The Big Giant Icon Thread

[MWRuger]

CODEWALKER:


Quick question, I had some ideas about how to work around some server systems and I did a short write up.

I would prefer not to post it. It's long, a little technical and I don't want to engage in a public discussion of it's merits or goals. What's the best way to get this to you Codewalker? I am sure that you are buried in PM's and the like.  Contact me via PM and let me know the best way.

BTW, if it's utter crap, no worries. Just tell me so.

[Mantic]

As stated, bringing AE online is no different than server functionality in the open world.

But, assuming the communication packet formats have been deciphered, it strikes me that a "private server" could be much more powerful than AE without having to deal with AE's clunky in-game file transfer mechanism and other quirks. In a way, defining a new server model would free the game of many of the barriers that the Paragon team constantly ran into. All maps would be available. NPC placements could be specific, rather than procedural (not that procedural placements wouldn't be possible). With a new AI system entirely it would be possible to add pretty much any powers (even things that are completely unique to the character, combining FX and effects in different ways) and tweak the behavior accordingly.

I imagine using script files to configure such new NPCs and missions. All the hard limits imposed by AE would not be a factor, and content authors could create lots of new things by mixing and matching available elements in the client. For example, new NPCs could be defined to have new power effects, like costume change transformations linked to power activation like so many players did, or even complete attribute changes handled the same way (characters like the Incredible Hulk and Captain Marvel). New power effects such as growing/shrinking, etc. could be added because it's already technically possible with the available client functionality and the attribute changes would be defined in the server code (script).

To me, what seems the most daunting factor of creating a new server (beyond the grind-work of actually reverse engineering the client-server communication protocols) is recreating all the balanced content for levels 1-50 and beyond. After all, the only thing we have to reference is the records of that material on Paragon Wiki; all those NPCs, all those missions, were part of the server data. Plus, there are legal reasons not to even follow that model, and instead create only new content. Even with the limits imposed by AE, I know it was very difficult (!) to balance challenges for different levels; poor player response to low rewards made it all the worse. Without a complete reference to the numbers and AI of the original system, content authors will have to re-balance every bit of content they create or restore.

[BenshowSly]

You know, I read all posts on this topic and I admire everyone's ideas and Codewalker's work but I am kinda wondering if we are not maybe putting too much hope and expectations towards the ICON thing.

I don't mean that Codewalker wouldn't be able to make it work but I have a feeling that many people expect the complete game to be back when I think Codewalker made it clear it wouldn't be a revival of the game.

Or am I the one misunderstanding either people's perception or Codewalker's plans?

[Phaetan]

There may be some element of wishing that somehow a magic key will unlock the full game again with Icon, but mot of us realize that it isn't going to happen that way.

However, I'd offer three counterpoints:

• Icon itself started as a bit of a eureka moment unlocking the full costume creator unless I'm misremembering details.
• Presumably some of the things worked out for Icon will translate into usable knowledge for other projects.
• It's a very useful tool already and a nice balm for that itch to run around CoH once more; it keeps some of us busy and not despairing of playing our game again.

[BenshowSly]

Oh of course. I wish too to have that magic key opening too.

While I don't want to be the party killer or the hope destroyer here, I just want people to be aware fhat the full game won't come back. I wouldn't like to have CodeWalker having people upset at him because of that, after how hard he has worked on all of this.

And I wasn't sure to be honest how far people were wishing...

[Zombie Man]

It's a very useful tool already and a nice balm for that itch to run around CoH once more; it keeps some of us busy and not despairing of playing our game again.

You know, many folks have said how they played with the CC for hours. And how their kids, though too young to play the game, loved to run around in the game.

Well... here you go. Those itches can be scratched once more.

[Mantic]

The only way to "unlock the box" would be to get access to NCSoft's server files. Almost everything game-related was defined there. If a new server is developed, it will be doing everything differently, and any content it offers will have to be built, or rebuilt, from the ground up.

So, if the reverse engineering efforts make it possible for a new server to interact with the client, we will not get the City of Heroes we once played back that way. But it will be the beginning of something like City of Heroes 2. Hooking into the original client, using it's resources and control mechanisms, will make things feel very familiar. Beyond that, though, it will be a different game, with nothing but new content.

It's hard to decide whether to characterize that as a tragedy or a blessing... but if it ever gets to that point I expect I'll be leaning more toward the latter.

Icon would then be more of a development tool, because it isn't actually needed for the client to connect to a server.

[Triplash]

It's hard to decide whether to characterize that as a tragedy or a blessing...

The tragedy has already happened. Every step closer to playing it as a full-fledged game again is a blessing.

Maybe it will only be a shadow of its former self... or a mirror, or a clone, or whatever. But if Icon has taught me anything, it's that a small piece of this game is still better than all the others currently out there.

