City of Titans , the in-development spiritual successor to the canceled superhero MMO City of Heroes , was a big hit on Kickstarter last year, raising more than double its not-insignificant goal of $320,000. But it turns out that a group of superhero stalwarts has even bigger plans for the game: They've been in negotiations with NCsoft since early this summer, and there's now a proposal on the table that could see the game become an official sequel.

Nate Downes, the president of City of Titans "volunteer studio" Missing Worlds Media, revealed the news yesterday in a Titan Network forum post . In it, he said that a small group of individuals, separate and distinct from the City of Titans team, has been in discussions with NCsoft for some time now about acquiring the rights to City of Heroes. It's been a very slow process and "will take a long time to conclude," but there's now a proposal in place that would see the City of Heroes IP spun into a separate company which would then license the existing game engine from NCsoft.

The deal as it stands would not include the user database, characters or source code, but it would set up a framework within which existing spiritual successors, like City of Titans, Valiance Online, and Heroes and Villains, could drop the "spiritual" bit, allowing them to make references to the original game and "enable the expansion of partnerships."

"The challenges we have been given we stepped up for and handled. Likely there will be discussions and adjustments right up until the moment the deal is signed. The whole thing may fall apart. For all we know, everything done so far has been nothing but a delaying tactic so they can say once again that they tried to work with the community to no avail. But until such time that becomes clear, we will continue forward in good faith," Downes wrote. "They could have ignored us from day 1, but they did not. They may not operate at the pace we would like, but they are at the pace they are comfortable with. At this point, the ball is in their court."

So while it's obviously far from a sure thing, there's a reasonable hope that it could happen. That in itself is an impressive accomplishment, so who knows? Maybe Paragon City will rise again after all.