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Title: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: raydeen on October 02, 2013, 07:51:53 PM SPOOOOON! (I used to remember how to combine text with a link. Too many dead brain cells I suppose.)
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans?ref=category (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans?ref=category) Anyways, project looking to recreate CoH using the Unreal Engine. Discuss. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: DayDream on October 02, 2013, 11:42:56 PM hahahahahahahaha
please, oh please, let us live in a world where this thing actually makes it out the door. i don't know that i'd play, but knowing that this thing actually became real? in the MMO industry? i would laugh for days. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Falconeer on October 03, 2013, 01:54:00 AM 320k goal? I am sorry, but this totally feels like a scam, an easy way to make sure they will pocket at least 320k (and run). I mean, if you set down a very low goal, which is not even remotely enough to make a game that you have no intention to make, you actually have a real chance to get to that goal and pocket the money. And that's it, that easy.
I mean, what stops people from pitching the most interesting idea ever for a MMORPG, put up a very low funding goal of 50k, never plan to deliver a game but get the 50k and go? Easiest 50k ever. Even with a goal of 10k, it would still be easy money. Sure, people should stop that, and call them out for messing with the system like what it seems is happening now, but judging on the fact that they have already raised half the requested money in a single day seems like someone is gonna get an early Christmas. 320k for a MMO? Fuck them. EDIT: Look at who are these people and what is their experience in making videogames, scroll down to the "Our Team" section. Sigh, why are people so eager to donate money to scammers? Quote BUDGET People have asked what the plan for the money raised with this Kickstarter. We have been working together for over a year now. During this time, various tools have been tested, telling us what works, what doesn’t and what we need. Our first expense is the cost of the Kickstarter itself. This goes to various companies such as Amazon, to Kickstarter, as well as the cost of the perks and add-ons. This comes to about 10% of the total. Then there are taxes, which we estimate can run us up to 12% of the total. So, before anything else, we’re out $70,000. Since we are developing the game using the Unreal Engine, and the Kickstarter counts as revenue, we owe Epic Games, the company which makes the Unreal Engine royalties. That comes to about $70,000, as well. We’re rounding up, of course, and estimating based on the best numbers we have available. By rounding up, we buy margin in case an unexpected cost, tax or fee enters the picture. This cuts $140,000 right off the top, leaving $180,000 to actually build the project. That $180,000 is mostly going straight to software. Autodesk's Maya and 3DS Max. They’re not cheap, and we need them to do the work. Each of them has strengths and weaknesses, and we need at least 24 copies for the art and tech teams to be able to do their jobs. There are several different versions, each targeting different levels of needs, and the 24 total copies are split between the various members to their need, based on the tasks they have. We’ll need multiple copies of a few tools like zbrush, Allegorithmic, 8DIO, Photoshop and Illustrator. Then we have the costs for the website servers and bandwidth. The more you love us, the more expensive it’s going to get. And, finally, a little cash to put a tax lawyer, book keeper and legal professional on retainer. Purely fee for service, but they will pay for themselves in troubles solved and money saved. There are a few smaller items, such as RAM for some rendering, some 3D mice, drawing tablets, depending on individual artist needs. Anything that makes us produce better and faster. If we go beyond that with stretch goals? Additional middleware to help us make the game. Purchasing of assets, saving our team the time needed to develop. Licensing premade systems from other game developers. There is a world of options out there, and all of it means we make a better game for you. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Merusk on October 03, 2013, 02:56:22 AM If they're not scammers they're idiots.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: ezrast on October 03, 2013, 03:51:32 AM They're not scammers. The project's been in the works in some form or another since the CoH shutdown was announced, and that game's community has a... well, a fervor the likes I've which I've honestly never seen before. It's really something.
