City of Titans

a1fighter

So, are they getting closer? The next update is not a robot hand, but an interest animation and release date of fall 2018.

http://cityoftitans.com/forum/world-titans





Do you trust them? Is this release date another shot in the dark?

Thoughts?

Don't care?

Who cares?

Excited?

Skeptical?

I represent the latter. Someone brought to my attention how they released a similar date years ago, only to change it recently. Could fall 2018 change to fall 2020? Perhaps, history shows it is a possibility.

ealford1985

Releasing into irrelevancy a decade near you.

pantagruel01

So in your last megathread, it was gonna hit steam in a playable form this year....

servantrules

To quote a wise person: "I'll believe it when I see it".

2 years is a long time, especially when it is for a game that already failed it's initial launch target. That's going to have an effect on interest. Interest and faith are diminishing commodities. Also, the more a game gets delayed, the more the expectations increase. Good luck to that dev team, but I personally have little stock in it pulling through.

draogn

A wise man once said "The deliverer of a hyped situation never really lives up to the billing."

I'm interested in seeing where they go, and I'm willing to wait as long as the finished product is good. Warcraft took 5 years to create, so for them to take their time and not rush it out (*ala Cryptic*) shows they're taking this serious, so that's a good thing.

ealford1985

Maybe it's just politics and actually paying these people (or not). But I never understood why we didn't take in more or search out the Devs from CoX....and if not us then how come these two games didn't just merge resources into one game.

Having a weak VO and a weak CoT just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm sure there were reason...

sterga

pantagruel01 said:

So in your last megathread, it was gonna hit steam in a playable form this year....

Steam has an Early Access program. It could be playable next year and have a release date of the year after. I wouldn't be surprised if it stayed in early access for several years though. Pretty much every game seems to do that.


Wasn't there a third CoX love letter MMO being developed? Did it fail already? I don't understand why all three of them didn't team up either. Probably because some people wanted to actually modernize the game and some people wanted to shoot themselves in the foot with a horrifically dated game.

I generally like to wait and see how a game turns out after launch. No Mans Sky is the most recent example of launches that didn't live up to expectations.

flyingfinn

HAH! That dude was like 'Dang, i got a pistol in my hand. Sweet!'
And those car rims aren't spinning... Spinners??​​

markhawkman

ealford1985 said:

Maybe it's just politics and actually paying these people (or not). But I never understood why we didn't take in more or search out the Devs from CoX....and if not us then how come these two games didn't just merge resources into one game.

Several of the CoX devs DO(or did) work at Cryptic.

spinnytop

I always wanted to be constipated man with gun... maybe now my dream can come true.

nepht

If it comes out and is playable I will in all honestly give it a go. But its still cheeky them trying to sell the game of the back of a much loved but defunct Cryptic game.

I'll more than likely stick with City Of Heroes true Cryptic made follow up Champions Online as I personally enjoy it. That said I do miss having CoH to alternate with. CoT is being made by fans of CoH so theres a good chance there will be some nostalgia feels to be had.

The more super hero mmos that ain't DCUO the better.

championshewolf

sterga said:

pantagruel01 said:

So in your last megathread, it was gonna hit steam in a playable form this year....

Steam has an Early Access program. It could be playable next year and have a release date of the year after. I wouldn't be surprised if it stayed in early access for several years though. Pretty much every game seems to do that.


Wasn't there a third CoX love letter MMO being developed? Did it fail already? I don't understand why all three of them didn't team up either. Probably because some people wanted to actually modernize the game and some people wanted to shoot themselves in the foot with a horrifically dated game.

I generally like to wait and see how a game turns out after launch. No Mans Sky is the most recent example of launches that didn't live up to expectations.

