NCsoft files trademark application for superhero MMORPG it abandoned

[Bodai]

1 minute ago, boggo2300 said:

theyve explained it already, NC-soft would only negotiate if the player DB was gone

Great, so they probably could explain what the reason is for that, right?

[boggo2300]

Just now, Bodai said:

Great, so they probably could explain what the reason is for that, right?

the huge legal and administrative hurdles when dealing with thousands of peoples personal details, something a small band of volunteers wouldn't want deal with if they were sane, and something that even NC-soft don't want the overhead of dealing with

[Bodai]

10 minutes ago, boggo2300 said:

the huge legal and administrative hurdles when dealing with thousands of peoples personal details, something a small band of volunteers wouldn't want deal with if they were sane, and something that even NC-soft don't want the overhead of dealing with

Ok, I won't belabor the point.  Let's agree to disagree.

 

I work for the government in IT, and I work with PCI & PII compliance, and all kinds of legal issues all the time and databases that run into PB's in size.  Maybe there is a good reason that would make this hard or untenable, I have just not heard it yet.  Maybe it would be easy for me from my perspective but hard for others?  I dunno....

[boggo2300]

1 minute ago, Bodai said:

Ok, I won't belabor the point.  Let's agree to disagree.

 

I work for the government in IT, and I work with PCI & PII compliance, and all kinds of legal issues all the time and databases that run into PB's in size.  Maybe there is a good reason that would make this hard or untenable, I have just not heard it yet.  Maybe it would be easy for me from my perspective but hard for others?  I dunno....

Things that are easy in government are almost insurmountable in corporate, and even more impossible for a non-profit, I've been in all three, plus you are talking three countries, plus the privacy laws in Europe that will be enforced because there are EU based players (and this isn't just current players, this is all the players who had an account with NC for city) It's not impossible, but it's far too much effort for either HC or NC to want to deal with

[Bodai]

27 minutes ago, boggo2300 said:

Things that are easy in government are almost insurmountable in corporate, and even more impossible for a non-profit, I've been in all three, plus you are talking three countries, plus the privacy laws in Europe that will be enforced because there are EU based players (and this isn't just current players, this is all the players who had an account with NC for city) It's not impossible, but it's far too much effort for either HC or NC to want to deal with

Oh no, my job is not "easy", it positively sucks away my will to live....  but it pays OK and the hours and benefits are good.

Playing this game is actually one of my nice distractions.

 

I guess I would like to read something that describes in detail the nature of this challenge, because even taking into account the issues you mention, I am still missing something.

 

Now, Elon Musk and Space-X landing a rocket vertically, now that is hard.

[boggo2300]

Just now, Bodai said:

Oh no, my job is not "easy", it positively sucks away my will to live....  but it pays OK and the hours and benefits are good.

Playing this game is actually one of my nice distractions.

 

I guess I would like to read something that describes in detail the nature of this challenge, because even taking into account the issues you mention, I am still missing something.

 

Now, Elon Musk and Space-X landing a rocket vertically, now that is hard.

I think you should get used to disappointment then as I don't expect anymore to be said on it officially, "we don't have the database, and we've committed to not getting it" is pretty much the final word, and yes, having to do engineering work for a loose cannon like Elon Musk would be REALLY hard

 

however this is WAY off topic for this thread and we should stop before the parents come to scold us

[Bodai]

2 minutes ago, boggo2300 said:

I think you should get used to disappointment then as I don't expect anymore to be said on it officially, "we don't have the database, and we've committed to not getting it" is pretty much the final word, and yes, having to do engineering work for a loose cannon like Elon Musk would be REALLY hard

 

however this is WAY off topic for this thread and we should stop before the parents come to scold us

My expectations are so low, it is quite hard to disappoint me.  If I go see a movie, the movie is going to suck.  If the movie sucks, I was right, if the movie is great, I am pleasantly surprised.

[justicebeliever]

11 hours ago, Bodai said:

Oh no, my job is not "easy", it positively sucks away my will to live....  but it pays OK and the hours and benefits are good.

Playing this game is actually one of my nice distractions.

 

I guess I would like to read something that describes in detail the nature of this challenge, because even taking into account the issues you mention, I am still missing something.

 

Now, Elon Musk and Space-X landing a rocket vertically, now that is hard.

