Author Topic: Current position/Update  (Read 47828 times)

Knightslayer

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 477
    • Monster Game!
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #80 on: November 09, 2012, 08:18:39 AM »
The complete deletion of all related materials would result in a maelstrom so potent the resulting backlash would make their ancestors quake in fear.
In all honesty, IF they decide to do that, I doubt any of us will ever hear about it, they would never say why it'd be impossible to revive the game, just that it's impossible and thank us for our interest in CoH or something along those lines.

emu265

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 545
  • Wait, what?
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #81 on: November 09, 2012, 10:38:27 AM »
They do that, there shall be no mercy. Ever.
I very much doubt this would ever happen.  Erasing everything doesn't really make any sense.  Even if it did happen, we would never hear about it anyway.  But in that vein, I'd love to know where the reverse engineering team stands at this point.   

JaguarX

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,393
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #82 on: November 09, 2012, 07:26:26 PM »
I very much doubt this would ever happen.  Erasing everything doesn't really make any sense.  Even if it did happen, we would never hear about it anyway.  But in that vein, I'd love to know where the reverse engineering team stands at this point.

whoa! I thought it has been more than firmly stated, at especially on the COH forum, that there was no such thing as an effort to reverse engineer here?

Soooooo is there an effort now to do that?

Ironwolf

  • Stubborn as a
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,503
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #83 on: November 09, 2012, 07:54:49 PM »
Two ways to reverse engineer an item of software - one is legal the other is not.

1. You can for reaons of understanding code and to ensure you don't copy other IP make a working copy of an item of software to study it - you can't actively operate it other than for research. This is going on.

2. Reverse engineer to open your own off the grid server - this one is not in the works as I personally know. If it is they would get a Cease and Desist letter in a short time from NCSoft with no doubt.

JaguarX

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,393
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #84 on: November 09, 2012, 08:11:45 PM »
coooool.

what are we researching?

Codewalker

  • Hero of the City
  • Titan Network Admin
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,740
  • Moar Dots!
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #85 on: November 09, 2012, 09:14:43 PM »
The plan is to build a working server (from scratch) for research and archival purposes, in accordance with the laws that permit reverse engineering for interoperability.

If we are able to secure a license to use the content, or if NCSoft as a company ceases to exist at some point in the future, and causes ownership of the IP to become unclear, then we will be prepared for that event so that we can publicly operate a set of servers.

This effort is completely unrelated to plan Z; the people involved in it are not working on that project.

JaguarX

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,393
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #86 on: November 09, 2012, 10:44:16 PM »
The plan is to build a working server (from scratch) for research and archival purposes, in accordance with the laws that permit reverse engineering for interoperability.

If we are able to secure a license to use the content, or if NCSoft as a company ceases to exist at some point in the future, and causes ownership of the IP to become unclear, then we will be prepared for that event so that we can publicly operate a set of servers.

This effort is completely unrelated to plan Z; the people involved in it are not working on that project.

That is one hell of a good idea.

emu265

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 545
  • Wait, what?
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #87 on: November 10, 2012, 05:24:43 AM »
The plan is to build a working server (from scratch) for research and archival purposes, in accordance with the laws that permit reverse engineering for interoperability.

If we are able to secure a license to use the content, or if NCSoft as a company ceases to exist at some point in the future, and causes ownership of the IP to become unclear, then we will be prepared for that event so that we can publicly operate a set of servers.

This effort is completely unrelated to plan Z; the people involved in it are not working on that project.
Would you happen to know how this is coming along? :)

Victoria Victrix

  • Team Wildcard
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,886
  • If you don't try, you have failed.
    • Mercedes Lackey
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #88 on: November 10, 2012, 06:48:55 AM »
Would you happen to know how this is coming along? :)

The first rule about how this is coming along....
I will go down with this ship.  I won't put my hands up in surrender.  There will be no white flag above my door.  I'm in love, and always will be.  Dido

Luna Eclypse

  • New Efforts # 9,000!
  • Boss
  • ****
  • Posts: 164
  • Follow my on Twitter @LunaEclypse
    • Luna Eclypse on VirtueVerse
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #89 on: November 10, 2012, 02:14:08 PM »
The first rule about how this is coming along....

