Titan Network
Community => City of Heroes => Topic started by: Voltixdark on October 29, 2013, 02:53:23 AM
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Hi guys I have a question. A post regarding powers was mentioned a few months back. And I heard Codewalker say It'd be easier to implement a server then try to make powers work. I wanted to know, how is this possible? Is it really possible to make powers work in the Icon?
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I wanted to know, how is this possible?
In layman's terms, the game tells the server what you're doing - such as "I'm firing this power at this target" - and gets back the results. It has no code to perform most of those calculations by itself.
As such, both creating a server and adding those features into the client would require first implementing them from scratch.
The difference is that hacking those into the existing client would involve significantly more work than just building it into a server program.
Is it really possible to make powers work in the Icon?
Icon was never intended to restore the game fully. There's something else that is meant to do that once complete.
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The game was set up that way as the most efficient way to handle team combat. The server acts as the equivalent of a game master or dungeon master, accepting attack inputs from the team members' computers. Then it calculates the results, and sends them to the team, as well as sending the NPC bad guys' attacks. So, the server had to have all of the necessary information on it. As a result, there is not likely to be much, if any, combat-related information on our computers, and any attempt to revive the game would require reconstructing that information.
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How much work exactly? Would it take to get a server up and running? Depending on man hours and dedication. If you do have a basic estimate, how would you compare that to actually building the powers system in the client just alone? Also, who exactly is working on said server? I mean I'm looking all over the place and there isn't an exact person or group I know of working on it.
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How much work exactly? Would it take to get a server up and running? Depending on man hours and dedication. If you do have a basic estimate, how would you compare that to actually building the powers system in the client just alone? Also, who exactly is working on said server? I mean I'm looking all over the place and there isn't an exact person or group I know of working on it.
It would take months if not years of dedicated people working together to create such a server from scratch. Even then, like most attempts at private servers, it would likely have bugs and things might not work as they did on live. It is quite possible to create a server that works identically to the original but to create such a thing requires a great deal of effort.
There are supposedly people working to do just that but they are keeping quiet about it until they are done. This much we've seen mentioned on the forums by TonyV and others. If their work were to be discovered by NCSoft they could be hit with a Cease & Desist order which could be fightable but would require money to do so. From what I understand from reading these forums, the idea is to keep things under wraps till the work is complete and then it will be distributed out into wilds of internet land making it impossible for NCSoft to suppress it. If they knock one server down 10 more will pop up and nothing could stop people from just hosting their own and playing solo.
It's a plan that makes sense when you think about it. And consider this, when we can finally play that released client, it will be relatively bug free and should play virtually identically to the original live servers. There's something to be said about not being the guinea pigs for testing and dealing with character wipes, bugs, server downtime, data loss, etc.
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In other words, we won't see a server up till past 2014-15? My goodness. I was really hoping for something at least the end of the year if not early next year.
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In other words, we won't see a server up till past 2014-15? My goodness. I was really hoping for something at least the end of the year if not early next year.
Only those working on it can really say how far along they are. But consider these people have probably been working since BEFORE the shutdown. I remember people talking about gathering data and stuff right after the shutdown was announced so it may not be as long as all that, but there's no way to know for sure. Such an undertaking is a great deal of work. Our patience will only make success all the sweeter when it arrives.
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I keep thinking 'Surely somehow, somewhere there must be someone playing the game in all it's glory, and i've just been too blind to find it. It's somehow both comforting and sad at the same time ;)
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I keep thinking 'Surely somehow, somewhere there must be someone playing the game in all it's glory, and i've just been too blind to find it. It's somehow both comforting and sad at the same time ;)
Probably not yet. I doubt an ex COXer if in fact ex coxer is doing it, woudl be able to keep an accomplishment like that, rebuilding the game in spite of the shutdown and in spite of NCSOFT, under wraps to themselves for any amount of time. Probably when it's up and running word would be everywhere that ex-Coxers are. The ability to say "I'm sticking it to The Man." probably is to great to ignore and would want people to know they are and how they are sticking it to The Man and dare The Man to even try and do something about it now.
