Now i know CodeWalker said that icon would be nothing more than a way to look at maps and run around the city, essentially run around a ghost town with no interactions nothing. So i've got a question could combat and perhaps solo play be added to icon, if it is possible would it be easy.
I understand how you feel. We all do. Feel very vociferous about the lack of 'solo' play to Coh when I gave NC Soft the best part of a grand to play. And yes. I bought the game itself x3 times! Regardless of the contracted long silver spoon to sit with the devil nature contract of Morg games...I won't be playing anymore morgs unless there's a safe guard of a solo version should the company or community collapse. I feel I deserve a solo version at the least for my substantial investment. It's ridiculous to have nothing to show. I basically 'rented' my time with Coh. Bah.
Take a game like Unreal Tournament. I could play solo. Local Lan. Or online. That's a fair deal. This move to get people all 'clouded' is nothing more than hostage to fortune. I don't like it. I smell it for what it is.
Now, back to Icon. A great piece of work by Code Warrior allowed life due to the nature in which Coh was designed? (Solo player with Morg capability built in? Not sure on that one.) But we do have the legendary character creator. We do have maps! The best (!) part of 8000(?) NPCs. Movs. All the power effects appear(?) to be in there too. And in demo mode...you can see all the 'spawn' points that some server code would generate, procedurally (?) onto outdoor maps and (?) indoor maps? To me that makes the hard part of any reverse engineering work done. It's not like they have to redo any map artworks/design or recode the character creator from scratch. All the art assets and physics seem to be in the game.
However, that doesn't (from what I can tell..) mean that knocking out a server is easy. I guess mapping out the game client apis is easy. Just 'look at the code.'
But the server side 'client'? Well, unless somebody gave a copy of that with all the missions, A.I intelligence of mobs, specific procedural routines...that 'spark of life' code call...to a member of the rebel alliance...to reverse engineer...then.
Well, they're flying in the dark. You're replicating assumed server protocol to make calls to the assets in the game client. That's...erm...'guessing.' And that's trial and error.
I'd like to think the 'S.C.O.R.E' cabal that doesn't exist
has at least got a test mob with a test alt firing some 'test' powers. Who is to say they have got that far.
What we have been told so far...is that a lot of time has been spent re-writing and re-editing of game client code has been under taken to work with 'written from scratch' server capability. eg. Coming up with a server is 'easy' in Valience because the author/team are building the game client and server from scratch or from a known element(s) or developer kit.
Coh's code was proprietary and went through several evolutions as bits like the A.E and other big patches were added to it over the years. Archaic? Or merely progression.
Either way the game client apis can be looked at...but they'll need to be 'edited' to work from a server emulating the necessary functionality from scratch. I guess they weren't handed a brown paper envelope from a disgruntled Paragon employee. Nor would they admit to it. And even if they had it...would still need the code to be re-edited. But they don't and coming up with stuff from scratch takes time.
Though Coh wasn't cutting edge...it was a ten year old game with loads of code. It's not quite the same as emulating those old C64 games I loved so well. it's a comparative beast of code I should imagine.
Plus I'm guessing this secret cabal is doing this part time.
I'm guessing at an alpha Coh by this coming November. A loooooong beta period for 2015. We're looking at another year before we even have the 'spark' of life?
Azrael.
PS. Look elsewhere in the mega Icon thread for an authoritative post by Code Warrior for what Icon IS and what it ISN'T. Have a server emulated project is tough but it's just code at the end of the day and clever people (we can only assume... ) are working on this and it's a matter of time. But it IS a matter of time. And that means patience. Year at least to probably two years worth of patience just to get to some beta server I'd vouch.
Paragon had a studio of how many developers working on Coh and it took them time to do things. Re-writing a server? I'm not sure it's something even they could just 'knock out.' And they had the server code. Icon is great news. We had nothing. Well, just our clients. Now we have icon and can explore the client, create alts. Explore. That spark of life is is tricky to get right because it involved guess work and assumed replication to plug into the game client. Clever coders will probably be able to tackle it in time...if they fancy a challenge.