"Delusional" is the word you're looking for. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Malakili on October 03, 2013, 06:29:35 AM Eh, if you must put money into a Super Hero game just go sub to Champions Online for a month or two.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: raydeen on October 03, 2013, 07:15:59 AM Eh, if you must put money into a Super Hero game just go sub to Champions Online for a month or two. I tried CO. Did not like. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Signe on October 03, 2013, 07:59:23 AM I didn't like it either. The only thing I remember was my last quest was to find a bunch of shit hidden in a pile of crap. I did, however, love my character's look. Fat Bottomed Girl really looked like a Fat Bottomed Girl.
Is it even possible to make a game with that little money? I guess maybe if your office is a cardboard box at the bus station and your staff is homeless and work for cheap booze in a paper bag. Having said that, I'd love a game that felt CoH-y to me. We had a ton of fun with that game. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Ginaz on October 03, 2013, 08:13:30 AM Nope.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: raydeen on October 03, 2013, 08:59:38 AM Is it even possible to make a game with that little money? I guess maybe if your office is a cardboard box at the bus station and your staff is homeless and work for cheap booze in a paper bag. Having said that, I'd love a game that felt CoH-y to me. We had a ton of fun with that game. I think the way they're going about it, it *might* be possible at least at first. They seem to be focusing mostly on purchasing software licenses and such. The way I'm reading it, it's a a labor of love and those involved are doing it to recreate some form of the game they (and many of us) held near and dear. Getting past this initial investment then they'll have to look at server cost and upkeep and such. Looks like they're well on their way though. Almost $174k out of $320k with 31 days to go. And the 320k isn't the top, just the minimum they'll need to get things off the ground. I'm sure they'll have much more in their coffers in a months time. Might be a pipe dream but it's going to be interesting to watch. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Falconeer on October 03, 2013, 09:41:09 AM A pipe dream they are pocketing 320k over though. This is what bothers me: people funding pipe dreams, which is becoming more and more just: "do you feel like giving me 320k so I can do whatever the fuck I want with it and maybe pay my debts while you believe I am making a game that I have no way or knowledge to make? Cool? Geee thanks".
It makes me angry cause it almost looks like taking advantage of stupid people. Many don't even take the time to read the Kickstaretr policy so they candidly believe they are entitled a final product until it all crashes (surprise!) and they realize they were entitled absolutely nothing. While I have no real sympathy for certain dunces, I don't like to see them taken advantage of no matter if it is through the promise of a honour roll of the chariots of fire (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sAO0owc4xeY#t=59) or through a videogame (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans?ref=category) that many have been wishing for since they have been dispossessed of their own. I indirectly know a person who actually made the Kickstarter scam herself, for very little money, but still it was something she wasn't really considering delivering unless it happened to get her in a good day (and it didn't). She got money from people through a very nice kickstarter video promo, and pretty much just ran with the money afterwards as the policy allowed her to do. What the fuck? I am not saying here that this project would make more sense if it asked for 2M, but at least that way they would not get funded and wouldn't see money. While the trick of asking very little to cash out is really, really fucking shitty. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: raydeen on October 03, 2013, 10:25:04 AM I was under the impression there was some sort of safeguard against the 'take the money and run' bit in Kickstarter in that if the project didn't pan out, the backers would get their money back. I admit I've never really looked into any of it as I've never put any money into any of these things and really haven't wanted to until maybe now. If I did put some cash toward it, it would be fairly small so if I was fleeced, I wouldn't feel too bad about it, just chalk it up to a lesson learned.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Threash on October 03, 2013, 10:30:30 AM I was under the impression there was some sort of safeguard against the 'take the money and run' bit in Kickstarter in that if the project didn't pan out, the backers would get their money back. I admit I've never really looked into any of it as I've never put any money into any of these things and really haven't wanted to until maybe now. If I did put some cash toward it, it would be fairly small so if I was fleeced, I wouldn't feel too bad about it, just chalk it up to a lesson learned. Nope, you are an investor. If the project doesn't pan out you take a loss. