This whole thing would make an excellent case study on the Dunning-Kruger Effect (the notion that incompetent people grossly overestimate their ability). To me, the sad part isn't that people are "beating a dead horse" with complaints. It's how the lack of accountability that comes with Kickstarter MMO projects have soured so many donors. I'm far from alone in regretting my contribution here and vowing to never contribute again. Apparently, anyone can say they can do anything in whatever timeframe they chose in their initial offering on Kickstarter without producing timely results and without any penalty. This project raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. Rather than feel sorry for the volunteers who chose to work on this (now THAT is a dead horse), I am appalled by the lack of consumer protections in place to allow them to get away with such incompetence for so long of a time. We need to stop coddling these people just because they are volunteers and come to grips with who is actually benefitting most from this project; because it's certainly not the vast majority people who funded the lion's share of it in 2013.

Javacado wrote:

Communication for the project is scattered between the years of forum thread comments and now the Discord server, but the current development team for City of Titans have acknowledged that the original team that created the Kickstarter were over-ambitious in their efforts to deliver a new MMO made from the ground-up so quickly after the then-closure of City of Heroes. People donated out of desperation and the promise that their old home would be soon replaced in the coming years (at that time 2015) by something newer and shinier. The year came and went and the concerns proceeded to grow from there yet development, not matter how big or small, continued to be made. Those that are still actively apart of the development team continue to work to see the project launch since thats what was the Kickstarter promised. The truth of the matter is that most of those that had a hand in making the Kickstarter page left the project years ago now with new/existing volunteers taking their place in a dual/multi-role positions.

This part is significant. Because it's true- the original team made a huge mistake, and many have since left the project. Those of us on the project now are actually mostly all donators ourselves. The options were either the project fails and everybody's out their money, or we pick up the mantle and try to get it done. It's not much more complex than that.

Fire Away wrote:

Meet the new boss (same as the old boss). Sorry, I couldn't resist.

So the solution here is to bleed this dry of funds before coming to the realization it will not be a viable business venture? Who are the losers in this proposition? It's not the volunteers. They gain valuable software development experience at someone else's expense. I wonder how the individual who gave $10000 to this would feel. Prove me wrong. I'd much prefer an honest assessment of where this project is at both financially and in terms of completion (which we have never really had) from an independent party and a return of cents on a dollar to KS backers if need be.

I can appreciate how passionately folks want this to be successful and how hard volunteers are trying to make that happen. I really hate to be the bad guy here. But I can't ignore what I believe are the realities of the situation and who is getting hurt by this approach. IMHO, the "volunteer model" (not paying salaries, benefits and rent) is only serving to delay the inevitable. Taxes cost money. Software licenses cost money. Servers cost money. Paying people to do things that volunteers can't or won't do cost money. Those are just a few of MWM past and current expenses off the top of my head. At the rate things are going (and the quality of what is being produced), the well will run dry well before this comes out of beta and starts generating revenue to sustain operations. And I would speculate that even if it launched "tomorrow" it would still not be a successful business enterprise competing against both the "old game" and other newer games that are done better. CoT is circa 2012 in both appeal and appearance. The chasing of Unreal engine versions is a vicious cycle. Explain to me how the new regime will resolve all this. My point is the desire for the end goal (a CoH successor) is so strong it clouds good judgment concerning this project.

I've heard this called a hobby activity. Well, I wish someone would foot the bill for my hobbies.

I feel so badly for people like the OP who asks an innocent question and winds up disappointed (I honestly can't see how he or she wouldn't be).

Thank you for allowing me to comment without resorting to personal attacks. And with that I will disappear for another year to keep more horses from dying.

No, this game really won't have to compete much at all with the old game...to play the old game you have to know about and then go and figure out how to download the client and the game. While that might be the exact same scenario for CoT in the beginning, there is at least the possibility of CoT getting on EPICs game launcher, since it uses UE, and be seen by millions of players. Sure, it's not a guarantee of success but its a better shot than anything else at being a true spiritual successor to CoH.

I have my fair share of complaints about this project...but them continuing to work on the project is not one of them. Donating on KS is an investment, especially once it is successfully funded. You shouldn't expect to get the dollars back you donated. There's a separate discussion about certain moral obligations that should be kept but that's a different discussion.

No one cares about your hobby...its not something that would benefit anyone else. If this is a 'hobby activity', it at least has the intent of benefiting the fans that backed it and want to play the game.

There are different questionable assets that looks like they are, at the latest, 2012...some look much older, often mixed with more realistic or higher resolution assets. They've said some of that will change with UE optimizations that haven't happened yet because it doesn't make sense to optomize until you're closer to being done. We'll just have to wait and see.

Bottom line is this - if you want a spiritual successor, this is, in my opinion, your best bet. May not be a great bed, or even a good bet...but it exists.

They are supposed to be doing quarterly updates, so the next update would be this week, so we'll see if that actually happens and if we get any real updates or news.

Yes, there will be a Q2 update. We're in the process of trying to get some more technical details for it. Can't promise this one will be big or exciting, but it will be coming.

