New City of Heroes?

[Colette]

I still see messages boiling down to, we don't really know who these Titan Network yahoos are...'"

I'm sure if say, (heaven forfend!) MIDS had a virus attached, we'd all hear about it within hours and it would be patched.

One of the best things about the Internet, one can very easily google-search any organization that's been around for any time and find out about their reputation. Sure they control their own site, but they can't delete bad word-of-mouth on other people's sites.

[Gaggle314]

I've seen them advertising on Virtue as well and today logged in when someone was in the midst of talking with them. They have a website with a phone number. I don't have any great search skills but the phone seems to come from Succasunna, NJ. Anyway, someone said if they got Titan's ok, that might give it some legitimate-ness (?). So, brace yourself if you are contacted by them, Tony.

Personally, I don't know what to think. Other than, if it sounds too good to be true....

Cheers!

[Zolgar]

...what? They're legal to own in the US.

Technically a weapon version such as the military uses is not legal to own in the US without proper licenses, just like rocket launchers, full auto weapons, etc.

However, there are garden versions for burning weeds..
Not to mention it's really easy to build one.

/derail.

[blackjak]

I've seen them advertising on Virtue as well and today logged in when someone was in the midst of talking with them. They have a website with a phone number. I don't have any great search skills but the phone seems to come from Succasunna, NJ. Anyway, someone said if they got Titan's ok, that might give it some legitimate-ness (?). So, brace yourself if you are contacted by them, Tony.

Personally, I don't know what to think. Other than, if it sounds too good to be true....

Cheers!

Saw this as well. Good thing is a few people said they wouldn't trust them without Titan's approval.

[Beodren]

If I understood correctly, Titan Network is not supporting any such project, therefore, Tony merely said he could test if the files they suggest to dowload are clear. I believe no endrosement of such actions will ever happen here, as priority of the reverse engineering is removing IP licensed names, while getting the game mechanics recreated, while, they seem to focus onn getting alternative working server.
Still, this requires more insight and careful approach.

[blackjak]

Yeah. Sounds very illegal.  It would be interesting to have a working copy of a server around after november, but not something to get any close to.

[Surelle]

Sounds like online hackers trying to prey upon the hopes of CoH players to me.  You give them your email.  You get a key logger on your machine.  They scour your hard drive for any different accounts, logins and personal info they can get.  It's probably the same people as would hack you via illegal online gold selling if you would only buy from them.

Don't look so surprised:  Gold farmers/hackers do the same type of thing.  Peeps buy gold.  They get a key logger either directly from the gold seller's site they visited, or in the confirmation email for their purchase, and the credit card account they used to buy gold soon gets hacked besides. 

I would just block anyone with similar messages.

[The Fifth Horseman]

If this was legit, the obvious question is why there is no prior mention or record of their existence? An actual server emulator would take significant effort and time to develop, and I doubt they had much of the latter.
Poor English skills from their alleged PR people, despite a US IP? I'd check if that IP doesn't belong to a proxy.
Quacks like a scam, walks like a scam. Probably is a scam.

[General Idiot]

Sounds like online hackers trying to prey upon the hopes of CoH players to me.  You give them your email.  You get a key logger on your machine.  They scour your hard drive for any different accounts, logins and personal info they can get.  It's probably the same people as would hack you via illegal online gold selling if you would only buy from them.

Don't look so surprised:  Gold farmers/hackers do the same type of thing.  Peeps buy gold.  They get a key logger either directly from the gold seller's site they visited, or in the confirmation email for their purchase, and the credit card account they used to buy gold soon gets hacked besides. 

I would just block anyone with similar messages.

Mildly unrelated, but it always amuses me when people claim they got hacked after buying gold or powerlevelling or whatever from one of these shady sites. They GAVE them their info, only rarely is actual hacking involved at all.

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

Probably just NCsoft trying to salvage something from the situation. (shrug)

[TonyV]

If I understood correctly, Titan Network is not supporting any such project, therefore, Tony merely said he could test if the files they suggest to dowload are clear.

Yeah, I'm not going to endorse something I have zero control over or insight into.  But I admit, my curiosity is piqued.  I have the technical capabilities to prevent my machine from being hacked, which is why I might scratch that itch at some point and see if this is anywhere close to being on the level.  Other than the SEGS people (who, to be fair, I'm not familiar with either), I don't know anyone else who has even tried to create a private server.  I dunno, maybe someone pulled it off.  But I have to admit that right now, it sounds pretty scammy to me that out of the blue someone all of a sudden has a fully working server.  If I'm proven wrong, I'll be intrigued.

Yeah. Sounds very illegal.  It would be interesting to have a working copy of a server around after november, but not something to get any close to.

If they're running CoH servers with NCsoft's IP, it's definitely illegal...  Well, okay, maybe not definitely.  If they're running them somewhere where IP laws are lax and/or not enforced, it's possible they might be doing it without breaking the law, but if you're somewhere where IP laws are enforced, you'd be breaking it by logging in.

Probably just NCsoft trying to salvage something from the situation. (shrug)

This prospect made me literally laugh out loud.  Heh, some rogue operators from Paragon Studios and/or NCsoft got the code base into the hands of foreign operators where NCsoft couldn't reach them?  That would be glorious.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Other than the SEGS people (who, to be fair, I'm not familiar with either), I don't know anyone else who has even tried to create a private server.  I dunno, maybe someone pulled it off. 

I've read something about another one, which was supposedly compatible with the game up to I3.