I wouldnt be surprised if it's in the testing stage already and working out the kinks before releasing word. I have a feeling soon one day, you too will be playing COX in all it's glory soon. The day is coming, just hang in there. I'm not sure what issue it will be or the changes that will be made, such as bugs that wasnt there before and bugs that were there completely gone, but when it happen would it matter? It's COX.
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How much work exactly? Would it take to get a server up and running? Depending on man hours and dedication.
We're talking about creating a fully functional server program from scratch in a total black box scenario - NO documentation, NO help from original creators, SOME input/output logs made before shutdown, MANDATORY adherence to the communication protocol used by the original client.
Added up... however much it took for the original developers to create their server software, multiplied by a factor of three is a VERY conservative estimate.
If you do have a basic estimate, how would you compare that to actually building the powers system in the client just alone?
Add at least half as much time again as it would take to get it working in the server. If you thought it would be easier, then please learn to program in x86 Assembly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_assembly) before revisiting that opinion.
And you're missing the point. If you added the powers, the client would still be missing support for zoning, enemy AI, missions and any interaction with environment or NPCs.Also, who exactly is working on said server? I mean I'm looking all over the place and there isn't an exact person or group I know of working on it.
The Secret Cabal of Reverse Engineers. Some of its' members have made themselves known in the past, if you have not found those mentions yet then they probably don't want it to be known any more.
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Also, who exactly is working on said server? I mean I'm looking all over the place and there isn't an exact person or group I know of working on it.
They understandably don't want to advertise who they are, though if some of them want to step forward and say, "I'm working on it!" I certainly won't stop them. I know who it is, but I ain't sayin'...
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And there you have it. Confirmation that "someone" is working on "something". :) Have faith. It will happen eventually.
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if you want an idea... SEGS is the only public effort to relaunch the game. (there are others, but they are being held in private) SEGS was originally started way back in 2008, but was shelved, and only restarted when the closure was announced in August of 2012. As of last week, it has only just added the ability to see when other people are online. There is still no chat and no super powers, and rubber-banding (a sort of glitch were the game snaps you back to the last point it synched with the server) is a horrendous issue. you also still cannot save your toons, same as with Icon. That should give you a general concept of how long it has taken to even get the game to a point you can simply click on to a live server.
While we would all love to have the game back and back right now, it's simply not going to happen that way. Why? because we are missing one half of the equation. The only people who know how the server-side of the game works are the people at Cryptic who originally built it, and the people formerly of Paragon who maintained it since 2008. And they are all hand-tied by non-disclosure-agreements that if they were to tell us, it would basically end their careers in the game designing industry.
So sadly, we are poking our way along in the dark with toothpicks on the server side of the game, and it may indeed be 2015 before basic game play functions are restored. and indeed we may never get back event-level functions such as Sigils, ToT, and Winter Lord holiday packages and Valentines Day message missions.
Unless something titanic happens in Korea and they decide to release the code. then it could all be up and running in a couple of months pending someone paying the bandwidth costs.
Like TonyV has said, there are people working on restarting the game, but thus far they have kept quiet, and asked those in the know not to advertise their efforts.
http://segs.nemerle.eu/forumz/index.php is the home to the SEGS project, which is the only public project to get the game working. It will require you to download a modified game client based around issue 2 if you want to play around with it.
nemerle also is working on resurrecting the City website, including the old forums, and can be found at http://www.cityofheroes.ca
if anyone else on the board is working on it, they might let you know, but right now such projects need coders and people familiar with software testing and development, the "enthusiastic beta tester" stage for them is a way off so far as I am aware. :-X
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Thank you guys for the responses :) I understand what you all are saying perfectly. It's just really frustrating that this game had much potential and creativity and was about to become way better, then the ball is dropped. It's still mind boggling to me that all that work paragon worked for for us, is all thrown down the drain. Even though despite the game's potential to come live again one day, It just wont feel the same without development from former devs. All that creativity down the drain. I look forward to these new plan z projects, but it just wont be the same.
On that note, regarding the Segs modified game client, Is it single player only? Was there an online component added?
Also TonyV, do you have an idea how far the guys you know working on it are?
