PC Gamer Article on Homecoming's Deal with NC

[lemming]

54 minutes ago, Nostromo21 said:

Out of interest, does HC have an 'untouchable' backup of the current build we have access to, and/or another 'secret' hosting location they can fall back to, should the need arise to go rogue again?

I'm sure that the answer is "no."   Just like all the devs with access to issue24 did not leave with the code.

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, Nostromo21 said:

Out of interest, does HC have an 'untouchable' backup of the current build we have access to, and/or another 'secret' hosting location they can fall back to, should the need arise to go rogue again?

 

While there's not likely to be a "public backup build" of what's going on on HC, Ourodev has the I24 (original leaked files) and I25 (SCORE) game files, and information on setting your own up - they've been the basis for all the servers out there, as I recall, and setting up one on your own (at least for personal use, don't ask me about hosting, setting up multiple servers/shards, etc.) is *really* straightforward.

 

So... honestly, COH itself kind of can't ever go away forever again.

[Skyhawke]

7 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

It's only "no server drama" when someone hates on servers that aren't HC. When it's HC hate it's anything goes. They banned me there and I haven't gone back since. Frak that toxic cesspool of hot garbage.

 

 

[Doc_Scorpion]

I both agree and disagree...  There's certainly some very awful communities on Reddit, but there's also a large number of useful and interesting ones.

[Lockely]

Reddit has it's moments to be sure, but it's nowhere near as bad as the various chan boards.

[Krimson]

1 hour ago, Lockely said:

Reddit has it's moments to be sure, but it's nowhere near as bad as the various chan boards.

Who do think is causing the drama? Thunderspy claims that they are no longer the 4chan server heh.

[Glacier Peak]

Someone else saw the announcement in their news feed...

 

 

[Lockely]

40 minutes ago, Krimson said:

Who do think is causing the drama? Thunderspy claims that they are no longer the 4chan server heh.

Don't know, what I do know is that I called out said devs on the subreddit for directly attacking Cipher and making up conspiracy theories about HC infiltrating PC Gamer to manufacture a spokesperson from NCSoft to confirm their deal, and was subsequently permabanned for it. 🙂

So, eh. No big loss.

[Krimson]

24 minutes ago, Lockely said:

Don't know, what I do know is that I called out said devs on the subreddit for directly attacking Cipher and making up conspiracy theories about HC infiltrating PC Gamer to manufacture a spokesperson from NCSoft to confirm their deal, and was subsequently permabanned for it. 🙂

So, eh. No big loss.

Don't worry about it. That sub was created with the intention of bashing Homecoming. The three attention seekers are just doing their best to make their existences bearable in the only way they know how. 

[Cipher]

21 minutes ago, Lockely said:

Don't know, what I do know is that I called out said devs on the subreddit for directly attacking Cipher and making up conspiracy theories about HC infiltrating PC Gamer to manufacture a spokesperson from NCSoft to confirm their deal, and was subsequently permabanned for it. 🙂

So, eh. No big loss.

 

Sorry you've been banned from the subreddit 😞

 

Unfortunately this isn't the first time we've heard of this happening, and the hostility is one of the reasons we've chosen not to engage with the subreddit in any official capacity for years now.

 

For others, while we do appreciate that the community wants to come to our defense when these sorts of things happen, sometimes it's best not to engage and just focus on the positive discussion on the subreddit.

[Ulysses Dare]

1 hour ago, Krimson said:

Don't worry about it. That sub was created with the intention of bashing Homecoming. The three attention seekers are just doing their best to make their existences bearable in the only way they know how. 

/r/Cityofheroes existed long before Homecoming did.

[PeregrineFalcon]

You know, you all talk about how horrible the folks on Reddit are, but you know what I see? I see, right now, in that thread about the PC Gamer Article, a Thuderspy dev kinda smack talking Homecoming and being downvoted by his fellow redditors.

 

So keep telling yourself that only the people on the Homecoming forums are ok and everyone else is bad/wrong all you want, but it's demonstrably untrue.

 

And I'm less than sympathetic with people's complaints about the moderation on Reddit when the moderation here on the Homecoming forums has vacillated between "draconian snowflake protection program" and almost reasonable.

[Lockely]

24 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

You know, you all talk about how horrible the folks on Reddit are, but you know what I see? I see, right now, in that thread about the PC Gamer Article, a Thuderspy dev kinda smack talking Homecoming and being downvoted by his fellow redditors.

 

So keep telling yourself that only the people on the Homecoming forums are ok and everyone else is bad/wrong all you want, but it's demonstrably untrue.

