New efforts!

[Felderburg]

I had a 20+ level 50's who were maxed with Purples and PVP IOs... each toon worth billions of inf.

I had (at last count) over 72 mules each carrying 2 billion influence

:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

[hufish]

OK since everyone else has clarified what I thought was already pretty clear (my stance/personal wishes). Here is what I want... for me... yep for me I am greedy.


I would love it if the game came back and I had all my stuff. I had a 20+ level 50's who were maxed with Purples and PVP IOs... each toon worth billions of inf.


I had (at last count) over 72 mules each carrying 2 billion influence on servers I never played on....


My main toon had slightly over 1000 badges including MO of every TF and trial that ya could MO (It took me around 15 times to get the fricking AVOIDS GREEN STUFF badge to get my MO Keyes).


Do I want my stuff back.. ABSOLUTELY! But... you know what I want back more than all those billions and badges.. City of Heroes.


So IF it comes back and IF I have to start as a blank slate.. YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I could care less about the badges and influence and everything else.... I JUST want my game back any way I can get it.
If it comes back and I have my toons, inf, badges, SG and all my base had... WOOT WOOT WOOT MOFO WOOT!


Now.. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.


If we get the game back and we start with a clean slate of no character information.. I would hope that more people wouldn't be in a huge rush to get to 50 right away and we as a community could enjoy the game more from 1 to 50... revisiting those arcs that maybe we never did or ones we have fond memories of doing a few years ago (I love Frostfire and Atta). There's a lot I miss about CoH... everything from DfB to BAF. I loved the incarnate system which is why both of my main accounts at close were VIP. I could have easily went freemium, but the incarnate system and maxing my toons out was one of the best parts of the game for me. If we start with a clean slate.. I will probably only do the 1 to 50 "grind" on my main toon and simply power level the other ones so that I can enjoy the end game on those as well.


This is my wish... I am not thinking of you...or you..or you... I just want my game back... any way I can get it. If we get it with everything...I will probably think of a new toon to make and experience the game all over from 1 to 50 if I can find like minded people who are wanting to do the same thing; because I LOATHE soloing. Whenever I farmed people...I had one rule...they had to interact with me..talk to me and keep me company while I got them from 1 to 50 in 5 or 6 hours hehe.


Anyways.. . I hope that clears up what I want.... Thanks to those (who do not even know me...) for defending me and clarifying my personal wishes...while I wasn't here :)


*** The bad part.... I uninstalled CoH and have absolutely no idea what my usernames were (I had 3 accounts..one was just a free account).


(edited for a typo)

Dude...if we get our accounts back, and if you remember your usernames...can I get a loan? :D

[Mistress Urd]

A true gimp build is a defender who has nothing but healing powers, forgot to even take fortitude, has only one attack so that "He'll never miss a heal", also has medicine too, and a bunch of extra travel powers.

You know this reminds me of a friend's empath defender. had only two powers, healing aura and rez. He had every blast power and said area heal and rez were all you need.

[Fanta]

We'll be at page 1000 in a couple of weeks at the current rate (with default page view settings).

It may, but I started reading this thread back in the middle of May, we really haven't had any new news to speak of. Ironwolf is doing his best with what he gets, but with things as they are, he's limited. What's been keeping this thread going is new people bringing up the same stuff over and over. This is the speculation thread! Have fun with it :D

[LaughingAlex]

You know this reminds me of a friend's empath defender. had only two powers, healing aura and rez. He had every blast power and said area heal and rez were all you need.

In solo perhaps as thats the solo- oh I see rez, eh but in a team, I wouldn't want an empath without fortitude.  I question how hard your enemies were if healing was all you needed at the time though.  Because enemy damage was usually high and bursty when I played to insta-kill people who had no mitigation layers.

[Mistress Urd]

In solo perhaps as thats the solo- oh I see rez, eh but in a team, I wouldn't want an empath without fortitude.  I question how hard your enemies were if healing was all you needed at the time though.  Because enemy damage was usually high and bursty when I played to insta-kill people who had no mitigation layers.

If you were wondering, he played the emp defender like a blaster only used the area heal to heal himself and used rez to heal dead teammates.

[Ironwolf]

It may, but I started reading this thread back in the middle of May, we really haven't had any new news to speak of. Ironwolf is doing his best with what he gets, but with things as they are, he's limited. What's been keeping this thread going is new people bringing up the same stuff over and over. This is the speculation thread! Have fun with it :D

The timeline really tells what we currently have as hard news. It is really simple it is just all the slow steps to get there.