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Thank you guys for the responses :) I understand what you all are saying perfectly. It's just really frustrating that this game had much potential and creativity and was about to become way better, then the ball is dropped. It's still mind boggling to me that all that work paragon worked for for us, is all thrown down the drain. Even though despite the game's potential to come live again one day, It just wont feel the same without development from former devs. All that creativity down the drain. I look forward to these new plan z projects, but it just wont be the same.
On that note, regarding the Segs modified game client, Is it single player only? Was there an online component added?
Also TonyV, do you have an idea how far the guys you know working on it are?
Yeah it wont be the same but hopefully it takes care of the itch between the three suitable enough. Even if COX came back on today exactly where it left off, still wont be the same unless they could get every single person back in exactly the same spot they were in. And even then with the effect of the shut down alone, it add variables that will change the feel because it went from "shutdown? COX? Pssst. Never will happen. Impossible. Doom saying." to now "it can happen. It happened once it can happen again."
But that is the risk of MMOs. Anytime any moment if the guy holding the strings decide he or she had enough for what ever reason. They may stubbed their toe that day and decide to shut down a game to make it feel better, it can happen. All of it down the tube. If people knew about the shut down from the start, I can bet many mindset while playing would have changed or probably be in 2004 sayign what would be the point if it's going to shut down in 2012? Or spent lot less time and money and development in it.
It sucks some had to find out in such an abrupt brash manner before they believed it could actually happen to even COX.
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I really wished all the plan z projects had put their minds together to make one fantastic never seen before game. Reading upon these projects, they all seem unique and diverse in their own way. Why couldn't they just put their minds together to make one game? Input different & diverse ideas and such. Like if they all disagreed on a monumental city or representation of the portrayal of the how the city should look, they should have made them multi-verses. You know like the late developments paragon implemented, Night ward. So we can experience what they all built, but in another dimension, just simply another zone and what not. I think that would have been pretty sweet to pull off. This splits the community in different directions thought they are relatively going the same way.
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I really wished all the plan z projects had put their minds together to make one fantastic never seen before game. Reading upon these projects, they all seem unique and diverse in their own way. Why couldn't they just put their minds together to make one game? Input different & diverse ideas and such. Like if they all disagreed on a monumental city or representation of the portrayal of the how the city should look, they should have made them multi-verses. You know like the late developments paragon implemented, Night ward. So we can experience what they all built, but in another dimension, just simply another zone and what not. I think that would have been pretty sweet to pull off. This splits the community in different directions thought they are relatively going the same way.
Plan Z was a single project at one point, if I remember right..
They ran into differences between one another, which led to the split up and forming of their own separate projects.
However, my memory is foggy on this, so yeah.
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I really wished all the plan z projects had put their minds together to make one fantastic never seen before game. Reading upon these projects, they all seem unique and diverse in their own way. Why couldn't they just put their minds together to make one game? Input different & diverse ideas and such. Like if they all disagreed on a monumental city or representation of the portrayal of the how the city should look, they should have made them multi-verses. You know like the late developments paragon implemented, Night ward. So we can experience what they all built, but in another dimension, just simply another zone and what not. I think that would have been pretty sweet to pull off. This splits the community in different directions thought they are relatively going the same way.
Well that could be ideal if that could happen. But sometimes, there is nothing left to do but split in things like this.
One person or group think it would be better the keep a feature in the other group thinks it's a bad idea to keep that feature in and neither side want to budge on their stance, then it's inevitable that someone will leave.
I was reading some old posts about the differences between the projects. TPP supposed to be in spirit like COX, H&V is supposed to be more direct. From the ideas that tossed around and stuff over there in CoT land, seems like it's aiming to be more of a copy of COX with some added things that probably would have been added by issue 30 anyways in COX. It isn't a bad thing, but sometimes vision change and if today they were together, they probably would have been able to work it out. Then, it was two directions and what direction it should be taken with neither side wanting to move from their stance and saying the other side didn't want to negotiate and compromise. But who knows. The reality could be either or neither or mixture of everything.