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Malakili on October 03, 2013, 10:36:55 AM I was under the impression there was some sort of safeguard against the 'take the money and run' bit in Kickstarter in that if the project didn't pan out, the backers would get their money back. I admit I've never really looked into any of it as I've never put any money into any of these things and really haven't wanted to until maybe now. If I did put some cash toward it, it would be fairly small so if I was fleeced, I wouldn't feel too bad about it, just chalk it up to a lesson learned. Nope, you are an investor. If the project doesn't pan out you take a loss. You're not even an investor. Investors share in the profit if the thing succeeds. You may hope they deliver on the reward tiers, but in the end it is a gift. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Merusk on October 03, 2013, 10:40:19 AM Yup. The worst Kickstarter can do is ban you from ever putting up another project. Individuals might be able to bring a fraud suit, but you'd have to prove it was fraud and not just someone who was incredibly inept. Considering that 38 Studios gave a great example of ineptitude you'd probably be ok.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Samprimary on October 03, 2013, 11:51:33 AM I want a scrying ball to be able to peer into the one in 28 trillion universe where this kickstarter actually succeeds, just so I can watch what happens with growing fascination.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Ingmar on October 03, 2013, 12:07:24 PM I'm not going to donate to this, but I'd rather throw $30 at a 1% chance of getting City of Heroes back than ever touch CO again.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: shiznitz on October 03, 2013, 12:21:48 PM The truth of Kickstarter is finally starting to sink in, I see. It was always the perfect vehicle to part fans from their money.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Paelos on October 03, 2013, 12:25:34 PM I'd replace fans with suckers.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Nevermore on October 03, 2013, 01:25:37 PM I'd really like to see them succeed but I'm certainly not holding my breath that they will nor will I send any money their way. If I spent that money on a lottery ticket I'd have a better chance at some kind of return.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: tazelbain on October 03, 2013, 01:43:56 PM This is so dishonest. Kickstarting to put together a tech demo to get a publisher but tell everyone its for a game.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: KallDrexx on October 03, 2013, 07:07:49 PM And yet they have 1,436 people donating an average of $136 each..........
And it still has 31 days to go. :uhrr: Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Belasco on October 03, 2013, 07:28:36 PM I played CoH pretty extensively, and I'd love to play a modernized version of it, but no thanks. If these guys put out a real game, then I'll support them by buying it.
Whether these guys are scammers or legitimate fans who just can't let go, it really doesn't matter. I don't think it will end well. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: UnSub on October 03, 2013, 08:26:40 PM It's believed that CoH took something like US$14m and four years development (including one significant redevelopment from an open powers system to the more fixed one the game launched with), plus the backing of NCsoft who could handle a lot of things (like customer service, the servers, etc).
This project is saying they'll throw 100+ volunteers plus $320k or so dollars at it and come up with something similar in roughly 2 years and do everything themselves. As someone else said, this isn't a scam, it's a delusion, but the end result for the backers will be the same. It will get funded, because Kickstarter is a place where you can sell dreams and there isn't a shortage of buyers if you put the right dogwhistles in place. I'm curious to see how long it takes for this project to start to fracture as core volunteers find they can no longer commit to the project and / or the money disappears more quickly than expected. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Stormwaltz on October 04, 2013, 01:06:43 AM I have reasonable doubts.
This is not any sort of intentional fraud. I do think it's a lot of well-meaning folks thinking they can run a major from-scratch project like they would a Skyrim mod, everyone working on their home machines in their spare time. The budget is wholly inadequate, and their cost breakdown is... I mean, it might work if they could get it done in one year (before all their licenses expire), which they can't, because they're a bunch of people working from home in their spare time. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Falconeer on October 04, 2013, 01:52:29 AM Exactly. But they still will most likely get about half a million dollar if not more just for trying. Uggggghhhhhhhh
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Margalis on October 04, 2013, 07:11:59 AM The vast majority of a game's budget is compensation, so only needing $320k in cash to make a game if you don't need to compensate anyone doesn't sound crazy to me.
