The Shot Heard Around Paragon City - SCORE Public Release

[Vee]

And if you REALLY want to steal and play, say Eiko-chan's characters instead of your own on some server, you'll probably be able to with a bit of work and deception... as to why anybody would WANT to... well, you got me.

Probably not, but there'd be a line around the block to reroll Golden Girl as something other than MA/Regen  :P

[Felderburg]

Who's going to upgrade the Paragon Wiki to cover all these unofficial modifications to the game?

I volunteer to edit that person's grammar!

;D

Actually, Paragon Wiki may have some thinking to do...

1. *Should* private servers be covered?

I say yes: Paragon Chat and Icon already are

2. *How* should they be covered?

Unknown, until things get settled.

The first consideration is how much detail to go into, to cover Titan Network legally / internal policy wise.

Then there's the issue of what happens when people create their own, and there's a dozen different versions of CoH around. I would say some pages to describe them generally, and an overview of options out there, is probably good. Better than trying to track down every version and describe what makes it unique - individual servers can do that themselves.

Also, just make a category, and put it all under that single category. Boom, done.

Memory coming back -- somebody mentioned the blimp and I went OMG THE BLIMP... How could I forget the BLIMP!   

https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Spirit_of_Freedom
https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Times/20050330

Sentinel should still work?

My biggest hope is that a Sentinel+ file extractor is built in as part of the "private server package" that will be distributed. So any person running a private server can just activate it or not as they see fit.

I have mixed feelings about the character database. I'm not sure, given the concerns about potentially ID'ing info it has, what the best way to add that to private servers is. As it is now, I could see SCoRE holding on to it, and doing individual Sentinel+ extractions for people that want them.

Probably not, but there'd be a line around the block to reroll Golden Girl as something other than MA/Regen  :P

For some reason I always envisioned Golden Girl as a blaster.

[Eiko-chan]

I remember you - and your perverse delusions that the Loyalists were the good guys :P

Eeeee! I'm famous!  :D

But let's just be happy that everyone - blue, red and yellow sides - now has a more than good chance of playing the game that they love again.

If it takes letting the Hamidon burn down humanity for our game to come back, I say where's the kerosene?

[Ironwolf]

My biggest hope is that a Sentinel+ file extractor is built in as part of the "private server package" that will be distributed. So any person running a private server can just activate it or not as they see fit.

I have mixed feelings about the character database. I'm not sure, given the concerns about potentially ID'ing info it has, what the best way to add that to private servers is. As it is now, I could see SCoRE holding on to it, and doing individual Sentinel+ extractions for people that want them.

For some reason I always envisioned Golden Girl as a blaster.

I think Leandro handled it as you would give the account name - as it wasn't tied to any personal information and maybe a character or 2 on the account and then they would use a web server tied to the login to sync you up. We didn't get far and he had to go to work - as did I.

So creating a new account on the server the first time would NOT get you your characters - the admin would then tie them together after you applied for them. Which makes sense. Your account for your characters is not tied to your real world data - it was only the login you used to get to your characters just like in Paragon Chat.

[Golden Girl]

One inevitable question that's going to come up is the one about developing the game - some people will want the game exactly as it was on midnight November 30th 2012, while other will want to "fix" or "improve" parts of it, as well as simply add more things to it.
Ideally, everyone could be kept happy with a CoH Classic server - which would effectively freeze the game as it was at the shutdown - and a CoH Evolution server, where some of the more technical and artistic members of the community could come together to add things to the game, like new power sets, enemies, zones, missions and so on.
For example, I don't think it'd be too far of a stretch to think that with a bit of work and imagination, Khallisti Wharf could be completed - and the Mission Architect system was actually based on the developers' own mission creation tool, so that's a pretty solid foundation that could lead to the possibility of new lore-friendly content being added to the game that could advance and deepen the existing storylines.

[Nightmarer]

OK, so now let's be honest... how many builds have you guys cooked in Mid's / Pine's Hero Designer since the news? WHich of said builds is the one you are most looking forward to try? I myself just finished my 32nd build and was very keen to try a Dark/Dark Domi build but then I just came up with a killer Earth/Traps controller build... ah choices choices

[Ironwolf]

I don't think you have to worry, I think you will get Classic, Modded and everything under the sun now.

From what I saw last night - I want to go with Allita (sp) and whatever she/he develops. They seems to be very purposeful. In fact they said we are going to do this first server setup completely the wrong way to find out the pitfalls - annotate those errors and then do it the right way so that is will be more stable.

It impressed me that they knew before they did it that it would cause issues but that those issue would highlight what needed to be done to get it right. That takes incredible knowledge and depth of understanding to troubleshoot something this complex so easily.

[Golden Girl]

OK, so now let's be honest... how many builds have you guys cooked in Mid's / Pine's Hero Designer since the news? WHich of said builds is the one you are most looking forward to try? I myself just finished my 32nd build and was very keen to try a Dark/Dark Domi build but then I just came up with a killer Earth/Traps controller build... ah choices choices

I think I might go with an blueside MA/Regen Scrapper.

[Golden Girl]

I don't think you have to worry, I think you will get Classic, Modded and everything under the sun now.

