NCSoft! Cryptic! Gah!

Big shuffle-up (kinda) in the whole CoX development realm, per this announcement.

NCsoft® Corp, the world’s leading developer and publisher of online computer games, today announced the formation of a new development studio in Mountain View, California. The announcement comes as the company begins a renewed push to further develop the City of Heroes® property, which is now 100 percent owned by NCsoft. Previous to today, ownership of the intellectual property (IP) was split between NCsoft and Cryptic Studios, the original developer of the project.

And the full announcement:

Today we announced the acquisition of City of Heroes from Cryptic Studios™ and the formation of our new Northern California studio which we are informally calling NCsoft® NorCal (click here to read the press release). Nearly the entire City of Heroes team from Cryptic Studios has joined the NCsoft team and together we have formed the core of our new studio.

The City of Heroes franchise has been a tremendous success for both NCsoft and Cryptic. More than three years after the City of Heroes launch, our community is strong and thriving. There are so many great ideas and plans, both from our development team and from the players, and we can’t wait to make them a reality. Our team is 100% dedicated to City of Heroes and we are extremely excited about the present and the future!

Click here to read the Dev Corner chat with General Manager Brian Clayton and learn more details.

Special Thanks to Our Players

Now back to you, the players. You are the lifeblood of our game. In celebration of our new studio and our exciting plans, and in order to thank you for the fantastic community that you have built, we are pleased to announce the following.

Full Access to City of Heroes and City of Villains®
All players with City of Heroes retail* accounts will now have access to City of Villains, and all City of Villains retail* accounts will now have access to City of Heroes. Players that didn’t previously have access to “the other side” will find that they do now. Just log in to check it out!

Debt Wipe
After the launch of Issue 11: A Stitch in Time this Fall, we are removing Debt from all characters and giving you a fresh start. Actual date will be announced shortly. Have fun in the mean time.

20,000 Prestige
Also after the launch of Issue 11, all Supergroups will receive an additional 20,000 Prestige per Supergroup member, meaning SGs could acquire up to 3 million Prestige based upon their Supergroup membership roster! Actual date will be announced shortly.

In the near future we will begin to share more information about our development plans. With this major reinvestment and effort ahead of us, we will take City of Heroes to new heights!

Huh.  All very exciting — almost too much so.

That more-detailed link above?

This has been an exciting week for NCsoft®! On the heels of the major new release of Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa®, we are happy to announce the full acquisition of the City of Heroes intellectual property (IP) and formation of a new studio in northern California dedicated to the ongoing development of the City of Heroes Franchise! This is the first step in a major reinvestment back into City of Heroes and City of Villains®. Over the coming years, we plan to aggressively develop and expand the franchise. I’m sure this raises questions about what this means for our awesome community of players and what the future means for their favorite heroes and villains. Rest assured, the future is indeed bright!

While we’ve acquired the full rights to the City of Heroes IP, we’ve also brought on board the solid core team of developers from Cryptic Studios: Matt “Positron” Miller (lead designer), Aaron Brady (lead engineer), and Ken Morse (lead artist). The management of City of Heroes will transition fully to NCsoft. I [Bryan Clayton] will still be the executive producer, my production team along with Ross Borden the director of business and marketing will also remain. We’ve been with the game since the early days and are committed to its long term success. Our community team, which has always been part of NCsoft, will also continue to be an integral part of the new studio. In the coming months we’ll be looking to add literally dozens more employees. We’ll have a full-fledged development studio to achieve our goals and we’ll be undergoing substantial, but careful, growth to get there.

I’m sure that you’re also asking, “What will happen to City of Heroes?” In the short term, you’ll see our major content expansions, the Issues, continue. Issue #11 is due out shortly and plans for Issue #12 and beyond are already underway. [..] We don’t expect the transition to the new studio to make a noticeable dent in our free Issue scheduling. As a player you shouldn’t see any ill-effects of this transition from a development or customer support perspective. In fact, you should see a significant positive impact on your game experience within the few months and beyond. Cryptic Studios is giving us all of the support we’ve asked for and has been tremendously helpful in this transitional process. All parties involved want what’s best for the franchise.

