An Update from The Homecoming Team

[Myrmidon]

2 hours ago, Sidious said:

Excellent point.

 

What else? I'm not trying to shitcan this, I'm actually trying to see the game plan and details.

Think of it like the Sony/Marvel Spider-Man deal.

 

”We can profit from a deal without having to work at anything? Okie Dokie!”

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, GM Capocollo said:

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

 

Don't say anything, the community wonders why everything is so quiet, and if the deal goes through, people get angry that they weren't told about it and didn't have a chance to weigh in.

Say something vague and people invent all kinds of dismal scenarios about what they think is actually happening

Explain it in depth and get a thousand internet lawyers picking apart every single jot and tittle, and potentially sour the deal in the process, or subject some poor guy at NCsoft to a lot of hate mail.

 

Exactly what I meant earlier with this;

 

6 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

Personally, I don't think the general populace needs to know the specifics here - I can only imagine the myriad of posts from armchair lawyers and Google law experts would make.  No thank you.

[justicebeliever]

@ShardWarrior - 100% agreement

[Obsidius]

1 hour ago, Tahquitz said:

 

So that's where you went. 😄

[Abraxus]

24 minutes ago, jubakumbi said:

I saw no reason to say a word about this particular topic.

Could have just said "Summer Time is here and we are working on stuff, will announce stuff Soon, hang in there."

 

I simply have more respect for the players this will upset than I do the ones clamoring for 'info' and 'progress' on a dead game.

The fans that think they should have been consulted? Screw 'em, someone will always hate change. If they wanted to be involved that bad, they could put up and call NCSoft and make a deal or contacted you with plans. The armchair laywers can all go jump from my PoV, idle speculation does nothing good IME.

 

There are already posters talking trash about NCSoft over this, so even hinting also opens the can of worms that includes the Internet Hate to flow toward the company.

 

So yeah, the Silence was golden ... to me.

I think a legitimate case can be made for both sides of the argument.  Never gonna please everybody, no matter what they do, so it becomes a matter of which faction you run afoul of in the end.

[justicebeliever]

1 minute ago, Abraxus said:

I think a legitimate case can be made for both sides of the argument.  Never gonna please everybody, no matter what they do, so it becomes a matter of which faction you run afoul of in the end.

I think the concern is that the faction that is screaming the loudest right now is the "OMG NCSoft Sky is Falling Faction", whereas the faction that was screaming before was the....wait...no one was screaming before...

[Myrmidon]

6 hours ago, GM Widower said:

I'm sorry, Abraxus, but that sounds an awful lot like logic and reasoning, and that's not allowed here. Please move along. /s

It is too soon to bring up the “Change Rage!” Tantrum post or is there a time limit that we must observe first?

[Obsidius]

4 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

It is too soon to bring up the “Change Rage!” Tantrum post or is there a time limit that we must observe first?

[Widower]

11 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

It is too soon to bring up the “Change Rage!” Tantrum post or is there a time limit that we must observe first?

Uh, one argument at a time, please. XD

[Myrmidon]

5 hours ago, MadCow99 said:

The HC team is offering to do ALL of the work to basically run a trial balloon and run a City of Heroes retro-server with all of the liability implied and all NCSoft has to do is grant them the exclusive license to a dead IP

Haven’t other game companies done this very same thing?

[Remidi]

Personally, I'm grateful that the PTBs gave us a heads up.  I had seen references to the Titan Network talking to NCSoft, and was worried Homecoming could be left out in the cold.  This lets us know we're in the game.

 

ETA: I should say that I always loved the tools and info that TN provided.  I just have a lingering itch from old forum battles.  I prefer to play solo/duo, and back then there were people in TN who felt you should be forced to join an eight player team just to cross the street.  That was years ago, and they may have mellowed on that point. 

Edited August 8, 2019 by Remidi

[Myrmidon]

17 minutes ago, GM Widower said:

Uh, one argument at a time, please. XD

 

[Abraxus]

41 minutes ago, justicebeliever said:

I think the concern is that the faction that is screaming the loudest right now is the "OMG NCSoft Sky is Falling Faction", whereas the faction that was screaming before was the....wait...no one was screaming before...

The other faction were those screaming for transparency.  However, they weren't specific on that desire for transparency, in that it should be limited to only those things that won't potentially make me anxious all over again. 😉

[incantation]

Im worried but cautiously optimistic. 

I just want a future for the game. Period.  Ncsoft burned us pretty good when they closed it the first time.

Best of luck guys. 

[Jimmy]

2 hours ago, GM Widower said:

No, we haven't. Contrary to "common knowledge", Titan Network hasn't been involved in any of the prior buyout attempts beyond providing a space to talk about them on their forums. The Paragon attempt died pretty early on, Hail Mary never bore fruit, and the downix attempt just sort of disappeared years ago (and for all we know, may have been much less serious than it was made out to be). This is the real deal. I'm not saying it's absolutely guaranteed, but my understanding is that it's much closer than any previous attempt.

Just to add to this: Nobody on the Homecoming team was involved in any of the buyout attempts before either.

This new initiative has nothing to do with the old attempts, basically.

