The Shot Heard Around Paragon City - SCORE Public Release

[Taceus Jiwede]

I'm going to be as gentle as I can with this, but I just wanted to second the notion that I think we need to acknowledge and get some sort of comment on some of the nasty behavior that's went on before the reveal. Stuff like the aforementioned gaslighting and lying. Not to mention the numerous people driven out of various coh communities, some here, the subreddit, the Facebook etc when people started getting close to finding out about score and what they were doing.

People were laughed out. Pushed out. Treated like flat earther big foot believer Alex Jones conspiracy nuts for believing in something that ended up being completely true. Regardless of whether anyone thinks that hiding the truth was required or not, I think there needs to be some apologies given to the people that were excluded and ruined for getting close to the truth.

This is one reason I feel so dumb.  I was one of those "no way just a crazy theory you whacko" people because I was being told it was impossible. Turns out it was very much so possible but I was being told otherwise by some members of the community that were saying they had the best interest of CoH at heart, and the knowledge to back it up.  There are a lot of very active, and popular, members of this community who I am now wondering "Were they in the know?" They had the knowledge, the connections, and the discretion to get an invite.  I am not accusing anyone or interested in naming anyone because I wouldn't even know where to begin and it doesn't really matter anyway. I don't blame them for keeping their lips sealed.

I just have a lot of questions that I don't think will be answered.  Discretion is the smartest option for anyone in the know and involved right now, and the rest of us can only speculate.

[saipaman]

Massively OP's special edition podcast on our topic of the day:

https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/17/massively-op-podcast-episode-217-city-of-heroes-after-dark/

[Ice Trix]

If I were to guess its because this is the most likely place people on this forum will know to look.  This post eventually became "official unofficial general discussion channel"  I imagine to prevent multiple threads from popping up, it was easiest to direct even who to the most popular, and commonly read the thread.

Well, you have to guess, as the mods keep deleting it. Almost like they don't want people pointing out that a five year thread with 1000+ pages of unrelated content is about the least visible place.

Anyone doubting censorship isn't paying attention.

[weenus]

Well, you have to guess, as the mods keep deleting it. Almost like they don't want people pointing out that a five year thread with 1000+ pages of unrelated content is about the least visible place.

Anyone doubting censorship isn't paying attention.

It's not really the mods fault that the discussion landed here in the first place, that comes down to the first few posters who brought it into this thread and kick the discussion off in here.

Quarantining a large topic like this is fairly common, or else you just let it turn into complete unmitigated anarchy, similar to the subreddit currently. They let it stay on this topic because this one had the most activity on the discussion at that time. I suppose they could all move it to one super thread or something but that would be a lot of tedious work to migrate 3 days of discussion onto a new thread, I'd think.

[Ice Trix]

It's not really the mods fault that the discussion landed here in the first place, that comes down to the first few posters who brought it into this thread and kick the discussion off in here.

Quarantining a large topic like this is fairly common, or else you just let it turn into complete unmitigated anarchy, similar to the subreddit currently. They let it stay on this topic because this one had the most activity on the discussion at that time. I suppose they could all move it to one super thread or something but that would be a lot of tedious work to migrate 3 days of discussion onto a new thread, I'd think.

It really wouldnt have been difficult to close this discussion rather than the "https://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=13277.0" which was started within minutes of this thread taking off with the issue.

Even if it hadn't, it's standard forum stuff to make a mega thread if needed. Without need to move threads/posts. Or without the need to delete posts of why it should be elsewhere.

This is biggest news in City of Heroes fandom for years, and cohtitan relegates it to a back water thread.

[Crimsanotic]

It's not really the mods fault that the discussion landed here in the first place, that comes down to the first few posters who brought it into this thread and kick the discussion off in here.

Yes it is. They told people to post in this thread lmao

[weenus]

Yes it is. They told people to post in this thread lmao

The post on this thread about the subject predates the mods directing people here,though, only by about 20 minutes to be fair.

