This is just a "fun" server now

[Snarky]

58 minutes ago, roleki said:

When they are finally implemented on a "back to formula" server, I hope they rename the At "Tuber."

IT IS NOT A TUBER

[aethereal]

5 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

I remember being slightly chastised for being off-meta for not taking the Fitness pool on my kinetics defender, who literally had an endurance refill power. 

I played an elec/elec scrapper and respecced out of Fitness in the early 40s.  I joked that my character's autobiography was going to be called, "Seven Toggles and No Stamina: The Terry Watt Story."

 

But we got inherent fitness when the character was like 49th level.

Edited January 18, 2023 by aethereal

[Doc_Scorpion]

7 hours ago, biostem said:

Does the code base for the game work like that, though?  Can you just toggle a bunch of different things on and off, or is the code whatever version was leaked and that's all we have?

No, it doesn't work like that.  What was leaked (which, AIUI, was not complete) is what we have.

Creating a "Issue x" server (where x<24) would require ripping out huge portions of the existing code and replacing much of it with code written from scratch.

[Solarverse]

8 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

While an issue-1 server might be interesting to play on for an hour or two out of nostalgia, there's no way I'd play there for an extended time.

 

Level cap of 40 instead of 50, no epic power pools, fitness wasn't auto-granted but you had to choose it as one of your four pools, travel powers limited to 14th level, the exp to level being about 4-5x what it is now...ugh. No thanks.

Sounds like heaven to me, haha. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

[Solarverse]

8 hours ago, biostem said:

Does the code base for the game work like that, though?  Can you just toggle a bunch of different things on and off, or is the code whatever version was leaked and that's all we have?

That I cannot answer. I am a sound guy, can create sound mods for this game, but that's about it. My knowledge of code is very minimal. I understand the basics, but that's about it. I do know that some changes made were changes of simple numbers that can be changed and on/off switches. The guy over at WeHaveCake server (or whatever they call it these days) was able to reverse a lot of changes simply by turning things on and off and editing numbers, so I know at least some can be changed in this way. As far as IOs and Sets, that may be code and something that can't be adjusted in such a way, however, I am willing to bet values of those sets can be altered without much code knowledge. Just a hunch.

[MoonSheep]

8 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Sounds like heaven to me, haha. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

 

no ED, old school blaster defiance, no herd cap!

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

no ED, old school blaster defiance, no herd cap!

 

Defiance wasn't added until I5.

[Erratic1]

People fondly misremember "the old days", actually forgetting all the warts, pain, and time spent doing things which were minimally fun, if fun at all. Routinely when an opportunity  to relive those days is provided (think other games) there is a splash, a bunch of people flock to relive those days...then population plummets as reality hits.

 

I remember street grinding in Atlas and Brickstown, the annoyance and deadlines of snipers in Founders Falls as you tried to get to missions while also not getting too close to Devoured Earth encampments. Nothing I really need, though more power to those who presently think they do (until they find out otherwise).

 

 

[Captain Fabulous]

6 hours ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

No, it doesn't work like that.  What was leaked (which, AIUI, was not complete) is what we have.

Creating a "Issue x" server (where x<24) would require ripping out huge portions of the existing code and replacing much of it with code written from scratch.

 

Most of these things are done via the database and in theory shouldn't be difficult to remove or circumvent. Time consuming tho.

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by Captain Fabulous

[Wavicle]

Which of the other servers is a “serious“ server?

 

and I’m sorry, I just have to say the idea of a pre-ED, pre-defense nerfs, pre-control nerfs, etc. etc., no IOs, no incarnate server sounds absolutely horrible. The game is way way better now. I am quite confident when I say I believe HC is the best version of the game that has ever existed.

[Ironblade]

7 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

I remember street grinding in Atlas and Brickstown, the annoyance and deadlines of snipers in Founders Falls as you tried to get to missions while also not getting too close to Devoured Earth encampments. Nothing I really need, though more power to those who presently think they do (until they find out otherwise).

Let's not forget getting to missions in The Hollows when you didn't get your travel power until level 14 and there were no temp power jet packs.

[Captain Fabulous]

1 minute ago, Ironblade said:

Let's not forget getting to missions in The Hollows when you didn't get your travel power until level 14 and there were no temp power jet packs.

Honestly I kinda miss the days of Hovering across Kings Row or The Hollows for 20 mins to get to a mission. There was a certain charm... 😂

[macskull]

7 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Most of these things are done via the database and in theory shouldn't be difficult to remove or circumvent. Time consuming tho.

Not really. There have been many systems which were rewritten from the ground up as they were changed and reverting those changes wouldn't be trivial. The original code doesn't exist anymore, unless someone happens to have source code for older versions of the game floating around.

[Captain Fabulous]

15 minutes ago, macskull said:

Not really. There have been many systems which were rewritten from the ground up as they were changed and reverting those changes wouldn't be trivial. The original code doesn't exist anymore, unless someone happens to have source code for older versions of the game floating around.

I guess it depends upon the system(s) you're talking about. I'm fairly sure ED is a database function that can be changed. If not it can be circumvented. Defense calculations are in the database, as are target caps and travel suppression. Things like the auction house and Architect you can't "rip out" but you can block access to them, essentially removing them from the game. You wouldn't need the revert to the original code.

