And the mask comes off.

[Codewalker]

I know this because the store traffic was also unencrypted.  Yes, the thing you could spend money on did not encrypt its data.  You couldn't even blame SSL for the speed of the store.

Say what? Then why did I spend all that time helping TonyV set up a SSL MITM proxy so that he could capture store traffic for... reasons?

(actually the reasons were to try to snag the item images for use on the wiki, but anyway)

Maybe it didn't at first, but by the end it was definitely using SSL. Now... that little adventure made it obvious that the in-game browser wasn't checking the validity of the SSL certificate's signer, leaving it easily vulnerable to man in the middle attacks. That's nearly as bad as not using SSL at all, though not entirely surprising given the security "measures" that the coh team typically employed.

Edit: Also, Playspan is the name of the company that provided the store. They had a contract with NCSoft for to monetize several of their games, and along with some clues in the client, the contract signing is what tipped me off to the microtransaction model nearly a year before they announced it.

[Burnt Toast]

Absolutely not. You cannot select a few "trusted" players etc etc. There are many EQUAL ways for everyone to give a surge to the economy and IO sets out there... such as giving X amount of merits to X amount of your first toons.... like 9,999 merits to your first 10 toons created on your account. No system that goes into effect should benefit a few off the bat and not everyone.

-With Sentinel not on the table, I think the potential new owners of the game should consider using the admin tools to instant level a number of trusted community members to 50 and kit them out so they can begin to float the AH economy, assist new players and in general round out the population so everyone isn't clustered in Atlas/Mercy/NP the first week.

[Shard]

Sorry just a quick question I'm sure it's been answered, what are the odds of getting open source from you guys after? Maybe a payable model, would be nice to play CoH/CoH1.5 on your own terms, plus it gets rid of the fear of it shutting down again. I'd be more than happy to pay even $200 for the ability to modify the 1.5 and develop more content.

Improbable to impossible barring Epic going OS with UE4.

[Arcana]

Say what? Then why did I spend all that time helping TonyV set up a SSL MITM proxy so that he could capture store traffic for... reasons?

(actually the reasons were to try to snag the item images for use on the wiki, but anyway)

Maybe it didn't at first, but by the end it was definitely using SSL. Now... that little adventure made it obvious that the in-game browser wasn't checking the validity of the SSL certificate's signer, leaving it easily vulnerable to man in the middle attacks. That's nearly as bad as not using SSL at all, though not entirely surprising given the security "measures" that the coh team typically employed.

They must have added that after launch, because I analyzed the store without SSL intercept.

I don't think any faults in the store are the fault of the Paragon team.  They outsourced development of the store to one of those MMO monetization companies, although at the moment I can't find my notes as to which one it was.


Edit: yes, that's the name; Playspan.  What really irked me was that the store we got didn't even look remotely as polished as the ones they claimed to have done on their website, which means either their marketing lied, or we got the C-team of implementers from the Philippines.

[Last Known Hero]

Improbable to impossible barring Epic going OS with UE4.

Well the team can actually OS their own code and leave the modder/content developer in charge of paying for their monthly license to UE4's source, this is confirmed by Unreal.

[FloatingFatMan]

This is where I'd like to see them take a page from CO's book. Anyone can use a name that is already taken, because you're identified by your global handle overall and it can optionally be shown in chat as well as your toon name.

So if your global was @Sinistar and mine was @LunaEclypse but we both wanted to name a character "Mr. Sassypants," We'd come up in chat as...

@Sinistar-Mr. Sassypants: LF2M for ITF!
@LunaEclypse-Mr. Sassypants: LOLZ same name but my pants are sassier!

That would require a modification to the game code. Not possible with the currently tabled deal.

[Shard]

Well the team can actually OS their own code and leave the modder/content developer in charge of paying for their monthly license to UE4's source, this is confirmed by UE4.

Assumes facts not in evidence. Hence improbable to impossible.

[FloatingFatMan]

Its impossible for NCSoft to give someone a read-only game.  The game doesn't work like that.  What people are talking about is the fact that without the game source code you can't easily make modifications to the game engine, and without all of the dev authoring tools and documentation it will be difficult to add new content to the game.

And as I mentioned above, the Freedom store was not actually part of the game: it was run as a separate service with a separate back end and a separate interface that was run in an embedded browser.  I think its all but impossible we're going to be getting that back.  But fortunately, any web developer with knowledge of PHP could probably write a better store in a weekend, minus things like item images and text descriptions.

We don't -want- the original store back! The New Overlords™ can make a new one. ;)

[Wammo]

Another day and a step closer to the moment I log in and take my defender to a team playing the sewers, hollows or some such...ah the thought makes Monday a little easier...