The three titles are Heroes and Villains, City of Titans and Valiance. All three of them originally were just one product, but because of creative differences all split to do their own thing. I still see 2018 as a generous launch date since it takes most professional dev companies 8 years to launch an MMO, and ten years if they are being realistic. And whether they want to hear it or not, Titans devs are far from professionals. Ambitious, yes, that's for sure.

decorumfriends

Wow. Worse default proportions than even CO. Those are some incredibly short, weirdly bulgy arms. Do they have no artists on the team?

themightyzenith

City of Pale Hulk with Sunglasses in Mariachi Suit Shooting a Gun Online.

championshewolf

It does remind of PS1/2 era graphics.

ealford1985

highreality

Those pictures are just the pictures of a low level faction mob.
Now, if someone showed you a gif of some purple gang dude shooting a gun with CO quantum clipping cars in the background, would you be able to judge CO fairly for what it is ? I see unnecessary hate here.

decorumfriends

I'd be able to tell if they understood human proportions. The gif suggests that City of Titans decidedly does not.

CO's off a bit, too, but nothing THAT bad.

spinnytop

highreality said:

Those pictures are just the pictures of a low level faction mob.
Now, if someone showed you a gif of some purple gang dude shooting a gun with CO quantum clipping cars in the background, would you be able to judge CO fairly for what it is ? I see unnecessary hate here.

I would have the same reaction if the gif was part of a post meant to convince me that a game was making serious progress from a guy who's known to grossly exaggerate such claims. Of course, then afterwards I would go and see that CO is actually a released game, give it a try and see that it's super cool and fun and then play it daily for seven years so I guess the lesson here is purple suit beats brown suit.

sterga

You've never seen one of those guys that works out their upper body excessively, but not their lower body? They do kinda look like that NPC. Many games mangle the female body, so it's not like this is anything unusual.​​

pantagruel01

highreality said:

Those pictures are just the pictures of a low level faction mob.

Those pictures are part of a PR release. It is fair to expect the developers to choose examples that make their game look good rather than bad, so if that's the best they can find it's not a good sign.

markhawkman

Actually.... the second part where they showed just the outfit the NPC was wearing made it seem like that model was meant to be usable by players.

nepht

Its Chris Redfield in a bad 1970s suit.

That said if the game plays well the graphics wont matter.

itsbrou

Next.

spinnytop

markhawkman

nepht said:

Its Chris Redfield in a bad 1970s suit.

That said if the game plays well the graphics wont matter.

the graphics seem to be better than the game play so far.

jonsills

markhawkman wrote: »

the graphics seem to be better than the game play so far.

In that the graphics actually exist, yes. ​​

championshewolf

highreality said:

Those pictures are just the pictures of a low level faction mob.
Now, if someone showed you a gif of some purple gang dude shooting a gun with CO quantum clipping cars in the background, would you be able to judge CO fairly for what it is ? I see unnecessary hate here.

If it's fun, it can be ignored, somewhat, not continuously though. You are also making up things on whatever value you deem important. For starters, all the "gameplay" footage they've shown has demonstrated they are recreating CoH combat engine, which, for lack of better terms, sucked. I know someone will try to tell me how wrong I am yata yata yata, but let's face it, it wasn't the game play that got people to stick around the most which was little more than the same mission reskinned over and over with predictable map layouts..

The first twenty levels for new people was the most grueling to boot, and while they tried to ease it up it still was not a fun experience for new people without a sugar daddy to help them. The push a button then wait several seconds of combat was just dull, not to mention the fact that many power sets spent more time in rest state than actually moving through the content that was solely designed to have people beat up bad guys. While CoH was a product of the era it was born into of MMO game design (ie the power bar and super delayed timer type system) I don't think such systems would work now when even WoW has been trying to reduce the number of active powers needed and make the game play flow better instead of what amounted to real time turn based combat that CoH had and you couldn't exactly influence it until pretty much the end game.

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servantrules

championshewolf said:

The first twenty levels for new people was the most grueling to boot, and while they tried to ease it up it still was not a fun experience for new people without a sugar daddy to help them. The push a button then wait several seconds of combat was just dull, not to mention the fact that many power sets spent more time in rest state than actually moving through the content that was solely designed to have people beat up bad guys. While CoH was a product of the era it was born into of MMO game design (ie the power bar and super delayed timer type system) I don't think such systems would work now when even WoW has been trying to reduce the number of active powers needed and make the game play flow better instead of what amounted to real time turn based combat that CoH had and you couldn't exactly influence it until pretty much the end game.