But since there is three, it may not be so bad. That is more variety and a chance for more variety of what the successor could be instead of one or two and people that agree with it vision and every other vision is considered irrelevant. And hopefully between the three people can find what suites their vision of what the spirit of COX means to them.
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Thank you guys for the responses :) I understand what you all are saying perfectly. It's just really frustrating that this game had much potential and creativity and was about to become way better, then the ball is dropped. It's still mind boggling to me that all that work paragon worked for for us, is all thrown down the drain. Even though despite the game's potential to come live again one day, It just wont feel the same without development from former devs. All that creativity down the drain. I look forward to these new plan z projects, but it just wont be the same.
On that note, regarding the Segs modified game client, Is it single player only? Was there an online component added?
Also TonyV, do you have an idea how far the guys you know working on it are?
I doubt Tony will give anything away, but I felt as you did not too long ago. TonyV's assurance that "something" was being done was enough assuage my low morale. Take heart. If Tony says "something" is being done trust that it is. When that "something" is ready to be tossed into the wilds of internet land we'll all be ready and waiting for it :D
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The schism basically comes down to ideology. One group wanted to create a successor to CoX, which had its features, but also includes things which have been introduced to MMOs in the ten years since City premiered, such as mounts/transports, instanced PVP, evolving appearances, etc.
The other faction wanted to make a more direct homage to City which took the existing CoX gameplay theory and updated only the graphical half of the equation. A much more story-driven approach to the game akin to the "you are a hero in a city of heroes" that we all encountered in the original tutorial levels.
a schism was the only likely result between traditionalists and interpretationalists. Still, at the end of the day, both groups are on the right track. City was a success because it was not the same sort of clone of Warcraft that every other MMO is. as long as they remain true to that idea it doesn't matter which school of thought the game design falls in to.
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Even if COX came back on today exactly where it left off, still wont be the same unless they could get every single person back in exactly the same spot they were in.
This is completely irrelevant, and it is also completely stupid. Umm, kudos?
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This is completely irrelevant, and it is also completely stupid. Umm, kudos?
Soooooo, it will be exactly the same if they brought it back today? If so, explain how if you can. The way I see it with, even if you think it's stupid, it wont be exactly the same unless it was exactly the same as before. With the devs moved on to other jobs, the chances of them coming back or willing to come back is probably slim, that means different people that probably dont thin kexactly the same in terms of ideas or work or even opinion of game mechanics as Posi and crew. That not even taking into consideration of whether the new people will or have a grasp of how the code and engine works or supposed to work. But seeing how it probably wont happen that everything and everyone will be the exact same as it was before, it's very logical and easy to see, not stupid, that it wont be the same whether the change is small or large for better or worse. But if you think that is stupid, well that is your opinion, and cant do much to change that. AKA, Oh well that you think it's stupid. Deal with it.
Thanks for your "constructive and very insightful" opinion.
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Soooooo, it will be exactly the same if they brought it back today? If so, explain how if you can. The way I see it with, even if you think it's stupid, it wont be exactly the same unless it was exactly the same as before. With the devs moved on to other jobs, the chances of them coming back or willing to come back is probably slim, that means different people that probably dont thin kexactly the same in terms of ideas or work or even opinion of game mechanics as Posi and crew. That not even taking into consideration of whether the new people will or have a grasp of how the code and engine works or supposed to work. But seeing how it probably wont happen that everything and everyone will be the exact same as it was before, it's very logical and easy to see, not stupid, that it wont be the same whether the change is small or large for better or worse. But if you think that is stupid, well that is your opinion, and cant do much to change that. AKA, Oh well that you think it's stupid. Deal with it.
Thanks for your "constructive and very insightful" opinion.
You basically said, "Unless the game is the same when it comes back, it won't ever be the same again." You could have said this literally after every server downtime. And this would have been a correct thing to say after every issue but completely irrelevant because the game not being the same afterwards is sort of the point of new issues. Hardly a stunning insight there.
Your point about the devs is also noted and, irrelevant, given how many of them have come and gone over the normal course of the game (Statesman, Castle, Back Alley Brawler, etc.). And one could make a good case for the fact that when Statesman left it was a good thing that the game wasn't the same.
