Author Topic: Status Update (November 13)  (Read 42702 times)

Rotten Luck

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #40 on: November 15, 2012, 12:42:09 AM »
One reason is to make sure the saved characters are compatible with the new game.  Or at the very least able to be adjusted to work in the new character creator.
One way or another... Heroes will fly again!

Whiteseeker

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #41 on: November 15, 2012, 01:27:32 AM »
Thanks for all the info. I hardly ever say anything on forums, but I been here for awhile(years) reading. Just wanted everyone here know that I am thankful for what is/has/will be done for the game, that will be a was, and the one I hope is to come.

TY.
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Artillerie

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #42 on: November 15, 2012, 02:08:19 AM »
Thank you for the clarification Tony.

downix

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #43 on: November 15, 2012, 02:09:16 AM »
I thought that was just for the character costumes and not "build" sense.
No, build too. One of the plans is for pre-building your characters as an option. An imported character would still be level 1, but they would have their build pre-planned. Think Mids integration.

Electric Rage

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #44 on: November 15, 2012, 02:18:18 AM »
 :)Greetings as a COH superhero from April of 2004 I would like to suggest if a new game is going to be developed with the best COH had to offer and then changes..then please have exciting music involved like what Two Steps From Hell produces. Also I would like to see power groups that reflect our fav comic book hero types from Marvel and DC and also upgrade the graphics to reflect the change in CGI engine development...just a couple of sugestions to be added to the rest..thanks.

downix

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #45 on: November 15, 2012, 02:44:52 AM »
So sentinal+ was purely for the archiving and then reintegration of CoX characters for the "CoX server project" (not project Z) correct?
I don't know what Sentinal+ is for beyond archiving our characters in a format which can be parsed later. But if you have the data, why not use it I say?

It's existed a lot longer than PlanZ has.

P51mus

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #46 on: November 15, 2012, 03:06:09 AM »
  In fact, it is a little known fact (or shoot, maybe you do know it...) that rules to games are specifically exempted from copyright protection, so even if we wanted to use the same slotting system, inspiration system, power progression, etc., we probably could although for the sake of avoiding IP infringement all of that stuff might be called something different.

There's a company that more or less based their entire business off of that.  They're called Zynga.  Doing it as blatantly and as often as Zynga does is strongly frowned upon, but it's legal, and Zynga still exists (though, last I heard they're not doing as well as they used to be.  Guess a company with no original ideas can only go so far).


Golden Girl

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #47 on: November 15, 2012, 03:12:57 AM »
Guess a company with no original ideas can only go so far).

For more proof, see the TORtanic :P
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epawtows

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #48 on: November 15, 2012, 03:47:27 AM »
So sentinal+ was purely for the archiving and then reintegration of CoX characters for the "CoX server project" (not project Z) correct?

It could serve other purposes.  If sometime in the next year or so NCSoft changes their mind and sells the CoH IP to another entity, but NOT the customer/player databases, then the Sentinal+ files would be only way to restore a character at anything other than level 1 (and even then an importer would be needed for it).
 

 

Codewalker

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #49 on: November 15, 2012, 03:56:55 AM »
So sentinal+ was purely for the archiving and then reintegration of CoX characters for the "CoX server project" (not project Z) correct?

Sentinel+ was created to archive the essence of characters in an open format so that they might be used in the future for any one of a variety of possibilities. It wasn't created for any one of those in particular; that's why the XML format is easily readable.

Things that come to mind range from offline character viewers and or memorial web-page creation tools, to Plan D* (Community buyout of the game wholesale, but without the character database), Plan E (Community buyout of the IP, but without the code, relaunching on a reverse-engineered server), plan F (reverse engineered server software without the IP -- i.e. an empty world with the CoH mechanics on which to build new content, think architect on a much larger scale), plan G (a relaunch in the event NCSoft goes bankrupt or otherwise divorces itself from the IP), a rough concept importer for plan Z (wouldn't be exact of course), underground private servers which don't have a plan letter because Titan does not sanction them (but I'd bet you one will show up sooner or later even without our help), or even just so people can rest easier knowing that they have them backed up in cryofreeze and their characters won't die a digital death at the hands of NCSoft.

For the record the RE project also exists in order to find ways to open up access to things that the client doesn't need a server for because it already has all the assets locally. Things like the costume creator, or even a limited form of Mission Architect. Things that arguably we bought and paid for when we purchased the client in a box in a store.


* Those aren't official plan letters as we never really firmly set any other than A and Z, so I extrapolated. All I know is that Hardison dies in plan M.

TonyV

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #50 on: November 15, 2012, 04:30:50 AM »
So why are you doing it? Be blunt and be clear about this please, because *ALOT* of people are wondering why you are reverse engineering the game servers and only assuming the worst. If you don't want this to happen, please tell people as to why you are doing it.