This prospect made me literally laugh out loud.  Heh, some rogue operators from Paragon Studios and/or NCsoft got the code base into the hands of foreign operators where NCsoft couldn't reach them?  That would be glorious.

That would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? But it might just as well be disinformation meant to pacify us - if we're waiting with baited breath for the new awesome CoH private server, we're less likely to do anything that damages NCsoft's reputation further or progress much on Plan Z.

... unofrtunately for them, if that is it, it won't work that way.

[Rotten Luck]

This prospect made me literally laugh out loud.  Heh, some rogue operators from Paragon Studios and/or NCsoft got the code base into the hands of foreign operators where NCsoft couldn't reach them?  That would be glorious.

Okay all you Rogues out there no high fives yet!  That would be cool thought!  Perhaps a Mission arc in Plan Z where a Rogue saves a Dimension/Program by stealing it from Ensay Programming.

I've read something about another one, which was supposedly compatible with the game up to I3. That would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? But it might just as well be disinformation meant to pacify us - if we're waiting with baited breath for the new awesome CoH private server, we're less likely to do anything that damages NCsoft's reputation further or progress much on Plan Z.

... unofrtunately for them, if that is it, it won't work that way.

Would fit in with NCsoft misunderstanding of western mind set.  It just be a reminder of what we lost and spur us even harder.

[Knightslayer]

Sounds like online hackers trying to prey upon the hopes of CoH players to me.  You give them your email.  You get a key logger on your machine.  They scour your hard drive for any different accounts, logins and personal info they can get.  It's probably the same people as would hack you via illegal online gold selling if you would only buy from them.

Don't look so surprised:  Gold farmers/hackers do the same type of thing.  Peeps buy gold.  They get a key logger either directly from the gold seller's site they visited, or in the confirmation email for their purchase, and the credit card account they used to buy gold soon gets hacked besides. 

I would just block anyone with similar messages.

Not all of them, I've known people that routinely bought gold without ever getting hacked - some of the RMT's actually consider themselves as service providers and I guess they welcome the return business?
Of course for every "legit" one there's probably several who ARE actually after your information so that they can rob you blind.

[The Fifth Horseman]

And there are some who just don't care about customer privacy / security.

[saipaman]

This link popped up this evening on Freedom:

http://www.newcityofheroes.net/

Thoughts?

[Peregrine Falcon]

A WhoIs search shows that website is owned by Tucows. A canadian company that used to put out a lot of shareware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucows

I admit that I know next to nothing about canadian laws, but would running a private server really be legal there?

[Sleepy Wonder]

Not all of them, I've known people that routinely bought gold without ever getting hacked - some of the RMT's actually consider themselves as service providers and I guess they welcome the return business?
Of course for every "legit" one there's probably several who ARE actually after your information so that they can rob you blind.

I know a few legit ones. You can usually tell when they accept payments by paypal and don't require the use of your account to make the trade. They'll also ask for sanitized proof of the fact your the CC holder.

With that said, it's a grey business area, and with RMT in general it's mostly in the black.

[Sleepy Wonder]

A WhoIs search shows that website is owned by Tucows. A canadian company that used to put out a lot of shareware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucows

I admit that I know next to nothing about canadian laws, but would running a private server really be legal there?

The website is not owned by Tucows. Tucows is a service provider of various e-services, including being a domain registrar. That is where the domain name itself was registered. WHOIS information often reveals squat these days with the popular WHOIS privacy service most providers offer. It's against certain regulations by ICANN to provide false information during registration, so to help with that, domain providers are sort of the middle men between people who contact the domain owner and the domain owner themselves, like a forwarding service.

What it does reveal is whether or not the entity in question has something to hide, which you should be weary of with businesses or service providers. It's not uncommon or surprising however, to find personal pages or individual entities who use it, which is fine. The reason it's being used here should be obvious; they know what they're doing is illegal and they even claim on the site they aren't affiliated with NCSoft to try and fluff it up as much as they can when they end up getting into legal waters.

What most people who use it fail to realize is that they give up the legal ownership of the domain, since technically whoever is listed on the WHOIS record is the legal owner. Of course, most providers wouldn't try to cheat anyone or abuse this power otherwise nobody would ever pay for it and they probably make more off this feature (a few extra dollars a year you have to pay) than they would make trying to claim ownership of someone elses domain who used the service where the domain was worth millions.

With that out of the way, to answer the poster above you...


That is the most unprofessional looking website I've seen in a long time. The person writing should take a writing course if they want to be taken seriously by anyone with enough education to spot a scam. I'm not claiming to be an English professor or anything but if you're going to be providing (and have the technical knowledge to do so) something as noteworthy as a 3rd party alternative to CoH, at least make a decent presentation.

I'm not saying it is, but there are alarm bells going off everywhere with that site (who contacts you by phone when they could just use a newsletter for folks who want to be notified or have questions?) Anyone seriously considering paying for a 3rd party server like that should think twice.

Besides, if they can't even design a halfway decent coming soon page, what makes you think they are going to be capable of providing the support for it?

I want an official CoH or alternative product supported by professionals or nothing at all.  For some people I realize the need outweighs the risks, but for me, I'll pass. I just hope if it's a big scam that not many people are going to be taken advantage of or abused in the future.

It's like the people that set up donation websites during a headline crisis or disaster and steal from people.

[saipaman]

There were a few more bits of information in chat:

1) No character transfer -- you have to start over.

2) No future development.

3) All features of the current client supported.

Which is a bit interesting, if someone walked off with the code, why wouldn't they have taken the beta code?  The new issue was essentially complete and definitely playable.