City of Titans

[Redlynne]

For those of you who are not familiar with the work being done over at Missing Worlds Media take a look at what they've revealed in the just past month about the status of their project to create a spiritual successor to City of Heroes built from scratch in Unreal Engine 4 using their own IP independent of the City of Heroes franchise.  World building is still continuing and there are plenty of refinements to be made yet, but I'd say that things are looking good at this point in their development progression for a team of volunteers.  The Phoenix Project still lives!

 

Welcome to Alexandria

 

 

 

https://cityoftitans.com/

[boggo2300]

4 hours ago, Redlynne said:

For those of you who are not familiar with the work being done over at Missing Worlds Media take a look at what they've revealed in the just past month about the status of their project to create a spiritual successor to City of Heroes built from scratch in Unreal Engine 4 using their own IP independent of the City of Heroes franchise.  World building is still continuing and there are plenty of refinements to be made yet, but I'd say that things are looking good at this point in their development progression for a team of volunteers.  The Phoenix Project still lives!

 

Welcome to Alexandria

 

 

 

https://cityoftitans.com/

they are now starting to make some reasonable progress, though I think they initially bit off a bit more than they can chew, I LOVE their character creator, especially how modular it seems to be to enable them to slot in extra costume bits

[ZacKing]

Cool as this all might look, I doubt this project will ever be finished.  Game tech will have advanced so far by the time it would be out that it will look ancient. 

[boggo2300]

4 hours ago, ZacKing said:

Cool as this all might look, I doubt this project will ever be finished.  Game tech will have advanced so far by the time it would be out that it will look ancient. 

game tech is held back so much by consoles I disagree, especially since they are building on unity, gives them a path forward for tech advances

 

whether they will ever get a complete game, that remains in doubt, but much more likely than all the other successor games

[WanderingAries]

It'd be cool if this ever got beyond the vaporware status it's been in since conception. Every time I hear news about it I'm half expecting something big like a true beta, but then it's the equiv of "we just got our 3rd GFX artist..."

[ShardWarrior]

I have to agree that I do not see this ever becoming a reality. 

[Safehouse]

I’m glad they have kept going regardless of the ongoing efforts with the CoH private servers. A lot of the world building and stuff that they have done has gotten me invested in getting into the game and city to explore.

 

The current build of their Avatar Builder was pretty dang fun to use and I was able to build some neat characters that I’ve always had in mind but haven’t been able to build in CoH. It’s not perfect, of course, and I had a lot of suggestions on the CoT forums, but it’s a start.

 

Its all pretty rough around the edges and it’s clear we’re a ways off still, but the progress I’ve seen has been encouraging.

[Call Me Awesome]

I was cautiously optimistic about it and tossed them a few bucks when they started.  But as they've missed deadline after deadline and all we have to date is a beta character creator I'm becoming less and less convinced that it will amount to anything.  They're going to have to get funding and a full time professional PAID staff of developers to get a playable game up and running in the next few years, relying on all part time volunteer staff isn't going to work anytime soon.

 

I give them credit for trying but they all have day jobs and can't devote the time it takes to get a massive project up and running.  Once it's actually running the developer hours will drop dramatically but for now they're in over their heads.  From what I've seen on their site it looks like they've managed maybe 1/3 of the work needed in the last what has it been, 7 years?  At that rate they'll release around 2030.

 

The stuff they do have looks very nice but there's so much left to do.

[starro]

I hold no ill feelings to missing words media and city of titans and I understand they are volunteers just like homecoming.  They put in their personal time and effort and deserve some extra space and time.   I think like any new group of people they made mistakes and have had some serious setbacks.   If anyone else thinks they can crank out an MMO with volunteers under 5 years then good luck!  

 

However, since about fall 2019 and joining Homecoming I am done.  I spent so many years waiting, following forums and scant news articles related to anything about COH or successors for so long.  I am just tired.  I unsubscribed from the spiritual successors and the distribution lists and I enjoy having this game.  I will probably try out the successors at official launch, but alphas, betas and vaporware are no longer interesting to me.  If homecoming folds up tomorrow and all the rogue servers are gone I think I may wander back, but I don't feel it inside anymore.

[General Idiot]

I've told people repeatedly that I have high hopes but low expectations for City of Titans. I hope it'll be finished, and good, and go forward in leaps and bounds. But with a staff of volunteers, most of whom haven't made a game before let alone one on the scale of a full featured MMO, I really don't expect the finished product to be all that amazing if it ever arrives at all. I very much hope to be proved wrong though.

[Kyksie]

I've been following City of Titans from the start, and it's quite obvious that they really do want to create a true spiritual successor. If they were going to spend the Kickstarter money on hookers and blow they would have done so long ago. Sadly, I strongly doubt their ability to actually do it.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Kyksie

[That Ninja]

I don't want to be a debbie downer and really applaud the effort MSM and everyone else are putting into their successor games, but has there been one crowd-source MMO that hasn't been a disappointment, even by more experienced developers?

[Bill Z Bubba]

On 1/22/2020 at 7:16 PM, Kyksie said:

I've been following City of Titans from the start, and it's quite obvious that they really do want to create a true spiritual successor. If they were going to spend the Kickstarter money on hookers and blow they would have done so long ago. Sadly, I strongly doubt their ability to actually do it.

 

mmmm... hookers and blow...

