I feel so betrayed. I don't know which website or who on it can even be trusted anymore.
I feel so betrayed. I don't know which website or who on it can even be trusted anymore. To be honest, i now no longer trust anyone involved in anything. These people that never truly lost CoH could have been here lying to everyone the entire time while gleefully playing the game like nothing ever happen. Sickening.
Got to be careful with what words are used, posts are being removed. What i will say is, I don't believe there is a future in what was shown. This was kept secret so there is no legal fallout and the chances of that ever changing would be NCsoft losing its copyright or selling its copyright. So basically, never.
Would it be out of line to ask a question everyone really wants to know? I.E Have the Titan people had access to this? If not, why wouldn't you have been if Leo is directly friends with the people here.It's a fair question, and one I've answered.
(I mean, remove if its out of line, I'm not trying to defame or attack anyone, I just think everyone wants an answer)
It's a fair question, and one I've answered.
I can only speak for myself, and the answer is no, I'm not on the private server.
Having said that, I've repeatedly said that many times, and each time, there's a contingent of people who refuse to accept that answer, people who use my denial as "proof" that I must be "in on it," which is why honestly, I encourage others not to bother answering. People are going to think what they want to think regardless of the answer, so it's kinda useless to actually answer.
As for why, I dunno. It's not like Leo and I are best buds. We chat about once every month or two, and most of the time it's not even about City of Heroes-related stuff at all. In any event, I'm taking him at his word in his statement to Massively that he knows that I avoid conflicts of interests with Titan. It's one of the reason he hosts the Paragon Chat client files instead of us here, to avoid possible unwelcome legal entanglements, since the Titan Network is hosted in the United States where we're extremely vulnerable to takedowns if we step out of line. Given that, maybe he just assumed that I wouldn't want to be a part of it. He's not incorrect in that assessment, in that if I were directly involved in such a thing, I'd probably 1) be constantly bugging him to release the binaries and, if he possesses it, the source code to the server, and 2) it would post a pretty massive conflict of interest to me personally, weighing what's good for the community versus what's good for the existence and development of his private server.
So I dunno, all I can do is speculate. At any rate, it doesn't bother me. Yesterday I didn't have access to a private server, and it didn't bother me one bit. I'm not about to get mad and worked up about it now just because I know one exists. Just like I had to keep some secrets during the shutdown that could have literally jeopardized some people's livelihoods, I trust Leo to have good reasons for what he's doing. He has a proven track record of working in the community's interest, certainly more than enough credibility with me to give him the benefit of a doubt on this.
Honestly, the people in my circle have long since moved on and basically all contact with those I cared about were lost when the game shut down. Even when some day comes, the hard part won't be getting back the progress that was lost but rather the friends that were made. In light of all of this I buried the game when I lost all of my teammates that I had for years. I can understand where this bothers many of you, but I feel like it'd never be the same. i apologize to the moderators for posting the initial link I didn't realize that it was this big of an issue nor was it my intent to cause trouble. I sympathize with those who knew people who wanted to play again before they passed. My condolences to all of those.If you didn't somebody was going to. You definitely shouldn't be sorry for that.
I just hope, now that SCORE is out in the public, they will heed to the open letter on reddit to actually make it spread.That open letter is awesome and true. What better example than Notre Dame burning down today. This game is an artifact just like that structure and the things in it. Once it is lost it is gone.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cityofheroes/comments/bdqf1w/open_letter_to_the_score_team_re_game_preservation/
There was some talk about a server simulator a few years ago (i.e., not the original CoH code, but something which the client would recognize as CoH code), but I don't know if anything ever developed on that front.
I don't mean Segs, I mean another one. The SCoRE project.
In the meantime, keep holding a torch for for CoT, VO, SCoRE, and even HaV.
The thing that confuses me is why the server or source, whatever... was given to anyone but the titan network.
The post they made doesn't sound like we'll ever get it, if anything it sounds like "we're sorry we got caught, but not sorry for lying, and since we got caught NO ONE ELSE WILL EVER be able to play it"
Parading around like they were going to let the community in ever, I don't believe them, if they've been lying this long, I cannot trust them.
They're wolves in sheep clothing, sitting here "mourning the game" like the rest of us, while instead they've been playing it for years.
The only right thing for them to do is leak the source files, keep their server private, we don't want to be part of score, we want the files out.
Self-Interest does not equal right.
The code is still NCsoft's. It was not reverse engineered. It is not a generic server code filled with fanfiction, but a duplicate of the intellectual property of NCsoft. It should not be shared with the spiritual successors, that's NCsoft's choice and would likely guarantee the demise of those efforts if they built on it. Likewise releasing it creates a situation where any number of parties would benefit unfairly from Ncsoft's investment.
I'm not an ncsoft defender or an apologist, that's just cold, hard truth. And, Yes, those are unpopular statements. The next few are too.
The level of entitlement that appears to be ignored by or blinding the people demanding the release of the code is staggering. Many people may feel hurt, but no one in this community has been wronged because the secret server existed (only ncsoft). The public does not get to have the code just because it was stolen by someone lacking good moral judgement. People made mistakes and bad decisions, but that doesn't entitle the remainder of the community to a hand out of the code. It's not ethical and it's just not ours.
Was it NCsofts choice to run a private server for 6 years? Didn't SCoRE benefit unfairly from Ncsoft's investments?
These are all things score and those playing it are guilty of, but releasing it to other people - that somehow is bad for NCSoft, but having a p server up for how many years was...good?
I'm sorry, you aren't making much sense, very contradictory, releasing it does nothing they already haven't done in regards to NCsoft, so it's really difficult for score to play the "We're not releasing it because NCsoft wouldn't want it released!" card, without just seeming like hypocrites.
And to your point, self interest doesn't equal right, they've been running a p server for self interest for years, so no it doesn't. They are completely guilty in the eyes of NCSoft and the community, and there is only one side they can try to earn good faith with at this point, and it ain't NCsoft.
Edit: I will add, for the most part I personally had moved on, but learning about this p server has just reopened so many wounds. Until today I barely thought about CoH, and honestly I'm not sure I even would want the game back - even with their "updates" to it. The game is now 6+ years past the last update, the graphics honestly were fine for its time but are really lacking now, and I don't think even if I had the chance id play CoH on a small server without the community. The game is dead for me, NCSoft won't re-release it, I personally gave up, I moved on.
Seeing videos of people playing makes me realize a coh server with no updates would only keep me interested for so long, hell even when CoH was live I often quit inbetween issues and took time off the game, I couldn't imagine how quick id lose interest in a 15 year old game that hasn't seen a real update for 6 years.
CoH will always have a nice spot in my memories as my first MMO of many i'd play, but I honestly just wish this secret was never exposed. As they say, ignorance is bliss.
- My above point only stands if the code really is stolen, which still hasn't been confirmed or denied. There's way too much speculation on that point. If it was, that's a big set of issues; if it wasn't, my second point about feeling betrayed by SCoRE not releasing a working reverse engineered game is where I'll end up.
A lot of posters are missing the lead here. The release 24 server exists and is functional. SCORE has a working version to use!
Until this news there was serious question as to whether the code needed to run COH even still existed or could be made functional.
SCORE stands for "The Secret Cabal of REVERSE ENGINEERS. And at least one of their hypothesized projects is a reverse-engineered COH 24 server that can be run on a single machine released into the wild for anybody to run. If you're focusing on the fact that they have a server running (like that idiot behind the "all of us or none of us" crap a few years back) you're missing the fact that this is the best news about getting the game back in the last 5 years.
A lot of posters are missing the lead here. The release 24 server exists and is functional. SCORE has a working version to use!
Until this news there was serious question as to whether the code needed to run COH even still existed or could be made functional.
SCORE stands for "The Secret Cabal of REVERSE ENGINEERS. And at least one of their hypothesized projects is a reverse-engineered COH 24 server that can be run on a single machine released into the wild for anybody to run. If you're focusing on the fact that they have a server running (like that idiot behind the "all of us or none of us" crap a few years back) you're missing the fact that this is the best news about getting the game back in the last 5 years.
A lot of posters are missing the lead here. The release 24 server exists and is functional. SCORE has a working version to use!
Until this news there was serious question as to whether the code needed to run COH even still existed or could be made functional.
SCORE stands for "The Secret Cabal of REVERSE ENGINEERS. And at least one of their hypothesized projects is a reverse-engineered COH 24 server that can be run on a single machine released into the wild for anybody to run. If you're focusing on the fact that they have a server running (like that idiot behind the "all of us or none of us" crap a few years back) you're missing the fact that this is the best news about getting the game back in the last 5 years.
Well, It's on VICE now who reached out to NCsoft for comment. So...secrets completely out now?
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb8jd8/a-secret-server-for-the-dead-mmo-city-of-heroes-has-players-in-an-uproar
Believe me, that question has crossed my mind more than once, especially since I know several of the devs and have a good rapport with the ones I know.
I'm not going to speculate on who released what to Leo. I honestly have no idea, and in fact, as I type this, I'm not 100% sure that anyone did. (Has that actually been definitively established?) No one has confessed to me, and really, it's probably something I'd rather not know because I'd be lying if I said that I'm totally on board with swiping code from one's employer, even in the cause of some more noble principle. (Though to be clear, I'm not saying I'm against it. Frankly, I'm torn on the issue.) Maybe that's why; whoever did it knows that Leo had more time, effort, and ability to see this to fruition than I did, with fewer qualms about setting it through to its logical end.
It really, really doesn't matter to me. I'm just glad something was released to somebody. It means it's out there, it wasn't totally destroyed, so our chances of having something tangible at some point are dramatically higher than they were before.
If anyone knows the people involved personally, suggest to them that they contact archive.org. If nothing else, archive.org might be willing to preserve the code even if they won't distribute it. Laws change and what's illegal today could be legal tomorrow.
I, for one, am happy that there is an ISSUE 24 server somewhere.... Sure I did move on and played other games since then : but would I go back to CoH : YES, in an instant.
So I'm just hoping that someone will put an anonymous torrent somewhere with that server code, for everyone to grab.
Paragon should seed and endure.
Paragon Lives !
I wake up every day and can look in the mirror and say - I am a good man - not a great man, I wasn't born rich or able to hit 700 home runs. I raised 2 girls to be adults. I am helping raise 6 grand kids and I don't desire anything I have not earned.
I see a lot of the posts here saying why not me? Why was I left out - I never knew about the server and still I don't envy those who played. They knew what they were doing was wrong, they knew they couldn't share it with anyone and they now face the loss of respect by the other players. The game belongs to NCSoft unless someone gets permission or changes it enough not to violate TOS.
I can look in the mirror and still say - I am a good man, I don't want the game back unless I can take you all with me.
Well said Ironwolf.
Your (and the team's) heart is in the right place.
That is the problem isn't it.
When you have the chance to do something selfless or to keep it for yourself - what would you do? I think i would get a few people in the world of computing and have them make a launcher that could be hosted on a standard gaming server (www.serversaustralia.com.au/resources/blog/beginners-guide-to-setting-up-a-private-wow-server/) where you can normally rent them for about 1 American dollar per slot a month. If you wanted an entire server you might be able to work a discount.
Now what happens?
That is going to be up to NCSoft and the owners of the private server. If they want to contact me - I retire in August and would be happy to try hosting a wide open server that could test the limits of NCSofts patience and I would in fact have wide open books so they could see I make zero profit - but have a donation page that will give all extra funds beyond running expenses to them in a monthly check. This MIGHT allow some leeway on our behalf.
That is the problem isn't it.
When you have the chance to do something selfless or to keep it for yourself - what would you do? I think i would get a few people in the world of computing and have them make a launcher that could be hosted on a standard gaming server (www.serversaustralia.com.au/resources/blog/beginners-guide-to-setting-up-a-private-wow-server/) where you can normally rent them for about 1 American dollar per slot a month. If you wanted an entire server you might be able to work a discount.
Now what happens?
That is going to be up to NCSoft and the owners of the private server. If they want to contact me - I retire in August and would be happy to try hosting a wide open server that could test the limits of NCSofts patience and I would in fact have wide open books so they could see I make zero profit - but have a donation page that will give all extra funds beyond running expenses to them in a monthly check. This MIGHT allow some leeway on our behalf.
That is the problem isn't it.
When you have the chance to do something selfless or to keep it for yourself - what would you do? I think i would get a few people in the world of computing and have them make a launcher that could be hosted on a standard gaming server (www.serversaustralia.com.au/resources/blog/beginners-guide-to-setting-up-a-private-wow-server/) where you can normally rent them for about 1 American dollar per slot a month. If you wanted an entire server you might be able to work a discount.
Now what happens?
That is going to be up to NCSoft and the owners of the private server. If they want to contact me - I retire in August and would be happy to try hosting a wide open server that could test the limits of NCSofts patience and I would in fact have wide open books so they could see I make zero profit - but have a donation page that will give all extra funds beyond running expenses to them in a monthly check. This MIGHT allow some leeway on our behalf.
That is the problem isn't it.
When you have the chance to do something selfless or to keep it for yourself - what would you do? I think i would get a few people in the world of computing and have them make a launcher that could be hosted on a standard gaming server (www.serversaustralia.com.au/resources/blog/beginners-guide-to-setting-up-a-private-wow-server/) where you can normally rent them for about 1 American dollar per slot a month. If you wanted an entire server you might be able to work a discount.
Now what happens?
That is going to be up to NCSoft and the owners of the private server. If they want to contact me - I retire in August and would be happy to try hosting a wide open server that could test the limits of NCSofts patience and I would in fact have wide open books so they could see I make zero profit - but have a donation page that will give all extra funds beyond running expenses to them in a monthly check. This MIGHT allow some leeway on our behalf.
In an attempt at some levity, found a few screenshots buried on an old drive while looking for some work stuff this afternoon.
The first is a bee themed hero made within the last year or so of live servers.
The rest are costumes I was playing with after all the hubbub around the gunslinger pack being pretty useless for most costumes. I got a lot of generalized use out of those bits. :)Spoiler for Hidden:
If, you make all funds above monthly costs refunded to NCSoft - you might - get some slack. Then again it belongs to them and they paid millions for it.
Other people have the knowledge to do this as well and several of them are running the game NOW. They know the cost and they have the code. I would suggest setting one up and do so openly - no need to even broach the subject of who, what, when, where the code came from. Follow the idea to give all extra funds to NCSoft.
Carry the torch, pass it on.
Didn't Starwars Galaxies (was it?) that had a 'leak' of code from Sony themselves? And they left the 'Starwars' community to 'get on with it?'
Reread the pcgamer article. Leandro updated it. https://www.pcgamer.com/a-fully-functioning-city-of-heroes-private-server-has-somehow-been-kept-secret-for-six-years/
Reread the pcgamer article. Leandro updated it. https://www.pcgamer.com/a-fully-functioning-city-of-heroes-private-server-has-somehow-been-kept-secret-for-six-years/
The best part of that article -- NCSoft neglected to comment on this story.I hope that means something. Say they might actually sell to someone. They didn't announce legal action and I find that interesting.
Man, these "We were gonna do X but not now because you all ruined it" is just so reminiscent of aspects of domestic abuse it's amazing.
I am angry and saddened by the news that I might not be able to play my characters. With that said, to make threats to someone is inexcusable. Yes it sucks, yes people can be mad, but to threaten someone. No. :(
Hey Guys!
I know everyone is angry and can understand your pain, but we as a community need to stand up. Be happy that not only do we finally have a confirmed fully fledged working game, but our old account data with our characters are safe and alive!!! I don't know how the rest of you feel about that, but for me I am pretty damn stoked. There is finally a chance for all of us to play again. I honestly can't wait to be either invited or for a public release. Thank you Leandro!
I also want to mention that Leandro has updated the article on PCgamer and it looks like something is on the way with the upcoming 15th anniversary public event just next week. Sounds like something good is coming out of that!
One last thing.. Please guys do not act stupid and start threatening peoples lives with ultimatums and death threats. It is not that serious for someone to lose their life over something virtual. This game cannot sustain you in the real world. It does not pay your bills, put food on the table, or even put breath in your mouth. Personally I thank the one above for that. All in all please let us all come down to a level where we can start to work together even though we may not be devs or anything of the sort lets keep it positive!
Something is on the way. Keep your heads up!
He stated in quotes for other articles that these plans have been scrapped and any potential plans for anyone else touching the game have been pushed back significantly because of recent events.
So now not only are we aware that we could be playing a game we've had no access to for years, but it's also now our faults that we won't be accessing it anytime soon. :|
All of which is basically just insult to injury. I personally do not think we will ever touch this game, the longer it gets hoarded beyond this point where it is public knowledge and multiple press outlets have contact NCSoft putting it further on their radar, the less likely it is that we will get our hands on it.
I think you need to go back and read the article. Here is what Leandro said in the 6th paragragh
"Leandro clarified that while the SCORE server wouldn't be made public, eventually the source code behind it would be. Because of the legal risk once the project was made public, Leandro says the team has pushed back a release in order to get it as feature-complete as possible."
And was stated in the article in quotes
"The last discussion on an open event leading to a public release was for the game's 15th Anniversary, which is coming in just a couple of weeks."
To me something is coming. Don't throw all your hope out. There is still light!
Thanks
I understand your rage, but everyone deserves a chance to defend themselves. We've already seen Victoria do so and then she was accused of lying by the leaker. The others have yet to respond. I never posted here a lot, honestly talking about the game outside of my min/max circle was frustrating more than it wasn't lol, but it was the go-to this entire time.
You know as I ponder this - I am curious how much was charged to the select few?
With as they say roughly 2,000 players in the know - what was the fee? I am just doing the math and at $10 a pop that's $20k a month.........
Well, now that NCSoft has been asked for comment, they are fully aware... And with Leandro's name out there, it would be a very bad move for him to make any of the code public at this time. He could have released it into the public domain in the beginning, but chose to keep it for himself and his friends instead. I think it is too late for it to be given out. If he were to do that now, you can bet he would be in some serious legal hot water. I don't know what NCSoft will do now, but I am sure of one thing: Leandro never intended to give the code to anyone else, and now its simply too late to do so. In my opinion, we are no better off than we were before the news broke. We weren't going to be able to play then, and most certainly we will not be allowed to play now.
[Edit: Post removed]
There was a screenshot of the private server's forums with money info... there was $8k in the coffers for a few months worth (or near that, as I recall, the screenshot is on the SEGS discord). So yeah, there was money involved, but the screenshot made it seem to me like the $ was actually being used exclusively for server fees, and not to line pockets.
Also in that screen shot was a reference to people extending invitations to their entire supergroups who then never signed on or only played a little bit -- which was Leandro complaining that what he needed were quality players... in other words the kinds of complaints a DEVELOPER is making when doing TESTING.
Long ago I jokingly said in a SCoRE discussion that as soon as they let anybody know they're making progress their reward will be a flood of abuse about how they aren't moving fast enough or developing what THEY want.
Leandro and others have been running a server that they've been modifying, completing, and (HOPEFULLY) is in a form where you don't need to stitch 5 different servers together with mod authority and deep code knowledge to get it to run. (HOPEFULLY??? since by all accounts damn few experts could get a CoX server system to work).
In that process they've been running a few hundred (a few thousand?) users ... hundreds concurrently while SCoRE did exactly what they've always said they were doing. They haven't shared earlier versions of their code publicly (we have no idea how many people or institutions are sitting on copies)
Just as I've thanked Codewalker for all his contributions to the community, thank you to Leandro for this MASSIVE gift to the community and thank you to all the SCoRE participants.
An additional thanks to Leandro for being willing to take the heat and unimaginable undeserved abuse on this. I very much look forward to seeing what you folks have done and will do.
Also in that screen shot was a reference to people extending invitations to their entire supergroups who then never signed on or only played a little bit -- which was Leandro complaining that what he needed were quality players... in other words the kinds of complaints a DEVELOPER is making when doing TESTING.
Long ago I jokingly said in a SCoRE discussion that as soon as they let anybody know they're making progress their reward will be a flood of abuse about how they aren't moving fast enough or developing what THEY want.
Leandro and others have been running a server that they've been modifying, completing, and (HOPEFULLY) is in a form where you don't need to stitch 5 different servers together with mod authority and deep code knowledge to get it to run. (HOPEFULLY??? since by all accounts damn few experts could get a CoX server system to work).
In that process they've been running a few hundred (a few thousand?) users ... hundreds concurrently while SCoRE did exactly what they've always said they were doing. They haven't shared earlier versions of their code publicly (we have no idea how many people or institutions are sitting on copies)
Just as I've thanked Codewalker for all his contributions to the community, thank you to Leandro for this MASSIVE gift to the community and thank you to all the SCoRE participants.
An additional thanks to Leandro for being willing to take the heat and unimaginable undeserved abuse on this. I very much look forward to seeing what you folks have done and will do.
DEVELOPER is making when doing TESTING.
Leandro and others have been running a server that they've been modifying, completing, and (HOPEFULLY) is in a form where you don't need to stitch 5 different servers together with mod authority and deep code knowledge to get it to run. (HOPEFULLY??? since by all accounts damn few experts could get a CoX server system to work).This is a bold claim. A very bold claim that someone who isn't in the forums and on the server couldn't possibly make. From other accounts, leaks etc the server is not stitched together and works perfectly. I'm unsure how or why you've made this claim but again, if you aren't on the team this seems like a very misleading assumption.
An additional thanks to Leandro for being willing to take the heat and unimaginable undeserved abuse on this. I very much look forward to seeing what you folks have done and will do.
... I retire in August and would be happy to try hosting a wide open server that could test the limits of NCSofts patience
Really. You're going to run a wide open server. And you'll let everybody on. 10,000 users... 50,000 users... nobody turned away? And you know the servers will handle that? You're going to set up the servers and keep them running? You're going to handle support and maintenance? If it can't handle the load you're going to decide when and how to turn people away?
Leandro is an expert who has lived this stuff, and his development system was running a few hundred accounts concurrently (which is DAMN impressive). How easy do you think it is to run CoX?
Also in that screen shot was a reference to people extending invitations to their entire supergroups who then never signed on or only played a little bit -- which was Leandro complaining that what he needed were quality players... in other words the kinds of complaints a DEVELOPER is making when doing TESTING.
Long ago I jokingly said in a SCoRE discussion that as soon as they let anybody know they're making progress their reward will be a flood of abuse about how they aren't moving fast enough or developing what THEY want.
Leandro and others have been running a server that they've been modifying, completing, and (HOPEFULLY) is in a form where you don't need to stitch 5 different servers together with mod authority and deep code knowledge to get it to run. (HOPEFULLY??? since by all accounts damn few experts could get a CoX server system to work).
In that process they've been running a few hundred (a few thousand?) users ... hundreds concurrently while SCoRE did exactly what they've always said they were doing. They haven't shared earlier versions of their code publicly (we have no idea how many people or institutions are sitting on copies)
Just as I've thanked Codewalker for all his contributions to the community, thank you to Leandro for this MASSIVE gift to the community and thank you to all the SCoRE participants.
An additional thanks to Leandro for being willing to take the heat and unimaginable undeserved abuse on this. I very much look forward to seeing what you folks have done and will do.
[Edit: Post removed]
Who's going to upgrade the Paragon Wiki to cover all these unofficial modifications to the game?
And there's the thread, made back in 2013, of someone inparticular outright saying why we wouldn't have server emulation.
There's a lot of lying going on here.
What really bothers me is all the anniversary badges I missed.
Need to reread that thread, as it explains that emulation isn't even something we should want. The private server's not an emulation, the hopefully soon-to-be-public code isn't an emulation. Knowing what we know now and looking back at that thread it seems to me Leandro was being quite careful not to mislead.
O hai! What's new?
Read the news today. What a disaster. Prayers and thoughts go to the people of France! No wait, the disaster was reddit/cityofheroes. Wow. Take the angriest post here so far in this thread and multiply it by a thousand and you get the average anger level there.
But what really bothers me about this is Leo never invited me!!
Just kidding. What really bothers me is all the anniversary badges I missed.
Another example is Kistulot mocking the thread from 2013 by Leandro regarding why the community wouldn't want a server *emulator*. If one were to re-read it with a cooler, rational mind, it would be very clear to see it wan't gaslighting, but a very articulate vision statement.
Theres a whole slew of people using terms like "You don't understand" or "You're just trolls" very suddenly. Everyone has the right to their opinion on this matter as long as its kept civil and i think everyone here (except that one guy who said ban him) has done so. This is all starting to feel a lot like another effort to discredit.
I volunteer to edit that person's grammar!
From other accounts, leaks etc the server is not stitched together and works perfectly. I'm unsure how or why you've made this claim but again, if you aren't on the team this seems like a very misleading assumption.
When you're still in testing phases to make servers work, you don't create and insert brand new archetypes and zones, abilities, or cash shops. To say that this project is still in development o the point of the servers being "stitched together" would be silly and expecting people to believe it even more so.
Well if the server is not stitched together and works perfectly... THEN IT'S NOT THE SYSTEM PARAGON STUDIOS WAS RUNNING. We know from the extensive discussions from people who worked on those systems that they were multiple systems tied into each other with weird patches to make different features work. If Leandro has a simple server that runs the game then it really IS completely reverse engineered and not something he got leaked by somebody who worked for NCSoft.
I'm not a programmer but I'd imagine if you're working to create a better server client that would allow for new things to be added you'd first want to figure out how the original client dealt with new things.
Maybe. Guess we won't know for sure because its a closed development for the last 6 years. We only have information provided by a leak and in that information it sure didn't look like it was still a WIP.
Really. You're going to run a wide open server. And you'll let everybody on. 10,000 users... 50,000 users... nobody turned away? And you know the servers will handle that? You're going to set up the servers and keep them running? You're going to handle support and maintenance? If it can't handle the load you're going to decide when and how to turn people away?
Leandro is an expert who has lived this stuff, and his development system was running a few hundred accounts concurrently (which is DAMN impressive). How easy do you think it is to run CoX?
See, this is the kind of cynical comment from several people in the last few pages of this thread that have convinced me there are some here actively trolling the community, or have become "useful idiots" to those trolls.
Another example is Kistulot mocking the thread from 2013 by Leandro regarding why the community wouldn't want a server *emulator*. If one were to re-read it with a cooler, rational mind, it would be very clear to see it wan't gaslighting, but a very articulate vision statement.
Unfortunately, I think some are preying on the pain of the CoH community for fun, fanning the flames of discontent and conspiracy in a 4chan-esque manner. I appreciate the goals of the moderation team and don't envy their task, but I think a lot more of these posts should be deleted.
That is the problem isn't it.
When you have the chance to do something selfless or to keep it for yourself - what would you do? I think i would get a few people in the world of computing and have them make a launcher that could be hosted on a standard gaming server (www.serversaustralia.com.au/resources/blog/beginners-guide-to-setting-up-a-private-wow-server/) where you can normally rent them for about 1 American dollar per slot a month. If you wanted an entire server you might be able to work a discount.
Now what happens?
That is going to be up to NCSoft and the owners of the private server. If they want to contact me - I retire in August and would be happy to try hosting a wide open server that could test the limits of NCSofts patience and I would in fact have wide open books so they could see I make zero profit - but have a donation page that will give all extra funds beyond running expenses to them in a monthly check. This MIGHT allow some leeway on our behalf.
How easy do you think it is to run CoX?
Dunno. Maybe if they spread the code I'll let you know once I see it.
Hi. You probably don't know me. I'm a loudmouth.
The only bitterness this news has brought up is renewed bitterness at NCSoft for their petty refusal to sell an IP they had deemed not worth using to a team who very much saw it as worthwhile. CoX was turning a profit - it's why Paragon Studios wanted to keep it running so badly - and we're still not really sure why they shut down the game. Maybe they thought the profit wouldn't last long enough. Maybe Positron insulted their CEO. Maybe they wanted to use the server infrastructure for Guild Wars 2. We still don't know.
But refusing to sell a product you have deemed valueless to someone else that wants it is just petty.
Copyright law is a mess, and everyone going around saying NCSoft "owns" this and that is playing into corporate hands. Copyright was never meant to exist in the state it currently does, and it does a disservice to humanity as a whole when faceless entities can keep people from creating things they love, especially when they do it for no rational reason. If you don't want it, you should release it, not lock it away forever.
Let's direct our ire where it belongs: at NCSoft, who put us all in the position we're in in the first place.
Everything that can be said about NCsoft has been said. It's a moot point and not worth the time. We have new problems, new people, and new pain.Maybe for those that have dwelt here continuously for the past seven years. Not so much for those this news may bring back.
People I've talked to said it was fully functional, they just got bored of not having their friends on the server.
Is the disconnect between the SCoRE insiders and the CoX refugees really that wide?
The anger will pass. But trust may never be restored. That will depend on the actions taken by Leandro and SCoRE.
Very easy. Do you not know about private servers? Also, in what world would 50k people play on a private server. WoW private servers don't even reach that. People can run private servers from their home PC's, but thats not whats being done here. He's renting server space and running it on that, which most would probably do. Please my man, don't post such misleading stuff.
Of course he's probably put a lot of time and effort into making it operational. The problem people have is they want him to release his code so everyone else can play too.
See, thing is, if the code were more openly available there'd be a bunch of private servers running. Some of them would be open, some of them would be more private. It wouldn't just be one person running a server. That's how most private servers for MMOs are.
And if it was anything like what I know about the Ragnarok Online private server community (my info on this is way out of date), then they'd be sharing tweaks they've made among the private servers so that any fixes one person made could be used by others. (At the time there were actually two different types of private servers for RO, one that was an emulated server and another that was based off of leaked/hacked official server code)
Dunno. Maybe if they spread the code I'll let you know once I see it.
Having said all of that, I have no idea what progress SCoRE has made in simplifying this setup, or even if they've managed to make any progress towards it. Maybe one of the reasons they've kept it secret so long is so that when it is released, people can actually use it. Keep in mind that everything I described above is just to run the executables. If you actually want to tweak the code base, you get into a whole 'nother level of configuration hell in getting Visual Studio set up just right to be able to actually compile the thing.
At any rate, please don't propagate the misconception that the thing isn't a pain in the ass to run. Barring some next-level miraculous re-coding of how all of these tiny puzzle pieces without pictures or edges to guide them to give clues fit together, this thing was--and probably still is--a very, VERY demanding beast.
At any rate, please don't propagate the misconception that the thing isn't a pain in the ass to run. Barring some next-level miraculous re-coding of how all of these tiny puzzle pieces without pictures or edges to guide them to give clues fit together, this thing was--and probably still is--a very, VERY demanding beast.
I don't get it though, was it kept a tight lipped secret because they're afraid of NCSoft's legal eagles or was it kept a tight lipped secret because it's this painstaking WIP?
Even if they get it 110% playable, if they run the server population with an iron fist and live in constant fear of NCSoft's lawyers, what would it being playable change anything?
Would it being more playable somehow protect them from getting the business end of NCSoft's legal department?
snipping a big post
I think what Tony is trying to say is that running a CoH server is not the same as running a WoW emulator repack that you just click a couple executables, change a file in your client to point to your server and bam it plays. So if Leandro is indeed running the actual CoH source and not an emulator of some sort, and just gave it out for anyone to use, most people aren't going to be able to do anything with it... at least not without a ton of time and effort blindly figuring things out... assuming they have enough technical expertise in the first place.
I know I don't have that level of expertise. Heck I can barely get a wow repack to work just to mess around in a sandbox and take cool screenshots.
There's people who will mess with this kind of thing for fun. The person I knew who ran the RO private server I spent a small amount of time on was one of them.
You get enough of those kinds of people trying to get it running and sharing what they did with each other and suddenly you have solutions, and ways to get it working so that more people can try it.
Heck, I even corrected the hp/sp tables for the newer classes for him, and he probably shared that with the other people running RO private servers.
I guess I will just wait and hope that cooler heads prevail. And... in my deepest, most secret heart of hope... pray that somehow this whole mess turns into all of us being able to play CoH again. I won't even care if I can't get my characters back. I can always start anew.Yeah I don't think anyone ever really cared about getting our characters back. That would simply be a bonus... but it appears that dev that was nice enough to hook them up with the server did want us to have everything back. That person deserves a life time supply of beer and back massages.
I guess I will just wait and hope that cooler heads prevail. And... in my deepest, most secret heart of hope... pray that somehow this whole mess turns into all of us being able to play CoH again. I won't even care if I can't get my characters back. I can always start anew.
In some of the other discussion areas there's some weird people who think that literally every successor project and game recovery effort was some kind of smokescreen for this weird private server club.I don't think anyone is actually stupid enough to believe city of titans which is being funded out in the open on kickstarter was ever going to be used for anything but developing that game. Same goes for Valiance and the others.
The only one we know for sure is connected is Paragon Chat, because Leandro worked on it. I dunno how much was meant as a smokescreen.
And I guess all the ACTUAL lieing that was done around this whole thing really gets the imaginations of the tinfoil hat crowd going.
Quick edit; you put a lot of no-brainers like "plopping the coh.exe down" that nobody claimed was the case. Dunno why you did this, but it wasn't a health way to explain anything. It's putting words in peoples mouths.
It also pains me to see people not only making death threats, but members of this community actively laughing about it and saying he deserves the threats. That's not the community I remember. That's not a community I want to even be a part of. So I hope that most of us remain rational. We can feel angry, we can feel hurt, we can feel betrayed, but we have to remember that we are all human beings, and also... we're supposed to be heroes here.
Heroes don't make, condone, or worse, celebrate, death threats against anyone no matter how bad they might be.
Maybe there's a reason the code wasn't just tossed out there for any and every coder to poke a stick at. I don't know. None of us do yet. Maybe all this attention will incentivize the SCORE team to provide some answers. This whole mess is in sore need of context.
Yes. Yes there are people that stupid.
I think there were some kickstarter scams, but for the most part when one fails it's just because a dev got in over their head. I think a lot of people just don't understand how hard game dev is, especially since usually when a failure happens in traditional game dev you just don't hear about it. The project is scrapped before it's even been announced.
I still have a lot of questions. Has SCoRE been used to help development of any of the other, more public facing projects at all? Giving them reference or access to the existing code that would be otherwise inaccessible?
Is there any sort of even internal documentation supporting some of the more optimistic claims that this was just a deep alpha test with a definitive plan to release it to a much wider audience?
How playable is the current state of SCoRE because I've seen conflicting accounts...
How does a player access their existing character information if the data is not bundled with any account information from the live service?
. From other accounts, leaks etc the server is not stitched together and works perfectly.
So, here's what you're not understanding. The original stock NCSoft server IS a stitched together mess.
I wonder if this was a more common thing with the games around that era, I remember being frustrated with Tabula Rasa and Auto Assaults server performance.It's more that this is a software paradaigm than a "common thing with games".
What is potentially legally actionable is the breaking of his NDA,
I'm pretty sure contracts that involve crimes are unenforceable, and a contract to hide the existence of a private server like this would fall under that?
I'm pretty sure contracts that involve crimes are unenforceable, and a contract to hide the existence of a private server like this would fall under that?
Also Victoria, could you clarify what you meant by this post: https://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=10951.msg184432#msg184432
You wrote: "Having had the fortune to be on some of that testing....yeah. Seriously, folks, there are still plenty of people in the US that believe:
So much for checking out this site every couple of days for the past few years in the vain hope of news regarding a playable version of CoH. :-\
Maybe Tony can pull a rabbit out of his hat or something.
It's worth noting that the close relationship between Paragon Chat and the private server quite naturally leads to speculation that any money that was donated to Titan Network for PChat development might have gone towards this private server. I suspect that any and all money is accounted for, but given the fact that people worked on both projects at the same time, it is reasonable for people to wonder about that particular money trail.
The rhetoric that "oh the code was a mess" is getting really old. To honestly believe SCORE or Leo are the only people on this planet capable of sorting and running a private server is a complete farce. I get why they chose to keep it in secret while working on it. NCsoft is a corporation that will keep its own interests in mind ahead of anything else. Nobody should be questioning that and if they are they're foolish. The problem front and center is proof was provided of a fully functioning city of heroes private server and the only answer we've been given is "It's a secret and will remain that way". Furthering, the leaker be it untrustworthy or not has made claims on people openly who have chosen either to stay silent about those claims or deny them turning the entire situation into he said she said. Nobody can figure out who to trust anymore and when people give flimsy excuses like "the code is a mess" it only makes it look worse.
The facts.
- Functioning private server has existed for some time now.
- People were chosen to join it while others were purposely mislead
- Leo has gone on record to claim it was going to be released in only a couple weeks for everyone to enjoy but now is not (His statement about it being ready in only a couple weeks completely shatters any argument about it being unfinished.)
These are undisputed truths that have come out and honestly the only things worth discussion at this point. Hear say about who was where is becoming tiring and so is the idea that the server would be impossible for others to run.
I apologize for being cynical, but it's about all I can be because the entire situation is extremely cynical. It feels as though the overall CoX community has had a pretty clear caste system in play with what is more or less, a first class citizen group who invited who they deemed worth from the unwashed masses. It's frustrating to say the least.
In reality, if you're here, as far as I'm concerned, you're part of the "in" crowd, period, end of story.
Now, having said all of that, I have consistently said that there is a possibility that one of the devs might have managed to get their hands on the code before the shutdown. I'll even concede that there might be a private server out there. If so, then more power to them, and I hope that eventually whoever has access to the code will see fit to release it. I have also repeatedly acknowledged that there is a team out there I've been referring to SCoRE who has been working on reverse engineering a server, and while I know that it's been a long time and some folks have lost faith that they're making any progress, they ARE still working on it, and they ARE still making progress to the point where I've seen some simple interactions happening. If you're wondering why they won't release their work, it's mainly because it is at a VERY early stage, it's VERY difficult to get it configured correctly, and they would much rather spend their time working on coding than having to worry about releasing stuff, supporting it, getting an inevitable flood of questions about "how do I set this up?" (only to be disappointed to find out that it takes expensive development software), and getting an inevitable flood of complaints that it's not working right and how much their progress sucks so far. (Which was yet another thread posted a few days ago that we deleted, but I digress...) And not to put too fine a point on it, the reason that team is highly encouraged to maintain radio silence on their efforts is precisely because of what is going on over on Facebook right now, baseless rumors and allegations that are completely unconstructive based on what some people think (but who don't actually know) what is going on.
So in short, is there a private server? Not that I know of, although it is still being worked on. Even if there is, it is totally irrelevant, because whoever is running it obviously doesn't want it released to the community-at-large for what is hopefully a really damn good obvious reason. I know that if I were running such a server, seeing the noise that is being made over these allegations, along with the threats that are being made and the unbridled sense of entitlement that is being conveyed, along with the legal threat of what would happen if it got out into the wild, would certainly turn me off of the prospect of releasing the software. In short, if there is such a thing, what's going on over on Facebook is likely driving those people deeper underground, not encouraging them to release it to the community.
