Character Transfers between Unrelated Servers

[Yeoman]

Before I get into my crazy question/suggestion, I just want to say that I am incredibly grateful for the chance to play my favourite MMO again!  Thank you Homecoming team!  :)

 

Now, I am sure there must be some serious problem with what I'm imagining here, but here goes:

 

I've done some reading of the old threads where people mention their desire to be able to backup their characters privately.  One thread featured several expressions of concern that this sort of backup would never be useful because people could edit their files and sort of cheat the system on whatever new server they tried to join.

 

So... How hard would it be for someone to create and maintain a central database of all characters on all (participating) independent servers so that, in the event a server were to suddenly shut down for whatever reason, players could simply transfer their characters (as of the defunct server's most recent upload) from this central database to the new server of their choice?

 

What I'm thinking of is essentially, more or less, the COH/COV equivalent of the DCI registry system used by the Adventurer's League in D&D...albeit admittedly involving a lot more ones and zeroes.

 

There could even be some money to be made by all of the servers who participated and, of course, by the keeper of the database.  Call it Shutdown Insurance if you will.  Five bucks a month to assure a daily backup of however many characters... Fifty?  A hundred?  Each five dollar payment could be split between the server and the database operator.

 

Obviously other, non-emergency transfers might be another desirable paid service.

 

I'm sure there must be lots of reasons why this could never work or why server admins would never participate, but I like the possibility of my character surviving the next (May It Never Occur) server shutdown so much that I had to ask anyway.

 

Thanks again, devs/admins for everything!

[Judasace]

 

There could even be some money to be made by all of the servers who participated and, of course, by the keeper of the database.  Call it Shutdown Insurance if you will.  Five bucks a month to assure a daily backup of however many characters... Fifty?  A hundred?  Each five dollar payment could be split between the server and the database operator.

 

The second...the very INSTANT that people start to monetize any aspect of this game beyond accepting donations for running the servers, is when NCSoft unleashes the lawyers from Hell and we lost the game again.

 

I'd rarely tell anyone not to wish fr what they want, no matter how unrealistic, but even suggesting these kinds of things starts opening cans of worms that only lead one place - us with no CoH again.

 

[jack_nomind]

So... How hard would it be for someone to create and maintain a central database of all characters on all (participating) independent servers so that, in the event a server were to suddenly shut down for whatever reason, players could simply transfer their characters (as of the defunct server's most recent upload) from this central database to the new server of their choice?

 

Difficult, but absolutely possible.  There were plans to do something like this early on within the Reddit discord community, which afaik have not been abandoned.

 

I'm sure there must be lots of reasons . . . why server admins would never participate

 

And that's the real issue.  It requires surrendering basically all autonomy over your server either directly (because you have to stay identical or at least very close to every other server on the network; something like a badge that your server has but others don't could break it) or indirectly (because there is literally nothing stopping a server on the network from handing out max xp, inf, what-have-you and crashing the economies or play environments of every connected server).

 

The benefits of this system are vanishingly small, and the commitment is enormous.  The only way it would work is with a close-knit cooperative and at that point... it's not entirely clear why they're running separate servers at all.

[Yeoman]

The second...the very INSTANT that people start to monetize any aspect of this game beyond accepting donations for running the servers, is when NCSoft unleashes the lawyers from Hell and we lost the game again.

 

Ah, right.  I hadn't thought of them still caring about their old IP, but I guess that's true.

 

[justicebeliever]

I'm sure there must be lots of reasons why this could never work or why server admins would never participate, but I like the possibility of my character surviving the next (May It Never Occur) server shutdown so much that I had to ask anyway.

 

My single biggest reason not to do it - once all the eggs are in one basket, it makes it very easy for NCSoft to target the central character database with a cease&desist, and ALL participating servers lose access to their characters...

 

The more fragmented the community, the more work it would be for NCSoft to come after us, and makes it less likely they will do so...

 

 

[_NOPE_]

Senticon exists for costumes. Something similar could be done for the WHOLE character. I think it'd just require a "checksum" that's hashed and unique and constantly changing, requiring validation with an external server. It's possible, but I don't think it'd be easy.

 

+1 for the idea. I wish I had more time to work on something like this. Hey, anyone want to pay me $100K to replace my current full time job and pay me to make software for City of Heroes?