Now, of course after a year 90% of the volunteers will have dropped out entirely so it's never going to work, but the money isn't the crazy part. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Merusk on October 04, 2013, 09:50:14 AM The vast majority of a game's budget is compensation, so only needing $320k in cash to make a game if you don't need to compensate anyone doesn't sound crazy to me. Now, of course after a year 90% of the volunteers will have dropped out entirely so it's never going to work, but the money isn't the crazy part. Autodesk Maya, which they specifically reference, is $6,800 a seat for that product alone. Since they aren't forming a corp they're not going to get a discount from a retailer. Even if they did you're talking only a few hundred dollars a seat. So they've blown $163k of their 180k software budget on one product. 3D Studio is $3,675 a seat. Photoshop is a reasonable $600 a seat for the basic package, no creative cloud or other parts of their suite. Illustrator is another $600 a seat. TBH if they're smart/ savvy they'll just use Creative Cloud at $50/ month per individual. However, their lack of due diligence on just the cost of software says they're not smart. They're dumb. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Venkman on October 04, 2013, 12:30:00 PM A virtual studio entirely comprised of forums posters and game beta testers does not give me the sense that they're waiting for legit copies of these programs in order to start executing their vision. :awesome_for_real:
But I agree this isn't feeling like a scam. Almost criminally niave optimism that will end in tears, sure. But not by their design. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Merusk on October 04, 2013, 12:53:08 PM Big project that will gather money using illegit software. Sounds like a great idea. Particularly after you just said, "We're going to buy 24 seats of ..."
Well, surely nobody would report them. Not like there's rewards for those sorts of things. :awesome_for_real: Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: UnSub on October 04, 2013, 10:54:11 PM Guy guys guys, you've missed the point of this. If they can get $320K to make a MMO, WE can get $320K to make a MMO. Are we not also forum fans and beta testers of MMOs?
Plus we have real life devs on our forums! We just need one of them to be the Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: MediumHigh on October 05, 2013, 06:56:40 PM 320K to make a game with perma-death and I'm in :drill:
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Kageru on October 06, 2013, 04:20:34 AM Just to make doubly sure there's no chance of success? As for the reboot idea I've got no problems with fans putting money towards their dreams... It will be a life lesson for them. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Lantyssa on October 06, 2013, 09:44:41 AM No it won't. They're delusional. I was trying to explain to a friend of mine why this is not an awesome idea and that if he's working 80 hour weeks to make ends meet, not to waste money on this. He wasn't swayed because he isn't thinking, he's dreaming.
(At least when I've backed a kickstarter I'm fully aware it may go down in flames and to expect nothing.) Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: UnSub on October 06, 2013, 10:24:26 PM If this project didn't have CoH attached to it so prominently, it would have been lucky to make $3200, let alone $320K.
Also looking at the way the budget is structured, assuming that they are paying up things like the Unreal Engine for 2 years, the money will run out just as beta is meant to launch. So we can look forward to either more Star Citizen-like pre-game virtual item sales or another Kickstarter in order to get the title over whatever line it reaches by the end of 2015. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: pants on October 07, 2013, 07:42:15 PM Welp, they've hit their target. $350K right now, with 27 days still to go...
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: tazelbain on October 07, 2013, 09:26:36 PM Doesn't matter because they would have to pull in more than top 5 kickstaters together to get out of fantasyland.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Malakili on October 08, 2013, 10:03:16 AM Doesn't matter because they would have to pull in more than top 5 kickstaters together to get out of fantasyland. Matters because they get paid now. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: tazelbain on October 08, 2013, 10:55:42 AM Of course that's the point, they just couldn't put $1 because that's be too obvious. But they always going to make their 380k or whatever. This is the geek equivalent of playing the lottery.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Rendakor on October 08, 2013, 01:53:36 PM Given what they've said on the KS page, I don't think there's any amount of money that will make this more than vapourware; I'll happily give them money if I'm wrong and they release a decent game.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: UnSub on October 09, 2013, 06:27:41 PM Also looking at the way the budget is structured, assuming that they are paying up things like the Unreal Engine for 2 years, the money will run out just as beta is meant to launch. So we can look forward to either more Star Citizen-like pre-game virtual item sales or another Kickstarter in order to get the title over whatever line it reaches by the end of 2015. I appear to be wrong about this - CoT looks to be going with the $99 user license option, which sees Unreal take 25% of their revenue past the first $50K. Which means as the Kickstarter earns more money, a quarter of it will go straight to Unreal. A rough calculation last night saw the project pay Unreal $82.5K (and this figure will go up as the Kickstarter goes up). Which may seem a great idea now, but when every future bit of revenue also sees Unreal take 25% off the top it will make any kind of additional revenue raising more difficult. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Ingmar on October 09, 2013, 06:34:57 PM Wait... that applies to revenue that isn't directly from the game?