But by all means: keep filling the forum up with words!
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You basically said, "Unless the game is the same when it comes back, it won't ever be the same again." You could have said this literally after every server downtime. And this would have been a correct thing to say after every issue but completely irrelevant because the game not being the same afterwards is sort of the point of new issues. Hardly a stunning insight there.
No, that is not what I basically said. That is what you want it to mean and twist it to pick a fight. What I said is exactly what I said nothing more nothign less. Never claimed it to be a stunning insight either. It was meant to be an obvious observation.
If you want to discuss what I actually said, that is fine. If you want to discuss some made up meaning you assign because someone pissed in your cheerios today, normally I might entertain you but today no. The choice is yours. Take it or leave it.
If you got beef with me, discuss it like mature adult instead of going post to post trying to troll your way into a fight. If there is an issue with me, PM me, state your case and we'll deal with it. But this petty going post to post of mine trying to pick a fight is childish and that is what is actually the stupid part of this. If you choose to not to handle your issue like a mature human, then there is nothing more I can do for you. That is an issue you must live and deal with on your own. I figured you would know this but time and time agian, you have shown either you dont know, or dont want to know and I dont know which is the case or what is your problem or what you are going through or what not so to make sure I'm making myself clear I said it. Now that you know...it's in your hands now on which path you choose. Choose the less mature way, then you are on your own from here. Choose the proper way, the PM button is waiting.
But on the subject, yes it wont be the same and as I also said for better or worse. Obvious or not. What I said is exactly what I meant, there is nothing cryptic or anything to decipher.
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I am sure that whoever is working to make a playable COH client will do their utmost have it function as close to the original as possible. With that said there's no doubt there will be differences. I mean the store alone would be completely superfluous unless you were charging money which is something I wouldnt expect to see when trying to avoid legal action. So that right there is a difference.
Putting npc's in their proper places is easy. I'm pretty sure the client maps have coordinates for the npcs. Isn't that how Codewalker was able to put NPC's into ICON zones for us? Those markers are in our client so getting stuff where it should be doesn't seem like an issue. It's getting the nitty gritty mechanics working right that will prolly be the hard part. Like cutscenes... or npcs that are supposed to follow you! Stuff like that is where I'd expect issues to come up.
Expecting any resurrected COH to be identical is just unrealistic. But I am confident that if Codewalker was able to do what he did with ICON that those working on getting the client running will do a spiffy job at making it work as close as possible to the way it used to. It may not be identical but if done right it can be close enough that the differences won't matter.
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On that note, regarding the Segs modified game client, Is it single player only? Was there an online component added?
At the present you really get more functionality out of Icon than out of SEGS in its current state - it's a one man project for the most part IIRC, so hardly unexpected.if you want an idea... SEGS is the only public effort to relaunch the game. (there are others, but they are being held in private) SEGS was originally started way back in 2008, but was shelved, and only restarted when the closure was announced in August of 2012.
I recall that SEGS is derived from (or outright used to be) CoHEmu, and that started around... 2006-ish I think? Pretty sure the C&D was dated 2007.
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I am sure that whoever is working to make a playable COH client will do their utmost have it function as close to the original as possible. With that said there's no doubt there will be differences. I mean the store alone would be completely superfluous unless you were charging money which is something I wouldnt expect to see when trying to avoid legal action. So that right there is a difference.
Putting npc's in their proper places is easy. I'm pretty sure the client maps have coordinates for the npcs. Isn't that how Codewalker was able to put NPC's into ICON zones for us? Those markers are in our client so getting stuff where it should be doesn't seem like an issue. It's getting the nitty gritty mechanics working right that will prolly be the hard part. Like cutscenes... or npcs that are supposed to follow you! Stuff like that is where I'd expect issues to come up.
Expecting any resurrected COH to be identical is just unrealistic. But I am confident that if Codewalker was able to do what he did with ICON that those working on getting the client running will do a spiffy job at making it work as close as possible to the way it used to. It may not be identical but if done right it can be close enough that the differences won't matter.
Exactly.