To the folks who are spreading this crap around on Facebook, if you want something constructive to do instead, support the community instead of trying to tear it apart. Express support for SCoRE, or participate in one of the successor projects, or even snag a copy of Icon and make some videos to entertain the community without the pretense of there being a private server.
There are aspects that I completely understand, and there are aspects of it that were extremely cynical on the part of those involved, such as people who are in the know about an actively working private server enforcing "no private server discussion" on forums and subreddits, people actively involved in running SCoRE being involved in other efforts that have existed as little more than a placating romparoom for the members of this community not deemed worthy of access to the actual game...
I wonder if this was a more common thing with the games around that era, I remember being frustrated with Tabula Rasa and Auto Assaults server performance.
When Leandro says that he intended--and still intends--to release the code, given his reputation for actually producing stuff for the community and contributing to projects like Paragon Chat, I don't get all pissed off scorched-earth at him, I take him at his word. In my humble opinion, he's earned that over the years, and it disappoints me greatly that too many people can't see past their own anger to realize it.
I actually think people have a very valid reason for being upset...
That's fine. We disagree on how upset people should be about it, and we probably disagree on the level of egregiousness of various people's sins. And I've always said, in this context and in others, that no one gets to tell you his you must feel about any given situation. You have the absolute right to feel however you feel.
But there is a huge difference between feeling angry and taking actions to make everyone else feel angry. There's a huge difference between feeling betrayed and trying to incite others to act on your feeling of betrayal.
One, we allow leeway in discussing here on the Titan forums. The latter, the part where people get destructive to the community, we don't.
Ultimately, this brings us back around full circle. We're back to waiting to see what NCSoft will do.
I think this situation is slightly different. Now, they know that they're not the only ones who have the capability of bringing the game back both from a legal AND logistical standpoint. Now, logistically speaking, they are faced with knowing that they're not the only ones who have that capability.
And, frankly, I'm perfectly tickled by that fact :)
Certainly, and speaking of the drama though, I find a lot of things start to make a large amount of sense in the community as I've observed. As I've been looking in on it maybe every year for the last 4 years and every 6 months since SEGS started to be a realized thing with 0.3? I think... There was always a slight sort of lethargy about the community, and an almost lack of eagerness in it's movers and shakers, at least that I saw on places like this and the subreddit, whenever the possibility of emulation and server recovery were mentioned. A kind of short period of "Oh well that's nice, carry on."
I like to believe this was all for the good of the community, but how many more years was this going to be a secret for? 5? 10? What's even the point after 17 years of the game being shut down. I get why they kept it a secret. Because they wanted to keep playing and not have it taken away from them. But I don't believe at all that keeping it a secret was for the good of the community, I think it was for the good of themselves. I'll happily be proven wrong if this somehow leads to me being able to play the game again. But currently, it feels like NCSoft and SCORE are both not allowing me to play a game I love.
I honestly don't know any of the people involved with SCORE. And I am sure they are nice people and this wasn't intended to be malicious. But it doesn't make me feel any better knowing this game we all love has been around for years in secret.
Indeed, at least up until yesterday if you had heard of SCORE like myself you could sit around thinking a team is still putting in work behind the scenes to make an emulator but instead we find out a fully playable server exists and is super secret.
I'm not entirely sure I believe Leandro when he says he had intentions of going live with it, or converting it to a more 'public' status server sometime in the future. I also think he was kiiiiiinda using the "Well everyone knew about SCORE!" as his scapegoat, and I don't think most people are buying that (or, rather, allowing him to get away with this on those grounds). I don't know who he is, and I'm not sure what I believe.
Lots of mixed feelings, been part of this "Titan Network" (hell I'm user #38) community before it was even Titan, if I recall correctly CIT had its own boards that I use to frequent at the time, or maybe it was MIDs? either way there was something before this... I don't know where I was going with that...
I think the one fairly laaaaarge silver lining that I have with all of this is just simply knowing that the server, disc image, and data is ALIVE.
Whatever Leandro has/had, if he had "just released it", most people would not have been in a position to do anything useful with it.
Money that was donated to Titan Network for PC Chat development? What?
Did you give money to Titan Network thinking they were involved in PC Chat development? I thought it was made clear many multiple times that there was no direct connection between Titan Network and PC Chat. Who did you give money to?
I get your cynicism, I really, really do. But this isn't a place to take that cynicism and project it as far and wide as possible, hoping it takes hold and infects everyone else. If that were the case, we never would have survived the shutdown because believe you me, there was a LOT of cynicism back then, too. This a place where we come together to get over our cynicism, where we pull together--and yes, that means even the people who have been on the private server--as a community. Hell, we're talking about THREE THOUSAND people, undoubtedly many of whom have been on here frequently continuing to prop up the community as SCoRE has been working on a working server, carrying everyone through some bad times until hopefully we can all enjoy the fruits of their labors.
.....
They could have simply gone away to live in their "gated community" and chose not to. Why? Because as I said in my "On 'private servers'" thread above, there IS NO gated community here. There is no caste system. There are no "haves" and "have-nots," there's just us. ALL of us.
If anyone can't abide by that, then they're choosing to isolate themselves from the community, not us. And I think that's a shame, but again, we're not going to allow anyone to use these forums to try to make this whole "caste system" foolishness a self-fulfilling prophesy.
That's fine. We disagree on how upset people should be about it, and we probably disagree on the level of egregiousness of various people's sins. And I've always said, in this context and in others, that no one gets to tell you his you must feel about any given situation. You have the absolute right to feel however you feel.
But there is a huge difference between feeling angry and taking actions to make everyone else feel angry. There's a huge difference between feeling betrayed and trying to incite others to act on your feeling of betrayal.
One, we allow leeway in discussing here on the Titan forums. The latter, the part where people get destructive to the community, we don't.
I get that you're upset. I get that you're mad. But other people are getting hurt, people who have nothing to do with any private server, people who have busted their butts trying to provide a community where EVERYONE feels welcome.
This holds true today just as much as it did then. The only difference is that now we know there's a private server. Well, bully for them. I'm not jealous of the people who have been playing on it, because I personally am no worse off than I was this time last week.
Who else besides NCsoft has a legal right to bring the game back...? Nothing has changed... / ' :
Thank you for that, Tony, I completely agree. I've been feeling bursts of rage on this subject but not for people involved in the SCoRE work... for the people who are gibbering insanely with rage for not being told about the Secret work.
Where's the apology, TonyV?
You quoted your "on private servers" post earlier, but that post is full of, at best, misinformation. The fact that you were apparently misled as to the truth doesn't excuse the fact that you put a very public face on those lies. You called people who knew the truth "trolls". You told everyone that SCORE was at a "very early stage".
You were wrong. You were lied to. If you don't want to be angry about that, that's fine. Being chill is not a bad thing.
But you used your clout here at CoHTitan to mislead everyone away from the truth.
I think that now that it's clear that has happened, you should own up to your mistake.
Thank you for that, Tony, I completely agree. I've been feeling bursts of rage on this subject but not for people involved in the SCoRE work... for the people who are gibbering insanely with rage for not being told about the Secret work.
I haven't dived into this "up and running for 6 years!" stuff, so I'm not sure what has been running, or in what condition, or with what capacity. I feel absolutely certain that nobody "in the community" has any "right" to anything from anybody -- especially from people who have put work into learning, running, and improving the software involved with CoH -- if you've sat down and worked and taught yourself enough about the client to add rooms to Pargon chat maps -- for example, IMHO you've got some basis to weigh in on development efforts. And if not, you're waiting for somebody to give you something.
Years ago I jokingly warned somebody in a recovery effort that the reward for anybody learning that they were making progress would be piles of abuse for them not doing enough or not going faster or not doing whatever the specific person wanted them to do. Yeah.
I'm thrilled that anybody has been able to play the game, more thrilled that the game exists in a form that can be played, even more thrilled that all those people who said "If I can't have my characters with my stuff then I don't ever want to play again" actually have at least a possibility of getting that (personally I'd just rebuild).
It seems perfectly reasonable to me that Leandro (and Xs) have needed a playing population on their server in order to develop and test. I sincerely hope that they've distributed copies to multiple people and sources to protect against loss, but I don't believe that anybody has any right to tell them how to deal with this. And the idea that they've somehow been villainous in this strikes me as flat-out nuts.
I made a new account because I have never needed to post anything here before? But great start at conversation by painting me as paranoid!
As for points C-F, Tony took a stance and posted about the rumors of private servers and the progress of SCORE 4 years ago. He quoted that post in this thread. Tony's assertions in that post turned out to be wrong. It's okay to be wrong, but you can't just bring up your own history with this particular rumor and not acknowledge that you were wrong. Of course you say you don't think he was wrong in "how he wrote that message", which is a very vague way to put that, but suffice to say I disagree.
As far as who cares about Tony being lied to - I would hope Tony would care. I know I care, because Tony came here and spread those lies. And if Tony wasn't lied to by virtue of never being told... then why is he making posts about things he apparently knew nothing about? Note that Tony didn't advance that argument, that was just you, so there's nothing really but speculation.
And for "inflated angst", both "self-created" and "unnecessarily perpetuated"
1) You don't get to judge my amount of angst here. You don't know my story or why this matters to me. You can kindly back off
2) Angst is sure a fun word to use when invalidating others' feelings. Labeling it self-created and unnecessary is a great tri-fecta of being an absolute jerk here. Why does it matter to you if other people are feeling feelings you aren't? Do you often deride others for not seeing things your way?
3) Perpetuated? It's been two days. If you can't handle two days of people asking questions, buddy maybe you're experiencing some self-created and unnecessarily inflated angst
Just to punctuate what @Olivar noted - The point was not that it was bad for the original server to be designed as a bunch of services, or that a current server would not be designed that way; it was that there was a whole bunch of moving wheels and any one of them failing to move correctly could stop the whole vehicle.
Take the store as an example. The store was not a part of the server at all. It was an outside e-commerce site that the client and server communicated with to learn what premium/loyalty-rewards content the player was entitled to use. All of that vaporized the day the servers closed. Even if you had an otherwise working client/server for the game, you would NOT have any of the code related to the store aside from possibly the communication protocols used to send queries and purchases requests to it.
That's just one of the most obvious problems with trying to take a snapshot of the server and get it running.
Whatever Leandro has/had, if he had "just released it", most people would not have been in a position to do anything useful with it.
As for what he has - There's precious little hard evidence about what exactly that is. Despite what so many people are assuming, we don't know that he has source code. From what we've been told, NCSoft themselves were unable to come up with source code for the server. Leandro might well be in the same boat as NCSoft, in that someone gave him a working executable server installation, copied from an actual server (as opposed to a development machine with source files) but no actual source code. The only way to create an emulator would be to run the original server and duplicate its functionality.
If he does have source code, we don't know which version of the server it is. Cryptic themselves once accidentally published the source code of the game. The story is that they discovered the error and got rid of all but one copy and they bribed that person who got it to delete it by giving him a lifetime sub or some such. If THAT source code was in someone's hands, it would help that person understand generally how the server worked, but it would not allow him to compile an I-24 server or even contain any newer content at all.
In short - there are still too many questions to pull out the pitchforks. If its true that they were going to announce their emulator in just a couple of weeks, then it's REALLY unfortunate that Mr. Destroyer Stroyer decided that now was the time to become a freedom fighter seeking to free /r/CityofHeroes from its tyrannical oppressors.
All feelings are valid, even my angst. The problem is when people allow their feelings to color over and misrepresent other people's statements and use those feelings to make unfounded accusations.
Everyone should re- holster their fingers and let the keyboards cool.
All feelings are valid, even my angst. The problem is when people allow their feelings to color over and misrepresent other people's statements and use those feelings to make unfounded accusations.
There is no caste system. There are no "haves" and "have-nots," there's just us. ALL of us.Then why do you get to delete people's posts and ban them from the forums and I do not?
Clearly, the original leaker trusted them to do the right thing.
I feel they have. Not that they need my approval.
Azrael.
It's not contradictory, because I didn't address SCoRE's benefit or guilt, because that is implied in statements about it being NCsofts property, benefiting at ncsofts expense and labeling it as stolen..... all are not good. But what was done is the past.
The point is what will happen going forward, and although you conveniently skipped the second half of my post, you so eloquently demonstrated that mentality of entitlement when you wrote that "they are completely guilty in the eyes of the community" and the only way to earn "good faith" back is to release the code.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
I also think that because there were efforts to literally buy the game from NCsoft, people put their hopes on that, instead of an emulator...
Yeah, everyone on Titan Network had heard of SCoRE, but I was under the impression that they were working in secret to build something *to release* - and right now, I tend to lean towards believing that what they had was releasable, which is where the betrayal comes in.
If the SCORE server population really has been play-testing and working towards a better future for the entire City of Heroes community... where are they? Why the silence?
Why is no one coming forward as a SCORE playtester or dev and backing up Leandro's statement? (to be fair, it's only been two days)
Well, like many things in this matter, nobody can say for certain, but leaving aside the NDA for a moment, do you honestly think anybody wants to open themselves up to that kind of abuse?
Well, like many things in this matter, nobody can say for certain, but leaving aside the NDA for a moment, do you honestly think anybody wants to open themselves up to that kind of abuse?
So you feel that despite all the wrong in the past 5-6 years, suddenly they should care about NCSofts interest? Suddenly they can take the high ground? If thats the case, they'd need to shut down the server completely and immediately, and that wouldn't even be high ground, that'd be "oops we got caught ground". They cannot take the high ground, the damage is already done, two wrongs don't make a right, but they committed way more than two wrongs.
At this point, add one more to the list, because if they were willing to have this up and running and hidden for all those years I think they can go ahead and release it for the community that still actually mourns.
Eliot LeFebvre posted a opinion piece earlier. (https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/17/into-the-super-verse-the-death-of-the-city-of-heroes-community/)
Pruned the post for the sake of thread flow
So do you REMEMBER the "don't do anything to upset the negotiations" that went on for years and never did get finally resolved? At what point during that should SCoRE have effectively announced "HEY, Look at this, there's already a private server up and running!".
You don't KNOW. You don't know anything at all about the private server except that it exists, has run, apparently with considerable success, for years, and has supported a population of approximately 3000 users with several hundred active at once. You don't know it's stability. You don't know it's configuration or what it takes to run. You don't know it's origin, whether completely reverse-engineered or a modified copy of the beta code that they got to run on some insane combination of obsolete software versions and virtual machines. You don't know if it's release could implicate someone. You don't know anything except that it wasn't made openly available to anybody who wanted to use it.
Personally, I REALLY miss the game -- it's absence is a hole in my life. Paragon Chat goes furthest to help that, but I REALLY miss the game.
I think the work done by SCoRE is by far the best chance anybody will ever get to play it again. To the degree that some people have gotten that chance... man that is so incredibly awesome. I can't deal with "if I can't have it then other people shouldn't". I don't know how people do that.
1You do mention that we don't know its stability, but that's right after acknowledging it's stable enough to have hundreds of concurrent users (although I admit there may be semantics between "concurrent user" stability vs. "long term server stability and how long it goes before crashing" that we may differ on, and I probably use "stability" in a more colloquial sense than a specific programmer sense).
"3000 users", wherever that number came from, is a number spread over six years or more. If we take Mr. Destroyer Stroyer at his word, via his statements on his video, most of the people invited to the server either declined the invitations entirely or only came in for a short while before losing interest.
Overlooked statements like the zone running like crap definitely lends a lot of credibility to the point that this was not some glorious, perfect time capsule but a work in progress that is not ready for the sort of traffic that a full public release would garner and the attempts to pressure them into releasing it AS IS RIGHT THIS SECOND is likely a "Watch what you wish for" lesson in the making.
I remember you from the original forums and it's good to see your level headed post here, ZM.
"3000 users", wherever that number came from, is a number spread over six years or more. If we take Mr. Destroyer Stroyer at his word, via his statements on his video, most of the people invited to the server either declined the invitations entirely or only came in for a short while before losing interest. He is not describing a thriving server full of supergroups and a vibrant community. He's describing the same sort of user base that uses Paragon Chat.
Everyone keeps trying to say the server wasn't ready, except the guy who made it.
Direct qoute
Leandro writes. "The last discussion on an open event leading to a public release was for the game's 15th Anniversary, which is coming in just a couple of weeks. Nobody who wasn't part of SCORE will believe that, but sometimes timing is just that bad."
Clearly it was ready for public testing. Please stop saying it isn't.
And it was my understanding, and I think the understanding of a lot of other people, that SCoRE was *supposed to release what they appear to currently have*.
Leandro has dedicated a great deal to support this community, Paragon Chat, the successors, and SCoRE. I don't know him except from his posts here and his videos.
I'm not quite certain where you got the idea that SCoRE was "supposed" to do anything at all... snipped by Kistulot
Clearly it was ready for public testing. Please stop saying it isn't.
PC Gamer:
Update, 3 pm PDT: In an email, Leandro clarified that while the SCORE server wouldn't be made public, eventually the source code behind it would be. Because of the legal risk once the project was made public, Leandro says the team has pushed back a release in order to get it as feature-complete as possible. "So the deadline of 'when it's done' was probably pushed way farther that it needed to be, in retrospect," Leandro writes. "The last discussion on an open event leading to a public release was for the game's 15th Anniversary, which is coming in just a couple of weeks. Nobody who wasn't part of SCORE will believe that, but sometimes timing is just that bad."
I mean, you can't have it both ways. If you want to quote Leandro about the projected release and say, "He was going to release it sometime soon; it must be ready", you can't then ignore that it was also Leandro who decided that the current state of the server was NOT conducive to a release that will be scrutinized to the level that such a release will now be scrutinized.
Can you quote where anybody said those words, above?
What I at least am saying is that whatever state it's in, what Destroyer Stroyer described is NOT some wonderful perfect copy of the original NCSoft server that Leandro has been sitting on and refusing to share.
Likewise, if they were considering an "event leading to a release" then the current level of scrutiny has convinced them that the current level of completeness is NOT ready for prime time.
I mean, you can't have it both ways. If you want to quote Leandro about the projected release and say, "He was going to release it sometime soon; it must be ready", you can't then ignore that it was also Leandro who decided that the current state of the server was NOT conducive to a release that will be scrutinized to the level that such a release will now be scrutinized. Likewise, if we take PC Gamer and/or Massively at face value regarding their emailed conversations with Leandro, then it appears that the issue is (and I freely admit that I'm speculating now) that he expects action from NCSoft as soon as the server is released, so he now wants to have it be not just "ready for testing" but "finished" to the point where no more work is required and it can be disseminated widely enough that action by NCSoft will be futile.
It doesn't really matter if you or I would say, "Frag the deficiencies! Give us the server!" Leandro's got the server and it's his yardstick that measures how close it is to ready; not ours.
If they got data from someone containing all of our characters, all of our supergroup bases, all of our content, and they dont want to find a way to give it back to us.
William: Prime Knight (right)
My small addition to the City of Heroes is Prime Knight. He's the second character I ever created, and he's one of the two characters I bought the game for. He also fulfilled my gaming desire to fly in a three-dimensional environment. Prime Knight is a Mind/Kinetics controller who has all the powers I've ever wanted to have myself: telekinesis, telepathy, precog, flight, teleportation, electrokenesis, pyrokinesis -- and he even has a faithful dog.
He's saved the city numerous times from numerous vile and power-hungry foes. And I'm saddened by the fact I'll never get the opportunity to fly into a group of bad guys with reckless abandon, generating mass confusion, lighting things on fire with my mind, electrocuting everything in sight, siphoning speed, or just repelling/telekinesis-ing foes off the tops of buildings.
So he apparently got a dump of all character/base content from an anonymous source... what would you want him to do with that? Publish the file to an anonymous server so everybody in the world can have your (and everybody else's) character/base data to use however they want (apparently the plan)? Delete the files? Delete YOUR data specifically (based on his best guess as to what data that is)?
*snip*
The entire game was brilliant and weird and eclectic and if there was a video game museum it deserves to be there: There should be a copy in the Library of Congress: even if ownership based to different hands it was still created on the soil of the USA.
*snip*
This holds true today just as much as it did then. The only difference is that now we know there's a private server. Well, bully for them. I'm not jealous of the people who have been playing on it, because I personally am no worse off than I was this time last week. When Leandro says that he intended--and still intends--to release the code, given his reputation for actually producing stuff for the community and contributing to projects like Paragon Chat, I don't get all pissed off scorched-earth at him, I take him at his word. In my humble opinion, he's earned that over the years, and it disappoints me greatly that too many people can't see past their own anger to realize it.
Active attempts to gaslight previously leakers (calling the crazy, etc).
If they got data from someone containing all of our characters, all of our supergroup bases, all of our content, and they dont want to find a way to give it back to us, if they aren't "supposed" to do that, then I don't even know what you want me to expect people to do.
I'm just quoting you because it is a nice snippet.... these references to "our" characters.... we have no ownership of them beyond the sentimental. They're glorified configuration files that may be nicer to have access to, but there's no obligation to release such things if they are even accessible. Plus, if you used Codewalker's character tool to download config info, a long hash code was generated for your characters if they were to ever be re-integrated into a server with a validation function to ensure they were legitimate.....
I think most of us would prefer to be a part of that development, and don't particularly care about how crap it runs when they have our characters, and supergroup bases.I don't doubt that, but there would be at least some challenges there like..
Some have even seen screenshots of the characters, names and all, of friends' toons, friends who have been dead for years since the end of CoX.Yes, and we've lost many. I used to run with the Monday night Freedom Horde TFs, and was sad to discover that one of the leaders, a very nice woman whom was the last I said farewell to on shutdown morning, passed. It sucks and we won't ever get those experiences back. ) ' :
This might be a bit off topic but weren't there websites where we could list our characters and builds, things like that? I'm trying to remember some of my CoX characters but I'm realizing a lot of characters from CO and DCUO are blurring together in my brain and I'm wondering if any of those old CoX based sites are still active.
Even if we did have access to our old characters I don't know that I'd be able to even claim them if they're not somehow hooked to our old account names as that's the only thing I can find reliably through digging through old emails.
This might be a bit off topic but weren't there websites where we could list our characters and builds, things like that? I'm trying to remember some of my CoX characters but I'm realizing a lot of characters from CO and DCUO are blurring together in my brain and I'm wondering if any of those old CoX based sites are still active.Do you mean this one?
Even if we did have access to our old characters I don't know that I'd be able to even claim them if they're not somehow hooked to our old account names as that's the only thing I can find reliably through digging through old emails.
https://cit.cohtitan.com/
By all means, quote me, go ahead.
If they aren't our characters, if they weren't made by us, leveled by us, used by us, if you're going to take issue with the fact that they were ours, then there's no point in talking then, is there? Because you don't respect the emotional attachment many of us have to the game.
And hey, you know, I sure can use that character tool to play in Co--oh right, I can't, because even if I had access to all of my character data (and I do, because hey, I was around here near the end like everyone else who was!) the best ~I~ have access to is paragon chat, which only really cares about costumes anyway.
If you aren't even going to respect people's basic feelings as to why they're feeling how they are, then your arguments inherently come from a negative place.
But you just read what I said and didn't actually listen, respond to it, etc. People's data is already being used. Data from people who are dead is being used for joyrides in other people's characters. That's a thing that I take issue with.
I'm going to be done addressing you directly. Sorry. It's not productive.
Do you mean this one?
https://cit.cohtitan.com/
Data from people who are dead is being used for joyrides in other people's characters. That's a thing that I take issue with.
Truly written like a gamer and not a software developer.... thank you for proving my point.
I have heard from people on that server. 1 is garbage because no one had qualifications with beta testing to get in, 2 we just want the damned game, 3 then release it and let the community sort it out because I've never heard of software updating after launch faster because MORE people can look at it. If anything, your arguments show why it should have been shared with more people sooner. Also enough people with it means you can't C&D SCORE and kill cox. Done.
Wait are people elsewhere alleging that or did you just come up with it? Pretty sure even those of us who aren't angry would take exception of we thought anyone was using other people's characters. But it never even crossed my mind that anyone would want to, much less that it'd be allowed even if the private server were as moustache twisting as some believe.
Personally I'd probably still not be angry, not sure I have the capacity for such feels. And the anger would be outweighed by the theoretical schadenfreude at the idea of someone else faceplanting my ta or khelds.
Wait are people elsewhere alleging that or did you just come up with it? Pretty sure even those of us who aren't angry would take exception of we thought anyone was using other people's characters. But it never even crossed my mind that anyone would want to, much less that it'd be allowed even if the private server were as moustache twisting as some believe.
Personally I'd probably still not be angry, not sure I have the capacity for such feels. And the anger would be outweighed by the theoretical schadenfreude at the idea of someone else faceplanting my ta or khelds.
Weenus uses LEVITY.I LOL'D irl, First time I did that reading this thread in what feels like ages. ( ' :
It's not very effective . . .
Plus, if you used Codewalker's character tool to download config info, a long hash code was generated for your characters if they were to ever be re-integrated into a server with a validation function to ensure they were legitimate.....
It was a reddit thread, someone stated he noticed a character name/costume in the video belonging to a dead friend of his. You're welcome to search for it on the subreddit if you'd like. I'm not gonna sort through them for it.
My data could be false, and I'd be the first to swallow it and apologize, but I have heard from multiple sources that unclaimed characters were occasionally being used, if not the most commonly.I just don't understand why someone would use the characters when there's nothing to be gained from it.
My data could be false, and I'd be the first to swallow it and apologize, but I have heard from multiple sources that unclaimed characters were occasionally being used, if not the most commonly.
That said, I fell asleep leveling my peacebringer and revived them almidst waking back up, so they wouldn't have too bad a time with mine ;)
And yeah, it's all just data, and yeah, I honestly don't care if someone else downloads Argent Girl after the data drops if it does and uses her... I just want to be able to, and someone made that choice without us involved, and I'm callin schenanigans.
It's worth noting that in his video, People's Hero Mr. Destroyer Stroyer specifically called out how:
- Hardly anyone was on the server at any given time; sounding pretty much like Paragon Chat on a non-event day.
- When he hosted an event in Rikti War Zone, "RZW ran like crap" with more than a handful of people in the zone
That is a description of a server with a handful of active users that is still in need of further work; not a server with hundreds of active users and smooth as silk performance.
"3000 users", wherever that number came from, is a number spread over six years or more. If we take Mr. Destroyer Stroyer at his word, via his statements on his video, most of the people invited to the server either declined the invitations entirely or only came in for a short while before losing interest. He is not describing a thriving server full of supergroups and a vibrant community. He's describing the same sort of user base that uses Paragon Chat. Putting his "Liberator of /r/CityofHeroes" act aside, I suspect that what Mr. Destroyer Stroyer really hoped would happen is that the the server admins would be "forced" to open the server up to the public and Mr. Destroyer Stroyer would get the server-wide community in-game that he felt was missing and was therefore responsible for his feeling of it being non-fun to be a member of the server. (Yes, I'm aware he was banned. I don't think that changes his motivations, particularly, but only he really knows why he took the actions he took.)
Picture this. Sicily, 194-
No, no, just consider this hypothetical:
Rewind to 3 days ago, before all this hit. Leandro makes an announcement that SCoRE has a very special treat for the 15th anniversary so you better have your issue 24 beta clients ready.
Fast forward, 2 weeks, the first announcement is made within paragon chat that you can direct your i24 client to this address and connect. Later that night, server code gets torrented/box'd and the first server's ip address is announced to the world.
Days later people ask about the story. "Yeah, we've been working on this for 6 years nonstop. We've been so excited, it killed us not to tell you all the first time we bootd up and successfully logged in. "
Now, would any one be screaming body murder about not being in the server? No. It's perspective. And no, it didn't go this way, but we're 11 days from the 15 th anniversary. If you're hot under the collar, you may want to consider taking a break.
One could be forgiven for thinking that was a lie to save face, after all, what are the chances the private server was going to be made public just after it happened to be exposed? I mean come on, its been a secret for 6 years and just as it's exposed it comes out "Oh I was planning on releasing it in a few weeks" BS
Picture this. Sicily, 194-
No, no, just consider this hypothetical:
Rewind to 3 days ago, before all this hit. Leandro makes an announcement that SCoRE has a very special treat for the 15th anniversary so you better have your issue 24 beta clients ready.
Fast forward, 2 weeks, the first announcement is made within paragon chat that you can direct your i24 client to this address and connect. Later that night, server code gets torrented/box'd and the first server's ip address is announced to the world.
Days later people ask about the story. "Yeah, we've been working on this for 6 years nonstop. We've been so excited, it killed us not to tell you all the first time we bootd up and successfully logged in. "
Now, would any one be screaming body murder about not being in the server? No. It's perspective. And no, it didn't go this way, but we're 11 days from the 15 th anniversary. If you're hot under the collar, you may want to consider taking a break.
Yes... you could also turn the question around. What are the chances that someone who was banned from the server back in November would decide to release a bunch of youtube videos about it in mid-April, right before the devs on the server were discussing a possible public reveal of it?
Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe Mr. Destroyer Stroyer had some reasons for choosing this as his time to blow the cover of the server operators. I don't know the answer. If he says it was a coincidence, and I'm forced to choose to believe that one statement is a lie and the other is not, Leandro has "cred" here that Mr. Destroyer Stroyer does not have.
As it stands, it doesn't change anything at this point, so it's moot. I only mention it to point out that there are multiple angles to view a story from and choosing the one that plays best with your personal feelings doesn't mean that you've chosen the best or most accurate angle.
However - we know nothing of the server. It might be running on someone's PC on a cable connection.
Now, would any one be screaming body murder about not being in the server? No. It's perspective. And no, it didn't go this way, but we're 11 days from the 15 th anniversary. If you're hot under the collar, you may want to consider taking a break.
I only watched little bits of the destroyer video but wasn't this tool how they were loading the character data back? I kindof got the impression that what he got was a full Codewalker file format download for every character on the system (I could be completely mistaken on that).
Yes... you could also turn the question around. What are the chances that someone who was banned from the server back in November would decide to release a bunch of youtube videos about it in mid-April, right before the devs on the server were discussing a possible public reveal of it?
Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe Mr. Destroyer Stroyer had some reasons for choosing this as his time to blow the cover of the server operators. I don't know the answer. If he says it was a coincidence, and I'm forced to choose to believe that one statement is a lie and the other is not, Leandro has "cred" here that Mr. Destroyer Stroyer does not have.
As it stands, it doesn't change anything at this point, so it's moot. I only mention it to point out that there are multiple angles to view a story from and choosing the one that plays best with your personal feelings doesn't mean that you've chosen the best or most accurate angle.
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-fully-functioning-city-of-heroes-private-server-has-somehow-been-kept-secret-for-six-years/ He was anonymously given the character data from the CoH servers.
The person running the Woofers effort was quoted on reddit as having been given that data as well, but losing it in a hard drive crash.
I'd like to say that the community at a larger scale could have been trusted with a bit more disclosure but, I've been around the block with alpha tests, beta tests, early access, all of that, and I know how impatient gamers can be, myself included. People would have rioted after 2 years of waiting, let alone 6.
Thats not entirely true, the leak had a picture of the 2013 server specs. (thats right, 2013) The machine was less powerful than what they play minecraft on nowadays and for some reason, 5x the cost.
Maybe the cost is largely bandwidth based?
So in this regard I am rather impressed with everyone involved with the private server. 6 years is a long time to keep a secret successfully especially across so many people. I am not mad at the players who kept this a secret at all, in fact, I am rather impressed how long it was kept a secret. The ol saying "Only 2 people can keep a secret if one of them is dead" was put to the test here. That was a lot of people keeping a secret. As far as secrets go the more people who know it, the more likely it is to be revealed. So bravo in that regard.
Yes... you could also turn the question around. What are the chances that someone who was banned from the server back in November would decide to release a bunch of youtube videos about it in mid-April, right before the devs on the server were discussing a possible public reveal of it?
Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe Mr. Destroyer Stroyer had some reasons for choosing this as his time to blow the cover of the server operators. I don't know the answer. If he says it was a coincidence, and I'm forced to choose to believe that one statement is a lie and the other is not, Leandro has "cred" here that Mr. Destroyer Stroyer does not have.
As it stands, it doesn't change anything at this point, so it's moot. I only mention it to point out that there are multiple angles to view a story from and choosing the one that plays best with your personal feelings doesn't mean that you've chosen the best or most accurate angle.
Absolutely not. Go look at renting any dedicated server to see that for yourself.
Or you can do a little research, there is a lot of information being posted online, including screenshots of emails and conversations that appear very damming. In any case, there is evidence of foul play, in that case is no longer a matter of opinion, but of fact.
Yes, if that is true that would have been nice. And I am sure we all would be acting differently. But it didn't happen that way, and we don't know if it ever would have. All we know is it has been around for 6 years,Yes.
it was a well-kept secret,Yes.
and that it would have remained a secret for an undisclosed amount of time - possibly indefinitely.No, we don't know that.
Yes.
Yes.
No, we don't know that.
And many people have jumped to the negative conclusion just because, instead of a positive conclusion when we mostly all knew that server project had been in the works.
So in this regard I am rather impressed with everyone involved with the private server. 6 years is a long time to keep a secret successfully especially across so many people. I am not mad at the players who kept this a secret at all, in fact, I am rather impressed how long it was kept a secret. The ol saying "Only 2 people can keep a secret if one of them is dead" was put to the test here. That was a lot of people keeping a secret. As far as secrets go the more people who know it, the more likely it is to be revealed. So bravo in that regard.You've clearly never worked with government secrets. I have. It's pretty easy to keep secrets when the reasons for keeping them are clear to all involved and the consequences of revealing them are dire enough. This group was small enough, vetted enough, and controlled enough to keep the secret damped down quite handily. (Scrubbing and plugging leaks is part of the process.)
What sort of game can you rent a dedi for that would be comperable to a persistent online MMO world equivalent to the size of CoX?
Typically dedi server pricing is tiered based on the amount of slots it fits with the service being significantly more expensive with more slots, wouldn't an MMO server be at the top of that curve?
However - we know nothing of the server. It might be running on someone's PC on a cable connection.
Do you really, honestly, believe it ever would have gone that way?
Which is a complete lie. They don't cost that much, you can look for yourself extremely easily.
They dont cost that much NOW, the screen was from several years ago.
Considering how these people have been helpful in so many ways to support the community above and beyond any obligation, yes.
Leandro was seeding animations for demorecords.
Codewalker pushed out iCon
P-chat ewas pushed out.
Additional technical information had been shared as situations/inquiries arose.
So, yes, given a choice of whether or not to give then the benefit of the doubt, they have credibility because they have delivered and the conspiracy theories just don't hold water.
So because they gave us a picture of the game, while they played the real thing we should trust them?????
Yes... you could also turn the question around. What are the chances that someone who was banned from the server back in November would decide to release a bunch of youtube videos about it in mid-April, right before the devs on the server were discussing a possible public reveal of it?
Maybe it's a coincidence. Maybe Mr. Destroyer Stroyer had some reasons for choosing this as his time to blow the cover of the server operators. I don't know the answer. If he says it was a coincidence, and I'm forced to choose to believe that one statement is a lie and the other is not, Leandro has "cred" here that Mr. Destroyer Stroyer does not have.
No, we don't know that.
And many people have jumped to the negative conclusion just because, instead of a positive conclusion when we mostly all knew that server project had been in the works.
6 years my dude, its hard to think otherwise.SEGS .1.5 was checked into sourceforge on 11/11/2009, 9.5 years ago, and look where it is now dude.
You've clearly never worked with government secrets. I have. It's pretty easy to keep secrets when the reasons for keeping them are clear to all involved and the consequences of revealing them are dire enough. This group was small enough, vetted enough, and controlled enough to keep the secret damped down quite handily. (Scrubbing and plugging leaks is part of the process.)
The biggest issue here is that I think the reasons for keeping the secret were overblown; we'll see in the next few months whether NCSoft actually takes legal action.
SEGS .1.5 was checked into sourceforge on 11/11/2009, 9.5 years ago, and look where it is now dude.
We were starving, so they gave us a few breadcrumbs while they ate steak everyday, telling us that steak was impossible.It wasn't impossible, though, guys, they were totally going to give us a full course meal in just a week's time! But then someone had to go and tell us they were in the kitchen and now the food that they already prepared and were about to send out, no, really, they were, is something they can't share, just like they couldn't share it before.
It wasn't impossible, though, guys, they were totally going to give us a full course meal in just a week's time! But then someone had to go and tell us they were in the kitchen and now the food that they already prepared and were about to send out, no, really, they were, is something they can't share, just like they couldn't share it before.
I really do think something good is going to come of all of this.
I don't want to jinx anything, but I'm feeling shockingly optimistic? Which is a pretty new sensation for me. I'm, like... excited? Everyone is so busy fighting, and I'm over here just doing a happy dance that the game is still alive somewhere, somehow.
*knocks on wood*
It could easily be proven that this eventual public event was going to take place, surely if it was that soon there would be plenty of proof to back it up? Without revealing too much or exposing people, they could easily show screenshots of discussions of it or anything right? A claim was made, it was called fake and they have the easiest way to prove it wasn't.
I really do think something good is going to come of all of this.
I don't want to jinx anything, but I'm feeling shockingly optimistic? Which is a pretty new sensation for me. I'm, like... excited? Everyone is so busy fighting, and I'm over here just doing a happy dance that the game is still alive somewhere, somehow.
*knocks on wood*
Okay, have all of you who keep bringing that thread up actually read it, or are you just having kneejerk reactions to the title? Because what he said is this:
That doesn't sound like "nope, never gonna happen, sorry lol gottem". Could SCoRE have turned to evil over time? I suppose it's possible, though I don't really believe it myself. But to suggest it began with evil intent as far back as a month after the closing is disingenuous.
I agree that it may well prove that the secrecy was unnecessary, but NCSoft has a bad record in this area, at best, and I somehow doubt they're very happy that someone else has account data. Had you been in the room, would you not have taken all possible measures to ensure that NCSoft never laid a hand on this data?
Okay, have all of you who keep bringing that thread up actually read it, or are you just having kneejerk reactions to the title? Because what he said is this:
That doesn't sound like "nope, never gonna happen, sorry lol gottem". Could SCoRE have turned to evil over time? I suppose it's possible, though I don't really believe it myself. But to suggest it began with evil intent as far back as a month after the closing is disingenuous.
I agree that it may well prove that the secrecy was unnecessary, but NCSoft has a bad record in this area, at best, and I somehow doubt they're very happy that someone else has account data. Had you been in the room, would you not have taken all possible measures to ensure that NCSoft never laid a hand on this data?
Folks a flowchart was kept on who invited who and a leak would get you and all those in your cells - banned.