"Don't ask?"
"The Remarkable Dazzling"
Luna Eclypse

Fansy

  • Lieutenant
  • ***
  • Posts: 54
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #90 on: November 10, 2012, 02:23:07 PM »
The first rule about how this is coming along....

My fair Lady, everyone knows the answer to this riddle!

''Fish sticks'' says I. And nothing more!

The Fifth Horseman

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 961
  • Outside known realities.
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #91 on: November 10, 2012, 02:47:30 PM »
As someone who has a bit of experience with reverse engineering simpler things (mostly early-to-late 90's game saves / data formats), I can tell you that these things take a lot of work and even more experimental data.
After November 30th, any such attempts will be stuck with only archive data to work from (assuming they have any).

Unless there's a large team of skilled people working on those (I know one of them has only one developer), Plan Z is more likely to be completed before either of them.
We were heroes. We were villains. At the end of the world we all fought as one. It's what we did that defines us.
The end occurred pretty much as we predicted: all servers redlining until midnight... and then no servers to go around.

Somewhere beyond time and space, if you look hard you might find a flash of silver trailing crimson: a lone lost Spartan on his way home.

Tommy2Toes

  • Minion
  • **
  • Posts: 26
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #92 on: November 11, 2012, 06:47:57 PM »
The complete deletion of all related materials would result in a maelstrom so potent the resulting backlash would make their ancestors quake in fear.

You say that like you have power to actually DO something about it.  What are you going to do?  Boycott NCSoft?  Not like that matters.

Turjan

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 270
  • You cannot kill a dream
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #93 on: November 11, 2012, 10:28:40 PM »
You say that like you have power to actually DO something about it.  What are you going to do?  Boycott NCSoft?  Not like that matters.
A single drop of water can be easily brushed away. An ocean can flatten a mountain.

Victoria Victrix

  • Team Wildcard
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,886
  • If you don't try, you have failed.
    • Mercedes Lackey
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #94 on: November 12, 2012, 12:50:05 AM »
You say that like you have power to actually DO something about it.  What are you going to do?  Boycott NCSoft?  Not like that matters.

It would seem that it matters enough to Starbust magazine and its 250,000 readers.
I will go down with this ship.  I won't put my hands up in surrender.  There will be no white flag above my door.  I'm in love, and always will be.  Dido

Tommy2Toes

  • Minion
  • **
  • Posts: 26
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #95 on: November 12, 2012, 01:42:04 AM »
It would seem that it matters enough to Starbust magazine and its 250,000 readers.

Perhaps but if those 250,000 readers represent 0.01% significance to NCSoft, my question remains.  What does a boycott matter unless it equates to measureable impact to the target.  You bandy about threats like they have any merit when clearly they don't.

Artillerie

  • Lieutenant
  • ***
  • Posts: 99
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #96 on: November 12, 2012, 01:57:39 AM »
Perhaps but if those 250,000 readers represent 0.01% significance to NCSoft, my question remains.  What does a boycott matter unless it equates to measureable impact to the target.  You bandy about threats like they have any merit when clearly they don't.

Please, we have a lot of people here who just want to do our best to save our game and preserve our community. Even if we cannot continue to enjoy City of Heroes then we will know that we did our best. Instead of losing hope and only seeing the negative side of things, i would urge you to read through this forum and maybe gain something positive from it.

Aggelakis

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,001
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #97 on: November 12, 2012, 02:07:30 AM »
Perhaps but if those 250,000 readers represent 0.01% significance to NCSoft, my question remains.  What does a boycott matter unless it equates to measureable impact to the target.  You bandy about threats like they have any merit when clearly they don't.
The way to get measurable results is to start small. No one ever starts out with a billion people boycotting something.

(Please note, I am not personally boycotting NCsoft. I like Guild Wars 2 and ArenaNet, and I am enamored of WildStar. Thus I cannot.)
Bob Dole!! Bob Dole. Bob Dole! Bob Dole. Bob Dole. Bob Dole... Bob Dole... Bob... Dole...... Bob...