1. Team is interested in buying the game.
2. They get a contact on the inside.
3. They make an offer.
4. Basic steps and hurdles are clear.
5. In the hands of the man with the final signature and working out the deal.

That's it in a nutshell it is just the ride to get here that is exciting. We went from dead in the water to alive and kicking. We also found we have a lot of friends out there who know of us and really want us to succeed. While it has been fairly simple the steps to get there have been anything but simple. I try to answer the speculation and direct the chat to stay positive. It really does no good to be reflecting bad feeling towards NCSoft or anyone else at this stage. Once it is done the Devs will step up and get to answer the flood! Most likely they will get their PR person to do it :)

[LaughingAlex]

If you were wondering, he played the emp defender like a blaster only used the area heal to heal himself and used rez to heal dead teammates.

Ooooook...............

[gypsyav]

If you were wondering, he played the emp defender like a blaster only used the area heal to heal himself and used rez to heal dead teammates.

A lot of people think if you're not doing damage on a team you're not worth having. That was one of the things I liked about CoH, every power combo was useful in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing.

[Codewalker]

If you were wondering, he played the emp defender like a blaster only used the area heal to heal himself and used rez to heal dead teammates.

And didn't even take Recovery Aura...?

I guess if you didn't take any of the other powers, chances are your teammates have low HP and you're getting an endurance discount from Vigilance often, but still.

[LaughingAlex]

And didn't even take Recovery Aura...?

I guess if you didn't take any of the other powers, chances are your teammates have low HP and you're getting an endurance discount from Vigilance often, but still.

My thoughts are less low hp and more just flat out being dead and having to be rezed all the time.  I teamed with such players and generally everything rided exclusively on the tank, a single ambush was all it took to wipe such teams, even-level enemies even had an easy time wiping such groups.  Alpha strikes were nothing to really kid around with every strategy I came up with was accounting for that and extra mobs, and there were hundreds of those.  Funny thing was the holy trinity was the only tactic that couldn't deal with a changing situation(like a greek phalanx couldn't).

[Kaos Arcanna]

Okay, I have a question.


If it's going to take the New Devs 6-12 months to reverse engineer the game from the image if the sale goes through, would they be better served just recreating COH in the Unreal Engine to start with?

[adarict]

Whilst not impossible, I really can't see any reason why they wouldn't want to sell the source too when there's someone who really wants to buy it.

It's not like it's any use to them, and they'd hardly need it as a future bargaining chip when they can just bargain NOW for it...

Well, I can see another reason for withholding the source.  Has nothing to do with whether it is of use to them or not.  It is possible that, being as there would be a LOT of code, there could be items in that code that they would not like to be made public.  Ignoring the possible comments devs could have left in the code, it could very well give away information specific to their datacenter.  I assume even a game company would need to pass audits like SAS70 or something similar.  In many of those cases, information regarding the internal architecture of a datacenter is not allowed to be disseminated.  Cleaning up the code to redact anything that might get them in trouble, could be seen as far too much trouble than it was worth to NCSoft.

I don't have any idea, and Ironwolf HAS been pretty clear that all he has is a vague response about it.  Like I said before, it was mostly just one of those curiosity things.  I'm always interested in how other companies work.  :)

[Fanta]

Well, I can see another reason for withholding the source.  Has nothing to do with whether it is of use to them or not.  It is possible that, being as there would be a LOT of code, there could be items in that code that they would not like to be made public.  Ignoring the possible comments devs could have left in the code, it could very well give away information specific to their datacenter.  I assume even a game company would need to pass audits like SAS70 or something similar.  In many of those cases, information regarding the internal architecture of a datacenter is not allowed to be disseminated.  Cleaning up the code to redact anything that might get them in trouble, could be seen as far too much trouble than it was worth to NCSoft.

I don't have any idea, and Ironwolf HAS been pretty clear that all he has is a vague response about it.  Like I said before, it was mostly just one of those curiosity things.  I'm always interested in how other companies work.  :)

Wouldn't it be much easier to put an NDA in the purchase that would cover all code that could harm NCsoft?

[Brightfires]

I did manage to make one in the second or third edition of MnM. There's a power that for the cost of a handful of points will let you essentially create a second or third or eighth form using all the points NOT put into that power.