This was not an Alpha testing environment - it was a secret server. It has even been modified to have new power sets. You say testing for stability - for 6 years? I am not holding them up as heroes - just humans. Instead of coming to the community - they cowered in fear. They lived for 6 years in fear - the brave dies but once and the coward every day. I probaby let too much info out when I was trying and these folks let too little out.
I can't help but wonder - did the game purchase die because someone gave them the code? The way it completely went silent - I have to wonder did these folks get the software and say - well why buy the cow we can get the milk for free?
I really do think something good is going to come of all of this.
I don't want to jinx anything, but I'm feeling shockingly optimistic? Which is a pretty new sensation for me. I'm, like... excited? Everyone is so busy fighting, and I'm over here just doing a happy dance that the game is still alive somewhere, somehow.
*knocks on wood*
I agree that it may well prove that the secrecy was unnecessary, but NCSoft has a bad record in this area, at best, and I somehow doubt they're very happy that someone else has account data. Had you been in the room, would you not have taken all possible measures to ensure that NCSoft never laid a hand on this data?Character data isn't account data. And NCSoft already has its hands on account data, so your question doesn't even make sense.
I can't help but wonder - did the game purchase die because someone gave them the code?
No. The two teams working on these two efforts were completely separate. As far as I know, there were no members in common between the two, except possibly short, technical advisory conversations.
I would have to imagine even if Downix knew about the Private Server he probably knew how bad it would look for City of Titans and the purchase attempt if he was found anywhere near it.
That doesn't sound like "nope, never gonna happen, sorry lol gottem". Could SCoRE have turned to evil over time? I suppose it's possible, though I don't really believe it myself. But to suggest it began with evil intent as far back as a month after the closing is disingenuous.
Well Downix did bail on it and distance himself from it. He was working on Titan and only worked the first part to introduce people to the NCSoft folks. On the second purchase attempt.
I've been lurking on this forum for years hoping the game would come back and I find out this morning it was around all along!? Not gonna lie, I'm bummed more that my lack of activity on forums about this could have been the main reason I haven't been able to play it. Not saying I'm thrilled that it was super exclusive, but I get it. Fingers crossed something more than a total shutdown comes out of this. I want nothing more than to play that freakin game again XD I haven't been able to find a game I WANT to play recently and my hopes are crushed by games I was excited for.
Character data isn't account data. And NCSoft already has its hands on account data, so your question doesn't even make sense.
NCSoft are petty bastards, but your assessment of their litigiousness requires evidence. Tabula Rasa does not a rule make.
An account/authentication server
Multiple chat server executables
A market server
A Paragon Store (microtransaction) server
A crapton of mapservers
Multiple DB servers
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/173882/general-ncsoft-tackles-illegal-servers (https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/173882/general-ncsoft-tackles-illegal-servers)
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2006/11/8258/ (https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2006/11/8258/)
Did you seriously just cite 2006/2008?They also cited shutting down private servers of currently-running, legally available products.
I don't think Titan forums really were the secret breeding ground for this server. I was pretty active here in the first few years after the shutdown and as the activity of the forum died down so did my visits. I obviously didn't know any of the right people involved but I don't think they met through these forums(maybe one or two). I would wager the people who visit this forum and also played, were already friends with someone in the "know" from pretty early on.
They also cited shutting down private servers of currently-running, legally available products.
Could SCoRE have turned to evil over time? I suppose it's possible, though I don't really believe it myself. But to suggest it began with evil intent as far back as a month after the closing is disingenuous.
Here's a conspiracy theory for you.
There never was an unauthorized leak by an NCSOFT employee. It was a sanctioned act with the intent to manipulate the SCORE team into rebuilding the game into something that could be legitimately released back onto the market. No one inside SCORE need know that they were played. No one need know if, or how many, of their fellow players were actually working for NCSOFT.
It would be a fantastic outcome.
Remember, you heard about it here first.
I also believe what started out as Alpha-style testing for their work on the reverse engineering side of things, where they brought in a few friends at a time, slowly shifted to a full-blown, official secret server.According to leaks, the server is a fully functional server, not a testing environment.
Here's a conspiracy theory for you.
There never was an unauthorized leak by an NCSOFT employee. It was a sanctioned act with the intent to manipulate the SCORE team into rebuilding the game into something that could be legitimately released back onto the market. No one inside SCORE need know that they were played. No one need know if, or how many, of their fellow players were actually working for NCSOFT.
It would be a fantastic outcome.
Remember, you heard about it here first.
According to leaks, the server is a fully functional server, not a testing environment.
I'm involved in closed alpha tests right now that could be released to public market in their current state by industry standards, the server functioning doesn't really mean they're not still working on it, improving it or optimizing it for larger population. I've also seen plenty of game servers that work fine with a certain number of players and take a total nose dive the moment you go above a certain line, there's a lot of things that could be holding it in testing status even if leakers didn't see them outright.
You have no proof of anything you've said. This is someone who was on the server saying it isn't in dev. It's time for proof, plenty of ways to do so without risking anything. Show dev discussion with forum timestamp. Show video of working on code. Show anything that will prove anything. Otherwise it just looks like were being lied to.
Please unclamp your jaws from my head, thank you.
I'm not saying anything definitive, I don't require "proof", I'm sure anyone in here who has been playing MMO's as far back as CoH's launch has been in plenty of alpha and beta tests over the years and can recall games that were even more fun during beta. Off the top of my head I can think of Age of Conan and the original Planetside, they ran, they functioned, the devs were still working on them. It's just food for thought, I'm not trying to disprove anything anyone said, I'm not disputing a claim, I'm just offering the point that a server running well does not always mean development has ended, or it's at a state that a developer is happy with.
I don't believe it would have ever been released a quote from the Reddit Mole:
The policy was in place from at least 2013. Please be careful about assigning malice to these policies. We are talking about people willing to risk their personal freedom to keep the world alive and maintaining strict secrecy with harsh consequences was just how it had to be done in their minds. I hope these answers satisfy for now.
They were justifying themselves for 6 years that it was the only way to keep "their" home - not OUR home.
Ironwolf, you're got a lot of clout and grit.
Let's stay positive. A playable version of CoH still exists. Just let that sink in.
This is to anyone that'll listen:
Let go of your anger, or use is for some good. Step back and take some breaths, do some yoga or punch something. Cry your eyes out. Yell at the sky. Do what you need to do. Take a beat.
Now,
What can be done so everyone can play and enjoy the game? Let's solve that problem. Who can help Leo (or whomever has the code). Remember, there was a source behind this: Leo got it from somewhere.
As a community we need to back the people that need help. All this anger let's direct it someplace positive. Let's get the game going again. Leo has that seed and has been care-taking it. That seed has grown a little under his care. For lack of better words, it's alive and there's hope. Now it's time to show him that it's safe to release what's grown and recreate the forest that was once City of Heroes and in a way that no company can every take that away again.
If you are angry, yes you I'm talking directly to you behind the monitor: direct it to NCSoft.
Ironwolf, you're got a lot of clout and grit.
Let's stay positive. A playable version of CoH still exists. Just let that sink in.
This is to anyone that'll listen:
Let go of your anger, or use is for some good. Step back and take some breaths, do some yoga or punch something. Cry your eyes out. Yell at the sky. Do what you need to do. Take a beat.
Now,
What can be done so everyone can play and enjoy the game? Let's solve that problem. Who can help Leo (or whomever has the code). Remember, there was a source behind this: Leo got it from somewhere.
As a community we need to back the people that need help. All this anger let's direct it someplace positive. Let's get the game going again. Leo has that seed and has been care-taking it. That seed has grown a little under his care. For lack of better words, it's alive and there's hope. Now it's time to show him that it's safe to release what's grown and recreate the forest that was once City of Heroes and in a way that no company can every take that away again.
If you are angry, yes you I'm talking directly to you behind the monitor: direct it to NCSoft.
Why does my post explaining to Tony V why this block of text
Is just tech fluff and not complicated or expensive keep disappearing? It's not insulting or attacking anyone. I'll simplify in hopes its not removed.
The only real costing item in that list is Mapservers. The rest is very basic and simple stuff, The idea that each one is an individual server is incorrect and misleading.
Account server for example. is a thing that when you click login, it's a web server that takes that request that you've sent and goes is this person legit. It's like logging into a forum thats all an account server is.
Even mapserver isn't that complicated to operate. You have to remember, most of this was targeted at 2003/4 hardware. We're lightyears ahead in terms of equipment and costs. Fitting thousands of people in one spot is extra work certainly, but we're talking about individual private servers here, that would probably not feature 1000+ people at a time.
I don't know, I don't memorize all of the posts I delete. Probably because of other stuff in it?
By "server," I mean it in the sense of client-server computing. A "server" in this sense is a distinct, running process that responds to client requests. I never intended it to mean a physical box. Although make no mistake: There WERE a bunch of high-end enterprise-level boxes running all of this software.
That's not all an account server is in this case. There were also ties into what level of privileges you have, ties into the store to figure out what stuff you owned, a crapton of anti-intrusion measures, since this was the gateway into the game and back-end processes, yadda yadda yadda. And while I don't know the precise architecture, I suspect that the account server probably had things like clustering and/or load balancing baked into the executable so that during peak hours it could process large numbers of logins simultaneously without dying.
Point is, you're almost certainly grossly underestimating how much computing power a simple "account server" required, and you're completely ignoring how complicated the configuration and actual execution of it is.
Yes, it was. This was the software that kept track of every entity in a zone or instance--players, NPCs, environmental entities (cars, trains, meteors, burning oil patches, etc.) Whether you have one person in an instance or 1000, all of that stuff still has to be tracked. I don't think I'm going out on a limb in saying that player characters are actually just a percent or two, if that much, of all the stuff that a map server tracks.
I'm not going to continue arguing about this, my impressions are from the people who actually worked on the stuff told me over the years. If you want further clarification, go bug Matt Miller or some of the other former devs. Towards the end of the game's life, there were efforts to try to clean up the code and make it less complicated to configure and run, and as I recall they were beginning efforts to consolidate some of these server processes on fewer, BIG honkin' boxes, but they never really got much time to work on those kinds of efforts because they were constantly scrambling to get the next issue out the door.
I appreciate your clarifications Tony. As i said before, My info on these things is mostly from other MMOs, if CoH was truly this spaghetti then i feel for the CoH devs. However, as none of us have seen the code we do not know this to be the truth, even if its not the truth any longer. You nor i know if anyone else could be up to task and until the code is out, we never will. Kind of a moot point, but at least i got to respond and see your responce without deletion. The other stuff was not hostile, just further tech mumbojumbo.
Please unclamp your jaws from my head, thank you.
Just for the record, if you guys keep giving Codewalker credit for Sentinel+, you're going to summon GuyPerfect. For the sake of my own sanity, please don't.
Just for the record, if you guys keep giving Codewalker credit for Sentinel+, you're going to summon GuyPerfect. For the sake of my own sanity, please don't.Oh woops....I already started the ritual to summon him :( In true CoH style I was doing a CoT ritual so it may end up with a few demons on the loose as well.
It's worth noting that in his video, People's Hero Mr. Destroyer Stroyer specifically called out how:
- When he hosted an event in Rikti War Zone, "RZW ran like crap" with more than a handful of people in the zone
Ironwolf, you're got a lot of clout and grit.
Let's stay positive. A playable version of CoH still exists. Just let that sink in.
This is to anyone that'll listen:
Let go of your anger, or use is for some good. Step back and take some breaths, do some yoga or punch something. Cry your eyes out. Yell at the sky. Do what you need to do. Take a beat.
Now,
What can be done so everyone can play and enjoy the game? Let's solve that problem. Who can help Leo (or whomever has the code). Remember, there was a source behind this: Leo got it from somewhere.
As a community we need to back the people that need help. All this anger let's direct it someplace positive. Let's get the game going again. Leo has that seed and has been care-taking it. That seed has grown a little under his care. For lack of better words, it's alive and there's hope. Now it's time to show him that it's safe to release what's grown and recreate the forest that was once City of Heroes and in a way that no company can every take that away again.
If you are angry, yes you I'm talking directly to you behind the monitor: direct it to NCSoft.
Congrats! You made me laugh!
If by RWZ raids, you mean mother ship raids. I agree with you.
Consider that payback for helping me locate the CIT where I cringed while reading a roleplay character profile I wrote a decade ago.
I am not really angry - more disappointed that some people lost sight of the goal.
They found Van Gogh's Starry Night left in the attic of a house and instead of sharing it with the world - or even attempt to - they had it locked in a safe and showed it to their friends only. Many people spent thousands of hours enjoying the world in our own painting. When we thought it was gone, destroyed in a moment as the game literally stopped in our arms - we found out someone had it all along.
Can you imagine a world without Van Gogh? Isaac Asimov? Harry Freaking Dresden? To some of us this was art and joy as we sat and watched the sun set on Talos.
It disappoints me that so many unknowns exist - could those purchasing the game have had access to this code? Would it have been simpler for them to negotiate for the rights of the game if they didn't need NCSoft to help? I just see wasted time and the final cart being pushed down the road as they yell bring out your dead. I fear this killed the game - not the leaks but the fear and honestly from my point of view insanity of a few.
If they said - we will kept one secret as a back up and open one and see what happens - I would completely understand never showing the secret one if the open one was C&D'd. It wasn't what they did - they did hide, lie and deflect for YEARS. I am stubborn, but very disappointed.
It would be easier listing raids that werent laggy tbh
When I found out about this server, honestly, I was thrilled! The fact that there is a working server is good news. I was hopeful that there was a secret If you asked me last week, I would have thought I most likely would never play this game again. Now, I am 99% sure that I will.
It seems there is a whole team of people working on this server. I doubt they're getting paid; this would be a labor of love. I am confident they will release the code if for no other reason than because I have a hard time believing their end goal is to have a low population server all to themselves.
Instead of assuming the worst, let's hope for the best. That is all we can do.
When I found out about this server, honestly, I was thrilled! The fact that there is a working server is good news. If you asked me last week, I would have thought I most likely would never play this game again. Now, I am 99% sure that I will.
It seems there is a whole team of people working on this server. I doubt they're getting paid; this would be a labor of love. I am confident they will release the code if for no other reason than because I have a hard time believing their end goal is to have a low population server all to themselves.
Instead of assuming the worst, let's hope for the best. That is all we can do.
They have had the server working for at least 6 years. The original game ran for 8 years. They have nearly had the Elitist server open for nearly as long as the game ran legally, let that sink in and tell me again how they ever planned to share the game.
This is pretty much how i feel about this.
And my post complaining about how the censorship of this site is restricting it all to an unrelated thread years old got censored.
No message of course.
No response about why this thread is the most suitable.
I just remember the hope we had in a buyer and all the while these guys had the server. I want people to stop peeing on my head and telling me its raining.
I really am a boy scout, a veteran and believe in honor, duty and kindness and this whole thing stinks to high heaven.
Dysfunctional because...?They got lied to and got hurt and are passionate about the game they loved? You're being more aggressive and uncivil than most of the people you claim are dysfunctional.
There we go with the knee jerk biting off of the head again.Lol, sounds like most pug TF's I got in - was there some reason we just aggro'd that 6th group?
It was a joke. I'm more talking about the fact that so many people in here are going back and forth and there is no general consensus over anything, you have people on all levels of the spectrum of responses to the news in this thread. That's why putting us all in one group would be dysfunctional, it's The Odd Couple aspect of it, I wasn't calling anyone in here dysfunctional people. Points for the triple axel over the gun though.
> If you are angry, yes you I'm talking directly to you behind the monitor: direct it to NCSoft.
And direct it to the people who gaslight and lied about the private cool kids server.
I just remember the hope we had in a buyer and all the while these guys had the server. I want people to stop peeing on my head and telling me its raining.
I really am a boy scout, a veteran and believe in honor, duty and kindness and this whole thing stinks to high heaven.
Lol, sounds like most pug TF's I got in - was there some reason we just aggro'd that 6th group?
I'm going to be as gentle as I can with this, but I just wanted to second the notion that I think we need to acknowledge and get some sort of comment on some of the nasty behavior that's went on before the reveal. Stuff like the aforementioned gaslighting and lying. Not to mention the numerous people driven out of various coh communities, some here, the subreddit, the Facebook etc when people started getting close to finding out about score and what they were doing.
People were laughed out. Pushed out. Treated like flat earther big foot believer Alex Jones conspiracy nuts for believing in something that ended up being completely true. Regardless of whether anyone thinks that hiding the truth was required or not, I think there needs to be some apologies given to the people that were excluded and ruined for getting close to the truth.
If I were to guess its because this is the most likely place people on this forum will know to look. This post eventually became "official unofficial general discussion channel" I imagine to prevent multiple threads from popping up, it was easiest to direct even who to the most popular, and commonly read the thread.
Well, you have to guess, as the mods keep deleting it. Almost like they don't want people pointing out that a five year thread with 1000+ pages of unrelated content is about the least visible place.
Anyone doubting censorship isn't paying attention.
It's not really the mods fault that the discussion landed here in the first place, that comes down to the first few posters who brought it into this thread and kick the discussion off in here.
Quarantining a large topic like this is fairly common, or else you just let it turn into complete unmitigated anarchy, similar to the subreddit currently. They let it stay on this topic because this one had the most activity on the discussion at that time. I suppose they could all move it to one super thread or something but that would be a lot of tedious work to migrate 3 days of discussion onto a new thread, I'd think.
It's not really the mods fault that the discussion landed here in the first place, that comes down to the first few posters who brought it into this thread and kick the discussion off in here.
Yes it is. They told people to post in this thread lmao
Massively OP's special edition podcast on our topic of the day:
https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/17/massively-op-podcast-episode-217-city-of-heroes-after-dark/
They have had the server working for at least 6 years.
Can you imagine a world without Van Gogh? Isaac Asimov? Harry Freaking Dresden?
It would be easier listing raids that werent laggy tbhi did at least three dozen Mothership Raids on two servers and so far i'm up to approximately...
That was entertaining but I disagree with the show's opinion that there is no path to redemption for the SCORE team within the CoX community. Just hearing that statement makes me feel ashamed for all of us.
That was entertaining but I disagree with the show's opinion that there is no path to redemption for the SCORE team within the CoX community. Just hearing that statement makes me feel ashamed for all of us.
This is necessarily at you per se, Ironwolf, just you're the most recent to use the 6 year term. I'm not confident that they had it running in the state it's in for 6 years... Several, to be sure, but what I'm seeing is that it was *started* 6 years ago, and did take at least a little bit of time to be playable.
??? You just included Harry Dresden on a list to be equal with Van Gogh and Asimov... I now have some serious concerns about your state of mind.
If you read the comments after the podcast Bree logged into the server in 2013. She never played on it but Leondro showed her what they were doing. I can easily guess who was doing what on the development side, I am sure all of you can as well.
It really wouldnt have been difficult to close this discussion rather than the "https://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=13277.0 (https://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=13277.0)" which was started within minutes of this thread taking off with the issue.This has been the primary thread for discussing matters related to playing CoH again since the official servers were shut down. When i check into the forums to look for news it's the first thread i look at. In my opinion your definition of backwater needs work since this thread is no more of a backwater than the rest of the Titan Network. Which it is to a certain extent since its focus is on an MMO that was shut down years ago, and until recently with no known private/emulated servers.
Even if it hadn't, it's standard forum stuff to make a mega thread if needed. Without need to move threads/posts. Or without the need to delete posts of why it should be elsewhere.
This is biggest news in City of Heroes fandom for years, and cohtitan relegates it to a back water thread.
until recently with no known private/emulated servers.Oh, and i'm not trying to disparage the work of the SEGS people, they've made impressive progress, especially recently, but they're still a ways from having a working server with all the basic functionality needed to be a superhero MMO.
I don't believe it would have ever been released a quote from the Reddit Mole:
The policy was in place from at least 2013. Please be careful about assigning malice to these policies. We are talking about people willing to risk their personal freedom to keep the world alive and maintaining strict secrecy with harsh consequences was just how it had to be done in their minds. I hope these answers satisfy for now.
They were justifying themselves for 6 years that it was the only way to keep "their" home - not OUR home.
People kept a secret and it gets called "gaslighting." Yeah, people keeping a secret will lie about it. It's called keeping a secret. "Gaslighting" is intentionally fooling someone to drive them crazy. Calling what SCoRE did 'gaslighting' is despicable in imputing such malign intentions.To me the specific bit about how they were planning to release the server in the very near future until the leaker ruined it seems rather suspiciously like a gaslighting tactic, and gaslighting isn't simply about driving people crazy, it's a way of trying to manipulate people, frequently by trying to convince them that everything bad that is done is their own fault, not the other person's. It's simply that i don't find it credible that after six years of work SCoRE was at most weeks away from giving more access until the leaker suddenly ruined everything.
To know that folks might have been playing as my Tubbius or Waddle the Penguin or been having occasional fun with some of my Architect PENGUIN levels. . . Sigh. :-\Uhm, didn't they say that characters and account info were not given with the code as such data was not needed to run the server and would be a massive privacy breach?
At least someone could have been enjoying my hard work, I guess.
I can't speak for why someone would call it crackpot when, as people have already quoted often in this thread, Tony had posted about the SCoRE project back in its infancy. Did Leo call it crackpot?
If posts were removed, I can understand why the mods wouldn't want such a discussion about potentially illegal activity discussed on the boards.
Snipped
Since no one has really refuted this since it's been posted, I'd just like to say that I ran in some RWZ raids when the game was still running on official servers, and they always ran like crap on the official servers.
RWZ raids not running well is not any kind of evidence of it not being ready to release.
I appreciate seeing a declaration of progress and public release,
Come back together as the community we are supposed to be
HEAL.
YOUR.
WOUNDS.
You can't heal wounds you don't acknowledge first
I am the asshole who didn't release things fast enough. That is a valid complaint. But that was not a decision that was done to harm the community because "f*** you, got mine" like so many people are saying.
I don't hate to be "That person" I've had my hand in running private servers (Not COH related) So I know a thing or two about setbacks.
So I'm going to say what nobody wants to hear but needs to be said.
Instead of coming out with all the pitchforks and torches, because THAT is EASY...
We should do what is NOT Easy.
Instead... we should put on our capes and be heroes.
Heal your wounds.
Come back together as the community we are supposed to be and if at all possible...
Dear God if at all possible...please, support Leo.
HEAL.
YOUR.
WOUNDS.
If you are truly working on getting the server up and running for public release, now is the time to create a public roadmap of your progress/destination and post it somewhere so that everyone can see it.
No, now is the time for him to step back into the quiet.
We need others to pick up the torch, he carried it a long time and got burned a little.
No, it's really not. We don't know what is happening - maybe you do, but those kinds of secrets are exactly what got us to the point we are at now.
People need to know what is happening.
Leandro and some others are discussing what'll happen to the code over voice in the SEGS discord. I imagine things will filter out from there to here and reddit and so on.
Its being posted everywhere, this happened in the wee hours of the night on discord there was over 100 people in voice chat during this period.
https://puu.sh/Dgpzj/32ed08128a.mp3
Can you quote where anybody said those words, above?
What I at least am saying is that whatever state it's in, what Destroyer Stroyer described is NOT some wonderful perfect copy of the original NCSoft server that Leandro has been sitting on and refusing to share.
Likewise, if they were considering an "event leading to a release" then the current level of scrutiny has convinced them that the current level of completeness is NOT ready for prime time.
I mean, you can't have it both ways. If you want to quote Leandro about the projected release and say, "He was going to release it sometime soon; it must be ready", you can't then ignore that it was also Leandro who decided that the current state of the server was NOT conducive to a release that will be scrutinized to the level that such a release will now be scrutinized. Likewise, if we take PC Gamer and/or Massively at face value regarding their emailed conversations with Leandro, then it appears that the issue is (and I freely admit that I'm speculating now) that he expects action from NCSoft as soon as the server is released, so he now wants to have it be not just "ready for testing" but "finished" to the point where no more work is required and it can be disseminated widely enough that action by NCSoft will be futile.
It doesn't really matter if you or I would say, "Frag the deficiencies! Give us the server!" Leandro's got the server and it's his yardstick that measures how close it is to ready; not ours.
No, now is the time for him to step back into the quiet.
We need others to pick up the torch, he carried it a long time and got burned a little.
No now is the time to not only live up to the lie but to release what they have. Especially witn idiotic
Change.org petitions and articles reaching out to ncsoft for comment.
If morons like that keep reminding ncsoft about this they will be more inclined to investigate.
Since the private City of Heroes server has been leaked are the people are going to continue with the spiritual successors such City of Titans, Ship of Heroes ect?
<snip>
This is 16 servers that were bought over a period of 6 years to expand the population as fast as we could, because every single one of them was a remind of what happens when we take too long. We lose a friend. Then another. Then another.
Red Dragon, Lady Judgement, Janlee, Staff Kain, Raine Heartfall, Gloryhound, Mrs. PosiChimp, Reikun. So many more. They are not servers yet because we have not had the resources to remember them that way. Every single server is a reminder, and every single time I hear about the passing of a COH player, I am reminded that I'm not doing enough and I'm not doing things fast enough.
<snip>
I know the community is hurt and it's my fault. I am moving as fast as I can to try to make things better, but I can't make instantly get everything ready. I have not slept since my phone was published on Monday at 2am and notifications haven't stopped ringing since then.
Please. Have patience. I am only human. And I am trying really hard to keep almost 3539 people from being harrassed and threatened as I have been for the last 4 days.
Yes, almost 3539 people. Because many of them are not around anymore. And every single one of them is a reminder of my failure to make this work.
As I understand it, the source (original i24 flavor, I think) has been passed on for scrubbing, with release of some nature expected in the not-too-distant future. Things are still up in the air, but Leandro has handed over the torch.
Where did you see that? I listened to the discord recording, but what he and the other guy talked about in private was all hush hush.
More information will be coming - looks like my retirement will be really short.
Soon as possible more information and requests for help will be given.
To be crystal clear - I have no connection to a private server - I have never been on it and want no information about it. Detailed information about what is happening will be available as soon as possible. This will take a little time and planning to do.
So, no surprise, Leandro is, after all, one of the guys who's most been helping and supporting CoH players and community for years both before and after the shutdown.
What we know now.
This IS the original I24 Beta server code leaked anonymously over a period of several days before the shutdown. The code as he received it is full of timestamps that would allow ID-ing the person who leaked who specifically requested he not publish without scrubbing. He has been trying to scrub/rewrite but it's very slow going. The player character database was separately sent him anonymously but also contains time information that would allow id-ing the source. The last time anybody but him saved a change was 10 months ago.
The game is every bit as much a mess as we've always heard. The "server" is a set of custom boxes running old software versions and talking to each other in specific timing sequences. The ExCel spreadsheets that the Devs used have been reworked into something more usable. He has a loose team of roughly 5 who have been able to get the thing running and keep it functional while they work to improve it.
At least one other person has a DIFFERENT copy of the source code, not from the same leak.
Yes, please let Leandro go.........
**IF** this is true (and until it happens I will say IF) I have two plans...
One, I will download and attempt to setup my own server with a maximum number of accounts set to one - me. This way, I can always play. I can go get lost deep within Perez Park...I can always "Go Hunt. Kill Skuls."...I can always fly to the top of the statue in Atlas Park and protect MY city. Yes, I can do those right now in PC and SEGS, but as I said it feels hollow...just doesn't feel the same.
Then, once other servers hopefully form and shake out the bugs, I'll be there fighting along side of other heroes...sweeping the sewers...Task Forces...RWZ Raids...and yes, Costume Contests, Pocket D danceoffs, and hanging around the Ski Chalet.
I've wanted to go home for years....I just want to go home...
T
People kept a secret and it gets called "gaslighting." Yeah, people keeping a secret will lie about it. It's called keeping a secret. "Gaslighting" is intentionally fooling someone to drive them crazy. Calling what SCoRE did 'gaslighting' is despicable in imputing such malign intentions.
The news:
A search for rental servers and the best data center to choose is about to begin (think Denver/Dallas).
Rental servers will be initially used because if we get a C&D letter getting stuck with selling $30k of servers would suck.
If you work in such an environment and would like us to consider you - let me know. I will be the fall guy for now and I am also looking for website hosting and development. Once that happens we can take the work away from TonyV's site and let him also be in peace. He has been of incredible value to us and our hopes still exist because of him.
This won't be a 1 day or 2 day fix - my goal is to try and have beta testing by 1 September 2019. It is the goal, but a lot of work needs to be done.
What do I aspire to? I would love to find a partner to hand all this over to and purchase rights to the game along with having the folks who worked on the updated graphics to see if they can merge that with the existing game. I hope if we can have the world ready an investor will make the effort to buy it from NCSoft.
I have no intention of making a profit from this and will post all banking details weekly or as expenses are occurred. Obviously at first I will be paying for it - I opened my mouth - I take the risk. Once it is running the costs will be known and can be budgeted for.
This is not a joke and is completely serious.
This is not a joke and is completely serious.
I know the community is hurt and it's my fault. I am moving as fast as I can to try to make things better, but I can't make instantly get everything ready. I have not slept since my phone was published on Monday at 2am and notifications haven't stopped ringing since then.
Please. Have patience. I am only human. And I am trying really hard to keep almost 3539 people from being harrassed and threatened as I have been for the last 4 days.
Yes, almost 3539 people. Because many of them are not around anymore. And every single one of them is a reminder of my failure to make this work.
Anyone else kind of want a notice from the "wake me up when there is news" thread lol?
All in all this is a time for absolute transparency going forward.
Anyone else kind of want a notice from the "wake me up when there is news" thread lol?It really should be if anything. To notify everyone with an account here and clear up everything. To let people know the code is now being scrubbed and to wait for that proof or whatever they plan to do. Maybe link a short part of that recording where it is being handed off for Scrubbing.
There is still the legal question. I wouldn't be even thinking of setting up a public facing server at this time. If its true that the source was illegally handed off, that is a very serious problem. Its something I would want to distance myself from. Stolen IP is not something we really want to touch. I want to play the game, but I'm not willing to be fined or jailed over it.
The news:
A search for rental servers and the best data center to choose is about to begin (think Denver/Dallas).
Rental servers will be initially used because if we get a C&D letter getting stuck with selling $30k of servers would suck.
If you work in such an environment and would like us to consider you - let me know. I will be the fall guy for now and I am also looking for website hosting and development. Once that happens we can take the work away from TonyV's site and let him also be in peace. He has been of incredible value to us and our hopes still exist because of him.
This won't be a 1 day or 2 day fix - my goal is to try and have beta testing by 1 September 2019. It is the goal, but a lot of work needs to be done.
What do I aspire to? I would love to find a partner to hand all this over to and purchase rights to the game along with having the folks who worked on the updated graphics to see if they can merge that with the existing game. I hope if we can have the world ready an investor will make the effort to buy it from NCSoft.
I have no intention of making a profit from this and will post all banking details weekly or as expenses are occurred. Obviously at first I will be paying for it - I opened my mouth - I take the risk. Once it is running the costs will be known and can be budgeted for.
This is not a joke and is completely serious.
I did not steal it and in fact have zero idea where the code I may receive is from other than hearsay. I can say the code is modified as powersets and development has occurred from the videos I have seen.
I have seen so many various rumors of what, how, where, when the code was released or came into being. I know many other private servers for other games have been setup - where did they get the code? If I act as a responsible steward for their game - not allowing a profit to be made and actively seek to get a buyer to purchase it from NCSoft and step away from it - other than a C&D letter - which I would comply to immediately, I can't see what risk - I am taking? I am not damaging the financial future of the product - it is closed. I am not seeking to make a profit or to harm NCSoft - in fact I want the opposite - to give them a fully functioning product they no longer have.
I did not steal it and in fact have zero idea where the code I may receive is from other than hearsay. I can say the code is modified as powersets and development has occurred from the videos I have seen.
I have seen so many various rumors of what, how, where, when the code was released or came into being. I know many other private servers for other games have been setup - where did they get the code? If I act as a responsible steward for their game - not allowing a profit to be made and actively seek to get a buyer to purchase it from NCSoft and step away from it - other than a C&D letter - which I would comply to immediately, I can't see what risk - I am taking? I am not damaging the financial future of the product - it is closed. I am not seeking to make a profit or to harm NCSoft - in fact I want the opposite - to give them a fully functioning product they no longer have.
The news:
A search for rental servers and the best data center to choose is about to begin (think Denver/Dallas).
Rental servers will be initially used because if we get a C&D letter getting stuck with selling $30k of servers would suck.
If you work in such an environment and would like us to consider you - let me know. I will be the fall guy for now and I am also looking for website hosting and development. Once that happens we can take the work away from TonyV's site and let him also be in peace. He has been of incredible value to us and our hopes still exist because of him.
This won't be a 1 day or 2 day fix - my goal is to try and have beta testing by 1 September 2019. It is the goal, but a lot of work needs to be done.
What do I aspire to? I would love to find a partner to hand all this over to and purchase rights to the game along with having the folks who worked on the updated graphics to see if they can merge that with the existing game. I hope if we can have the world ready an investor will make the effort to buy it from NCSoft.
I have no intention of making a profit from this and will post all banking details weekly or as expenses are occurred. Obviously at first I will be paying for it - I opened my mouth - I take the risk. Once it is running the costs will be known and can be budgeted for.
This is not a joke and is completely serious.
I trust Ironwolf no questions asked. I also trust TonyV and Titan Network.
*sits quietly and makes a list of characters* if can get them backi would be so happy.....but by the same token there are so many NEW ones i want to make!
This post seems to carry the intention that you will start and help manage a server, and getting that up and running will take several months. It implies you have either received or know that you will receive a copy of the code and/or executable files. Have you?
We have been made aware that some scrubbing needs to happen to protect the original NCSoft Dev who leaked it, but otherwise the code should be hosted in a public place LONG before this couple of months it will take to host a functional private server. Are you aware of the status of that effort?
I agree - within reason - I won't debate data center choices for 7 pages or what the header page on the website will be at first. Some things have to be done at first just to get it moving. We can make changes later.
I hope it makes sense - get a server up - load test it and see where we are.
Get a website up so we can start to unwind character data with as much of an eye to privacy as we can.
Understand no one has account payment data - is was not needed to run the game - so start remembering some of the names of your characters because that may be how we can return them to you.
This is without a doubt the largest challenge of my life outside of raising kids. I cannot and will not be doing it alone. I will need help and so many things I am too ignorant to even ask the questions about let alone have the answers for.
It will be as above board as possible without risking people who don't want to be identified as having helped.
Oh yes, one more thing - all work will be done in such a way as to protect NCSoft's investment - it is THEIR GAME. Currently they don't have a working server they could sell. If this is done correctly we will be their willing steward to protect THEM. If this hurts your feelings towards NCSoft - I am sorry but this is non-negotiable.
The news:
A search for rental servers and the best data center to choose is about to begin (think Denver/Dallas).
Rental servers will be initially used because if we get a C&D letter getting stuck with selling $30k of servers would suck.
If you work in such an environment and would like us to consider you - let me know. I will be the fall guy for now and I am also looking for website hosting and development. Once that happens we can take the work away from TonyV's site and let him also be in peace. He has been of incredible value to us and our hopes still exist because of him.
This won't be a 1 day or 2 day fix - my goal is to try and have beta testing by 1 September 2019. It is the goal, but a lot of work needs to be done.
What do I aspire to? I would love to find a partner to hand all this over to and purchase rights to the game along with having the folks who worked on the updated graphics to see if they can merge that with the existing game. I hope if we can have the world ready an investor will make the effort to buy it from NCSoft.
I have no intention of making a profit from this and will post all banking details weekly or as expenses are occurred. Obviously at first I will be paying for it - I opened my mouth - I take the risk. Once it is running the costs will be known and can be budgeted for.
This is not a joke and is completely serious.
Sorry Tony, I know I promised I'd never bring this back to this forum, and please stop throwing yourself in front of buses to defend me.
*****
Then I was diagnosed with severe thyroid issues that left me unable to concentrate on anything for months. Life gets in the way.
Then suddenly, six years had passed.
I know the community is hurt and it's my fault. I am moving as fast as I can to try to make things better, but I can't make instantly get everything ready. I have not slept since my phone was published on Monday at 2am and notifications haven't stopped ringing since then.
Please. Have patience. I am only human. And I am trying really hard to keep almost 3539 people from being harrassed and threatened as I have been for the last 4 days.
Yes, almost 3539 people. Because many of them are not around anymore. And every single one of them is a reminder of my failure to make this work.
Potential legal issues aside, I would hope that if the code is released, it will not just be to one other person, but to the public domain instead. Let it out for the world to have so that it can never be shut down again. At least let people have a go at running their own if they so desire.
Potential legal issues aside, I would hope that if the code is released, it will not just be to one other person, but to the public domain instead. Let it out for the world to have so that it can never be shut down again. At least let people have a go at running their own if they so desire.
I am also a system admin and so some of the stuff I can do - some of it not so much.
This is not going to happen overnight. I literally don't have enough time - but I can get it started. No, I don't want ANY money. This is NOT a cash grab. I will fund the start up - if any lawsuit or letter is filed if not profit has occurred I would be unlikely to faced a criminal proceeding or a civil one since no damages were done - in fact the opposite as NCSoft does not have a currently working COH server.
I also would be happy to freely give them the work done to maintain it or develop it for them.
I am also a system admin and so some of the stuff I can do - some of it not so much.
This is not going to happen overnight. I literally don't have enough time - but I can get it started. No, I don't want ANY money. This is NOT a cash grab. I will fund the start up - if any lawsuit or letter is filed if not profit has occurred I would be unlikely to faced a criminal proceeding or a civil one since no damages were done - in fact the opposite as NCSoft does not have a currently working COH server.
I also would be happy to freely give them the work done to maintain it or develop it for them.
Private Server Meets World?
I trust you, Iron Wolf. ;)
Be nice if NC could understand where the community is coming from. It's an old game. We DON"T want to profit from it. We just want to play a game EVEN they don't have a working server for (I'm shocked if that is the case...)
Ironic.
Azrael.
I'm almost afraid to even hope to play again but... this turn of events actually seems promising! I'll be watching with great interest!
So, no surprise, Leandro is, after all, one of the guys who's most been helping and supporting CoH players and community for years both before and after the shutdown.
What we know now.
This IS the original I24 Beta server code leaked anonymously over a period of several days before the shutdown. The code as he received it is full of timestamps that would allow ID-ing the person who leaked who specifically requested he not publish without scrubbing. He has been trying to scrub/rewrite but it's very slow going. The player character database was separately sent him anonymously but also contains time information that would allow id-ing the source.
The game is every bit as much a mess as we've always heard. The "server" is a set of custom boxes running old software versions and talking to each other in specific timing sequences. The ExCel spreadsheets that the Devs used have been reworked into something more usable. He has a loose team of roughly 5 who have been able to get the thing running and keep it functional while they work to improve it. The last time anybody but him saved a change was 10 months ago.
