… NCsoft wasn’t interested, according to a former Paragon Studios developer. (I’m not naming the developer in order to offer the weak shield of protection against what could be a Legal Hammer of Enforcement + 5.) Work had been done on CoH/V 2.0, but without NCsoft’s willingness to support it, Paragon Studios wasn’t able to get too serious about developing this title for launch.
CoH2.0 had been viewed – at least at the point this developer had been involved – as an evolution of CoH/V, not a completely separate title. CoH/V characters could have been imported into CoH2.0. It would have served as a fresh start that removed a number of problems (especially in the combat engine) from CoH/V while also building on the title’s existing strengths.
But NCsoft wasn’t willing to invest the money or backing required to do this. (This is pure speculation on my part – not that it has ever stopped me – but I don’t believe NCsoft Korea HQ never really understood the appeal of CoH/V. The Korean version, City of Hero, had bombed badly. As NCsoft Korea took tighter control over North America / Europe-focused NC Interactive, this lack of understanding resulted in less flexibility for Paragon Studios to develop other titles.)
So what else had Paragon Studios been working on? Another super-powered being MMO set in a modern world, but much darker than CoH/V and more towards something like The Secret World. That was scrapped. Then there was a more recent Unity-based Minecraft-like game spread across separate islands. Also scrapped.
In the views of this developer, there appears to have been a widening gap between what Korean-based NCsoft wanted from its MMOs and what Paragon Studios was looking to develop. The two different ideologies weren’t matching up. And as a 100% publisher-owned studio, Paragon Studios really didn’t have much leverage to go its own way.
Add in declining revenues and this is how we got from there to here.
World Class Villains 
Just one more reason not to purchase another NCSoft product or support the company in any way. As a customer I will spend my money where the Dev’s and publishers actually listen to and care about their customers.
fix it NCSoft, or I and thousands of others will never be your customer again!!!
Wow, really? Not a dime, NCSoft…. A direct sequel to CoH? A grimdark super-powered TSW-esque game? And you didn’t want to fund them? Not another dime from me. Ever.
COH may not have been popular in Korea, but it is here in the US. A version 2 would have had a built in customer base and attracted new people too. It`s a great game, and a version 2 would have been even better.
MMO sequels are risky things, but the idea of upgrading CoH/V to a new version with improved combat engine could have really brought in a new crowd.
Thank you very much for an informative and interesting article. Definitely puts an interesting twist on the efforts by the heroes of Paragon City to save our world. In the end, though, the real reasons behind NCsoft’s decision do not matter as much to us as convincing them to work with us to find a way to keep it online. We are heroes. This is what we do.
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