ParagonWiki
OuroPortal

Kaiser Tarantula

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 580
  • @Nerva
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #98 on: November 12, 2012, 02:22:05 AM »
Perhaps but if those 250,000 readers represent 0.01% significance to NCSoft, my question remains.  What does a boycott matter unless it equates to measureable impact to the target.  You bandy about threats like they have any merit when clearly they don't.
So are you saying we shouldn't even try?  So we shouldn't even care?  Give up, move on, accept whatever crap gets shovelled into our mouths and like it?

No.  We're going to do everything in our power to fight this.  Why?  Because we have something we care about, and something worth fighting for.  And I for one will not be accused of sitting idly by while some corporation walks all over me and thinks it can dictate what I can and cannot enjoy.

Sure, Starburst is advocating a boycott of NCsoft.  It's fairly small, 250k readers.  Some of 'em might not even go through with it.  But it's only one of several boycotts and other efforts to try and Save CoH.

Read the Thank the Media thread some time.  Take a real close look at the spreadsheet in the OP.  Make sure to look at both tabs.  We've gotten a lot of coverage already.  Even if the boycott itself fails, it gets the word out.  People get curious, and people look back here.  Some of 'em start getting worried about NCsoft's business practices.  Some of 'em might be investors.

What I'm saying is, this thing can snowball.  We've already seen some evidence of it.  Take a look at the NCSoft Stockwatch thread.  Particularly, look at the Reuters Stock Graph based on data from Korea Stock Exchange.  From Nov. 7th  to today, NC's been in a steady decline, currently sitting at 174.5k won/share.  They haven't been this low since early April of 2010.  Sure, not all of that is our doing, but I find it hard to believe we've had no effect at all.

Ultimately, it's customers that control whether a business thrives or dies.  Customer faith makes a business a success, and breaks them just as easily.  Our best chance of making NCsoft reconsider its decision is to undermine the faith its customers have in it.  If gamers playing NC's other products start worrying that they could be next, we've done our job.  If investors start shying away from NCsoft on account of their mistreatment of us, then that's even better.

Raking NC's public image through the mud of it's own poor decisions via any responsible, respectable, legal means available to us is the best option we have.  If you got a better suggestion, then let's hear it.  If not, then would you kindly get the hell out of our way.  Criticizing those who are actually trying to get something done, through whatever options they have to do it, is even more useless than a failed protest or boycott.  Don't complain at us for 'wasting' our time, when you're quite clearly willing to waste yours.

Surelle

  • Guest
Re: Current position/Update
« Reply #99 on: November 12, 2012, 02:27:40 AM »
Perhaps but if those 250,000 readers represent 0.01% significance to NCSoft, my question remains.  What does a boycott matter unless it equates to measureable impact to the target.  You bandy about threats like they have any merit when clearly they don't.

I don't even think it's merely a question of how many CoH players refuse to have anything to do with NCSoft again.  I think it's more a case of the straw that broke the camel's back:  Former CoH players, combined with former Tabula Rasa players, combined with former Auto Assault, Dungeon Runners and Exteel players, etc., combined with current Aion and Lineage 2 players....   

Have you seen how Aion's profits just keep nosediving come every new earnings report?  Those players are completely disgusted with NCSoft's lack of support (they launch very buggy, completely untested new patches directly onto the live servers because they're too cheap to even keep a public test server running in the west, they let gold farmers and lag overrun their games, and they spend their time making it take twice as long to level--doubling the XP curve-- then jacking up the prices of XP pots on the cash shop).  Players are not investing money into NCSoft anymore.  And a lot of them are leaving altogether.  Try Aion sometime-- it is run exactly this way.

So "bandying about" this or that, even if it encompassed every single CoH player that is or ever was, is only one part of a much larger avalanche that I am still quite convinced is going to bite NCSoft in the arse come Blade & Soul's launch more than they ever imagined it could.  Their reputation has hit rock bottom and commenced digging.  And I think continuing to remind all those other disenchanted gamers of what NCSoft is continually like via honest press and forum/blog posts is necessary to keep momentum going right up through Blade & Soul and Wildstar's launches and beyond.

Just my two cents.  Your mileage may vary.