True this. By nature, the superhero genre is rock-em, sock-em, virtually instant gratification. Not that there's no room for subtleties and tactics, but a system that is based on waiting around too long kills the momentum. If that's what CoT is going back to, that's going to get old REAL fast.

darqaura2

sterga said:

pantagruel01 said:

So in your last megathread, it was gonna hit steam in a playable form this year....

Steam has an Early Access program. It could be playable next year and have a release date of the year after. I wouldn't be surprised if it stayed in early access for several years though. Pretty much every game seems to do that.


Wasn't there a third CoX love letter MMO being developed? Did it fail already? I don't understand why all three of them didn't team up either. Probably because some people wanted to actually modernize the game and some people wanted to shoot themselves in the foot with a horrifically dated game.

I generally like to wait and see how a game turns out after launch. No Mans Sky is the most recent example of launches that didn't live up to expectations.

Except pretty much none of them seem to be going with that much of a modern approach. So yeah, no clue why the three didn't just eventually merge. Not sure if the market can support 3 all new different separate mmos focused on superheroes.

darqaura2

pantagruel01 said:

highreality said:

Those pictures are just the pictures of a low level faction mob.

Those pictures are part of a PR release. It is fair to expect the developers to choose examples that make their game look good rather than bad, so if that's the best they can find it's not a good sign.

I lol'd in real life. On point.

championshewolf

darqaura2 said:

sterga said:

pantagruel01 said:

So in your last megathread, it was gonna hit steam in a playable form this year....

Steam has an Early Access program. It could be playable next year and have a release date of the year after. I wouldn't be surprised if it stayed in early access for several years though. Pretty much every game seems to do that.


Wasn't there a third CoX love letter MMO being developed? Did it fail already? I don't understand why all three of them didn't team up either. Probably because some people wanted to actually modernize the game and some people wanted to shoot themselves in the foot with a horrifically dated game.

I generally like to wait and see how a game turns out after launch. No Mans Sky is the most recent example of launches that didn't live up to expectations.

Except pretty much none of them seem to be going with that much of a modern approach. So yeah, no clue why the three didn't just eventually merge. Not sure if the market can support 3 all new different separate mmos focused on superheroes.

As I stated earlier, all three were once one project to begin with. Heroes and Villains was an off shoot formed up by Golden Girl due to creative differences and so forth (many rumors came out on that which I won't repeat, but needless to say egos on both sides are high). They released one video that showed their "Justice League Watchtower" that was released nearly 4 years ago now, that I learned how to make in my 3DS Max class something like 10 years ago or so. Their website has a bunch of impressive pre-rendered artwork and concept imagery but nothing else, and one very obvious copy of the Hydra monsters from Perez Park in City of Heroes. But considering the map of "Titan City" is a veritable copy of Paragon City with minute changes, it's not surprising to say the least. Still imagery, of course, does not make an MMO and so far it's all just talk on the website.

Valiance, which according to the thread starter was suppose to have a Steam release this year, has been in a deplorable public "pre-alpha" state now for a couple of years. Awful character models in an terrible almost copy and paste job of City of Heroes, as far as combat and some of the world asset looks, but a horribly buggy experience and very un-fun. I have no idea why anyone would release such a mess for public consumption. Reading Valiance website is like reading someone constantly throwing **** at the wall and hoping to drown out the fact they were literally copying CoH up in that they took all the classes in CoH, and divided them up even further. So now, you have a type that can do every role in the spectrum, melee tank damage healer, ranged tank damage healer, controller tank damage healer, pet class tank damage healer and so on and so forth. The web site currently clocks in at 11 archetypes, which means diversity will be a premium in that game instead of something you naturally progress in while developing a character. Most of the particles in game and power effects demonstrated also appear to have been lifted straight from CoH, or at least copied. The rest of the web site talks about tools for RP and PvP but doesn't describe how. Again, the deplorable "pre-alpha" experience is already bad signs and the company itself hasn't even reached their first stretch goal as far as funds are concerned.

