ET3D

I got the announcement yesterday by email, and I found it quite exciting that CoH is officially back. I don't play much these days, but it was one of my favourite games, and I might try it. Pity there's no official controller support, as I will find it more convenient to play on my GPD Win 4.

To answer more to the point, I'd have to preface and say that I'm not a Homecoming player and might never be. CoH was my favourite game, but I'm not much of a gamer these days. I'm still fond of CoH, of course, and might at some point try it, and the air of legitimacy that an official server would provide could certainly help in that. Still, I'm unlikely to play if the game is made subscription based, or has an entry cost of more than $10. Though I might donate such a sum anyway, just for old times sake, like the Kickstarter backing I sometimes do even though I know I won't play the games. If an official server means charging people for stuff, that's cool. I've never been against buying cosmetic items, or even game systems (paying for classes, housing, whatever). I've done it in EverQuest II and wouldn't mind doing it in another game. But please don't go the CoH Freedom way. That was an incredibly convoluted system that really made non-sub players feel like second tier citizens. Regarding game changes, the things I liked about CoH were on one hand its solo friendliness, casual friendliness and simplicity. Really, it was just something that one could enter, play for half an hour and still feel a sense of accomplishment. One could study things in more details and get more efficient, but it was also noob and casual friendly. And it was also quite easy to find a group if I wanted that, and then apologise and drop it if I needed to go. The other thing was the fact that it had stories, and a lot of options for character concepts and costumes, and it actually encouraged people to write some text about their characters. It also had scripts for advanced users, which allowed even more outrageous character concepts to be created (like a balloon clown I created at some point, who'd jump all the time and randomly spew jokes). And the fact that it wasn't a hard game meant that I could select powers which weren't optimal for gameplay but fit a character concept. Oh, and having tons of character slots. Different people would have different things they like about CoH, but these are the things I personally would like to see kept.

From my point of view, the main question isn't what I'd like to see but what a license would allow. I'd find it surprising if Homecoming could offer a licensed server and at the same time offer unlicensed servers. It doesn't seem like something that a reasonable licensor would allow. Beyond that, the question is whether a license would allow continued game development. A licensed game would likely include oversight from the licensor, meaning that the Homecoming team may not be able to freely change the game as they (or the community) wish. That doesn't mean that licensing is bad. I would certainly prefer that Homecoming had an official license to do what it does. That could make it safer in the long term, and open the way to future incarnations of the game. But that's if the license is good enough. It could certainly make things worse if it isn't. A license could also imply that some money needs to exchange hands, perhaps on a regular basis. How this affects the game would depend on the sum. So the simple answer to "What do you want to see out of a legitimate, licensed City of Heroes server?" is "the license". Which of course isn't a great answer, but to me is the important part, because much depends on it.