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: MediumHigh on October 09, 2013, 08:50:25 PM Yeah I'm pretty sure it only applies to "game" revenue, you know release, steam sells etc etc. Otherwise fuck unreal and glad I avoided it like the plague when I was in school.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Nevermore on October 10, 2013, 09:50:59 AM I would be really surprised if Kickstarter investment money counted as 'revenue'.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Ragnoros on October 10, 2013, 12:55:29 PM Wait... that applies to revenue that isn't directly from the game? Yeah I'm pretty sure it only applies to "game" revenue, you know release, steam sells etc etc. Otherwise fuck unreal and glad I avoided it like the plague when I was in school. I would be really surprised if Kickstarter investment money counted as 'revenue'. And yet... Quote Since we are developing the game using the Unreal Engine, and the Kickstarter counts as revenue, we owe Epic Games, the company which makes the Unreal Engine royalties. That comes to about $70,000, as well. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Ingmar on October 10, 2013, 01:50:46 PM Jesus, what a scam.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Paelos on October 10, 2013, 02:28:17 PM :popcorn:
Can't wait to see how it turns out. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Venkman on October 10, 2013, 05:32:29 PM If this project didn't have CoH attached to it so prominently, it would have been lucky to make $3200, let alone $320K. What do you mean "attached"? Aside from SEO value I mean?Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Threash on October 10, 2013, 05:40:35 PM What was so bad about champions online anyways?
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: UnSub on October 10, 2013, 11:35:07 PM I would be really surprised if Kickstarter investment money counted as 'revenue'. From the UDK FAQ page (http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitFAQ.html): Quote Q: Can Kickstarter or other crowd funding be used to fund games made with UDK? Is a license required? A: Yes, crowd funding is perfectly acceptable with UDK games; however, a $99 commercial UDK license is required and all revenue earned through the crowd funding is subject to the standard UDK royalty. I believe that the Phoenix Project team has registered themselves as a company somewhere, so they should be looking at paying for Unreal seats outright (although this has its own issues). If this project didn't have CoH attached to it so prominently, it would have been lucky to make $3200, let alone $320K. What do you mean "attached"? Aside from SEO value I mean?I mean that the very first sentence of the Kickstarter mentions being a "spiritual successor" to City of Heroes, a significant part of the pitch references the loss of CoH and the attempt to reverse that, it's called 'City of Titans' and every article about the project mentions CoH. It's tapping into the player base who feels that CoH was unfairly shutdown and can live again through this project. If City of Titans had referenced DCUO and ChampO as well as inspirations, or just talked about building a superhero MMO, people wouldn't have been as motivated to back the project. What was so bad about champions online anyways? Haven't played it in a long time, but it just lacked a reason to keep logging in. I found my power combo was exactly the same in every battle and either I was powerful enough to destroy my targets, or I wasn't. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: ezrast on October 11, 2013, 12:39:04 AM What was so bad about champions online anyways? It was formulaic quest grindy bullshit with nonsensical itemization and lolpvp. It was a theme park with only one ride, and the ride was really fucking poorly written.Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Typhon on October 11, 2013, 07:00:47 AM What was so bad about champions online anyways? If you were looking for a month-ish amount of play time with a superhero beat-em-up it was fun. If you were looking for a home to virtually live for a year it wasn't. Part of that was simply because if you were playing this game, you had likely played CoX. But part of it wasn't. CoX's powersets had a richer interaction system, and line-of-sight mechanics in CoX allowed you to do clever positioning things during combat (neither hero's nor NPC could shoot around corners or through hills in CoX, this wasn't always true in CO). Combat and controls were, as is to be expected, superior to CoX. Lore, world and story were inferior to CoX (especially from a villains perspective). Character customization was similar to CoX, but as a short-term player I'd say CoX was superior. If you could stomach the monotony necessary to build up all the costume unlocks, probably CO was superior (still arguable though). I liked it, got my money's worth. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Malakili on October 11, 2013, 08:29:27 AM I got a good amount of fun out of Champions Online, but the amount of content on launch was really not sufficient. It was, ostensibly, a quest centered game but you couldn't really quest all the way to max level. On top of that, the quests were pretty damn repetitive and often had just AWFUL drop rates on the quest items. There was usually one interesting line per area that ended in a pretty fun soloable dungeon.