[saipaman]

Massively OP's special edition podcast on our topic of the day:

https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/17/massively-op-podcast-episode-217-city-of-heroes-after-dark/

That was entertaining but  I disagree with the show's opinion that there is no path to redemption for the SCORE team within the CoX community.  Just hearing that statement makes me feel ashamed for all of us.

[Felderburg]

They have had the server working for at least 6 years.

This is necessarily at you per se, Ironwolf, just you're the most recent to use the 6 year term. I'm not confident that they had it running in the state it's in for 6 years... Several, to be sure, but what I'm seeing is that it was *started* 6 years ago, and did take at least a little bit of time to be playable.

Can you imagine a world without Van Gogh? Isaac Asimov? Harry Freaking Dresden?

??? You just included Harry Dresden on a list to be equal with Van Gogh and Asimov... I now have some serious concerns about your state of mind.

Edit: Due to the migration of posts from "New Efforts" to this thread, the quotes above no longer link properly. But they are unmodified, and the originals can be found in this thread (I don't want to put the effort in right now).

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

It would be easier listing raids that werent laggy tbh

i did at least three dozen Mothership Raids on two servers and so far i'm up to approximately...
Let's see, carry the one and add three...
zero.

[undeadsuits]

That was entertaining but  I disagree with the show's opinion that there is no path to redemption for the SCORE team within the CoX community.  Just hearing that statement makes me feel ashamed for all of us.

Why? They lied, shamed and gas lighted us for up to 6 years. I don't think it's a stretch to claim the score users have an uphill climb ahead of them to regain everyone's trust. Trust that we can at least agree they've broken.

[Taceus Jiwede]

That was entertaining but  I disagree with the show's opinion that there is no path to redemption for the SCORE team within the CoX community.  Just hearing that statement makes me feel ashamed for all of us.

It certainly will take some time to get over, and trust will likely never be there again.  I mean I can't help but be a little upset when I think of all the times I missed CoH and it was actually playable somewhere in secret.

[Ironwolf]

This is necessarily at you per se, Ironwolf, just you're the most recent to use the 6 year term. I'm not confident that they had it running in the state it's in for 6 years... Several, to be sure, but what I'm seeing is that it was *started* 6 years ago, and did take at least a little bit of time to be playable.

??? You just included Harry Dresden on a list to be equal with Van Gogh and Asimov... I now have some serious concerns about your state of mind.

If you read the comments after the podcast Bree logged into the server in 2013. She never played on it but Leondro showed her what they were doing. I can easily guess who was doing what on the development side, I am sure all of you can as well.

[Felderburg]

If you read the comments after the podcast Bree logged into the server in 2013. She never played on it but Leondro showed her what they were doing. I can easily guess who was doing what on the development side, I am sure all of you can as well.

Yeah, I read that after my comment. Fortunately I dodged the incoming egg, but now I've gotta clean up my wall.

Edit: Due to the migration of posts from "New Efforts" to this thread, the quote above no longer links properly. But it is unmodified, and the original can be found in this thread (I don't want to put the effort in right now).

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

It really wouldnt have been difficult to close this discussion rather than the "https://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=13277.0" which was started within minutes of this thread taking off with the issue.

Even if it hadn't, it's standard forum stuff to make a mega thread if needed. Without need to move threads/posts. Or without the need to delete posts of why it should be elsewhere.

This is biggest news in City of Heroes fandom for years, and cohtitan relegates it to a back water thread.

