The Shot Heard Around Paragon City - SCORE Public Release

[Ulysses Dare]

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.

It's true the term gaslighting gets overused these days, but in this case I think the term might just be warranted. Over the past few years both the Titan Network and r/Cityofheroes had a moderation policy in place wherein any mention of private servers would be deleted. Whenever this policy was questioned, the official explanation was always some variation of "no one has a private server up and running, the people making these posts are either trolls or scammers". Now, in the case of r/Cityofheroes at least, we know that Leandro himself set that policy up—he's actually admitted to it publicly. And, while I don't personally know of anyone who was silenced, banned, or ostracized because of that policy, I do know that it's mere existence was used by awful lot of people to dismiss anyone who even suggested the possible existence of private servers.

[Sinistar]

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.

Uhm, didn't they say that characters and account info were not given with the code as such data was not needed to run the server and would be a massive privacy breach?

Anyway,  I am glad there is a secret server somewhere out there.  I am bummed that I am not on it being able to recreate some of my characters and having some fun again.

I've been playing a lot of classic games since the shut down but have not yet found an MMO that I like. Star Wars to be was a dud, never liked WoW, DC disappointed, Marvel stinks, Champions is one big nerf sponge, etc.

Hoping for Titans, SoH or Valiance to get up and running, and  of course the occasional visit to Paragon Chat for nostalgia.

But seriously if they can find a country where Korea and the US cannot shut down the servers, then set them up there, launch a few servers and let us get into them and play again. That way the CoH community can turn to NCSoft, the ones who shut it all down and refuse to sell it, and express our true feelings to them.  8)   

I'm thinking a giant middle finger to NCSoft would suffice....

[Zombie Man]

I can't speak for why someone would call it crackpot when, as people have already quoted often in this thread, Tony had posted about the SCoRE project back in its infancy. Did Leo call it crackpot?

If posts were removed, I can understand why the mods wouldn't want such a discussion about potentially illegal activity discussed on the boards.

[Doc Boy]

It's true the term gaslighting gets overused these days, but in this case I think the term might just be warranted. Over the past few years both the Titan Network and r/Cityofheroes had a moderation policy in place wherein any mention of private servers would be deleted. Whenever this policy was questioned, the official explanation was always some variation of "no one has a private server up and running, the people making these posts are either trolls or scammers". Now, in the case of r/Cityofheroes at least, we know that Leandro himself set that policy up—he's actually admitted to it publicly. And, while I don't personally know of anyone who was silenced, banned, or ostracized because of that policy, I do know that it's mere existence was used by awful lot of people to dismiss anyone who even suggested the possible existence of private servers.

just to corroborate


The people running the private server were also running the reddit and involved in pretty much all major community roles, Leandro playing it off as he didnt mod the subreddit the Auto-Mod modded the subreddit.....yeah but who set up the Auto-Mod, you pal. They played dumb and removed all private server discussion under the guise of private servers dont exist its just speculation.

Yet they knew it existed because they were on the private servers, lol.

[Taceus Jiwede]

I can't speak for why someone would call it crackpot when, as people have already quoted often in this thread, Tony had posted about the SCoRE project back in its infancy. Did Leo call it crackpot?

If posts were removed, I can understand why the mods wouldn't want such a discussion about potentially illegal activity discussed on the boards.

It wasn't that SCoRE was working on a server that people considered crackpot.  It was that there was a secret fully functional server in existence that was invitation only, that people considered to be a crackpot conspiracy theory.  Turns out it was true.

On this very forum, it was compared to flat earth conspiracies, the fake moon landing, and reptile overlords.  Now I don't think all, if any, of the people who made these comparisons knew about the server and was saying this to throw the scent off.  I know I thought it was a crazy conspiracy theory.  But this is because I, and many others, were being told it was impossible by the very people hosting a secret server.

[Leandro]

*

[Kistulot]

Leandro, if you're here and posting, please, please, tell us you plan to release the code, that you plan to let more people play.

Please give us something more than this post.

It would mean a lot to a lot of us.

[Taceus Jiwede]

Snipped

Thank you for your reply.  I still have questions as well, but it does actually please me to know that at least some players got to play again before they passed away.  I will say as someone who isn't part of that 3539 it does hurt to know a game I missed so much has been around for quite some time, but I hope this does lead to a way all of us can play again.