One thing I do feel completely positive about is this: with the chance to write much cleaner code from the start, and the opportunity to make changes and additions without a corporation overseeing direction or schedule, we're likely to see our fair city grow much faster and advance far beyond what it could have back when it "officially" existed.

Between tragedy or blessing, I know which one I'd call that.

[Tom_Neverwinter]

Just go work on S.E.G.S., have both a character creator / map viewer and a server emulator.
If you get a C&D so be it at least you tried.

[Illusionss]

Currently back up to 45 costumes saved on the CoH Beta Icon, with still more to go.

I pull up an appropriate screenie, recreate that costume, and I can actually zone in now.

Then I F1, type in where I want to go, and I go there [unless I made a mistake, in which case I go to what appears to be heaven.  ;)] Yesterday I visited a large mission map located at the pier in Warburg. I zone in with my new Mace Scrapper, who just happens to look exactly like my much-missed Bane Spider, and there is what appears to be all of Warburg laid out before me, with appropriate zone music. I honestly nearly cried.

I still miss this game to the tenth power. I think things would be so much harder without Icon, though. I am very grateful that it exists. These things can be hard to see, but being totally bereft would be so much worse.

[JanessaVR]

As I see it, we can have our cake and eat it too – if the new server is setup to read and display the contents of text files on the player's local PC.  The contents of these files wouldn't be trafficked over the server, so it's not distributing them – it's just invoking whatever's in them for display to the player on that local PC.  In this way, the server could consist of nothing but copyright-free dialogue, but would look like our old City of Heroes to us, if you've setup your text files correctly – and you can always trade them around with your friends.  :)

This could be a series of text files that look something like this:

cityzones.txt
Zone_Code   Official_Name      Player_Name
ZONE0001    "Central City"      "Atlas Park"
ZONE0002    "Factory City"      "Kings Row"
ZONE0003    "Jeweler's District"    "Steel Canyon"

factions.txt
Faction_Code   Official_Name      Player_Name
FACTION0001   "Fallen Angels"   "Hellions"
FACTION0002   "Gravediggers"   "Skulls"
FACTION0003   "Mutates"            "Lost"

npcs.txt
NPC_Code   Official_Name      Player_Name
NPC0001      "Mitzy Ditzy"       "Azuria"
NPC0002      "Super Tanker"   "Statesman"
NPC0003      "King Spider"      "Lord Recluse"


You could even do whole mission arcs this way.  Take a nice linear one, such as "The Origin of Power":


Canon Version

• Talk to Percy Winkley:    "Go take a history lesson on the origin of super powers.  Start with War Witch over there."
• Talk to War Witch:    "[talks about magic, then sends you to talk to Sister Psyche about mutants]"
• Talk to Sister Psyche:    "[talks about mutants, then sends you to talk to Positron about technology heroes]"
• Talk to Positron:    "[talks about technology, then sends you to talk to Synapse about science heroes]"
• Talk to Synapse:    "[talks about science, then sends you to talk to Manticore about natural heroes]"
• Talk to Manticore:    "[talks about natural heroes, then after a quick call to Percy, you're off to the actual mission]"
• Accept Mission:    "Stop the Circle of Thorns"

New Version

But, we have to avoid copyright infringement, so the new mission might look like this:

• Talk to "Kidnap Kid" (Percy):    "Hi, there!  Go see Fire & Ice."
• Talk to "Fire & Ice" (War Witch):    "Hi, there!  Go see Mind Witch."
• Talk to "Mind Witch" (Psyche):    "Hi, there!  Go see Techno-Knight."
• Talk to "Techno-Knight" (Positron):    "Hi, there!  Go see Dash About."
• Talk to "Dash About" (Synapse):    "Hi, there!  Go see Echidna."
• Talk to "Echidna" (Manticore):    "Hi, there!  Go on this mission."
• Accept Mission:    "Stop the Dark Possessed"  (if correctly configured on the player's PC, it instead reads as "Stop the Circle of Thorns" and all of the above dialogue would be substituted for the canon NPC responses as well)

All that's on the server is copyright-free dialogue.  But, if it finds text file MISSION_0001_DIALOGUE.txt on your PC, it will instead use that for the dialogue it displays to you alone on your local PC, and thus you can put the actual dialogue back in.


Or even, the Parody Version

Of course, nothing says you have to put the canon dialogue back in.  You could always put in all-new dialogue...