[FloatingFatMan]

Absolutely not. You cannot select a few "trusted" players etc etc. There are many EQUAL ways for everyone to give a surge to the economy and IO sets out there... such as giving X amount of merits to X amount of your first toons.... like 9,999 merits to your first 10 toons created on your account. No system that goes into effect should benefit a few off the bat and not everyone.

It's just a database... They can pack the store themselves with a few scripts.

[Last Known Hero]

Assumes facts not in evidence. Hence improbable to impossible.

What has been assumed?

[Shard]

What has been assumed?

That all assets we make use of will be relicensable to a third party/releasable to the world.  We're trying, but it is unwise to commit to anything other than "we're trying" at this juncture.

[KennonGL]

-With Sentinel not on the table, I think the potential new owners of the game should consider using the admin tools to instant level a number of trusted community members to 50 and kit them out so they can begin to float the AH economy, assist new players and in general round out the population so everyone isn't clustered in Atlas/Mercy/NP the first week.

I seriously doubt that would be needed. 

While it's true that things might be a bit "cramped" in AP, etc for a few days, I honestly doubt it will even be a week before some folks have new 50's.
There are plenty of folks who enjoy the power-level route and will be itching to get back to the top-end content.

I'm in no hurry though, heck it took me almost 3 years before I had my first 50 (amongst my many, many, alts).  One of my old forums sigs was "Over 2000 levels gained and only 1 level 50".

What I am interested in (not really concerned about, but definitely interested in) is how the auction house is going to shake out for awhile.

In the very beginning, there will be a distinct lack of resources.  After all, everyone is going to need all of their luck charms  . . .

Once the supply starts to actually build, then there's going to be a strong imbalance of Inf. available, since we won't have the many years of
"wealth redistribution" that occurred to empower the alts with Inf.

Normally, I'd sell the first few rare salvage and purples and such from each Alt (since I have enough supply squirreled away in my base for my needs)
which provided each Alt with it's base cash.  Now though, I'm not sure how I'd want to handle it...

[BadWolf]

-With Sentinel not on the table, I think the potential new owners of the game should consider using the admin tools to instant level a number of trusted community members to 50 and kit them out so they can begin to float the AH economy, assist new players and in general round out the population so everyone isn't clustered in Atlas/Mercy/NP the first week.

I don't think this is necessary. There will be people out there who can level themselves to fifty in less than a weekend; they don't need dev tools, just a day or two off of work and plenty of Mountain Dew. :)

[Harpospoke]

I would pay up to $100 bucks to get that back.. easily..

I might go that high too.   Would hope for something in the $50 range though.  I know it might be a pain to look up account info, so it's a task worth paying for.

[Surelle]

I might go that high too.   Would hope for something in the $50 range though.  I know it might be a pain to look up account info, so it's a task worth paying for.

If there's a reliable way to get account information then it should be given to everyone.  As it stands, it doesn't sound like it was backed up with a method easily organizable or perusable.

[Harpospoke]

And your response made me think of my new favorite song by Weird Al!

Ha!  I love that song!  (Don't use numbers for words...unless you are Prince)

It's amazing that Al is still so popular. (He just had his very first #1 album)  Gotta give him credit...apparently his humor is timeless.

[Harpospoke]

Restart + subscription fees + costs of things like the tech pack, science pack, mutation pack, super packs could well equal above $100.

Alternatively,  since Codewalker explained to me the problems with the Sentinel files: IF they could still be used to partially restore characters such as name, level, powers, IO slotting, the amount of inf on the character and all the salvage they have stored on them, that would be fine.  I would then happily head to the tailor shops to reload stored costume files,  and happily pursue the reacquisition of all the badges and rerun the incarnate arc and trials.

That would definitely be a time consuming task for someone....ergo worth paying for.

[FloatingFatMan]

That would definitely be a time consuming task for someone....ergo worth paying for.

Not.  Going.  To.  Happen.

[Harpospoke]

If anybody tried... folks would start selling Sentinel+ files of purpled-out 50's on Ebay.   Imagine the customer service nightmare when somebody sells multiple copies of the same character, and thus multiple folks insisting that the toon is 'theirs'.  And that's before the gold-farmer types decide to start hacking up fake 50's to sell.....

Two question immediately pop into my head:

1-Would that be very prevalent?   Sounds like a rare thing to me.   We are talking about a pretty small player base here.  The number of people from that already small number couldn't be much.   We often hear about how great the CoH playerbase is so if that's true, the number of players doing this couldn't be very large.   We can't make both claims.

2-I can't imagine many people would want to pay for a fake Sentinel file...then pay again to have it put into the game.  That's a double hit to the wallet.    We aren't talking about paying $10 for a billion influence here.