As the title suggests: this topic is the question of "should we pick it up where sunset left us and if so, then how?"
We are expecting many new players to come to our new home, the City of Titans, many who know little to nothing about how it all started. As such, I felt it was time, being a new year and all, to address how much of our struggle should be part of the origin. How much should be backstory? How much should be revealed in the opening? What would the recreation of our efforts look like in the game? And what would the impact of this intro have on the rest of the game?
I want to hear as many ideas about this as possible. Any and all input is welcome. .
EDIT: Bear in mind: I meant only the spirit of Sunset, the actual content is copyright protected, but so far the only "nod" towards CoH is the large Pheonix statue. We currently have no backstory about it. Again: sorry about the confusion. We are all aware that we cannot recreat City of Heroes in any measure. But a backstory or short narrative will not send us to court. Just something to set the tone of rising from the ashes
I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.
o.O What do you mean exactly? I'm not sure they should really have anything in game that mentions CoH.
All the various marks and things that made up CoH did not revert to the public domain or anything. NCSoft still owns all that, even the characters we made (if they even exist any more), and could sue if any of that is used by others without permission.
City of Titans needs to be able to stand on its own, and grow on its own, or it will be nothing more than a hangout for those who live in the past..
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
No.
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Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Lol that is funny. Serves me right for posting while tired.
None of us want to recreate the content of the CoH Sunset, only the spirit. Even the trailers for the game thus far have implied that we rose from the ashes of a dead world. What good is such a powerful symbolism if not used properly?
I must stress: I do not advocate living in the past. City of Heroes is dead. But we cannot go on the assumption that everyone who plays the game will understand how it all started. So: we give them the tone. We feed them imagery. We make a new world where you can find the ashes of the old still smouldering. Not living in the past. Acknowledging that there was a past for us to lay foundations atop. To build a city on.
Many of you are asking "how?" And that is exactly why I brought up the topic. Not to bully and shove my opinion down your throats. Just to generate ideas. Toss them back and forth. See if we can create something from it all..
I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.
Lin said what needed saying.
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Other than saying Titan City was built upon a destroyed New York City (to pick a random city) and rose from those ashes, what do you mean (which is what CO has done with Detroit becoming Millennium City btw)?
Yes, the closing of CoH is what got CoT the Rising from the Ashes and being a spiritual successor, but it really doesn't need much more than that. Maybe a couple of easter eggs (not over done) but CoT should stand on it's own, be it's own, and hopefully attract an even bigger and just as good community of players.
I appreciate what you are reaching for. Unfortunately we must tread carefully and avoid entanglements with intellectual property owned by others.
There are many reasons we chose to develop a new game from the ground up. There have been many changes in technology over the last ten years that may be of use in the effort. We are very mindful of property rights, as I stated, and need to create our own universe. We also have an opportunity to consider what players may find of interest without having to undo anything (a prime reason we want your input on these forums).
One of the items we are seeking to capture is the rare and intangible spirit of a lost community: something that's hard to define, and yet something we feel is critical for a super-powered MMO. A place to feel at home, to meet new friends, and to share experiences.
So, CoT will have its own backstory, its own cityscape, and its own flavor. You are welcome to make your case for connections and representations to what came before, but know that we will be working hard to prevent overstepping where we should not.
Setting all that aside, I do encourage you to keep sharing your thoughts on how we can create a strong, friendly, and fun community. Its really surprising how much of what needs doing touches on that aspect of the effort.
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Terlin
[color=#ff0000]The Bullpen[/color]
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Which is really my point: what is the phoenix for? Why stop at city being destroyed? We are talking about a whole other universe. If we remain unspecific we could touchdown on a dynamic similar to the Portal's Corporation. There are so many ways to take this. On a personal note: I just want to explore these ideas, to see if a good one comes from it. I am coming to the player base to pick everyone's head for ideas, because this game is being made for the community. *None* of us want to see Statesman in this game, we do *not* want to see Atlas Park. Many of our forum users are adamantly *against* the idea of tethering ourselves to CoH (myself included). But we have a responsibility to take a look at this route and make use of the resources we are given. We do not want CoH in this game, but we can use the *concept*, the *spirit*, and the emotional *hook* of a dying universe as a means of locking the player in and launching the present story into conflict. When, where, how, and *if* this is represented is it left to the devs and the community, this forum is simply facilitating the creative process.
Thank you for the kind words, unfortunate that no one is quite grasping the idea implied: however, it is no matter. Back to the drawing board! Happy new year! :D
I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.
There are some nods back to CoH, sure. IIRC, there's the Atlas hurricane, and something about Atlas 33. I think it's all in the Kickstarter updates.
But nods to the past are all you can really do without risking C&D letters.
Besides, how many cabbies did you see in Paragon City? None. And we've got at least one. So we're already improving, two years before ship date.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I don't recall dying universe being a big thing in CoH. Threats to the multiverse, but not dying, and threats to multiverse happen in DC and Marvel as well.