I've played it on and off for a while since it went free to play and I think the "Alerts" they added are pretty fun. They've added some neat stuff over the years like a variety of housing and some new areas, but the content never has been sufficient. Millennium City, which should really be the focal point of the whole game also turned out to be a mediocre zone with a variety of mid-level quests. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Signe on October 11, 2013, 08:41:21 AM Ah. I only played in the beta just before the release and didn't like it at all, except the character creator which I loved. I wasn't around when they started adding stuff. By then, it was simply off my radar.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: KallDrexx on October 11, 2013, 10:44:29 AM I would be really surprised if Kickstarter investment money counted as 'revenue'. Of course KS money counts towards UDK royalties. With almost all game kickstarters when you "invest" you are essentially pre-paying for the game at a certain level. Since the game comes with your investment it would be associated with the game if they didn't then Unreal would lose out on revenue from selling to those people who get the game due to their original money. Also, KS isn't really investing as much as it is pre-paying. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Venkman on October 12, 2013, 09:24:57 AM If this project didn't have CoH attached to it so prominently, it would have been lucky to make $3200, let alone $320K. What do you mean "attached"? Aside from SEO value I mean?I mean that the very first sentence of the Kickstarter mentions being a "spiritual successor" to City of Heroes, a significant part of the pitch references the loss of CoH and the attempt to reverse that, it's called 'City of Titans' and every article about the project mentions CoH. It's tapping into the player base who feels that CoH was unfairly shutdown and can live again through this project. If City of Titans had referenced DCUO and ChampO as well as inspirations, or just talked about building a superhero MMO, people wouldn't have been as motivated to back the project. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: UnSub on October 13, 2013, 07:25:36 PM I've seen people - not necessarily those involved in the Volunteer team, mainly because I'm not cross referencing 100+ names - take the fact that former CoH Lead Dev Matt Miller is backing the project as a sign that it has some kind of special blessing.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Lantyssa on October 14, 2013, 04:21:53 PM Jesus, what a scam. Nope, just morons running the show else they wouldn't have taken that option.Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: UnSub on October 14, 2013, 08:48:53 PM This CoT push has thrown up some figures that at shutdown CoH/V had 40K VIP subscribers, 20K premium accounts (former subscribers who got some special account bonuses or paying F2P player) and 40K F2P players. This is based on comments made by Mercedes Lackey who has headed up the push to save CoH/V by appealing directly to Disney and Google and apparently was given some inside info to help that cause.
