Christmas in July

[LadyDee]

One of the events I adore is: The Winter Event.

 

Reasons?

 

Fun! Rewards! Badges! Hanging with old friends! Memories!

 

July is just around the corner and it would be perfect to open this event up for the month.

 

Fellow Players,

 

Please vote and let the Homecoming team hear are request.

 

[_NOPE_]

/JRanger.

 

Let's keep the holidays special by keeping them to the time that they are. I don't want Christmas in July, or Halloween in June!

[Vanden]

I'm with Philotic Knight here.

[LadyDee]

/JRanger.

 

Let's keep the holidays special by keeping them to the time that they are. I don't want Christmas in July, or Halloween in June!

 

Under normal circumstances I would agree.

 

But this game has been dormant for seven long years.

 

I am not asking that every year we should throw a Winter Event in July.

 

Goodness No.

 

But for the first year of return, it would be nice to enjoy an event before the upcoming season.

 

 

[PaxArcana]

/JRanger.

This.

[justicebeliever]

I'm torn.  Part of me says, enjoy things while we can - the whole thing may be gone by December, and I too would love to see another Winter Event before then. 

 

The other part definitely does not want the holidays to come any sooner than they should.  I abstain

[Judasace]

I'm torn.  Part of me says, enjoy things while we can - the whole thing may be gone by December, and I too would love to see another Winter Event before then. 

 

 

this . I don't think most people get the thread this game hangs by. I suspect the reason it's still here at all is just the slow moving bureaucracy at NCSoft, and  a debate on their part internally whether to bring it back as a legacy game on life support - no dev team just server admins and charging people 20 bucks a month and micro transactioning everything from recipes to inspirations, or just shutting the whole thing down to protect their IP.

 

If these servers are still up at Christmas time, I'll be stunned.

[LadyDee]

I'm torn.  Part of me says, enjoy things while we can - the whole thing may be gone by December, and I too would love to see another Winter Event before then. 

 

 

this . I don't think most people get the thread this game hangs by. I suspect the reason it's still here at all is just the slow moving bureaucracy at NCSoft, and  a debate on their part internally whether to bring it back as a legacy game on life support - no dev team just server admins and charging people 20 bucks a month and micro transactioning everything from recipes to inspirations, or just shutting the whole thing down to protect their IP.

 

If these servers are still up at Christmas time, I'll be stunned.

 

That is the reason I suggested this. There are several people  I speak to on a regular bases that have this over-whelming feeling of dread, that this "return" is just temporary.  And I must admit I am right there with them. Would be nice to enjoy this event before the "Doomsday Clock," strikes. 

[Shinobu]

My vote is for "I don't care."  Since that's not an option, I didn't vote.

 

I'm not particularly worried that we'll be shut down.  Other games have had rogue servers running for years.  If they do shut the Homecoming servers down, something else will replace it -- there are too many people out there who have the code now, and it's much easier to run these servers than it used to be.  There are already a lot of other, smaller servers running.

 

So I can understand the view that you should save holidays for when the holiday actually happens, and I can also see the view that it wouldn't hurt anyone to have a week of Christmas in July, or Halloween in June, or Valentine's Day in August, or Shrove Tuesday every other Thursday, or whatever.  :P

[justicebeliever]

I'm not particularly worried that we'll be shut down.  Other games have had rogue servers running for years.  If they do shut the Homecoming servers down, something else will replace it -- there are too many people out there who have the code now, and it's much easier to run these servers than it used to be.  There are already a lot of other, smaller servers running.

 

Technically HC is a private server, but in reality, this is a pretty public server.  Anyone can create a forum account, and anyone who can create a forum account can play.  NCSoft probably will never try too hard to squash small private, invite only servers (with the i24 code out there, it would be like whack-a-mole).  But public ones, like HC, coxg, Reddit, etc...if they are going to take action, those are the ones they will hit.  And once they do that, no one is going to take the legal and financial losses to try another public server.

 

So things will go back to how they were before...and there's the rub

1.) I don't want to play on a small private server - part of the fun is the massive multiplayer part of the MMORPG.  I don't find the game compelling enough without

2.) I'm uncomfortable playing on a small private server - It's hypocritical, but as long as NCSoft put's up with this, I'm OK with the "gray area".  Once they pull the plug, I'm going to be less OK with the "darker gray area" this game will become

3.) I can't play on a small private server - I don't have connections that'll get me an "in".  I don't have the skills to run my own.  And if I did, I'm back to #1 and #2.