Then of course is City of Titans, ambitious in their attempt to make a game in a modern gaming world, they've released a multi-tude of tech demos, but the end result has been less than impressive, especially since their ambitious launch windows have been missed twice already, and now they are tacking two more years onto that, and I still consider it ambitious considering how long it generally takes professional developers to get a decently working MMO out the door. Each of their videos has shown the exact same environment lately to, a street area with the dev hubris plastered all over street signs and a basic combat engine that behaves like The Old Republic (ie click power with long stilted animations playing while you wait to do something else). Of the three, City of Titans has a bunch of hubris and daring, their dev team typifying scenarios and spreading falsities and rumors the most with many of their fans outright attacking any other game that is not CoH or now CoT. Many of their developers have bashed Champions on a regular basis and one of their prideful campaigners has spent many hours in game and on this forum talking up CoT proclaiming the game would be launched soon (2 years ago soon in fact but then again he also proclaimed CoH would be returning and Champions would die).

In addition to that, Titans Network itself tends to play with smoke and mirrors often drumming up the return of City of Heroes for some odd reason claiming curious subject matter of how the return of CoH is only one signature away, or that some how 50,000 (really only 25,000 since the petition to save CoH barely broke that many) people scared a multi-billion dollar company from selling CoH, or that these secret business deals about selling CoH no one should inquire and just take on blind faith. Most of the actions of this group has left me considering them shady at best, due to these business practices of bait and switch maneuvers or stalling and at worst outright lying. While I think a product might indeed being worked on, it remains to be seen exactly what is being worked on because, to be blunt, setting up a tech demo is not as hard as some would have you believe. Hell even Titan Network tried to pass off the default Unreal 4 engine tech demo as their own created assets at one point, despite I've seen that tech demo used by amateurs to play around with ideas, including one showing off Samus in that environment.

And on final note, let's talk about that fact. This is the Unreal 4 engine, and as I said in a previous post, that character model reminds me of something you would see from the Playstation 2 era. I understand stylized and such, Champions is full on stylized, but that is so uncanny valley, it's obvious they want their graphics to look real, but something is wrong with the guys arms or torso in general. And if this is the best they have to offer it kind of leaves me disappointed. I wanted to be proven wrong but so far they are still on track to causing more damage to the super hero genre in the MMO market. All three of them are honestly. And if I were to put money down I bet the game that would surprise me, if it ever happens, is Heroes and Villains, because it's almost always the quiet ones you have to watch. And that one has a lot of hate because I know people don't care for Golden Girl.

Anyways, that's my assessment of the situation. I am not holding my breath for any of these titles, and I still think they are being beyond ambitious for their goals especially the work they want to do.

nepht

Right if any of these fan made games are coping bits of CoH they do know NCsoft will send in the lawyers right?

servantrules

nepht said:

Right if any of these fan made games are coping bits of CoH they do know NCsoft will send in the lawyers right?

They probably think it's ok. And these fledgling "companies" can't afford a decent lawyer to tell them otherwise.

kojirohellfire

championshewolf said:

As I stated earlier, all three were once one project to begin with. Heroes and Villains was an off shoot formed up by Golden Girl due to creative differences and so forth (many rumors came out on that which I won't repeat, but needless to say egos on both sides are high). They released one video that showed their "Justice League Watchtower" that was released nearly 4 years ago now that I learned how to make in my 3DS Max class something like 10 years ago or so. Their website has a bunch of impressive pre-rendered artwork and concept imagery but nothing else, and one very obvious copy of the Hydra monsters from Perez Park in City of Heroes.

I'm pretty convinced "Heroes and Villains" is just GoldenGirl sitting at the community computer in a mental ward somewhere, playing around with the system's poser program while rambling madly to herself that her MMO's going to hit big. Then the orderlies come and sedate her for getting too animated.

jonsills

nepht wrote: »

Right if any of these fan made games are coping bits of CoH they do know NCsoft will send in the lawyers right?