At this time, we’re not quite ready to disclose longer term plans. We’ll have the usual slate of announcements when we’re ready to reveal our plans. But, what I can say is that we’re building this new studio not just to maintain the status quo. We’re looking beyond the normal slate of free Issues for City of Heroes. We want to use City of Heroes as a focal point and really build on this franchise. We absolutely value the City of Heroes IP with its unique focus on the superhero genre, we’re really thrilled at the opportunities that full ownership brings to the table, and we can’t wait for the “City of” community to see all that we have in store for them. Now is the right time to get started on the next chapter!

The more PR-related announcement comes here.

And an interesting note on the boards here (from Ex Libris):

The decision for Cryptic Studios to sell COH was difficult as COH/COV was the foundation of their studio. A year ago Cryptic Studios signed a deal with Microsoft to develop Marvel Universe Online, which is due to the nature and genre of the material a directly competitive product.

Ultimately this decision was the best decision for the game and the community, as there is now clearly two separate groups working on both projects.

Statesman has been involved with MUO since that deal was signed, he has had a great influence on COH/COV and the development decisions in the past but currently and moving forward those decisions have rested on the shoulders of Matt ‘Positron’ Miller.

And yes, MUO is competition.

And here, from same:

You have probably answered most of these by now but:

i)Will we have a game to play over the next year or so?

ii)Does this move signal faster release of issues?

iii)Will there be a new ‘Statesman’?

iv)Will City of Villains see new content added to it?

v)Will sub fees increase?

Thanks!

i) The game will remain online and constant for the next year with our regular publishing schedule intact. We are in negotiations now about hardware upgrades for the servers, so there may be some down time associated with that, but it should be minor and we will be in communication with the community when that transpires.

ii) We hope this signifies faster iteration, with more people, more resources, and less communication sticking points all arrows point to yes.

iii) Statesman as the signature character will be determined, if I had my druthers it would be something the Community Team would acquire rights to, one can dream right?

iv) City of Heroes and City of Villains will be seeing new content. Both are award winning titles, and both deserve some attention, with additional resources we hope to be bringing the community wish lists to fruition.

v) Subscription fees will be determined by NCsoft, NCsoft has been researching every possible business model possible and will not make any decision affecting the community without clearly determining the bonus/backlash.

And here:

Manticore as in the person behind the sig Sean Fish, left COH and Cryptic after COV launch…ironically he works for NCsoft in Austin on some other project, but I heard rumors that he and Positron have been discussing the COH/COV Bible lately.

The person in charge of COH’s lore is Hero One, and speaking of shy… I’m still trying to get this guy to take a step out and introduce himself.

If you have been following the story arcs for Ouroboros this is our guy, his name is Joe Morrissey, and speaking of creative efforts, this guy is expecting his first arrival, un-known gender at this time sometime this week.

We’ll get him to pop on the boards and say hello soon.

And on the Statesman theme:

Statesman is part of the Intellectual Property that NCsoft just purchased.

Jack Emmert played that role while he was working on the project, Jack has since moved on to work on MUO and posts from a different name on the MUO forums.

And related:

Everyone from the current team signed on with NCsoft, this includes.

Sexy Jay
Ghost Widow
War Witch
BAB’s
Castle
Positron
all the programmers and other design staff that are not currently under signature names.

CuppaJo is working on Tabula Rasa and that is a project that she has been on for over a year and is very dedicated and excited about. Not to say she didn’t love COH/COV but she made the choice to move to that project and I don’t foresee that changing in the near future, especially since they just launched last week.

And here:

 I know this hasn’t been posted in this thread but here is a link to the newly updated hiring page for NCsoft. For the COH/COV project check out the Mountain View location.

There are 19 positions that were just announced.

For those interested in gainful gaming employment, check out the NCsoft North America Jobs Listing. Positions for “Mountain View” would be in our newly formed NCsoft NorCal Studio.

Hmmm.  If I mentioned I was raised in Mountain View, would I get a discount?

This all sounds like a generally good thing.  Time will, of course, tell.