 

And I'm less than sympathetic with people's complaints about the moderation on Reddit when the moderation here on the Homecoming forums has vacillated between "draconian snowflake protection program" and almost reasonable.

 

To be entirely fair, when I entered that thread, they were in the +20s on those comments (only one of the three TSpy devs participating in the thread are tagged as such in their flair) until people started calling them out.

[Krimson]

 

11 minutes ago, Lockely said:

 

To be entirely fair, when I entered that thread, they were in the +20s on those comments (only one of the three TSpy devs participating in the thread are tagged as such in their flair) until people started calling them out.

Yep they'd still be upvoted if no one called them out. 

 

Whatever. Let them blow their horns. If you can't get more than 30 on your server at a time after 5 years then don't expect to be taken seriously. 

 

Fact is Homecoming got an agreement with NCSOFT and the other servers did not. Whatever people accuse Homecoming of, it's certainly not sitting on their hands. 

[Scarlet Shocker]

Dragging the thread back to some relevancy, I was impressed with the article in question! Good find @Lunar Ronin

 

Personally I had little or no doubt that when the HC crew announced they'd come to a deal, it was an actual thing!

 

Because

a) they'd said they wanted to

b) they've always tried to engage with NCSoft

c) it would have been incredibly stupid to lie to the community and in plain sight of NCSoft. That would have shown a very poor show of faith and wrecked the project.

 

So yeah, Never much doubt on my part but interesting that the article quoted NCSoft people and it sounds positive overall.

 

Ultimately we have a very happy outcome and all parties should be commended.

[Faultline]

I know people are frustrated with the subreddit situation, but I'll echo Cipher's position in that it's best to not engage and focus on the positive. Press attention is certain to cause a new influx of players, and we want them to see a welcoming community, rather than one that is fractured and bitter. Be excellent to each other and game on, dudes.

[wjrasmussen]

On 4/5/2024 at 9:02 AM, Lunar Ronin said:

PC Gamer put up an article detailing the deal made between Homecoming and NC. You can read it here.

 

 

 

This is very surprising to me as I thought PC Magazine was dead.

[wjrasmussen]

20 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

While there's not likely to be a "public backup build" of what's going on on HC, Ourodev has the I24 (original leaked files) and I25 (SCORE) game files, and information on setting your own up - they've been the basis for all the servers out there, as I recall, and setting up one on your own (at least for personal use, don't ask me about hosting, setting up multiple servers/shards, etc.) is *really* straightforward.

 

So... honestly, COH itself kind of can't ever go away forever again.

Best place to get the code still that discord channel?

[Zect]

23 hours ago, Nostromo21 said:

I hate to be cynical (or do I...?), but words like 'guardrails' make me very nervous.

 

I'm guessing these 'guardrails' include such things as preserving the game's ESRB rating (if you've wondered why you can't have naked tights, this is more likely to be the reason, not - or at least not just - prudishness), as well as other things that may have reputational and/or legal consequences for NCSoft, like the policing of hate speech and the ability to create clones of characters from other IP, given that NCSoft remain the legal owners of the game, source code, and IP.

 

If I am right, it's really no surprise NCSoft would want to strike a deal - in practical purposes they have lost all control over the game now that the source code has been released into the wild, but this way they receive at least some assurance that what will be done with it isn't against their interests.

[biostem]

8 minutes ago, Zect said:

If I am right, it's really no surprise NCSoft would want to strike a deal

My concern is that they see HC meeting its funding goals in relatively short order, and wondering how they could further monetize the game.  At the same time, it reveals just what a volunteer staff can do compared to whatever NCSoft may be paying for the "professional" dev team on their other MMO titles...

[WumpusRat]

1 hour ago, Zect said:

 

I'm guessing these 'guardrails' include such things as preserving the game's ESRB rating (if you've wondered why you can't have naked tights, this is more likely to be the reason, not - or at least not just - prudishness),

That actually reminds me, back near the end of live my bf at the time and I created a pair of characters named Bare Bear and Bear Bare, who had boots, gloves, bear ears, and a domino mask, with the chain wrapped waistband and shoulders, with everything else being "bare". Dark skin with the eden and bikini bits as close as possible to the skin color.

It was silly fun. 🙂

[Nostromo21]

4 hours ago, Zect said:

 

I'm guessing these 'guardrails' include such things as preserving the game's ESRB rating (if you've wondered why you can't have naked tights, this is more likely to be the reason, not - or at least not just - prudishness), as well as other things that may have reputational and/or legal consequences for NCSoft, like the policing of hate speech and the ability to create clones of characters from other IP, given that NCSoft remain the legal owners of the game, source code, and IP.