I’m not with Homecoming, but compliance with EU privacy law is a whole another level of complexity above PCI compliance and US Privacy law.  Also, how does one go about proving they “own” said account?  For most players, their username and/or password are long forgotten.  Password resets on discontinued email accounts would be impossible.  So then how do you about proving it?  And I imagine this proof process would be manual and would generate thousands of help tickets to our volunteer GM’s.  Or you just let a select group of people who do remember their information have access and generate a big group of have’s and have not’s which only fragments the community.

 

But honestly, the EU’s GDPR would make this complex, and the costs of non-compliance would make it risky.

 

 

[Abraxus]

Giving up the quest for the old database is probably one of the reasons why this reborn iteration of the game has managed to avoid any legal actions...at least so far.  If true, then it would be counter productive to pursue it.  Pondering the possibilities, I don't see what the individual player would gain, that they haven't already achieved again in the months since the game came back, to varying degrees.  I had almost 30 L50 characters.  Now, I have 4, with others working their way up.  The P2W vendor gives me most everything that the Veteran's system did, so I'm fine with having started again.  It's allowed me to appreciate things that, quite honestly, I had begun taking for granted by the time the shut-down occurred. 

[Chris24601]

Frankly, I don't know WHY you'd want the old database back anyway.

 

I've already re-rolled every toon I care to have back and between the P2W store and all the options you had to buy using the VIP/subscription coins (power sets, costumes, emotes, signature story arcs, etc.) are now given to you for free.

 

Other than some sort of elitist hope of proving you were actually a member since live beta or something there's nothing in the account database of any value and plenty that spells massive legal jeopardy for anyone who has it.

 

You want your old 50 back? Find a server where the name is free, roll it up, go into a fire-farm, wait an hour or two... BOOM! They're back with all the credits and Incarnate stuff you'll need to be re-equipped in a few more.

 

Better yet... PLAY it again. It's been seven years, there's been some tweaks in the code since live, and a refresher course in what it can do and experiencing old content as if it was practically new because of sever years away is its own reward.

 

Speaking of, my actual job for the day where I'm stuck on a machine that can surf the web, but not handle CoH is done... so why am I am still here? See you all online.

[boggo2300]

3 hours ago, justicebeliever said:

I’m not with Homecoming, but compliance with EU privacy law is a whole another level of complexity above PCI compliance and US Privacy law.  Also, how does one go about proving they “own” said account?  For most players, their username and/or password are long forgotten.  Password resets on discontinued email accounts would be impossible.  So then how do you about proving it?  And I imagine this proof process would be manual and would generate thousands of help tickets to our volunteer GM’s.  Or you just let a select group of people who do remember their information have access and generate a big group of have’s and have not’s which only fragments the community.

 

But honestly, the EU’s GDPR would make this complex, and the costs of non-compliance would make it risky.

 

 

Thanks you said this much better and more concisely than I managed

[Jander]

On 1/2/2020 at 3:28 PM, siolfir said:

This.

 

As for us just now finding out about it - not a lawyer, but I'm assuming that the negotiations have a NDA in place, so anyone involved likely wouldn't be able to post if this was an outcome related to the ongoing discussions or not, and it could go either way as to whether it's positive or negative.

Ya'd think they'd grab their ties an pull theirs head outta their butts and start working on a sequel! /em fingerscrossed

[Bodai]

Well, as others have stated we are getting somewhat away from the thread topic (I don't actually care, just sayin') so we should start a new thread if we really want to hash this out.  Although I don't know why you are all so insistent or what you are trying to prove, I am just stating my personal thoughts and opinions, and I am not claiming they are right.

 

That being said, I think you just need to think outside the box a little.  It seems like I am always talking with people who overthink things especially why they can't do them, although I am guilty of it as well in some instances.  The perfect is the enemy of the good.

