Wikipedia and City of Heroes (not the Homecoming Wiki)

[Techwright]

While doing a bit of historical research on the original game, I looked into the Wikipedia page on it and found this:

 

As of January 2024, NCSoft has not moved to have servers based on this source code shut down. On January 4, 2024, NCSoft allegedly granted Homecoming Servers, LLC who operated the rogue server Homecoming: City of Heroes an official license to host the game.

 

"Allegedly"??  Can we get someone to remove that word, and give proper documentation of the authenticity of it?

 

ALSO...

The page runs up through Issue 24, or rather, what it would have been.  Now that Homecoming is official, might we get someone with some wiki talent to get a Homecoming page on Wikipedia, continue the Issues/Pages descriptions, and get a linked reference to it in the original game's page? Maybe a link to the Homecoming Wiki as well.  There may come a day when we'll need to reference the history of this iteration, and you never know but that more fans of the original game will discover this one when referencing the original's page.

 

Just a thought.

 

 

Edited March 30 by Techwright
Better distinguish the quote from the rest.

[Krimson]

I'm willing to bet "allegedly" was added by a disgruntled Redditor. There were some interesting salt-flavored posts after Reddit got the license.

[High_Beam]

I just edited the source citation to remove the "allegedly" part.  Regardless of alleged or not, the cited source DID NOT say alleged, that was the wiki editors interpretation.  However I will not edit the actual statement at the top due to the fact that we do in fact only have Homecoming's word that there is a license agreement (which I believe that word to be true), I wont get into a edit war without a second source.

[Luminara]

Man... I hate to be the one to say this, but... it is alleged.  HC hasn't actually shown an agreement, or a license, or anything.  I've scoured the announcement post, the FAQs, the ToS, everything, there's nothing.  And NC hasn't made any comment, in any capacity (official or otherwise), that I can find.  We're taking them at their word, but that's what an allegation is, someone's word without evidence to support it.

 

Granted, if it wasn't a fact, NC would've brought a mountain of shit down on the HC team by now, given all of the press, but it's still an allegation until either the license itself or a comment from NC is publicly available.

[Krimson]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

Man... I hate to be the one to say this, but... it is alleged.  HC hasn't actually shown an agreement, or a license, or anything.  I've scoured the announcement post, the FAQs, the ToS, everything, there's nothing.  And NC hasn't made any comment, in any capacity (official or otherwise), that I can find.  We're taking them at their word, but that's what an allegation is, someone's word without evidence to support it.

 

Granted, if it wasn't a fact, NC would've brought a mountain of shit down on the HC team by now, given all of the press, but it's still an allegation until either the license itself or a comment from NC is publicly available.

The burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused. If anyone wants to try and disprove HC's claim well, I guess people need to do something to make their lives interesting.

[Snokle]

I agree with what Luminara is saying here. Technically it is allegedly as we have no definitive or legal proof of this. We can assume that this is legit and remove the alleged comment, but unless there is formal documentation about the agreement, or a second source to confirm it is what it is.

 

Now was someone being a rules lawyer or disgruntled about the announcement and made sure to stick it on the Wiki? Probably as Wiki as they say is community based, as you mentioned there could be an edit war over minimal stuff like this. But it the end it just is the eyes of the community and their thoughts I guess.

[Krimson]

We can assume that when Homecoming announced the Agreement at least one person at NCSOFT had access to a computer with internet. There is no possible way that NCSOFT didn't know that Homecoming announced an Agreement. If it was some stunt that Homecoming was pulling, NCSOFT would have that information within hours if not minutes.

 

So the reason I accept HC Teams announcement of and agreement is that 1. I see no reason to fabricate something like that when you could just say nothing and continue business as usual. 2. They WANT NCSOFT to see it and do something about it, and there is only one reason for that: the HC team wants an excuse to pack it in and call it a day. That doesn't seem very likely to me. I suppose another reason for lying about an Agreement is that perhaps NCSOFT just doesn't care. That is a possibility, but I don't think that is likely either.

 

So I accept HC's statement that they have an Agreement because there is no reason to lie. There's no need. That would be an absurd amount of effort for little or no gain and quite possibly inflicted loss if legal action was involved. 

[Snokle]

Again, as I said technically in a pure legal sense, anything that is not a physical document or agreement of some sort can be taken like this.

 

While we here on this community and for the most part people who care will see the announcement and no brimefire from NCSOFT as confirmation. That does not hold us in usual business ways as contracts are involved.

 

Technically without proper knowledge it can been seen as alleged as there is no sustainable proof aside that we are still here. Still without lock solid proof people will rule lawyer and proclaim allegedly. As unless that person is going to court on this, which would be very silly the proof of burden is not on them for not believing them.

 

Also it is a Wiki we are talking about people edit shit on their constantly with every intention a person can have.

[Glacier Peak]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

Man... I hate to be the one to say this, but... it is alleged.  HC hasn't actually shown an agreement, or a license, or anything.  I've scoured the announcement post, the FAQs, the ToS, everything, there's nothing.  And NC hasn't made any comment, in any capacity (official or otherwise), that I can find.  We're taking them at their word, but that's what an allegation is, someone's word without evidence to support it.