At least one other person has a DIFFERENT copy of the source code, not from the same leak.
Interesting. More than one leak. Not surprising. Clearly the developers cared so much, the community cared and SCORE cared to not let this unique community game go gently into the dark.
A good overview, OhioKnight.
Azrael.
The news:
A search for rental servers and the best data center to choose is about to begin (think Denver/Dallas).
Rental servers will be initially used because if we get a C&D letter getting stuck with selling $30k of servers would suck.
If you work in such an environment and would like us to consider you - let me know. I will be the fall guy for now and I am also looking for website hosting and development. Once that happens we can take the work away from TonyV's site and let him also be in peace. He has been of incredible value to us and our hopes still exist because of him.
This won't be a 1 day or 2 day fix - my goal is to try and have beta testing by 1 September 2019. It is the goal, but a lot of work needs to be done.
What do I aspire to? I would love to find a partner to hand all this over to and purchase rights to the game along with having the folks who worked on the updated graphics to see if they can merge that with the existing game. I hope if we can have the world ready an investor will make the effort to buy it from NCSoft.
I have no intention of making a profit from this and will post all banking details weekly or as expenses are occurred. Obviously at first I will be paying for it - I opened my mouth - I take the risk. Once it is running the costs will be known and can be budgeted for.
This is not a joke and is completely serious.
Thank you for stepping up, Iron Wolf.
This is what the Coh Community can do. We can each carry a torch of support and help in what way we can.
Azrael.
If you work in such an environment and would like us to consider you - let me know. I will be the fall guy for now and I am also looking for website hosting and development. Once that happens we can take the work away from TonyV's site and let him also be in peace. He has been of incredible value to us and our hopes still exist because of him.
This won't be a 1 day or 2 day fix - my goal is to try and have beta testing by 1 September 2019. It is the goal, but a lot of work needs to be done.
If there's any help you need at all, please let me know.
I would be willing to give personal information as security to be a part of helping if there's any slots open on this. I'm self employed at the moment, so I have a lot of free time myself, and this community matters to me :)
I don't want the original dev who may or may not have leaked it to suffer, and I just want us all to be able to play.
I won't be doing this secretly - unless people don't want information shared. This will be above board as possible. The initial decisions - yes. Once it's online by then we will have a website and forums set up. The details will be on that site once built.
I just got the word at 6am today, time to plan and research - then get started.
Do you intend to share the code around? Because a lot of us are kindof anxious about few points of failure. I've been watching you for awhile and you seem pretty above board, there's just a lot of concerns about another person getting defacto power :)
Again, anything you need done, someone to do the legwork contacting people with specific details, let me know. I'm happy to be a part of things if I can help get the game back to a playable state for all of us, and not just a special select few.
Do we have any firm idea of how much NCSoft wanted for the rights in the previous negotiations?
I am not distributing the code. That isn't my place. I want a single thing - to make the server that encourages a developer to buy the game and make money for them and therefore keeping the game alive by getting NCSoft to sell it.
Simple mission statement right there.
I won't beat around the bush - when you have one cow and the village owns it - everyone wants the milk but no one wants to feed the cow and it dies.
I want an owner to run the game - take responsibility for developing it and perhaps start a CoH2 in the future. I don't want wild servers everywhere with a 10 player population and watch it starve to death with no marketing or publicity.
This approach makes a c&d super effective. Ncsoft applauds your efforts!
You have never lived in a village with a cow.
Look at Leandro's server. It was funded by a small group of people. Like, look at the evidence that we have?
I'm sorry, clearly you can do what you want and I can't stop you, but your cynicism and your desire to do things "the right way" put us all but right back where we started, and you're even wanting to paint a red bullseye on your back.
You have never lived in a village with a cow.
Look at Leandro's server. It was funded by a small group of people. Like, look at the evidence that we have?
I'm sorry, clearly you can do what you want and I can't stop you, but your cynicism and your desire to do things "the right way" put us all but right back where we started, and you're even wanting to paint a red bullseye on your back.
I don't understand why I am cynical? A small hobby server for you and your friends will likely be possible in the near future. I want more than that and trying to find a legal owner and to treat NCSoft's product with care is cynical? I really don't understand what you mean. It's ok - I clearly laid out my goals and intents. This is what I meant by some things won't be secret but also not up for debate.
I won't beat around the bush - when you have one cow and the village owns it - everyone wants the milk but no one wants to feed the cow and it dies.
That link is to a file that is only about 470MB to download and I am not downloading it.
To Ironwolf, et al, I say...Bonne Chance.
To other CoH fans, we may be closer to getting the game back than we've ever been...even excluding the news about the secret emulator.
I have here a film released by SEGs just a week ago. It shows a character flying about through their world...and reveals mobs spawning on all of their maps. In my opinion, they are just an eyelash away from having a functioning street-sweeping game. All that is needed is functioning AI and combat system.
In addition, it would not surprise me if the admin who gave the server code to Leando also gave it to others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlFCcANj6u4
That link is to a file that is only about 470MB to download and I am not downloading it.I've never worked on a code project of this scale before and I have not unpacked anything from the archive, but what I'm looking at in 7zip does look plausibly like source code for many game server parts. (There are C-language code files and .h files among other things.)
I did not steal it and in fact have zero idea where the code I may receive is from other than hearsay. I can say the code is modified as powersets and development has occurred from the videos I have seen.
I have seen so many various rumors of what, how, where, when the code was released or came into being. I know many other private servers for other games have been setup - where did they get the code? If I act as a responsible steward for their game - not allowing a profit to be made and actively seek to get a buyer to purchase it from NCSoft and step away from it - other than a C&D letter - which I would comply to immediately, I can't see what risk - I am taking? I am not damaging the financial future of the product - it is closed. I am not seeking to make a profit or to harm NCSoft - in fact I want the opposite - to give them a fully functioning product they no longer have.
To Ironwolf, et al, I say...Bonne Chance.
To other CoH fans, we may be closer to getting the game back than we've ever been...even excluding the news about the secret emulator.
I have here a film released by SEGs just a week ago. It shows a character flying about through their world...and reveals mobs spawning on all of their maps. In my opinion, they are just an eyelash away from having a functioning street-sweeping game. All that is needed is functioning AI and combat system.
In addition, it would not surprise me if the admin who gave the server code to Leando also gave it to others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlFCcANj6u4
Maybe....but maybe not. NC may think "Aw chit...the cat is out of the bag, and the code is being destributed endlessly across the internet. Fighting this isn't worth the trouble anymore." Maybe. The whole thing is balanced on the edge of a knife...
I am no lawyer, with that said, I think as long as its donations and not subs. Should be fine. This is going by board games such as Kickstarter. Ip owners shouldn't care as long as its not making money.
Whoah, seems everybody is downloading the code and setting up a solo server right now 8)
Whoah, seems everybody is downloading the code and setting up a solo server right now 8)
Massively's latest
https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/18/whats-going-on-with-city-of-heroes-now-this-game-is-a-unicorn/ (https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/18/whats-going-on-with-city-of-heroes-now-this-game-is-a-unicorn/)
https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/18/the-city-of-heroes-private-server-team-has-released-its-code-to-the-world-but-not-the-characters/
They released the server code, minus all missions and content. Even if you get it running, it's as blank as Paragon Chat.
https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/18/the-city-of-heroes-private-server-team-has-released-its-code-to-the-world-but-not-the-characters/ (https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/18/the-city-of-heroes-private-server-team-has-released-its-code-to-the-world-but-not-the-characters/)
They released the server code, minus all missions and content. Even if you get it running, it's as blank as Paragon Chat.
I've already mentioned it.Amen.
Has something to do with healing your wounds.
It's a brighter future than we've had, I recommend embracing it.
Because that rift? You embrace that? Thanos.
I can't believe all of this is happening.
I've already mentioned it.
Has something to do with healing your wounds.
It's a brighter future than we've had, I recommend embracing it.
Because that rift? You embrace that? Thanos.
I know what you mean. For six years nothing....and then...all of a sudden...BOOM!
Thanos didn't lose anyone. He was obsessed with balance. You're thinking of the MCU Zemo. Who broke up the avengers because his family was killed by Ultron.
If you're going to accuse everyone you don't like of being a murderous villain, get it right.
I know! Like, I'm super happy, don't get me wrong... but I'm almost too shocked to feel any second-tier emotions. Just pure, unequivocal shock is controlling my systems right now lol.
Also, is anyone else suddenly thinking of buying a new computer? Haha.
Already building one, timing is nice. I'm watching the coders chat on discord while I work, interesting how fast they move.
So I am curious.. Though everyone or some people will setup their own servers. Who will host the main server for the community. Like we have Paragon Chat for the whole community to join so I assume that the main host server and all will be hosted by Leandro? I am completely fine with that.
I am kind of asking that question because with the spread of the servers, I am not sure where I would land and stay to call home. From the info the leaker leaked, when they played everything character wise, enhancements, etc was exactly where it was before the game closed in 2012. So I am hoping that those things could still remain intact for others like me who still want access to their old account data and to continue where we left off.
Another thing though is that with the character database spread, Leandro mentioned that clean up or hashing of the character database would be required so other accounts would not be compromised. How would that work exactly? Say you have 100 people who want to get their old account data back how would that process go?
Friendly advice: Stop embracing the rift.
Also: People I don't like? I like everyone, at least, I try to.
My message... My wish... is that moving forward, we still have highs and lows to encounter.
Keep your capes ON. Do NOT attack each other.
Resist the rift. At all costs resist. It IS Thanos. The comic book version.
You should be able to understand my message.
Hugs.
Comic book thanos was romantically interested in the concept/avatar of death, and sought out the infinity gauntlet to kill half the universe for her and her love.
You're still thinking of Zemo. Like the exchange between Zemo and black panther is great. We shouldn't ignore it.
I've already mentioned it.
Has something to do with healing your wounds.
It's a brighter future than we've had, I recommend embracing it.
Because that rift? You embrace that? Thanos.
I changed my mind.
The rift shall now be known as my English 101 teacher.
You do know that I teach that course, yes? :-)
...I will say, I still have one cautious eye on NCSoft. I think they're definitely aware of what's going on.
Is anyone else waiting on a move from them? Or am I the only one?
I'm sure NCSoft will at least issue a statement. How far down an actual path of going after Leo or new servers is anyone's guess I think.
Being told to stop being upset has never made anyone stop being upset in the history of mankind. I agree now that Leo has spoken people can start healing. But you need to let people heal their wounds on their own time. It isn't just a snap of the fingers for some people. (Shit now im bringing up Thanos)
One thing that will make me wonder no just from NC Soft stand point, but also what happens when people start making Marvel and DC characters on these servers. I assume there won't be a ToS (because technically hold the code and running it is sketch enough) so would the house of mouse and WB come after these server too? On a lighter note, since there is going to be multiple servers, will Titans have a post listing the servers with population count and the quirks of the server?
Here's a question: if this is the i-24 beta prior to shut down code, what about the player database? Was it the beta-test server player character database or is it the live server?
Its a race to get something that works at this point. Once that os established we should vote on a top 3 list and make one our home server. Can use fakebook or something to do that poll. I know anything related to it will simply get deleted here.
You think I have a condescending tone?Papa Smurf was condescending as heck.
I think what you need to start doing is reading my posts in papa smurf's voice.
Agreed about the home server. Obviously beggers can't be choosers, but I dunno how I'd feel about there being, like, a million small servers out there ya'know? I'd rather us all be playing together in one big / centralized world.
Just from the hardware and financial requirements I've seen bandied about, a bunch of smaller servers seems more realistic than only a few giant servers. A bunch of smaller servers is also "safer" too. The bigger a server is, the bigger a target it has on its back for NCSoft to shut it down.
There's a large mountain to climb but we are infinitely closer than we were 4 days ago.
Being real? I never said stop being upset. I don't expect people to "get over it"
I've been attacked, thwarted, disowned, and excommunicated by my blood relative family.
I know first hand that there is no such thing as "just get over it" because nobody ever just "gets over it". I'd never discredit someone's pain.
Healing takes time, so yeah, lets do whatever it takes to heal ourselves.
Heroes can be upset, heartbroken, in pain and still put on that cape and be heroes.
That's really what we all need to do, no matter how much it hurts now, or in the future.
We must steel ourselves for this incoming bumpy ride.
Breaking out the pitchforks and tearing into each other? That's easy.
Putting on the cape? Behaving like the community we SHOULD be? That's hard.
But it's what we should do.
That's why I say avoid the rift. She's a bitch.
Papa Smurf was condescending as heck.
Maybe we should name that anniversary badge "Sunrise" given the circumstances?
Or "Cabal".
It's pretty amazing how sharing and being transparent has done more for the community in under a week than paranoia and gatekeeping has done in 5 years.
Important, because a lot of people are taking out of their arse.
The source code release is all the source code that I was given access to. I am pretty sure it's all the source code that has ever existed; you can build the game client and all servers, with not a lot of effort if you know what you're doing in Visual Studio 2005.
Things like NPCs, missions and so on are not source code. That's data. The binaries created with the source code load the data from pigg files and/or a data folder, just like the game client. In fact, a lot of the client pigg files are used as-is by the server components, and others are modified variants.
Creating all the server-side data files from scratch could take months even with help. That's why I am out there asking for servers to load working binaries on, so everybody who just wants to play can do it right away, and everybody who has actual interest in development can take a deep breath and start figuring out what to do.
Whatever servers I set up will use the latest binaries and data that SCORE itself was using, internally referred to as "Issue 25: Unbroken Spirit". This is simply because it will be the fastest to deploy, since it already has tools for account creation, all the microtransaction garbage like the Paragon Rewards tree removed, and many other optimizations. I am sure there will be a lot of complaints about it not being a "pure" release that will want a lot of changes stripped. Have some patience. It will take much longer to get a server set up if I have to roll back my repositories to early 2013 and hunt down a version of the data files that would play nice with it and does not have massive gaps in content. I don't even think such a version exists. This was a massive reverse engineering operation that took months to get something usable.
The Issue 25 data files, while they will work to set up as many servers as you want based on Issue 25, cannot be directly used with binaries built from the source code. You could mount an entire operation to decompile those files to get something editable back, or you can just have some patience and wait until I can put together a release. I am moving as fast as I can to get this thing out there because I believe that once a few running servers are out there being managed by different people with no connections to me, people will back off and give me the time I need to make sure that anything else that is released does not put anyone at risk; neither former Paragon Studios developers nor former SCORE members.
On that note, former SCORE members that have access to the data repository: please don't take it upon yourself to release anything. You would be putting others at risk. Have some patience.
Important, because a lot of people are taking out of their arse.
The source code release is all the source code that I was given access to. I am pretty sure it's all the source code that has ever existed; you can build the game client and all servers, with not a lot of effort if you know what you're doing in Visual Studio 2005. *snipped*
Important, because a lot of people are taking out of their arse.
The source code release is all the source code that I was given access to. I am pretty sure it's all the source code that has ever existed; you can build the game client and all servers, with not a lot of effort if you know what you're doing in Visual Studio 2005.
Things like NPCs, missions and so on are not source code. That's data. The binaries created with the source code load the data from pigg files and/or a data folder, just like the game client. In fact, a lot of the client pigg files are used as-is by the server components, and others are modified variants.
Creating all the server-side data files from scratch could take months even with help. That's why I am out there asking for servers to load working binaries on, so everybody who just wants to play can do it right away, and everybody who has actual interest in development can take a deep breath and start figuring out what to do.
Whatever servers I set up will use the latest binaries and data that SCORE itself was using, internally referred to as "Issue 25: Unbroken Spirit". This is simply because it will be the fastest to deploy, since it already has tools for account creation, all the microtransaction garbage like the Paragon Rewards tree removed, and many other optimizations. I am sure there will be a lot of complaints about it not being a "pure" release that will want a lot of changes stripped. Have some patience. It will take much longer to get a server set up if I have to roll back my repositories to early 2013 and hunt down a version of the data files that would play nice with it and does not have massive gaps in content. I don't even think such a version exists. This was a massive reverse engineering operation that took months to get something usable.
The Issue 25 data files, while they will work to set up as many servers as you want based on Issue 25, cannot be directly used with binaries built from the source code. You could mount an entire operation to decompile those files to get something editable back, or you can just have some patience and wait until I can put together a release. I am moving as fast as I can to get this thing out there because I believe that once a few running servers are out there being managed by different people with no connections to me, people will back off and give me the time I need to make sure that anything else that is released does not put anyone at risk; neither former Paragon Studios developers nor former SCORE members.
On that note, former SCORE members that have access to the data repository: please don't take it upon yourself to release anything. You would be putting others at risk. Have some patience.
Important, because a lot of people are taking out of their arse.
The source code release is all the source code that I was given access to. I am pretty sure it's all the source code that has ever existed; you can build the game client and all servers, with not a lot of effort if you know what you're doing in Visual Studio 2005.
Things like NPCs, missions and so on are not source code. That's data. The binaries created with the source code load the data from pigg files and/or a data folder, just like the game client. In fact, a lot of the client pigg files are used as-is by the server components, and others are modified variants.
Creating all the server-side data files from scratch could take months even with help. That's why I am out there asking for servers to load working binaries on, so everybody who just wants to play can do it right away, and everybody who has actual interest in development can take a deep breath and start figuring out what to do.
Whatever servers I set up will use the latest binaries and data that SCORE itself was using, internally referred to as "Issue 25: Unbroken Spirit". This is simply because it will be the fastest to deploy, since it already has tools for account creation, all the microtransaction garbage like the Paragon Rewards tree removed, and many other optimizations. I am sure there will be a lot of complaints about it not being a "pure" release that will want a lot of changes stripped. Have some patience. It will take much longer to get a server set up if I have to roll back my repositories to early 2013 and hunt down a version of the data files that would play nice with it and does not have massive gaps in content. I don't even think such a version exists. This was a massive reverse engineering operation that took months to get something usable.
The Issue 25 data files, while they will work to set up as many servers as you want based on Issue 25, cannot be directly used with binaries built from the source code. You could mount an entire operation to decompile those files to get something editable back, or you can just have some patience and wait until I can put together a release. I am moving as fast as I can to get this thing out there because I believe that once a few running servers are out there being managed by different people with no connections to me, people will back off and give me the time I need to make sure that anything else that is released does not put anyone at risk; neither former Paragon Studios developers nor former SCORE members.
On that note, former SCORE members that have access to the data repository: please don't take it upon yourself to release anything. You would be putting others at risk. Have some patience.
Papa Smurf was condescending as heck.
I have been hanging out in the coding discord for City of heroes and they have a server up and are working on fixing many of the issues Leandro had.
It is estimated a server will be fully working by this weekend and a possible home Lan build in a few months. The normal home desktop is faster than the servers in 2012.
Soon is almost now. I wouldn't bother trying to upload the current files as they are being reworked to run faster and more stable.
I think in the next month you are going to be seeing a LOT of servers.
I know 1 server was up and another one was being worked to add the fixes they were doing from the first one, live - as I said it is amazing to see these folks work. I won't be needing to host a special server - they are going to be simple to host - they are working on making the install idiot proof.
I think in the next month you are going to be seeing a LOT of servers.
I know 1 server was up and another one was being worked to add the fixes they were doing from the first one, live - as I said it is amazing to see these folks work. I won't be needing to host a special server - they are going to be simple to host - they are working on making the install idiot proof.
So even if servers get up by the weekend, you can't log in , make a character and run missions?
They are waiting to get the player base and missions tomorrow - realize for code junkies they have heard about this code for over a decade and they are going crazy fixing it and understanding it.
Long term - 6 months or so - you will see a better City of Heroes likely than the original.Will we have to pay a sub?
Now make the call to the Atlas Revival people.
They are waiting to get the player base and missions tomorrow - realize for code junkies they have heard about this code for over a decade and they are going crazy fixing it and understanding it.
Will we have to pay a sub?
I wonder if we'd be able to just create one account for all the different servers. But that's impossible, right?
Orrrrr I wonder if there'd be a capability somehow to just continue to use your Paragon Chat (Titan Network) account, and port all that stuff to your 'private server' account?
These special servers would have to take donations from people that OPT to pay donations and that would be solely for server cost/maintenance/bandwidth. If any charge for special bonuses/features for players that invites a visit from NCSoft's friends Cease and Desist.Thanks for the headsup :)
Still it is nice to see that the dark tunnel the fans were cast into with the shutdown now has a light at the end of it, and it is NOT the lamp of an onrushing train.
I was hoping our character data can be given to us in a file so we can take it with us to different servers. That way if a server crashes, closes, or shuts down we can move to the next.
I think this is fantasy, but it is my fantasy.
It's hard not to be bitter that this could have all been happening years ago.
It's hard not to be bitter that this could have all been happening years ago.Just think
These special servers would have to take donations from people that OPT to pay donations and that would be solely for server cost/maintenance/bandwidth. If any charge for special bonuses/features for players that invites a visit from NCSoft's friends Cease and Desist.
Profit or no, NCSoft's lawyers will be coming. Expect that. There are no rules of fair play that make IP infringement legal, so if you're going to run an unlicensed game server accept that it is a criminal venture and prepare accordingly.
If you want to incentivize contributions do it however you see fit. More likely you'll offend some potential players. Then again, the few you don't offend may be all you need.
Ok once the source code gets released and the community is worried about NCsoft trying to shut it down can we let the M.A.D.E protect us from copyright issues so we won't have to worry about all of this going on? They did made on offer after they won the DMCA rule.
Question for the mods here. Can we have a thread to the new servers. This way it beats trying to locate them going here or there to find one.
We're going to have to talk about that. Right now, there aren't any yet. I don't know the implications of us hosting that info yet. We'll try to figure something out.
We're going to have to talk about that. Right now, there aren't any yet. I don't know the implications of us hosting that info yet. We'll try to figure something out.
If this will run as it appears right now you can host for 100+ of your friends for $50 a month.
I have been hanging out in the coding discord for City of heroes and they have a server up and are working on fixing many of the issues Leandro had.i take back my rather negative suspicions about some of Leandro's initial comments when the truth about the existence of functional CoH servers was leaked. While i still think the whole private server approach could've been handled better in general i really do appreciate the work that went into making it and it finally being released. Still not happy about NCsoft shutting the game down in the first place and it's hard for me to fully believe that the server code would've been released any time soon if someone hadn't spilled the beans, but that's water under the bridge at this point and i'm simply hoping to play City of Heroes again sometime in the near future.
It is estimated a server will be fully working by this weekend and a possible home Lan build in a few months. The normal home desktop is faster than the servers in 2012.
Soon is almost now. I wouldn't bother trying to upload the current files as they are being reworked to run faster and more stable. The new code will enable a normal $50 a month server to host around 150 to 200 players.
Despite the whole Inifinite Rasa debacle, it's been pointed out a few times here and there that there are Legacy and Aion and other such emus of NCSoft games that have been in operation without ever seeing a Cease & Desist order.
It's hard not to be bitter that this could have all been happening years ago.
If this will run as it appears right now you can host for 100+ of your friends for $50 a month.
We're going to have to talk about that. Right now, there aren't any yet. I don't know the implications of us hosting that info yet. We'll try to figure something out.i think it's probably better to leave that to other venues, such as the discord server and other sources. At most i'd suggest just offering suggestions about where someone could look for the info without directly hosting it. i would suggest updating things like the powers database to include the i25 build and the like, but not directly hosting server info. IMO, YMMV, CYA
I know that nobody has asked for a "vote" on this, but I would still vote "no" to such a thing.
Despite the whole Inifinite Rasa debacle, it's been pointed out a few times here and there that there are Legacy and Aion and other such emus of NCSoft games that have been in operation without ever seeing a Cease & Desist order.
If we want City of Heroes to likewise manage to fly under the radar then we need to give NCSoft a shred of plausible deniability when it comes to turning a blind eye to something that everyone actually knows about, by NOT advertising the private servers on the most public face that CoH has these days.
You know, I'm not going to mind one bit having to start from scratch. Not one bit. ;)
I'm curious. How is it going to be so much cheaper for these new servers than it was for the secret server?
I'm curious. How is it going to be so much cheaper for these new servers than it was for the secret server?The $1000 price tag quoted was from 2013. Your desktop now is probably about as powerful as a server back then.
The $1000 price tag quoted was from 2013. Your desktop now is probably about as powerful as a server back then.
Well, not quite, given the specs of the server posted, but it was a VERY powerful server. Even today a comparable server costs hundreds to rent.
The $1000 price tag quoted was from 2013. Your desktop now is probably about as powerful as a server back then.
Well, not quite, given the specs of the server posted, but it was a VERY powerful server. Even today a comparable server costs hundreds to rent.
So, one thing I am curious of, which I haven't seen mentioned, is, does this include City of Villians work?
I saw that this was cut from just before the shut down, so I have hopes, but nothing specific ever detailed.
Trying to figure out HOW excited I should be.
Will we have to pay a sub?
We're going to have to talk about that. Right now, there aren't any yet. I don't know the implications of us hosting that info yet. We'll try to figure something out.
FINALLY!
It looks like if I can last till October I can play City of Heroes again!
Ignoring all the drama, this is all I ever wanted. I do feel for the people who passed before this could happen and who knows? I'm not back in the game yet, but I am totally jazzed and more excited than I have been since "New Efforts" was born many, many posts ago.
I have a buddy who wants to toss a couple of thousand to create a private server for us and I ain't mad at no one!
See you all in Atlas Park on the 1st Double XP Weekend!
I'm curious. How is it going to be so much cheaper for these new servers than it was for the secret server?
I have been hanging out in the coding discord for City of heroes and they have a server up and are working on fixing many of the issues Leandro had.
It is estimated a server will be fully working by this weekend and a possible home Lan build in a few months. The normal home desktop is faster than the servers in 2012.
Soon is almost now. I wouldn't bother trying to upload the current files as they are being reworked to run faster and more stable. The new code will enable a normal $50 a month server to host around 150 to 200 players.
This is so surreal. I can't believe we're talking about playing again in this matter of fact tone.i can, and it's wonderful.
My boss offered me time off if I thought i'd get to play this again soon before I learned the source was going to be released. I have paid vacation and im traveling out of the country this summer with the paid time, but I may just take 1 day off anyway if coh shows up before then.
Folks please give all credit to the coders and server people - they are working the magic!
Stop and think that what is being done now would not have been so easy in 2012 or 2013.
Leandro is also working hard to help and so are some of the SCoRE people.
Give credit where due. I would have stepped up if needed but these folks hit the ground at a dead run and are doing the work.
I think in the next month you are going to be seeing a LOT of servers.
I know 1 server was up and another one was being worked to add the fixes they were doing from the first one, live - as I said it is amazing to see these folks work. I won't be needing to host a special server - they are going to be simple to host - they are working on making the install idiot proof.
Well a couple i24 servers are up but without character data or missions.
The i25 code will be out tomorrow and it is complete. The coders and server folks expect to have something up this weekend but a stable idiot proof product in a month or 2. One of the guys is going to work on a local lan client to run a small home server and he said likely 6 months for that.
The i25 code will be out tomorrow and it is complete.
How much would it cost to buy a hundred friends?
They are waiting to get the player base and missions tomorrow - realize for code junkies they have heard about this code for over a decade and they are going crazy fixing it and understanding it.
The source code release is all the source code that I was given access to. I am pretty sure it's all the source code that has ever existed; you can build the game client and all servers, with not a lot of effort if you know what you're doing in Visual Studio 2005.
Things like NPCs, missions and so on are not source code. That's data. The binaries created with the source code load the data from pigg files and/or a data folder, just like the game client. In fact, a lot of the client pigg files are used as-is by the server components, and others are modified variants.
Creating all the server-side data files from scratch could take months even with help. That's why I am out there asking for servers to load working binaries on, so everybody who just wants to play can do it right away, and everybody who has actual interest in development can take a deep breath and start figuring out what to do.
Whatever servers I set up will use the latest binaries and data that SCORE itself was using, internally referred to as "Issue 25: Unbroken Spirit". This is simply because it will be the fastest to deploy, since it already has tools for account creation, all the microtransaction garbage like the Paragon Rewards tree removed, and many other optimizations. I am sure there will be a lot of complaints about it not being a "pure" release that will want a lot of changes stripped. Have some patience. It will take much longer to get a server set up if I have to roll back my repositories to early 2013 and hunt down a version of the data files that would play nice with it and does not have massive gaps in content. I don't even think such a version exists. This was a massive reverse engineering operation that took months to get something usable.
The Issue 25 data files, while they will work to set up as many servers as you want based on Issue 25, cannot be directly used with binaries built from the source code. You could mount an entire operation to decompile those files to get something editable back, or you can just have some patience and wait until I can put together a release. I am moving as fast as I can to get this thing out there because I believe that once a few running servers are out there being managed by different people with no connections to me, people will back off and give me the time I need to make sure that anything else that is released does not put anyone at risk; neither former Paragon Studios developers nor former SCORE members.
On that note, former SCORE members that have access to the data repository: please don't take it upon yourself to release anything. You would be putting others at risk. Have some patience.
So forgive me if this is jumping the gun here, but if the DB has been released does that mean we will be able to retrieve our characters at some point in the future?
I was waiting for you to finally respond about the news.
... Some servers are or will be 'Idiot Proof' real soon and talking home server/LAN within 6 months. I consider this crucial. So the 'mortals' can play it privately. P2P with people we knew. And that way we can 'solo' our way and enjoy the game ....
This is what I got most exited about while trying to catch up on all the news. Paragon Chat is great for exploring and chatting. And I loved playing together with others when the game was up.
But my life has changed a lot ever since the game was shutdown, not because of the game being pulled btw, but I had to make choices and redirect my attention to other parts of my life that makes it difficult for me to be online in an MMO environment. I've tried, by use of Champions Online, but even then I don't team up much and just try to complete missions by myself.
So getting back into CoH and being able to 'solo' missions using a private server that I'm running at home, that would be awesome.
Sure, it would be more fun to team up with other players and have a good team to run trails with, but I no longer have the privilege to spent 3 consecutive hours doing a Statesman Trial on the weekend. Or spent half a day taking down Hamidon. My life has changed so much over the past 10 years that my gaming-time mostly consists of playing Assassins Creed, Watch Dogs or Kerbal Space Program for 30 to 60 minutes during the evenings, just before bed.
....
But if anyone has success running a private server online with i24/i25 code I would gladly try to join others for some missions. :)
Right.
I said it wouldn't be easy.
It's not.
In the end? Being bitter is a waste of your time and you are above that.
We all are.
or imagine how cheap you might be able to get a server from that era with the specs to run CoH?
Granted sometimes parts for legacy hardware isn't always easy to get but still...
They are putting out a playable version today - but it won't be stable.
What is happening is that the coders have the source code from multiple people. They have the game as it was at shutdown but no data for the game - no missions or characters. Then they have the i25 code from Leandro that will be out this afternoon - we told him to go to work and relax - I said I will take the blame for the delay.
The i25 SCoRE code has missions and character data + modified new code for different power sets.
They have the i24 source code and are working the bugs out of it so the server folks can run it faster and more stable than the original. A lot of the tools now are far more powerful than they had in 2012 - also the Atlas Park Revival maps according to the coders should be easy to install at some point as they are static. Also for the costume crowd - using the 2012 version of 3D max - some are already working on new costumes for the game.
So in a nutshell:
The servers will be i25 modded code and development will begin on the i24 source original to fix the spaghetti, update how it works and to enable modern tools for faster changes and better network code. It is quite fun to watch what is happening if you are a nerd like me lol.
For simplicity they are going to use the Paragon Chat launcher at first since it can already work.
Does that mean all of our Paragon Chat toons will transfer over? Again, if not and/or if you don't know, I totally understand.
They are putting out a playable version today - but it won't be stable.
I'm just wondering how many people would actually be disappointed if they found out all their progress, all their toons, just everything from "back then" would not be available on the new servers. And they would need to start from scratch.
I for one wouldn't mind rebuilding my toons from scratch.
I want to roam Atlas and whack clocks. Then move to Perez Park and street sweep. Once I hit 12 or so head to Steel and run the TF. Once that's over off the Skyway for that TF.
Get to Talos and level up so I can street sweep in DA.
I could grind Sewer TF's and zip through but the 1st one back I want to savour the game - like sipping a fine whiskey, wet the lips, let it warm the tongue and then take a sip. Let it feel warm all the way down - not toss back a cheap shot of Jack Daniels.
I feel sorry for the Hellions, all this time in Atlas Park without being abused by every superhero wannabe and in a few days, back to being mercilessly beaten up. Very interesting news abiut the MAX thingie, I'm sure we will see amazing costumes given the level of imagination and creativity shown by the community in general.
Also, from now on I will refer to Leandro as "Messi", anyone who enjoys football (I mean proper football, that sport you americans call "soccer" for some reason) will understand ;D
Makes sense!
Does that mean all of our Paragon Chat toons will transfer over? Again, if not and/or if you don't know, I totally understand.
I'm very interested in the fact that there are TWO apparently unrelated sources of the source code and apparently that has made distribution possible at this time. I don't need the backstory, and in fact it's probably better that I never know, but intriguing. I have my own personal guesses on why Leandro is the face on this... which I suspect has to do with physical location.At least 2.
It hasn't been worked out yet what build is going to be the most stable.
They are patching the i24 one because that is the source everyone downloaded yesterday. From what I saw in Discord the next step will be to setup the i25 build - this afternoon/evening - blame me for nagging Leandro to go to work. Then see what changes were made and how stable it is. Why not jump into i25 right away?
Well i24 was running for thousands of players quite well - so take the base and then slowly add in the changes making it more stable and problem free. Once you have that done - development can begin and server code passed along with the bundled launcher.
And I used my first 50 (an Eng/Eng blaster I made when I didn't understand game mechanics)
Well, look who the cat just dragged in... me. :P
I think all the bitterness and negativity floating around is quite pointless. SCORE's existence has been hinted at years ago, the only question was whether they still existed and if so - how far did they get (further than anyone thought, it seems).
So some of you got to be part of the small group involved with the private server, some didn't... and somehow that led to part of the latter acting in ways unbefitting of heroes and below the standards of most villains. I dearly hope this isn't representative of what this community has become over the years...
Come on, folks... remember how COH went out - forming one final group for one last hurrah right before the lights went out.
(https://i.imgur.com/XLxeKdb.jpg)
Re: Starting from scratch - why not. I'm not sure I still have the Sentinel backups, but I've got the costume files to remake the actual toons.
I believe the character data is from i24 - not sure when. Since they kicked everyone out a couple months prior to shutdown - I would think new characters built after the shutdown announcement might not be there.
But not knowing the time period of when the image was made - no clue except i24.
It hasn't been worked out yet what build is going to be the most stable.
They are patching the i24 one because that is the source everyone downloaded yesterday. From what I saw in Discord the next step will be to setup the i25 build - this afternoon/evening - blame me for nagging Leandro to go to work. Then see what changes were made and how stable it is. Why not jump into i25 right away?
Well i24 was running for thousands of players quite well - so take the base and then slowly add in the changes making it more stable and problem free. Once you have that done - development can begin and server code passed along with the bundled launcher.
I believe the character data is from i24 - not sure when. Since they kicked everyone out a couple months prior to shutdown - I would think new characters built after the shutdown announcement might not be there.
But not knowing the time period of when the image was made - no clue except i24.
No word on whether or not they grabbed Beta (or Training Room, but was anyone playing on Training Room during the closure?)
Well, no, we do have a pretty good idea (or at least Leandro does, which I will now attempt to repeat). The database dumps were apparently taken on or shortly before 11/30, by someone taking a capture of each server one at a time. Because some people were hopping from server to server (?), they might not have picked up everyone if you transferred at an inconvenient time. No word on whether or not they grabbed Beta (or Training Room, but was anyone playing on Training Room during the closure?), so technically everything is i23 - but that's pragmatically irrelevant.
I think this is more-or-less what he's been saying, apologies if I'm wrong.
*raises hand* I had Triumph and the Training Room running during the shutdown.
Now, what about the player client? Is that part of The Build? Or a separate thing?
No. From the point of view of a real server, a PChat character is not much more than a costume and a badge list. You could export your costumes to .costume files, but any costumes that couldn't be supported by the standard costume creator would not work on a real server. Badges and such would have to be earned from scratch on each individual server.
Ah. The Fifth Horseman.Not that easy to get rid of, although I have a habit of wandering off to keep my mind occupied - as a result of which my gaming resume now features half a decade of "giant mecha pilot". :P
I thought you lost in time?
PS. An interesting screenshot. I was sipping tea atop the Atlas Statue...at 'the end.' (As the blimp hummed on by...)I've taken a lot of screens that day: https://imgur.com/a/So2qt
So if I exported the costumes to .costume files, would I be able to import them onto a character creator on a live server so I wouldn't have piece the costume/look together by scratch? Or is that not how that works?Assuming nothing broke compatibility with them - which should not be the case - then yes.
The i24 build is the Issue 24 release of the player client. They are the same.I think he means player data.
So some of you got to be part of the small group involved with the private server, some didn't... and somehow that led to part of the latter acting in ways unbefitting of heroes and below the standards of most villains. I dearly hope this isn't representative of what this community has become over the years...
Come on, folks... remember how COH went out - forming one final group for one last hurrah right before the lights went out.
So if I exported the costumes to .costume files, would I be able to import them onto a character creator on a live server so I wouldn't have piece the costume/look together by scratch? Or is that not how that works? Hahaha I'm such a nube, I swear.
Also, I'm pretty sure none of my current costume pieces on Paragon Chat would not be supported by the 'standard' costume creator, so I think we good on that end...
ALSO PART II (and I have no idea if this is even on the table right now, so forgive my asking) do we know if there will be issues with names on the new servers? I.e. two players can't have the same character names? Lol BASICALLY I'm trying to figure out if I have to race to a server to nab all the names I want now, or if I have some time, etc...
YAY. EXCITED. GRATEFUL. THANKS. <3
Also, from now on I will refer to Leandro as "Messi", anyone who enjoys football (I mean proper football, that sport you americans call "soccer" for some reason) will understand ;D
So if I exported the costumes to .costume files, would I be able to import them onto a character creator on a live server so I wouldn't have piece the costume/look together by scratch? Or is that not how that works? Hahaha I'm such a nube, I swear.
Also for the costume crowd - using the 2012 version of 3D max - some are already working on new costumes for the game.
I am confused and befuddled. Yet excited and frazzled. Can I help?Download discord.
Let's see if I got this understood...
1. There is The Build (the program the runs the game server [Dev] side).
2. There is The Content (all the missions)
3. There is The Playerbase Data (the server side tracking of players, their badges, content completed, level, etc...).
Now, what about the player client? Is that part of The Build? Or a separate thing?