 

I also think that Leo and SCoRE are keeping a lid on the i25 code base because they've already been warned by NCSoft about sharing it, so I'd be pretty sad going backwards at this point.

 

So for me, and I am sure for many others (though not all), that it's HC or bust.  People talk about the "source code" being out there, but it won't be the same experience at all.  I'm in as long as Homecoming is viable, and it's game over for me if it folds.  It's not FUD - It's possible NCSoft licenses it's software and allows for public use again.  It's possible they just ignore it forever.  It's just unlikely, and for that reason, I'm cautious about planning for the long term on this platform.

 

All my own choices, no one else need feel the same way.  And as long as it's still functioning, I plan to play the hell out of it, and enjoy what time we get.  But I might like to see on more winter event, or go trick or treating one more time...but I really don't want either of them to happen before December and October respectively...

 

EDIT:  Scratched out part of my post the Shinobu cleared up for me...

[sturmcrow]

Posting /JRanger to people's ideas is a shitty way to avoid dialog.

 

I am all for this, I too, worry that NCSoft may do something to the popular open servers because of how many people are playing on them. Also in some parts of the world it IS winter in July so what would it hurt to have more events?

[_NOPE_]

I also think that Leo and SCoRE are keeping a lid on the i25 code base because they've already been warned by NCSoft about sharing it, so I'd be pretty sad going backwards at this point.

 

What are you talking about? It's right here. Go get it!

[justicebeliever]

I also think that Leo and SCoRE are keeping a lid on the i25 code base because they've already been warned by NCSoft about sharing it, so I'd be pretty sad going backwards at this point.

 

What are you talking about? It's right here. Go get it!

 

I'm not going to download it...read the rest of my post for why

 

As for what I am talking about:

Hello Heroes & Villains!

...

With that said, I’d now like to rewind a little bit to some controversial events that have taken place over the last few weeks.

 

The biggest concern that’s been directed towards us is our seeming unwillingness to assist other groups in setting up their own servers. This assertion in and of itself isn’t quite fair: We have, in fact, been helping other groups with advice and support - however, we have not directly been sharing any code that’s based off of the original City of Heroes source code.

 

The reason for that is pretty simple: The only legal action NCSoft has taken in relation to City of Heroes’ return is a DMCA claim against the original upload of the i25 binaries (which, for the record, did not come from us). They haven’t touched any of the servers. The conclusion we’ve drawn from this is that at least for the moment, NCSoft do not mind the servers being up, but they do mind code (and other files) being shared.

 

And if we now refer back to our prime directive: Sharing code could have put us, and the Homecoming servers, in the (legal) firing line. Obviously, we did not want this to happen, and so we opted to not directly share any code based off the original source, and instead just provide advice.

...

- The Homecoming Team

[Shinobu]

The I25 code is what Leo shared with everyone.  He didn't actually have an I24 code lying around to give out -- that's why people that wanted I24 code had to work backwards to recreate it and undo what the SCORE people had added.

 

I also believe that Leo and SCORE are sharing updates not just with Homecoming, but with several other servers as well.

 

Anyway, that's not the main point of the thread, but certainly NCSoft is not preventing the spread of I25 or anything like that.  There were just a significant number of people who wanted to start with I24 and then make their own mistakes changes from there I guess.

 

edit:

 

I think the part you are pointing out involves programming that Leo created to get the servers to run the game properly -- I recall him saying that you need to do a bit of coding to make it all run correctly, and if you don't know how to do that much, you probably don't have any business running your own server.  Some people were mad that he didn't hand them everything they needed on a silver platter so they could just press the go button, basically... but the programming was specific to your server configuration in any case, from what I gathered, there wasn't a "one size fits all" option available even if he did want to share what he'd done.

 

Anyway everyone else got their servers up and running, it wasn't really that big of a deal.  He's not holding back a major portion of the game from other servers, like you seem to think.

 

 

[justicebeliever]

He's not holding back a major portion of the game from other servers, like you seem to think.

 

All I know is what I saw in the thread I snipped...that you for the clarification.

 

Regardless, the point of my response had next to nothing to do with that...