 

Granted, if it wasn't a fact, NC would've brought a mountain of shit down on the HC team by now, given all of the press, but it's still an allegation until either the license itself or a comment from NC is publicly available.

They updated the bottom of the forums with new licensing information. And when you log in to the game, the current NC logo is present. That's about all I could find beyond faith. 

[Lockely]

3 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

They updated the bottom of the forums with new licensing information. And when you log in to the game, the current NC logo is present. That's about all I could find beyond faith. 

 

To add to that, all of the loading screens got updated to include the current NC logo, as well as for the CoV ones to remove long dead sponsorship deals like the Nvidia one. Sure, they might have someone super great at photoshop, but I think it's more likely NC provided the clean base images and direction on how they needed to be presented going forward.

[TheOtherTed]

Think of the word "alleged" as a CYA word.  It implies very little, but it's better to be safe than sorry.  I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the HC staff dropped the word in the Wikipedia page themselves.

Edited March 30 by TheOtherTed

[Shenanigunner]

19 hours ago, Techwright said:

"Allegedly"??  Can we get someone to remove that word, and give proper documentation of the authenticity of it?

 

GFL with that, hero. All it takes is one uber-god editor to keep reverting any change they don't like, no matter what facts you present or how you word the change. I suspect a number of these types use monitoring and auto-revert bots.

[lemming]

Yea, technically, maybe, but since HC has been consolidating their servers a bit from the super secret hosting to all in one basket, there's a ton of circumstantial evidence.

[Krimson]

On January 4th, MULTIPLE gaming news outlets (Massive, Polygon, Destructoid, and more) reported the licensing agreement. That would be a pretty ballsy move for an alleged agreement. People at NCSOFT have HAD to know about this agreement for almost THREE MONTHS if they had nothing to do with it. I'm pretty sure South Korea has internet. Someone HAD to notice and is either okay with the announcement because the Agreement is a real thing that exists and not a hoax, OR, they just don't care. 

[Azari]

On 3/29/2024 at 8:09 PM, Luminara said:

Man... I hate to be the one to say this, but... it is alleged.  HC hasn't actually shown an agreement, or a license, or anything.  I've scoured the announcement post, the FAQs, the ToS, everything, there's nothing.  And NC hasn't made any comment, in any capacity (official or otherwise), that I can find.  We're taking them at their word, but that's what an allegation is, someone's word without evidence to support it.

 

Granted, if it wasn't a fact, NC would've brought a mountain of shit down on the HC team by now, given all of the press, but it's still an allegation until either the license itself or a comment from NC is publicly available.

I can’t even imagine what reason HC would have to lie about a licensing agreement with NCsoft… o.O

[WanderingAries]

It'd be almost a guarantee that if HC made such a claim falsely that NC would likely have at that time brought the banhammer with a tie and receipts. Especially after having hit all the major news outlets.

[DemonSeed]

Coming back to this topic I just redid the overview in general removing another disgruntled edit adding the past tense back. As well as adding context/updates to support the change including Issue notes for 25+.

 

I think we are a handful of old devs past needing to worry about HC somehow lying and NCsoft even more somehow not caring. Worst case it gets reverted and we make a HC specific page or just ignore Wikipedia in it's entirety.

[Shenanigunner]

Wikis — or maybe their user bases — are a bit like wine.

 

If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel of sewage, you have a barrel of sewage.

 

If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel of wine... you have a barrel of sewage.

 

 

After decades of observing wikis, from WP on out to every gamer-site-hosted one for various games and media-site ones for TV shows and the like, I am still baffled at the contingent that will pound their mouse on the table and insist that The Wiki (MP&BBUI) is the absolute authority and the best place to find information. At best, most are like all the notes from all the students in all the classes, in a semi-organized heap and shot through with outdated, incomplete and sometimes maliciously wrong content.

 

Wikis in which the user has to have a substantial body of existing knowledge to be able to distinguish the grade of an entry's comment may have some purpose, but as a general reference for those who aren't already experts... not so much. And the tendency to point out one or two super-shining examples of first-class, well-maintained entries (usually on some hot new feature or one that appeals to the numbers/minimax/power player segment) does not really obscure that you can then find fifty entries that are stubs, obsolete, badly written or just worthless. But you have to know that, and not be a hapless newb or expanding player who doesn't already know the faults and misinformation.

 

 

Edited May 27 by Shenanigunner

[Techwright]

On 5/27/2024 at 7:37 AM, DemonSeed said:

Coming back to this topic I just redid the overview in general removing another disgruntled edit adding the past tense back. As well as adding context/updates to support the change including Issue notes for 25+.

 

I think we are a handful of old devs past needing to worry about HC somehow lying and NCsoft even more somehow not caring. Worst case it gets reverted and we make a HC specific page or just ignore Wikipedia in it's entirety.

 

Thank you for that! It looks great!