[B5Freak]

Call me a skeptic, but I seriously doubt that NCSoft is going to come to any agreement with any party on their IP and not gain something in the process. Maybe Titan and HC can work a way with them to keep it F2P, but there will be a price to pay of some sort. My biggest fear? That NCSoft will want some form of control over any server running CoH. Add a new powerset? Gotta run it by the suits in Seoul first. New TF? Gotta wait for NC$oft's OK. New AT? Well... you get the picture. 

 

And if, with this new-found legitimacy, the server pop rises significantly? *cue Imperial March music* "We are altering the deal. Pray we don't alter it further."

[Abraxus]

2 minutes ago, B5Freak said:

Call me a skeptic, but I seriously doubt that NCSoft is going to come to any agreement with any party on their IP and not gain something in the process. Maybe Titan and HC can work a way with them to keep it F2P, but there will be a price to pay of some sort. My biggest fear? That NCSoft will want some form of control over any server running CoH. Add a new powerset? Gotta run it by the suits in Seoul first. New TF? Gotta wait for NC$oft's OK. New AT? Well... you get the picture. 

 

And if, with this new-found legitimacy, the server pop rises significantly? *cue Imperial March music* "We are altering the deal. Pray we don't alter it further."

Ok, you're a skeptic.  😉

 

Everything else has yet to be proven either way, until it is.  Prior to that point, we got nuthin'.

[Jimmy]

I'd like to mention that we've definitely thought long and hard about all of these concerns that are being raised.

 

Remember that along with being the server administrators, we are first and foremost just players of the game. We want the same things that you guys want. We aren't going to agree to anything that requires us to charge for the game, which seems to be the main concern people have.

[DeathBender]

13 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

we are first and foremost just players of the game. We want the same things that you guys want.

Best thing said 

[Apparition]

29 minutes ago, B5Freak said:

Call me a skeptic, but I seriously doubt that NCSoft is going to come to any agreement with any party on their IP and not gain something in the process. Maybe Titan and HC can work a way with them to keep it F2P, but there will be a price to pay of some sort. My biggest fear? That NCSoft will want some form of control over any server running CoH. Add a new powerset? Gotta run it by the suits in Seoul first. New TF? Gotta wait for NC$oft's OK. New AT? Well... you get the picture. 

 

And if, with this new-found legitimacy, the server pop rises significantly? *cue Imperial March music* "We are altering the deal. Pray we don't alter it further."

 

Off topic, but I just want to say that with that name, if you don't have a Rad/Rad Corruptor or Brute named "Nuke 'Em Sheridan," I will be very disappointed. :P

[B5Freak]

Just now, Apparition said:

 

Off topic, but I just want to say that with that name, if you don't have a Rad/Rad Corruptor or Brute named "Nuke 'Em Sheridan," I will be very disappointed. 😛

Damn you! *runs off to roll a rad/rad Corr named "Nuke 'Em Sheridan"*

[MunkiLord]

6 hours ago, MadCow99 said:

See my post above. 

 

I own a business, and I've been in sales, marketing, and politics a long, long time.

 

The HC team is offering to do ALL of the work to basically run a trial balloon and run a City of Heroes retro-server with all of the liability implied and all NCSoft has to do is grant them the exclusive license to a dead IP. 

What does NCSoft get out of it?  They require the HC team to send usage and player count reports monthly (or even realtime) to NCSoft so NCSoft can gauge the interest level in City of Heroes over a 6/9/12 month period.  If the interest level is there compared to current Steam games, then NCSoft can decide, based on ACTUAL PLAYER COUNT plus projections of new users that would be enticed by a new CoX2 engine release, to re-monetize and update to create a sequel.

 

In short, the Homecoming team is a free test marketing team for NCSoft AND by giving them the EXCLUSIVE license when they smack the cease and desist on others they have an even stronger argument in court that the IP and Code has NOT been abandoned but is in CURRENT MAINTAINED DEVELOPMENT by an OFFICIALLY LICENSED AND APPROVED team.

 

It's legal manna from heaven.

If I was in charge of NCSoft, this is exactly how I would handle it. It's free market research with the potential of large profit. 

[MunkiLord]

5 hours ago, Remidi said:

 

 

Second, those laws.  In the US, if a company does not defend their trademarks and copyrights, they can be considered public domain and the company loses the right to them.  Therefore, NcSoft had to do something if they didn't want to surrender the game completely, which no sensible company would do.  Negotiations gives us a chance to keep playing our game.

This isn't correct. People/Organizations do not need to defend copyrights in order to keep them.

[Remidi]

6 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

This isn't correct. People/Organizations do not need to defend copyrights in order to keep them.

I know they do for trademarks, and I guess it was sloppy to lump them in together.  But that's why you hear those stories about stuff like Disney telling a day care center they can't have Mickey Mouse on their exterior.  They have to protect their trademark, even for small things.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Remidi

[_NOPE_]

39 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

Off topic, but I just want to say that with that name, if you don't have a Rad/Rad Corruptor or Brute named "Nuke 'Em Sheridan," I will be very disappointed. 😛

 

 

G' Kar was the best Jesus figure ever. No contest.