The thought of getting enthusiastic about posting what's essentially a wink and a nudge on a forum to get a "golden ticket" invite into a PM list that may or may not be formed to get onto a shortlist of candidates that might be interviewed or otherwise tested to try out possible test copies of programs that could eventually result in hamstringing a number of similar functions together to successfully trick the CoH Client into running again is just too many levels of abstraction away from the end result to make much sense for me to get excited about at this point of time.
I get the frustration at my deduction: well, how else can I get involved in it? It seems like nothing is happening at all.
The problem is the same as it was in September: the NCSoft folks (most likely) are already aware of ex-players and their interest in running private servers of City of Heroes (as they've dealt with from prior closings, which would be foolish to ignore from a business perspective), so discussing milestones towards development of the Client against their Terms and Conditions in such public areas where it's easy for us to read of it isn't going to be fruitful for those who can do something proactively towards this end. We're all effectively out of the loop, which isn't totally a bad thing at this time.
But all the same, money would make such efforts faster, and Titan Network does have a donation button on their front page. But that connection is being drawn by me, and it's a false one: any kind of connection from Titan staff (expressed or implied) towards those donations going towards emulating a City of Heroes server on this site will most likely result in Titan Network getting shut down (ISP gets C&D'd, or those who operate the site are sued out of existence), let alone any other group doing that work for that matter. The same goes for allowing discussion to occur towards such efforts, announcing results from it, or hosting files concerning this. All fatal ideas for Titan Network. Then NCSoft's victory in shutting our world down isn't just complete, it's absolute. Sure, this is a little "umbrella road", but the thought of reorganizing somewhere else once more after Titan Network is shut down ...to have to go through all of that again, it wearies me. (And I'm sure the Plan Z folks don't want to find their forums and file repos disappearing overnight either.)
So, we can't offer up any effort or cash. What's left to do?
If you want to pour your effort into anything at all in these next few months (or years, depending on your energy and aptitude) into Post-City-of-Heroes efforts, either Task Force Hail Mary or a Plan Z project (or both) is all you got. Nothing else is possible to organize on her-- Sorry, we're supposed to be positive about this: "If you can think of something else, let us know!" Really. We're running on fumes at this point, tactically. I hate to use this phrase, but as far as ideas, Titan Network's staff were the smartest guys in the room at the time of the closure... If there was something we could have done that was effective in saving the game or resurrecting it without crossing legal or ethical lines, (particularly in that finite timeline and the knowledge we had at that point, which is still what we know now for the most part) they've pretty much exhausted it as an actionable outcome already.
But I'm hoping against hope too that some sunshine comes our way finally, which is why I bother to check in at all. The love is still definetly there. And I like the thought of playing one of the Plan Z games again sometime in the future with you guys at the very least.
Disclosure: I am nobody. I have no stake, position, or role in any of the projects (Either of the Project Z's, TFHM, or Emulation... became a full time employee last month at my work and I'm taking 8 semester units in college which starts up again next week: I do care, I just don't have the time), I'm just a reader making presumptions... many of which might actually be false.