It's clearer to me why NCsoft pulled the plug; 40K active F2P players is awful. And going F2P appears to have split the active number of paying customers. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Kageru on October 14, 2013, 11:56:44 PM F2P doesn't change the fact that the game was badly aged and took a lot of work to get into, plus there's lots of F2P competition. But after a long period of neglect the developers had been making some decent moves so it is the trends that would be most interesting. Still probably not economical, but it's sort of cool seeing people being foolish fans of something. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Numtini on October 15, 2013, 04:03:30 AM I don't know what whether they changed it, but when it went F2P it had a poison pill that kicked in at fairly low levels and required a sub.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Ingmar on October 15, 2013, 11:30:32 AM Their F2P model was really awful iirc.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Father mike on October 15, 2013, 08:46:06 PM The poison pill was that you couldn't use crafted enhancements or the auction house without buying a one-month liscense for each or having a sub. Former subs could use the AH, I think.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Lantyssa on October 16, 2013, 05:58:25 AM Yeah. It was a terrible f2p system and I was a two or three year vet that made it mostly tolerable. These are just the ones that got me, and I'm pretty easy going:
Had to buy access to slot crafted enhancements. Had to buy access to the AH if not grandfathered. Needed a subscriber to activate your Super Group base on a monthly basis. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Numtini on October 16, 2013, 11:16:24 AM Quote Had to buy access to slot crafted enhancements. My memory is that at first you needed to have some kind of mini-subscription that cost like $5 a month to use them? It was something recurring though which to me personally is the poison pill on any sort of F2P. I'll throw a lot of money at cash shops, but not for time sensitive items. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: ezrast on October 16, 2013, 11:24:49 AM Free players got put into a time machine and forced to relive Issue 7.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Lantyssa on October 16, 2013, 12:24:35 PM Maybe $2.50. Whatever it was, it was stupid.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Ingmar on October 16, 2013, 03:55:59 PM Oh right, it was the stupid enhancements that you couldn't use! That was a huge problem. (Was unlocking them per-characters as well?)
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: UnSub on November 08, 2013, 04:47:03 AM All over, having raised $678k.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Cadaverine on November 08, 2013, 02:06:53 PM Welp, I think I've found my new career path. :awesome_for_real:
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: UnSub on November 08, 2013, 11:05:07 PM You just need a willing fanbase and then promise that you will make their favourite game, only better.
I'm curious to learn if Unreal is getting about $150k from those funds under the royalty deal. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Xanthippe on November 23, 2013, 10:56:58 AM I can't recall if I ever knew this or not, so I'll ask because I was wondering.
Who owns the assets for CoX and what's stopping someone from buying it and slapping it up online? I guess this all points out just how little I know about costs involved in maintaining an MMO with not many players. I don't understand the economics of the business of games much. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: koro on November 23, 2013, 12:28:34 PM NCSoft still owns the CoX assets and things, and what's stopping somebody from buying it is NCSoft isn't selling. To my understanding, the folks at Paragon wanted to buy the game back from NCSoft but NCSoft wouldn't budge.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Stormwaltz on November 23, 2013, 12:58:35 PM I've noticed many of the PC emote animations are "Cryptic stock," and also appear in STO and Champions. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other things under the hood (like the character customization systems) that were specifically granted to NC when Cryptic broke away.
Now Cryptic part of Perfect World, an NC competitor, which would complicate things even further. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: UnSub on November 24, 2013, 05:09:10 AM As above, NCsoft owns all the IP around CoH/V. Cryptic owns the engine, but apparently granted Paragon Studios an unlimited licence to it when it came to CoH/V. I'm pretty sure that Jack Emmert of Cryptic indicated he'd do the same if CoH/V was picked up with new owners. There was an immediate forum rumour when CoH/V's shutdown was announced that Cryptic was standing in the way of the sale, but they said they weren't.
Paragon Studios had a good few months notice that they were going to be shut down and couldn't reach a deal with NCsoft to buy CoH/V out. There were rumours that Trion had shown an interest, but that NCsoft wanted US$80m for the IP. (Not unreasonable when CoH/V was making US$20m a year, not so when it was down to about US$10m or so in its last year.) Regardless, NCsoft doesn't sell off its failures. Tabula Rasa, Dungeon Runners, whichever ones I've forgotten - if you fail at NCsoft, they shut the game down rather then sell a title for pennies that then becomes a competitor for their other games. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Merusk on November 24, 2013, 09:12:06 AM Not selling them off also gives them a stable of properties they can return to later, if they choose. While ideas are cheap, brands are not.
