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City of Heroes: Game Sale FAQ
Szark
News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420
Further to yesterday's story that Cryptic Studios had sold their share of the City of Heroes franchise to NCsoft, the development studio added a FAQ to their site.
How did Cryptic Studios arrive at the decision to sell City of Heroes and City of Villains to NCsoft?
When we considered the future of CoH/CoV and the future of Cryptic Studios, we had a difficult decision to make. We've invested a lot of time, effort, talent and passion into the games, and we care about them. But we've got a lot of other ideas we're excited about too.
Ultimately, we decided that selling to NCsoft was the best and right thing to do for the CoH community. CoH/CoV will be in good hands at NCsoft, and the transition will be as seamless as possible. With this move, we now have complete creative freedom and the resources we need to develop new games.How will Cryptic be involved with CoH in the future?
Cryptic will work closely with the team at NCsoft to create a smooth transition and gameplay will not be affected. At the end of the transition all ongoing activities will be managed by NCsoft.
What will happen to my City of Heroes account?
You should see no change at all to your CoH account. Future service will be completely under NCsoft's umbrella and customers should contact them for product support and service by phone.
You can contact NCsoft at the NCsoft support center, or by phone at (512) 225-6359 (billing and technical support issues only).
Read more here.
Comments
I really DON"T have a warm and fuzzy about this.
Cryptic is basically taking all their creative and application people and moving on.
NCsoft maybe be able to maintain what is there, but what about new additions?
Not liking this at all. Looks like Chapter 11 will be the last new content for the game : /
Oh and it was rumored that Cryptic would be developing a MMO for Marvel or DC comics,, I can't remember which.
Maybe this is how they do it without conflict of interest?
Anyone able to add or take away from this?
I personally believe this move was forced (either by NCSoft or by Microsoft/Marvel). You can't work on two conflicting games or products and hope to make money.
Company A (Cryptic) can't work/develop/market both Product A (CoX) & Product (A) (Marvel Online) and expect to be paid by Company B (NCSoft) & Company C (Microsoft/Marvel).
I'm leaning on it being a forced move from NCSoft to hopefully protect ideas/developments/future updates in CoX that Marvel Online couldn't use.
I agree with the above. Now Cryptic can devote full time to the Marvel MMO.
Where does that leave City? It depends how many of the creative team move over. Many of the concept people are said to be making the transition which, if true, will be a good thing. We can only hope.
I didn't have a warm fuzzy feeling either, to tell you the truth, but this is what I got in my CoH newsletter yesterday:
So it does look like most of the original CoH team will still be there developing new content. All we can do is wait and see.
Ah, and what Cryptic is working on is Marvel Universe Online, btw. What I kind of wanted to see was a "City of Heroes 2" with a new game engine and graphics (and improved content). I wonder if that will ever happen now with MUO on the works.
E.
I am hoping that this would allow NCsoft to offer "station pass" for all their MMORPGs.
City 2 was never going to happen. When Marvel sued them for copywrite infringement, I think at that point the City people decided that this would be the only shot at this game. I don't know all the story but it sounds like talk about developing the Marvel game started real soon after the lawsuit was settled.
I dunno. Still sounds like there might be some lack of content and support in the months to come. I have a current sub right now, but I am a little shakey on this, as it came out of nowhere.
Let's all worry about it...
Marvel settled out of court but it has been viewed that they were not able to enforce their case. I think part of their settlement was that Cryptic would do the MUO. Unfortunatly, settlements do not disclose exactly what the compromise was.
I belive that Cryptic is starting to get involved heavily with their Marvel Universe Online and can't pay their code monkey's unless they allow NCSoft to take the reins. Cryptic is a development group, but they have only developed one game (a great game btw
) I'm sure that developing a 2nd MMO and maintaining their first would be more of a financial burden (course, I claim no knowledge of the finances involved in running a company this is pure speculation on my part)
The other thing is that Marvel see the fact that the CoX IP is a conflict of interest with Marvel IP.
Since NCSoft still has a stake in CoH, they have the resources to keep the updates going while keeping most of the original team in pay. Although I don't like the Carrot/Stick approach (ie "we are making big changes so here, have some prestige and other free stuff)
I'm curious about the other projects they have from the concept art on their development website
your arguement is so persuasive, so filled with knowledge and insight. You back up your argument very articulately, with suggestions of improvements and raising examples to glorify your position....oh wait, you didn't
Ive worked in the game industry for a very long time. I can tell you that most of you are off base with this. This is a very good thing for the "CIty Of" franchise. The team lead Matt Miller who has litterally turned the game around in the past year or so will still be at the helm with a bigger budget, and more staff to work with. Things will happen faster and better this way. All the fact are there if you actually take the time to read the real articles, and press releases from the actual companies. The information you get here is very, very limited. If you don't follow the game industry as a whole, or a particualr compnay, and comment based on what you read here. well, you just make yourself look foolish.
This transition will be seamless, NCSoft has always been a 50% partner, and been involved with all aspects of the game. It is better suited to handle the game at this point then Cryptic. There is no negative here, NCsoft purchased the game to make sure it's best investment is getting the attention it desrvers. This means good things for subscribers. They already announced free access to the COV if you own COH, and COH if you own COV. That alone sets the tempo. There will be free prestige for per SG members in your SGs 20,000 per member. All debt wiped free for your charcters, and so on. It's a new beginning for a game that deserve it. They can now prep for the competition, and as we all know competitive markets usually benefit the consumer. COH is going to have to compete with MOU, and DC's venture in the online world. It's business 101, and NCSoft made the right move strategicly. Now the next logical move would be to make the product better.
Personally, I think Cryptic did a half assed job with these games, they're so very limited in scope and content. I pray that NCSoft will make sweeping changes to these games that it will actually bring new life to them, as in bringing back old subscribers and a bunch of new ones too.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
The entirety of the current team that's been working on this game(minus Statesman) moved to the new development studio NCsoft is setting up for them. On top of that the new studio is hiring more folks. They appear to be planning to "double or triple" the size of their development team.
Personally, I think they'll keep up the free expansions, and additionally start doing paid expansions on top of that. Or at least that's my take on all the 'build the franchise' wording they keep throwing around.
Well Cryptic didn't keep all their creative devs, Positron moved over to NCSoft as well as a few others. Though I have no doubt that this happened due to the fact that Cryptic was making Marvel Universe Online.
Oh and it's SOE that's making DC Online.