 

Matching ppl up with their accounts could be accomplished:

- Many (most?) people would still have the e-mail accounts and probably passwords (I do)

- Many (most?) people would remember their character names (I do)

- Many people (like me) exported all of their character data and costumes (down to coordinates where they were last standing)

- If you are constrained by volunteers and a manual process, oh well, create a queue and ppl wait

                    - I had to wait months on the "secret" server, of course it was just Leandro I think

- If you are constrained by local privacy laws, then you comply with them and don't give out anything you can't

                    - Maybe ppl in Europe can't do it.... oh well, STBY  (there are some good reasons the Brits want to leave)

- Strip all the personal userdata completely, toss up a website with every character by server / character name, if people wanted to use any of my character builds, likenesses, names, they are welcome to, especially if I can't prove they were mine (and even then), it is not like anyone "owned" any of that, anything you created in-game was/is property of the game owners

- I personally am less concerned about "fairness", if you can't get your account because you can't prove it, oh well, it does not mean you should give up the whole enterprise due to minority and corner cases, some people will be SOL.  There are always going to be haves and have-nots, as there always has been.

 

Some of my motivations for wanting it:

- Time - today I am married with kids and time is precious, I don't have time to re-create everything

- Casual player - I preferred to play my main lvl 50's a couple times a week vs. an alt-a-holic

- I had probably 60B inf, you aren't regenerating that quickly (yes I had alts just to store inf, and multiple accounts)

- I had a badger that had every badge, not doing all that again

 

All that being said, I am here on homecoming and I re-built my main favorite character.  I was able to recover the costume(s) exactly, and get it to 50 after several weeks.  I don't/won't care about badge whoring anymore, and I might create or re-create another character every couple of months (assuming this server is still here).  Honestly the main reason I even did this was because there are allot of ppl to play with here and are all very friendly and nice to play with, it seems even better than when on live, otherwise I was just going to forget about it.

 

I am not whining or complaining that I don't have my original characters, just saying it would be "nice" if we could have them.

 

Then there are people giving all these reasons why that can't be done, ok, just wondering why?  And I keep saying "yes, and?".  With the information I/we have now, it sounds like it was a strict condition stipulated by the Korean rights holders.  Again, that is still not a why.  Maybe I/we will never know, that's OK.  If I ever found out, or heard a sufficiently convincing reason, then I would stop wondering, but I am not stressing over it either way.

 

There is a good scene in the LOTR movies where Saruman is talking about storming Helm's Deep with his assistant.  The assistant says "it would take thousands of troops" and Saruman says in emotionless tone "tens of thousands"... (and then he should be like, here, hold my beer....)  The first rule of being able to do something is believing you can, and being prepared to learn from failure.  Yes, at some point you should declare something impractical and you should set reasonable goals, I think you get my point.

 

I am not trying to get anyone riled up or flame or anything like that.  There are decaffeinated brands that taste just as good as the real thing.

 

-Bodai

[Bodai]

14 minutes ago, Jander said:

Ya'd think they'd grab their ties an pull theirs head outta their butts and start working on a sequel! /em fingerscrossed

Better yet, someone else buys / gets the rights to do that.  Because if NCSoft did that, I would not play it.

[Troo]

Oh good this is already started.

 

NCsoft follows up City of Heroes code copyright filing with fresh trademark application, January 2, 2020

https://massivelyop.com/2020/01/02/ncsoft-follows-up-city-of-heroes-code-copyright-filing-with-fresh-trademark-application/

"Today, we can add some more kindling to the speculation fire, as MMO Culture noticed that NCsoft filed a new trademark application for the long-sunsetted game just a few weeks ago. That website points out that players have tried and failed to legally acquire the game from the Korean megacorp for many years, but as we’ve been covering for the last nine (!) months, there’s quite a bit more to it than that."

 

 

[Haijinx]

13 hours ago, boggo2300 said:

Thanks you said this much better and more concisely than I managed

Im confused as to why people are hung up on old characters and accounts, but still being allowed to play.  

 

Vs.  Not actually being allowed to play. 

 

Are some people playing on some other server where you can't level to 50 casually in less than a week? 

 

 

[Chris24601]

The only thing that makes sense regarding the old accounts is like the person hinted at above with the “I had a toon with all the badges” toon; i.e. they accomplished something they feel is notable on live and want the ability to show it off here.

 

It’s basically bragging rights because every mechanical part that was account locked (vet awards, benefits purchased with Paragon Points, etc.) is now available for either free or for a token amount of in-game currency.

 

I mean, you get all costume, power sets (including the sorcery pool) and EATs that were account restricted immediately.

 

If you stop by the P2W you get most of the vet/prestige powers free.

 

If you take the 15 minutes or so to run the three Atlas Park arcs you’ll get 9 merits you can turn into 27 converters that you can sell for about 2 million and change to buy several of the other vet powers (ex. Reveal, a self-rez and say, magic carpet/rocket board). If it’s not your first toon you can just mail yourself the inf and skip that step entirely.