Don't know if you've heard of the Axanar movie; it was a fan-started attempt at a Star Trek movie detailing the Battle of Axanar, one of the pivotal battles of the Four Years War with the Klingons and the source of fame for the legendary Captain Garth (as seen in the episode "Dagger of the Mind", after he'd gone insane). There was a lovely demo, Prelude to Axanar, which is still available on YouTube.

Alec Peters, the producer, had a Kickstarter to fund the movie. Unfortunately, it turned out that he wasn't just making a fan movie, he was using the funds raised with the Star Trek name and IP to fund his own independent studio, Ares Studios, and he was also selling a variety of Axanar-branded merchandise on his website (everything from T-shirts to a variety of coffees). Needless to say, CBS, the owners of the Star Trek IP, did not take this well. For some reason, when the cease-and-desist came down, Peters believed he could fight it in court (and, from the posts leaking out sporadically, he still does). He is in great part why all fan productions have ground to a halt - the Star Trek Continues folks are still in talks to make sure their show can stay on YouTube.

So yeah, the people behind these other games probably believe that they can indeed make their games without interference, and that they're just so wonderful that even if NCSoft comes after them their own fans will stop them. It's an amusing delusion.​​

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kojirohellfire

I really would find it nice if they succeeded, really would, but I remain extremely skeptical about CoT. At the pace they're going, they'll take longer than Duke Nukem Forever did.

lezard21

I know that this game is mostly funded by hopes and wishes and thus has a small team working on it who ohsodearly are putting in their best effort.

But any game that takes more than 2 years into development has a very high risk of releasing into irrelevance.

Proof: Blade and Soul. When the game was first announced way back in 2013 it showcased an amazing combat system and had some truly gorgeous graphics. By the time it released other games with better active combat system had been released or announced, and games with better graphics had already hit the market 1 year prior. Or people simply straight up lost interest or had already invested more time waiting on other games to migrate into a game that didn't look so appealing in the current day.

Other games that encounter this same problem are Bless Online, Camelot Unchained (which originated as a kickstarter), Shroud of the Avatar, and even Chronicles of Elyria.

markhawkman

And CoT doesn't look good as it is. So if it takes another 2 years for them to release....

servantrules

a1fighter said:

If CoT hits, and is a success, where does that leave CO? CO only has the PC audience. CoT, according to them (take with a grain of salt) will have a side kick creation option, most likely water, and quantum. Where does that leave CO faithful? CoT will add what fans here have always clamored for.

Until they have proof of concept, these are simply wishlists. No different from the wishlists of what players want from CO. I hope in 2 years they actually accomplish this, but it's highly unlikely as even for a well-funded MMO that is fully staffed, 2 years is a short time given what they are currently showing as the work in progress results.

darqaura2

servantrules said:

a1fighter said:

If CoT hits, and is a success, where does that leave CO? CO only has the PC audience. CoT, according to them (take with a grain of salt) will have a side kick creation option, most likely water, and quantum. Where does that leave CO faithful? CoT will add what fans here have always clamored for.

Until they have proof of concept, these are simply wishlists. No different from the wishlists of what players want from CO. I hope in 2 years they actually accomplish this, but it's highly unlikely as even for a well-funded MMO that is fully staffed, 2 years is a short time given what they are currently showing as the work in progress results.

Let's be honest, 4 years would be a short time for what they are showing. They are not even ready for pre-pre-alpha. I was here for this game's alpha. They are nowhere near even that.

darqaura2

championshewolf said:

darqaura2 said:

sterga said:

pantagruel01 said:

So in your last megathread, it was gonna hit steam in a playable form this year....

Steam has an Early Access program. It could be playable next year and have a release date of the year after. I wouldn't be surprised if it stayed in early access for several years though. Pretty much every game seems to do that.


Wasn't there a third CoX love letter MMO being developed? Did it fail already? I don't understand why all three of them didn't team up either. Probably because some people wanted to actually modernize the game and some people wanted to shoot themselves in the foot with a horrifically dated game.