As far as The Build goes, 'everyone' just got the i24 Build and they're fixing it to make it playable. Meanwhile Leo has and will distribute real soon his i25 Build which he already fixed to make playable and modded a few things (making it a new 'issue', i.e., i25). Also, there may be several versions of the i24 Build floating about.
As far as The Content goes... we will soon have Leo's i25 version. And that can be back-patched into a working i24 version? Is that correct? Is there an i24 version of The Content floating about?
As far as The Playberbase Data goes. Didn't Leo say his source went through each server and grabbed all that data and sent it to him? And Leo has to scrub that before releasing it, right? And that would make The Playerbase Date i24, unless for some reason, Leo distributes his i25 version of The Playerbase Data.
Am I in the ballpark?
-Zombie Man, keeper of guides
How would characters be associated with their creators if no player personal data was kept?My outsider understanding is that the character database has account names, but no other information. So if you remember your login account name and/or your global handle, your characters can be found.
This has been an entertaining few days.
This has been an entertaining few days.
My outsider understanding is that the character database has account names, but no other information. So if you remember your login account name and/or your global handle, your characters can be found.
That's one word for it.
I think that it might have caused a few whiplash injuries from the various and frequent changes of opinions.
Download discord.
Type in City of Heroes
Go to the admin and ask to be added to chat if you are a coder - only approved list of people can get in there but anyone can read what they are doing. It is cool to see how quickly the work is done and the changes being made.
I'd be lying if I claimed that the past few days have not severely tested my opinions on whether the "CoH Community" is actually a "community" at all..
I'd be lying if I claimed that the past few days have not severely tested my opinions on whether the "CoH Community" is actually a "community" at all.
In other news, it appears that Pohsyb put in an appearance this morning on the Discord and offered to be available for advice.
On discord now and reading. I'm just a systems analyst, college dropout with no certs. Reading through the build-compile-discussion, I'm under qualified.
Alright, April 15th and forward is split off of New Efforts.
Carry on.
I believe the character data is from i24 - not sure when. Since they kicked everyone out a couple months prior to shutdown - I would think new characters built after the shutdown announcement might not be there.
But not knowing the time period of when the image was made - no clue except i24.
Bold move. But I think the right one.
Thank you.
Then that means about 98% of my alts should be intact.
Question: since alts were scattered among the servers and some people liked to have the same name on each server.... is it safe to presume that names will be unique and that we may all have some name adjustments to make? :)
The thread title should help get villain players back in the swing of things, as it totally ignores the red side :P
To clear things up a bit - a lot of the questions about what source code and so on are intentionally vague.
No one wants there to be a chance to back track and find out who did what.
Servers soon - will magically appear thanks to Nemesis plots to destroy the world being foiled. Let's stick with that plan.
Nemesis snapped his fingers - time to undo the snap.
My outsider understanding is that the character database has account names, but no other information. So if you remember your login account name and/or your global handle, your characters can be found.
I think he means player data.
There are multiple parts:
1. market server - they ignored it and on Leandro's server you just use influence to buy IO's
2. player data - what character you had and the AT
3. mission data - separate from the client
4. player client - the server build that lets you spawn and use powers and has the maps.
there is likely more I have missed but those are the ones we need to run the game.
And if you REALLY want to steal and play, say Eiko-chan's characters instead of your own on some server, you'll probably be able to with a bit of work and deception... as to why anybody would WANT to... well, you got me.
There were always a few idiots out there - but I think if you told people that the only way that they could genuinely play CoH again was to have a number instead of a name, and start at level 1 again, most of them would still jump at the chance.
Thanks for your reply and to others who've responsed, but, I'm still a bit confused about one thing: From the point of view of a player, I downloaded a client which handled a bunch of stuff, but, that client connected to a "server" which adjucated whether my stuff really happened in the game world and what effects my doings had, e.g., a Hellion died (poor homie!). So, in my mind there are two major "programs", namely, "the client" and "the server." (I realize each part had their own pile of processes that they they were taking care of: chat, market, etc...).
So, when, e.g., a cleaned up version of i24 gets released, then that includes both the player's client and the server's server (what I would consider to be the real game engine and the Dev's side of the equation). Right?
One adjustment I wouldn't mind seeing would be for everything from the Paragon Store to be folded into the actual game where it was suitable - like costume parts going into the costume creator, and so on - and for the rest of the store items, along with thee Paragon Rewards, to be added to a vendor or contact - someone like Ms. Liberty, for example.Leandro said the store doesn't exist as it was and all of it was converted to buy stuff with Inf.
Leandro said the store doesn't exist as it was and all of it was converted to buy stuff with Inf.
Leandro said the store doesn't exist as it was and all of it was converted to buy stuff with Inf.
Leandro said the store doesn't exist as it was and all of it was converted to buy stuff with Inf.
And if you REALLY want to steal and play, say Eiko-chan's characters instead of your own on some server, you'll probably be able to with a bit of work and deception... as to why anybody would WANT to...Murderous schoolgirls with robotic legions for everyone! Why WOULDN'T you want to play the biggest baddest villain the world has ever seen?! ;)
The thread title should help get villain players back in the swing of things, as it totally ignores the red side :PAww, GG, did you remember? Was that line for me? <3
Aww, GG, did you remember? Was that line for me? <3
So, when, e.g., a cleaned up version of i24 gets released, then that includes both the player's client and the server's server (what I would consider to be the real game engine and the Dev's side of the equation). Right?
Maybe... I'm being non-committal because I've seen claims that the code tree released by Leandro does not, in fact, have the client build files in it. I don't factually know if that's true or not. If it's true, then folks would continue to use the same I24 client they use for Icon and Paragon Chat.The source code released does not have client files. Largely due to the fact that ownership and distribution of the client files has never been illegal and Paragon Chat is using essentially the same client files as the live game did, somewhat modified for use.
It was more of a general reference to the old forum meme that the devs ignored redside :PThat's okay, GG. You might not remember me, but I remember you. :'(
That's okay, GG. You might not remember me, but I remember you. :'(
And if you REALLY want to steal and play, say Eiko-chan's characters instead of your own on some server, you'll probably be able to with a bit of work and deception... as to why anybody would WANT to... well, you got me.
Who's going to upgrade the Paragon Wiki to cover all these unofficial modifications to the game?I volunteer to edit that person's grammar!
Memory coming back -- somebody mentioned the blimp and I went OMG THE BLIMP... How could I forget the BLIMP!
Sentinel should still work?
Probably not, but there'd be a line around the block to reroll Golden Girl as something other than MA/Regen :P
I remember you - and your perverse delusions that the Loyalists were the good guys :PEeeee! I'm famous! :D
But let's just be happy that everyone - blue, red and yellow sides - now has a more than good chance of playing the game that they love again.If it takes letting the Hamidon burn down humanity for our game to come back, I say where's the kerosene?
I think Leandro handled it as you would give the account name - as it wasn't tied to any personal information and maybe a character or 2 on the account and then they would use a web server tied to the login to sync you up. We didn't get far and he had to go to work - as did I.
My biggest hope is that a Sentinel+ file extractor is built in as part of the "private server package" that will be distributed. So any person running a private server can just activate it or not as they see fit.
I have mixed feelings about the character database. I'm not sure, given the concerns about potentially ID'ing info it has, what the best way to add that to private servers is. As it is now, I could see SCoRE holding on to it, and doing individual Sentinel+ extractions for people that want them.
For some reason I always envisioned Golden Girl as a blaster.
OK, so now let's be honest... how many builds have you guys cooked in Mid's / Pine's Hero Designer since the news? WHich of said builds is the one you are most looking forward to try? I myself just finished my 32nd build and was very keen to try a Dark/Dark Domi build but then I just came up with a killer Earth/Traps controller build... ah choices choices
I don't think you have to worry, I think you will get Classic, Modded and everything under the sun now.
OK, so now let's be honest... how many builds have you guys cooked in Mid's / Pine's Hero Designer since the news? WHich of said builds is the one you are most looking forward to try? I myself just finished my 32nd build and was very keen to try a Dark/Dark Domi build but then I just came up with a killer Earth/Traps controller build... ah choices choices
I was thinking from the point of view of helping to keep the community together, it'd be awesome if CoH Classic and CoH Evolution were like the hub of a network of fan-run servers, surrounded by crazily modded "elseworld" servers, so that players could help and support each others ideas and work, rather than everyone going off on their own and scattering the community into little groups.
As I said on Discord, if this gives me the chance to write "PENGUIN Part 5: Waddle Home," I'm happy. :-)
... all I know is that this new topic title got this song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZMmPWTwTHc) stuck in my head.Oh please. If there's a theme song for this, I dare you to find something better fitting than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4tbJGItHag
Sentinel should still work?
Actually, Paragon Wiki may have some thinking to do...
1. *Should* private servers be covered?
I say yes: Paragon Chat and Icon already are
2. *How* should they be covered?
Unknown, until things get settled.
Oh please. If there's a theme song for this, I dare you to find something better fitting than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4tbJGItHag
Well, we went from some really bad things being done (rape and death threats are never justified) to something great.
An amazing week (understatement of the year).
I am watching these events which interest as well. Let's see how it all turns out over the next few weeks.
My primary concerns have been touched on already, and I don't see a need to add more about them except I'd like to see over the next few weeks/months if the original IP holder(s) take any notice and/or any actions.
My other concerns are about me and where I am today, which has already been touched on by other some. The game is now pretty old; the technologies, animations, general graphics, style of the zones, and so on. MMO"s have made a lot of progress. Would it still have the same draw were I to play again?
My old characters, hrm, hard to say. As I recall, leveling wasn't too hard, nor was the incarnate system for the end game. It might be fun to start afresh. Otoh, some of those characters were dear friends I don't remember enough about; if my old account were made available to me I might find that a good thing.
The community will be different, would I still fit in? I was part of the RP-crowd (more or less, I was loosely connected towards the end) on Virtue. Will the roleplayers who're still interested find the same place to play? One of the nice things about the servers on Classic CoX was their different personalities. It would be a loss, imo, for them to become fully homogenized just because a critical population turns out to be necessary for server survival.
Would the developers supporting it learn to start building new content, or would be have to be satisfied with the (tremendous) amount of content it had at shutdown. If the former, would someone, or anyone, care to coordinate the general lore among the various new server/development efforts?
Would it end up as a short nostalgia run, or could it have a longer life? I don't know.
The boldest of bold moves is the fact that if they have access to the complete code, then at least one of the Paragon devs did the right thing before the shutdown.
Doubtful. I think Sentinel is keyed in to NCSoft's former servers. It would need to be revised.
I played about 90% solo and the thing I most enjoyed was the content starting at one and mostly street sweeping going up to about 30 -- I'd usually drop playing before getting heavily into Peregrine and I had a psychotic case of alt-itis... So I fully expect to start at level 1 with entirely new characters.
One adjustment I wouldn't mind seeing would be for everything from the Paragon Store to be folded into the actual game where it was suitable - like costume parts going into the costume creator, and so on - and for the rest of the store items, along with thee Paragon Rewards, to be added to a vendor or contact - someone like Ms. Liberty, for example.
I am watching these events which interest as well. Let's see how it all turns out over the next few weeks.
My primary concerns have been touched on already, and I don't see a need to add more about them except I'd like to see over the next few weeks/months if the original IP holder(s) take any notice and/or any actions.
My other concerns are about me and where I am today, which has already been touched on by other some. The game is now pretty old; the technologies, animations, general graphics, style of the zones, and so on. MMO"s have made a lot of progress. Would it still have the same draw were I to play again?
My old characters, hrm, hard to say. As I recall, leveling wasn't too hard, nor was the incarnate system for the end game. It might be fun to start afresh. Otoh, some of those characters were dear friends I don't remember enough about; if my old account were made available to me I might find that a good thing.
The community will be different, would I still fit in? I was part of the RP-crowd (more or less, I was loosely connected towards the end) on Virtue. Will the roleplayers who're still interested find the same place to play? One of the nice things about the servers on Classic CoX was their different personalities. It would be a loss, imo, for them to become fully homogenized just because a critical population turns out to be necessary for server survival.
Would the developers supporting it learn to start building new content, or would be have to be satisfied with the (tremendous) amount of content it had at shutdown. If the former, would someone, or anyone, care to coordinate the general lore among the various new server/development efforts?
Would it end up as a short nostalgia run, or could it have a longer life? I don't know.
Leandro said the store doesn't exist as it was and all of it was converted to buy stuff with Inf.
I think that the best way to approach it is to treat it as what it is - a retro classic that's a product of its time, with all the good and bad points that comes with it.
Memory coming back -- somebody mentioned the blimp and I went OMG THE BLIMP... How could I forget the BLIMP!
I'm just remembering that a few releases before close they changed low-level Atlas content so you had instantly regen-ing Hellion mobs (and others) in some parts of Atlas and if you didn't run those missions, they were eternally stealing those crates or starting fires and there was nothing you could do about it.
One inevitable question that's going to come up is the one about developing the game - some people will want the game exactly as it was on midnight November 30th 2012, while other will want to "fix" or "improve" parts of it, as well as simply add more things to it.
Ideally, everyone could be kept happy with a CoH Classic server - which would effectively freeze the game as it was at the shutdown - and a CoH Evolution server, where some of the more technical and artistic members of the community could come together to add things to the game, like new power sets, enemies, zones, missions and so on.
For example, I don't think it'd be too far of a stretch to think that with a bit of work and imagination, Khallisti Wharf could be completed - and the Mission Architect system was actually based on the developers' own mission creation tool, so that's a pretty solid foundation that could lead to the possibility of new lore-friendly content being added to the game that could advance and deepen the existing storylines.
I don't think you have to worry, I think you will get Classic, Modded and everything under the sun now.
From what I saw last night - I want to go with Allita (sp) and whatever she/he develops. They seems to be very purposeful. In fact they said we are going to do this first server setup completely the wrong way to find out the pitfalls - annotate those errors and then do it the right way so that is will be more stable.
It impressed me that they knew before they did it that it would cause issues but that those issue would highlight what needed to be done to get it right. That takes incredible knowledge and depth of understanding to troubleshoot something this complex so easily.
I was thinking from the point of view of helping to keep the community together, it'd be awesome if CoH Classic and CoH Evolution were like the hub of a network of fan-run servers, surrounded by crazily modded "elseworld" servers, so that players could help and support each others ideas and work, rather than everyone going off on their own and scattering the community into little groups.
Here is the issue I can see NCSoft having:
If the pirate server is not for profit, playing a FREE TO PLAY GAME and not making any money from a closed game - what exactly does NCSoft suffer as loss?
I have been running this through my head the last few days:
1. no market to monetize
2. no monthly fees
3. no merchandise sold
4. no one paid for running the server
5. no competition with the same game running currently - I can see the ads now FREE FOREVER TO PLAY biting them in the butt
How would they show actual loss?
Oh please. If there's a theme song for this, I dare you to find something better fitting than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4tbJGItHag
Would someone setting up something like say, a Patreon, where it's not a required donation but something where appreciative players could help towards costs on a regular basis, would that still be a gray area or would that stir up the legal hornet's nest?I would think you could take donations for service rendered - had to buy a new hard drive or server to expand, pay data costs and so on.
Here is the issue I can see NCSoft having:
If the pirate server is not for profit, playing a FREE TO PLAY GAME and not making any money from a closed game - what exactly does NCSoft suffer as loss?
I have been running this through my head the last few days:
1. no market to monetize
2. no monthly fees
3. no merchandise sold
4. no one paid for running the server
5, no competition with the same game running currently
How would they show actual loss?
The community will be different, would I still fit in? I was part of the RP-crowd (more or less, I was loosely connected towards the end) on Virtue. Will the roleplayers who're still interested find the same place to play? One of the nice things about the servers on Classic CoX was their different personalities. It would be a loss, imo, for them to become fully homogenized just because a critical population turns out to be necessary for server survival.
Would the developers supporting it learn to start building new content, or would be have to be satisfied with the (tremendous) amount of content it had at shutdown. If the former, would someone, or anyone, care to coordinate the general lore among the various new server/development efforts?
Would it end up as a short nostalgia run, or could it have a longer life? I don't know.
However, they have to prove loss related to a FREE TO PLAY closed game that isn't being monetized and is running at zero cost to them.
They have to prove it in the USA.
Oh, I got the song for EN/EN blasters or Electric anything:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRfRIXg2spo
The biggest problem with a centralized hub is the fear of NCsoft. As far as I know, they still haven't released a statement. And a big part of making sure there's a ton of private servers is not only for variety of play, but also so that NCsoft can't catch them all. It's my understanding that's how other emulators, that don't have the tacit blessing from their original companies, avoid getting shut down.
I suppose having the centralized server located in a country that's more isolated from things like a C&D or other legal action is a good idea, though.
Fighting talk. There's a certain Al Pacino 'Scarface' vibe to that...or is it a Dirty Harry gravely tone? *(Teases.)This may not surprise you - I follow the carnivore diet - I eat about 95% meat. Chicken, fish, beef, venison, sausage or anything that eats food a vegan would eat. Made me feel 30 years younger and got rid of all the arthritis!
Now. This is what happens when Ironwolf kicks his 'lurker' door down.
"I'm having lemon and extra sugar on my pancakes. Anybody got a problem with dat?"
Azrael.
Oh, I got the song for EN/EN blasters or Electric anything:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRfRIXg2spo
Oh, I got the song for EN/EN blasters or Electric anything:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRfRIXg2spo
This may not surprise you - I follow the carnivore diet - I eat about 95% meat. Chicken, fish, beef, venison, sausage or anything that eats food a vegan would eat. Made me feel 30 years younger and got rid of all the arthritis!
Unless they're from the UK, this is probably blasting in their Mini Cooper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygHrqRx7Abg :D
I like all the ones posted so far...
But this remains my personal favorite.
https://youtu.be/292PZKiStsU (https://youtu.be/292PZKiStsU)
I would think you could take donations for service rendered - had to buy a new hard drive or server to expand, pay data costs and so on.
You would have to keep open and specific books. I have been thinking this through and FREE TO PLAY FOREVER is true now. Before it was marketing and how can NCSoft deny if no profit is made that it is not FREE TO PLAY.
Precisely. All donations must be voluntary, NO special perks fo donation EVER, and all donations carefully tracked andoggex to ensure they are for bandwidth and spare parts for the server.
However if costs are low enough fo hardware and bandwidth then donations will not be needed.
Would someone setting up something like say, a Patreon, where it's not a required donation but something where appreciative players could help towards costs on a regular basis, would that still be a gray area or would that stir up the legal hornet's nest?
Yeah. Got to be careful with that and how 'ANY' money is involved.
It's what caught out Nostralius when Blizzard sued over money being involved...
Azrael.
I like all the ones posted so far...
But this remains my personal favorite.
https://youtu.be/292PZKiStsU (https://youtu.be/292PZKiStsU)
Hello!
There have been developments about the first few pieces of the server project coming together. The promise that something will happen by this weekend is getting closer to reality.
While we are working on several things concerning recent news, I do want to make one thing clear: Titan Network is NOT affiliated with the teams making something out of the SCORE Public Release. As such, any posts of registering for bootleg/private servers, or bootleg/private server websites, and other places is NOT ALLOWED.
If you want to keep on top of progress of these teams, you can join the unofficial City of Heroes Discord to discuss specifically just that. Posts with links to these servers or homepages to them will be deleted on sight. That part has not changed. This also applies to any software concerning such things, such as server-side code or assets. We've never allowed those things to be posted here, regardless of current news or affairs.
Thanks for your time.
Reminder:
Please use the Unofficial City of Heroes Discord to organize. I still have to remove links to the private server. Sorry.
I'm Azrael and I'm a 'sweep-a-colic.'
*Confession.
Juicy mobs in? Atlas. Hollows. Outcast and Trolls... Perez. Steel(!). Talos. Striga Isle. Founders (snipers...) P.Island. Mages and Nemesis...
Ok. I'll stop there...no...wait. What about the sensational juicy mobs in Brickstown?
The mob sweeping capital?
Azrael.
PS. Sure. Who DOESN'T remember Golden Girl 'hanging' in Atlas. I never recalled her power sets though. I'm sure I peaked. But I don't remember.
However, they have to prove loss related to a FREE TO PLAY closed game that isn't being monetized and is running at zero cost to them.
They have to prove it in the USA.
But it will be the I am Spartacus moment.
Server will just pop up even more no doubt.
Well I sent an official letter to Paragon Studios on Live that I will reiterate here.
Anyone has my permission to use as a character name and concept any of the literary characters I have created. I consider that "fair use." (IMHO any writer who gets bent over their creations being used in fanfic or fanart or games is not thinking clearly.)
Bear in mind this does not include the characters any of my collaborators may have created, such as Red Saviour. I can't speak for them, only for myself.
Well I sent an official letter to Paragon Studios on Live that I will reiterate here.
Anyone has my permission to use as a character name and concept any of the literary characters I have created. I consider that "fair use." (IMHO any writer who gets bent over their creations being used in fanfic or fanart or games is not thinking clearly.)
Bear in mind this does not include the characters any of my collaborators may have created, such as Red Saviour. I can't speak for them, only for myself.
Doubtful. I think Sentinel is keyed in to NCSoft's former servers. It would need to be revised.Sentinel had to be recompiled with each live release. It was designed to sniff for data in specific memory addresses in the client while it was running. Those addresses changed every time the client was recompiled, so Sentinel had to be updated each time.
I'm still three pages behind, so this may have already been mentioned (and I'll come back to this and edit it when I get caught up).
Sentinel had to be recompiled with each live release. It was designed to sniff for data in specific memory addresses in the client while it was running. Those addresses changed every time the client was recompiled, so Sentinel had to be updated each time.
For Sentinel to work on a private server, it would have to be compiled to work specifically with the current client files compatible with that server.
I was about to wince and ask how tough that would be.You're going to have to arm wrestle GuyPerfect for that one.
Then I remembered that we essentially have a 24-7 Coding Party fueled by incredible amounts of enthusiasm and Mountain Dew. Practically a "Million Monkeys on a Million Typewriters producing Shakespeare." :D
Toss it into the screaming furball and less than 24 hours later the finished product will come sailing out ready to go I bet. :D
Here is THE perfect song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_f_PQ1QRNs
I want to read that.
I did read and greatly enjoy your book series that was based (loosely) on the City of Heroes group of characters. But I for one don't intend to use any of them. Nevertheless, just for clarity, since you mentioned it, could you give a quick list of the ones that you don't mind people using versus the ones the that are NOT yours that you can't speak for? Or is that already outlined in the books or online somewhere?
Yes, people are entering the server - but it is not stable yet.You can use your existing copy of i24 files / Icon / Paragon Chat. That accounts for bulk of what has to be downloaded.
The download is slow as well. I am waiting for a while until things get smoothed out.
However, they have to prove loss related to a FREE TO PLAY closed game that isn't being monetized and is running at zero cost to them.NCSoft still holds one City Of Heroes trademark that hasn't lapsed, valid apparently until 2023.
They have to prove it in the USA.
Wow! Just Wow is all I have to say. It has been an amazing and exciting 24 hours. I am not sure how much we are supposed to talk about here but I suggest everyone join the Discord and see that amazing work going on! If someone 2 weeks ago told me I would have experienced what I did tonight I would have called them a liar with extreme prejudice.
How do we join the Discord?
I got my Sonic/Ice blaster Ironwolf up to 5 and then logged to cut some brush up - living on a farm it doesn't stop until dark.
Well yes and no - this is only test code.
A lot of work needs to be done for the future - I am getting a web host for a site and will start building a server site. Once the code is fixed and tweaked - I will rent a server according to specs and off we go.
I think right about when I retire is how long it will take, so end of August. I don't want the earliest server just the most stable one. Once that happens another server will open!
I got my Sonic/Ice blaster Ironwolf up to 5 and then logged to cut some brush up - living on a farm it doesn't stop until dark.
I am totally fine with getting my bearings until august for the most stable one.
Until then, I'm gonna have fun and test out alts so I can hit the ground running then.
An alting I will go,,,,
Is it ok to ask what happened to Arcana and Codewalker?
Is it ok to ask what happened to Arcana and Codewalker?(https://i.postimg.cc/vx7Q0Bjq/agents-of-shield-tahiti-its-a-magical-place-1.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/vx7Q0Bjq)
(https://i.postimg.cc/vx7Q0Bjq/agents-of-shield-tahiti-its-a-magical-place-1.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/vx7Q0Bjq)
What the status is so far:
All i24 stuff is complete and can be packaged to distribute - except for:
- Costume stuff is messed up
- and apparently the maps.db file could use a scrubbing (there's a few player names in it IIRC ?)
The i25 stuff being used now will be rewritten - it isn't stable over 200 players
(https://i.postimg.cc/vx7Q0Bjq/agents-of-shield-tahiti-its-a-magical-place-1.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/vx7Q0Bjq)
What the status is so far:
All i24 stuff is complete and can be packaged to distribute - except for:
- Costume stuff is messed up
- and apparently the maps.db file could use a scrubbing (there's a few player names in it IIRC ?)
The i25 stuff being used now will be rewritten - it isn't stable over 200 players
Can we please not call it "Issue 25"? It's mostly powerset modifications, it doesn't have any of the story content that would have been in a real I25!
Can we please not call it "Issue 25"? It's mostly powerset modifications, it doesn't have any of the story content that would have been in a real I25!
But that's the beauty. The community can now create their own lore, their own issues, their own shards, their own experience of CoH...their own flavour of COH ice cream.
That will be just a starting base for the CoH community of communities.
Azrael.
What is the possibility of adding story content past i24? I know it would involve more than just writing a story (scripting, etc) but I think the CoX community has some talented people. Most emulators/private servers I've been on never add content past what the official live servers had but I think it would be interesting to see what the community could come up with.
CoX multiverse where every server is an alternate reality with it's own story. ;D
I have a question. Does AE work too?
Can we please not call it "Issue 25"? It's mostly powerset modifications, it doesn't have any of the story content that would have been in a real I25!
I have a question. Does AE work too?
Architect Entertainment's servers are currently down for maintenance. You can still edit and test local arcs or finish playing existing arcs. Note, unlocked content may appear unavailable until the server is back online.
As reported by Massively Op (https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/18/the-city-of-heroes-private-server-team-has-released-its-code-to-the-world-but-not-the-characters/), you can call it "Unbroken Spirit" as it's alternate name.
As the server reports:
If I may. Please temper expectations. There is a chance to log in. However, it is a slim one. I suggest waiting until it is ready to handle far more people.
Storytime :). Today I tried for 3 hours and not one connect. (please note I am not blaming anyone.) Think of this as an Alpha test.
Mods I hope I haven't crossed any lines with this. Just offering a heart felt opinion :)
Today was a good day.
(https://i.postimg.cc/CZFtBXMd/paladin.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/CZFtBXMd)
Wait, what is that "Shining Star Showdown"? I don't recall anything like that.
As of right now, we have an issue in conflict with a greater threat than NCSoft involving the EU's GDPR when it comes to the CharacterDB. Now while there is (to my knowledge) no personal data on this database, the very fact there is a European database possibly attached to it leaves us up to severe aggressive response from NCSoft. We are trying to figure out a way forward from here.
Best case scenario? We may lose all of our heroes and villains.
Worst case scenario? Everything we have worked for so far is in jeopardy. In the meantime, I insist we keep discussion to a minimum until we can figure a direction to go in.
Thank you once again.
UPDATE:
Legal council is being advised in order to figure out how to proceed. Stand by and wait for an update on this issue. We are trying to get it resolved as swiftly and efficiently as we can.
After coming to consultation and deliberation, we have come up with a solution that will allow us to proceed with continuing on our path to restoring the community.
However in doing so, we will have to sacrifice the heroes and villains of old in order to make sure we are intangible for the future. I understand this has taken a bit of time to deliberate, but we are finally able to press onward with full spatial awareness of the situation at hand.
Thank you for your patience, now let's keep trudging forward.
Translation: We will not be able to restore your old characters.
I just hope some servers allow people to upload Sentinel+ files.
I just hope some servers allow people to upload Sentinel+ files.
I have a question. Does AE work too?
So I wouldn't say I'm a *full* min maxer - it was too expensive. But it is nice to see what you can do to generally improve your build, even if you're not working to push an extra .5% of damage..
I still need to know if the Sentinel AT was from before shutdown or not - if it was, it needs to go on the wiki!
Jumping seems higher to me too... but that could also be the inherent fitness.
This is also really just a test server. We'll see what the future holds.
I got trapped in my first door mission. I couldn't exit because the Atlas Park map couldn't be found. Since it's 2:30 AM here, I just logged out.
Is it just me or is Sprint faster than it used to be? I'm at level 2 and I don't remember moving this fast.
Jumping seems higher to me too... but that could also be the inherent fitness.I also thought it might just be the inherent fitness. By the time inherent fitness was introduced, I used to have a travel power all the time anyway - and almost never used sprint at that point because I believe you could just use veteran travel powers for new characters.
This is also really just a test server. We'll see what the future holds.
I got trapped in my first door mission. I couldn't exit because the Atlas Park map couldn't be found. Since it's 2:30 AM here, I just logged out.
Is it just me or is Sprint faster than it used to be? I'm at level 2 and i don't remember moving this fast.
Apparently the Sentinel AT was created by the SCoRE server Devs. That seems to be the most concrete data. I myself played the I24 beta heavily in the last week before shutdown. And I saw no such thing.I saw no such thing in i24 either, but feature testing usually has at least two phases - there's an internal test before any public test server goes up with the same feature. There is a possibility that this AT might have been something that was in development before shutdown that didn't get to - or through - internal QA before Paragon staff was let go.
The i25 stuff being used now will be rewritten - it isn't stable over 200 playersIt wasn't 200 players, the limiters were not working and the server had about 3 times as many players connected - and 2 times as many trying to connect.
Thanks, I'm cured.
There was a point between getting the code from anonymous devs 6 years ago and last week when there was a conspiracy to keep the private server secret with enough time to make new ATs where scrubbing the code and re-publishing it anonymously was the right thing to do. There was a point where the well-meaning people of SCoRE lost their way and kept this golden gift to themselves instead of sharing.
My bitterness will go away when I can play again.
Can we please not call it "Issue 25"? It's mostly powerset modifications, it doesn't have any of the story content that would have been in a real I25!
I saw no such thing in i24 either, but feature testing usually has at least two phases - there's an internal test before any public test server goes up with the same feature. There is a possibility that this AT might have been something that was in development before shutdown that didn't get to - or through - internal QA before Paragon staff was let go.
It wasn't 200 players, the limiters were not working and the server had about 3 times as many players connected - and 2 times as many trying to connect.
Now it's stable and over 1K connected players. Possibly around 10K players overall.
While I'm a bit sad that all old characters are gone, I have to put it in perspective that until a week ago I never thought that was possible.
What I hope someone is working on is a way to save and reload character data for the future. That way we can move between servers without starting over **EVERY** time.
Are we sure sprint doesn't just seem faster because we're back on a game where travel isn't specifically meant as a time sink?
One thing. I don't recall it being this slow going to level. Lol. Even on team. I must be getting old. :D
Catching up on all of this, wow! This is the next best thing to NCsoft reversing their position on the IP, and they may have no choice but to give us the game back now. The cat's out of the bag.
Downloading is like watching water boil...
Slow to level? I've done two door missions and I'm already almost level 4.
The game may changed but the number one chat topic beyond "does it work" is "how fast can I reach 50"?
Catching up on all of this, wow! This is the next best thing to NCsoft reversing their position on the IP, and they may have no choice but to give us the game back now. The cat's out of the bag.
Downloading is like watching water boil...
Folks have been using Paragon Chat as a lobby and waiting room in-between shutdowns. Come visit in Atlas Park to kill time, too! :)
So, 5th Horseman. I remember your original handle talking about finding your way home 'one day.'IT'S NOT SPARTA!
HAVE you found your way 'home?'
PS. 1250! Stress test.
I don't want to lose the game again. Hell, I'm not even back in it again yet.
What can we do to prevent it from being lost to us all over again?
I have another question. Does the Day Job system still work?
More or less everything that was in game at shutdown theoretically functions, though AE in particular has been going in and out.
What I hope someone is working on is a way to save and reload character data for the future. That way we can move between servers without starting over **EVERY** time.
I just hope the fear of the EU law doesn't cause them to delete the character database outright. They clearly vetted people to give them their individual data when it was secret; surely they can do the same now? Give people character files that are uploadable on other servers?
In theory, the Sentinel+ program should work for that.
I think the idea is its not worth even risking it for the old character data. As much as I would love to have my old blaster back, if it even puts the server in the slightest bit of jeopardy I don't want to risk it. That seems to be the consensus amongst the "server" handlers as well.
Honestly, after playing these last couple days and making new characters I don't even know if I will re-roll my main right away after this initial testing phase is over. I didn't even know I enjoyed playing a Dominator until last night. Now it may very well be my new main! Only took a 7-year break to realize I freaking love Dominators but the chance to relevel and just relive the whole experience again from a truly fresh start is pretty exciting
By the way,. The Paragon wiki section for issue 24 is not complete, is there a list anywhere of all the changes that were implemented for issue 24?To the best of my knowledge (and I say that as someone who was heavily involved in documenting upcoming changes on the wiki at the time), the wiki was current at shutdown. There appear to be a lot of things in the files they're currently using on the SCoRE server that were not in the game at that time. We know the server team is currently using data files that were modified post-shutdown in order to get the server up and running as fast as possible. They have stated that they plan to replace those with the stock data files that existed at shutdown once the server is stable and they have time to go back and look at those.
That's fine though I do have a dusty memory that the melee/armor powers, kheld changes, and sorcery pool were indeed part of issue 24.This (https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Issue_24) should be the full list of all the changes that were implemented for I24 before the shutdown.
Now this Sentinel archetype I saw....that one I am not sure about.
2500 concurrent players. ****'s on fire, yo.
I wish at this point NCSoft would just cut their losses and sell the IP to one of our negotiating teams
. Seems that would be a Win/Win for everyone.
If they did that would require
1. Code repair and reconstruction since as I recall it was in bad shape after shut down
2. Ncsoft to swallow their pride and pulls their head out of the sand
We'll see what, if any, their response is.
Azrael.
How many had time to build a following large enough to inspire emulation?
I wish at this point NCSoft would just cut their losses and sell the IP to one of our negotiating teams
. Seems that would be a Win/Win for everyone.
I thought you guys would be interested in seeing this post by VoodooGirl on Discord:
14000+ registrations. 2800 simultaneous players. The mind boggles.
City of Heroes has one of the widest and most dedicated fandoms I've ever been a part of, and it even shows up in the most unexpected places. The other day, I was bowing out of a project I had been pushing for in regards to Magic the Gathering Arena, and I mentioned it was because I was switching my attention to the CoH server. Out of the blue, someone posts, "City of Heroes is back? That was my favorite MMORPG ever!"
I personally know of 10 or so past players I've kept loose touch with who are holding off due to the uncertainty of the past week, but who I'm sure that will eventually jump in when things are stable, if only just out of curiosity. I'm starting to think that 14000 may just be a fraction of the numbers who would eventually turn out to support a CoH server(s).
It's pretty smegging amazing.
They did settle on a wipe of test characters. So don't get too attached and save those costume files.
A wipe of the test is inevitable.
Fly (but a slow fly compared to Sprint) at level 4. That's a poor change.
On the loading screen, all my characters are listed as being in Atlas Park 33.
A nice tribute. Or an interesting bug.
For some reason, people are begging to join super groups even knowing the server will be wiped.
I mean, the admin of any given server can set the rules for their server, of course...
Super Groups are also a great way to arrange teams with players you come to rely on.
But really . . . I'm a touch confused here. Erase the level-boosted characters? Why are folks playing by the rules laid out back in the days of NCSoft's meddling? Do we really feel a pressing need to adhere to design decisions implemented specifically to pad-out play time and sunk-cost fallacies? I mean, the admin of any given server can set the rules for their server, of course, and maybe playing as close to how the game was at sunset is appealing to some people . . . but I kind of feel like we're missing the opportunity to play at our own pace.
Was this subject addressed anywhere else, perhaps? Seems like it could be a contested concept.
Fly (but a slow fly compared to Sprint) at level 4. That's a poor change.
By the way,. The Paragon wiki section for issue 24 is not complete, is there a list anywhere of all the changes that were implemented for issue 24?
Everything is going down on April 27th at an as-of-yet undisclosed time.
There was talk in the Discord, so if you want to learn more, read through old comments there, but essentially what happened was the admins suggested that there'd be a vote on whether or not to keep the characters, and a minor firestorm erupted. People are concerned, after the events of the past week, about elitism and fairness, especially given that some people have been able to get on whenever and others have had significant difficulties in getting on. It's regrettable, but as I understand it the decision is final.
That's barely enough time to level up a dozen 50's!!
And this is something that I think most people are forgetting in their fervor: No more official Devs. The Devs were the ones who set the parameters of the game, attempted to keep it balanced, allowed for easy and difficult challenges.
But, when the code gets distributed so that 'anyone' can run the game and invite others to play... well players are going to find that one person has used the Dev powers to make everyone level 50, and another one won't let you make any Stalkers, and another one replaced all the Clockwork models with unicorns.
There are no more arbiters of how the game is supposed to be. Dev-ing and GM-ing and Modding will be wild and unpredictable. And assuredly in some cases, blatantly unfair.
On the loading screen, all my characters are listed as being in Atlas Park 33.I'm 99% sure it's a tribute.
A nice tribute. Or an interesting bug.
My advice to NCSoft would be to sell non-exclusive, non-commercial licenses to anyone that wants one, for a reasonable fee based on concurrent users.
Obviously, we're talking about an honor system here. But I think a lot of people would like to get legal. I would buy a license just to protect myself.
I'm 99% sure it's a tribute.
It's something only the true faithful would understand.
I'm 99% sure it's a tribute.
Between the server being taken down or crashing I got a Brute to 18, a Tanker to 12, and a Dominator to 8 while still having time fulfill social/family obligations. The first 30 levels fly by, so recreating at this point is a minimal time loss.
I think my focus for the week will be deciding which characters to recreate, what new builds I want to try, and getting a little testing in on the new concepts to see if they handle properly.
I was testing a beam rifle / time manipulation blaster.
I still don't care for the look of beam rifle, but it does play well at least in the early game.
Between the server being taken down or crashing I got a Brute to 18, a Tanker to 12, and a Dominator to 8 while still having time fulfill social/family obligations. The first 30 levels fly by, so recreating at this point is a minimal time loss.
I think my focus for the week will be deciding which characters to recreate, what new builds I want to try, and getting a little testing in on the new concepts to see if they handle properly.
Looks like they took a C&D, but the fight continues. The server is down, long live the server!
Image deleted - keep it PG-13. --Tahquitz
It begins. They'll chase every new server made until they give up and just ignore it like with lineage.
So I couldn't post this in the Discord I feel so I wanted to post it here.