 

Even the Vet Award badge titles got placed as exploration badges so getting them is just a matter of downloading Vidiot maps and going there.

 

There is nothing other than elitist bragging rights one could get from the old accounts... and for that, just brag already. We’ve no reason to doubt you. If you got every last badge on live, allow me to say “congratulations.”

 

But I don’t actually care; no one cares that much about other people’s toons or in-game accomplishments unless they’re an actual friend. The only thing they cared about on live if they weren’t in the group who got the Vet awards first was how long they’d have to wait to get those awards for themselves.

 

And waiting for them is no longer a thing, so now I care not at all.

 

I’m glad the old database is gone. I hope it wasn’t just deleted; I hope they bleach-bitted it and then shattered the drive with a hammer. That version of the game designed to extract profit via catering to the vanity of offering exclusive goodies to hold over other players is dead (and one thing that’s massively obvious looking at a lot of the later arcs now after seven years is how they showcased NPCs employing those power sets and options you could pay to acquire... basically their new content was made into product placement ads). The non-profit version where everyone can accomplish anything with just time and effort is the City of Heroes we have now.

[boggo2300]

8 hours ago, Haijinx said:

Im confused as to why people are hung up on old characters and accounts, but still being allowed to play.  

 

Vs.  Not actually being allowed to play. 

 

Are some people playing on some other server where you can't level to 50 casually in less than a week? 

 

 

Don't ask me, I find it confusing and somewhat weird

[quixoteprog]

On 1/5/2020 at 1:45 AM, Bodai said:

Oh no, my job is not "easy", it positively sucks away my will to live....  but it pays OK and the hours and benefits are good.

Playing this game is actually one of my nice distractions.

 

I guess I would like to read something that describes in detail the nature of this challenge, because even taking into account the issues you mention, I am still missing something.

 

Now, Elon Musk and Space-X landing a rocket vertically, now that is hard.

I think you are missing the point. I feel really safe in saying all the live data is gone. Unrecoverable. But even if it were still hanging around somewhere, you would have a hard time finding anyone with the skill to port it over who was willing to dedicate the time to do it, and face the legal challenges of handling the data and keeping it safe. Porting over the data would not be so hard in the TECHNICAL sense. It would be difficult in the LEGAL and liability sense. And even then it would not be so difficult as to be insurmountable by the people involved because I am sure they are all quite clever and accomplished people. It is more of a cost to benefit analysis.

 

It would be an ENORMOUS effort (again, mostly from a legal and liability standpoint dealing with laws in several different countries and facing lawsuits and maybe even criminal prosecution in some EU countries) all to appease a few people who want to recapture something of what they had on the live servers. Stuff that they can pretty easily reacquire by playing a game they supposedly love playing. And all that assumes that NCSoft even kept the data (highly unlikely since it would mostly have been a liability to them if some bad actor somehow got their hands on it).

[Drazah Krad]

Old accounts being brought back is a fools errand. lt would waste developer time from actual in game work for a handful of peoples convenience.

 

would much rather them deal with quality of life updates

[Derek Icelord]

IN the US, trademarks are not copyright, and work under different rules. NC Soft has the copyright, as that never expired (copyright lasts the life of the creator + 75 years, yes it's really that ****ing stupid). Trademarks last forever unless you stop using/defending them. Given how long it's been since the game's shutdown and NC Soft's lack of presence in the US, the trademark was probably considered lapsed and they renewed it as a matter of course.

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, Drazah Krad said:

Old accounts being brought back is a fools errand. lt would waste developer time from actual in game work for a handful of peoples convenience.

 

would much rather them deal with quality of life updates

Agreed. It would be an epic waste of time for our VOLUNTEER team. I'd rather they be updating the game.

[Bodai]

3 hours ago, quixoteprog said:

I think you are missing the point. I feel really safe in saying all the live data is gone. Unrecoverable. But even if it were still hanging around somewhere, you would have a hard time finding anyone with the skill to port it over who was willing to dedicate the time to do it, and face the legal challenges of handling the data and keeping it safe. Porting over the data would not be so hard in the TECHNICAL sense. It would be difficult in the LEGAL and liability sense. And even then it would not be so difficult as to be insurmountable by the people involved because I am sure they are all quite clever and accomplished people. It is more of a cost to benefit analysis.

