The Shot Heard Around Paragon City - SCORE Public Release

[saipaman]

The stuff happening between the discords, the subreddit, the mods, it's all terribly embarrassing. We were on the door step of something great, but you can always trust pettiness to derail it all.

Don't forget 4chan.

[saipaman]

It felt great. The art direction never demanded ultra-high detail where every blade of grass is animated

I remember being on a task force with a guy that wanted articulated fingers.  When I asked him if that would make the game better, he said it would if he got the correct hand gesture emote.   I put him on ignore.

[saipaman]

If issue 25 is just a modified 24 and has everything from 24 in it, then why bother rolling back to just i24? Just whip up a friendly server and client setup package with nice easy instructions and the tech specs for a good server to have it on and then package it up, call it the Paragon Seed or some such and release it to the internet for all to enjoy

I don't like the "Pay 2 Win" vendor.  I don't want to break immersion that way.

[summers]

I remember being on a task force with a guy that wanted articulated fingers.  When I asked him if that would make the game better, he said it would if he got the correct hand gesture emote.   I put him on ignore.

That is too funny!

[Felderburg]

I don't like the "Pay 2 Win" vendor.  I don't want to break immersion that way.

I mean, were the Merit Vendors less immersion breaking? The P2W vendor was at least a way to get stuff that was in the *literal P2W store* that tried to put in in-universe dialog. Maybe there would have been a better way, but it's nice to have all the veteran rewards and pre-order bonuses or whatever all in one place.

[Zombie Man]

I mean, were the Merit Vendors less immersion breaking? The P2W vendor was at least a way to get stuff that was in the *literal P2W store* that tried to put in in-universe dialog. Maybe there would have been a better way, but it's nice to have all the veteran rewards and pre-order bonuses or whatever all in one place.

Yeah, it was just a kludge to get in all the meta-rewards like the special powers from buying various boxed updates or a market for when you have a developed playerbase or paying real-world money for items from the Paragon Market.

I had so many of these account-wide items, plus hundreds of millions of influence i could drop on a new character that all my newbies started out with a five-power attack chain and the ability to fly. Not to mention to be able to Teleport to mission, Pocket D, the consignment markets, etc....

[kiario]

I was on the discord yesterday night when all the hell broke loose.
Everyone jumped and hated on NCS immediately. I made a comment that we are not sure who is behind the shutdown yet so best be civil and remain calm.
But everyone said its NCS.
As of now, we still have no genuine explanation to what happened?
I guess this is how human nature is right? But I hope that we learn at least from mistakes made in this drama.

Now when NCS has seen that there might be a business case with COH, I would think that the best solution is to approach peacefully and come to a deal? Get it organized.

Need to remain calm and respectfull and respect other people / companies. Make peace.

[Castegyre]

But I already have my pitchfork out. At least I didn't light my torch yet.

[weenus]

Something I want to ask the people that did get on :

Did the graphics still feel satisfying to see?

I bring this up because over the years detractors have said "oh the graphics are old and wont be fun to see anymore" (a view I disagree with vehemently).

My take on the graphics is it is a super hero game spawned from a comic background. I don't NEED to see eyebrows or breathing or even hair animations to be immersed in the game. The trees and grass don't need to rustle (unless of course they are Devouring Earth!).

I was pretty surprised by how high you could scale some of the settings up, I have a 1080 and the initial "crank the settings way up" run for a 15 year old game somehow led to so so framerates and the card actually working fairly hard. I was pretty shocked by that.

[Ultimate15]

I'm confident that everything can be pieced back together. Even the binary. And I think it might happen sooner than we all think.

...I just hope that whomever is in charge moving forward has some thick skin and a good head on their shoulders. And doesn't decide to delete the ENTIRE flipping server because trolls told them something that wasn't even true.

Mad? Who, me? Never. ;)

[kiario]

I'm confident that everything can be pieced back together. Even the binary. And I think it might happen sooner than we all think.

...I just hope that whomever is in charge moving forward has some thick skin and a good head on their shoulders. And doesn't decide to delete the ENTIRE flipping server because trolls told them something that wasn't even true.

Mad? Who, me? Never. ;)

Its really unbelievable to the extent that I dont know to cry or to laugh at the whole situation :)

[Ultimate15]

Its really unbelievable to the extent that I dont know to cry or to laugh at the whole situation :)

I know. I obviously understand that this was probably so much pressure on the guy, and I was grateful / appreciative for all that the team was doing...

But to completely freak out and delete everything like that was suuuuuch a huge 'WTF' moment for me lololol. I think once it's back up, I'll be able to laugh at it. But for now, I'm just frustrated and bewildered.

[Azrael]

I was pretty surprised by how high you could scale some of the settings up, I have a 1080 and the initial "crank the settings way up" run for a 15 year old game somehow led to so so framerates and the card actually working fairly hard. I was pretty shocked by that.

The graphics are fine.

Old rig on ultra.  4fps.

New rig on ultra.  Smooth as butter.