I was thinking from the point of view of helping to keep the community together, it'd be awesome if CoH Classic and CoH Evolution were like the hub of a network of fan-run servers, surrounded by crazily modded "elseworld" servers, so that players could help and support each others ideas and work, rather than everyone going off on their own and scattering the community into little groups.

[SilverAgeFan]

An update for those not on Discord. This little exchange sums up nicely the best of what is happening there.

Otherwise, much of it feels like hanging out in /local or /general waiting for a CC or iTrial to begin. Which ain't bad. Just a lot of tomfoolery.

https://i.postimg.cc/dkXXJ2Kr/01.png

https://i.postimg.cc/YLWP0vpV/02.png

[Vee]

OK, so now let's be honest... how many builds have you guys cooked in Mid's / Pine's Hero Designer since the news? WHich of said builds is the one you are most looking forward to try? I myself just finished my 32nd build and was very keen to try a Dark/Dark Domi build but then I just came up with a killer Earth/Traps controller build... ah choices choices

I was basically out of builds I wanted to do, which is why I was hoping the mids team would get specs on the new at. But it occurs to me I need to redo some since i24 will mean instasnipe, crashless nukes and the nerfs to the stalker io and the-kb bonfire lulz io.

[Jetpack]

Well, we went from some really bad things being done (rape and death threats are never justified) to something great.

An amazing week (understatement of the year).

[Charged Mastermind]

An update for those not on Discord. This little exchange sums up nicely the best of what is happening there.

Otherwise, much of it feels like hanging out in /local or /general waiting for a CC or iTrial to begin. Which ain't bad. Just a lot of tomfoolery.

https://i.postimg.cc/dkXXJ2Kr/01.png

https://i.postimg.cc/YLWP0vpV/02.png

Not much any of us who can't code are able to do at the moment. Best we can do is hang out and give the coders some time off if they need it. As far as I can tell everything is going according to schedule.

[Felderburg]

I was thinking from the point of view of helping to keep the community together, it'd be awesome if CoH Classic and CoH Evolution were like the hub of a network of fan-run servers, surrounded by crazily modded "elseworld" servers, so that players could help and support each others ideas and work, rather than everyone going off on their own and scattering the community into little groups.

The biggest problem with a centralized hub is the fear of NCsoft. As far as I know, they still haven't released a statement. And a big part of making sure there's a ton of private servers is not only for variety of play, but also so that NCsoft can't catch them all. It's my understanding that's how other emulators, that don't have the tacit blessing from their original companies, avoid getting shut down.

I suppose having the centralized server located in a country that's more isolated from things like a C&D or other legal action is a good idea, though.

[Tubbius]

As I said on Discord, if this gives me the chance to write "PENGUIN Part 5: Waddle Home," I'm happy. :-)

[Mister Hassenpheffer]

As I said on Discord, if this gives me the chance to write "PENGUIN Part 5: Waddle Home," I'm happy. :-)

I want to read that.

[The Fifth Horseman]

... all I know is that this new topic title got this song stuck in my head.

Oh please. If there's a theme song for this, I dare you to find something better fitting than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4tbJGItHag

[Tahquitz]

Sentinel should still work?

Doubtful.  I think Sentinel is keyed in to NCSoft's former servers.  It would need to be revised.

[Tahquitz]

Actually, Paragon Wiki may have some thinking to do...

1. *Should* private servers be covered?

I say yes: Paragon Chat and Icon already are

2. *How* should they be covered?

Unknown, until things get settled.

We're discussing this internally and we'll keep you all posted; feel free to brainstorm, we are reading everything ourselves.  (Seriously, I think last night is the first full night of sleep I've had since Sunday, but I'm not complaining... some have it worse.) 

Nothing is going to change in the immediate future of course, because of #2 as you mentioned.  Waiting to see how things play out before we make plans.

[AmberOfDzu]

I am watching these events which interest as well. Let's see how it all turns out over the next few weeks.

My primary concerns have been touched on already, and I don't see a need to add more about them except I'd like to see over the next few weeks/months if the original IP holder(s) take any notice and/or any actions.

My other concerns are about me and where I am today, which has already been touched on by other some. The game is now pretty old; the technologies, animations, general graphics, style of the zones, and so on. MMO"s have made a lot of progress. Would it still have the same draw were I to play again?

My old characters, hrm, hard to say. As I recall, leveling wasn't too hard, nor was the incarnate system for the end game. It might be fun to start afresh. Otoh, some of those characters were dear friends I don't remember enough about; if my old account were made available to me I might find that a good thing.

The community will be different, would I still fit in? I was part of the RP-crowd (more or less, I was loosely connected towards the end) on Virtue. Will the roleplayers who're still interested find the same place to play? One of the nice things about the servers on Classic CoX was their different personalities. It would be a loss, imo, for them to become fully homogenized just because a critical population turns out to be necessary for server survival.

Would the developers supporting it learn to start building new content, or would be have to be satisfied with the (tremendous) amount of content it had at shutdown. If the former, would someone, or anyone, care to coordinate the general lore among the various new server/development efforts?

Would it end up as a short nostalgia run, or could it have a longer life? I don't know.