Wasn't there a group that was working on reverse-engineering the server code as it was in I3? I don't remember their name or have any idea of their current status. IIRC the goal was to create a server that would be functional with the client that was released on disc back in the day.

[macskull]

3 minutes ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Wasn't there a group that was working on reverse-engineering the server code as it was in I3? I don't remember their name or have any idea of their current status. IIRC the goal was to create a server that would be functional with the client that was released on disc back in the day.

You're thinking of SEGS, but I think all they've managed to get done in the 10 years since the game originally shut down is getting the tutorial running.

[dtj714]

Interesting responses, although about what I expected. Should clarify, I don't know if it's possible or desirable to really recreate the live game. Some things (e.g., the Paragon Market) just aren't feasible.

 

However, I think a balance should be struck between (trying) to be faithful to the original, and sliding down the slippery slope of change. Personally, I would have preferred if they just took the SCORE version (I25?) and focused on adding new content, instead of continuously changing core systems or elements of the game (e.g., major changes to the pre-existing power sets and pools, totally revamping the enhancement system, etc.).

 

The first thing that made me think things were getting "out of hand" was when they removed the base port "bug" that had existed for almost a year, but gave everybody LRTP as an "accolade" (with some other related changes to follow). Things continued downhill until the most recent changes, where you can get your top tier nuke barely half what through your leveling.  Again, just my opinion.

Edited January 19, 2023 by dtj714

[macskull]

1 minute ago, dtj714 said:

Interesting responses, although about what I expected. Should clarify, I don't know if it's possible or desirable to really recreate the live game. Some things (e.g., the Paragon Market) just aren't feasible.

 

However, I think a balance should be struck between (trying) to be faithful to the original, and sliding down the slippery slope of change. Personally, I would have preferred if they just took the SCORE version (I25?) and focused on adding new content, instead of continuously changing core systems or elements of the game (e.g., major changes to the pre-existing power sets and pools, totally revamping the enhancement system, etc.).

Some of the changes that have been made were sorely needed (massively underperforming sets, for example). On the other hand, some things could've been left alone.

 

Sure, the devs could focus on adding new content and leaving the core game mostly the same, but that isn't a solution good for the long-term viability of Homecoming. The dev team could spend months developing new content (seriously, the Aeon SF took like six months to go from its initial beta to what we have now), but players will get through it in a couple hours and then move on. You simply can't put out quality content faster than the players can consume it. And then there are the players (like me) who don't give two shits about the new story arcs or task forces or flashback arcs or whatever and are really only around for the gameplay. At any rate, the OG game would have kept evolving as time went on, just like it evolved during its original live run. Would it have evolved along the same lines Homecoming (or any of the other servers) has? No, of course not - but we have no idea where it would have gone because the people who could tell us might have only had just the most basic idea of what the next few issues were going to contain anyways.

 

If you're looking for a game that is unchanged except for the two-or-three-times-a-year addition of a new story arc or two, you're not looking for a game - you're looking for a time capsule.

[dtj714]

4 minutes ago, macskull said:

Some of the changes that have been made were sorely needed (massively underperforming sets, for example). On the other hand, some things could've been left alone.

 

Sure, the devs could focus on adding new content and leaving the core game mostly the same, but that isn't a solution good for the long-term viability of Homecoming. The dev team could spend months developing new content (seriously, the Aeon SF took like six months to go from its initial beta to what we have now), but players will get through it in a couple hours and then move on. You simply can't put out quality content faster than the players can consume it. And then there are the players (like me) who don't give two shits about the new story arcs or task forces or flashback arcs or whatever and are really only around for the gameplay. At any rate, the OG game would have kept evolving as time went on, just like it evolved during its original live run. Would it have evolved along the same lines Homecoming (or any of the other servers) has? No, of course not - but we have no idea where it would have gone because the people who could tell us might have only had just the most basic idea of what the next few issues were going to contain anyways.

 

If you're looking for a game that is unchanged except for the two-or-three-times-a-year addition of a new story arc or two, you're not looking for a game - you're looking for a time capsule.

 

Yea, and look how popular Vanilla WoW was on private servers. Tens of thousands of players at its height. Actiblizz made sure to kill that re-legitimizing it and then cannibalizing it.

[Captain Fabulous]

17 minutes ago, macskull said:

You're thinking of SEGS, but I think all they've managed to get done in the 10 years since the game originally shut down is getting the tutorial running.

Apparently still alive and kicking.

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 1/17/2023 at 2:54 PM, Luminara said:

Most of what people refer to as power creep is, in actuality, more accurately summarized as the ease of set IO acquisition.  Amplifiers exist, yes, and they're no longer gated behind real money, but they're also entirely optional.  Not a single character created since these servers were started has had even one amplifier automatically applied to it, it's always the player's choice to use them.  Same with the 2xp buff, it's not mandatory, it's not forcibly activated, it's something people opt into.