I generally like to wait and see how a game turns out after launch. No Mans Sky is the most recent example of launches that didn't live up to expectations.

Except pretty much none of them seem to be going with that much of a modern approach. So yeah, no clue why the three didn't just eventually merge. Not sure if the market can support 3 all new different separate mmos focused on superheroes.

As I stated earlier, all three were once one project to begin with. Heroes and Villains was an off shoot formed up by Golden Girl due to creative differences and so forth (many rumors came out on that which I won't repeat, but needless to say egos on both sides are high). They released one video that showed their "Justice League Watchtower" that was released nearly 4 years ago now, that I learned how to make in my 3DS Max class something like 10 years ago or so. Their website has a bunch of impressive pre-rendered artwork and concept imagery but nothing else, and one very obvious copy of the Hydra monsters from Perez Park in City of Heroes. But considering the map of "Titan City" is a veritable copy of Paragon City with minute changes, it's not surprising to say the least. Still imagery, of course, does not make an MMO and so far it's all just talk on the website.

Valiance, which according to the thread starter was suppose to have a Steam release this year, has been in a deplorable public "pre-alpha" state now for a couple of years. Awful character models in an terrible almost copy and paste job of City of Heroes, as far as combat and some of the world asset looks, but a horribly buggy experience and very un-fun. I have no idea why anyone would release such a mess for public consumption. Reading Valiance website is like reading someone constantly throwing **** at the wall and hoping to drown out the fact they were literally copying CoH up in that they took all the classes in CoH, and divided them up even further. So now, you have a type that can do every role in the spectrum, melee tank damage healer, ranged tank damage healer, controller tank damage healer, pet class tank damage healer and so on and so forth. The web site currently clocks in at 11 archetypes, which means diversity will be a premium in that game instead of something you naturally progress in while developing a character. Most of the particles in game and power effects demonstrated also appear to have been lifted straight from CoH, or at least copied. The rest of the web site talks about tools for RP and PvP but doesn't describe how. Again, the deplorable "pre-alpha" experience is already bad signs and the company itself hasn't even reached their first stretch goal as far as funds are concerned.

Then of course is City of Titans, ambitious in their attempt to make a game in a modern gaming world, they've released a multi-tude of tech demos, but the end result has been less than impressive, especially since their ambitious launch windows have been missed twice already, and now they are tacking two more years onto that, and I still consider it ambitious considering how long it generally takes professional developers to get a decently working MMO out the door. Each of their videos has shown the exact same environment lately to, a street area with the dev hubris plastered all over street signs and a basic combat engine that behaves like The Old Republic (ie click power with long stilted animations playing while you wait to do something else). Of the three, City of Titans has a bunch of hubris and daring, their dev team typifying scenarios and spreading falsities and rumors the most with many of their fans outright attacking any other game that is not CoH or now CoT. Many of their developers have bashed Champions on a regular basis and one of their prideful campaigners has spent many hours in game and on this forum talking up CoT proclaiming the game would be launched soon (2 years ago soon in fact but then again he also proclaimed CoH would be returning and Champions would die).

In addition to that, Titans Network itself tends to play with smoke and mirrors often drumming up the return of City of Heroes for some odd reason claiming curious subject matter of how the return of CoH is only one signature away, or that some how 50,000 (really only 25,000 since the petition to save CoH barely broke that many) people scared a multi-billion dollar company from selling CoH, or that these secret business deals about selling CoH no one should inquire and just take on blind faith. Most of the actions of this group has left me considering them shady at best, due to these business practices of bait and switch maneuvers or stalling and at worst outright lying. While I think a product might indeed being worked on, it remains to be seen exactly what is being worked on because, to be blunt, setting up a tech demo is not as hard as some would have you believe. Hell even Titan Network tried to pass off the default Unreal 4 engine tech demo as their own created assets at one point, despite I've seen that tech demo used by amateurs to play around with ideas, including one showing off Samus in that environment.

