NCSoft Stockwatch

[Little Green Frog]

In the wild, when time is critical, and you have to figure it out NOW, naturally things are going to be harder to figure out. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a bunch of knowledgeable individuals whose hobby has been taken away from them. No one, however, is suggesting that it's going to be easy.

I think there may be some confusion here. Paragon Studios cited the state of their code base to be one of the reasons some stuff is difficult and/or slow to make for them. That has nothing to do with community driven projects, like server emu... Um, thing. Here the team trying to recreate certain functionality, like server software, wouldn't work with said legacy code left by Paragon Studios, as they - to my knowledge - have no access to it. It needs to be built from grounds up. (But the specs are given and are very precise.) The "spaghettiness" of Paragon Studio's legacy code does not affect them in any way.

[Valjean]

It also bears mentioning that they worked under much tighter constraints than a deconstruction team - Paragon devs had less leeway for experimentation, as they couldn't afford diverting too many resources or - heaven forbid - pushing a patch that might end up breaking something major to live. A team without these limitations can freely go "okay, let's do this and see what happens".

Yeah that's a good point. We, as a community, don't have to worry about getting the next issue out, or patching live servers. We can focus just on deconstructing the game. I'm sure if the Paragon folks had 6 months to do nothing but bigfxes and cleanup, they would have done a fantastic job.....but that would have meant no new development. And I think they only had a handful of programmers.

[pewlagon]

And there's another problem with emulators... NcSoft has a track record of shutting them down. Anyone who says they won't find out, well... There is no guarantee on this front. I'm one of many that won't touch an emulation unless it has been given the blessing of the IP holder and I know for certain my time in the game won't be wasted due to a C&D letter, which doesn't cost much.

Again, for me it comes down to the real thing or nothing. I know there are others that don't see it this way, but I learned a bit ago that the characters in my mind need a home. If there is risk of imminent closure, I won't take it. Yes, the same can be said of any MMO, but I would at least then have time to say goodbye. And with the way developers are looking at Offline options now, I can firmly state that I may not have to say goodbye in my opens home, wherever that might be. I only hope that home is a fully functional True CoH or spiritual successor.

[Quinch]

Well, either way there's a silver lining - if they try cracking down on emulators, that's news-worthy, which is another PR impact NCsoft can ill-afford.

[Little Green Frog]

Well, either way there's a silver lining - if they try cracking down on emulators, that's news-worthy, which is another PR impact NCsoft can ill-afford.

I wouldn't overestimate that impact. NCsoft can and will come after a community operated server. Anyone that is hoping to set such a thing up should better hide their tracks and carefully choose their hosting if they want the server to live longer than a few months.

[Valjean]

And there's another problem with emulators... NcSoft has a track record of shutting them down. .....

Actually has NCsoft ever done that? I don't know if any of their shut down games ever got unofficial servers .

[Blue Pulsar]

So why do you think they wouldn't be willing to sell it? Does it give them more stock options or something?

Honestly, with the exception of EVE, game companies traditionally don't sell off an individual IP.  And with EVE it's owners, Simon & Schuster, were getting out of the software business so selling off their portfolio of software IP makes sense in this case.  Plus the game wasn't first announced as closing.

Right, but the question was "why". An appropriate answer is not "Because they just don't." Not trying to be rude, but I am curious as to this myself. Why don't they sell? It may not be an easy to answer question. It may not even be possible to answer. But, I am tired of people actually responding to the question but saying nothing. If you don't know, then why answer?

[pewlagon]

NcSoft has shut down emulators for Tabula Rasa, Lineage, and Dungeon Runners. To the point that they seek them out. Cease and Decist letters do not cost much and once server you must comply or face a lot of bad consequences.

[Little Green Frog]

NcSoft has shut down emulators for Tabula Rasa, Lineage, and Dungeon Runners. To the point that they seek them out. Cease and Decist letters do not cost much and once server you must comply or face a lot of bad consequences.

Cease and desist letters are cheap, but they also easy to ignore. And if you are going to operate a private server, you'd better be prepared to do that or you should probably cease right now.

[Valjean]

Were there really player-created servers for Tablura Rasa and DR? I can see Lineage, especially in Korea, but those two games lasted so quickly, it's hard to imagine them having had the time to develop enough of a fanbase who'd care.

I mean Matrix Online lived longer.

I don't meant to go off track. The reason I bring it up is, and I am not a lawyer, but I just don't feel like NCsoft is worth fearing. That's not to say they won't ever crack down on fan programs, but their reach and resources just aren't in the same ballpark as a Blizzard, EA or Sony. I think that's one advantage the COH community's efforts have over some of the other communities.

[pewlagon]

There were indeed TR and DR private versions out there. Both received quite a bit of attention from NcSoft. They are quite adamant about no one making money off their IPs or  showcasing them. It is bad for business to let your property roam unchecked unless you, yourself, acknowledge its continuation. They are definitely a company to worry about which brings me back to my point of not investing my time in something that could be yanked offline at a moment's notice. We're better served getting the game to someone with NcSoft's go ahead.

