Cog Headquarters - my take on it

[Whiskerpounce the Fishertoon]

WARNING: The following is not one of those Cog HQ, Cog Nation, or Boss ideas. If you’re looking for something like that, feel free to turn back. If you want to know what I think about the “original” Cog Headquarters, read on.

Okay, this is my theory on what the “original” Cog Headquarters was going to be like, before Disney decided to make the four separate HQs we know today, instead. This isn’t all guesswork – I have proof, which is the “backstage” articles on the official site, and the decompiled phase files for Sellbot HQ.


PART ONE: What I know from Backstage and the Official Site

The Backstage articles, which can be found here and here, were written by the Toontown Devs before Sellbot HQ was released. These talk about their progress on creating Cog HQ, which, according to the first backstage, was going to be a neighborhood all by itself.

[img]http://img514.**************/img514/3295/coghqtheoryfigure1or4.png[/img]

As you can see in this screenshot of an old video on the official site, Toontown originally intended to have 3 new normal neighborhoods after Donald’s Dreamland. First is a stadium-like neighborhood, known by players as “Goofy Stadium”, which was going to attach to TTC, DG, and a gray neighborhood. Goofy Stadium was replaced with Goofy Speedway, which did not have streets, and only lead to TTC. Second is a reddish neighborhood with flowers [known by a few as Fluffy’s Funny Farm or The Isle of Lost Gags], which would attach to DG, DD, and BBHQ. This was replaced with Acorn Acres, which had no streets, and only lead to DD and BBHQ. Third is a gray, round neighborhood, which would attach to MML, DDL, and Goofy Stadium. It was replaced with absolutely nothing [not even a cloud], as GSW has no streets, and DDL and MML were directly connected. Now, what does this have to do with Cog HQ? Well, I believe that the last neighborhood, with its gray, un-toonish appearance, was going to be Cog HQ.

Okay, back to the Backstage [no awful joke intended]. The first one shows the ever-controversial “Arm Factory” picture, which was long believed to be a screenshot of Bossbot HQ, before the real thing came out, and the majority of TTK’s noob population was proven wrong.


KEEP THIS BOSSBOT ARM FACTORY IN MIND. It is important to the conclusion of the theory.

The second backstage is shorter, but it has some more important info. If you look at the text carefully, it mentions “factories”, as in more than one. We currently know of two – the Bossbot “Arm Factory”, and what later became the Sellbot HQ factory. It also says that Skelecogs would patrol the streets, which reinforces my theory of Cog HQ being that neighborhood – you need to have a neighborhood to have streets.


PART TWO: Investigating the Phase Files

Since there isn’t anything else I can get out of the backstage, and DEFINITELY nothing to be found in-game, there is only one place left to look – The phase files. After decompiling them through a method which I will not describe here [PM me to know how I did it], I looked at the graphics for the game, or, to be more specific, what they were called. Cashbot, Lawbot, and Bossbot HQ had nothing. Sellbot HQ, however, was a completely different story.

First up were the music files. There was nothing major in here, but a few vague hints to it being one neighborhood. The factory music is entitled CHQ_FACT_bg, which I presume stands for Cog HQ Factory Background. This probably is just a coincidence, but it says “Cog HQ”, not “Sellbot HQ”, even though Sellbot HQ is the only one with factories. However, the music is used in all HQs except Bossbot, so again, probably just a coincidence. There was also an unused music file called encntr_head_suit_theme, which I presume was going to be the theme of the All-Cog Boss, if one was going to exist, as the phase files call cogs “suits” just as much as they call them Cogs. Lastly, the music file for the Sellbot/Cashbot HQ courtyard is called encntr_suit_HQ_nbrhood. My reasons for listing this should be obvious, but if you don’t get it, I’ll leave you with this – It stands for Encounter Cog HQ Neighborhood. There are some more pieces of music in here, including more unused ones, but they really didn’t have anything important. Also, the sound effects folder didn’t have anything useful, and neither did a few with things I didn’t know the purpose of, so I won’t cover them.