It IS an old game.  But it was way ahead of its time in many respects.

Some may argue the graphics need an 'unreal engine' style upgrade.  That can be worked on for a 1.5 update.

Me?  It's all in how it plays.  'She may not look like much, kid...but she's got it where it counts.'  Solo.

Azrael.

[Azrael]

I know. I obviously understand that this was probably so much pressure on the guy, and I was grateful / appreciative for all that the team was doing...

But to completely freak out and delete everything like that was suuuuuch a huge 'WTF' moment for me lololol. I think once it's back up, I'll be able to laugh at it. But for now, I'm just frustrated and bewildered.

Erm.  Yes.

A lesson to be learned here.

Don't have one guy holding the fort.  The threat of the doors being broke down (and you get people who'll do wind ups on the internet....) and yeah.  He caved.  Maybe I would have.  Anybody.  Panic.  People are just human.  I can why he did in context.

This is why it can't be in one set of hands.  A central server is looking vulnerable.  Weren't there any back ups?  Did they save their data?

I'm guessing that CoH server had modular aspects to it with more than one machine handling different parts?

The sooner i24 is packaged up into a 'home brew coh for dummies' (ie non-tech' heads like me....) the better.  With easy to use administration to solo/lan/server from one modern PC.  This should be the express priority.

I don't understand why the current progress wasn't saved and seeded to all the current '30 man?' team so they all had back ups of this.  I wouldn't wait until the above to make back ups.  They'd already reached a decent place.  Don't hold onto it.  'Let it go' and get it in more 'mole holes' so the progress can be preserved.

It's a bit like the gold ring from LotRings.  It seems to be corrupting in one set of hands.  Pass it on.  Share the burden.  Perhaps it isn't in a state to pass on just yet.  But that should be the almighty goal and a race to get there.

At least if someone 'flips out' you have a back up instead of square one again.

(They may have a back up.  I think they were doing verification last night?)

Azrael.

[Azrael]

From my reading of the last 10 days of news and forum posts (including here): 

-- Issue 25 in binary form is ready to go now.  It's the fastest route to go live immediately, and the COH Discord team is fine with that for now, but they want Issue 24.  Before Leo can release this source code, he needs to scrub it for anything that would tip off investigators to the identities of who modified it, both NCSoft staff as well as SCORE (doesn't take a lot of guesses as to why both of those matter).  That'll take some time. 
-- Issue 25 source code will be possible, but not immediately.  This can be distributed in Source Code form, but it must be scrubbed before release. (See above)
-- Issue 24 will be possible AFTER the Issue 25 source code is scrubbed.  This is manually rolling back the changes Leo made to Issue 25 to put it back to Issue 24, then adjusting the server configuration and databases to work with the rollback.  This will take a few months and may be as late as this Fall, depending on his schedule.

Ultimately, public servers will have their choice of what resources to use, but they'll need one or the other.  The source code by itself without these resources do nothing.  If you want Issue 24, you'll need to wait.  If you want to play ASAP, Issue 25 is what's on the menu.

Hopefully that explains why Leo's Twitter posts are essential to the team: they need his binaries to get a server online as soon as possible.

]]

Thank you for the clarity.

Azrael.

[Azrael]

Some people are purists and don't want anything Cryptic/Paragon didn't make, others just hate Leandro. There's a market for it!

Yeah.  That's people.

i24.  Having that is ok.  It's just a starting point.  But if people are waiting for NC to employ Paragon Studio to give us issue 25?  They're going to be in for an even longer wait.

i25 is the story of SCORE.  Preserving the legacy and making the improvements that they did.

Leandro's a nice, decent guy who's done his best to preserve 'the gold ring' legacy but that 'burden' can be heavy on the shoulders.  And it seems fate has intervened...several times this week.

The sooner the ring is shattered and scattered to the four corners of our world?

The better.  And this recent 'storm in a tea cup' just under-SCORES that.

Discretion, yes...but be swift about the goal and share the burden to make it so.

issue 25.  Unbroken shard is a metaphor for the community.

There was 'no official' 24 if we want to be picky.  It was left unfinished (bugs et al.)  It's a 'fine' unrelease.  But even it wasn't released as in 'official.'

Ergo.  issue 25.  It belongs to the community.  This is OUR story.  The story of SCORE's fight to preserve.  The dev's battle to 'leak' or rather, PRESERVE IT from an unsympathetic corporation.  The unholy war to keep it alive.  The battle to release ICON, PARAGON CHAT and 'whatever' they had planned (a reverse engineered server?) next.

If we want issues 25-27 featuring Battalion and the Moon Base?  We're going to have to create it ourselves.

iSSue 24 which just be a stable release that hopefully we can ALL enjoy.  Into the hands of the many.  Issue 25 'Unbroken Shard' is ours to write.  SCORE started that process.

Azrael.

