Damn, he was actually serious when he said he would listen to the poll.
e: it's not legal to posses the code right?
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The Secret City of Heroes Private Server
- Thread starter ZeroDotFlow
- Start date
e: it's not legal to posses the code right?
There should be cultural takeover laws that says "If you don't do anything actively with an online game's code, servers, etc. etc. then all goes public domain in 5-10 years."
NCSoft isn't making a new City of Heroes, they're not making any money off it, they're not planning anything with it as far as anything has ever indicated. This goes for many online games that exists out there and has been since shut down. Games is so fucking weirdly far off from any other cultural items that exist, it's not like if a company decides to cease production of a movie/music/book/whatever it just ceases entirely to exist. It's out there and will continue to be that. Games do however because they rely on servers and shit, and there should be some change to that idiocy. If the company that owns the game refuses to open up a server, then the data should be made public at some point so others can. It can't really fucking hurt the company in any way, shape or form.
NCSoft isn't making a new City of Heroes, they're not making any money off it, they're not planning anything with it as far as anything has ever indicated. This goes for many online games that exists out there and has been since shut down. Games is so fucking weirdly far off from any other cultural items that exist, it's not like if a company decides to cease production of a movie/music/book/whatever it just ceases entirely to exist. It's out there and will continue to be that. Games do however because they rely on servers and shit, and there should be some change to that idiocy. If the company that owns the game refuses to open up a server, then the data should be made public at some point so others can. It can't really fucking hurt the company in any way, shape or form.
Without NPCs missions etc.
Seems like he wants this to blow over without actually giving everything he has
There is a mentality that even dead IP has value, so they want to hold onto everything they can to bolster their portfolio in case they're ever purchased.
He said anything missing needs to be scrubbed of sensitive information.
whats the reason he is giving it out now instead of keeping it a secret until it all blows over?
He said he would do whatever won the poll from the OP article. "Release the code" won and he seems to be doing that. He said the pieces missing contain Information that may lead back to who stole the code from NCSoft, customization to the code he wants to revert first, and personal info of every player who ever played the game. Once that is dealt with he said he will release the rest.
The personal info he has would be things like first and last name, address and phone for every account. I don't believe he has payment info as that should have been stored separate from this database.
They can still own the IP. They would just loose control over something like server codes so that others could keep a non-profitable thing going without any expense at all to the company who made it. :(
The character database contains both player characters(with personal info) and the NPC data.
At least for non multiplayer games there already is something similar to what you described in your other post.
This has been really fun to watch. Here's hoping a CoH server opens in the future. Would love to hop on it again.
Heads up for anybody watching, a test server will be going up within 48 hours. I don't know if I can link anything like this here, so I won't.
ETA for more permanent servers is a few weeks to a little over a month ATM.
ETA for more permanent servers is a few weeks to a little over a month ATM.
I'm a bit unclear on if the complete functional server files with npc's, missions and the whole shebang will be released or only the world without anything in it?
If I could actually host my own little COH server only for me and and my brothers that would be amazing!
If I could actually host my own little COH server only for me and and my brothers that would be amazing!
What's been playable to the public for the past few hours has been a copy of the SCoRE server that was hidden away for the past 6 years (minus some elements like Mission Architect and the auction house). Other coders have been working on the source and content databases throughout the day, but the fruits of their labor is days/weeks/months/??? away.
It's hard to say; the supposed rationale behind SCoRE's original secrecy was to avoid the same fate of C&D as Infinite Rasa, which was Tabula Rasa's private server effort. However, private servers for other NCSoft MMORPGs have survived without any sort of interference from the publisher, and Tabula Rasa's situation was markedly different since it was already engaged in a lawsuit at the time of the private server's existence. I would say if we're going to hear word from NCSoft, it will be Soon™.
Some legal speculation here: https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/19/...y-on-city-of-heroes-inevitable-rogue-servers/
It's a bit of a shame there wasn't a proper server emulator made into the years approaching this point. I have a limited perspective on the City of Heroes game, but it feels like much of the reason Ragnarok Online has become almost immortal is because people cloned the server software very early on, and reverse engineered updates as they came around.
The legality of this was very dubious, of course.
If I may ask a silly question - Was there ever any impetus for making private servers when the game was still alive? Or was it free to play - removing 90% of the incentive for private servers?
I'm rather curious. I do hope that the fanbase doesn't get too burnt by NCSoft. It feels like they have an opportunity to make a profit by licensing what already exists.
The legality of this was very dubious, of course.
If I may ask a silly question - Was there ever any impetus for making private servers when the game was still alive? Or was it free to play - removing 90% of the incentive for private servers?
I'm rather curious. I do hope that the fanbase doesn't get too burnt by NCSoft. It feels like they have an opportunity to make a profit by licensing what already exists.
