Hey there.
Not a former CoH player to much of any degree. I think I want to post a very generic view though, just in hopes of saying some stuff because watching this unfurl over the past twelve-eighteen hours was a blast. Straight out of a comic book I swear.
First things first, Victoria, this is depending on jurisdiction(My knowledge of EU libel laws is that they are typically draconian but not enforceable outside the EU.) In general though, what he said(To you,) cannot be classified in anyway as libel, or anything really legally actionable, he's not calling for harassment directly or explicitly, he's not inciting violence intentionally, he's not criminally harassing you directly... In fact what he's doing might even be protected under the same laws that exist to protect journalists from retribution.
What is potentially legally actionable is the breaking of his NDA, but then you'd need to substantiate damages. And further substantiate how those damages differed from profit seeking. As for private servers that should definitively operate in a profit neutral territory, seeking profit is generally a no no, which makes damages a hard thing to prove. And I'm getting a bit far from myself. Some advice in general, words are a powerful thing, you and I both know that. And going off half cocked, saying things without fully thinking them through is only going to make you look bad, while the chucklehead laughs at your frustration. What incites you feeds him. Don't play the game with them, break the narrative. Best piece of advice a lawyer ever gave me. Don't ever say you're getting a lawyer, talking to legal, etc. It's a gamble every time you do. And only serves to make it look like you're playing hardball in the situation. Which depending on the situation could make you come off as someone who is being overly forceful for next to no reason. Don't tell them you're getting a lawyer until the moment you've retained council and are filing something with a court.
To others, both in communities abroad looking in, and within these forums, looking around and wondering. There is no way to prove someone has played upon the server, or hasn't. Histrionically forming witch-hunts about and around certain people who may or may not have played on the server accomplishes nothing. Strays from the point of the anger. And serves only to exhaust everyone involved.
Next point.
This really has resembled a giant giant train wreck. And I can appreciate it as a dramallama who likes watching trainwrecks I'm mostly unaffiliated with. However CoH is a game I've been fascinated by and with good reason. The culture that surrounds it is quite broad and diverse, and there really hasn't been a game to capture the same base as it did. Not even Champions which had in my opinion the best shot of it to date.
Certainly, and speaking of the drama though, I find a lot of things start to make a large amount of sense in the community as I've observed. As I've been looking in on it maybe every year for the last 4 years and every 6 months since SEGS started to be a realized thing with 0.3? I think... There was always a slight sort of lethargy about the community, and an almost lack of eagerness in it's movers and shakers, at least that I saw on places like this and the subreddit, whenever the possibility of emulation and server recovery were mentioned. A kind of short period of "Oh well that's nice, carry on." Whenever SEGS had something new built. This along with the Paragon Chat client being the "best" implementation so far of a server recreation. When a game like SWGEmu had a massive fan support structure spring up almost immediately, with dedicated Devs working whenever they could. SEGS didn't, that I could see have that base. And it always struck me as odd. I used to recall to a friend of mine, when we bemoan the lack of a good Supers MMO. That this type of thing not happening made no sense. Even discounting SWGEmu, which is building SWG server code from scratch essentially. You had the fortuitousness of SWLegends, which was built from a lucky find of source code, kind of like Leandro has described happening in the PCGamer article. It made no sense to me, personally, that something like either of those two projects wouldn't have happened. Especially given how sudden the shut down was. Especially given the amount of successor projects. Especially given how CoH was more modern of an MMO than classic pre-NGE SWG was.
Finally, I'd like to say, that the community as I see it is a vibrant and wonderful place, and I'm sorry for this trainwreck having occured. Here's hoping when the dust settles, you all will have a relatively easy time settling down and not stare at each other with distrust. Wondering who might have a score to settle.
Just my Two Cents.