[Reiraku]

I don't know why, but there's a bit of comfort for me knowing Tre got to play a bit before he passed. I'm glad he got to be in the city he loved one last time.

[undeadsuits]

If you are truly working on getting the server up and running for public release, now is the time to create a public roadmap of your progress/destination and post it somewhere so that everyone can see it.

[Castegyre]

Interesting and touching. The thing I always miss the most from these games is also the thing that genuinely makes them engaging, the people I've played alongside. They're worth remembering.

My cynicism is rearing it's ugly head, though, so I'll shut up before I say something stupid... er.

[weenus]

I appreciate seeing a declaration of progress and public release, even if it's just a long overdue renewed declaration, it's a definite step in the right direction at this point.

That's a couple of the more common questions asked too, in the very least, and a thoughtful naming system.

[Noyjitat]

Since no one has really refuted this since it's been posted, I'd just like to say that I ran in some RWZ raids when the game was still running on official servers, and they always ran like crap on the official servers.

RWZ raids not running well is not any kind of evidence of it not being ready to release.

The paragon devs fixed the server side issues for large scale events like the msr quite some time ago. We had a server stress test event in peregrine island where they spawned thousands of praetorian idf soldiers. Large leagues, msrs, hami, and the rikti/zombie apocalypse were 100% fixed by the patch they applied. Only those with potatoe computers and and god awful internet still had problems.
Now Whatever that fix was probably hasnt been applied to this private server or the server hardware itself is lacking.

[undeadsuits]

I appreciate seeing a declaration of progress and public release,

I hate to be "that person", but nothing in his post mentioned a public release. Just that he wasn't getting things 'ready' fast enough and was taking too long. I know it feels like absolute semantics to point out a simple lack of the word public in his release plans...but he also claimed in his original interview with MassivelyOP that it was his fear of C&D from NCsoft what was keeping him from going public, and that he and the SCoRE team would never go public until they were sure they would not be under threat from NCSoft. Not a lack of development like now.

So yes, it's sad that he had a series of personal tragedies and setbacks that kept him from finishing the server for four years past his initial plans, he's already admitted the servers are never going public until NCSoft themselves say it's okay. Which...I mean I don't need to finish that sentence.

[Super Atom]

To be clear. I've been a strong opponent of the actions they took. However, he just spent hours being open and honest with people on the SEGS discord. This is exactly the action I've mentioned before would help restore faith and mend wounds. I appreciate that he did that, and so did the many many people there for it.

[Noyjitat]

Ok now mate. You should have said something about this sooner than 6 years. I lost my 2 aunts and then my grandma and uncle all in one week and recently my favorite aunt that had been paralyzed for 15 years. It hurt like hell and im not gonna try and compete with you for sob stories. But this game really would have been nice to escape some of that pain.

I dont hate you by any measure but I still am upset and disappointed with means you took to handle this situation. But im not calling for your death or not part  of an angry internet mob spamming or trying to get your personal info exposed. I am just another one of those players you listed that wants to play again before I die

I hope you'll make a decision soon on how to resolve this before those idiots making petitions to ncsoft get too much attention on this.  Because constantly reminding them will be what does everything in...

[Mister Hassenpheffer]

I don't hate to be "That person" I've had my hand in running private servers (Not COH related) So I know a thing or two about setbacks.

So I'm going to say what nobody wants to hear but needs to be said.

Instead of coming out with all the pitchforks and torches, because THAT is EASY...

We should do what is NOT Easy.

Instead... we should put on our capes and be heroes.

Heal your wounds.

Come back together as the community we are supposed to be and if at all possible...

Dear God if at all possible...please, support Leo.

[undeadsuits]

Come back together as the community we are supposed to be

"The community" has been told we were stupid crackpots for thinking that there was a private server in the first place.

Why should the community now support the person who sought to divide the community to hide the existence of his secrets?

[Mister Hassenpheffer]

HEAL.

YOUR.

WOUNDS.

[undeadsuits]

HEAL.

YOUR.

WOUNDS.

You can't heal wounds you don't acknowledge first