Why COH will not get a server emulator.

[General Idiot]

NCsoft would be foolish to state anything other than they are not interested in selling.

Fair point, but NCSoft hasn't exactly always been a paragon of smart business decisions. :p

[Lightslinger]

NCsoft would be foolish to state anything other than they are not interested in selling.  In this situation any business that has a viable product would take this position and wait for the list of possible buyers to surface in order to target a more accurate price point.  If they were to advertise their willingness to sell the potential price point for negotiations and leverage would be decreased.  IMO they will sell if the money is right no matter what they state or have stated.  TF Hail Mary is the prod to help these potential buyers surface and our voice that says we are here and ready to support this game if you can obtain it from NCsoft.  Like you said, "its worth a shot".

The best evidence NCsoft is not interested in selling CoH is the fact that it is currently shelved. CoH was worth much, much, MUCH more when it was an active game with a paying playerbase. Now it is basically an IP, some code & art assets, and a dead game with a scattered playerbase. Of course it could be rebuilt, but not without substantial work.

If NCsoft wanted to sell they would have put the game in maintenance mode and started taking bids while it still had players. TF Hail Mary absolutely is worth a shot, I'm not arguing against that at all. I was just rebutting the idea that we shouldn't shoot for an i23 private server because it might scare off an imaginary buyer.

[r00tb0ySlim]

The best evidence NCsoft is not interested in selling CoH is the fact that it is currently shelved. CoH was worth much, much, MUCH more when it was an active game with a paying playerbase. Now it is basically an IP, some code & art assets, and a dead game with a scattered playerbase. Of course it could be rebuilt, but not without substantial work.

If NCsoft wanted to sell they would have put the game in maintenance mode and started taking bids while it still had players. TF Hail Mary absolutely is worth a shot, I'm not arguing against that at all. I was just rebutting the idea that we shouldn't shoot for an i23 private server because it might scare off an imaginary buyer.

Understood; however, the IP has value to any potential buyer(s) that would like to build the title. The player base is scattered, but marketing should bring them back.  Heck, if the consensus is the player base has scattered with little probability of returning then there will be no potential buyer(s).  It's simple business and we move on to our other options.  This avenue needs to be exhausted, but I understand what you are saying.  Things that have been put on shelves can always be taken back off...needs a little dusting though.

Fair point, but NCSoft hasn't exactly always been a paragon of smart business decisions. :p

True.  Let's hope the old saying "money talks" is practiced globally.  There is only one way to find out....

[Ironwolf]

I disagree - there was apparently some contracts tied to the game that left NCSoft open to a possible liability until the game was closed.

Once closed those disappeared. The game was worth more open - but also has potential liabilities worth more as well.

[Thunder Glove]

Well, It might be good for some of you old timers. That is understandable.

But I would venture to guess that not everyone in the community that want COH back started playing at Day One.  In fact, I would venture to guess that, while there may be a lot of you, there's probably just as many that started playing at different times through the history of COH (though I admit that I am beginning to feel like the Newbie here since I started only a couple of years before the shut down)

For those that joined later, those early Issues do not depict the game that we came to know and love (and got addicted to...still trying to figure out how that happened after only a single trial period...kids...let this be a lesson...Yes..you can get addicted from trying it just once!)

I truly admire what SEGS has done. And I am sure that there will be many who want COH back...in whatever form.  I'm just not one of them.  I'll give SEGS kudos for getting SOMETHING up.....but I'll pass.

I'm sort of in this boat.  I started at issue 17, a couple of weeks before I18 was released.  (In fact, because there was no Mac version until early 2009, the earliest I could have gotten in was Issue 13 or 14)   My favorite three classes are Brutes, Masterminds, and Dominators, so I can't recreate any of my favorite characters.  A lot of my favorite powersets didn't exist, either (Electric Melee, most notably).  I'd miss all the QoL improvements that were added to the game just in the two years I was there, let alone the nearly eight years between I3 and I23.

... that said, I'd still love to play it again, even I3 (even if only to see first-hand how far the game had come by the time I started), once there's something to play (rather than just look at) — assuming, of course, that I can even get the I3 client working on my Mac.  Heck, I'm already putting characters together in my head based only on what was available in I3 (Looking at a Grav/Storm Controller, first off...)

[Kyriani]

I hope that once they get it working with the old COH they can somehow make it work with new COH... but why they are working with an older client in the first place I don't understand.

Is the newer client really so much different from the older one that its not compatible with segs?

[nemerle]

Is the newer client really so much different from the older one that its not compatible with segs?

Well, the size of old client's exe ~3.7MB, the last one was around 8MB I think, so there is a large difference between them.

Switching to a new client version would be basically discarding large amounts of binary sleuthing. Since the amount of resources that can be brought to bear on the project is still very much limited to the free time I can scrounge, it does not look logical to drop everything just to work on I24.

I hope that once they get it working with the old COH they can somehow make it work with new COH...

If, there's no other alternative server at the time, then it's likely we will start on updating the supported client towards the last client version.. but that's in far off  future.

but why they are working with an older client in the first place I don't understand.

That's because segs needed a stable client code base to work from, and at the time new versions were released every 3-4 weeks.

[Lightslinger]

I hope that once they get it working with the old COH they can somehow make it work with new COH... but why they are working with an older client in the first place I don't understand.

