Updated: City of Heroes Private Server Shut Down & 'On a Direct Course for Legal Action'

SBFord

Updated: City of Heroes Private Server Shut Down & 'On a Direct Course for Legal Action' - MMORPG.com

The City of Heroes private server that cropped up late last week after the source code for the "secret CoH" server was publicly released has been shut down. In a note copied to the CoH Reddit, the team behind the server said that it had "to be shut down indefinitely" and that the team is "on a direct course for legal action". As a result, the site and server are gone "to protect the people involved in this project, their families, and their futures".

Read the full story here

This is a story in progress so keep tuned to the same bat time and the same bat channel. Grateful thanks to Asm0deus for posting the Discord updates in the current thread.

Update #1: From Asm0deus: Innocuous/Glory to ArachnosToday at 4:42 PM Things may not be as nuclearly fucked as I was lead to be presented with. Please hold tight. I am not posting a GFM, it may not be needed.

Update #2: From Asm0deus: 

"Innocuous/Glory to ArachnosToday at 5:08 PM

We are drafting a general update.
Questions I can answer right now:
1.) We do not currently have the server binaries right now. We do not physically have them.
2. We are not giving up, every single one of us is looking at the outcomes and directions to go to.
3. Hope is not lost. Seriously. Coderbus, calm down. People in the community, calm down. We are working to figure out a solution as well as get some spatial awareness on what is going on.
4. The previous plan of forming an LLC may not need to be formed. So, once again, please calm down. This is a panic spiral and we are trying to collect ourselves."

Update #3: From Asm0deus: "There is going to be some positive news soon. Wait for me to write a coherent statement.

Update #4: As of now, we are running on the assumption that there is no DMCA. We have a drive that we are currently verifying on if it's the server binaries. As it stands, it has everything. There has been some fuckups that lead to mass server panic, and an emergency administration and codemod meeting has been called.

We may very well be able to salvage this situation before the next sunset. No promises. Do not hold this against me. We have a gameplan. It depends on verifying this code right now. Once it is achieved, we are pushing to get a server back up immediately. The original goal of the server has been to get a stable i24 for distribution and by the Well of the Furies we will get it. This chaos was unprofessional on my part (partly from my inexperience), and triggers were being pulled before we even had the horses at the races.

SBFord

Honestly not surprised and I think this sinks the wish that some posted yesterday that this bunch and NCSoft were in "talks" to let the server run as long as it was without personal or character data from before it was originally shut down.

Aeander

Oh NCSoft. Unwilling to do a goddamn thing with any of its western properties, but also unwilling to let anyone else touch or purchase them either. Scumbags. NCSoft are nothing but scumbags.

Theocritus

Aeander said:

Oh NCSoft. Unwilling to do a goddamn thing with any of its western properties, but also unwilling to let anyone else touch or purchase them either. Scumbags. NCSoft are nothing but scumbags.

Speak with your wallets...Refuse to buy or support any of their products.

Scorchien

Like i said in the threads when the server cropped up , NCSFS would be aggresive in shut downs...

Albatroes

Shocker......

Theocritus said:

Aeander said:

Oh NCSoft. Unwilling to do a goddamn thing with any of its western properties, but also unwilling to let anyone else touch or purchase them either. Scumbags. NCSoft are nothing but scumbags.

Speak with your wallets...Refuse to buy or support any of their products.

People already have been for years now, that's why Blade and Soul is down to 1 server for both NA and EU. They give 0 fks because they are focused on the mobile market. 2 Blade and Soul mobile games and Aion mobile in the works yet they dont fix either of the actual pc versions.

Amathe

If you own intellectual property, and you want to keep owning it, you can't stand back and do nothing when other people use it without authorization. They pretty much have to take some action. 

Aeander

Theocritus said:

Aeander said:

Oh NCSoft. Unwilling to do a goddamn thing with any of its western properties, but also unwilling to let anyone else touch or purchase them either. Scumbags. NCSoft are nothing but scumbags.

Speak with your wallets...Refuse to buy or support any of their products.

I refuse to support any of their eastern or mobile products. But Arenanet, their sole remaining western developer, are a great company that I want to support (until NCSoft inevitably shutter them).

Cryomatrix

I was kind of looking forward to trying it too.

Out of curiosity cuz I know nothing of the law, what kind of punishment would these people face? Fines? Jail time? scarlet letter?

