@no hero, it weighs heavy on our team and myself, personally, as well. We have no intention of letting anyone down, nor will we. We are all quite aware of what we are involved with and what it means to people. Before my younger brother died from cancer complications, this was our favored game; City of Heroes represented a special time we spent gaming together. That is why it is very important that our product be a spiritual successor to the title, as opposed to a complete re-envisioning of the former product. Not saying that it will be a direct replica, but we'd love to rekindle the original feeling with compromising it.
@pewlagon, you're very right about the approach (in my honest opinion). This is why we will be working "WITH" the community to develop the game. Since I started developing Legends of Etherell, I have had a single principle that I operated under; Nobody knows what a gamer want more from a game than the gamers that play it. So, I believe that gamers working on games they will be playing lends to a higher rate of success than a developer building a game and shoving it in gamers' faces with no direction. You can't make someone play something they don't want to play, a game not being played loses profit, and a game with no profit will eventually fail. With that said, understand our most influential elements of game development has always been, and will always continue to be our community. I'm a developer, but in reality I'm nothing more than another member of this community. Make a note of that when you have time. If you ever feel that changes throughout the development of this title, feel free to put me in my place... You'll never find yourself having to, I can promise you that.
@Amph, your point is verily understood. We do understand that everyone would like to see all forces united, but we're also under the assumption that a majority of the community is unaware of the differences that separate the divide. Our team has a vision in which we work with the community to develop a derivative of the original City of Heroes franchise which may be viewed as a City of Heroes 2 to many. However, the other titles seem destined to innovate, which I personally don't view as a bad thing. Therefore, I believe each project, in the event that they all remain independent, will appeal to players of various markets. I wouldn't label our project as a "City of Heroes Clone", but more of a "City of Heroes Continuation". We don't look to copy, we look to continue to build upon elements of the former product which we feel has lots of merit.
@Lily Barclay, I feel that Downix has accurately answered your question. Lines of communication has been opened, and we have a channel on Skype where we have spoken regularly since first contact. As he said, we can't guarantee anyone that a merger will happen due to what I stated earlier in this reply. We currently have different ideologies at work and they may not coincide. I'm most certain that we will be releasing something playable real soon, and most likely before anyone else here. It will most likely be the deciding factor in who is the frontrunner, but also shed some light on how our product plays. This may introduce or open more lines of communications between the currently divided groups. Moreover, we have already began to move forward with pre-alpha development of our product, so time will tell exactly how people will feel about the project.
@Rotten Luck, understand that we're more than aware of your concerns. However, we don't feel that the divide is particular bad; though not particularly good either. I personally feel that it will give players something to choose from. If The Phoenix Project starts to garnish the larger audience, while the other projects fade into darkness, it points us in a given direction. If all products are gaining equal ground, it shows that the market is in favor of neither. I've spent a lot of time here in the titan forums doing research and I seem to have found a market for both something original and a recreation of CoH's former glory. As our project is all about the community, I think we have the proper guidance medium to insure that we deliver the proper gameplay elements to maneuver us in the right direction.
@HEATSTROKE, this is the emotional attachment that many of us have with the game. When you spoke of it being a gold mine, I thought of that "gold" as being all the valued time spent and not so much it's monetary value to NC Soft. Just 2 weeks ago, one of our supergroup leaders and I laughed until we couldn't stand talking about some of the great times we had; especially when we brought newbs from work into high level areas and struggled to survived; many times we ended up hauling ass out of hellified situations thanks to their outrageous actions haha. But those are the experiences that stuck with us, and can't be replaced by any others. I was also a subscription customer until the end, with no plans to deviate. So please know that we will always be working hard to keep the spirit of the original community and that experience alive with our project.
@downix, thanks for clearing the air about that. I was supposed to post an update here this morning, but I've been busy preparing the UI art for the project.
@Kaos Arcanna, that is a great philosophy to present. I fully agree with you on this, and I feel that's how it will eventually play out.
@Tiberian Fiend, Agreed. As I stated earlier, I also feel it helps for direction and information.
@ukaserex, Unfortunately, we are looking to continue the addictive nature of City of Heroes. Maybe we could programmer a setting that lets players initiate a timer that prevents them from logging in past a set daily, weekly, or monthly duration. What do you think about something like that?
@Ironwolf, I played about 2-3 hours Monday-Friday, and usually 6-7 hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Now that I think about it, that was quite a bit of time spent. Maybe that's why most of us can't let go haha.