The “maps” [textures] folder, though, is where everything got interesting. In almost the very beginning, I noticed a file called ArmFactorysmokestackWarm. Upon closer examination, I realized it DID look like the smokestacks from the Arm Factory model shown in Backstage. But what would something from a Bossbot Factory be doing in the phase for Sellbot HQ? :shifty: Continuing to look through the folder, I noticed that most [but not all] files had Cog HQ in the name instead of Sellbot HQ. Looking some more, I saw a large group of files with “Footfactory” in the name. Arm Factory, Foot Factory, I’m starting to see a pattern here... I also noticed that, while some textures for the Factory simply had “Sellbotfactory” in the name, many more had “SellbotLegFactory”. Yep, definitely a pattern…

Now, the models folder. The “char” [characters] subfolder didn’t have anything interesting, but I did notice models for 2 unused objects, presumably factory traps like Goons – Botcams and Botfoots. Maybe the botfoot would be in the Foot factory? :P In the “CogHQ” folder, there was, to my sadness, nothing about the arm or foot factories, or even about the Cog HQ neighborhood. In fact, the only interesting thing in this folder was the name of the Sellbot Factory’s interior – SelbotLegFactory. The remaining model folder , gui, only had the model for the Cog Disguises page, so nothing to comment about there.


PART THREE: My conclusion

This part is all speculation, but it’s backed-up speculation. Basically, it’s what I think Cog HQ would have been like, if Disney hadn’t made the choice to split it into four HQs, with all of Cog HQ’s material going into SBHQ.

Cog HQ would have three streets, with coggish names such as “Stock Street”. These streets would have cog buildings on them, with equally coggish names. As expected, toons could take them over to make them into Toon buildings, which would presumably look like TTC buildings, as the “style” of the streets is that of the cog buildings. Wandering these streets are CBHQ-leveled Skelecogs of various types.
The “playground” is the Cog HQ courtyard, which would be gray and mechanical, with more CBHQ-leveled cogs walking around, this time in suits. In the “corners” of this round place are the four factories, the Sellbot Leg Factory [which is exactly the same as the one we have right now], the [Cashbot or Lawbot] Foot Factory, the Bossbot Arm Factory, and the [whichever is left] [torso?] Factory. When you defeat a factory, you gain a part of that type’s suit. In the center of the courtyard, there is a huge tower/building/whatever, where you can fight the boss of all cogs, the [surprise!] Senior V.P. Maybe there could be different doors, where you can enter with your Sellbot, Cashbot, Lawbot, or Bossbot suit. Higher suits would have a tougher V.P. fight, where the cogs would be stronger, as well as a different type depending on your suit type. However, maybe tougher battles would give better SOS toons, I don’t know.


PART FOUR: There is no part four!

So, if you’re one of the rare internet-goers with the attention span to get this far, just let me say, thanks for reading this, and feel free to post comments/criticism/debates here, preferably the last two, because I want to figure out what Cog HQ was really going to be like.

WORD COUNT [including this little part down here]: 1333

[roger dog]

Disney has actually intended from the start of backstage to have the 4 Cog HQs. They just refer to it as "Cog HQ" because that was the name of the project in whole. Proof of this is back to the new map that came after the Sticky Note one. There were the 4 corners with dark grey smudges. (and there were the Under Construction signs)

The Backstage tells of things like Skelecogs patrolling the streets meaning the areas are protected. And how that was going to work was still in development. Most that you can find in the backstage is the basic idea behind each HQ. They are neighborhoods (look at the scenery, it looks like New York without all the fancy lights lol)

The reason for the unused music pieces is that it was replaced by newer ones. And a probable reason for the misleading names is that they are probably the exact same textures, models, etc. used as "sketches" for Cog HQ, as a whole, during it's development. To change it would mean to rewrite the entire coding for the game

The foot and camera you refer to have the Sellbot logo(either that or it's cingular) on them if you look close enough. They may have been an abandoned(or not yet implanted) idea of catching toons in the Boss rooms.