OK, what now? I need a private server or the ability to run my own.

[Perfidus]

Valid points all around and I hope those working on this keep it in mind.

[Ironwolf]

Yes, they could not show anything more than enfringement on IP - however if you have all of the same TM symbols and so on and ccopyright warnings they would be hard pressed to show harm if you freely hosted a server without charging the player base on a game that is officially closed.

If they were willing to host their own server I would be happy to close down any player server I would be hosting :)

[TonyV]

Guys, I wish I had some really amazing announcement that I could broadcast to the world.  I didn't expect this thread to reach 15 pages and counting.  Reverse engineering the protocols is the easy part, which is a little funny to say considering how much time has already been poured into that effort.  Actually implementing a new server is going to take a while longer.  Believe me, as soon as I have any kind of substantial news to share beyond "we're working on it," I'll share it.  Until then, the best advice I have is to stay tuned to these forums, because any kind of announcements we do have will undoubtedly be posted here first.  And rest assured...

[Joshex]

the absolutely free way to play would be to use everyone's computers as mutual hosts, of coarse we should be careful to make sure slow internet users are treated as client only.

everyone's computer would be respinsible for calculating and sharinginformation for that player's attacks and moves and of coarse calculate the enemies attacks that are directly oriented towards you.

the only thing we'd need an actual server for would be to plan world events and other global things..

[Tanklet]

This may be a stupid idea/question, but throwing it out anyway...
Instead of the 'private server people' (for lack of a better name o.o) investing in the hardware, what about providing specs that others would need, and sending setup instructions once they've acquired the hardware? If the code's the easy part, but the hardware's the hard part, maybe shifting some of that burden off of yourselves.

Again, I know next to nothing of server administration, so it may be a dumb thought.

[houtex]

By far the code is the hardest part, Tanklet.  If it were the easy part, the servers would be up/sent out. 

Reverse engineering is NOT simple.  You can intercept the protocols because you're talking to the server, you can draw the things because you have all that locally, but the thinking, calculating, postioning, etc, ad nauseum... aka, the 'glue' that holds it all to together, and the 'fuel' that makes it all go... that is 10 years old.  You can't do that overnight.

Rome was not built in a day.  Neither with a 'new' server.  It is tough, but it's the truth.

---

Joshex, I doubt that distributed computing for an MMO would ever really work out.  There's just too much postional and status information that has to be kept in one place to make sure there's no rubberbanding, instadeaths and just plain weirdness when two or more boxes disagree about something.  One box to rule them all is the only way everything is kept together.  Even FPS server aren't distributed for this reason.  Someone hosts the thinking.  Everyone else is literally playing in that world.

[Ironwolf]

Hardware is very easy, in fact you can rent the server.

I had a thread asking this exactly because while you could easily build a server for 5-10 people building one for 200 and having the network setup for it is entirely different.

[Felderburg]

An owner typically has to show harm.  Assuming NCSoft could show ownership of a fan-made CoH service, they would also have to show--specifically--that it has harmed them.

I suppose they could argue that by playing a free game that used to be making money for them, we aren't giving them money anymore by paying for a current game, so that is financially harmful.

But then the defense would bring out a number of witnesses saying: "We wouldn't give you money anyways!"

[JaguarX]

I suppose they could argue that by playing a free game that used to be making money for them, we aren't giving them money anymore by paying for a current game, so that is financially harmful.

But then the defense would bring out a number of witnesses saying: "We wouldn't give you money anyways!"

I don't think that defense works anymore.

[Electric-Knight]

...  And rest assured...

Haha! Perfectly played, good sir!  ;D

I've believed all along (ever since the initial announcement) that this community's brilliant and passionate collaborative of code wizards would be able to rescue our game in some form or another and the few months that it has been since shutdown has done nothing to diminish my estimation of their abilities and their resolve.
Not like I ever had any inside info about all that, but it's just my hunch from the observations of how they've managed to do so many other things (and based on how much they love the game and doing things for it).

I don't see that part as a matter of if, but when... the only ifs are about the big stupid company and what they might do (regarding selling and also regarding trying to stop any private servers).

Blah, blah blah... hang in there, everybody! I know it feels like a long time, but it really hasn't been.

[Victoria Victrix]

Wellllllllll according to a french COH lover and blogger, Transgaming, who were responsible for the Mac versions of CoH, only just now, this week got orders to purge all copies of CoH server and source code in their possession from the heads of corporate.

