Hey all, a few clarifications:
SEGS
This is an effort to replicate the City of Heroes server as of an early version of the game, closer to launch than what it was when it shut down in December. I don't personally have anything to do with this project, though I do wish them the best of luck. This is likely (but not for-sure) to be the earliest effort that results in a playable server, given that the server was a lot simpler back then.
Other Compatible Servers
There is at least one more reverse engineering effort underway that I know of, intended to provide a compatible server with Issue 24, which was in the can and due to be rolled out but was never released due to the announced shutdown in August. I'm not personally involved in the development of this server, but from what I've heard, efforts are still pretty early in their development. The protocols have been reverse-engineered, but writing a compatible server completely from scratch is not a light undertaking. Also, I understand your reluctance in trusting a reverse-engineered server, but I've heard some good ideas like ensuring that character exportability is a baked-in function so that the damage from servers simply ceasing to exist is mitigated. I think there are some other good thoughts around this topic, and I'd love to see some discussion about it.
For both of these efforts, I probably wouldn't expect to hear anything for at least a few months, or until the respective teams can carve enough time out of their schedules to put in a lot of time and effort. Keep in mind that the original client/server software was developed over the course of 2001 until April, 2004. I don't think it will take three years since the teams are focusing only on the server piece and since they're not having to do things like design powers, create art assets, balance gameplay, etc.; but still, I do ask that you don't rush things. It'll take a while.
I can't really comment concretely on the legalities of these servers, other than to say that it is my good faith belief that any compatible server developed from reverse engineering efforts that does not use the City of Heroes intellectual property (art assets, names, places, etc.) would be legal.
Also, my personal belief (i.e. this is not a "Titan Network" position or a statement on the legality of the situation) is that given the state of City of Heroes and as long as NCsoft is refusing to budge on releasing the IP to another company, I don't have any moral qualms about people working on a drop-in replacement for City of Heroes. It's utter rubbish to me that after people have spent thousands of dollars on this game, all of their hard work would be wiped away because of a company's decision to change their long-term goals. Some places (not the U.S., unfortunately) are beginning to consider virtual property similarly to real property, and to me personally, this is nothing short of wanton destruction of that property...just 'cause. I certainly understand the "But it's immoral because it's illegal, and you shouldn't do illegal things!" train of thought, but I respectfully disagree with it. But enough of my soapbox, I digress...
The Phoenix Project, Heroes and Villains, and Other Plan Z Projects
These are completely separate projects. Their only relationships to City of Heroes are: 1) the people developing the projects are former City of Heroes players, and 2) they are attempting to capture the essence of what made City of Heroes fun in their respective games. These will absolutely, positively be legal because they're new games with completely different intellectual property behind them. NCsoft doesn't have any kind of rights to the superhero MMORPG genre, and in fact, game rules and mechanics are explicitly not subject to U.S. copyright law.
It's important to note that "we want something City of Heroes-like back!" is only part of the purpose of developing these games. Both teams are convinced--and I am too--that the games will in fact be superior to City of Heroes. Not to knock our beloved game, but it is over 10 years old. There are new game engines now that are easier to use and develop with and that have new tech baked in that the old Cryptic engine (which itself has been updated for newer Cryptic games) doesn't. Computer specifications and system software capability have dramatically advanced in the past decade. There is a lot more reference work in the MMORPG genre from which to draw things that work and things that don't, as well as lessons learned from things done particularly well or particularly badly within City of Heroes itself. As far as I can tell, the goals of these teams are not to produce a City of Heroes clone, but to produce newer and better games that capture what made City of Heroes really great. Thinking of them as being comparable to what should have been City of Heroes 2 would be a lot more accurate than thinking of them as City of Heroes clones.
One of the things I'm hoping both teams learn is that as a community, our members are now gun-shy about heavily investing in a game like City of Heroes. We know painfully well what it's like to feel like you've wasted a lot of time and effort on something that can simply vanish at any time. I've heard ideas from both teams to reassure people that this risk is highly mitigated, and it's my sincere hope that as the projects get further along in development, you'll agree that these games are worth the investment of your time and effort, that you can't simply lose everything even in the worst-case scenario that the projects are eventually abandoned by their respective publishers like City of Heroes was.
Being completely new games, I expect any Plan Z project to take at least two to three years to develop, as unlike the City of Heroes compatible server projects, they will be starting from scratch and having to develop the client, server, mechanics, and assets used in their final products.