I may have to try it as a multiform in the Champions RPG... I don't even want to think about how many points it would end up costing to do it well, but I'm sure it's possible.

[Serpine]

If it's going to take the New Devs 6-12 months to reverse engineer the game from the image if the sale goes through, would they be better served just recreating COH in the Unreal Engine to start with?

Well, if its going to take 2-3 times that long to recreate the game altogether in a new engine, taking the initial time to get the original game working (and bringing in players/money) makes sense. A lot of the required components (account handler, storefront, tools for modifying and extracting the old content) that would likely have to be created would probably be able to be repurposed for use in a CoH2 rebuild so it wouldn't even be that much wasted effort, conceptually.

[Azrael]

To me, "not available" is a way of sugarcoating "We have it but are not going to even discuss giving it to you."

If that is the case, depending on how the contract is written, the mystery buyers might be forbidden from using it even if a copy were to surface from someone else.

Hmm.  Long silver spoons...

Ironwolf's first post on the subject was that the code and/or character data "might not be available". While it's a subtle distinction, that phrasing doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as not having it.

Quite so...

Azrael.

[adarict]

Wouldn't it be much easier to put an NDA in the purchase that would cover all code that could harm NCsoft?

Stop trying to use "logic" when discussing corporate entities.  :)

Also, the NDA doesn't always cover you for certain type of audits.  Again, the company I work for has to follow some more strict audits than other companies due to what information we have, but there are at least 2 certifications that require us to actually redact information from any documentation regarding our infrastructure.  NDA isn't enough.  In such a situation, leaving that information in the code, could cause NCSoft to lose their certification for their entire datacenter, theoretically killing any games being run from that same datacenter.

Mostly this is just an intellectual exercise.  I have no idea whether such a situation could happen for a game company.  I don't know their requirements or anything. 

[Luna Eclypse]

Well, since we're still having these feel good talks about our time with the game, I have a few questions I'd like views and opinions on.

Did any of you ever try a Super Reflexes Tanker and what was it like?
Never thought to try it back then and now it's intriguing me as I reminisce. I always felt the set was pretty broken in execution but I made the effort to get a Claw/SR Scrapper to 50 to prove that I did it, especially to one of my friends that loved it and enjoyed bantering back and forth about it.

And...

Does anyone remember what scaling passive buff or debuff quality was added late in the game's life to Super Reflexes?
I am having the damnedest time trying to remember. Was it a To-Hit Debuff on the mobs? A +DEF buff on you?

[FourSpeed]

As always, Thanks Ironwolf for keeping us in the loop, and of course Thanks to the mystery
folks behind the curtain for continuing to plug away at this deal. My Hopes are with you on it.

wrt to Source Code, there are any number of (semi) reasonable situations where it's "not available".

1> They *do* have it, but perhaps it contains proprietary tech/trade secrets and methods
that they use in other products which they'd rather not share (ie. encryption methods,
handshaking protocols, etc.)

2> They *do* have it, but they're using it as a bargaining chip in the negotiations.

3> They *might* have it, but nobody can remember where in heck it is...  (We've all read the
stories of lost paintings, documents, movie reels and whatnot showing up in some broom closet
somewhere 20 years down the road)

4> They *don't* have it... Tapes fail eventually, or they get lost, dropped, stepped on etc.
(You folks that have put in any datacenter time know what I'm talking about here)   ;)

5> They *don't* have it.  Backups are *expensive* for large companies over time - All of
them have "retention periods" - ie. after X time passes (where X is related to what content is
on the tape), the backup tapes are wiped and reused. For a game they may have *never*
expected to revive, this strikes me as one of the liklier possibilities.

6> The old adage: "Never attribute to malice that which can be achieved through
incompetence, negligence, or plain bad luck" -- Sh*t does happen from time to time.

In my decades of IT employment, I can recall a couple times (on mainframe systems) where
the source code *was* actually, and truly lost. The loadlib (ie. run image) was there, so it
could still be used, but the source was gone.  It's quite rare, but it does happen.

From a personal experience, I have no less than 3 socket sets in the garage - but I cannot
find a ratchet for them anywhere - I have NO idea how *that* happened, but there ya go...

(Of course, that last one could just be me being a moron, but I doubt I've got the market
cornered on that score...)    ;D

Regards,
4


PS>  At the rate this thread is ballooning, my *earliest* guess for a "we got it" announcement
would be page .... 627   :)