• Talk to "Kidnap Kid" (Percy):    "I have such a crush on War Witch!  Will you take her these flowers and chocolates?  She hangs out on that island over there."
• Talk to "Fire & Ice" (War Witch):    "That kid again?  [ditches flowers, keeps chocolates]  It's Sister Psyche who is my true love!  See if she's available for a date tonight?"
• Talk to "Mind Witch" (Psyche):    "War Witch?  I don't know, I'm kinda hot for Positron.  Here, take him this note."
• Talk to "Techno-Knight" (Positron):    "Sorry, don't swing that way.  Remind Synapse about our date tonight."
• Talk to "Dash About" (Synapse):    "Positron?  I am SO over him!  Manticore and I are going to a new underground club tonight.  Remind him, would you?"
• Talk to "Echidna" (Manticore):    "New club?  Oh, yeah, that.  Well, you see, this place is REALLY underground – as in like half a mile down, and there appear to be some party crashers.  Could you go clear them out?  What, you're busy?  Ok, fine, here's $20 bucks, now scoot."
• Accept Mission:    "Clear Out the Party Crashers Before Synapse and Manticore's Big Date"

If these capabilities can be put in place on the eventual Community Server, that would truly enable us to get our world back (one locally substituted bit at a time), in addition to all of the new content people came up with; and the game is already setup to read keybinds and window settings text files on the player's local PC, so that's proof of concept and program ability right there.  And, of course, AE, which really did store whole missions as a text file on your PC.

[batqueen]

I've got a question- could there be any way to turn on a Rikti green sky, or Zombie Invasion red sky? or is this something that will have to wait for the "compatible server"?

[TonyV]

I don't mean that Codewalker wouldn't be able to make it work but I have a feeling that many people expect the complete game to be back when I think Codewalker made it clear it wouldn't be a revival of the game.

Or am I the one misunderstanding either people's perception or Codewalker's plans?

Icon is a separate effort from the efforts to restore a complete game, but I think it was an important demonstration that Codewalker is intimately familiar with how the client works.  From that, I'm hoping that people imply that when we say that we have the APIs mapped out that it used to communicate with the server, while Icon isn't definitive proof of that statement, we're not just making stuff up.

Not that I'm accusing you of accusing us of making stuff up, but others have implied that recreating the server is beyond our capability.  While Icon isn't definitive proof that we'll be able to, I'm hoping that it's evidence of what we are capable of, and by extension, that it will give people who may be thinking "I don't know, it's been almost seven and a half months and they still haven't finished bringing the game back yet" a bit more faith in our efforts.  Aside from the fun of playing around with it and giving people access to commands that only developers had access to, it's intended to be a morale booster and a cool toy to play around with until we have something even cooler to show off.

[JanessaVR]

Well, Tony, I'm a programmer and what you said is in fact what I have inferred the state of our Community Server efforts to be.  Icon is both proof of concept and something to "keep us company" while we wait for a more advanced product - which its existence certainly proves the RE team is sufficiently knowledgeable to create.

[Illusionss]

I've got a question- could there be any way to turn on a Rikti green sky, or Zombie Invasion red sky? or is this something that will have to wait for the "compatible server"?

You know what I miss, is just plain old night. Altho those skies you mention would be nice too... I really liked that outdoor Halloween event one we got when the banners went up, that was the best night sky ever. I suspect these things are firmly server-side, tho.

Sometimes I just go to Night Ward for the sole purpose of being in the dark.

[Kyriani]

Icon is a separate effort from the efforts to restore a complete game, but I think it was an important demonstration that Codewalker is intimately familiar with how the client works.  From that, I'm hoping that people imply that when we say that we have the APIs mapped out that it used to communicate with the server, while Icon isn't definitive proof of that statement, we're not just making stuff up.

Not that I'm accusing you of accusing us of making stuff up, but others have implied that recreating the server is beyond our capability.  While Icon isn't definitive proof that we'll be able to, I'm hoping that it's evidence of what we are capable of, and by extension, that it will give people who may be thinking "I don't know, it's been almost seven and a half months and they still haven't finished bringing the game back yet" a bit more faith in our efforts.  Aside from the fun of playing around with it and giving people access to commands that only developers had access to, it's intended to be a morale booster and a cool toy to play around with until we have something even cooler to show off.

I just have to say Tony that posts like this are what REALLY boost my morale. Not hearing anything about progress on the actual game can leave many people wondering and pessimistic. When you talk about actual work still being done towards getting the client running again, THAT is what gives me hope!

[skippy7721]

Kyriani, what you said...when things go silent I think most of our hearts being to sink so even if Tony isn't really telling us much it's still HUGE for morale.

Thanks Tony!

[Tacitala]

• Talk to "Fire & Ice" (War Witch):    "That kid again?  [ditches flowers, keeps chocolates]  It's Sister Psyche who is my true love!  See if she's available for a date tonight?"