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Father mike on November 24, 2013, 02:16:21 PM Not selling them off also gives them a stable of properties they can return to later, if they choose. While ideas are cheap, brands are not. It would be interesting to see if anyone had done research on the way being out of circulation affects a brand's value. Does more time in the vault make it increasingly irrelevant or does it drive the nostalga factor thru the roof? I would suppose it varies on a number of factors like mindshare during the initial run, etc. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Velorath on November 24, 2013, 02:41:14 PM Not selling them off also gives them a stable of properties they can return to later, if they choose. While ideas are cheap, brands are not. I think if someone offered them a sandwich for the rights to Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault, they'd be smart to take it. Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Stormwaltz on November 24, 2013, 05:47:21 PM I think if someone offered them a sandwich for the rights to Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault, they'd be smart to take it. I've got cheese. Let's Kickstart for a loaf of bread and get on this. First stretch goal: mustard. More to be unlocked later! Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Ingmar on November 25, 2013, 12:19:43 AM I would totally buy the rights to Auto Assault!
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Falconeer on November 27, 2013, 05:33:42 AM Make a kickstarter and I am gonna back you up big time!
Title: Re: City of Titans - spiritual successor to CoH - Kickstarter Post by: Falconeer on March 15, 2016, 03:57:53 AM NECRO!
After a long silence, they released... something. Quote We’ve finished a very, very big step forward for City of Titans. We made our first packaged executable that we can call ‘the game’. We’ve done them before for demos, we’ve made beat-em-ups, but we didn’t have a structured login-auth-lobby-game process running. What you’re going to see is the recorded video of the first packaged build of the game. The User Interface isn’t finished, but it’s a functional first pass - all the buttons work. Here's the video they are talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BswGrULkZao More words: Quote What’s that mean? Up to now, everything you’ve seen has been run from inside the Unreal Editor, the game builder environment. Now, we’ve got an executable program that can run on any computer. (Well, not any computer - we targeted this build for Windows, 64 bit. You need to make a separate build for OSX or Linux.) We’ve got something we could give to someone and say ‘here, run this’ and it would work. Things went wrong as we built it. They always do. We were hoping to show you the character creator itself, we were hoping to load and save the character design. It works in the editor. But, well, it blew up as we packaged. Around midnight last wednesday we decided that we had found the problems - but it was going to take longer than we had to fix them. So we disabled them - but only for the moment. We’ve supplemented that with video of the standalone character morphing technology - you’ve seen our body and face sliders as standalone pictures. Here’s some of them live and in action. What you see here is hard. It’s not done, but it’s some of the hardest work we’ve had to do for the game. Why? Because a lot of other people are trying to use Unreal, and a lot of them are trying to make a game about punching other people in the face. And they’re all talking about the fun stuff. But a much smaller group is talking about the hard stuff. And even fewer are doing anything closer to what we’re trying to do - a massively multiplayer game, with a patcher that can patch itself, which saves your character design on a server, so you can load it wherever you go. We needed a splash screen, a logon screen, a lobby, and our character room. We’ve shown you the sliders - and we’ve got so many sliders. Fully flexible, fully functional ones. Sliders for the body, sliders for the face. Save the character to your hard drive. Save the character to the network. And, most importantly, load it back up again. Of course, with new advances come new problems - we don’t have hair working yet because the fancy things the head does? Well, if you make the head bigger, it swallows the hairline - and bald superheroes are in style, but balding ones aren’t. We know how to solve that - but we’re not there yet. On the other hand, our mocap studio works pretty okay. All it required was two hundred dollars in software and a kinect. We even have fingers working! We needed network infrastructure - authentication and authorization - patcher servers, chat servers (it’s not in the video) and so many other things. We’re not done. But we’re getting there. (https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/005/471/550/237bf75ffcdd0e284edbfd568ce20a5e_original.gif?v=1457059833&w=639&fit=max&q=92&s=4d1dbcf8260c39228a4a1268c3eac918) |