Leandro managed to do it without much difficulty.... If anything I think he was his own worst enemy really.

So, all the hundreds of thousands of websites that keep user information routinely with no issue, even relatively small companies, including non-profits and so on.... they all seem to manage OK right?  Sure, there are some problems and breeches, but it is statistically not significant, and the majority of it due to embarrassingly shameful negligence (looking at you Equifax). 

 

3 hours ago, quixoteprog said:

 

It would be an ENORMOUS effort (again, mostly from a legal and liability standpoint dealing with laws in several different countries and facing lawsuits and maybe even criminal prosecution in some EU countries) all to appease a few people who want to recapture something of what they had on the live servers. Stuff that they can pretty easily reacquire by playing a game they supposedly love playing. And all that assumes that NCSoft even kept the data (highly unlikely since it would mostly have been a liability to them if some bad actor somehow got their hands on it).

So, maybe don't offer that option in those EU countries?  Not the games fault, not their problem dealing with overly egalitarian super-liberal countries.  Think of all the lost profits!  Oh wait...  I won't claim to know the specific privacy / data-handling laws of which you speak (or how valid they are or not), but what data do you think they would be so worried about?  Long-expired credit card numbers?  E-mail addresses that if they still work are easy to find anyways?  You can get most names, addresses, and phone numbers without even hacking anything or doing anything illegal (in most places).  This is completely not accounting for actual black hats you could not stop either way.  But I think all of that even is pretty irrelevant, the personal data from a 15-year-old game now back operating as non-profit, I think that would be pretty low on even the most bored bureaucrat in the EU's list.  Heck, if you intentionally posted it somewhere, I doubt many if anyone would bother to even download it, it's just too old, maybe out of curiosity?  And I don't think you could harm anyone with the contents.  It does not contain the kind of sought-after information that puts people at risk of financial or other dangers.  Maybe you could get $10 for it on the dark web?  And then, we are talking about deleting all that the data beyond say e-mail address and character data anyways.

 

I think you are greatly over-stating the issue, or at least that is how I see it with the information I have in front of me, and I don't understand why.  I guess you could search around for news articles for people who were prosecuted or ruined due to an issue like this?  That might be interesting and provide some clarity.  And are they not taking just as much risk already by keeping the same kind of data to run the new incarnation of the game?

 

That is all, I am not upset, and you could be completely right.  I would agree that if it is as difficult as you say it is, then it would not be worth it.  But it sounds like hypothetical exaggeration to me.....  

[Bodai]

7 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

The only thing that makes sense regarding the old accounts is like the person hinted at above with the “I had a toon with all the badges” toon; i.e. they accomplished something they feel is notable on live and want the ability to show it off here.

 

It’s basically bragging rights because every mechanical part that was account locked (vet awards, benefits purchased with Paragon Points, etc.) is now available for either free or for a token amount of in-game currency.

This is a fair point, although I would say that is a matter of pride, as you note I don't really care what others think of it other than maybe some of my friends.

 

7 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

And waiting for them is no longer a thing, so now I care not at all.

Indeed it is much quicker to create characters now, but it would still take me impractically long to re-create all of what I had.

But, each to his own.  If you don't care, that is your prerogative, and I am not saying it is a deal breaker or anything, it would just be nice.

7 hours ago, Chris24601 said:

 

I’m glad the old database is gone. I hope it wasn’t just deleted; I hope they bleach-bitted it and then shattered the drive with a hammer. That version of the game designed to extract profit via catering to the vanity of offering exclusive goodies to hold over other players is dead (and one thing that’s massively obvious looking at a lot of the later arcs now after seven years is how they showcased NPCs employing those power sets and options you could pay to acquire... basically their new content was made into product placement ads). The non-profit version where everyone can accomplish anything with just time and effort is the City of Heroes we have now.

I dunno, this never bothered me.  They were not holding anyone hostage.... it went free-to-play and then if they create content that people think is cool enough to pay for, then I think that is fine.  Sure, this kind of thing can be taken too far, but I don't think they were there yet.  I have no problem with companies making money, especially if they are using it to make the product better.

 

-Bodai

 

 

[Haijinx]

I always get nervous when people tell me how easy something is to do.