*Cough* If I remember right Sis P was replaced in that arc (and every other one...) by Penny Yin.  Of course War Witch/Penny Yin fan fic would be pretty popular.

[Mantic]

As I see it, we can have our cake and eat it too...

I think there's pretty good reason for the organization the game had originally, keeping the mission definitions on the server. First, it allowed the developers to work on those files, fixing typos, tweaking balance, and whatever else might be called for in response to live feedback, without needing to send updates to the client for it to work. Such fixes might even have been hot-swappable.

You also never want the client to be sending more than the barest information back to the server -- I/O and state verification should be the limit. Redundancy is already going to make that demanding when you have a lot of roving entities within view (CoH was originally optimized enough to play on dialup, but when roving NPC populations were ramped up in PI and elsewhere, it made dialup users choke, and even higher bandwidth players started experiencing rubber-banding more often in those zones as all those verification packets bottlenecked. A less optimized protocol would have made the game unplayable for even more people.

I also suspect AE missions were so limited in size more because the transfer methods used in updating them were very unstable than because Paragon didn't have storage space; this seemed to be verified by the larger mission files allowed later getting lost in transfer more often than not. Also, when the Paragon Market was created, though it was more reliable I believe it used a separate protocol, or at least a great deal more redundancy -- anyone paying attention would notice that activity in the market used exponentially more bandwidth in both directions than the game.


As for recreating original content and the legality of same, you might be surprised how limited the protections of parody and other obfuscation tend to be. An example: way back in the '80s Dave Sim did a parody of Marvel's Wolverine in his Cerebus comic-book. Marvel lawyers said "let it go, it's a parody." Then he brought the character back the next issue, and the next. With the fourth issue, Marvel's lawyers said: "now you're beyond parody; you're infringing." So ended Wolverine's appearances in the pages of Cerebus.

There's also just the hassle of doing the work. If the community has some obsessive-compulsive lore fans eager to do nothing but recreate what was already there, well... more power to them. But it might have to stay underground and off the radar more that way. I expect that creating new material will prove more attractive: it's easier when you're making it up than when you're trying to accurately copy something else, and less of a menial task than a creative endeavor.

All those old stories were the ego-driven creativity of the developers, and many of the characters were even their RP avatars. Who among the player base cares that much about those characters and stories, if given the opportunity to showcase their own ideas?

[BenshowSly]

Icon is a separate effort from the efforts to restore a complete game, but I think it was an important demonstration that Codewalker is intimately familiar with how the client works.  From that, I'm hoping that people imply that when we say that we have the APIs mapped out that it used to communicate with the server, while Icon isn't definitive proof of that statement, we're not just making stuff up.

Not that I'm accusing you of accusing us of making stuff up, but others have implied that recreating the server is beyond our capability.  While Icon isn't definitive proof that we'll be able to, I'm hoping that it's evidence of what we are capable of, and by extension, that it will give people who may be thinking "I don't know, it's been almost seven and a half months and they still haven't finished bringing the game back yet" a bit more faith in our efforts.  Aside from the fun of playing around with it and giving people access to commands that only developers had access to, it's intended to be a morale booster and a cool toy to play around with until we have something even cooler to show off.

I'm sorry. I guess my english is really rusted.  I didn't mean to imply that CodeWalker wasn't able to do it. I didn't mean to imply anything about his skills or anyone's. I'm personally happy with what Codewalker have done and he really impressed me (as well as everyone who might help him). I have lot of effort in what you are doing and what is done and what will be done. It's just that there are so many people seeing this as a revival of the game when I remember Codewalker to have told me in a reply somewhere that it wasn't an attempt to revive the game and not a question about him not being able to. I hope I'm clearer this time.

I just have to say Tony that posts like this are what REALLY boost my morale. Not hearing anything about progress on the actual game can leave many people wondering and pessimistic. When you talk about actual work still being done towards getting the client running again, THAT is what gives me hope!

And I'm sorry if I looked pessimistic. It wasn't my intention at all. I would give the same explanation that I gave on previous statement. Codewalker did say himself it wasn't an attempt to revive the game (unless, once again, I misunderstood what he meant at that moment). While I enjoy what CodeWalker is doing and while I myself am an user of the ICON, I just don't want people to get upset at him sooner or later for him not making the game working again as we know it (and yes, I do believe that if he wanted to, he would do it).

I don't want to take people's hope away. I just think we still have to keep his goals in mind. If he changed his goals in the meantime, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware. Like I said, my comment was mostly to keep people's mind clear because I saw lot of groups of people getting very excited about something and then, getting upset at people for not having what THEY wanted when the person gave them what he said he would give them in many different situations and I would truly feel sad if it would happen to CodeWalker and the others helping him.

Anyway, I hope there is no harm and you understand my intentions better now.