New efforts!

[downix]

The problem with just slapping more rendering enhancements onto the existing engine and keeping the old methods around for compatibility's sake is that it would make the game's apparently already-bloated codebase even worse. A full engine port would result in much cleaner code overall, but for reasons you stated, that's not really feasible either. If they were going to put that much work into porting to an entirely new engine, they might as well make CoH2.

It may not be a choice they can make either, depending on if they can purchase or license the old game engine, and in what shape it is.

[Codewalker]

Just a bit of trivia for reference, the Unreal engine started out 18 years ago in a much more primitive state than the COH engine ever was. :)

Just goes to show how far you can take something by continuously improving and cleaning it up.

[Thirty-Seven]

If they were going to put that much work into porting to an entirely new engine, they might as well make CoH2.

Which is why I don't think much of any development time will be spent on CoH if it re-launches.  It just wouldn't be wise use of time and money to try to make a 12 year old game look and run like it isn't built on an out-dated mess of spaghetti code.

We know from many many reports from folks like Positron, Castle, BaBs, Pohsyb, Arbiter Hawk, etc. that the game often times breaks when things are adjusted, often in totally unrelated areas.  The system that was in place to create cut-scenes IIRC, was described as "something I wouldn't want to wish on anyone."  We love the game, we love the memories and we loved the Devs because THEY loved the game and us... but the best thing that could happen to us right now, is for someone to get the IP sold to them with or without the actual game so that they can actually make a REAL successor, in a REAL studio.

No offense at all to the current folks trying to make "spiritual successors" but I am not holding my breath that a couple studios that kinda sprung up at a moments notice and run mainly on volunteers can actually make a successful MMO, hell, I'd be pleased as hell to be wrong, but an MMO takes MONDO cash to make from scratch.

I would love the current effort Iron Wolf is talking about to succeed and to get the game, the IP, the whole works into a legitimate studio.  I'd love them to be able to get the old game up and running, allow things like private servers to run it, and ALSO get to working on a true successor... but honestly, I'm not gonna hold my breath.

[kiario]

I am really grateful for the work the secret people are doing to get the game back and I really do think positively and trust them as they apparently are one of us. As I see it,

1 Get game back
2 Celebrate, be happy and thankful they made it

Any other things like getting our old accounts and whether or not we will get our characters and things back are just a bonus. If we would need to rebuy some stuff we already owned in the past, so what really? Its not a big deal, at least not money wise. I am sure the people behind this would not be doing that just 
with extortion in mind.

For me the the game is not level 50, I just want to breath the air in the city again and inhale the atmosphere :)

[Angel Phoenix77]

I am really grateful for the work the secret people are doing to get the game back and I really do think positively and trust them as they apparently are one of us. As I see it,

1 Get game back
2 Celebrate, be happy and thankful they made it

Any other things like getting our old accounts and whether or not we will get our characters and things back are just a bonus. If we would need to rebuy some stuff we already owned in the past, so what really? Its not a big deal, at least not money wise. I am sure the people behind this would not be doing that just 
with extortion in mind.

For me the the game is not level 50, I just want to breath the air in the city again and inhale the atmosphere :)

this is my sentiments exactly

[Solitaire]

I am really grateful for the work the secret people are doing to get the game back and I really do think positively and trust them as they apparently are one of us. As I see it,

1 Get game back
2 Celebrate, be happy and thankful they made it

Any other things like getting our old accounts and whether or not we will get our characters and things back are just a bonus. If we would need to rebuy some stuff we already owned in the past, so what really? Its not a big deal, at least not money wise. I am sure the people behind this would not be doing that just 
with extortion in mind.

For me the the game is not level 50, I just want to breath the air in the city again and inhale the atmosphere :)

Well put :)

[Fridgy Daiere]

Not a bad way to look at it.

I did have a pretty big solo base, but something tells me a new base system would be much easier to work with....so rebuilding wouldn't be a huge pain.

Hehe, remember magic desks?  I have to wonder whether they were a complete freak of programming or done on purpose...and who was OCD enough to figure out what they were capable of?

[Fridgy Daiere]

For me the the game is not level 50, I just want to breath the air in the city again and inhale the atmosphere :)

...and team with friends and family, whether RL or in-game.  This is one of the places that CoX really shined.

[HEATSTROKE]

 I have never cared how flashy or awesome looking graphics are. Solid.. fine.. For me the CoH graphics on Ultra Mode are just fine. Ultimately I care about the gameplay and I think CoH had that in spades.

That being said.. I would like to see the old game acquired.. launched at least with Issue 23.. Move to Issue 24 and the game could stop right there.. Then work on CoH2 while CoH is running.. Then give legacy players the option of moving and porting characters to CoH2 or continue to play on a legacy server in a "maintenance" mode (no further development) after CoH2 launches..

And I believe that this is a huge part of the negotiations.. the future of CoH.. NC Soft owns the rights to CoH2 as well.. will they demand a share of the future pie? If so how much? and over what time? I suspect that is a major discussion point.