 

If I am right, it's really no surprise NCSoft would want to strike a deal - in practical purposes they have lost all control over the game now that the source code has been released into the wild, but this way they receive at least some assurance that what will be done with it isn't against their interests.

 

Yeah, fair enough, and I understand completely the limitations (legal & otherwise) of them licensing the rights to a third party - I was there from beta, back when the Marvel scumbags sued Cryptic...personally, I think the whole IP oxymoron is a blight on humanity, but that's just me. At the very least, everything should enter the public domain after a year or two at most, but I'm weird and a bit socialist that way (just not of the lunatic left!).

 

I've already had a throwaway toon I made a year ago called Barbierella recently pinged for copyright infringement and was forced to rename her. The irony is, I named her after Barbarella, the Jane Fonda movie (which was obviously already taken), just modified it a bit. And a device is yet to be invented that could measure my level of interest (or disdain) in the new movie, bleh. She is now called Babarella, but the whole thing is a complete joke, as she was just concept costume slapped onto a brute, which I never play.

Edited April 7 by Nostromo21

[Scarlet Shocker]

On 4/6/2024 at 2:22 AM, Nostromo21 said:

I hate to be cynical (or do I...?), but words like 'guardrails' make me very nervous.

 

I sincerely hope this 'alleged' 'relationship' doesn't devolve into a master/slave or publisher/dev type thing and NCSoft at some point demand that MTX/cash shop/loot boxes/season passes/gacha/etc be shoe-horned into the game, so they can take a 50% cut say, and make it worth their while, ahem. 'Licensed' now also means they can simply refuse to re-license at the next anniversary or simply issue a C&D for any reason whatsoever I'd be willing to bet, as HC have now formally and legally acknowledged them as the rightful owners of their instance/version. I simply don't trust any large gaming companies like them any longer, fool me once, twice, thrice, you canna fool me no more! 😉

 

Out of interest, does HC have an 'untouchable' backup of the current build we have access to, and/or another 'secret' hosting location they can fall back to, should the need arise to go rogue again? I would like to think that HC would have the foresight to make a bullet-proof escape vector possible for themselves, even if the game has to spring up somewhere else under a different name. Also, do we as players and supporters have any access to our hero data (an export at the very least), so we have a Plan B, in case of a worst-case scenario guys...? 

 

I would be amazed if NCSoft didn't have "guardrails" in place before sanctioning the licence.

 

There's a whole bunch of stuff around the IP rights of the game, making sure the Homecoming team do not bring NCSoft's name into disrepute etc etc and I believe without trawling through I'm pretty sure I read that there was no possibility of users being charged to play the game.

 

NCSoft lost a lot of goodwill in the shuttering of City of Heroes. Frankly as a PR exercise it couldn't have gone much more wrong for them. This does a hell of a lot to reverse that and make NCSoft look like the good guys once more, whilst still giving them a modicum of control over an IP that remains one step away from being feral. They are realists. This is a good outcome for them for minimal capital outlay and they look rosy.

[Lockely]

11 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

 

I would be amazed if NCSoft didn't have "guardrails" in place before sanctioning the licence.

 

There's a whole bunch of stuff around the IP rights of the game, making sure the Homecoming team do not bring NCSoft's name into disrepute etc etc and I believe without trawling through I'm pretty sure I read that there was no possibility of users being charged to play the game.

 

NCSoft lost a lot of goodwill in the shuttering of City of Heroes. Frankly as a PR exercise it couldn't have gone much more wrong for them. This does a hell of a lot to reverse that and make NCSoft look like the good guys once more, whilst still giving them a modicum of control over an IP that remains one step away from being feral. They are realists. This is a good outcome for them for minimal capital outlay and they look rosy.

 

My only hope is they see the love here and realize there are communities around all the games they've shuttered who would gladly do the same as Homecoming.

 

I would give almost anything to return to Wildstar and run Datascape with my guild once again.

[Scarlet Shocker]

1 minute ago, Lockely said:

 

My only hope is they see the love here and realize there are communities around all the games they've shuttered who would gladly do the same as Homecoming.

 

I would give almost anything to return to Wildstar and run Datascape with my guild once again.

 

I hear you.

 

I wouldn't say "never" but it's likely to be a while, if at all. But if this goes well, certainly the more enlightened IP owners might put measures in place to allow older games to flourish in perpetuity with fan caretakers