I want to say thank you so much to all the devs that made this possible and also, I am so sorry you are facing consequence because of it. I see a lot of people saying what they should and could do on Discord and it upsets me a bit. Their head is on the line and they are receiving criticism and doubt despite all their hard work. This brings me to Leo and the Secret Score Server. I am sorry for my frustration earlier. You were right. It was easy for me, us, to say we would have done differently when our head was never on the chopping block. If COH coming back means ruining one person's life at a time I don't think I want that price to be paid. Innocous please stay safe!
Thank you everyone that gave me a weekend of joy I haven't felt in years, I pray it doesn't bring years of misery upon those who gave me this gift.
Then they need to work in secret and get it all coded into a package with easy setup instructions and admin interface and then disperse it like the seed in sword art online one
Thus many many servers can start to appear and as fast as ncsoft strikes them down more shall rise
So I couldn't post this in the Discord I feel so I wanted to post it here.
I want to say thank you so much to all the devs that made this possible and also, I am so sorry you are facing consequence because of it. I see a lot of people saying what they should and could do on Discord and it upsets me a bit. Their head is on the line and they are receiving criticism and doubt despite all their hard work. This brings me to Leo and the Secret Score Server. I am sorry for my frustration earlier. You were right. It was easy for me, us, to say we would have done differently when our head was never on the chopping block. If COH coming back means ruining one person's life at a time I don't think I want that price to be paid. Innocous please stay safe!
Thank you everyone that gave me a weekend of joy I haven't felt in years, I pray it doesn't bring years of misery upon those who gave me this gift.
I want to add my thanks as well.
It felt great being in our city again and the game was just as fun today as it was when I first played in. I'm regretting now that I didn't grab the source code when I could, although I'm not a programmer, but I will hold out hope that someone can create a dummy-proof version and get it out to us.
https://www.mmobomb.com/news/rogue-city-heroes-server-might-ncsofts-blessing-theres-catch/That was complete misinformation someone on Discord pulled out of their colon.
https://www.mmobomb.com/news/rogue-city-heroes-server-might-ncsofts-blessing-theres-catch/
?
Azrael.
https://www.mmobomb.com/news/rogue-city-heroes-server-might-ncsofts-blessing-theres-catch/
?
Azrael.
(https://i.imgur.com/oVBzmGj.png)That was complete misinformation someone on Discord pulled out of their colon.
I was following the news closely - the character database was written off due to a combination of how certain parts of the COH community consider their toons their sole property (and would go ballistic if anyone else had access to them), impossibility of 100% foolproof ownership verification and GDPR (due to servers being hosted in Europe at some point).
The Massively Op forums that people made their server accounts on is no longer there - what does that mean?
https://www.mmobomb.com/news/rogue-city-heroes-server-might-ncsofts-blessing-theres-catch/This info is from a couple of days ago. I saw as it was discussed on discord, partially. From what I understand, someone (Leo?) apparently got contacted by a person from NCSoft and gotten the info that NC would not be pursuing this server if they don't use the database containing the player characters.
?
Azrael.
We'll see.
Image removed - keep it PG-13. In short, Innocuous said "things aren't as bad as it seems." --Tahquitz
I played since open beta. Dreamed of getting to play this game again for 6 long years, and misses the boat by two days.
What about a discreet server in Argentina...
*Looks innocent.
Azrael.
This exactly why everything needs to be released.
So I couldn't post this in the Discord I feel so I wanted to post it here.
I want to say thank you so much to all the devs that made this possible and also, I am so sorry you are facing consequence because of it. I see a lot of people saying what they should and could do on Discord and it upsets me a bit. Their head is on the line and they are receiving criticism and doubt despite all their hard work. This brings me to Leo and the Secret Score Server. I am sorry for my frustration earlier. You were right. It was easy for me, us, to say we would have done differently when our head was never on the chopping block. If COH coming back means ruining one person's life at a time I don't think I want that price to be paid. Innocous please stay safe!
Thank you everyone that gave me a weekend of joy I haven't felt in years, I pray it doesn't bring years of misery upon those who gave me this gift.
It's not uncommon for a company to sit on their IPs like this and sling C&D's at anyone who dares touch them even when the company seems to want to have no plans for it, but is there any knowledge behind why NCSoft is hanging onto this IP for dear life when they really seem to have no interest in continuing with it?
They're not making any money from it, and to my understanding, in 2012 and 2013 there were fairly serious attempts to buy the IP from NCSoft, is that correct?
I'm also curious if more information is known about why Marvel backed out of the MMO genre, it seems like they were interested and had Cryptic working on Marvel Universe Online before Cryptic somehow lost that IP and pivoted to turning it into Champions Online, which happened around the time Marvel kicked off the cinematic universe, not that there is anything notable about that but the timing is interesting.
Is there somewhere online that I can read more about this? Was this well documented at all or has Emmert ever talked about it on record?
Sounds like some good news might becoming.
Update: Sounds like there wasn't a DMCA. They are still checking the code and getting it ready for distro. The server might be back up.
Innocuous/Glory to ArachnosYesterday at 11:47 PM
There is going to be some positive news soon. Wait for me to write a coherent statement.
As of now, we are running on the assumption that there is no DMCA. We have a drive that we are currently verifying on if it's the server binaries. As it stands, it has everything.
There has been some ******* that lead to mass server panic, and an emergency administration and codemod meeting has been called.
We may very well be able to salvage this situation before the next sunset. No promises. Do not hold this against me.
We have a gameplan. It depends on verifying this code right now. Once it is achieved, we are pushing to get a server back up immediately.
The original goal of the server has been to get a stable i24 for distribution and by the Well of the Furies we will get it. This chaos was unprofessional on my part (partly from my inexperience), and triggers were being pulled before we even had the horses at the races.
We will also be futureproofing future development to make sure this kind of *********** will never happen again.
Dunno if this has already been posted, so posting it just in case. Current available information suggests that the person owning the physical server got hit by some kind of... "legal communication"* which scared them enough to bail and delete the whole server. Unfortunately nobody else from the Discord server had those server files (to my understanding) so it will take time to get anything back up.
Hold up. There's no WAY this is true. All the files have got to be massively distributed at this point.I know you're assuaged after reading Leandro's twitter, but I'd like to clarify this a bit for others, according to my understanding.
And if they're not... well, this is as good evidence as any that any and all CoH code to run the game needs to be saved in as many places as possible ASAP.
Edit: After reading Leandro's twitter... I think we're good. I just hope that whatever he has that is necessary to set up a server in half a day is "in the wild" now, even if the people that have don't know how to use it.
If anybody needs to write a psych dissertation on mass panic they'd be well served to cut and paste the hell out of the discord server the past little while. they could have announced that the current measles strain has mutated and the vaccine is no longer effective and it'd cause less chicken littletry, if i may coin a term.I lectured on this phenomenon last week, including an example of how I paid $5.50/gallon to fill up my gas tank on 9/11.
I know you're assuaged after reading Leandro's twitter, but I'd like to clarify this a bit for others, according to my understanding.
The *I24 source code* is widely public now. That, however, is not enough to run a server or a client (btw both server and client code are packed *together*). As far as I know, several types of asset files are also needed, and those are not yet properly publicly available.
What was running on this Discord server, was a *precompiled* I25 (I24 + Leandro's and his team's modifications) server (aka binaries), joined by the I25 client supplied through Tequila. Again, as far as I know, Leandro was in the process of releasing the I25 source code but it had to be scrubbed of any privately identifying information before being made public.
Why the I24 assets, or the I25 binaries and assets aren't publicly released at this point, I do not know.
I lectured on this phenomenon last week
I was assuaged in that the stuff to make a working server still exists. Whatever else today's incident illustrated, regardless of what actually happened, it clearly proves that the code NEEDS to be released to as many places it can be, even if the people that end up having it don't know how to get it running.
talk about terrible timing :DI'll lecture on that next week. :o
If anybody needs to write a psych dissertation on mass panic they'd be well served to cut and paste the hell out of the discord server the past little while. they could have announced that the current measles strain has mutated and the vaccine is no longer effective and it'd cause less chicken littletry, if i may coin a term.
The discord is making me sick. Leo was right to keep it a secret. So many rude and undeserving people. They have CoH back for a week and are already calling the people "spinless and cowards" for not keeping the servor up. It's disgusting. No thank you, no we appreciate you trying. I hate to say it but after reading over this Discord. The community doesn't deserve CoH.I had to close it out. The community is better than that. Those are some purpled-out, Incarnate-slotted, trolls who have invaded. I refuse to believe that what I was seeing in that chat is a reflection of who and what our community has become.
The discord is making me sick. Leo was right to keep it a secret. So many rude and undeserving people. They have CoH back for a week and are already calling the people "spinless and cowards" for not keeping the servor up. It's disgusting. No thank you, no we appreciate you trying. I hate to say it but after reading over this Discord. The community doesn't deserve CoH.
I had to close it out. The community is better than that. Those are some purpled-out, Incarnate-slotted, trolls who have invaded. I refuse to believe that what I was seeing in that chat is a reflection of who and what our community has become.
The discord is making me sick. Leo was right to keep it a secret.
You must not have been following what was happening on Facebook and Reddit this past week. Digital lynch mob pretty much sums it up, along with your friendly neighborhood online terrorists doxxing/harassing not just Leandro, but people whose only "crime" was being his knowable associates. But, hey, vigilantes are heroes; even if they come from 4chan, right? :-/Oh, I'm disappointed in that mess as well. I just wasn't watching it play out in real time, after my wife left the house with tears in her eyes over the initial takedown news this afternoon.
As I've said previously - If it wasn't for the CoHTitan community here, I'd be seriously challenged to continue believing that "community" was an appropriate word to describe the self-professed CoH "community" online.
I find it to be extremely entertaining.
Am I understanding this correctly? Whoever is running the server did not receive anything from NCsoft but shut the server down in a panic over something?
Any possible way their ISP mistook the traffic to and from the server as torrent activity and sent them a letter?
I always thought the community hype was overrated. When some people talked about their ignore list, sounding like it was longer than their friends list, of course the community seemed great because those people overlooked the warts. I was never in the in-circle of groups, so I saw a lot of elitist snobbery going on. That doesn't mean the community was bad, especially compared to other MMOs, but then that bar was set very low. I would call the COX community good, not great.That's your experience, and it's valid. I was talking about the community that surrounded the game; in-game, there were plenty of cliques to go around, and groups with different goals and ideas of "fun." But the game supported all of those, which I found/find fascinating.
Remember everyone, the discord is a reminder why we can't have nice things.
That is unfortunate.
Hey guys. I've haven't been keeping up with the news lately. Does this means the private server is permanently gone?
Don't panic yet, grab your towel a quietly hang on.
https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/22/city-of-heroes-rogue-server-has-already-been-shut-down-under-threat-of-legal-action/
Read the last update regarding Yuvi.
And apparently there's more Discord drama and we now have a new discord.
[/quote
So someone panicked and actually wiped the server? Hope for data backups
This is insane and I am so confused.
(https://i.pinimg.com/236x/ac/ac/bd/acacbd0098d95c9f35d5c8411a800729--magic--ball-the-magic.jpg)
The discord is making me sick. Leo was right to keep it a secret. So many rude and undeserving people. They have CoH back for a week and are already calling the people "spinless and cowards" for not keeping the servor up. It's disgusting. No thank you, no we appreciate you trying. I hate to say it but after reading over this Discord. The community doesn't deserve CoH.
I do think this has created a problem though. While it seems the possibility of a server isn't gone I don't think they have any of the binaries they used to set it up. Also, Leo and the Admins of the Test server (AFAIK) aren't good terms right now. I don't say this spread false rumors, and I hope its all good but if it's not I doubt there will be as much collaboration this time around.
Shame that one troll did all this and created a divide between the people trying to make this a possibility.
At this point though I am just waiting the 24h to see what they have to say. All any of us can do is really speculate or like Saipman said "Ask a magic 8 ball" which will just say
"
Logging in was the worst, and it was only for the first 24 hours. By Saturday evening, I had no problem logging in, and suffered maybe 1 mapserve for the remainder of the time it was up. And lag wasn't too bad at all. I've certainly experienced worse back when the game was up.
Sunday was excellent. I'm glad I tried something I'd never tried before -- beam rifle and time manipulation.
Something I want to ask the people that did get on :
Did the graphics still feel satisfying to see?
I bring this up because over the years detractors have said "oh the graphics are old and wont be fun to see anymore" (a view I disagree with vehemently).
My take on the graphics is it is a super hero game spawned from a comic background. I don't NEED to see eyebrows or breathing or even hair animations to be immersed in the game. The trees and grass don't need to rustle (unless of course they are Devouring Earth!).
I know you're assuaged after reading Leandro's twitter, but I'd like to clarify this a bit for others, according to my understanding.
The *I24 source code* is widely public now. That, however, is not enough to run a server or a client (btw both server and client code are packed *together*). As far as I know, several types of asset files are also needed, and those are not yet properly publicly available.
What was running on this Discord server, was a *precompiled* I25 (I24 + Leandro's and his team's modifications) server (aka binaries), joined by the I25 client supplied through Tequila. Again, as far as I know, Leandro was in the process of releasing the I25 source code but it had to be scrubbed of any privately identifying information before being made public.
Why the I24 assets, or the I25 binaries and assets aren't publicly released at this point, I do not know.
Just some musing:
Unless there's an approval from NCSoft (tacit or explicit), there won't be a single server like we had back when the game was running. Either costs will grow too much, someone will get bored or spooked and kill their server, or they get a letter from NCSoft telling them to C&D.
I feel like the future of CoH will be multiple private servers operating under the radar. It might be closer to a single person game or a small group of friends. It's possible that there will be a facility to extract your character from a server, so you can have a backup, and to allow restoration on another server. Think of it like transhuman sleeving - download your character into a new body somewhere else.
The coding team working on understanding, simplifying and deploying new binaries based on the i24 code is probably the future of the game. They still need the back end database data, but that's probably coming still. Once that's released, it's only a matter of time before you can run your own private server on commodity hardware. It might take some time.
I had a great time playing on the test server this weekend. I got to play with my friend that introduced me to the game in the first place; we re-rolled our original toons and had a blast. We got to show our kids and they loved it too. My daughter made her first character in Icon and was disappointed that the test server was down, but I have hope now that the code's out. The test server might not have worked out (it might still - the jury's still out on that) but there will be City of Heroes in the future.
I'm happy to have some real hope going forward.
From my reading of the last 10 days of news and forum posts (including here):
-- Issue 25 in binary form is ready to go now. It's the fastest route to go live immediately, and the COH Discord team is fine with that for now, but they want Issue 24. Before Leo can release this source code, he needs to scrub it for anything that would tip off investigators to the identities of who modified it, both NCSoft staff as well as SCORE (doesn't take a lot of guesses as to why both of those matter). That'll take some time.
-- Issue 25 source code will be possible, but not immediately. This can be distributed in Source Code form, but it must be scrubbed before release. (See above)
-- Issue 24 will be possible AFTER the Issue 25 source code is scrubbed. This is manually rolling back the changed Leo made to Issue 25 to put it back to Issue 24, then adjusting the server configuration and databases to work with the rollback. This will take a few months and may be as late as this Fall, depending on his schedule.
Ultimately, public servers will have their choice of what resources to use, but they'll need one or the other. The source code by itself without these resources do nothing. If you want Issue 24, you'll need to wait. If you want to play ASAP, Issue 25 is what's on the menu.
Hopefully that explains why Leo's Twitter posts are essential to the team: they need his binaries to get a server online as soon as possible.
If issue 25 is just a modified 24 and has everything from 24 in it, then why bother rolling back to just i24? Just whip up a friendly server and client setup package with nice easy instructions and the tech specs for a good server to have it on and then package it up, call it the Paragon Seed or some such and release it to the internet for all to enjoy
From my reading of the last 10 days of news and forum posts (including here):
-- Issue 25 in binary form is ready to go now. It's the fastest route to go live immediately, and the COH Discord team is fine with that for now, but they want Issue 24. Before Leo can release this source code, he needs to scrub it for anything that would tip off investigators to the identities of who modified it, both NCSoft staff as well as SCORE (doesn't take a lot of guesses as to why both of those matter). That'll take some time.
-- Issue 25 source code will be possible, but not immediately. This can be distributed in Source Code form, but it must be scrubbed before release. (See above)
-- Issue 24 will be possible AFTER the Issue 25 source code is scrubbed. This is manually rolling back the changed Leo made to Issue 25 to put it back to Issue 24, then adjusting the server configuration and databases to work with the rollback. This will take a few months and may be as late as this Fall, depending on his schedule.
Ultimately, public servers will have their choice of what resources to use, but they'll need one or the other. The source code by itself without these resources do nothing. If you want Issue 24, you'll need to wait. If you want to play ASAP, Issue 25 is what's on the menu.
Hopefully that explains why Leo's Twitter posts are essential to the team: they need his binaries to get a server online as soon as possible.
The stuff happening between the discords, the subreddit, the mods, it's all terribly embarrassing. We were on the door step of something great, but you can always trust pettiness to derail it all.
It felt great. The art direction never demanded ultra-high detail where every blade of grass is animated
If issue 25 is just a modified 24 and has everything from 24 in it, then why bother rolling back to just i24? Just whip up a friendly server and client setup package with nice easy instructions and the tech specs for a good server to have it on and then package it up, call it the Paragon Seed or some such and release it to the internet for all to enjoy
I remember being on a task force with a guy that wanted articulated fingers. When I asked him if that would make the game better, he said it would if he got the correct hand gesture emote. I put him on ignore.
I don't like the "Pay 2 Win" vendor. I don't want to break immersion that way.
I mean, were the Merit Vendors less immersion breaking? The P2W vendor was at least a way to get stuff that was in the *literal P2W store* that tried to put in in-universe dialog. Maybe there would have been a better way, but it's nice to have all the veteran rewards and pre-order bonuses or whatever all in one place.
Something I want to ask the people that did get on :
Did the graphics still feel satisfying to see?
I bring this up because over the years detractors have said "oh the graphics are old and wont be fun to see anymore" (a view I disagree with vehemently).
My take on the graphics is it is a super hero game spawned from a comic background. I don't NEED to see eyebrows or breathing or even hair animations to be immersed in the game. The trees and grass don't need to rustle (unless of course they are Devouring Earth!).
I was pretty surprised by how high you could scale some of the settings up, I have a 1080 and the initial "crank the settings way up" run for a 15 year old game somehow led to so so framerates and the card actually working fairly hard. I was pretty shocked by that.
From my reading of the last 10 days of news and forum posts (including here):]]
-- Issue 25 in binary form is ready to go now. It's the fastest route to go live immediately, and the COH Discord team is fine with that for now, but they want Issue 24. Before Leo can release this source code, he needs to scrub it for anything that would tip off investigators to the identities of who modified it, both NCSoft staff as well as SCORE (doesn't take a lot of guesses as to why both of those matter). That'll take some time.
-- Issue 25 source code will be possible, but not immediately. This can be distributed in Source Code form, but it must be scrubbed before release. (See above)
-- Issue 24 will be possible AFTER the Issue 25 source code is scrubbed. This is manually rolling back the changes Leo made to Issue 25 to put it back to Issue 24, then adjusting the server configuration and databases to work with the rollback. This will take a few months and may be as late as this Fall, depending on his schedule.
Ultimately, public servers will have their choice of what resources to use, but they'll need one or the other. The source code by itself without these resources do nothing. If you want Issue 24, you'll need to wait. If you want to play ASAP, Issue 25 is what's on the menu.
Hopefully that explains why Leo's Twitter posts are essential to the team: they need his binaries to get a server online as soon as possible.
Some people are purists and don't want anything Cryptic/Paragon didn't make, others just hate Leandro. There's a market for it!
If issue 25 is just a modified 24 and has everything from 24 in it, then why bother rolling back to just i24? Just whip up a friendly server and client setup package with nice easy instructions and the tech specs for a good server to have it on and then package it up, call it the Paragon Seed or some such and release it to the internet for all to enjoy
Ok... here's my understanding:
Everything for i24 is now out there, both from Leo and some other anonymous source. But, it has to be fixed to work, which the coders now working on it could get done in a few weeks or months.Spoiler for Hidden:
Then the fake news that NCSoft was going to issue a D&C led to the person who had the i25 files on the playtesting server to panic and to delete it all. Which takes us back to only Leo having part of those files. So, no working playtesting is available unless some other trusted individual wants to run i25 while its files are being scrubbed.
Even if Leo never releases his i25 files, what has already been released is enough for coders to create a working game just like Leo did.
But Leo is most definitely committed to getting everything eventually released. He had a fit when the Discord group was holding onto some files that were scrubbed and got them to release them to the wild.
Just some musing:
Unless there's an approval from NCSoft (tacit or explicit), there won't be a single server like we had back when the game was running. Either costs will grow too much, someone will get bored or spooked and kill their server, or they get a letter from NCSoft telling them to C&D.
I feel like the future of CoH will be multiple private servers operating under the radar. It might be closer to a single person game or a small group of friends. It's possible that there will be a facility to extract your character from a server, so you can have a backup, and to allow restoration on another server. Think of it like transhuman sleeving - download your character into a new body somewhere else.
The coding team working on understanding, simplifying and deploying new binaries based on the i24 code is probably the future of the game. They still need the back end database data, but that's probably coming still. Once that's released, it's only a matter of time before you can run your own private server on commodity hardware. It might take some time.
I had a great time playing on the test server this weekend. I got to play with my friend that introduced me to the game in the first place; we re-rolled our original toons and had a blast. We got to show our kids and they loved it too. My daughter made her first character in Icon and was disappointed that the test server was down, but I have hope now that the code's out. The test server might not have worked out (it might still - the jury's still out on that) but there will be City of Heroes in the future.
I'm happy to have some real hope going forward.
We need to start being fair - the guy hosting it was a truck driver.
He had the money to stand up a server and did so - he is not a lawyer and isn't a server person. There is a reason I said that I wanted to wait until September 1 to start a server up - not that I wouldn't want to beta test it earlier. The magic the community worked on the code and networking side of things is incredible.
Costs of a couple thousand a month could easily be reduced to a couple hundred a month once the code is re-written. It is being re-written, what we got is a small taste and an alpha test. In a couple of months the code could be ported to modern database programs - like LUA and moving to SQL Server 2019 and porting from 32bit to 64bit and opening up memory addressing. I know they were converting to SQL 2010 and then the port to 2019 is easier.
I don't see this as anything but an excited amateur dabbling in running a server and the community freaking out with excitement. It shows the game is still wanted and will be played. We were running in to the coders nightmare - customers and owners screaming we want it better NOW! All while they worked every waking hour.
I respect those folks so much and they are the unsung heroes. I saw multiple people who had coded for the entire weekend - not sleeping saying, I need to sleep I can't read what I typed. I want them to slow down - get it right and build us something that will last for another 10 years, not one weekend.
We need to start being fair - the guy hosting it was a truck driver.
He had the money to stand up a server and did so - he is not a lawyer and isn't a server person. There is a reason I said that I wanted to wait until September 1 to start a server up - not that I wouldn't want to beta test it earlier. The magic the community worked on the code and networking side of things is incredible.
Costs of a couple thousand a month could easily be reduced to a couple hundred a month once the code is re-written. It is being re-written, what we got is a small taste and an alpha test. In a couple of months the code could be ported to modern database programs - like LUA and moving to SQL Server 2019 and porting from 32bit to 64bit and opening up memory addressing. I know they were converting to SQL 2010 and then the port to 2019 is easier.
I don't see this as anything but an excited amateur dabbling in running a server and the community freaking out with excitement. It shows the game is still wanted and will be played. We were running in to the coders nightmare - customers and owners screaming we want it better NOW! All while they worked every waking hour.
I respect those folks so much and they are the unsung heroes. I saw multiple people who had coded for the entire weekend - not sleeping saying, I need to sleep I can't read what I typed. I want them to slow down - get it right and build us something that will last for another 10 years, not one weekend.
He got trolled by someone on the internet - who would think it?
Let reality sink in - the code while playable needs work. The coders expected it to take 2 or 3 months to optimize it for modern servers. It was a little taste but really better code means less resources to run it.
It could easily get to where you could rent a server for under a $100 a month.
We need to start being fair - the guy hosting it was a truck driver.
He had the money to stand up a server and did so - he is not a lawyer and isn't a server person. There is a reason I said that I wanted to wait until September 1 to start a server up - not that I wouldn't want to beta test it earlier. The magic the community worked on the code and networking side of things is incredible.
Costs of a couple thousand a month could easily be reduced to a couple hundred a month once the code is re-written. It is being re-written, what we got is a small taste and an alpha test. In a couple of months the code could be ported to modern database programs - like LUA and moving to SQL Server 2019 and porting from 32bit to 64bit and opening up memory addressing. I know they were converting to SQL 2010 and then the port to 2019 is easier.
I don't see this as anything but an excited amateur dabbling in running a server and the community freaking out with excitement. It shows the game is still wanted and will be played. We were running in to the coders nightmare - customers and owners screaming we want it better NOW! All while they worked every waking hour.
I respect those folks so much and they are the unsung heroes. I saw multiple people who had coded for the entire weekend - not sleeping saying, I need to sleep I can't read what I typed. I want them to slow down - get it right and build us something that will last for another 10 years, not one weekend.
It's super exciting times but we were always going to be in for a rocky start. There's so many people with different expectations, and different beliefs about how a server should be run, that fracturing would always happen. What I hope more than anything is that the code and binaries (is that the right term?) has wide enough distribution that no matter what may happen, we have a future.
When that is secure, I'll be very happy, and I know our community and our game will make it :)
Until then, there will be teams of people who have never worked together who don't know each other amidst a community up to their eyeballs in drama and internet weirdism
OMG! THIS IS A SIGN OF RELIEF! I FEEL A LITTLE BETTER NOW. Man, I was freaking out. I couldn't even go to sleep. So....to my understanding it was just a test server?
If the code is converted to run on modern hardware and database methods it will be extremely cheap to maintain.
I don't like the "Pay 2 Win" vendor. I don't want to break immersion that way.
Running a small server for a handful of people on a single box is already feasible,
I know one person was converting to SQL 2019 directly but figured that it would take 2 months.
Others were finding going to SQL 2010 was easier and they were working on that and then were going to try moving to 2019.
However it happens I expect to see a more streamlined version but as someone above stated the future of this game is in smaller servers where you pay much less but can only host for 100 - 200 people.
I am not sure the donations will cover a $5,000 a month setup. I know once I get one going I am going to pay for the initial setup myself and once I know what the monthly costs are I can then post it on the server website the exact breakdown.
This is all much more encouraging than the raging turmoil going on in Reddit, and Discord.
Thanks for that!
I know one person was converting to SQL 2019 directly but figured that it would take 2 months.
Others were finding going to SQL 2010 was easier and they were working on that and then were going to try moving to 2019.
I don't know how challenging it is, but down the road, wouldn't it be more beneficial to migrate to mySQL if at all possible to lessen the reliance on commercial license software, and further facilitate people being able to run their own home server instances?
Well I just checked the discord, it appears to be relatively calmed down now. It seems now it is the waiting game...
No clue about running a server but I'd seriously consider doing a personal setup for myself/family. I've no idea how/where I'd get the server files and whatnot though, I think they closed that link?I think a lot of people have the i24 source but I would wait a bit.
Personally, I'm enjoying this new game "City of Drama".
I'll just add this thought or two.
Prior to the shutdown, honestly, I'd lost interest in the game. I really enjoyed the "marketing" via Wentworth's, as it seemed by selling various IO's or recipes for 1 inf, I could rake in millions and eventually billions. But even that got old. Then, the Incarnate content came out, and it was really something special. It made my level 50 characters really powerful - probably too much so - as I don't think a psi/fire blaster should be able to solo Dreck. But, it sure was fun!
That said, getting to play this weekend...it was all I could do to stop playing and perform various tasks that are now routine without a game to absorb every waking moment of free time. I wasn't really aware that it was just a test run. I think I read it, but it never occurred to me they'd take it down so quickly. I figured if there was a C&D, it would take at least a few weeks before that would occur.
It was super interesting to see names that I remembered from the game, people whom I wouldn't know if I saw them on the street, but for some reason, have a lot of respect for them - simply because they played the game - and most played it on what I would call a "high level". (that's not a 420 reference)
A number of others - what they may have lacked in high level play, they made up for high level character. By that, I mean, they were kind, generous with their time, always willing to help be that last person to join a task force, even if they had to log off. Those were the kinds of people that I encountered more often than not.
Occasionally, there'd be someone who's in game actions were counter-productive (like leaping ahead on Incarnate trials while we try to snipe bombs and fouling the effort because they chose not to read or lost control of their keyboard to a violent kitten or whatever), but those were so few and far between, I had to think really hard to remember a bad experience.
So - no idea who Yuvi is, had never heard of SCoRE, and all the other stuff that's been going on until I saw something on Massively and was able to get my preferred archetype & power-set to level 11 before they pulled the plug. (ice/ice blaster, naturally)
It was a delightful treat for the weekend. My boss doesn't know it, but he's probably grateful they pulled the plug, or I might have called in sick ...for a week.
Whatever happens, I'll remember the excellent sound effects and the resourcefulness it takes to use the enhancements that drop, and combine them and save every bit of inf you can, because you know SO's are darned pricey for a toon that's not subsidized by previous level 50's.
So, thanks to everyone who had a hand in making the weekend - even if you're someone who just played a bit and came up with a clever name and back story! (which I took time to read this time around)
And, for me at least, there is no substitute. I haven't played too many games since CoH went offline, and the ones I did try, never generated the excitement I felt playing this game. They were always poor substitutes for what felt to me, like the real thing. Now that I have had a pointed reminder of what that felt like, I have completely lost interest in anything else. That might be stubborn, or narrow minded of me, but that is what I feel, and there's no denying it.
Even if the few hours are all we get at least it broke me out of daily agent network rotation on secret world legends. Now if only I could figure why i was doing it in the first place.
Even if the few hours are all we get at least it broke me out of daily agent network rotation on secret world legends. Now if only I could figure why i was doing it in the first place.
Much like with past updates I feel like there's a lot I'm not understanding.
Secret world.....knew I forgot one...but then for me that game was forgettable.
Perhaps calling it The VIP Vendor, or else program an option in to Ms Liberty that you can click on and reclaim the vet reward items like the axe, sands of mu, etc.
Even if the few hours are all we get at least it broke me out of daily agent network rotation on secret world legends. Now if only I could figure why i was doing it in the first place.
I think that what has the biggest impact for me in terms of gameplay which City has done right, while so many others are awful at, is the strength of Controls and Debuffs. A Controller, Defender, Corruptor, Dominator, and Mastermind feel meaningful and significant in combat because there is a definitely and tangible benefit to laying down status effects. The only other game where I felt that status effects were even remotely impactful was League of Legends, but that game has a whole host of other problems with it (not least of which is that its devs only care about their precious e-sports nonsense).
Further, I think the reason I wasn't too thrilled with City of Heroes PvP was because all the Control and Debuffs were reduced in effectiveness during PvP. At least while I was playing, back in the day. Not sure if that ever changed.
Of course, that's not the only reason CoX was so great, but it's definitely one of the biggest elements as to never being able to find satisfaction in any other MMO for me.
I must say that if we are not getting a full restart of the game, then this definitely has my attention.
Hard to say what will happen. Update no later today then 10 pm CST they said.
Hard to say what will happen. Update no later today then 10 pm CST they said.
Personally, I would prefer a big server over lots of little servers. I have 0 interest playing the game by myself with 5-6 people. I've played good games that had small populations and it totally killed the experience for me. Legends of Aria had potential but the fact it only had 60 people on it at a time took all the fun out of it. As much I enjoy soloing, I don't want to be solo in the world.
Just curious what the latest was about that. If sentinel files can restore archetypes, powers, selections, installed inventions, influence and crafted powers such as th incarnate powers, that should suffice.
I love Secret World but it does not scratch the itch that CoH does.
Well pvp was always a bit.....askew in CoH. The diminishing returns of ish 13 horrified many die hard pvp players as I recall and I think there was a pvp Exodus of sorts. Then came the special pvp inventions which seemed to help.
I preferred Warburg for rep farming or else the arena but that's just me
The one thing Secret World had over City of was the story. (sorry, just my opinion.) When the story was good, it was good. And when the story was bad it showed. :) Yea, I agree none of the mmos I played ever got me to play as long and often as City of did. For example last Sunday, I played 8-9 hours. In all my other mmos, collectively they didnt even break 4 hours or so.
Hard to say, 300 doesn't sound too bad but you still may see a lot of empty areas. Don't get me wrong I would take a server with 300 players over NO server. But I'd prefer to have one like this weekend where no matter where you go you see people.
The new server would have to be coded in such a way to allow an update from Sentinel. That has not been done in the past and it would have to be specifically written to mesh with whatever version of CoH is running.
So... unlikely unless your private host is a very adept coder... and willing to accept those characters.
Hm well th y could set it where all veteren reward weapons and powers are given to you when your new alt logs in
Better yet here is a question for those in the know as it were,
Since we have to kiss the old player database goodbye due to legalities (BOO), has anyone been able to attempt a restore from sentinel backup and how did it go? I remember codewalker once expressing concern that restoring some badges may not restore the power or costume piece it was tied to.
Just curious what the latest was about that. If sentinel files can restore archetypes, powers, selections, installed inventions, influence and crafted powers such as th incarnate powers, that should suffice.
Toss the restored alt a rename token a freespec, some tailor tokens and I suspect most players would smile.
If badges NOT linked to costumes and powers can be restored, even better.
The Titan Network is in talks with NCSoft regarding a community-run City of Heroes server. Things are looking positive, so stay strong. We don't have a timeline right now, but we'll provide more updates as soon as we can. #SaveCoH
That's the real TonyV. It's legit!
...Aaaaaaaaand the discord has officially imploded.
If we are getting community run servers - I will donate to those servers.
I will pledge $500 right now and happy to make a monthly sum if a patreon is setup.
https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/23/the-titan-network-is-negotiating-to-open-a-legal-community-run-city-of-heroes-server/
That was not a great article. Did she say the shut down of the last server was due to this? Based on what presented facts?
tools.
Need development tools.
If the iron curtain is finally coming down maybe we can get something to uncluster F the code and actually develop things again?
Costumes? Powersets? Objects? Items?
That was not a great article. Did she say the shut down of the last server was due to this? Based on what presented facts?That was an unrelated issue as far as i know.
I'll match you on that
I'll match you on that"And my axe!"
*sigh*
I was just starting to catch up on sleep after this weekend...
Also, worth noting that the admin/dev team for the SCORE server has a separate announcement slotted to come in about a half an hour or so.
This is NOT the same announcement as that.
Was that for public consumption? And if so what was it (if indeed it has been announced)
Discord has teased that announcement for most of the day. 10 PM CST. (Even though we're in DST)
From the Discord
Good afternoon, evening, or morning, everyone.
I'd first like to introduce myself - I'm going to be coming onboard as a community relations, in order to give an easier, more transparent communication line with you.
At this time, we have a third party in direct contact with NCsoft. These are real, actual conversations, with the goal of giving us an opportunity for a legal solution. We are working towards that now. We all want to see the future of City of Heroes as a bright one, so we are going to give this one last pass. It's an effort that might be futile, but it isn't one we take lightly.
But as the saying goes: Trust, but Verify - with this effort we are NOT stopping our efforts to provide a private server solution. We are making efforts right now and are getting closer to giving you a more specific timeframe for the release of a server. While negotiations are ongoing, we are absolutely committed to ensuring this game is brought to you in a clear, and open way. We are making efforts to ensure that, if the worst comes to pass, we will not lose our momentum. Please stay tuned for update announcements in regards to either the legal solution, or our open-sourcing.
The code will continue to be provided openly, and will be released via torrents and other solutions in order to ensure that this progress will never be brought back to square one again.
Thank you for your patience.
After this last Sunday, I am willing to give them all the time they need :) They earned that atleast from me :)
Yeah. Time to just sit back and wait and hope....
If we are getting community run servers - I will donate to those servers.
I will pledge $500 right now and happy to make a monthly sum if a patreon is setup.
No. It's time to begin thinking about the future.
If we are getting community run servers - I will donate to those servers.
I will pledge $500 right now and happy to make a monthly sum if a patreon is setup.
Just got an email from the "wake me up thread".
Literally an email I never thought I would get.
You know, I think this is my last post here.
We have now got people who have secretly had a server for 6 years keep control of said server and only share it with those they deem worthy.
The same people have lied and misdirected on Reddit and have overthrown the people at Discord. They brook no dissent and everything they do is to maintain power for themselves.
I hear "Community Run Server" bandied about - whose Community? SCoRE and their lackeys? I am happy if the game comes back but other than to donate to keep servers up I am not supporting the lies and cloak and dagger these people seem to revel in.
Please feel free to delete my account here - I am gone.
You know, I think this is my last post here.
We have now got people who have secretly had a server for 6 years keep control of said server and only share it with those they deem worthy.
The same people have lied and misdirected on Reddit and have overthrown the people at Discord. They brook no dissent and everything they do is to maintain power for themselves.
I hear "Community Run Server" bandied about - whose Community? SCoRE and their lackeys? I am happy if the game comes back but other than to donate to keep servers up I am not supporting the lies and cloak and dagger these people seem to revel in.
Please feel free to delete my account here - I am gone.
Oh, what did it say?
I just checked my account settings, and apparently I had "allow other members to email me" NOT checked! Ahhhh!
I can't even tell what email I registered under originally, and it was many years ago now. Ugh. I've been waiting 7 years for that email, and now this. :P
Question for you all
The bug Hunter badge. I hated that it was awarded only at the whim of the devs.
That being said, should the badge auto award to any new character that logs into a private server?
Technically all players would be likely to report flaws and bugs thus they are all bug hunters by default......or perhaps setup a story arc where players stomp a bunch of rikti monkeys and get the badge at the end?
You know, I think this is my last post here.
We have now got people who have secretly had a server for 6 years keep control of said server and only share it with those they deem worthy.
The same people have lied and misdirected on Reddit and have overthrown the people at Discord. They brook no dissent and everything they do is to maintain power for themselves.
I hear "Community Run Server" bandied about - whose Community? SCoRE and their lackeys? I am happy if the game comes back but other than to donate to keep servers up I am not supporting the lies and cloak and dagger these people seem to revel in.
Please feel free to delete my account here - I am gone.
That, and changes in leadership there over the years to folks who are even less invested in this IP than the original ones were.
I might not get another chance for this.
Ironwolf, Thank you.
Thank you for all you have done for this community.
Thank you for sticking around for as long as you have.
I wish we could talk. There is so much of my personal life I wish I could share with you.
Just to give you an inkling, that I know how frustrating it's been.
