For people that are not familiar, City of Heroes was a superhero MMO that was the first big superhero MMO. Released alongside WoW in 2004, it had a passionate set of fans (incl. myself) and in general seemed to be a fairly steady and popular game. NCSoft came in and proceeded to shut down the entire game as it was in the middle of releasing a new major patch, laying off the studio despite the fact that the game was profitable and self-sustaining. It was officially shut down in late 2012.
Now, 7 years later there are growing groups of people looking to revive City of Heroes. From Paragon Chat to SEGs, they're all looking to offer a way of playing City of Heroes once again. Today however, things took a turn for the strange.
There's been a secret server operating using the game's original code for six years. Only today has it fully been revealed.
I mean...I can't. I was a huge fan of City of Heroes and I recall hearing rumors about this, but I thought surely we would've seen some leaks. Code, screenshots, anything. This raises some huge legal ramifications because not only are they using the actual code behind the servers, but they may also have access to the original database which allows them to retrieve old characters. Would someone have the right to see if they can access their old characters? What should be done with the server code? And what about the people that have been writing emulators attempting to recreate the experience?
Now, 7 years later there are growing groups of people looking to revive City of Heroes. From Paragon Chat to SEGs, they're all looking to offer a way of playing City of Heroes once again. Today however, things took a turn for the strange.
There's been a secret server operating using the game's original code for six years. Only today has it fully been revealed.
If you've been around the post-sunset City of Heroes community long enough, you've probably heard the rumors that there's a secret City of Heroes emulator out there – not SEGS, and not Paragon Chat, and not any of the spiritual successors, but a full-fledged, live, and functioning emulator of the real game. Traditionally, anybody bringing that up has been ostracized as a liar. But it's all come to a head this week as one YouTuber posted a video calling out the secret server and at least one of the people behind it, and now we've got a lengthy statement from the emulator team's leader acknowledging some of the claims and resoundingly denying others.
Let's start from the beginning. Destroyer Stroyer aka Doc Boy, who says his real name is Brian and who uses his own face in the video, says he was invited by an admin to the secret server after he made a huge screenshot-dump post on Reddit. In a nutshell, his accusation is that some members of the City of Heroes community acquired the game's original code from a former Paragon Studios employee and have been running it in absolute secrecy, under threat of ban, for the last six years.
I mean...I can't. I was a huge fan of City of Heroes and I recall hearing rumors about this, but I thought surely we would've seen some leaks. Code, screenshots, anything. This raises some huge legal ramifications because not only are they using the actual code behind the servers, but they may also have access to the original database which allows them to retrieve old characters. Would someone have the right to see if they can access their old characters? What should be done with the server code? And what about the people that have been writing emulators attempting to recreate the experience?