[_NOPE_]

On 1/16/2020 at 3:11 PM, Call Me Awesome said:

I was cautiously optimistic about it and tossed them a few bucks when they started.  But as they've missed deadline after deadline and all we have to date is a beta character creator I'm becoming less and less convinced that it will amount to anything.  They're going to have to get funding and a full time professional PAID staff of developers to get a playable game up and running in the next few years, relying on all part time volunteer staff isn't going to work anytime soon.

 

I give them credit for trying but they all have day jobs and can't devote the time it takes to get a massive project up and running.  Once it's actually running the developer hours will drop dramatically but for now they're in over their heads.  From what I've seen on their site it looks like they've managed maybe 1/3 of the work needed in the last what has it been, 7 years?  At that rate they'll release around 2030.

 

The stuff they do have looks very nice but there's so much left to do.

This. All of this. Paid supporter here, very disappointed so far in my investment.

[Saikochoro]

I followed City of Titans for years with high hopes. Over the years my high hopes have dwindled into persistent doubt that it will be actualized  Ever since I learned about homecoming though my interest in CoT has bottomed out.  Now that I have this game I don’t actually care if it come or not anymore.

 

Sure if they actually manage to launch it I will probably try it out, but I’m not holding my breath. 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Dreamboat]

Has anyone looked at Ship of Heroes at all? I remember seeing some of the initial footage, but then they launched a crowdfunding campaign and just as quickly took it down again for reasons I don't quite remember, and I haven't really kept up with it since.

[_NOPE_]

I'm in their club too, and already alpha tested a trial zone. They are making way more progress than CoT. 

[ZacKing]

City of Titans is vaporware.  Never going to get released.

[Oubliette_Red]

On 1/16/2020 at 3:11 PM, Call Me Awesome said:

I was cautiously optimistic about it and tossed them a few bucks when they started.  But as they've missed deadline after deadline and all we have to date is a beta character creator I'm becoming less and less convinced that it will amount to anything.  They're going to have to get funding and a full time professional PAID staff of developers to get a playable game up and running in the next few years, relying on all part time volunteer staff isn't going to work anytime soon.

 

I give them credit for trying but they all have day jobs and can't devote the time it takes to get a massive project up and running.  Once it's actually running the developer hours will drop dramatically but for now they're in over their heads.  From what I've seen on their site it looks like they've managed maybe 1/3 of the work needed in the last what has it been, 7 years?  At that rate they'll release around 2030.

 

The stuff they do have looks very nice but there's so much left to do.

It can easily take 100+ people working full time for 4-5 years to create an MMO. So your estimate on what a dozen or so are doing on a part-time basis seems accurate.

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by Oubliette_Red

[Industrious1]

The successors missed the boat.

 

The time to strike was during the CoH hiatus and MCU madness to capitalize on super hero draw.  Now people are over it or have re-discovered City of Heroes/Villains.    The market share for them now is going to be half of their original audience at best.  Still, it was a good effort for some volunteer-ism, it just sucks that people had to lose their money on projects that may never reach fruition.  

[Razorback_Yeah]

On 1/13/2020 at 10:46 AM, ZacKing said:

Cool as this all might look, I doubt this project will ever be finished.  Game tech will have advanced so far by the time it would be out that it will look ancient. 

Millions of people are playing WoW classic. People still play Runescape. We're playing City of Heroes for heaven's sakes. "Looking ancient" is a matter of opinion and far from something that will keep a game from succeeding, especially an MMO.

[FrauleinMental]

On 2/13/2020 at 8:44 AM, ZacKing said:

City of Titans is vaporware.  Never going to get released.

Ah, vaporware.  Duke Nukem Forever took just longer than 14 years to release.  On the other hand, DNF wasn't worth the 14-year wait.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-protracted-game-development

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever

 

47 minutes ago, Razorback_Yeah said:

Millions of people are playing WoW classic. People still play Runescape. We're playing City of Heroes for heaven's sakes. "Looking ancient" is a matter of opinion and far from something that will keep a game from succeeding, especially an MMO.

One potentially critical difference is that all those games had audiences when they looked new.  The danger of taking a decade to develop a game is that you have to attract an audience who have never played your decade-old game.  It's now five years overdue (from a 19-month timeline, funded Nov 2013, due Jun 2015).  I wrote off my $250 Kickstarter donation and moved on long before HC brought CoH back.

[Razorback_Yeah]

1 hour ago, FrauleinMental said:

One potentially critical difference is that all those games had audiences when they looked new.  The danger of taking a decade to develop a game is that you have to attract an audience who have never played your decade-old game.  It's now five years overdue (from a 19-month timeline, funded Nov 2013, due Jun 2015).  I wrote off my $250 Kickstarter donation and moved on long before HC brought CoH back.

Well said. Have the developers of CoT spoken recently about their capacity and their realistic goals? Is there a publisher? I honestly don't know much about it; all I know is that I would personally love to see a successor to CoX made by at least some of the original devs, and that I'm not alone in that view. 

People love the comic book hero genre, but I think this thread is right about there not being enough of a market or enough money/drive for CoT to see a full release.

[Greycat]

I can't say I ever expected them to hit that timeline, not with what's still an essentially volunteer staff. If everyone quit their jobs, got hired on and worked full time... somehow? (which wouldn't happen with that kickstarter money,) then I might think they were taking too long.

 

As far as looks? Given all the "8-bit-look" indie games, I think looks can be... well, overlooked... depending on the underlying game. Somewhat harder sell in this genre, though.

[Hyperstrike]

Thew about $300 at them back in the day.
Didn't really expect anything.  But they wanted the opportunity, they were fellow CoH players and I had spare cash.