Yup, all very nice. Read it all and I'm not debating a word of it. I was simply suggesting a different approach. Not sure how you think that I was insinuating that we were not improving. I never said anything of the sort. The CoT devs are making vast improvements. And we are all fully aware of of the risk of getting sued over any connection to CoH. But, as i said before, the idea was to play on the spirit of sunset, a world ending and a new world beginning, nothing more. But there are plenty of other ideas out there, so he loss of this one is no biggie. Moving on :)
I don't get mad, I restructure the laws of quantum physics and resolve the situation with temporal engineering.
I doubt that any player created content still exists. They would need to switch the servers back on to check whether I had recreated my old whatever/whatever toon. I wonder if they even have the ability / expertise to do that.
I'm part of a group that exists in multiple games, I have old characters I imported (effectively) into a game that got closed. Can that game claim to own my character and group? I don't think so.
If I made a new character called Positron they may take issue, of course. But a bear called Fozzytron... fingers crossed for pork pie hats.
And it has to also be a hangout for those who live in the past, as well as something new. Even if just to earn the "let it go" badge.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
I could care less about what mobs we fight, what the name of the zones are. What the look of the game is.
As long as I can choose between various powersets in an AT and then put points into the powers to make them different all will be well...
PLEASE dont make me work up a tree like every other game in the world.
I want to be able to build a support toon that offers +defense for my teammates and then pick blasts that i can slot differently...
In the spirit of City of Heroes.
Pretty please.
personally (and I know I am kinda new here), I think that CoT should stand on it own, however if it was to have a 'nod' to the old CoX game, the back story should be something along the lines of:
" A world, destroyed by an alien army from dimensions unknown. A group of refugee heroes and villains fleeing from the destruction of their homeland having lost everything, find themselves in a world that is unaware of what had transpired before. A world that needed heroes to protect it, or villains to pluck it.
Choose your path, protect the innocent, or enslave them. It's your choice."
This way we have a backstory that makes a nod to CoX and the Sunset days without being explicit, but also leaves the imagination open to newer player who had never played CoX and are just starting out. Of course with this sort of start you can build in story lines which hint at the possibility of great destruction coming from across the multiverse, but never know when.
That sort of beginning is like DCUO's beginning, pigeon holed into a background (in this case, it says you're from a world destroyed.
And personally, I don't like to say Paragon was destroyed. The game was shut down, that doesn't mean the world was destroyed.
Yeah ... it's so much more accurate to say it was murdered in cold blood by greedy imbeciles who need to b-
[b]CONNECTION LOST[/b]
[b]NO CARRIER[/b]
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Yes I know it is basic standard format, but it works. It will help new players have some sort of backstory to start off with, while giving those of us who were there on that final day some sort of remembrance.
Shutdown, murdered in cold blood, or destroyed. It does not really matter as they are all true, and we will never see the original CoX come back. It no longer exists but in our fond memories.
However you look at it, this game is not a re-hash of old memories, but a new start. Yes things can be put in place for those of us who remember, but it is no longer about what was. it is now about what will become.
Just a thought..... an idea that occurred to me just now.......
How about a start that both types of people can enjoy. Imagine with me if you will....
After the character creation, the tutorial starts. Your character is a fully fledged super hero fighting some nefarious enemy involved in a major invasion, placed in a city somewhere (say London, England. Could even have something that says "Hero One" on it). As you finish the tutorial and defeat the bad guy(s), a wormhole/timeslip/portal/other device opens up and sucks you in (without you ever killing the big bad tutorial boss guy) and you find yourself on a new planet, in a new city. The City of Titans, bereft of all but your most basic powers, with none of the local currency (what ever it may be in-game) and no base. A NPC runs up to you and asks if you are a hero and willing to help him/her, at this point you can decide your alignment by either helping or enslaving/killing and going from there.
Still a little pre-boxed I admit, but has a more involved starting point/backstory than before.
Or even better. One can start out a hero from the world we're now playing in! :)
That's usually my default assumption. I have done heroes from other worlds than the one they're adventuring in, but they're the exceptions.
My preference: A nice, big, text field (preferably with some HTML or at least RTF capability) for each player to put in however much background/biography/backstory they want for each of their characters. And a button on a pull-down menu so you can check out other players' characters' background/biography/backstory.
As for the Question of the OP:
I think the background already set up by the devs gives enough of an air of struggle and rebuilding. Anything more explicit should be on the web page where new players will eventually go to buy/download The Box.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
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Ha. I logged in just to rofl.
+2
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
One thing I loved about CoH was that we could write a decent bio for our characters, and I hope we get to do that here too.
The way I saw my characters in CoH was that their world would continue, we just wouldn't be there to see it. Some of my characters hailed from NYC or San Francisco, even a couple of them came from Dubai, all seeking to do good and hone their skills. They just went home, taking the knowledge and skills they had picked up in Paragon City with them.
For practical purposes, we really can't cut and paste from CoH- a few coy references is really all we're going to get away with. And I'm okay with that.
I'm pretty sure that just putting references to your character's previous experience as a hero in Paragon City wouldn't constitute an actionable IP infringement, nor would using writing fanfic using CoH as a setting. Any sort of professional publishing of such fanfic, though, could readily be construed as an IP infringement.