What happened to old characters?

[Cimarron]

I apologize if this post is in the wrong forum/channel and I did do a search before asking.

 

Hello. Old COH player here that was in beta and then live for several years. I noticed that the servers all have different names (not sure what the old names were except maybe Virtue) and I can't find my old characters. I am expecting they are property rights of the "other" company that hosted COH but does anyone know?

 

been back about a week and a half and sure do love being back! Some of the game seems new like, mission content, bases, "crafting system".

 

I'm on Everlasting. Is that a good place to hang out?

Edited June 7, 2023 by Cimarron

[TheZag]

Data from the retail servers remained with the retail company.  You have to start over fresh.

 

[Psyonico]

Welcome back!

 

Everlasting is the 2nd most popular shard and is the unofficial RP server.

 

As for your old characters, they've long been deleted, likely the day that the original server shut down.  But, you've got 1000 slots per shard to create them and others again.

[biostem]

Different organization/company, different servers.  Your old data & characters, (if it still even remains), is with NCSoft.  Everlasting is the RP & 2nd most populous server, with Excelsior being the 1st.

[tidge]

I don't disagree, because the last thing anyone wants is a bajillion people pestering folks for their costumes, threatening legal action over "ownership", etc.

 

Let's just agree that its an uncle who works for Nintendo that started the rumor.

[Glacier Peak]

Welcome back to the community! Great question - I don't have a dev quote or anything, but the Search function on this website provided me with these threads. You may find your answer in one of them. 

 

 

 

 

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, biostem said:

Who is the "they" in this context?  The SCORE group?  The Homecoming devs?  Do you have any evidence to support your assertion?

 

They as in Homecoming Devs. They themselves have said this in response to another player mentioning that the "secret server" had access to their original accounts and wanted to know why they suddenly lost access to those accounts. I'm sure the post is floating around on these boards somewhere. I'm also sure one of the Devs could possibly chime in and confirm.

[Solarverse]

11 hours ago, biostem said:

Then don't make the assertion.

I was only able to pull this up for the time being, but it does support my memory of events. The first reply covers it.
 

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

13 hours ago, Cimarron said:

I apologize if this post is in the wrong forum/channel and I did do a search before asking.

 

Hello. Old COH player here that was in beta and then live for several years. I noticed that the servers all have different names (not sure what the old names were except maybe Virtue) and I can't find my old characters. I am expecting they are property rights of the "other" company that hosted COH but does anyone know?

 

been back about a week and a half and sure do love being back! Some of the game seems new like, mission content, bases, "crafting system".

 

I'm on Everlasting. Is that a good place to hang out?

 

 

Welcome back.

 

You're starting afresh here  - there's lots of new content and power sets so just dive in and enjoy it all anew 😄

[SeraphimKensai]

My understanding of the reasoning that original accounts were scrubbed, and I could be wrong, at the score/homecoming transition was that all the original accounts had SPII (sensitive personally identifiable information) - credit card numbers, real names, billing addresses, etc. tied to them. So it was easier work to just delete that account database rather than go line by line. As a means of helping people catch back up to where they were Jimmy made the P2W double XP option.

[UltraAlt]

3 hours ago, Col. Kernel said:

Nevermind.

Edited 2 hours ago by Col. Kernel
Editing, can't delete.

 

But you should be able to hide it .... unless they removed that option.

Edited June 8, 2023 by UltraAlt
Yeah, there is still an option to hide posts.

[UltraAlt]

18 hours ago, Cimarron said:

I can't find my old characters.

 

Yeah, none of us did.

I wasn't expecting to find them. I scrubbed all their bios, changed all the characters to look like Praetorian robots, bought self destruct on all of them (over 150), walked out under the statue of Atlas, blew them up, deleted all my characters, and then cancelled my subscription in protest over the P2W and microtransactions lumped on top of my subscription almost exactly a year before the Sundown.

 

18 hours ago, Cimarron said:

the "other" company

 

Homecoming isn't a "company". It's a non-profit group that takes donations each month to keep the servers active.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/forum/59-finances-donations/

 

18 hours ago, Cimarron said:

been back about a week and a half and sure do love being back!

 

Welcome home!

Glad that you are back.

I used to do quite a bit of game play on Virtue ... probably more so than many of the servers but Triumph and Champion but I played on all of them.

 

18 hours ago, Cimarron said:

Some of the game seems new like, mission content, bases, "crafting system"

 

Wow. You stopped playing early.

Supergroup bases started when CoV was released with Issue 6 release in October 27, 2005!

The crafting system started in Issue 9 released May 1, 2007!

 

Yes. The Homecoming DEVs have even been releasing their own content.

And if you left that early, you must have missed the release of the AE system in issue 14 released April 8, 2009. The AE system allows you (and other players) to create your own missions that any player can play once they published. You can test them until they are ready. Create your own characters and enemy groups! Pick maps from the game for your missions. Set the missions objectives that you want. Make mission objectives unlock other missions objectives to advance your storyline! Set-up multiple missions to form your own mission arcs. Get standard rewards or get special AE related rewards! (The system is abused for farming quite a bit, but there are some really good story-driven arcs created by players.)

