I liked it enough to sink thousands of hours into it over the course of 6 years, drop nearly a thousand dollars in subscription fees, and exhaust all the content in the game several times over.
I'd consider it the only MMO ever worth playing, out of every single one I've tried, which has been a lot.

 

[GTwander]

NCsoft got my ire when they decided to kill Auto Assault.
Yeah, Aion goes F2P, but whatever is the child they keep locked in the basement just gets baked into some pie for the rest to feed on.

 

[Twilight_guy]

[Batman voice]A city full of heroes saving the day and recusing the world... and they never saw it coming... their own powerlessness... to save themselves... Who rescues the rescuers?[/Batman voice]

Anywho, It would have been nice if they announced a little more in advance if the game was becoming a money sieve since they should have known about this for some time. if they just though there resources would be better used elsewhere then they should just admit its the game's time to die. There going to look like villains but at least explaining it fully will avoid some of the bullshit accusations. Ah hell, even that wouldn't work. Nothing they are going to do is going to placate fans at least they had some announcement, they could have just pulled the plug with no announcement like a bunch of assholes.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I liked the game. I liked it enough to sink thousands of hours into it over the course of 6 years, drop nearly a thousand dollars in subscription fees, and exhaust all the content in the game several times over.
I'd consider it the only MMO ever worth playing, out of every single one I've tried, which has been a lot.

you liking it is not the same thing as it being a good game. I liked it when i was playing it too, but even i can admit it was a pretty dreadful game.

I think it was a good game. It had its downsides, the same downsides basically any MMO has. I wouldn't have played it that long if I didn't think it was a good game. Even looking back on it, I think it was great.
Hell, I was about to go back to playing it when it was announced it was being shut down.