I can tell you are emotionally exhausted. I am too.
So yeah, take some time off. Just don't leave.
You know, I think this is my last post here.
We have now got people who have secretly had a server for 6 years keep control of said server and only share it with those they deem worthy.
The same people have lied and misdirected on Reddit and have overthrown the people at Discord. They brook no dissent and everything they do is to maintain power for themselves.
I hear "Community Run Server" bandied about - whose Community? SCoRE and their lackeys? I am happy if the game comes back but other than to donate to keep servers up I am not supporting the lies and cloak and dagger these people seem to revel in.
Please feel free to delete my account here - I am gone.
I second that motion. Ironwolf, I appreciate everything that you have done for the CoH community. Please do not leave. Step back, catch your breath, and try not to let all of this crap get to you. This is a great community, but like all great communities it isn't perfect. No matter what you or any of us may do, that will never change. So don't sweat that part of it. Thumbs up!
But why leave Titan? Titan Network kept itself entirely separate from SCoRE once the initial recruitment happened. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "overthrown the people at discord." The original discord server was not run by Leandro or SCoRE by any means, and still isn't. And the new reddit discord was made by the new, current reddit mods, who have absolutely nothing to do with SCoRE (otherwise people wouldn't trust them to mod the reddit). Their reasons for making a new server are laid out in their post, and clearly have nothing to do with SCoRE.
IF Score went public right after the shut down or during the first few years especially when sales talks seemed to be moving along, things would have imploded.
NCsoft very likely would have shut ScoRe down and ceased all talks and we'd be left in the cold.
That being said, it is a shame that they had to be private for so long and discourage rumors about their server, but as the Discord has shown, it only takes ONE TROLL to cause panic, and dare I say....discord. That is what happened this past week and now they are picking up the pieces.
If NCSoft gets their head out of their corporate assets and sanctions a community with Titan overseeing it, that would be great. However if Score still sticks to their plan to create private server packages even if NCsoft sanctions a community then that is even better.
NCsoft could turn around and shut down a sanctioned community for all we know and we'd be all left in the cold again.
Also private servers will exist even if a sanctioned community does happen.
NCSoft is losing this fight at long last and as some have mentioned it is possible that different people are running the show over there and we might get a more reasonable response.
As to the person that swiped the i24 code and player database so that Score could get running and now we all have a chance to return to our city.......
.......THANK YOU.
I might not get another chance for this.
Ironwolf, Thank you.
Thank you for all you have done for this community.
Thank you for sticking around for as long as you have.
I wish we could talk. There is so much of my personal life I wish I could share with you.
Just to give you an inkling, that I know how frustrating it's been.
I can tell you are emotionally exhausted. I am too.
So yeah, take some time off. Just don't leave.
I second the bunny.
If this had come into the open a few years ago, it might have met with immediate legal attack.
If I had been the one who had technically knowingly received millions' worth of stolen property, I would have been exceedingly careful with and quiet about what I did with it too, even if I believed I was on morally strong ground.
If I was using my personal business to host a private (illegal) server, I would be wary of legal threats too. Trolls can make up pretty convincing stuff. I can't say I wouldn't have panicked either.
If I had connections with the original owner, but wasn't personally involved with such an effort, I'd quietly contact them as well and see if there might be some accommodation possible.
Things change; over time, the IP value of the game has fallen. it's a year older every year, older code, older assets; eventually, the owners will abandon it. Maybe they already have, and will only give us a formal "don't use it" followed by no action at all. Even executive levels of corporations have personnel turn-over. Even if some of the names are the same, not all of them will be.
Maybe they're concerned about legal exposure from personal account information that might have been in the original data stolen. Maybe they would be willing to reach an accommodation just to get enthusiastic scrubbing/purging.
On the Discord team side, this is a crash effort run by the seat of the pants and working off passion, caffeine and volunteer effort; in large part by folks who've never had that much responsibility before in their lives. But they stepped up, like heroes. The may make mistakes, but I understand that.
There aren't any villains here; just good people, trying to do what they can, with what they have, in a trying situation with potential pitfalls the likes of which they've never had to deal with personally before.
Courage doesn't mean you're not afraid - it means you go on anyway.
Feeling good with all the progress I have seen :) People are really working around the clock on this. Coming here to the forums for 7 years, and I finally see something happening. Its unreal... Here is hoping for a legalized public server /em Beer
And a new i25 server is up and running.
...
I will say this for the Discord group: their coders are amazing.
They really are. I've been nothing but impressed with that part of the COH Discord.
And a new i25 server is up and running.
The problem with community led projects is that many (not all) of those most enthusiastic are also those who are absolutely the wrong people to be in the leadership positions that they put themselves in. No experience in organization, leadership, PR. And no common sense, or very little, which gets overrun by emotion. That's why I left one of the "spiritual successors." So dysfunctional.
That's why I have faith in TonyV and Titan Network. Proven leaderships and level headedness.
I will say this for the Discord group: their coders are amazing.
I will say this for the Discord group: their coders are amazing.
Yep. Makes one wonder if they've done this sort of thing before... :)
What do you mean "leaked", weren't they already out? Leandro wouldn't have dumped them on some discord rando's server if he didn't expect them to make copies.
What do you mean "leaked", weren't they already out? Leandro wouldn't have dumped them on some discord rando's server if he didn't expect them to make copies.
What do you mean "leaked", weren't they already out? Leandro wouldn't have dumped them on some discord rando's server if he didn't expect them to make copies.
Just seems a little silly to me that this is after he gave them the I24 source they asked for, and gave them the I25 server setup they asked for, with the explicit purpose of somebody (anybody) running a server or two while the coders worked on the source. He was advertising on Twitter for somebody to run it, I don't think he was worried about it 'leaking'. And now they think they're sticking it to him by... doing what he wanted and firing up servers.
Eh, whatever. Reason seems to have gone out the window lately anyway so I'm not gonna worry about it.
Do I have to download the files again if I already have them from the first test server?
Let anyone believe whatever they want to as long as it drains the drama swamp.
I'm not sure his expectations matter at this point.
Just seems a little silly to me that this is after he gave them the I24 source they asked for, and gave them the I25 server setup they asked for, with the explicit purpose of somebody (anybody) running a server or two while the coders worked on the source. He was advertising on Twitter for somebody to run it, I don't think he was worried about it 'leaking'. And now they think they're sticking it to him by... doing what he wanted and firing up servers.
Eh, whatever. Reason seems to have gone out the window lately anyway so I'm not gonna worry about it.
If Tony V and NC come to an agreement that allows Titan Network to be the community home for CoH? All well and good.
As I've seen memed a few times lately, "Why not both?"
The genie is out of the bottle as far as third party servers, and it's not going back. That was a given the second the source code was published -- only a matter of time.
If Tony can work out a deal to get an officially blessed community server, especially if it comes with a wink-and-a-nod agreement to leave third party servers alone and free from C&D threat, that's pretty much the ideal world right there.
If the deal doesn't work out, it's a bit of a loss for having a cohesive community, but the servers will still be out there.
Just seems a little silly to me that this is after he gave them the I24 source they asked for, and gave them the I25 server setup they asked for, with the explicit purpose of somebody (anybody) running a server or two while the coders worked on the source. He was advertising on Twitter for somebody to run it, I don't think he was worried about it 'leaking'. And now they think they're sticking it to him by... doing what he wanted and firing up servers.
Eh, whatever. Reason seems to have gone out the window lately anyway so I'm not gonna worry about it.
Meh. Human nature. You can drive 10,000 miles to see a woman and she'll still walk out on you saying HER sanity was compromised...
(Azrael, what are you going on about...)
*Don't ask.
Azrael.
PS. Back on topic?
1. Dev' leaking CoH for perservation. Hero status.
2. SCORE guarding that legacy took guts, courage and hardwork. Whilst presumbly holding down day jobs.
3. Test server up and running, twice? Well done to the CoH community for piling on and stepping up.
...and....
"There will soon be a restructure of administration and moderation to align with current interests - that being getting this code open sourced and out for production. Our goal is to eventually end up with a server-in-a-box solution for you all, and we are dedicated to that goal."
Break the ring and sent the shattered shards to the four corners so the CoH community can bear the burden.
How about a new badge: Anonymous Unsung Hero badge text: Dedicated to the preserver of the Source
But as has been stated the ideal is Ncsoft to "bless us" with their consent for a community server, which they may give to save face in light of the fact that private servers shall be seeded across the internet ala sword art online
Amen to Two badges. One for the Dev' leak. One for Score. Well said, Sin'. And that's the thing. Without both of those? We have NOTHING. Those raging they didn't get their entitlement can scream from the sidelines. It's not easy to get on the cross. As the truck driver (who did) but got spooked proved. If I get badge creating tools in the home brew (hopefully....) then I'll create those two badges.
But the community is now with leverage.
Perhaps NC can do some face saving. But, it's up to them. We can do it the easy way...or the hard way. Says the Genie.
Azrael.
As I've seen memed a few times lately, "Why not both?"
The genie is out of the bottle as far as third party servers, and it's not going back. That was a given the second the source code was published -- only a matter of time.
If Tony can work out a deal to get an officially blessed community server, especially if it comes with a wink-and-a-nod agreement to leave third party servers alone and free from C&D threat, that's pretty much the ideal world right there.
If the deal doesn't work out, it's a bit of a loss for having a cohesive community, but the servers will still be out there.
Out the window, all over the sidewalk and into the sewer system. The conduct of much of the community is disheartening and undeserved. And people talk about how the community healed itself miraculously over the last few days, but I just see savagery and unquenched entitlement with an irrational dose of trollish bloodlust for Leandro and SCoRE.
Amen to Two badges. One for the Dev' leak. One for Score. Well said, Sin'. And that's the thing. Without both of those? We have NOTHING. Those raging they didn't get their entitlement can scream from the sidelines. It's not easy to get on the cross. As the truck driver (who did) but got spooked proved. If I get badge creating tools in the home brew (hopefully....) then I'll create those two badges.
But the community is now with leverage.
Perhaps NC can do some face saving. But, it's up to them. We can do it the easy way...or the hard way. Says the Genie.
Azrael.
Amen to Two badges. One for the Dev' leak. One for Score. Well said, Sin'. And that's the thing. Without both of those? We have NOTHING. Those raging they didn't get their entitlement can scream from the sidelines. It's not easy to get on the cross. As the truck driver (who did) but got spooked proved. If I get badge creating tools in the home brew (hopefully....) then I'll create those two badges.
But the community is now with leverage.
Perhaps NC can do some face saving. But, it's up to them. We can do it the easy way...or the hard way. Says the Genie.
Azrael.
^ Agreed. We have some heroes. They may be imperfect in some ways, but are well worthy of our recognition and deserved of honors.
If the home brew doesn't have admin tools for those that want to tweak things and experiment, that would be disappointing. But then again if tools can be obtained later or from a polite request to leandro that is fine too
Yeah. I think we'll get a stable i24 first.
Zone, map and mission creators beyond the bounds of AE? Who knows. Those will come in time. We've already seen the excellent work of Leandro (and others) to finish the Wharf map. Truly excellent. And a Statesman statue no less. The re-modelled Warzone?
Who knows what SCORE have planned. And that's part of the fun. Secrets can be fun. They're called surprised. But I'm not going to death threat Santa for keeping my presents secret...yeesh...
Demonhunter probably has loads of other maps on the go. Any reason why SCORE can't issue an 'alt-world' issue 25 release? I remember Leandro doing an excellent post on how he'd yank the incarnate stuff and raise the level cap and make the progression via Brickstown etc more in line with the original game. Why not? That's the thing. i24 'stable' is just going to be a starting point.
When(?) the mod tools come for the zones, missions, maps, mobs etc...each community will compete to create their own issue 25.
As somebody once said, 'It's only code.'
Azrael.
As I've seen memed a few times lately, "Why not both?"
i desperately want to keepi25....the base editor is amazeing - i have CARS in a base garage and before i managed to break my base i was working on a hanger for aPraetorian fighter jet
i desperately want to keepi25....the base editor is amazeing - i have CARS in a base garage and before i managed to break my base i was working on a hanger for aPraetorian fighter jet
Just to whet y'alls appetites - This screenie is from one of the coders who has been making the most progress, logged into her(?) own home server.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/568510088038449172/570710780081602570/unknown.png)
Exactly.
I'm rooting for both as options. If Titan hosted a community server, that fits the need for all the folks who like doing content like Hamidon Raids, unscheduled TFs, or even just random PUGs. I'm sure there's a bunch of folks who work odd hours or have small kids that planning a group to hop on and doing something scheduled at 8 PM sharp on a Friday just doesn't work.
On the other hand, I'm sure there are a number of groups of players that have 25-50 players that are excited taking on all the content together in a private environment as well. Or even small groups of 5-8 players who just like to play every day together.
Oh, and hi Codewalker!
Well for new content we have the AE for people to get creative with
Remove the incarnate powers? I kinda liked them but perhaps instead, at least on the server that i envision running, activate the 4 incarnate powers we didn't get. We have their names and while to my knowledge there is no lore data for them, there names are kind of easy to guess at what they could be.
After that...perhaps have the level cap move up and make stronger trials and missions?
The beautiful thing of multiple private servers could be the variety that springs up
Can the four inc' powers be activated. Intriguing.
Level cap. The reason I wanted to it to go to L60 (But no higher....) was that I felt we never had the chance to play our epics enough before bumping into L50.
If the Incarnate stuff came at L60 fair enough. But I'd have still rather it have come using the standard interface. Not so much that it's incarnate powers and all....but I just didn't get the 'grind interface' micro management windows. They could have just had a standard interface with the powers having slots....
Ie. Above Epics. With the option of 6 slotting. It was the interface more than anything else. The concpet of being uber was fine. And the content seemed good.
Yeah. I guess my gripe was the interface. I'd have just liked Incarnate to be like Super-Epic with a ten level cap raising of missions to take you to L60.
Azrael.
Hmm activate the 4 lost incarnate powers, obtain them, slot all incarnate powers with tier 3 or 4.....eight level power shift.....hmmmmm
"We're all heroes". I don't think the community gets to say that any more.
Time and loss allowed us to romanticize the community... but there were ALWAYS toxic entitled jerks in "the CoH Community" just like in every game "community". The difference was the NUMBER of toxic entitled jerks compared to helpful considerate devoted players who wanted to help others. The absolute number of toxic entitlement is always large, but ignoring them generally neuters them. Embrace those who help and ignore those who wallow in butthurt and drama.
I may be the only person who wants this - A progression server.
If I went to the trouble to host a server, I'd reset the story (not the game mechanics) back to Issue 1, complete with the Calvin Scott Task Force. Then I'd operate it similarly to the way that Everquest runs its progression servers, where there's some milestone content that triggers the next phase of the progression.
The problem is that the devs deliberately chose to avoid creating any more "milestone" content like Calvin Scott after that because it was too much work, so it might involve creating a bunch of custom milestones to fill in the gaps. I should think on that a bit (because, hey, that sounds EASY, right? Right? LOL).
Yeah, and there were also toxic people unrelated to the CoH community joining in and stoking the fires.
He's not talking about rolling back the mechanics, just the story-related content. Wouldn't be my thing personally but progression servers are popular with other MMOs.
Mechanics-wise, I can already tell you what the big deal is going to be once people get their fill of i24 and i25 servers and want something more exotic: a server setup balanced completely around PvP.
PvP never worked out for CoH and the reason was simple: the game was designed around overpowered, superhero wish fulfillment -- and that worked out just fine for PvE, because mobs don't complain on game forums about overpowered heroes and villains kicking their butts.
And PvErs didn't have much of a problem with some power sets being more powerful than others for the same reason that comic book readers don't write angry letters complaining that Superman is more powerful than Green Arrow. City of Heroes -- and comic book inspired games in general -- exist in a special niche that gets away with imbalance in a way that no other game could, because that type of comic book universe directly translates into imbalance.
PvPers can't thrive in any of that, to be realistic. The needs of PvE in a super hero game pretty much mean that you'd have to overlay a completely alternate set of mechanics onto the PvP zones and enhancements, and when resources get tight, all of that is gonna start to break. Hats off to them for trying, but that plan was doomed from the start.
A server that's balanced around PvP from the ground up neatly solves those problems, with the one expense being that it breaks the super hero theme (any world with superpowers will be a noticeably imbalanced world, thus you have your Supermen and your Green Arrows). Which is not an expense I'd expect those PvPers to mourn over very much.
I may be the only person who wants this - A progression server.
If I went to the trouble to host a server, I'd reset the story (not the game mechanics) back to Issue 1, complete with the Calvin Scott Task Force. Then I'd operate it similarly to the way that Everquest runs its progression servers, where there's some milestone content that triggers the next phase of the progression.
The problem is that the devs deliberately chose to avoid creating any more "milestone" content like Calvin Scott after that because it was too much work, so it might involve creating a bunch of custom milestones to fill in the gaps. I should think on that a bit (because, hey, that sounds EASY, right? Right? LOL).
Exactly.
I'm rooting for both as options. If Titan hosted a community server, that fits the need for all the folks who like doing content like Hamidon Raids, unscheduled TFs, or even just random PUGs. I'm sure there's a bunch of folks who work odd hours or have small kids that planning a group to hop on and doing something scheduled at 8 PM sharp on a Friday just doesn't work.
On the other hand, I'm sure there are a number of groups of players that have 25-50 players that are excited taking on all the content together in a private environment as well. Or even small groups of 5-8 players who just like to play every day together.
Oh, and hi Codewalker!
Just to whet y'alls appetites - This screenie is from one of the coders who has been making the most progress, logged into her(?) own home server.
I may be the only person who wants this - A progression server.
If I went to the trouble to host a server, I'd reset the story (not the game mechanics) back to Issue 1, complete with the Calvin Scott Task Force. Then I'd operate it similarly to the way that Everquest runs its progression servers, where there's some milestone content that triggers the next phase of the progression.
The problem is that the devs deliberately chose to avoid creating any more "milestone" content like Calvin Scott after that because it was too much work, so it might involve creating a bunch of custom milestones to fill in the gaps. I should think on that a bit (because, hey, that sounds EASY, right? Right? LOL).
Can some please tell what happened today? Because I am at a compete loss. I read Iron Wolf is/did leave/ going to leave. Then I read something about drama. Like I have wrote I am at a complete loss. sorry all :(
Oh, I am not sure about any of that. I know there was a ton of Drama yesterday in the CoH Discord because people were upset they couldn't play and the day before that caused Reddit to split off and make their own discord. But as for Iron Wolf leaving or such I am not sure about that, was that on this forum?What on earth happened? What post? Where?
EDIT: Just read the post. I am also sad to see Iron Wolf go - he did a lot for the community.
What on earth happened? What post? Where?
Can't blame Ironwolf for distrusting Leandro after the past few days. I too would prefer playing on a different server than Leandro's but time will tell if that's a viable option.
I dont know the whole history, but Leandro must have been one of the people who got this ball rolling in the first place.
So whatever mistakes he has made or how genuine he has been to the public we should still be thankful because without him we would not have CoH as it stands today.
We all have a dog burried somwhere, no one is perfect :)
He is, he got the ball rolling 6 years ago. Problem is that he's been keeping tight control over it and has shown almost no willingness to back off and let other people take over (the first weekend he did let up a bit, we got a 2k people server). The main reason we'll have other servers in the near future is due to leaks getting out rather than just the work Leandro's done and released.
The server is up right now. I am pretty sure Leo helped get this one up and running as well.
His server, yes. Once he got demoted for boosting people to 50 he went his own way instead of giving all the tools to the original group.
I may be the only person who wants this - A progression server.
If I went to the trouble to host a server, I'd reset the story (not the game mechanics) back to Issue 1, complete with the Calvin Scott Task Force. Then I'd operate it similarly to the way that Everquest runs its progression servers, where there's some milestone content that triggers the next phase of the progression.
The problem is that the devs deliberately chose to avoid creating any more "milestone" content like Calvin Scott after that because it was too much work, so it might involve creating a bunch of custom milestones to fill in the gaps. I should think on that a bit (because, hey, that sounds EASY, right? Right? LOL).
Timestreams.WHAT?
Yes, timestreams. Every game eventually encounters a storyline evolution that affects the world (Matrix Online did it almost monthly, some games like Everquest released retro servers that started the world over) as did City of Heroes.
Consider some major impacts to zones and storylines:
Timestream 1 - Launch day/Conclusion of First Rikti Invasion/Rebuilding (issue 0 - Issue 7)
Timestream 1.5 - Faultline Dam rupture (Faultline renovated) (Issue 8-9) [minor change, technically players below 14 couldn't get in]
Timestream 2 - Rikti Second Invasion (crashsite transformed into warzone) (Issue 10 - 17)
Timestream 3 - Praetorians fully introduced (players can start as praetorians with release of going rogue, praetorian players encounter primal npcs) (Issue 18 - Issue 20)
Timestream 4 - the coming storm (Galaxy city destroyed, can only visit as an Echo, major characters moved to other zones, e.g. BSB, knowledge of praetoria reflected in certain missions) (Issue 18-21.5)
Timestream 5 = The death of statesman (Statesman retconned out of most storylines, including his TF) (SSA #1.5 - SSA #2)
Timestream 5.5 - Dark Astoria revamp (Mot has been freed! Can visit an Echo of Dark Astoria) (Issue 22)
City of Heroes already incorporated time travel to visit different times (such as Cimerora) as well as Dimensional Travel to visit different places (such as the Shadow Shard), but if your character started after one of those really significant timestream events, then your character was never necessarily privy to those prior experiences. With the implementation of phasing technologies in conjunction with the Ouroboros storyline, it would have been fantastic (imho) to be able to switch between major timestreams.
Implementation Concept Part 1:Consider this -- you roll a new toon and choose Hero, Villain or Praetorian, then a timestream.* You choose Praetorian and then have the option to begin in your earliest timestream (Timestream 3) or have the option to start in a later timestream (discretely covered with a spoiler warning or an ambiguous title so as not to possibly ruin the experience for a new player).* You choose Hero and have then have the option to start in any of the time streams.
Implementation Concept part 2:You officially transition through timestreams when you complete select mission storylines or reach certain levels. E.g., you could enter old fautline up through level 14, but level 15 would trigger the transition to timestream 1.5.
Implementation Concept part 3:Just like with mission doors, party members synchronize to a timestream appropriate to the mission assigned by the team leader for the duration of the mission/involvement with team. If a trigger mission occurs, player could be warned and prompted if they want to transition to new timestream.
Implementation Concept part 4:Although you could travel through time using the crystal of ice and flame, you could re-attune to an older timestream using it as well.
I may be the only person who wants this - A progression server.
If I went to the trouble to host a server, I'd reset the story (not the game mechanics) back to Issue 1, complete with the Calvin Scott Task Force. Then I'd operate it similarly to the way that Everquest runs its progression servers, where there's some milestone content that triggers the next phase of the progression.
The problem is that the devs deliberately chose to avoid creating any more "milestone" content like Calvin Scott after that because it was too much work, so it might involve creating a bunch of custom milestones to fill in the gaps. I should think on that a bit (because, hey, that sounds EASY, right? Right? LOL).
So, I proposed something akin to this in- game.... for your consideration:
Edit to fix formatting
The server is up right now. I am pretty sure Leo helped get this one up and running as well.
How do progression servers work? It sounds to me like either way they're set up, people who come in late miss the start, is that right?
Preface: I know this does not describe the majority of our community, but there sure are some dissenting elements that are so much louder than most to whom it very definitely applies.
It is nothing short of amazing how quickly we have gone from "I am so happy to be playing again, it brought a tear to my eye", to "you know, this is fine, but I want my CoH THIS way, and it would be better".
Between that, and the continued recriminations of the past, it's truly a wonder things are still moving forward at all. I have to give credit to the majority of the community that is doing all of this for pure love of the game, because all of this work sure as hell isn't putting dinner on the table for their families/loved ones. They have regular jobs during the days to contend with as well. This is a totally volunteer effort.
So before we begin pontificating about how things could be SO much better, how about we enjoy what we have for a bit, and let the organization solidify to the point where we can relax about the present, before we insist on knowing what comes next, and how soon it will be?
Silver, I agree with you.
I'm most interested in just playing CoX the way it was at the shutdown. The current i25 test content doesn't seem *that* deviated from the former live game we know and loved, so that's fine, too.
However, the reason I never played emus before (besides the malware, security risks, poor server performance, drama and sudden shutdowns) was because they're hacked to heck and back, full of dumb changes like what you described.
There are plenty of other games with TL servers for people who want that experience, or someone can feel free to download what CoX code there now is in the wild and make their own server if they want to hack the game apart or change it.
Apparently Leandro doesn't have an admin position in Torchbearer, he's there as a tech advisor.
This puts my mind at ease a bit.
Sources:
https://score.savecoh.com/index.php/topic,105.0.html (https://score.savecoh.com/index.php/topic,105.0.html)
(https://i.postimg.cc/gjX61Kkr/1556205651117.png)
Superspeed is the same. But as/cj/occasional raptor pack hit is always effective.
Hmm I wonder, would it be the power or outdoor maps that would have to be updated to make super speed capable of running up walls like it should
I recall significant discussions with BABs back on the original forums about the challenges of making this work for the game, including how view fields are rotated, etc. to make the power functional. IIRC, there was a round of internal experimentation by the original official dev team. (But I could be wrong)
"We're all heroes".As i have repeatedly tried to remind the community, even back when the game was running officially, some of us are villains.
As i have repeatedly tried to remind the community, even back when the game was running officially, some of us are villains.
Personally, I really hope TonyV wins the day, because this is a problem desperately in need of a monetary solution; anyone running a "public" server (farm) is going to need funds to support it. And I'd hope for a mutli-server solution, because I don't think Freedom, Pinnacle, Virtue, and all the other servers are going to play nicely together long-term.
As i have repeatedly tried to remind the community, even back when the game was running officially, some of us are villains.
Personally, I really hope TonyV wins the day, because this is a problem desperately in need of a monetary solution; anyone running a "public" server (farm) is going to need funds to support it. And I'd hope for a mutli-server solution, because I don't think Freedom, Pinnacle, Virtue, and all the other servers are going to play nicely together long-term.
As i have repeatedly tried to remind the community, even back when the game was running officially, some of us are villains.Actually, watching the drama around SCoRE, it seems to have really shown what degree of lawfulness each of the users here have personally.
Actually, watching the drama around SCoRE, it seems to have really shown what degree of lawfulness each of the users here have personally.Astute and poetic-good observations.
Some are mad at the group for possibly stealing code (even if it's from an organization that is arguably evil.)
Some are mad that the group kept the server from the greater community (and mostly from them personally.)
Some see progress for science, secrecy and laws be damned (they did what they had to do, after all.)
And some see another bell toll on the inevitable demise of NCS and are filled with a dark (but widely sympathized) glee.
I also find it interesting how these reactions don't necessarily line up with how we were in-game.
Imagine a server set up just for PvP and all the PvPers can find a home.
Far from us.
As i have repeatedly tried to remind the community, even back when the game was running officially, some of us are villains.Every villain is a hero of their own tale :p
Actually, watching the drama around SCoRE, it seems to have really shown what degree of lawfulness each of the users here have personally.
Some are mad at the group for possibly stealing code (even if it's from an organization that is arguably evil.)
Some are mad that the group kept the server from the greater community (and mostly from them personally.)
Some see progress for science, secrecy and laws be damned (they did what they had to do, after all.)
And some see another bell toll on the inevitable demise of NCS and are filled with a dark (but widely sympathized) glee.
I also find it interesting how these reactions don't necessarily line up with how we were in-game.
I just finished reading the consolidated patch notes for "i25" and, I must say, if I had to chose, I'd rather play "i25" then a perfectly re-created "i24."
It just fixes so many things. And while I would't agree with all the ways they handled no longer having a real-money or auction-house economy... for the most part, it's perfectly fine.
And while I haven't tried it, people who've been using i25's revamped Base-Builder have only raved about it.
If any group wants to have an i24 server, they'd be better off with i25 and just reverting or removing a few things they'd do differently to make it more like i24 rather than take i24 and making all the fixes already done in i25. IMO.
Every villain is a hero of their own tale :p
I just finished reading the consolidated patch notes for "i25" and, I must say, if I had to chose, I'd rather play "i25" then a perfectly re-created "i24."
It just fixes so many things. And while I would't agree with all the ways they handled no longer having a real-money or auction-house economy... for the most part, it's perfectly fine.
And while I haven't tried it, people who've been using i25's revamped Base-Builder have only raved about it.
If any group wants to have an i24 server, they'd be better off with i25 and just reverting or removing a few things they'd do differently to make it more like i24 rather than take i24 and making all the fixes already done in i25. IMO.
The problem is that Leandro has not made the i25 source public, so most of the development effort is around the i24 source, which we do have. It is best to be self sufficient and be able to get a working game from the ground up for long term usability to handle OS changes or new hardware developments, etc. We're in it for the long haul.
...but thanks to the preservation work of SCORE we have it. (And the original brave dev' who leaked the plans to the Death Star...)
I think it should be OK to give his name now. The leaker was the late Emmanuel "Manny" Bothans.
The leaker was the late Emmanuel "Manny" Bothans.
That doesn't mean the community can't enjoy or have 'as per shutdown' i23. (Sorry, i24 which wasn't officially released? So it isn't 'official' either...mere beta...the wider community didn't have that either due to the hand of 'god' or NC Soft.) i24 nearly made it...but thanks to the preservation work of SCORE we have it.In the months leading up to the shutdown all players were allowed onto the beta server, thus making i24 available to the wider community through there.
I think it should be OK to give his name now. The leaker was the late Emmanuel "Manny" Bothans.
New badge for the game: Protector of the Source
The problem is that Leandro has not made the i25 source public, so most of the development effort is around the i24 source, which we do have.
Well I like some of the i25 stuff lik rad melee and rad armor, but I can add them into my own private server, that's fine.
So... even though this is a test server that might get wiped and our character on it may possibly not be ported into other private servers......is anyone else having trouble restraining their urge to badge hunt?
Any badges I have gained have been either from th AE or hitting an explore badge as I travel around or from leveling or from obtaining ouroborus portal. I am using a surprising amount of restraint,....anyone else having this problem?
Also I was poking around in pocket d last night, ski slope appears to be open.
I kind of tuned out the discord today, they are having dxp this weekend?
Also dxp never applied to the AE as I recall
This Google Doc contains the consolidate patch notes for I25:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11cLJiSYlfueJheOumRywG8Evip2Mjmu_30Y6ePaetqY/edit?usp=sharing
How accurate are the contents? No idea.
In the SEGS discord discussion that led to the current situation, Leandro was explaining that his source code had timestamps all through it that could compromise his source and that it would take him a long time to clean it.
Then the PIVOTAL event was when ANOTHER person who had ANOTHER version of the source code joined and started working with Leandro. The I24 source was released the next day.
It seems reasonable to conclude that in some manner the second copy of I24 source either allowed the cleanup or it was actually the second person's I24 that was released. But there would only be Leandro's source for the I25.
However the discord team working on getting the "tall not wide" server package going (one that can run on a single modern machine as opposed to multiple physical machines) has said they don't want the I25 source anyway because it isn't optimized to be easy to expand/update into further development directions.
Double Xp on Excelsior is already going Friday night on through Monday midnight. Woot! And we also have the 15th anniversary in Paragon Chat Sunday! Jeez, who would have thought all this amazing stuff would be happening back just a few weeks ago, huh?
Some fun stats:
Peak player count has increased to just over 3,500 (today)
Over 22,000 accounts have been created
Over 47,000 characters have been made
I'm sure there is a demand for free CoX. How much demand there would be for paid CoX is another question.
This Google Doc contains the consolidate patch notes for I25:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11cLJiSYlfueJheOumRywG8Evip2Mjmu_30Y6ePaetqY/edit?usp=sharing
How accurate are the contents? No idea.
CoX had been F2P for several years before it got shut down, and it had actually seen an increase in revenue during that time.
Imagine all the thousands more people that are too nervous to play on a private server (or they'd rather avoid the lag, performance issues and drama there) that would jump at the chance to play again on an officially sanctioned server.
From what I have seen and done. It is very accurate :)
Peak player count has increased to just over 3,500 (today)It broke 4K now.
I'm all for i25. I like the finished Khalisti Wharf zone.
Yes indeed, almost makes me think we should skip i24 and have the i25 version instead.
It broke 4K now.
CoX had been F2P for several years before it got shut down, and it had actually seen an increase in revenue during that time.
Imagine all the thousands more people that are too nervous to play on a private server (or they'd rather avoid the lag, performance issues and drama there) that would jump at the chance to play again on an officially sanctioned server.
So you'd rather grind prestige on a server that may be taken down at any time just to get a sense of accomplishment? You earned stuff before, if it bothers you that much put yourself on the honor system and only take/build what you had on live. Plenty of re-earning to be done just building characters back up for my taste.
So you'd rather grind prestige on a server that may be taken down at any time just to get a sense of accomplishment? You earned stuff before, if it bothers you that much put yourself on the honor system and only take/build what you had on live. Plenty of re-earning to be done just building characters back up for my taste.That's what was bugging me about some of the people complaiing about how flight, etc. was now available at level 4. They argued that the fix was that the game should be reverted to it's pre-Freedom settings. Apparently "just don't buy flight until level 14" wasn't a viable option for them.
That's what was bugging me about some of the people complaiing about how flight, etc. was now available at level 4. They argued that the fix was that the game should be reverted to it's pre-Freedom settings. Apparently "just don't buy flight until level 14" wasn't a viable option for them.
The P2W vendor is a nice way to slowly reclaim lost Vet Reward items and powers that you want rather then pay actual cash for them and risk server shut down by Ncsoft
As to the SG all being unlocked.....there will be many private servers after all is said and done. Hopefully also the TonyV community will be around. Population on all servers will be......variable.
Some people don't want to be in a large SG, some want to have a base of their own.
Also some of the unlock requirements for SG badges/items seemed a bit steep.
Also if we don't have to pay base upkeep anymore that is fine with me.
The P2W vendor is a nice way to slowly reclaim lost Vet Reward items and powers that you want rather then pay actual cash for them and risk server shut down by Ncsoft
As to the SG all being unlocked.....there will be many private servers after all is said and done. Hopefully also the TonyV community will be around. Population on all servers will be......variable.
Some people don't want to be in a large SG, some want to have a base of their own.
Also some of the unlock requirements for SG badges/items seemed a bit steep.
Also if we don't have to pay base upkeep anymore that is fine with me.
I worry about things getting too fragmented. I just want a stable home with a healthy population enough to be able to find people to do most of the game any day.
I'm sure there is a demand for free CoX. How much demand there would be for paid CoX is another question.I would drop $15/month to play again, and I'm on a fixed budget.
I would drop $15/month to play again, and I'm on a fixed budget.
CoX had been F2P for several years before it got shut down, and it had actually seen an increase in revenue during that time.
Imagine all the thousands more people that are too nervous to play on a private server (or they'd rather avoid the lag, performance issues and drama there) that would jump at the chance to play again on an officially sanctioned server.
I worry about things getting too fragmented. I just want a stable home with a healthy population enough to be able to find people to do most of the game any day.
From what I have seen and done. It is very accurate :)
Don't worry about that, Brigadine. I hear what you're saying.
But there isn't just one big studio doing 'one' strand of development any more. (And there's no one that wanted to see i24 officially released than me...and the coming of the Batallion and the Moonbase as revealed by Matt Miller in his last interview re: CoH.)
There's 20 thousands registrations so far. That's more than enough to support a handful of servers.
The 'home brew distros' (matter of time) will cover people like me who will fly below the radar.
You'll have big communities and small communities. But? We're still the CoH Federation of 'Love our Game.'
It will just be like going shopping. You'll have your favourite type of food, clothing, car etc. Or 'ice cream.'
You'll be able to decide what flavour of CoH you like.
Fragmentation. It doesn't really mean anything other than?
Choice. Something we have in most areas of our lives.
There just won't be one studio developing the story. Not Paragon. Nor NC. Those 'official' days are gone. We have to take responsibility for i25's story content upon ourselves. Some that want to enjoy i24 as a frozen testament to what 'nearly' launched can do so.
But the sacrfices made by the dev' that leaked the code, the team at SCORE that preserved it and really brought some quality of life improvements and development fixes to i25....scream that we, as a community have to take responsibility where it goes next.
That means coders racing to get a i24 home brew distro that can be run more economically. It means, eventually, the tools to create our own content. (We can start with AE....maybe write our own Battalion arc...for The Wharf zone?)
We shouldn't fear this. It's the nexus inflection point.
Those seeking a more 'like live' home will be wishing and hoping that Tony's talks with NC go well. My Duo-partner feels that way. And maybe they'll have a license to take the game forward with some story content to go with i25 along with all the fixes and improvements they've made.
Me? The privacy of my own distro run by me...where I know a legal nuke isn't going to take down the game or the server.
Azrael.
I kind of tuned out the discord today, they are having dxp this weekend?
Also dxp never applied to the AE as I recall
They don't have to take flight until L14 unless they want to? (Plenty of temp powers for travel...from rad' missions.)
I can't say it will be as late as level 14 but on the characters I'm leveling now, I'd rather take other powers first. Sprint is plenty fast for the early maps.
Aye. Most of the missions are quite local and with sprint with swift inherent. Plenty fast to get around.
I tend to like to get an attack chain going first and some defences.
Azrael.
Oh, gosh I remember how to get flight right out of the tutorial from live. I could do it in my sleep.
Tram to Talos. Jump in the water and swim to the ferry.
Ferry to PI. Jump in the water and swim to just opposite Portal Corps.
Run up the bluffs, it's easy to avoid the couple of DE, down to the roof of Portal Corps, then to the building that has the Shadow Shard Portal in it.
Go to the Shadow Shard. Find the jetpack vendor. Pay 5000 inf. You now have a 2 hour infinitely renewable flight power.
It went Free-to-Play because it's been found that the people who will pay $1000/month more than make up for the people who only pay $0-$10/month.Also, worthwhile to have a bunch of free 2 players if it means the subbers and the 1000/ month players will stick around and continue paying (because they will have people to play with!)
I sure hope you're joking. If you are not: Ignore character concept and go through a host of game machinations to get a temporary power I envision for my character from the beginning? And which character has 5000 INF at the start? Why not have some vendor selling such items in AP?After wentworths arrived, I hope anyone creating a new character (after their first) spent a bit of time buying cheap enhancements, recipes and temporary powers to sell to the vendors. Make your first 100k in about an hour.....
Because 5000 people is really not a lot in the MMO world.
If these notes are true for the endgame, then what's in it isn't enough for me to understand it. I.E., it doesn't explain how to get the badges you need to level past 50.