[ukaserex]

The difficulty of dealing with code someone else wrote is often overblown.

Here you have a big, complex system, but one that actually works and lots of people understand reasonably well what outcomes it produces.

Sounds like paradise compared to some of the projects I've worked on.

Certainly no expert, but I recall from my days of entry level Java and C++, documentation was important. Variable names should be relevant, giving a clue as to what they would stand for. Perhaps some of the programmers were lazy and didn't explain what the code did, or what it was supposed to do. Again, by no means am I an expert. About all the programming I remember consists of "hello world".

[Codewalker]

Actually has NCsoft ever done that? I don't know if any of their shut down games ever got unofficial servers .

AFAIK the TR server project got a cease and desist notice and folded out of fear, or possibly went deep enough underground that we don't hear about it.

They did, however go after an Aion server operator in Japan, and also the players. Now Aion is still around rather than shut down, and it was a fairly big server, but they do have a history of sending in the sharks.

So a CoH server might go unnoticed. Or it might not. It would be up to whoever was running one if they are willing to call or fold.

[Quinch]

What with all the talk about shutting down fan servers of games that have been closed and unavailable, is anyone else here reminded of the Prohibition?

[pewlagon]

I'm not talking about them shutting it down per se, but the realization that they could. I won't invest time creating characters, and playing them, unless it's an official version of the game. To me, NcSoft killed the game and has no intention of releasing the IP because of all the negative press generated by the community toward them. They are being jerks and will continue to do so until there is change at the top of the corporate structure. Hopefully, when that happens, the new regime will find it in their wisdom to release the game. At that point it comes down to who will invest in an aged IP. Not many companies will. Valve might do it for the microtransations in the marketplace, but I'm not sure anyone else will. Again, I wish the SaveCoH movement all the luck, but I'm putting my hopes on a Spiritual Successor now. Until a buyout occurs, which is likely at this point, nothing will change at NcSoft.

[Lightslinger]

Wouldn't hosting the private server in certain countries take care of most legal concerns? The private server team could also open source the code, effectively making it immortal.

[Little Green Frog]

What with all the talk about shutting down fan servers of games that have been closed and unavailable, is anyone else here reminded of the Prohibition?

That's a littlle too far fetched, I think. They own the intellectual property, after all. It's similar to a situation where they acquired rights to publish a novel and went after people that are republishing it without their consent.

Wouldn't hosting the private server in certain countries take care of most legal concerns? The private server team could also open source the code, effectively making it immortal.

Yes and yes. Especially the latter part. Plus there are many, many more good things that can come up from open sourcing the project.

[Taceus Jiwede]

I am not sure if anyone here played Ultima Online but I am sure most people here have heard of it.  I started playing UO when I was about 11 years old and then when I was about 14 years old I was a GM on my friends server and the server failed horribly because it was being manned by two teenager's.  But if you Google search "UOX" or "Sphere UO" they are two programs that anyone at anytime with any experience can download, set to their IP, and begin hosting  their own Shard, or server.  Now of course the obvious answer is probably that EA or who ever is manning UO these days just doesn't care.  But I would be curious if anyone here knows for sure, I have played many MMO's in my life and the only one I have seen that with that many successful emulators is Ultima Online, I have played on private servers that were huge and had great GM's and great scripter's.  Almost as good as the official pre-trammel days.  (Also if you just wanna GM it up and be all powerful you can download for fun and play it offline)

[Kriiden]

Hrm. Hypothetically speaking,

If someone were to figure out how to get a private server, and release the opensource, would NCsoft be THAT financially impacted? From something that isn't costing them anything, how could they lose money?

What's preventing them from releasing the source code to the community (Besides them being ungrateful tool bags) ?

[Little Green Frog]

Hrm. Hypothetically speaking,

If someone were to figure out how to get a private server, and release the opensource, would NCsoft be THAT financially impacted? From something that isn't costing them anything, how could they lose money?

There is no simple answer to that question. NCsoft could make a case for the court where they would be able to argue that indeed there was quite an impact. Past 10 years or so witnessed several such cases where owners of IP went after people that shared said IP claiming astronomical damages and were awarded compensation.

I have never heard of similar case being conducted for anything related to an online game, but hey, there is first time for everything.

What's preventing them from releasing the source code to the community (Besides them being ungrateful tool bags) ?

No simple answer to that question either. It depends on which part of the game they would be willing to open source. For example they wouldn't be able to release the client code as they don't own the entirety of it. Cryptic does. NCsoft, and by extension Paragon Studios, were licensed to use it.

In case of server software, things could be simpler, unless Cryptic owns licensing rights to it as well. But even if they did open source it, we would get just the plumbing, without all the data that make it go. It would still be very useful to us, but arguably recreating the server engine is simple enough and we are good without it.