And on final note, let's talk about that fact. This is the Unreal 4 engine, and as I said in a previous post, that character model reminds me of something you would see from the Playstation 2 era. I understand stylized and such, Champions is full on stylized, but that is so uncanny valley, it's obvious they want their graphics to look real, but something is wrong with the guys arms or torso in general. And if this is the best they have to offer it kind of leaves me disappointed. I wanted to be proven wrong but so far they are still on track to causing more damage to the super hero genre in the MMO market. All three of them are honestly. And if I were to put money down I bet the game that would surprise me, if it ever happens, is Heroes and Villains, because it's almost always the quiet ones you have to watch. And that one has a lot of hate because I know people don't care for Golden Girl.

Anyways, that's my assessment of the situation. I am not holding my breath for any of these titles, and I still think they are being beyond ambitious for their goals especially the work they want to do.

Thanks for this!

Yeah I'm not holding my breath on any of these so called CO killers.

Also any game with Golden Girl anywhere near it is dead on arrival. Full stop.

spinnytop

a1fighter said:

If CoT hits, and is a success, where does that leave CO? CO only has the PC audience. CoT, according to them (take with a grain of salt) will have a side kick creation option, most likely water, and quantum. Where does that leave CO faithful? CoT will add what fans here have always clamored for.

Their comments are justified and I do not blame them one bit. I invested quite some time in CO, but these two projects could spell the end of CO. I have no issue moving on though.

I agree though, the PS1/2 graphics is a big stretch. Probably PS3.

You sound like you don't even know what your stance is on CoT.

Can't blame you, not like there's much information to go on to form an opinion.

jennymachx

The kickstarter page describes the people behind the game's development as being part of a "virtual" studio being staffed entirely by volunteers.

And there lies the problem. Since when in the history of MMORPGs have such projects been developed entirely by volunteers? Development studios are on a sponsoring publisher's payroll, where their heads and employees are expected to physically turn up at the office, are expected to put in their 100% focus and commitment into working on the project so that they can get the product out of the door as quickly as they can. A closed then open beta is at least expected to be accessible at some point during development to iron out latent bugs that only playtesters are able to fish out. Volunteers don't get a salary and aren't expected to clock-in, work their full shift and then some, then clock-out every work day. The output of a volunteer clearly isn't going to match that of a hired professional, unless someone wants to prove otherwise that everyone involved in the CoT project is working with a similar amount of dedication.

You know what sort of video game projects that have always involved strictly volunteers? Game mods. Mod makers are exempt from being pressured since its something they do "on the side" while they have day jobs and are making the mods for free. You don't hand a "virtual" studio nearly $700k and expect them to get away with the same thing, being volunteers with existing full-time jobs competing with their time being spent working on the project. Results are expected to be seen to validate being given that level of trust and money investment. After a number of years, a bunch of concept photos, unconvincing tech demos and a low-res gif are not going to cut it. People will expect to at least see some form of playable beta.

And with the way the kickstarter page is advertised? Clearly City of Heroes 2.0 is being promised here. The kickstarter was launched around the time CoX was shut down and tapped into ex-CoX players urges of wanting to go back to what is familiar. If any credit is to be given, its that the kickstarter's timing was perfect. Problem is CoX had an actual publisher-funded development studio (well two in total) that had worked on the game on a full 8 years before shop was closed; something that I expect involved waaaay more than $700k in total. I just don't see the CoT crew achieving that level of polish and development in just a few short years.

Oh and those backers in that community that continue to accept every year of delay, tell the team to take their time, even going so far as to accept an eventual non-release saying that investing in the dream was worth it alone? The same ones that don't hold the team to some level of expectation especially when they're given a solid $700k from the start? They're enablers and pretty much aren't helping things at all.

rtma

nepht said:

Right if any of these fan made games are coping bits of CoH they do know NCsoft will send in the lawyers right?

Cause we all know the 'Lairs' make the world a better place. (For Business)
achurr-churr-churr.

nepht

Guys look for other CoT information. I do not truly trust this thread as the OP seems to be trying to stealth sh*t on CoT.

Just gonna add my go to reply for A1 and his alt account.

spinnytop

themightyzenith