CoX had been F2P for several years before it got shut down,It only went F2P with Issue 21, which was one year and two months before the shutdown. :)
If these notes are true for the endgame, then what's in it isn't enough for me to understand it. I.E., it doesn't explain how to get the badges you need to level past 50.
Because 5000 people is really not a lot in the MMO world.
There are 3000 people in the queues right now waiting to play. Why was this game shut down again?
Because 5000 people is really not a lot in the MMO world.
It's 5,000 in queue (ballpark) while over 4000 on. Plus, most people A.) Don't even know it's up after being dead for 7 years to 99% of past CoX players, and B.) even if they do know, won't play on a private server.
7000-8000 players (The amount trying to connect yesterday) is not a ton in the MMO world that is true. But when you hear WoW has 10 million subs they are spread out across all their servers. I assume WoW servers have more than 7000 players on the busy servers. But most MMO's don't have 7000-8000 on a single server at a time (or in this case 2 servers). The last MMO's I played were EQ TLP's. Both Coirnav and Mangler had decent populations. Maybe 3-4k at the peak? I also just came from playing some Legends of Aria and that had maybe.... 100? 200? So right now 7-8k feels like a TON haha.
Have you
So, even with both Torchbearer and Excelsior, and over 4000 concurrent players being on (per server?), there's now a 2900+ person queue to get on as of 8:30pm tonight EST? Wow! I'm already on. I had no idea.
I sure hope TonyV is able to get something official going with NCsoft soon, instead of it being "slow as molasses communication which turns into 'forever for nothing' " like usual.
I mean, the poor people donating all their time for free and paying thousands of dollars to run these rogue servers can't hold out forever! They will need to set up donations soon.
Anyone noticed if the raptor pack vendor is in the shard on the new servers? I started villain and the grandville one was missing. Didn't want to go through what VV described on my hero to find the blue one missing too so i just ninja ran til i could do the atlas bank.
They can legally cry foul whether money's taken or not. I'm choosing to take their not having cried foul yet as a sign they don't want to throw money at a whack-a-mole and are taking the smart route with TonyV.
Ya they must have just added those. Login servers are down currently but that should help with the 2000+ Que we saw yesterday haha.
Which may be what Ncsoft is counting on so they can legally cry foul
Here is hoping dxp remains all week on them.
So....how is everyone's alt-itis doing?
I've got it under control...for now.
Azrael.
I may roll one or two on the new servers, but I am not ready to go berzerk with alt-itis. Also with what appears to be 1000 slots per server.... well there goes 100 for my lost legends.....no must fight the urge.....must....fight...it...
So....how is everyone's alt-itis doing?Eiko only just reached level 24 today, which is the level at which Masterminds actually become Masterminds. So my Alt-itis is well-controlled, only 4 low-level characters aside.
Someone was just saying in the discord once you hit 50, you keep leveling. You just don't receive levels anymore. So you will get rezzed from it like when you would level, as well as the Full Inspiration you get. But you don't actually level past 50. AFAIK no badge is needed - you just naturally do it.
Yes I noticed this on a test server. After level 50, the progress bar was still increasing. I was a bit puzzled about that. I don't remember the game being like that.
Yes I noticed this on a test server. After level 50, the progress bar was still increasing. I was a bit puzzled about that. I don't remember the game being like that.
You're not going for the 1000 alts, Sin'?
Azrael.
*intrigue. Raising the level cap??? :P
Azrael.
The level cap should never be raised. That's so anti-city of heroes. Just go play WoW if you want to get stuck in an endless loop of power creep and dated content.
No, that was just the solution I came up with for Veteran badges. Since subscription fees are not a thing, you can now continue earning XP after level 50, and those levels are called "Veteran Levels" in your personal info. Every 3 levels you get one of the Veteran badges. There are also some Incarnate rewards attached to them to ease off the grind, although they might be a bit too generous at this point.
No, that was just the solution I came up with for Veteran badges. Since subscription fees are not a thing, you can now continue earning XP after level 50, and those levels are called "Veteran Levels" in your personal info. Every 3 levels you get one of the Veteran badges. There are also some Incarnate rewards attached to them to ease off the grind, although they might be a bit too generous at this point.
No, that was just the solution I came up with for Veteran badges. Since subscription fees are not a thing, you can now continue earning XP after level 50, and those levels are called "Veteran Levels" in your personal info. Every 3 levels you get one of the Veteran badges. There are also some Incarnate rewards attached to them to ease off the grind, although they might be a bit too generous at this point.
The level cap should never be raised. That's so anti-city of heroes. Just go play WoW if you want to get stuck in an endless loop of power creep and dated content.
So want to, but will not yet do so.
Log in queues
Servers unstable
Serves could be wiped, not likely but possible.
Ncsoft finally drops the heavy end of the hammer on this whole thing
I am trying to wait until we hear f om TonyV about the community server project plus the "servers for everyone" code package.
My goals
1. A server of my own even if only I am the one to use it
2. Spend as many hours or days as needed on my personal server to restore my lost legends from backups.
3. Play on the community servers if TonyV succeeds
4. Hopefully on the community server to restore some or all my lost legends via sentinel
My ultimate goal: to give Ncsoft the giant middle finger they gave us when they killed CoH
Play WoW? Now CoH is around. Are you crazy? :P
Heh, since servers were down, I decided to do something profitable so I uninstalled WoW... and every other game I had, heck I even uninstalled Steam lmao
Hopefully the problems created by the quickly growing population will be resolved. Login queues in excess of 1,000, frequent map server disconnections. Haven't been able to play for days.
It is wonderful that some talented programmers rebuilt the server code, but now they need to figure out how to get enough bandwidth and computing power to handle the load.
I started playing CoH on the day NCsoft turned the servers on. We had thousands of players every day. There were hundreds of Supergroups. I was there the day and moment NCsoft turned off the server, and watched the system chat countdown with my friends.
Sure hope I can actually play the game again!
Someone was just saying in the discord once you hit 50, you keep leveling. You just don't receive levels anymore. So you will get rezzed from it like when you would level, as well as the Full Inspiration you get. But you don't actually level past 50. AFAIK no badge is needed - you just naturally do it.
Yes I noticed this on a test server. After level 50, the progress bar was still increasing. I was a bit puzzled about that. I don't remember the game being like that.
*intrigue. Raising the level cap??? :Phttps://docs.google.com/document/d/11cLJiSYlfueJheOumRywG8Evip2Mjmu_30Y6ePaetqY/edit
All the Veteran badges are back; they are now rewarded for earning experience after level 50, with each "Veteran Level" counting as one month in the original progression. Badges for levels 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 grant a Respec and a Costume Token.
Veteran Levels:
This is the new name for leveling up after 50. You can check your current Veteran Level in your info window (previously at any City Info Terminal kiosk, under "Character"). They grant the Veteran badges listed above, and also a second set of hidden badges with Empyrean rewards, front-loaded to allow characters to get all their T3s with 9 Veteran Levels (down from 12) and all their T4s with 48 Veteran Levels (down from 57). The Empyreans are tied to badges and no longer drop on every single level.
Badges 3 to 24: 20 Empyrean Merits
Badges 27 to 48: 15 Empyran Merits
Badges 51 to 69: 10 Empyrean Merits
Badges 72 to 99: 5 Empyrean Merits
You will also receive 120 threads for VL 1,2, 4,5, 7,8, and 10,11. (This is subject to change.)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11cLJiSYlfueJheOumRywG8Evip2Mjmu_30Y6ePaetqY/edit
Got my private solo server running :) No more worries for disconnects, ques, lag etc.
Works like a Dream.
No-one can take away the game from me now...totally surreal
Off to solo positron task force...
quite a mysterious feeling standing at blue steel looking out in the city...being the only hero in the whole city...my city... ;)
So want to, but will not yet do so.
Log in queues
Servers unstable
Serves could be wiped, not likely but possible.
Ncsoft finally drops the heavy end of the hammer on this whole thing
I am trying to wait until we hear f om TonyV about the community server project plus the "servers for everyone" code package.
My goals
1. A server of my own even if only I am the one to use it
2. Spend as many hours or days as needed on my personal server to restore my lost legends from backups.
3. Play on the community servers if TonyV succeeds
4. Hopefully on the community server to restore some or all my lost legends via sentinel
My ultimate goal: to give Ncsoft the giant middle finger they gave us when they killed CoH
Got my private solo server running :) No more worries for disconnects, ques, lag etc.
Works like a Dream.
No-one can take away the game from me now...totally surreal
Off to solo positron task force...
quite a mysterious feeling standing at blue steel looking out in the city...being the only hero in the whole city...my city... ;)
Facetious much? :)Do you mean joking? No sir totally serious
Do you mean joking? No sir totally serious
Well done!
Easy to do? Or technie knowledge required?
Marvel or DC style. You're the only hero in the city. You're in your own universe.
I'm not jealous. But I am ENVIOUS!
Azrael.
Hi. First time doing anything with sql and stuff like that. So total noob in that area.
Just follow the google document on the ourboro wiki site for coh.
Yes. Quite easy just a few steps that i had to resort to aid on discord and reddit. But now i know the pitfalls so i can aid others :) so happy to not be able to lose the game ever again. No dependencies on other people and servers.
Its all on mt pc. Windows 8.1. I7 4930k. 4.5ghz. 16 gig ram. Ssd. 1080ti.
Awsome performance in game.
Tell me if you want help in seting it up.
The virtual machine private server is very easy to setup because all of the work is done for you basically. It also seems to have very low hardware requirements. For reference my system is:
Windows 10
Pentium G4560 CPU (2 cores 4 threads)
16gb ram
Gtx 1050 ti
Now yes it is only me playing on the server, but still that was all I wanted out of a private server. If you want to host a lot of people then sure it'll be more demanding. I have built a few computers in my time but most of my knowledge is hardware based so if I found it easy I don't see why everyone else wouldn't.
If anyone is stuck then the best place is discord or reddit but honestly there are only like 4 steps :)
Really sweet idea, and any generosity to ease the incarnate grind for the altoholics like myself is welcome.
The Devs put a cap limit on AE rewards didn't they?
Still, the farming was too lucrative.
Set up lan server runs very well and without a hicup
Anyone have any guide to how to change settings, like 2x XP, enable Halloween etc ?
You can find that stuff on the ourowiki that's been setup. Add XPScale 2.0 to servers.cfg for double xp and you can start halloween using /shardeventstart scriptdefs/Halloween_11_Event.scriptdef
The private server thing sounds nice for preservation but I worry that if I can just push a button for my food pellets I'll quit running the maze and my stomach will explode.
With a private server you can be the GM for a group of roleplayers. Give some friends a custom-tailored gaming experience. That's my plan, anyway.
As I recall multiple events can't be run at the same time, right? Like dxp plus holiday or holiday plus rikti invasion?
The private server thing sounds nice for preservation but I worry that if I can just push a button for my food pellets I'll quit running the maze and my stomach will explode.
ourowikiSide note: I really wish they'd have picked a different name for that thing. (https://ouroportal.com/wiki/Main_Page)
One advantage the current servers have is that there are so few of them. I'd say its almost impossible now not to find someone to play with. That wasn't true on most of the NCSoft servers.
Would it be inappropriate to post here about how much it's going to cost per month to run a single private server? I'd like to see that, and I think that's information people should have before they jump into "gonna run a public server!" and the initial guesstimates that were posted here to do such a thing seem to have been wildly underestimated.
Would it be inappropriate to post here about how much it's going to cost per month to run a single private server? I'd like to see that, and I think that's information people should have before they jump into "gonna run a public server!" and the initial guesstimates that were posted here to do such a thing seem to have been wildly underestimated.
OK, what about a 30-300 person server? I'm pretty sure that won't run on a PC.
3. The server owners will agree to transfer characters to one another (Will need to make a character transfer tool). So if Joe Schmoe decides to shut his server down, characters can be transferred to a central character repository (perhaps operated by the server browser people) for further transfer to another server.For character transfers, the server's take on the Inf economy will be relevant. If your character is coming from a server where the Inf is free or massively inflated, moving to a server where the economy is more 'traditional', the transfer could wreck the economy. The same with recipes, salvage, and other things that could be sold.
For character transfers, the server's take on the Inf economy will be relevant. If your character is coming from a server where the Inf is free or massively inflated, moving to a server where the economy is more 'traditional', the transfer could wreck the economy. The same with recipes, salvage, and other things that could be sold.
Possible other things that could be of concern are earning badges and whether the original server gives everyone all the badges and the new one requires that you earn them. Did you earn your Enhancements or were you gifted them. There's no objectively wrong answer, but there is a question of compatibility.
I don't think anyone cares about character level.
Fundamentally, it's an issue of trust and what the rules are on Server A vs the rules on Server B and whether those are compatible.
Facetious much? :)I'm just so curious about this post. I think having a private server sounds awesome, why would anyone question whether someone happy with theirs was serious?
I'm just so curious about this post. I think having a private server sounds awesome, why would anyone question whether someone happy with theirs was serious?
OK, what about a 30-300 person server? I'm pretty sure that won't run on a PC.
Currently, the Homecoming team said Character transfers are very, very low on their list of things to add. The current 4 servers up right now though have WW shared between them as well as all AE missions. So aside from population, you have access to all the mission and items being sold.
The current homecoming set up is for about 6,000 to 8,000 people and is (I believe) over $5000 a month. The problem is people spreading out and doing their own thing. If everyone stayed in the same area it wouldn't be a problem. Also, 30 to 300 would have some rather different costs. A 30 person server if you all stayed in the same area wouldn't be much at all I imagine. 300 People would be, even if they all stayed in the same place.
NCsoft should somehow incorporate all current and future CoX private servers into a launcher list similar to what Conan: Exiles and other survival games do, and similar to what Bioware's old Neverwinter Night's multiplayer shows when you log in. It would list all player-run servers grouped by category according to their customized rule sets, restrictions, populations, etc.
That would rock. Then everybody would be under one banner. If certain admins didn't abide by a code of conduct (and their financial restrictions), NCsoft could give them the boot.
Probably someone from 4Chan looking to shock someone.
NCsoft should somehow incorporate all current and future CoX private servers into a launcher list similar to what Conan: Exiles and other survival games do, and similar to what Bioware's old Neverwinter Night's multiplayer shows when you log in. It would list all player-run servers grouped by category according to their customized rule sets, restrictions, populations, etc.
That would rock. Then everybody would be under one banner. If certain admins didn't abide by a code of conduct (and their financial restrictions), NCsoft could give them the boot.
Ya most likely. I saw some pictures from their private server that was basically just a really racist name, spamming really racist things. Apparently, that is the whole appeal to that server judging by the pictures and things I read about it.
I think the Homecoming team will ban people for doing that kind of stuff. They seem to be setting up a code of conduct for both the players and their GM's.
EQ does this with the private servers and I like it quite a bit. Sometimes you need to download a different client or something, but it always shows the servers you can play on. I think the goal (maybe?) is to make this possible with servers that share similar rulesets and ideals. Currently, Tequila is needed to access any of server so I think in a sense it already is that way. You just need to change something in the manifest to be able to see other servers.
Likely it will be where an i24 character can port over to any i24 server, and to i25, but an i25 cannot port over to i24.
The other day on one of the servers i saw a character that had a Germanic/warrior costume which is fine, but the name was Adolf Hitler and the bio entry was a bit...well you get the idea.Cheap shock value, ehhh.
NCsoft should somehow incorporate all current and future CoX private servers into a launcher list similar to what Conan: Exiles and other survival games do, and similar to what Bioware's old Neverwinter Night's multiplayer shows when you log in. It would list all player-run servers grouped by category according to their customized rule sets, restrictions, populations, etc.
That would rock. Then everybody would be under one banner. If certain admins didn't abide by a code of conduct (and their financial restrictions), NCsoft could give them the boot.
Better to give NC Soft the boot.
Azrael.
That was interesting. I downloaded one of the I25 virtual machine solutions. Easy enough to set up. I'd have appreciated a "click to ignore errors" when starting the dbserver, but really, what else could you do?
I currently have the VM hosted on a magnetic RAID-5 array. This makes zoning into new zones slow. How slow? Slow enough to make you wonder if the server has hung up. Once a map has been loaded, zoning is tolerable. I'm going to create a copy of the VM on an SSD later. Performance should improve.
NCSoft is now powerless to stop me from playing solo.
I just need one thing to make this perfect - a way to import my Sentinel+ files back into an I25 database.
That was interesting. I downloaded one of the I25 virtual machine solutions. Easy enough to set up. I'd have appreciated a "click to ignore errors" when starting the dbserver, but really, what else could you do?
I currently have the VM hosted on a magnetic RAID-5 array. This makes zoning into new zones slow. How slow? Slow enough to make you wonder if the server has hung up. Once a map has been loaded, zoning is tolerable. I'm going to create a copy of the VM on an SSD later. Performance should improve.
NCSoft is now powerless to stop me from playing solo.
I just need one thing to make this perfect - a way to import my Sentinel+ files back into an I25 database.
That was interesting. I downloaded one of the I25 virtual machine solutions. Easy enough to set up. I'd have appreciated a "click to ignore errors" when starting the dbserver, but really, what else could you do?
I currently have the VM hosted on a magnetic RAID-5 array. This makes zoning into new zones slow. How slow? Slow enough to make you wonder if the server has hung up. Once a map has been loaded, zoning is tolerable. I'm going to create a copy of the VM on an SSD later. Performance should improve.
NCSoft is now powerless to stop me from playing solo.
I just need one thing to make this perfect - a way to import my Sentinel+ files back into an I25 database.
I just need one thing to make this perfect - a way to import my Sentinel+ files back into an I25 database.
That was interesting. I downloaded one of the I25 virtual machine solutions. Easy enough to set up. I'd have appreciated a "click to ignore errors" when starting the dbserver, but really, what else could you do?
I currently have the VM hosted on a magnetic RAID-5 array. This makes zoning into new zones slow. How slow? Slow enough to make you wonder if the server has hung up. Once a map has been loaded, zoning is tolerable. I'm going to create a copy of the VM on an SSD later. Performance should improve.
NCSoft is now powerless to stop me from playing solo.
I just need one thing to make this perfect - a way to import my Sentinel+ files back into an I25 database.
If you're running your own game, I'm sure the coders will find a way to allow one to change a lot of the game parameters, such as multiplying all Merit Rewards by 10, 30, or 50. Or just making everything cost nothing.I25 has removed the min amount on taskforces. I did posi today solo :)
That was interesting. I downloaded one of the I25 virtual machine solutions. Easy enough to set up. I'd have appreciated a "click to ignore errors" when starting the dbserver, but really, what else could you do?
I currently have the VM hosted on a magnetic RAID-5 array. This makes zoning into new zones slow. How slow? Slow enough to make you wonder if the server has hung up. Once a map has been loaded, zoning is tolerable. I'm going to create a copy of the VM on an SSD later. Performance should improve.
NCSoft is now powerless to stop me from playing solo.
I just need one thing to make this perfect - a way to import my Sentinel+ files back into an I25 database.
Its quite funny the mmo that became a single player game.You're confusing what was actually said with how you understood it.
How many folks did say it was impossible on a single machine to run coh :)
I'm waiting for my isp to deliver my new router so i can go fibre.
So much for the 'smooth' transition. :p
No internet...
Then they txt me the date my bill is due.
Doooohhhhhh! Robust phone call to them tomorrow... :
Azrael.
I want to play on one of those servers, but dang, the fear of losing access to it again makes me stay away. I did run a private server, but way too boring by myself. Waiting to see what ncsoft does before I really get involved.
I want to play on one of those servers, but dang, the fear of losing access to it again makes me stay away. I did run a private server, but way too boring by myself. Waiting to see what ncsoft does before I really get involved.
I made a thing. (https://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=13387.msg233093#msg233093)
I want to play on one of those servers, but dang, the fear of losing access to it again makes me stay away. I did run a private server, but way too boring by myself. Waiting to see what ncsoft does before I really get involved.I'd rather play and lose it again than not play and just keep missing it. I'm kind of assuming that the characters I'm leveling right now won't be the final iterations and that I may end up on other servers entirely, but that won't stop me from having fun right now. :)
Well now, I have often stated that I wanted to play City of Heroes again before I croaked and I have!
I created old toons and new ones!
Did 2 SG's.
Starting marketing.
Ran The Hollows
I teamed on Pugs.
I did an Oroburos mission.
I am content and happy.
So if you are waiting until you can have fun in the game, STOP WAITING. Waiting for the perfect moment to play may not come. Why deny yourself the fun you could be having now? See you on the streets! My global is mwruger
Bit the bullet and started playing on the homecoming servers. Ugh... Now the problem is, I can't find time to eat, work, sleep, etc.
Bit the bullet and started playing on the homecoming servers. Ugh... Now the problem is, I can't find time to eat, work, sleep, etc.
Bit the bullet and started playing on the homecoming servers. Ugh... Now the problem is, I can't find time to eat, work, sleep, etc.
Bit the bullet and started playing on the homecoming servers. Ugh... Now the problem is, I can't find time to eat, work, sleep, etc.
I've been running into the same problem. I literally had tears in my eyes when I logged in for the first time a few days ago.
Arenas are activated on all Homecoming shards now, so that has changed since a previous post stating that they weren't.
So close yet so far.....I feel your pain.
Overall the game is running well
AE exp was cut by half due to all the farming and crashes, not sure if they fixed it yet
Arena server is unavailable....thus blocking access to o a significant amount of badges
Ski lodge was open last I looked. But winter event is not on
It looks like you can queue up and run the summer blockbuster event but have not tried it. Yet.
The market....well some recipes are appearing and last I checked there is one of each of the pvp is that boosts defense by three for sale at each level....why? It doesn't take a lot of merits to get one from the vendor. Overall there appears to be on be a lot of salvage selling and recipes are slowly loading up
Game is tricky when you are not at defense cap
Supergroup bases you can register right away.
Prestige no longer needed
All base items unlocked
No restrictions on which items can go where,.
So for something quick, activate your base, get the biggest lot, and you entrance room can have a craft table fo invention, salvage and enhancement storage bins, put a small room next to o it with a teleporter with the pocket d beacon.
Now you can warp to pocket d, use their vault, merit vendor, tailor, trainer, and type /auctionhouse to bring up the market, you cannot use that command in base or missions.
Stay in pocket for an hour to get fhe vip badge and pocket d teleport power.
Also only one hour in each pvp zone to get the badge for that zone.
Day job required time reduced.
Must be L14 to enter ouroborus portal, must be exposed to time travel to get the power.
Sister psyche taskforce in the ouroborus crystal menu
Statesman is dead.
Taskforces all appear to be running.
Visit nul the gull for quick alignment change
Is it ok to ask what happened to Arcana and Codewalker?
I went on vacation, and then I put myself into dark mode ahead of the release of Avengers Endgame since I was going to be travelling and unable to see it until last week, so I haven't been around for a while.
So, anything new happen while I was gone?
I went on vacation, and then I put myself into dark mode ahead of the release of Avengers Endgame since I was going to be travelling and unable to see it until last week, so I haven't been around for a while.
So, anything new happen while I was gone?
I went on vacation, and then I put myself into dark mode ahead of the release of Avengers Endgame since I was going to be travelling and unable to see it until last week, so I haven't been around for a while.
So, anything new happen while I was gone?
I posted another 2000 meaningless posts that someone will have to read and delete. Other than that, nothing.
I love that you think someone's reading them. And before you ask, no I didn't read this one, I just knew the content cuz reasons.
My CDROMs are long since gone. Is there a way to get ahold of new install media for the client?
DAYUMM! Somebody get Paragon Avenger some ice for that burn! :P ;D
Like a boss.
I have a question for the powers that be at Titan Network.
Are you going top be updating the changes made by Homecoming and issue 26?
There a ton of changes in the patch notes and somethings have morphed. For example, the jetpack vendor (now a PTW vendor) in Fort Zulu no longer sells at set 10000 INF jetpack. You buy it in 30 minute increments for 5000 inf each.
If you do, then what about the servers that are only running i24? Will you do disambiguation for these servers?
We of the unread over-postings need no excuse to jibe at each other.
Kismet should be easier to get as I think it's in the ae cheap rolls, or at least some from the set are. I've yet to buy anything of the market since converters are so cheap.
I'm loving my sonic/martial so far. Ki punch is my new favourite power. It's like a little Hong Kong film every two seconds.
So close yet so far.....I feel your pain.
Overall the game is running well
AE exp was cut by half due to all the farming and crashes, not sure if they fixed it yet
Arena server is unavailable....thus blocking access to o a significant amount of badges
Ski lodge was open last I looked. But winter event is not on
It looks like you can queue up and run the summer blockbuster event but have not tried it. Yet.
The market....well some recipes are appearing and last I checked there is one of each of the pvp is that boosts defense by three for sale at each level....why? It doesn't take a lot of merits to get one from the vendor. Overall there appears to be on be a lot of salvage selling and recipes are slowly loading up
Game is tricky when you are not at defense cap
Supergroup bases you can register right away.
Prestige no longer needed
All base items unlocked
No restrictions on which items can go where,.
So for something quick, activate your base, get the biggest lot, and you entrance room can have a craft table fo invention, salvage and enhancement storage bins, put a small room next to o it with a teleporter with the pocket d beacon.
Now you can warp to pocket d, use their vault, merit vendor, tailor, trainer, and type /auctionhouse to bring up the market, you cannot use that command in base or missions.
Stay in pocket for an hour to get fhe vip badge and pocket d teleport power.
Also only one hour in each pvp zone to get the badge for that zone.
Day job required time reduced.
Must be L14 to enter ouroborus portal, must be exposed to time travel to get the power.
Sister psyche taskforce in the ouroborus crystal menu
Statesman is dead.
Taskforces all appear to be running.
Visit nul the gull for quick alignment change
I have a convertor. I haven't used that feature yet. So, I can use a convertor to convert from IO recipe to another? :o So rather than buying IO Kismet Acc, I can just make it from another?
Sonic/Martial arts. As a blaster/blapper? Ki Punch. That's a new punch, not heard of that one before. Not in the MA scrapper set? I do like different melee sets. The more variety the better.
Azrael.
I need to do some reading, it looks like.. I dunno anything about anything.
One question: Can I farm Architect on +4/x8 again, yet? : D
OK two.. Can I do it with my old guys? Or do I have to reroll?
Two questions, one answer: yes, but only if you can handle +4/x8 with your level one.
Reminds me of a true story, Blue Steel never even trained up past level one.Come on, we all know Blue Steel is cheating the system by using an impossible powerset combination.
Because he didn't need to.
Come on, we all know Blue Steel is cheating the system by using an impossible powerset combination.
Two reactions: 1) ohhhh a challenge (impossible, but still, those can be the most... luring). 2. I can only be level 1??? That's not a horrible thing, actually. Even if it is possible, can we please not level our toons until, like, November...?
I still haven't taken the time to find out what's going on, yet.. I will. Feel free to fill me and other cluelessnesses in, in the meanwhile : ) I promise to look it up for myself soon.
Umm... new Enhancement Sets?
Everything I've seen shows the same ones that were Old Live.
Before the game went dark the original devs added a whole bunch of new Enhancements and Enhancement upgrades as part of Premium and Power Packs.
Preventive Medicine heal set and Unbreakable guard resist are particularly stellar. The former has a chance for absorb proc and the latter a +max hp proc and a 3% melee defense bonus when 4 slotted. Oh and the new defense set has a scaling resist IO that works like SR's resist up to 10% at super low hp. just so many new options that builds are even tighter than before if that's possible. oh and sudden acceleration that PhiloticKnight mentioned is a new knockback set that has a kb to kd which isn't unique and works in hurricane. Can't wait to roll up a stormy now.
Those are actually NOT SCoRE/I25, those are I24 from Paragon Studios.
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Preventive_Medicine
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Unbreakable_Guard
In fact, it looks like Sudden Acceleration is the ONLY SCoRE/I25 Enhancement set, from what I can see...
Hmm kb to kd and not unique....I sense many happy peacebringers
Those are actually NOT SCoRE/I25, those are I24 from Paragon Studios.
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Preventive_Medicine
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Unbreakable_Guard
In fact, it looks like Sudden Acceleration is the ONLY SCoRE/I25 Enhancement set, from what I can see...
you mean happier teams with a peacebringer on them.
you mean happier teams with a peacebringer on them. i don't think there's such an animal as a happy peacebringer :D
btw soloed the freakspec tonight. just insanely fun, emphasis on the insane. and for my trouble it dropped an lotg 7.5 and a panacea proc, which would have given me seizures if it happened back in the day.
I know I had KB to KD on my Claws/Fire brute for Shockwave and(?) Focus, and, I'm thinking it was a relatively new addition.
On the first scan of my old Mids files... I accidentally wiped out and then overwrote some of the above build's power choices.. *rolls eyes* Saved the thing all this time and wiped it out in seconds. I've got a screenie with all his set bonuses still, at least. My other main main's Mids looks intact. I don't have a screenie for him.
Anyway, I was thinking non-unique KB to KD was around before the game poofed, and, relatively new. I know for sure I had it on Shockwave. I thought I had it on Focus, too, but I can't see what I used for mods. Maybe I'm wrong. I remember being real happy about my KB to KD on that toon..
If we're starting again at level one, and broke.. then it'll be awhile before I can afford the stuff that made up my builds, anyway.. It took a long time the first time, anyway. This's all academic, anyway. The game's back (sorta), that's the main thing. Gear is details. I think my mouse hand and keyboard fingers can remember how to get it when the time comes.
My memory is a bit fuzzy on it all, but I believe there was Unique KB to KD that worked for all powers? Maybe it was just a single power.
No just happier peacebringers. All my peacebringers back in the day we're easily played and knockback was no issue for me. I even had a juggler build on one of them that I could switch into to show trolls on the team what kb could really be like :)
Focus was always kd.
KDown I never found as much fun.
On my En/En blaster and PB, loved knbk.
So...had anyone yet started to think at work "this blasted job is interfering with my CoH time"?
Power effects listings over where you mouse over to see set bonuses applied always say knockback.
Retired a few months ago.
Bought a new gaming capable rig figuring I'd learn to play Elite Dangerous until some spiritual successor came thru.
Then this happened
;D
so... HA HA!
So...had anyone yet started to think at work "this blasted job is interfering with my CoH time"?
Wellllll my Mids disagrees.
Yes the upgrade to snipe is fantastic.
Still gathering some io for my blaster to permanent boost snipe
Let me know how you slot your Tactics power to do that. (And the rest of your build.)
Insta snipe without to hit padding is on homecoming beta now ftw.
I am not thrilled about that upcoming change. I really don't know why they have to mess with a good thing. If it was just giving everyone Insta snipe to be nice than I get that, but they are changing so much about the power. Recharge time, a new IO set to pick snipes. Instead of doing all that, just leave it the way it is, or lower the ToHit requirement to like a single small yellow. This is a perfect example of "If it's not broke don't fix it"
It's a really, really bad change IMO.
Regularly slotted Tactics plus a Kismet: +6% Accuracy should do it.
Because it's misnamed, it's actually +6% ToHit.
CJ, weave, maneuvers, stealth, hover, basically sounds like you'll need to take something just for the kismet. Cj would be most useful since if you were the hover type you'd have it already. Though I do hear the insta snipes with combat disabled by pff are op.
Yet to be one I haven't liked. Jury's out on the snipe one but it's not like they could make snipes worse than they were on live.
Yet to be one I haven't liked. Jury's out on the snipe one but it's not like they could make snipes worse than they were on live.
The snipe currently on HC isn't the snipe from live. Its the changed snipe from I24, which in my opinion was in the best spot I have ever seen Snipe. Instant snipe was already a thing if you had enough ToHit in i24. This current change they are about to do messes with that and resulted in basically changing the power entirely. It's about as powerful as T2 power on the Beta currently. A lot of the changes they have done are good, but this particular one feels completely random and basically unnecessary. I currently can't see any drawback to the way Snipe currently is, I haven't heard any players complain about it either. Quite the contrary most people love the i24 changes to snipe. The one on beta changes so much about the power for really no reason. It changes the way builds will be done, it changes the way snipe will work and changes the Device set. Why rework something that works perfectly already. If you want long snipe, don't use aim or build up, or just turn off tactics or targeting drone. Want it to be instant? Do any of those things or pop a medium yellow.
Nothing they are changing makes instant snipe any easier to obtain or makes it easier to choose which one you want. It actually adds unnecessary steps to something that already exists but with fewer steps.
The one on test still doesn't 'feel' as good as the i24 beta snipe.
It may say '1.33' cast time on the tin but in practice there seems to be slight delay.
The range nerf was a step back. (That much seemed an obvious one without playing it.) It felt like the 'old' Power Burst range which put you in melee range, which, as a blaster, you don't really want to be in unless you're a committed (as in insane?) blapper. They put that back rather quickly.
The recharge nerf? A truck driven right through the 'fun' aspect of a speeded up attack chain with a '3rd' heavy hitter single blast power from 'the hip.' 3 seconds longer? It made the fun attack combos of live achingly long. I've caught a Leandro message on Discord that says it's going back to 12 seconds. (With x2 recharge SOs puts it at 7-ish secs. With Hasten? Just over 5 sec. Which it currently is.) A time nerf seems counter to the idea of having a 'fast' or 'insta-snipe'. It executes quickly so you can wait longer for it? uH?
Gamesmanship. I LIKE the mangement aspect of hitting aim or build up or power boost to activate the instant snipe. It's been fun. Now those elements are no longer there (on test) it seems 'emptier' somehow. I liked deciding when to use the auto. Is it just semantics I can still 'choose' to use it when it comes up. But I liked the process of activating it.
IO or not to IO. That is the question.
I'm not a fan of hacking out 4 powers out of my build to slot the Kismet, if I'm honest. Just as I'm not a fan of the post i3 perma-hasten nerf. And I didn't like the knbk taken out of Power Boost.
A far more elegant solution would be to have 3 to hit in AIM to create a perma-snipe. (How many people slot aim with to hit anyhow? Or 6 slot it?) Or tactics with 3 to hit.
That should be enough. And far less fussy. As is. I've taken tactics. 4 slotted it. Now I have to dismantle my build to get a 'defence' power when I'm supposed to be a 'snipe' specialist.
I'd argue that both of those could be addressed in snipe, aim or tactics. Or to put it in slot language. 15 slots and I still haven't got perma-snipe. :P
Azrael.
Seems like they're just trying things at this point on test to find the sweet spot. The were plenty of folks I saw discussing snipe before they decided to work on it who were in the same spot as Azrael, having trouble working enough to hit into their build. From the beta discussion I've glanced at it seems like there's enough back and forth that there should be a good compromise before anything is pushed live. Tbh anything that makes me even consider putting a snipe in a build is already a huge improvement over live - I took it exactly once, on my first blaster, just useless.
So i can do something the lame way before it gets improved? Pass.
We'll never know about the road not taken.
I will always wonder at 3 issues a year by 6 years what those 18 issues would have looked like.
The timing of this rebirth was probably fortuitous too. 7 years later, things were such a state that NCSoft was bound to care less than they would have, if it happened much sooner after the initial shutdown. So, in all likelihood, it happened when it could happen, and couldn't have happened any other way.
I agree with all of this. I am happy they backpedaled on the range and recharge about, those were my biggest gripes.
I agree the "feel" of it is just different. Something about just doesn't feel entirely right I also agree on the Gamership part. Even on my Fire/Fire Blaster who didnt have Perma-Insta snipe I liked using Aim, Build Up, or Inspirations when necessary. As for my /Devices blaster. His whole existence was to have perma instant snipe as low as possible. Which is 10 for an Energy/Device blaster. Currently, the IO to pick is my biggest gripe. It seems silly to make people change their builds to pick something they could already pick.
I will say its nice to see them responding the feedback. People didn't like the initial Sniper changes and they listened and made some changes until it was ina place they felt was a good compromise between their goal and players wants. I respect that at least, lots of MMO's with Publishers and full Dev teams blindly commit to changes all the time regardless of feedback. So it is nice to see. However, I still think they just call off this sniper change entirely. To me, it doesn't feel like a player prompted the change. It seems like something the SCoRE devs wanted to do when the server was private still, and now have the support to do it. The only problem is the vast majority of us have only been playing for a month and a half tops, not 7 years. Most of us barely even had time to enjoy the new snipe changes as they were. I wouldn't say the newest snipe changes are a good thing if the last time you tried a Snipe power was on Live, at least until you try the current i24 changes - its that different feeling. I agree snipe was less than useful on Live, but the i24 changes to Snipe have made it an entirely different power.
On Live I rarely took snipe besides my main blaster. Now with i24 snipe changes, I always take snipe because its amazing. After these newest changes, ill probably go back to never taking it. Id say try the current snipe as it is, before deciding if these new changes are better or not. They may be better than on i23 Live, but they certainly aren't better than the i24 Beta changes (IMO)
Each to his own, I say. I enjoy the evolution of the game. In the case of snipe attacks, I never thought they were broken. I was a fan of what Paragon was going to do with I24.
My main on the homecoming servers is now slotted up and has about an 11 second recharge time on their snipe.
With tactics six slotted with Gaussian which has the to hit buff running all the time and occasionally activating, I can keep my snipe almost always instant without the need for any special new IO sets.
However I do want to the game evolve.
I also want to play vanilla and that is what private servers are for.
something like
(https://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2014/03/morningsunseastar.jpg)
+
(https://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2014/03/nine-armed-sea-star.jpg)
perhaps? or something even more echinodramatic?
I will always wonder at 3 issues a year by 6 years what those 18 issues would have looked like.
My main on the homecoming servers is now slotted up and has about an 11 second recharge time on their snipe.
With tactics six slotted with Gaussian which has the to hit buff running all the time and occasionally activating, I can keep my snipe almost always instant without the need for any special new IO sets.
However I do want to the game evolve.
I also want to play vanilla and that is what private servers are for.
When you hit the groove, it's like the lost years never happened.
There is one 'farm' map that has the 'Earth' in the sky (much bigger than the Earth from NASA's 'film' release) and has what looks like a luna service. I wonder...was this the beginning of the Moon base stuff?
I will always wonder at 3 issues a year by 6 years what those 18 issues would have looked like.Way too many Incarnate powers. I don't know how they were going to keep up the pace. (I mean, the six we have now make a dramatic difference; imagine having fourteen more of equal power and utility)
There is one 'farm' map that has the 'Earth' in the sky (much bigger than the Earth from NASA's 'film' release) and has what looks like a luna service. I wonder...was this the beginning of the Moon base stuff?
According to the 2012 Loregasm (https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Lore_AMA), the long-awaited moonbase was going to be added in Issue 28. Positron says he approved the art assets in the last day before the studio was closed. :(
Way too many Incarnate powers. I don't know how they were going to keep up the pace. (I mean, the six we have now make a dramatic difference; imagine having fourteen more of equal power and utility)