This has been the primary thread for discussing matters related to playing CoH again since the official servers were shut down. When i check into the forums to look for news it's the first thread i look at. In my opinion your definition of backwater needs work since this thread is no more of a backwater than the rest of the Titan Network. Which it is to a certain extent since its focus is on an MMO that was shut down years ago, and until recently with no known private/emulated servers.


i'd certainly like to see the server code made more widely available, and while i will concede that some of Leandro's "explanation" (basically "oh we were planning to let more people know about it any week now, yup any week, but you all had to go and ruin it") is at the least extremely reminiscent of gaslighting behavior i'm still hoping that *someone* will release it somewhere accessible. At this point i've sort of given up on CoH being purchased from NCsoft since i'm guessing it helps to pad out their soft manger full of mothballed games, and many other *running* MMOs (such as WoW, and including a fair number of Korean MMOs) have unofficial private servers running. i've watched a variety of MMO recommendation videos on Youtube that actually specifically direct people on how to locate these game servers to play them, but i guess most other publishers are less aggressively, vindictively litigious than NCsoft. Even Blizzard is more tolerant.

[Tubbius]

To know that folks might have been playing as my Tubbius or Waddle the Penguin or been having occasional fun with some of my Architect PENGUIN levels. . . Sigh. :-\

At least someone could have been enjoying my hard work, I guess.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

until recently with no known private/emulated servers.

Oh, and i'm not trying to disparage the work of the SEGS people, they've made impressive progress, especially recently, but they're still a ways from having a working server with all the basic functionality needed to be a superhero MMO.

[Zombie Man]

I don't believe it would have ever been released a quote from the Reddit Mole:

The policy was in place from at least 2013. Please be careful about assigning malice to these policies. We are talking about people willing to risk their personal freedom to keep the world alive and maintaining strict secrecy with harsh consequences was just how it had to be done in their minds. I hope these answers satisfy for now.

They were justifying themselves for 6 years that it was the only way to keep "their" home - not OUR home.

Uhh.... What you're quoting from "the mole" as an indictment of Leo is actually exonerating. Here is someone who stopped being involved with this project because they objected to the secrecy and to Leo's policy say this:

"Please be careful about assigning malice to these policies."

He disagreed with that policy and yet, doesn't think it came from bad intentions.

But this goes to my earlier point with people taking "evidence" in the worst possible reading rather than any benefit of the doubt.

People kept a secret and it gets called "gaslighting." Yeah, people keeping a secret will lie about it. It's called keeping a secret. "Gaslighting" is intentionally fooling someone to drive them crazy. Calling what SCoRE did 'gaslighting' is despicable in imputing such malign intentions.

In a leaked letter, we see Leo getting angry at someone for posting about the secret project and chews their head off... like any of us would do if someone publicized our secret project which they had agreed to keep secret. And yet, the very letter they post (on reddit) shows Leo offering that person another chance! But that gets ignored and they just focus on the angry part and accuse Leo of bullying people ignoring the person who broke their promise to keep it secret.

Seriously, every bit of "evidence" people have shown has utterly failed to convince me in the slightest that their accusations of bad intent have any merit.

If they want to be angry that they weren't involved or that the project was secret, fine. Totally understandable. But assigning malice? Despicable.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

People kept a secret and it gets called "gaslighting." Yeah, people keeping a secret will lie about it. It's called keeping a secret. "Gaslighting" is intentionally fooling someone to drive them crazy. Calling what SCoRE did 'gaslighting' is despicable in imputing such malign intentions.

To me the specific bit about how they were planning to release the server in the very near future until the leaker ruined it seems rather suspiciously like a gaslighting tactic, and gaslighting isn't simply about driving people crazy, it's a way of trying to manipulate people, frequently by trying to convince them that everything bad that is done is their own fault, not the other person's. It's simply that i don't find it credible that after six years of work SCoRE was at most weeks away from giving more access until the leaker suddenly ruined everything.

[undeadsuits]

Gas lighting is simply put: convincing someone their sanity is suspect to conceal a lie.

There have been numerous times both in the subreddit, and this forum that people bringing up the existence of a secret server have been met with labels of stupidity and "crackpot conspiracy theories". Even going as far to link believing in a secret server to believing in bigfoot, ufos, and that the earth is flat.

That is the definition of gas lighting.