[Azrael]

If issue 25 is just a modified 24 and has everything from 24 in it, then why bother rolling back to just i24? Just whip up a friendly server and client setup package with nice easy instructions and the tech specs for a good server to have it on and then package it up, call it the Paragon Seed or some such and release it to the internet for all to enjoy

Yeah.  Basically what Sin' said.

ALL TO ENJOY!

Friendly server and client set up package with Azrael-proof instructions with the specs of a PC to run it and package it up, 'Paragon SEED' and release the Kraken.

The time for holding onto it in the hands of the few is coming to an end.  We need enough programmers to get it into a 'home brew' state then they need to let go...so that it's 'panic proof.'

Azrael.

[Azrael]

Ok... here's my understanding:

Everything for i24 is now out there, both from Leo and some other anonymous source. But, it has to be fixed to work, which the coders now working on it could get done in a few weeks or months.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Leo's SCORE group had a 6 year jump on making i24 work, and they modified it creating an updated issue: i25. It was i25 that Leo gave to a trusted member of the Discord group to test out, which led to last week's playtesting. Why to a trusted member? Because part of the code needed to be scrubbed since it had info embedded in it that would lead to who leaked it and who was working on it. Leo was working in the meantime to scrub it while everyone was playtesting it. So, yes, Leo still has some files not widely released for that reason.

Then the fake news that NCSoft was going to issue a D&C led to the person who had the i25 files on the playtesting server to panic and to delete it all. Which takes us back to only Leo having part of those files. So, no working playtesting is available unless some other trusted individual wants to run i25 while its files are being scrubbed.

Even if Leo never releases his i25 files, what has already been released is enough for coders to create a working game just like Leo did.

But Leo is most definitely committed to getting everything eventually released. He had a fit when the Discord group was holding onto some files that were scrubbed and got them to release them to the wild.

Fair enough.

That gives a few extra pertinent pieces of clarity.  So issue 25 still had compromising names in the code?  Ergo: no general release.  Therefore 'trusted' person to run the server.

So there's enough from what Leandro released to preserve the game?

Yeah, it's the 'holding' onto it part where the danger is.  I can see why Leandro had a fit if the Discord group was holding onto them rather than releasing them into the wild.  Just seed it to many 'trusted' members of the CoH community UNTIL it's scrubbed beyond recognition.  I don't doubt Leandro's commitment to the cause.  His statement last week told me all I needed to know.  The next 6 months are crucial.  Get it packaged up into a home brew for the Homer's of the world and we can all share the burden.

All things are possible then.

Azrael.

[Ironwolf]

We need to start being fair - the guy hosting it was a truck driver.

He had the money to stand up a server and did so - he is not a lawyer and isn't a server person. There is a reason I said that I wanted to wait until September 1 to start a server up - not that I wouldn't want to beta test it earlier. The magic the community worked on the code and networking side of things is incredible.

Costs of a couple thousand a month could easily be reduced to a couple hundred a month once the code is re-written. It is being re-written, what we got is a small taste and an alpha test. In a couple of months the code could be ported to modern database programs - like LUA and moving to SQL Server 2019 and porting from 32bit to 64bit and opening up memory addressing. I know they were converting to SQL 2010 and then the port to 2019 is easier.

I don't see this as anything but an excited amateur dabbling in running a server and the community freaking out with excitement. It shows the game is still wanted and will be played. We were running in to the coders nightmare - customers and owners screaming we want it better NOW! All while they worked every waking hour.

I respect those folks so much and they are the unsung heroes. I saw multiple people who had coded for the entire weekend - not sleeping saying, I need to sleep I can't read what I typed. I want them to slow down - get it right and build us something that will last for another 10 years, not one weekend.

[Azrael]

Just some musing:

Unless there's an approval from NCSoft (tacit or explicit), there won't be a single server like we had back when the game was running.  Either costs will grow too much, someone will get bored or spooked and kill their server, or they get a letter from NCSoft telling them to C&D.

I feel like the future of CoH will be multiple private servers operating under the radar.  It might be closer to a single person game or a small group of friends.  It's possible that there will be a facility to extract your character from a server, so you can have a backup, and to allow restoration on another server.  Think of it like transhuman sleeving - download your character into a new body somewhere else.

The coding team working on understanding, simplifying and deploying new binaries based on the i24 code is probably the future of the game.  They still need the back end database data, but that's probably coming still.  Once that's released, it's only a matter of time before you can run your own private server on commodity hardware.  It might take some time.

I had a great time playing on the test server this weekend.  I got to play with my friend that introduced me to the game in the first place; we re-rolled our original toons and had a blast.  We got to show our kids and they loved it too.  My daughter made her first character in Icon and was disappointed that the test server was down, but I have hope now that the code's out.  The test server might not have worked out (it might still - the jury's still out on that) but there will be City of Heroes in the future. 

I'm happy to have some real hope going forward.

Aye.  The sooner that happens the better.

Your last paragraph.  Same here.  I, through fate or the the gods, bumped into my friend who introduced me to the game.  We had a lot of fun.  Like old times.

Good post.  I enjoyed that.

Azrael.