[r00tb0ySlim]

Well, technically, they'd have invested several million to buy the game, so it could be viewed as getting a return on their investment.

Valid point, but then it still has that "stick 'em up" perception to it that the new owners may not want to have stuck on them.  Generating return on investment in other ways might be the best way to go for public image.  With that being said I will sub yearly (as I did previously) and I would probably buy my one of my old accounts if they decide to offer that as an option.  I would be one happy camper with no regrets ;D

[TonyV]

I *am* a moderator. ;)

Agge is The Moderator.  She's like The Ocho with The Mosto.™

[HEATSTROKE]

 WOW I just notice im Elite Boss status now.. wooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooooooo

[Dr. Bad Guy]

No, you have this completely wrong.

What I am mad about is NOT that a new company won't honor payments I made to a different company but rather I am mad that a second company would try to profit from transactions made to a FIRST company through no work of their own.

I don't expect any new buyer to honor contracts and purchase I made with someone else years ago, what I do expect is that they won't try to sell me a second time work that someone else did and they had nothing to do with.  It makes no sense to me that EVERYTHING in the game files and databases that they get from NC won't just be freely available to us as part of the new base game.  As I said in the above post, I have no issue with making purchases related to any work they might do with the game in the future, that's a whole different kettle of fish.

Um maybe you missed the whole "paying a significant sum of money" to purchase the game so we may play it again.

Edit: Fixed the quote for ya.

[Dr. Bad Guy]

And maybe someday I'll figure out how to use the forum correctly.

[Thirty-Seven]

No, I didn't miss that.  But I think it's bad form to try to resell us things that they didn't even have a hand in making.

[houtex]

Here's the thing about the database that's probably going to indicate it's not going to happen, even if it's available:

>Prove you're you.<

It may sound or feel like this is a simple thing from us individually, but think about the other side... thousands of accounts to slog through.  And somehow, someone has to ensure that person A really is person A and not person 7 who is trying to get in a fully set up, lots of inf, lots of 50s, lots of this or that account.

Think of the backlash a few of those might have.  "MY EX STOLE MY ACCOUNT!!!"  is the first kind that comes to mind.  If you think it won't happen, well...

I mean, I had a pissant account compared to some of those out there.  And while I wouldn't dare dream of actually trying to grab the account... some of the people "out there" would.

So while it's completely possible... the sheer numbers of potential fraudulence might just make it an unworthy time/money sink for the new owners.  It'd be safer to not offer it, not do it, than risk the potential can of worms that restoring the months mothballed accounts might be.

Then again... I don't know how all that's set up.  Whether it's based on proving the email, or the credit card, or whatever provable information is in there.  For all I know it's the easiest thing in the world to do, and we'll all get everything back.  I highly doubt it, but if it happens, awesome.

Just a thought I had about it.

I never played the 'pay to win' way of things.  If it didn't drop, I didn't get it.  If I couldn't afford it at the Auction House, I didn't want it, I guess.  And that was fine.  Sure, I wasn't the Uber Hero that Thing of Bigness might one day have been... but long term.  Not win now.  That's how I played it.

So if I had to start over?  Fine with me.  I know what I built.  I can build it again.  Or maybe I'd fondly remember them, but strike out in a new direction with a new character.  Whatever.

Just get it running.

Edit:  Post number 777!  Aww yiss... lucky Triple 7s. :D

[kiario]

Here's the thing about the database that's probably going to indicate it's not going to happen, even if it's available:

>Prove you're you.<

It may sound or feel like this is a simple thing from us individually, but think about the other side... thousands of accounts to slog through.  And somehow, someone has to ensure that person A really is person A and not person 7 who is trying to get in a fully set up, lots of inf, lots of 50s, lots of this or that account.

Think of the backlash a few of those might have.  "MY EX STOLE MY ACCOUNT!!!"  is the first kind that comes to mind.  If you think it won't happen, well...

I mean, I had a pissant account compared to some of those out there.  And while I wouldn't dare dream of actually trying to grab the account... some of the people "out there" would.

So while it's completely possible... the sheer numbers of potential fraudulence might just make it an unworthy time/money sink for the new owners.  It'd be safer to not offer it, not do it, than risk the potential can of worms that restoring the months mothballed accounts might be.

Then again... I don't know how all that's set up.  Whether it's based on proving the email, or the credit card, or whatever provable information is in there.  For all I know it's the easiest thing in the world to do, and we'll all get everything back.  I highly doubt it, but if it happens, awesome.

Just a thought I had about it.

I never played the 'pay to win' way of things.  If it didn't drop, I didn't get it.  If I couldn't afford it at the Auction House, I didn't want it, I guess.  And that was fine.  Sure, I wasn't the Uber Hero that Thing of Bigness might one day have been... but long term.  Not win now.  That's how I played it.

So if I had to start over?  Fine with me.  I know what I built.  I can build it again.  Or maybe I'd fondly remember them, but strike out in a new direction with a new character.  Whatever.

Just get it running.