City of Heroes didn't start as free to play but a later update changed it so you could either play with a subscription, getting all of the game unlocked, or play free, but pay to unlock the more advanced classes and access to the endgame trials.
I don't remember seeing anything about private servers while I was playing the game. But I didn't see all the corners of the community.
As for the fanbase's relationship with NCSoft... Hostile would be a kind word to use. Many, many players swore off anything NCSoft related afterwards, and when a few City of Heroes character showed up in another NCSoft game... Let's say it wasn't recieved well.
It's still going, but it's drank way too much of the F2P Kool-aid
It wasn't free while I played it, and I was never aware of any effort to make private servers
That IS a silly question, but only because you loaded it with the assumption that being free is "90%" of the reason for private servers, when the real reasons are usually to play an old/modified version of the game or to continue playing a game that's no longer supported
You're talking about Mercedes Lackey, right?
Never got into CoH myself but I hope something works out for the fans. It is ridiculous that NCsoft would shut down a self supporting MMO, especially when other companies have been able to keep their own (sometimes ancient, given the age of the genre) self supporting MMOs open.
Something simmliar happened to Star Wars galaxies the original source code leaked, where you can easily set up a server with all the updates that had come out up until it's shutdown
hah yes. hitting that level where you could finally choose it was so good, finally I'm not slow anymore! I had a friend who ran a kinetics defender that never took anything other than quickness and hover though, because siphon speed was so good.
City of Heroes was my first MMO and to this day remains one of my favourites, though it's been so long that maybe I'm looking at it with rose tinted glasses.
I remember having so much fun with it while I was at University though, I absolutely preferred it over World of Warcraft, and City of Heroes was so much better for drop in drop out play. City of Villains was an amazing expansion pack too, actually getting to be the bad guy in a game like that was incredible.
I remember collecting the City of Heroes comic series too, by Top Cow I think? I might still have my copies sitting around somewhere.
I remember having so much fun with it while I was at University though, I absolutely preferred it over World of Warcraft, and City of Heroes was so much better for drop in drop out play. City of Villains was an amazing expansion pack too, actually getting to be the bad guy in a game like that was incredible.
I remember collecting the City of Heroes comic series too, by Top Cow I think? I might still have my copies sitting around somewhere.
Everything is included in this. CoH, CoV, CoHGR, you can play as hero or villain or even that praetorian class or whatever it was after you'd hit 50 and started over.
Playing through the Galaxy City tutorial and beating up a few Hellions in Atlas Park last night was a trip. The server is down while they migrate to something more robust for now, but I'm killing time by rebuilding costumes in Titan Icon (which are compatible with SCORE). There was a tool called Sentinel that saved your hero data around the time of the server sunset, but I wasn't around for that so I'm hoping the character database is released in some form in the future.
I really hope they will release the full server code so we can host our own fully functional servers.
I can't wait to host my own little server and just loaf around at my own pace. I'm not a mmo guy but I've always wanted a superhero rpg and what little I've played of COH back in the day and now on this test server was pretty fun. The character editor is just amazing!
I can't wait to host my own little server and just loaf around at my own pace. I'm not a mmo guy but I've always wanted a superhero rpg and what little I've played of COH back in the day and now on this test server was pretty fun. The character editor is just amazing!
Everyone is always gung ho about "release the code!" and all that when its not YOUR ass on the line. It doesn't sound like they got a hold of all this data all that legally. Now their names/faces are out there and people are like "Fuck whatever legal blowback you might face, release da code!"
Shieeeeeeet. Unless I was absolutely certain I couldnt be legally pursued, I would tell you all to kick rocks too. I love MMO private servers and the way they preserve relics of the genre (we need one for Planetside 1) but I wont ever blame people for protecting themselves.
Now THIS... This is fucked up and I can understand people being angry over it. But other than that, nah.
I don't think Private Servers will ever shake that stigma. I was thinking the launch of Classic WoW might help fight it off, but Blizzard doesn't release subscription numbers anymore. So you won't be able to find out how many of us are starting subs again to play Classic.
Other MMO devs could take a note from Everquest. Daybreak acknowledges that project 99 exists for free but they see it as a complement to EQ and let it be it's own thing. Even when they launched classic servers, they still let players have the opinion to play on the private server if they wanted.
It's a shame so much work and effort just... Goes away after these games are shutdown. If fans want to keep it alive on their own dime they should be allowed to
It's a shame so much work and effort just... Goes away after these games are shutdown. If fans want to keep it alive on their own dime they should be allowed to
If it does I'd have to give it a try.
God I miss City of Heroes/City of Villains so much.
For everybody who doesnt have discord or wants to know the latest status info about the server since they are improving the server every hour or so:
https://twitter.com/CityofHeroes00
https://twitter.com/CityofHeroes00
Yeah, I was wrecking my mind trying to remember her name