So that's 2 months and six days for things to have....escaped.

Just sayin'.

[JaguarX]

Wellllllllll according to a french COH lover and blogger, Transgaming, who were responsible for the Mac versions of CoH, only just now, this week got orders to purge all copies of CoH server and source code in their possession from the heads of corporate.

So that's 2 months and six days for things to have....escaped.

Just sayin'.

That is good and maybe something may have or may have not somehow just so happened to slip through the cracks during that time period that may or may not make it into the "wrong" hands. I may or may not be happy if someone use it or dont use it to their advantage and or disadvantage.  :P

On the other hand they are fools for waiting that long. Whelp, the best offense against an adversary is not always trying to pummel them, sometimes it's just waiting until they make an idiotic mistake.

[Atlantea]

Wellllllllll according to a french COH lover and blogger, Transgaming, who were responsible for the Mac versions of CoH, only just now, this week got orders to purge all copies of CoH server and source code in their possession from the heads of corporate.

So that's 2 months and six days for things to have....escaped.

Just sayin'.

Ooooooh....

That's a LONG time for that barn door to be left swinging open!

Methinks that NCSoft completely forgot about "The French Connection" in this case. :D

[houtex]

Wellllllllll according to a french COH lover and blogger, Transgaming, who were responsible for the Mac versions of CoH, only just now, this week got orders to purge all copies of CoH server and source code in their possession from the heads of corporate.

So that's 2 months and six days for things to have....escaped.

Just sayin'.

Oooh...
*runs off to scour for a torrent file or 300...*

/no, not really.  I wouldn't know what to DO with it...
//Although just to have a shiny DVD or 20 hanging in a frame, "Here lies CoH Server code, hallowed be its source." Yeah, that'd be really nifty.

[Ironwolf]

I think some of our best men could find a way to make it work.

I dare say I could wing it and get something functioning but not get it all working without some help.

[Perfidus]

Wellllllllll according to a french COH lover and blogger, Transgaming, who were responsible for the Mac versions of CoH, only just now, this week got orders to purge all copies of CoH server and source code in their possession from the heads of corporate.

So that's 2 months and six days for things to have....escaped.

Just sayin'.

The (Nemesis) plot thickens.

[HarvesterOfEyes]

Oooh...
*runs off to scour for a torrent file or 300...*

/no, not really.  I wouldn't know what to DO with it...
//Although just to have a shiny DVD or 20 hanging in a frame, "Here lies CoH Server code, hallowed be its source." Yeah, that'd be really nifty.

I'm getting a sort of "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" visual of you now.

Ever been to Radio City Music Hall?

[RockLeeXIII]

There are so many things to distract , i was watching an anime and it reminded me of why i started playing COH ,
so i checked and saw the SEGS site up again this made me happy ...
reason why SEGS was down : http://segs.nemerle.eu/forumz/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004

i've started to learn coding but i'm no where close to being a dev :/
but
if we could get the word out to devs to help nemerle ... i mean any bit helps right :/

http://segs.nemerle.eu/forumz/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8009

he did say something funny in the post above :)
<quote=nemerle> Be warned though, most of the hopeful candidates took one look at our codebase and ran screaming ( at least I think so ) </quote>

[Noyjitat]

The segs forum is still a bit messed up. When I login I can't see any forums or post anywhere but when I logout I can see the old 2008 forums. Might be sometime before that's corrected.

[dwturducken]

I used to be able to program a bit, years ago, but it was just dinking around with BASIC when I was in high school. I'm in school to relearn, but I'm no where near able to create my own program, anymore. I kinda wish I'd gotten into one of the Plan Z projects (you know, not been scared pancakeless by my own knowledge gaps) as a learning exercise, just to see how a project like that goes together.

An old book that I have on game design (c. 2002) has interviews with a bunch of experts in the field, including, it turns out, General British, himself. One of the interviews is with members of the studio that made Red Faction. I played the game, years ago, and it didn't have nearly the depth of content that CoH did, plus they had to create their own engine. One of the senior programmers estimated that game at well over 300,000 lines of code. Given Positron's and War Witch's descriptions of how messy the code had become over the last dozen years, it certainly sounds like a daunting task.  I still say, though, that we likely have at least a half dozen people here who would be able to take the code in pieces and pick it apart. Given the part time nature of any project here, I have no illusions that it would be a quick project, but I'm game.