CoH 2 What are the Chances

[Latex]

A complete remake/redo would have to be a thing to attract new people tbh. Obviously I love COH, but, Homecoming is as close as a private server ever gets to official and even then it doesn't have the audience numbers to churn a profit on the scope of what an actual multi-million dollar investment would want. You can guarantee...

Cosmetic cash shop
Faster paced action combat
Better graphics
Probably a battlepass
Procedural generation (instances, most likely)

2004's City of Heroes is from a bygone time that is never coming back, even as the game got older these things were creeping in, I distinctly remember the last months of Live and the cash shop being god-awful, nowadays you won't spot an MMO without a cash shop so you can bet on it. Would they draw the line and have it cosmetics only or have 'Pay for Convenience/Borderline Pay 2 Win elements, idk, NCSoft still own the rights, if the MMO genre kicked off again they'd want to make lots of money and quickly, just like their eastern/Korean catalogue.

[El D]

Already replied earlier in this thread, but to bring up more points. CoH 2 won't happen for three main reasons. NCSoft will never invest in it or divest themselves of the IP, MMOs as a genre have died down and aged out in-favor of live service FPS games, and the general perception of 'superhero fatigue.'

 

CoH existed at a time when MMOs were booming and superhero franchises were ramping up massively, but rather than advertise the game - say in theaters playing Marvel and DC films - NCSoft pulled the plug in 2012. Immediately after, the MCU proceeded to explode even further in popularity leading up to Infinity War/Endgame along with hefty amount of very popular superhero games entering the scene (like the bulk of Batman Arkham series). The exact time-frame when popular culture was dominated by well-received superhero media and MMOs were still going strong was the prime opportunity to go 'And we have a game where you can Be Your Own Superhero!' except CoH spent that entire period dead. Years later Homecoming performs a resurrection, except now superhero media is on a downturn and having to rebuild, there's issues of perceived quality, a lot more vocal (and disingenuous) critics, and also broader types of superhero games. 2-D fighting games, retro arcade style games, Marvel Rivals, even more big budget single-player franchise games like the Spider-Man series. There's less room, less money, and less positive reception.

 

Though honestly, that initial business decision is probably the biggest constraint to it. NCSoft 'cutting their costs' right before what could have very easily turned CoH from 'self-sustaining with enough profit to keep running and pay the devs' into 'this prints money' is a colossal missed opportunity. Any reinvestment at this much shakier point is basically pinning that failure to the chest of CoH 2 and kicking them out into a far less friendly market. Homecoming's license doesn't require any overhead or investment from NCSoft so it's basically a freebie bit of goodwill at no expense, which is why it's the closest thing we'll get at this point unless a number of things change pretty drastically.

Edited yesterday at 05:31 PM by El D

[Mopery]

I kind of see HC as CoH 2.

The HC Devs have upgraded the game a lot, from new Issues released and new powersets, to converting it from 32-bit to 64-bit.

They handle the Legal stuff dealing with the IP holder, the Servers, Security, Upkeep(from donations), all that jazz.

I am eternally grateful to the HC Devs for bringing something so beloved back to us all, something which had been thought lost forever is alive and kicking again.

As for an actual CoH 2, I doubt it. It's difficult putting lightning back into the bottle.

[Techwright]

CoH2 chances?

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

a lot of comments here have addressed the financial reasons why CoH2 is very unlikely but there's an even more important reason: Nobody's going to be able to capture the emotional pull of the game we love to play enough to make it viable. It's incredibly niche, the Superhero trend is fading fast, and getting a new crowd excited in a new game doing what this one does isn't likely to happen. 

 

What could a new version of our game offer? Better graphics, for sure. New missions, definitely. A more open environment? Probably. But fundamentally that would be window dressing. The basics wouldn't be very different. You'd still play a super hero in a city of super heroes, you'd still chose powers from sets, you'd have limits to those powers for the sake of balance and it would almost certainly have a similar form of progression. 

 

CoH1 was ground breaking but it wasn't a blockbuster, and Champions Online wasn't able to capitalize on the shuttering of our game. Even Marvel Heroes came and went and DCUO... well never mind, you get the point. 

 

Successor fan projects have all fallen by the wayside bar one which looks interesting but will it have enough to capture imaginations? I wish it well but I sincerely doubt it. 

 

TL;DR - the people who want to play a Superhero MMO have a fantastic one already and they will compare anything new to this (unfavourably) and those who don't want to play such a game won't play a new one. 

[Techwright]

2 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

, the Superhero trend is fading fast, 

 

Respectfully,  I'm not convinced that overall the superhero market is truly sunsetting.  From all I've read by those voicing opinions in places other than CoH, it is that, for whatever reason, the fans of the genre believe there is a growing disconnect between the script writers, directors, etc.  and the fans.  There appears to still be a strong thirst out there, but it's for well-crafted stories, or at least, as perceived by the fan base.  What fans don't seem to tolerate anymore is the shows emphasizing visual spectacle over good writing.   I'm certain there's more to it than just this brief summary, but the take I've seen is that they're waiting for the next The Dark Knight or Ironman 1 to drop their hard-earned coin onto.

 

Does that apply to games as well?  I'm not sure.  Are the DC and Marvel single and team player games still selling well?   I can tell you I've personally put much time into two of the other big supes MMOs, and found them lacking to this game, not because of stories but because of unsatisfying mechanics, at least to me.

[Scarlet Shocker]

1 hour ago, Techwright said:

 

Respectfully,  I'm not convinced that overall the superhero market is truly sunsetting.  From all I've read by those voicing opinions in places other than CoH, it is that, for whatever reason, the fans of the genre believe there is a growing disconnect between the script writers, directors, etc.  and the fans.  There appears to still be a strong thirst out there, but it's for well-crafted stories, or at least, as perceived by the fan base.  What fans don't seem to tolerate anymore is the shows emphasizing visual spectacle over good writing.   I'm certain there's more to it than just this brief summary, but the take I've seen is that they're waiting for the next The Dark Knight or Ironman 1 to drop their hard-earned coin onto.

 

Does that apply to games as well?  I'm not sure.  Are the DC and Marvel single and team player games still selling well?   I can tell you I've personally put much time into two of the other big supes MMOs, and found them lacking to this game, not because of stories but because of unsatisfying mechanics, at least to me.

 

Fair enough. I would agree the MCU has certainly shown signs of losing its way, and perhaps there's also an element of overload; Mickey Mouse is a very very greedy rodent, after all. 

 

But you have kind of emphasized the point I was trying to make; we have the game we want and need and it's very unlikely that a new Superhero game can do better than this in terms of engagement. It would have to be something incredibly special and if you look at how some MMOs with massive budgets have flopped... I think that is a hill too high for most Studios to even attempt to climb

[strix_]

CoH2 was difficult to get off the ground even when CoH was actively being developed by NCSoft. If I remember right, we have info about two(?) pitches for a CoH sequel/spiritual successor, both of which never entered into active development. The first one (which we have some concept art of, due to David Nakayama posting it to his portfolio a few years ago) pre-dated Going Rogue!

I think anything is possible (we've gotten weirder sequel announcements recently) but with NCSoft's financial situation being shaky and all their resources going towards Guild Wars 3, it seems unlikely that we'll get a sequel in the short term

Edited 2 hours ago by strix_