Edit:  Post number 777!  Aww yiss... lucky Triple 7s. :D

Isn't "prove you are you" technically just your login name and password assosiated to that account. Same as it would be still live today? Maybe its more complicate :)

[TonyV]

SCoRE? Nothing. Simply nothing. For what...three years? How much hope do you have to have?

I'll re-state... I HOPE that this works out. I have FAR more hope in this project than anything that anyone could tell me about SCoRE at this point.

Okay, first of all, this is precisely why I don't say a lot about the efforts going on in this arena, because I don't want the hassle of continually having to answer questions about it, especially since I'm not really a key player in its development.

Second of all, it hasn't been three years.  Three years ago, not only was the game still up and running, but it was still three issues away from closing down.  SCoRE didn't really kick off in earnest until a few weeks after the shutdown notice, and even then, it was a mad rush to collect network traces and dissect API information.  Actually thinking about coding something up to implement that stuff didn't occur until a few months after that.  In other words, SCoRE has really only been working on this as a project for a little over a year.

Third of all, where do you get off claiming that there as been nothing that's come of it? Have you played around with Icon at all? Do you consider that "nothing"? That program came directly out of client-side reverse engineering efforts, and given that you wouldn't even be able to get into the costume editor without it, being able to actually get into and wander around the city is, in my humble opinion, hardly "absolutely nothing".

If I come off as defensive, it's because I'm in a long-running chat session with the folks who are working on this stuff, and I see the amount of time they're putting into it.  Hardly a day goes by when there's not some serious discussion going on about how to implement some server-side functionality. What I think might be lost on some people is that this stuff is hard. Like, really hard. City of Heroes wasn't built on a well-known and documented game engine, it was built from the ground up. There is no public information on how the game works internally, and trying to recreate a black box like that from scratch is extremely time-consuming.

Even the low-level network protocol used to communicate between the client and the server was designed from scratch, a variant of UDP. And it's not like there's just one monolithic piece of code that has to be replicated, either. There are account servers, authentication servers, database servers, map servers, chat servers, etc., all of which have to be implemented and working for stuff to function correctly. In other words, it's not just reverse engineering one program, but like eight or ten, each one pretty durn complex.

If you want to give up on SCoRE, then that's fine, give up on SCoRE.  Will CoT launch before it's finished?  I don't know, probably.  Will CoH relaunch before it's finished?  Maybe, but even if so, that won't be the end of SCoRE, as the people working on it have expressed to me that they don't want to be caught flat-footed if the game shuts down again in the future.

But rest assured that just because we don't post a stream of messages about the project, it's not dead, and the hyperbole about it being three years with nothing to show for it really rubs me the wrong way.

[Relitner]

Odd. I am abruptly reminded of my favorite power, Nova (pre-ED), five slotted with damage SOs.  ;D

Okay, first of all, this is precisely why I don't say a lot about the efforts going on in this arena, because I don't want the hassle of continually having to answer questions about it, especially since I'm not really a key player in its development.

Second of all, it hasn't been three years.  Three years ago, not only was the game still up and running, but it was still three issues away from closing down.  SCoRE didn't really kick off in earnest until a few weeks after the shutdown notice, and even then, it was a mad rush to collect network traces and dissect API information.  Actually thinking about coding something up to implement that stuff didn't occur until a few months after that.  In other words, SCoRE has really only been working on this as a project for a little over a year.

Third of all, where do you get off claiming that there as been nothing that's come of it? Have you played around with Icon at all? Do you consider that "nothing"? That program came directly out of client-side reverse engineering efforts, and given that you wouldn't even be able to get into the costume editor without it, being able to actually get into and wander around the city is, in my humble opinion, hardly "absolutely nothing".

If I come off as defensive, it's because I'm in a long-running chat session with the folks who are working on this stuff, and I see the amount of time they're putting into it.  Hardly a day goes by when there's not some serious discussion going on about how to implement some server-side functionality. What I think might be lost on some people is that this stuff is hard. Like, really hard. City of Heroes wasn't built on a well-known and documented game engine, it was built from the ground up. There is no public information on how the game works internally, and trying to recreate a black box like that from scratch is extremely time-consuming.

Even the low-level network protocol used to communicate between the client and the server was designed from scratch, a variant of UDP. And it's not like there's just one monolithic piece of code that has to be replicated, either. There are account servers, authentication servers, database servers, map servers, chat servers, etc., all of which have to be implemented and working for stuff to function correctly. In other words, it's not just reverse engineering one program, but like eight or ten, each one pretty durn complex.

If you want to give up on SCoRE, then that's fine, give up on SCoRE.  Will CoT launch before it's finished?  I don't know, probably.  Will CoH relaunch before it's finished?  Maybe, but even if so, that won't be the end of SCoRE, as the people working on it have expressed to me that they don't want to be caught flat-footed if the game shuts down again in the future.

But rest assured that just because we don't post a stream of messages about the project, it's not dead, and the hyperbole about it being three years with nothing to show for it really rubs me the wrong way.

[mrultimate]

Odd. I am abruptly reminded of my favorite power, Nova (pre-ED), five slotted with damage SOs.  ;D

+1