Fire Away wrote:

Ok I'll bite. I lied and I'm back Javacado just for you. You can thank me later. You are an interesting individual. You are tired when people keep complaining and you are tired when they go away. I guess you are just tired when they disagree. Get some rest.

It all boils down to your confidence level in MWM (whatever regime you choose). I'm convinced they are incompetent and may or may not even realize it. You aren't. You are right; here we are. But it won't last forever.
 
It's not my job to fix this. I didn't get "us" into this mess (with a ridiculous Kickstarter submission). And I am not responsible for saying I can get "us" out (with a group of volunteers woefully lacking in resources to do so). That would be MWM past and present versions. This "project" has no schedule, no financial accountability, high customer complaints, and results that are less than satisfactory over a period of years. But you already know that many times over. My view is it exists so volunteers can use donations to fund experiments with the Unreal engine for their own gratification at their own pace as a "game within a game" (former CoH players playing at being developers and losing). I also believe it exists to provide false hope both internally and to people such as yourself who are willing to accept whatever incomplete, poorly done things they put out over time as acceptable progress. Any viable business would have folded their tent already. But this "business" has no payroll, offers no health benefits and has a source of questionably obtained "gifted" funds which allows them to linger around more than most. So no, I am not impressed with their tenacity. They have mainly retreated to Discord because they get justifiably criticized everywhere else (including now here). Needless to say, I like my chances of being more correct on the competency part than yours Javacado.

But since you asked about my plan of action, the first thing I would do is stop asking for contributions. That is just sleazy IMHO unless and until there is something worth contributing to. Enough people have a bad taste in their mouth about this already. The second thing I would do is throw everything I had at convincing a publisher (one with a proven track record and knows what they are doing) that this is a worthwhile (and yes profitable) endeavor. If CoT is such a great thing, surely there is somebody out there that has the knowledge and the resources to partner to bring it home in my lifetime (although I'm 70 now so that might be dicey). The third thing I would do is pull the plug if #2 failed in six months, apologize publicly and give back what money I could. But that is just me because I see more harm in letting this drag out than say Dark Cleric. It does beg the question though over how long this will last in this state. My guess is funds will determine that whether we are privy to this information or not.

How much someone contributed on Kickstarter has zero bearing on this discussion for a lot of ethical reasons I won't go into. And please don't get me started on MWM ethics. I gave $75 and I wouldn't be surprised if you already know that somehow. I bet MWM would give me $75 just to go away tomorrow. But the principle of the thing bothers me quite a bit in case you couldn't tell. I consider myself a pretty level-headed guy ("You can't cheat an honest man"). But I got bamboozled here ("If something sounds too good to be true it probably is"). This boomer still says bamboozle. I can count on one hand how many times that I have been taken like this. I admit, it sticks in my craw. Since I absolutely loathe playing CoT (because it sucks), I decided to get $75 in entertainment value thinking about this and maybe influencing MWM to act more responsibly and maybe preventing somebody else from getting suckered. It's not the greatest cause in the world but I enjoy the mental exercise almost as much as I would playing a successor to CoH. I concede most people wouldn't be bothered. I give most of my arguments over on Kickstarter out of respect that this is MWM's domain; although that now appears to be Discord, where I refuse to participate.

I hope this response is adequate. I'm not expecting you to agree.

I can provide some context on a couple points that you brought up, actually. This has been detailed in discussions and updates already, but I'll sum it up for you;

To the first point of the original Kickstarter (something we've already said several times)- the original Kickstarter was not feasible and the people that set it up have since quit in shame when they realized they couldn't do it. Full stop. They should have known better, and us donators should have known better.
To be clear, it wasn't malicious, they really did intend to make a new MMO to replace CoH after it closed. They just didn't know what they were getting into. Didn't realize how much work an MMO actually takes.

Only after the Kickstarter closed (along with Kickstarter's refund system) did people face the truth. The people working on the project now were Kickstarter donators just like you. We got taken, just like everybody else. The options were to either see the thing just shut down and maybe people get refunded a fraction of what they donated or step up and try to finish, using the existing funding as best as possible.

To the second point of asking for contributions, the plan was not to until the game was much further along. The store was opened the store by request. Lots of people that missed the Kickstarter still wanted to get in on it. And, as even you've previously pointed out, MMO's are expensive. It'd be stupid to turn down money that we will eventually need.
Also, there have been talks with a number of publishers. The offers ranged from wanting to buy the concept from us and get rid of us (and presumably the "spiritual successor" part) entirely to wanting to turn it into a heavily monetized mobile game. It was decided it's better to not take the money and run, so that the game can be the one that was actually promised.

I think you're failing to realize that this isn't some game studio looking to steal people's money. This is donators, just like you, volunteering their time to make the game that they themselves donated towards because they don't like the option of just giving up with the chance of getting partial to no refunds. I say "they" because I'm just a PR guy that volunteered later, not a "real" dev. But I'm a Kickstarter backer, too.