justicebeliever

Knowingly receiving stolen property, which this code is, is illegal. The only reason things are they way they are not is that, as far as we know, NCSOFT has decided not to do anything about it. That could change in the next 5 seconds or never. The code is in the wild and anyone can start a server. So NCSOFT has to make the decision if they want to spend the money and time to play whack a mole. Code is copyrighted, and the copyright will last decades. It does not matter if NCSoft has done nothing about it before, or it’s fallen into disuse. It’s not been orphaned and NCSoft can exercise it’s rights whenever it wants. NCSoft will never win whack a mole, but it could be inclined to at least go after the biggest violators, and ensure that no large scale operations exist, and none in the public eye. That would still ruin the game for most players, myself included.

This reminds me of Star Trek III: Alien: How soon is now. How much is, where? McCoy: Somewhere in the Mutara sector. Alien: Oh, Mutara restricted! Take permits many; money more. McCoy: There aren't gonna be any damned permits! How can you get a permit to do a damned illegal thing?

I'm going to come out of lurking to say this. Uh.. What? Please elaborate. Think of it as like fanfiction. There are no laws against fanfiction, only against violating copyrights. Most publishers/movie studios/TV networks, etc. don't bother to go after fanfiction writers because they make no money from their work. Homecoming is the same. They are not running the game for profit, so they are not taking (non-existent, but still their legal right) income from NCSoft. Yes but how do you know that. Their still running under an LLC which is for profit legally. Non-Profit are simple to make in delware. As far as I'm aware you can use an automate process to do so. I think Homecoming might be conflating Non-Profit with Tax-Exempt. They are two different things. Non-Profit status is granted a corporation to allow it to solicit donations, and Tax-Exempt is a tax status to avoid paying taxes on income. While almost all non-profits are tax exempt, you can be just one or the other. The dev's stated their goal with Homecoming LLC is to avoid the taxes, even though they called it a non-profit. Getting a Tax-Exempt status does take quite a while - there's a lot of paperwork. Getting a non-profit status should be ridiculously easy.

May or may not be...I've been surprised many times at how things I thought were easy were hard, and vice versa. But since I don't know, suggesting it seems like a good first step... As the OP said, on thing it could be to make it an option you could turn on/off as needed

How it would it affect you if you are trying to exit a mission? I know tone is lost on forums, so to be clear, I am really just asking, not challenging...

Dammit! Have to mop more tea off my keyboard.

I'm going to address this because it keeps being brought up, and it is intentionally not being "fixed" right now. Reason #1: if you bump your Particle Physics to "Very High", you get the same amount of particle physics as if you had a PhysX card. This happens on the CPU, not the GPU, but for modern computers this barely registers. Reason #2: the "fix" involves upgrading the PhysX libraries (the DLLs in your game folder) to a newer version. So if we do that we are no longer compatible with the libraries shipped with Issue 24 Beta. This is a problem because it breaks the original client, as well as the client of any server that doesn't implement this "fix". It's a really bad idea to mess with the DLLs as long as multiple servers are sharing a COH install. A similar problem would happen if we were to enable the error reporting DLL (crashrpt.dll) in order to collect crash logs; as soon as we put that DLL in there, we start getting crash reports from every server, not just Homecoming. Bad idea. The solution is the Sunrise patcher, which will keep server-specific files on their own folders. At that point we can certainly start upgrading DLLs and adding our own features. But as long as all the servers are sharing a COH install folder, messing with the DLLs is irresponsible at best, malicious at worst.

It's true, I always under price the market, and still usually get way more than I asked for...

Thanks Adeon, +1 Inf

+1 Inf for making me spit out my tea on the keyboard. +1 Inf to OP for speaking truth

So true...I used to just do anything I could to avoid Atlas Park. I also remember getting in-game emails for it many times daily...

I’ve meaning to ask - what purpose does walk serve? Most of your abilities are turned off and you walk? I’m trying to imagine why this requested or developed...

My concern about a single character repository is that makes a ripe target for someone to shut down multiple servers at once. I love the idea of a universal standard for import/export of a character from one server to another, but would be concerned about all the eggs in one basket.

The article - https://massivelyop.com/2019/05/28/city-of-heroes-rogue-servers-may-28/, was really highlighting community problems with the Discord backed Server and the Reditt backed Server. Homecoming was mentioned as not being helpful to those servers, but: 1.) Not mentioned as being harmful 2.) Gave a great response why they aren't helping (concerns about i24 drawing NCSoft attention) I don't really think it was a commentary about Homecoming...

I use a macro to change into my characters secret identity, and I use a separate powers tray with Walk, Sprint, and Brawl in it and a few other "Secret Identity" macros in it. As much as I love the Secret Identity of my characters, the challenges I see are 1.) Some people's characters alternate ID's still have full powers (Captain America, Superman, all Mutants, Natural origins [Hawkeye, Batman] etc). How do you handle them during a mugging? 2.) And many characters may have alternate ID's that aren't even human, but still not all costumed up. Wouldn't they still be attacked all the time?

Adeon - is this an issue for when you are exiting a mission? Or just moving between zones? For the former I don't see an issue, and especially if you are trying to leave a mission in a hurry (bad guys after me) you don't need extra prompts slowing you down. When it comes to zoning or the tunnel/monorail/etc, it doesn't really bother me that much to have to select something and I can even see where it autoselecting for you causes problems

I think it would work. People are going to move to whatever get's the most traction. If there was an official tab, like Help and LFG for DFB, then people who want DFB would likely and instinctively go there. Probably for the same reason the OP is asking - there would be less noise for things like TF and Radio Mishes. I think it would self moderate, and just like now people would course correct people posting in the wrong channel. The problem with an unofficial tab is getting the visibility. If no one sees it, no one uses it.

