This post
from Nate Downes has word from the president of Missing Worlds Media and member
of the
City of Heroes community that the possibility exists that NCsoft
will allow a community-driven revival of City of Heroes, the superhero MMORPG
(thanks
Massively). This is the subject of ongoing discussions, and the plan may
change going forward, but for now Nate sounds guardedly optimistic:
The
proposal as it stands right now (this is not a final form, just the current
proposal on the table) is this:
The CoH IP would be spun to its own company, to handle licensing. This company
would itself license the existing engine from NCSoft for the creation of a
maintenance mode, using a binary copy of the i23 server.
The existing user database and characters are not part of this arrangement at
this time, nor is the source code.
An arrangement is to be made to license the trademarks to the various Plan Z
projects, CoT, Valiance and H&V, to create a family connection, and to allow
each to drop the “Spiritual” portion of successor. This means they can make
references to the original game if desired, and to enable the expansion of
partnerships. This could be expanded for any of them, should the desire be
there.
An arrangement is also to be made for the Atlas Park Revival project. As part of
the informal agreement we have with them, they would be given an official stamp
of approval, and the CoT game build would be licensed to them, to create a kind
of “CoH 1.5” and migrate people off of the classic game engine before it finally
becomes unsuitable (we expect this to happen around when Windows 9 is released,
due to binary compatibility). This can be done because both APR and CoT run on
Unreal Engine 4.
By being its own firm, the licensing company can also pursue other avenues which
were unavailable before.