How to adapt characters for non-CoH setting?

[Felderburg]

Last week, I was thinking about heroes I created for a NaNoWriMo I did, in 2012, to bring awareness to the shut down (probably didn't work, but I wrote 50k words!). I'd still like to use them for writing stories, but I'm not sure what has to be changed for them to be my own intellectual property. I know that several authors from CoH took characters with Paragon Studios' blessing and adapted them, but I suspect that the dynamic and ability to get approval from NCsoft has changed :p . Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[Kito]

I don't understand what you mean. you want to use the COH world and heros in a Fan made story?

[Felderburg]

No, not the world. That would just be fan fiction, which is fine. The characters, though, if I wanted the core concepts to be "mine," separate from how they appear in CoH, need to be changed (I vaguely recall something about the EULA granting NCsoft rights to what you create?).

For example: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16078549-invasion The characters in that book were originally created in City of Heroes, but clearly the world and characters are different enough that NCsoft didn't sue the authors for copyright (or whatever) infringement.

[MyriVerse]

Aside from certain group insignia, there isn't much unique about the way CoH looks. It would be difficult to impossible for them to lay claim to much of it. They were largely just ripping off from the genre. References to specific places, NPCs, etc. would need to be changed. For instance, change any references to Fifth Column to some Nazi group of your own making; make Paragon City into Providence or New York or whatever.

[Castegyre]

Unless you were planning to use the characters to gain at the company's expense in some way that exploits their brand I don't think NCSoft would really care. There's an endless, and often sticky, sea of fan fic out there.

[Kito]

K I think I understand, you want to use YOUR OC that you made in COH in a story? and you worried that the legal thing you agreed to in order to play COH gives Ncsoft control of every hero you made in COH.

I would say you are probably 100% safe. IDK what from of legal control Ncsoft still has over the OC of COH, BUT ether your story will be very big (witch is the only way Ncsot would ever hear about it as there is 0% chance they know every hero made in there game, or even plan to do anything with them.) or it wont and they will never know or even have to worry about a challenge.

As far as i'm aware they only own your hero so much as to allow them to not have to worry about using its image in trailers or comics or w/e and not need to worry about you suing them.

[Nyghtshade]

Kito, are you talking about using your own characters which you created for COH - your 'alts' or 'toons'?  and just modifying them for your story setting?

IF that's the case, you can tweak your backstory, call the powers something different, and alter the general settings of the world you want in your writing.  I believe that's what Mercedes Lackey did.   

Also, the Invasion series she wrote incorporated, if I understand rightly, characters used by other people she played and RP'ed with in COH.  I think for those instances, the writing was something of a collaborative effort with them, which is trickier, but possible.

[Kito]

No my 2 cents to felerburg

[Garble]

Aside from certain group insignia, there isn't much unique about the way CoH looks. It would be difficult to impossible for them to lay claim to much of it.

I would also avoid copying specific patterns and shapes (I'm thinking a lot of the Armor designs are fairly specific, as are many capes).

[Mistress Bloodwrath]

I'm already doing this with a character I made with an urban fantasy I'm writing.

Pretty much I filed off a lot of stuff, but there's still Nazis in the story though. What I did was took my old character Demgoddess, a magic origin demon summoner, and just simply stripped out all of the superhero elements (they don't work for the story I'm writing) and have her going by her civilian name, Staci Drenvauder. It is thus called the Staci Drenvauder Chronicles. She's a witch that punches Nazi wizards.

Every now and then there's a nod to her old powersets.

That said, I have an idea for a project that'll utilize my internal superhero mythos some time down the road. Dunno when or how.

[doc7924]

I did two of my heroes each in DCU and Champions - the ones I could do close enough as far as powers go.

My story is they escaped into a portal before Paragon did the big firework and ended up in an alternate reality.

[Mistress Bloodwrath]

I did two of my heroes each in DCU and Champions - the ones I could do close enough as far as powers go.

Did that with Champions too. But unlike your scenario, I treated them like "Earth-2" counterparts as opposed to CoH's "Earth-1."

[doc7924]

Did that with Champions too. But unlike your scenario, I treated them like "Earth-2" counterparts as opposed to CoH's "Earth-1."

Cool. That works just as well.

Hard to believe the game started 15 years ago. I still remember seeing all the ads in the comics and not being interested as I heard bad things about MMO's.

However in a COMPUSA store (remember them?) I saw the box and decided to buy. Not reading that you had to pay a monthly fee to play. I was just used to games you buy and play for one price. Of course 8 years later I was still there, until it closed down.