I want to be clear - I agree 100% with your post. My only points were - all people are playing the game for their own reasons, not anyone else - it's all self-centeredness. No one is playing the game for me...I know that. I am also not playing the game for anyone else... I think I hear folks (in this particular post - folks = people who PL part or all of the way up), tired of being told that other people don't like their playstyle, and asking the devs to make their playstyle impossible or more difficult. And I understand the PL's frustration. It is tiresome. But the refrain some of those people are giving back is: 1.) "My PL'ing playstyle doesn't impact you at all", which is factually false. It's an interconnected game. If DFB players are spamming LFG (which they are), it is harder to find a group to team with. It's not impossible, I know that. It's just harder...I don't support changing DFB at all, because I remember before DFB players just spamming other channels looking to PL. So I am fine with it, but it's an impact. Some of those players are also pushing hard for AE XP to be boosted, even though they've been told it's bad for the server health. Would that change to their playstyle impact me? Yes. 2.) "If you can't find the team you want, you are stupid or socially unfit" - that's just B.S. DFB players can say that all they want, but it rings false because they are finding exactly the team they want without any trouble. So for those of us, who want to play differently, it's more difficult, and sometimes, like me last night, it's a fail. Am I stupid or socially unfit? No. Nor am I blaming DFB players for the fail either. So I find those responses equally tiresome. Final thought - I ask no pity for my experience last night, it was just an example. I hold no anger or frustration with any person, any group, or any playstyle. Sometimes I roll a great team, sometimes I can't find one. It is what it is - no complaints - just happy to play. I just called it out to say, that it isn't as easy "well you must not be willing to lead a team or ask for one".

Yeah, the paladin message seems to persist long after he has been defeated. Beaten him twice and message was still around at least 2-3 minutes later. Worse yet the message shows him at full health. And even worse yet, I haven’t found a way to just close the window (apart from leaving the area)

+1

Yes, King's Row Shauna Stockwell (IIRC) and Eagle Eye both give missions that are tough, give great reward merits, and lot's of XP. Plus they are fun...

I've noticed the same thing. It's certainly more laggy all the time, and seems to timeout with some frequency. I just refreshed the last page I had open, and in the 30 seconds I've been writing this post, it still hasn't refreshed... I was thinking it must be a traffic issue as well with all the renenewed interest EDIT: Page finally loaded after 60 seconds

That’s actually the root issue. The “everyone needs to play what I want and how I want” players and posters really are struggling with interpersonal relationships in the virtual world. They believe that they should be able to log in and immediately have a bunch of people willing to play with them, doing the content they want to do and performing it the way they want them to as well. In short, the world revolves around them in their mind and it’s very disappointing to learn that they can’t force all other players to conform to their wishes. Thus they insist the developers force their will on the rest of us. The real issue is self-centeredness. Not leveling speed/rewards/powers/whatever. I think self-centeredness is the focus for most MMORPG players. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Let me be transparent - I don't play DFB, and I don't PL - I enjoy the grind. It's a badge of honor for me, but I don't expect it to be so for anyone else. I also don't think we should try to stop PL'ing - it's a reality that's going to be in the game no matter what. When it affects other players - then we should discuss. I don't support nerfing or changing DFB at this point - not where I would want developers to spend their time. Back to self-centeredness - for every player on this board advocating against DFB, I'm sure I can find a similar number of players complaining about AE XP being nerfed, or Vanguard Merits, or what not. And some of those AE folks don't seem to care about the server issues it causes - they just want their XP, the heck if makes the game unplayable for everyone else. Pretty self-centered. RP'er's play to role play and advocate for the name change policy to support time spent in toon, not the level, PVP'ers advocate for PVP changes and things that encourage PVP, PL'ers advocate for things that let them PL faster, Min/Max advocate for power changes that make them more uber, and grinders' like me advocate for more content driven changes. It's a game - we don't play it to be selfless, we play it to be self-centered. We aren't here to actually save the world. As for people "insisting" the developers do things - I haven't seen that behavior in the OP. It was a request. It wasn't "do it my way or I'm leaving". Not really clear why so many requests on this board that are made turn into people projecting that OP is demanding something of everyone else. It's a request...right, wrong or indifferent, it was just a request. Don't like - say so, love it - give it a plus one. But tell the OP they they are selfish, or demanding, or insisting, or hating unless that's what they are actually saying. Finally - It can be hard for people to team up. Again, we are all self-centered, we all want to find a group that plays the way we do. I was asking for people to team with me last night to help with my missions - no takers. Someone finally took pity on me I think and invited me to a group that was way overpowered for their missions and I was pretty useless. 90% of the damage was done in the first 10 seconds, and the remaining 10% in the next 10 seconds. It's not how I play. I thanked them (they weren't rude, in fact they were very nice) and went on my way. After asking 3 other people thru tells if they wanted to play, I got tired and gave up. Did I take initiative? Yes I did...How did I feel? Frustrated (though not at any person, just in general), and a just a little rejected. I don't take it personally, no one was rejecting me as a person, but it's still not a very happy ending to the story. So please don't tell people that it's all in their heads if they can't get a team they like. And you DFB players would be very disappointed if no one wanted to play DFB teams - so it's easy to cast stones on others because you've already got all the people teaming for DFB that you could want...

that's pretty much what happened after he left, yeah to his credit, he didn't actually kick anyone, but still, folks with that mindset are going to be potentially scaring noobs off by calling people 'spoiled children' for not realizing that sands of mu is an AoE or stuff like that You and I don't agree on much - but I agree that was....extreme...yikes. Hope he doesn't have actual children...

+1 as well...