 

Nor has the HC team been buffing power sets or powers left and right, they've only been addressing under-performers and bringing them up to par.  They haven't bumped up archetype modifiers and scalar values across the board, they've made some adjustments here and there, always targeted and never for the sake of making something overwhelmingly powerful.  Incarnate abilities are still restricted to 45+ content, so they're not impacting the game below 45 any more than they were on the original servers.  There's no more power creep in these aspects than in amplifiers.  No, the accusing finger is leveled at set IOs when people say there's power creep.

 

But stop and consider what that really means.  The "problem" is that no-one has to grind for six to twelve months to afford a build with full IO sets, or beg to get them, or rely on luck; that anyone and everyone can use set IOs, benefit from IO set bonuses, and plan and play around the expectation of having them.  That's what people refer to as power creep, which is ironic because the crafting system and resulting enhancements were specifically added to the game to make our characters more powerful, to give us lateral progression in lieu of raising the level cap.  And the only thing keeping that in check on the original servers was an economy that failed spectacularly.  That wasn't planned, it wasn't part of the design drafts or development philosophy, neither Cryptic nor Paragon held a meeting and discussed ways to tank the economy so thoroughly that it would restrict most players from accessing set IOs, it was a fuck-up of monumental proportions that couldn't be fixed by any means short of a hard reset, the total shutdown and wipe of everything and starting over from square one.

 

Yeah, the game is "easy" when you're not hindered by a broken economy... but that broken economy was never intended to be a limiting factor.  Set IOs were created to be used.  Not dreamt about or wished for, or looked at on paper and forgotten about because they were forever out of reach, but to be used.  And not used only by the incredibly lucky, the wealthy elite or the players belonging to the largest and most generous supergroups, but by everyone.  And that's not power creep, it's the way Cryptic and Paragon imagined the game.  In making it possible to actually do that, Homecoming has brought the game closer to the original visions of Cryptic and Paragon than it ever could have been on the original servers, or, from what I've seen, any of the other servers.

 

A broken economy isn't a valid control over power creep, in any game, and what we have now, on the HC servers, is the way it should have been when I9 went live, and would have been if the economy hadn't so poorly planned and completely ignored prior to that.

 

Power creep was not just an element of SCORE and HC.  I hear what you are saying about the availability of IOs (and frankly I've probably sold a sizeable percentage of them).  But my problem has been a consistent cycle of "Let's introduce a new powerset, and let's not bother to see how people will exploit it."  "Hey, this new powerset has one power in it that is *better* than the similar power in my power set!"  "Well, the people have spoken, we need to upgrade this power set.  Let's surprise them and make it the best power in the current meta!"  I understand why they did that in a pay game, but I guess I hoped that some voice of reason would understand balance in the free game.

 

This goes back to my observation that this is not, in any way, shape, or form, a strategy game.  And I find that odd, and frankly unappealing in many ways.  I guess that's why I spend so much time on the "minigames" of the AH and builds.  But twevs.

[macskull]

1 minute ago, dtj714 said:

Yea, and look how popular Vanilla WoW was on private servers. Tens of thousands of players at its height. Actiblizz made sure to kill that re-legitimizing it and then cannibalizing it.

WoW is an anomaly in the MMO world and using it as a comparison is going to make anything look bad.

 

But, we'll use your numbers. We'll assume "tens of thousands of players" to mean 50,000 which is probably generous. At its peak WoW had 12 million players. That 50,000 people playing vanilla WoW on private servers is... 0.4% of the maximum player count. That's essentially insignificant.

[dtj714]

2 minutes ago, macskull said:

WoW is an anomaly in the MMO world and using it as a comparison is going to make anything look bad.

 

But, we'll use your numbers. We'll assume "tens of thousands of players" to mean 50,000 which is probably generous. At its peak WoW had 12 million players. That 50,000 people playing vanilla WoW on private servers is... 0.4% of the maximum player count. That's essentially insignificant.

 

I was actually referring to the Lights Hope server, which had 10,000 concurrent players at a point. Accounts? Something like 100k+. This project has what, 1000 players across all servers at any point in time? Live's peaks was ???. I'm sure the math still works out to something "insignificant".

 

That's not the point - the point is some level of authenticity. I think Homecoming has lost it. Others don't, or don't care. And that's fine. We make choices accordingly.

[lemming]

10 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

I remember street grinding in Atlas and Brickstown, the annoyance and deadlines of snipers in Founders Falls as you tried to get to missions while also not getting too close to Devoured Earth encampments. Nothing I really need, though more power to those who presently think they do (until they find out otherwise).

I always loved the PI Ferry snipers.

[lemming]

2 hours ago, Ironblade said:

Let's not forget getting to missions in The Hollows when you didn't get your travel power until level 14 and there were no temp power jet packs.

Go back to getting a level 7 or 8 mission in the middle of perez park past a bunch of level 13 CoT.   One person died?  Well, let's wait until they go to the hospital in Atlas and have them try again...

[WumpusRat]

14 hours ago, MoonSheep said:

 

no ED, old school blaster defiance, no herd cap!

Just remember that Issue-1 was pre-innate abilities for ATs, too.

Meaning no gauntlet. A tanker who wanted to keep all those mobs on them would have to slot their powers with taunt, or spam the taunt ability constantly.