 

You have a whole lot to explore.

Have fun!

 

The /help channel is still pretty helpful on most of the servers!

 

 

 

[GM Crumpet]

Sadly all the old accounts and characters are gone. We have not and have never had access to the player data, only the raw game files like everyone else. I've heard conflicting stories about what happened when the files were originally leaked but have no way of knowing which version is true. In one only the game files were released, in another the player files were released as well and the person they were sent to deleted them immediately in terror due to the personal nature of the details. There are other versions of the story but the end result is the same. There is no file anywhere containing player account data from live except possibly in the vaults of NCSoft. And that's debatable. 

 

As for names, we are 4 years in. The chances of a given name from live being snapped up is quite high. I came in around 3 months after HC went live and my two mains were already taken by someone else. I'd had those names since I started just after the release of issue 4. I had to move on unfortunately and start again from scratch.

[Snarky]

Everybody is gone.  Forever.  Wiped from the face of the multiverse.  Living on only in our memories.  When the last person that remembered them is gone they will truly disappear 

[Rishidian]

20 hours ago, Cimarron said:

the "other" company 

I believe this refers to NCSoft

 

I read this somewhere...

For them to provide characters, they would have access to your account, which means your payment information.

**This is not a good thing

 

By my understanding, the account info is still in NCSoft keeping or has been deleted.  Homecoming should not have it.

 

<<I started this before GM Crumpet's entry>>

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by Rishidian
Addendum

[Greycat]

40 minutes ago, Rishidian said:

I believe this refers to NCSoft

 

I read this somewhere...

For them to provide characters, they would have access to your account, which means your payment information.

**This is not a good thing

 

By my understanding, the account info is still in NCSoft keeping or has been deleted.  Homecoming should not have it.

 

<<I started this before GM Crumpet's entry>>

 

 

Nope.  This needs clearing up:

 

Player characters / accounts  (your COH login(s,) associated characters) were part of the game servers. Your COH logins were COH logins, were only affected by whatever COH did. COH GMs could ban you from the game and you could still happily (?) play Lineage or other NC stuff.

 

*Billing* information (who *you* are, your address, credit cards, etc.) would have been on a whole separate set of servers handled by NCSoft, since they would be billing for multiple games (COH, Guild Wars, Aion, etc.) using the same information. These tend to be siloed - billing would have to work with them, so they'd have access (and that was done by NCSoft.) The billing department's support would have access to answer payment and account status questions. The Cryptic/Paragon devs would have zero need for any access to that information, and neither would the game servers - they'd live in their own little world. So payment information would never have been at risk with that leak.

 

(In short, having the leaked databases, they'd be able to see that the Whackaguy account had Whackasword, Whackastaff and Whackablaster, but they'd never know that was Eugene Snufflepot in Powers, Oregon, or that he had acounts in Aion and Tabula Rasa. If the person or people who copied the game database had also somehow managed to get the *billing* database, there would be *zero* question about it - there'd have been law enforcement on it as soon as they found out.)

[Snarky]

4 minutes ago, Greycat said:

but they'd never know that was Eugene Snufflepot in Powers, Oregon,

THEN HOW DID YOU FIND ME????

[Glacier Peak]

5 hours ago, Snarky said:

THEN HOW DID YOU FIND ME????

EUGENE OREGON IS YOUR NAME!?

[Frostbiter]

Everyone realizes that our old characters from Live would need a lot of work to get to where our HC characters are at, right? They're probably best left in our memories if we haven't already recreated them here.

 

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by Frostbiter

[lemming]

And while the characters do have to start fresh on the server, if you saved your costumes & AE missions from the old days, those can still be used somewhat.  There are new options.

[ZemX]

1 hour ago, lemming said:

And while the characters do have to start fresh on the server, if you saved your costumes & AE missions from the old days, those can still be used somewhat.  There are new options.

 

This.  The next coolest thing after the nostalgia wave of just logging into HC for the first time was realizing I could import old costume files from an ancient backup of the client install. 

 

I was even more shocked to get a few of the same names after being two years late finding out about HC.

[Ironblade]

On 6/7/2023 at 5:15 PM, Cimarron said:

I can't find my old characters.

We sent them to a nice farm in upstate New York.  They'll be happy there.

[BjorJlen]

Hey, welcome back! 🙂

 

   As has been said already, your old account & characters went the way of the Dodo long ago, so now is your chance to "remake" them (if you wish. Stronger, faster, much like the 6 million dollar man (though far cheaper this time)...  😁

[Greycat]

On 6/9/2023 at 6:38 AM, Frostbiter said:

Everyone realizes that our old characters from Live would need a lot of work to get to where our HC characters are at, right? They're probably best left in our memories if we haven't already recreated them here.

 

 

 

... not... really?

 

I mean, some sets are updated and such, sure, but I'm fairly sure I could take 99% of my live characters, plop them into the game right now, and be perfectly fine without "a lot of work." Or any at all.

 

Different story if you have to min/max or only played sets that have seen big changes, maybe, but otherwise I'd say they'd be just fine.

[macskull]

Yes, the old character database is still out there. No, you'll never be able to import those characters onto Homecoming.