Is the newer client really so much different from the older one that its not compatible with segs?

I'm pretty sure each "system" the game introduced all the way could very, very much complicate coding. I can imagine adding the auction house and invention systems would be hard to work with and that's just Issue 9. Also nemerle has been working on this for years now, I think 5 years if I'm not mistaken. So Issue 3 wasn't nearly as old when he started working on this.

[Ironwolf]

Simplicity as well.

The game in issue 3/4 was far easier to copy - Io's only, 6 slotting all powers, less costumes and other things that would make it a sensible start. By the time you are into a seperate auction house (and how to implement that on the same/seperate server) the addition of IO's, salvage, multiple currencies and 3 seperate worlds including buggy i24 code...........it is easy to understand why we need to learn to fly first.

[saipaman]

I don't see a private server as a hindrance to anyone buying the game -- rather it would be actual proof that people want to continue playing the game.

Plus, a working private server provides at least a partial working code base to move forward from in case NCSoft trashed everything after the shutdown.

[Arcana]

Is the newer client really so much different from the older one that its not compatible with segs?

The newer clients weren't even compatible with older versions of the actual official servers.

[Kyriani]

Well /sadface from me to all your replies :(

I hope one day we can have a working server with the up to date coh... but I'll be happy if the current segs progresses... its the only ray of hope I've seen to get real COH back in some way.

I wish I was a smarter techy type person who understood all this code stuff. Time I have in abundance... the skill to do whats needed for this project, not so much.

If you segs people just have leg work that needs doing that doesn't actually require someone to understand what the hell they are looking at or can give a newbie a crash course in coding I have virtually every hour of every day available and nothing particularly vital to devote that time to. If you can find a way to use my time I am happy to offer it. (I'm 37, disabled, and have at least enough computer knowledge to build my own machine from parts purchased online to give you some idea of what you'd be working with)

[r00tb0ySlim]

If you segs people just have leg work that needs doing that doesn't actually require someone to understand what the hell they are looking at or can give a newbie a crash course in coding I have virtually every hour of every day available and nothing particularly vital to devote that time to. If you can find a way to use my time I am happy to offer it. (I'm 37, disabled, and have at least enough computer knowledge to build my own machine from parts purchased online to give you some idea of what you'd be working with)

This.  The devotion expressed in this paragraph is awesome.  Great community.  Great Game.  Nice Kyriani!! 

[Nebularian]

Hmmmm.   Think I oughta jump in here one last time to clarify my position.

I FULLY appreciate the effort to give the community SOMETHING. The SEGS people (or person) deserve major Kudos for what has been done and what might be done in the future.

Just because I cannot get into such an early version of the game does not mean it is a waste of time...it is just a personal preference.   Do I wish they had a newer version?  Of course.  But that does not mean that I cannot appreciate the effort that has gone into something like this...and it does not mean that I cannot be happy for those that WILL enjoy playing such an early version of the game (when it is actually "playable", that is  ;D)  I am happy for them..(and a bit envious LOL).  I'll simply have to wait until something I CAN get into comes along....that's all there is to it.

Again...Kudos to SEGS.

[Ironwolf]

Again folks understand the SEGS intro with Issue 3/4 is because the game was simple and very stable. Issue 2 had lag spikes that would literally rubber band you 500 yards.

Issue 3/4 allow respecs and have very simple requirements. Understand you would have dumpster diving, herding an entire map, no aggro cap, no damage cap - in other words blasters can nuke an entire herd.

This was the games peak time a step back to when the world was new and heroes strode through the land like gods.

[Arcana]

Again folks understand the SEGS intro with Issue 3/4 is because the game was simple and very stable. Issue 2 had lag spikes that would literally rubber band you 500 yards.

Issue 3/4 allow respecs and have very simple requirements. Understand you would have dumpster diving, herding an entire map, no aggro cap, no damage cap - in other words blasters can nuke an entire herd.

This was the games peak time a step back to when the world was new and heroes strode through the land like gods.

As far as I know SEGS is based on Issue 3 because that's when the project started, plus or minus, and trying to support anything newer than that would have been trying to aim for a moving target for the developer(s) of SEGS, which they did not have the time or resources for.  Its basically a coincidence of timing.  If the project had started later, it could have easily been based on I6, or I9.

Keep in mind SEGS is a reverse-engineering project started when we were still using Brawl numbers and we barely had a good theory for accuracy.  It was less a re-engineering of the servers, of which we had virtually no idea how they worked, and more a project to figure out what the client even need to run.  The project didn't target I3 because of any specific love of I3 data, if for no other reason than we didn't then (and don't even now) have I3 data.  SEGS was eventually going to have to make up the back end mechanics of the game because even today we do not have that data in any form except anecdotal.

However, there are certain things "baked into" Issue 3 that would be very difficult to tamper with.  For example, SEGS could make Flares do I24 damage rather than I3 damage because we'd have to make that up either way.  But it would be a lot harder for SEGS to make Flares activate with I24 timing than I3 timing, because the I3 client has an animation for Flares that would not be trivial to change.  Well, you could change it, but to do that power-system wide for all the powers would be a lot of work.  And customization would be basically impossible without essentially rewriting the client.