Albatroes

Cryomatrix said:

I was kind of looking forward to trying it too.



Out of curiosity cuz I know nothing of the law, what kind of punishment would these people face? Fines? Jail time? scarlet letter?

It honestly depends on where they are (like their region) and what charges NCSoft wants to bring against them. People wanting this to come back need to realize that it just wont happen realistically since they dont have a dev team to support it. Cryptic works closely with Perfect World so that would be out and bringing in a new team, having them to get up to speed asap on the game's code, etc is probably more of a financial investment than they are willing to make. If people want to gain some realistic understanding on something like this, just look at how long its taking RaiderZ to come back (if it even does). And yes, you still need some form of development team even if you're not adding anything since you have to handle new issues like making sure the old game can even run properly on newer OS etc.

JeffSpicoli

BACK TO DC UNIVERSE ONLINE WHO'S WITH ME ?!!!!!

Bloodaxes

These private servers more often than not have paid services or donations to stay afloat. Even if you are a die hard fan of CoH, it's time to let it go.

They own the property, they can do as they please. If they really wanted to make a private server, they should have asked for permission first.

Aeander

Blah blah blah.

I understand the challenges of copyright law. NCSoft was required to take action. I'm not new to this game.

But ultimately, it is NCSoft that chose not to sell these properties, which have no value to them, to an interested party. They are just another dragon hoarding treasure that they have no want nor use for. It's high time to slay that dragon.

JakeSim

https://www.mmobomb.com/news/rogue-city-heroes-server-might-ncsofts-blessing-theres-catch/

Asm0deus

Torval said:

Once the hubbub dies down they'll open back up again. There are tons of Lineage 1 servers if you want to play it and a couple are even decent.

This the server code...all of it is out there now.

Asm0deus

Really in cases like this the best thing to do is to simply allow private serves as freeware with conditions like for the private swg servers.

Instead some like NCsoft would rather garner a huge amount of ill will....

alkarionlog

meh, I call wolf, I don't think they did receive anything, too fast for one, and we have to belive in a reddit post?

Cryomatrix

Another question, if the private server, were to be housed in a place like Russia or China, could NCsoft actually do anything to them?

Asm0deus

alkarionlog said:

meh, I call wolf, I don't think they did receive anything, too fast for one, and we have to belive in a reddit post?

Was not from a reddit post but from the discord from the main people running this private server.

That said they never said it was NCsoft only that there was some legal fuckery happening....

tawess

alkarionlog said:

meh, I call wolf, I don't think they did receive anything, too fast for one, and we have to belive in a reddit post?

A quick e-mail telling them to shut it down or spend the next 6 months in and out of court having every single last cent drained form them.... Does not sound like it would take much time.

Asm0deus

Quick update incominng methinks cause:

Innocuous/Glory to ArachnosToday at 4:42 PM Things may not be as nuclearly fucked as I was lead to be presented with. Please hold tight. I am not posting a GFM, it may not be needed.

Sovrath

Amathe said:

If you own intellectual property, and you want to keep owning it, you can't stand back and do nothing when other people use it without authorization. They pretty much have to take some action. 

Not sure why you got an "lol." it's true.

http://www.sbnonline.com/article/how-ignoring-intellectual-property-rights-can-hurt-your-business-stradling/

MadFrenchie

Amathe said:

If you own intellectual property, and you want to keep owning it, you can't stand back and do nothing when other people use it without authorization. They pretty much have to take some action. 

Actually, there's no responsibility to the owners to enforce copyright. Their protections remain even if they choose not to.

Trademarks, on the other hand, require enforcement.

Asm0deus

Update

Innocuous/Glory to ArachnosToday at 5:08 PM
We are drafting a general update.
Questions I can answer right now:
1.) We do not currently have the server binaries right now. We do not physically have them.
2. We are not giving up, every single one of us is looking at the outcomes and directions to go to.
3. Hope is not lost. Seriously. Coderbus, calm down. People in the community, calm down. We are working to figure out a solution as well as get some spatial awareness on what is going on.
4. The previous plan of forming an LLC may not need to be formed. So, once again, please calm down. This is a panic spiral and we are trying to collect ourselves.

Iselin

The surprising thing to me in all this was that they managed to keep it a secret for as long as they did. I would have expected someone to snitch out of spite long before this.