To be honest, I don't know what our long-term intention is yet.  Keep in mind that I *personally* am not working on this project.  Ultimately, I'm leaving what happens with it up to the people who are personally working on it.  Options range from as simple as providing a server that will allow you to run the costume creator to realizing a full-fledged private server with packages of unique content that players can play the game with.  Or somewhere on the spectrum in between.  Once we have something significant, we'll make a decision about what to do with it, consulting legal counsel if necessary to make sure we have our i's dotted and our t's crossed.  (Screw the j's and the people who put lines through their z's!)

So sentinal+ was purely for the archiving and then reintegration of CoX characters for the "CoX server project" (not project Z) correct?

Either/or.  Keep in mind that when Sentinel+ was released, we didn't know what the ultimate fate of City of Heroes would be.  I honestly thought that the game would be sold to another company (optimistically, to a re-formed Paragon Studios), but I didn't know if the user database--including the existing characters--would be transferred as part of the deal.  My thought was if everyone had to start from scratch, we could share the algorithm we used to generate the checksum with the new developers and give them the option of letting us re-import our existing characters.

But that didn't come to pass, so that option seems pretty much out the window for now.  So with Plan Z in the works, it has been mentioned the possibility of allowing people to import characters into the new game.  It won't be an exact one-to-one correspondence, but there might be some way to map various features over.

Other things the exports can be used for are letting people view the nitty-gritty back-end data that their character uses.  Even if we don't allow imports into Plan Z, or if someone wants to play another game entirely, they can look at it (it's just XML text) and use it as some sort of guide, maybe.  Or a year from now, if they get to wondering, "How many badges did Mr. Foomonkey have?  I can't remember..." they can actually go and look it up.  Or maybe we'll put out a simple little mobile game to tide people over until Plan Z is released and let people import the character names and really general characteristics ("It's a female dressed in yellow wearing a cape") to generate a little sprite icon or something.  Or I dunno...  People can use it for whatever they want.  I have plans to basically build the City Vault site that we never got from NCsoft (as I understand it, NCsoft failed us on that, not Paragon Studios--NCsoft handled all web sites and development that interacted with the user database), maybe I'll allow people to import their City of Heroes characters just as a historical shrine to them or something.  A lot of possibilities, but if Sentinel+ hadn't have been released, we would have had none of those options open to us.

Heavy Ion

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #51 on: November 15, 2012, 04:39:11 AM »
Thank you TonyV and thank you to all the Titans working to save something of our world, even if it turns out to be a vastly different, parallel universe.

Zombie Hustler

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #52 on: November 15, 2012, 06:56:06 AM »
Thanks for the update TonyV. Still playing, and wish I were able to do more to help try and save the game than I can/have thus far, but I appreciate all the effort you and so many others have been doing to keep the momentum going and to keep giving us hope.

ET3D

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #53 on: November 15, 2012, 07:56:05 AM »
Thank you TonyV and thank you to all the Titans working to save something of our world, even if it turns out to be a vastly different, parallel universe.

Heh, beat me to it. :) I wanted to make such a post yesterday but postponed it to today. And you said it nicely. :)

But I'll say it again: I want to thank everyone working on continuing the legacy of CoH. And I want to thank Tony for being so positive and level headed. It always makes me hopeful to read your posts.

Clave Dark 5

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #54 on: November 15, 2012, 09:48:02 AM »
Still, we could use some people with skills that are harder to come by, such as graphics programming, digital art, and animation.

Maybe we should do a round of Kickstarter (or whatever site) and hire someone to do this work free-lance - not a permanent job, just someone here to do X things and then be done.
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avelworldcreator

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #55 on: November 15, 2012, 02:58:41 PM »
Maybe we should do a round of Kickstarter (or whatever site) and hire someone to do this work free-lance - not a permanent job, just someone here to do X things and then be done.
Plans for a Kickstarter or other funding methods are in the works. There is also a sponsorship program going on - with applicants! There's even a small game company contributing to the effort (may another software company but the owner is already heavily committed with other projects).
Missing World Media primary co-founder, senior developer, UI/UX acting lead, and software toolsmith.

TonyV

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #56 on: November 15, 2012, 05:12:13 PM »
Maybe we should do a round of Kickstarter (or whatever site) and hire someone to do this work free-lance - not a permanent job, just someone here to do X things and then be done.

The problem with a Kickstarter project is that you have to be quite a bit further along than we are right now.  You really can't just go there with a video saying, "I have an idea...", you have to have a detailed plan in place on how exactly you're going to accomplish your project.  Which is actually a good thing--I don't want people committing their hard-earned money to us before we actually have something to convince them that we're not just tilting at windmills, that we're actually committed to following through on this.

But fear not, because we actually have a really good team as we speak working on putting together some sort of demo that we can use to show off that we have the technical capability of making this happen, and a team working on developing a viable business plan that we can present to investors--including Kickstarter donators--for them to evaluate based on realistic expectations, not just the word of a bunch of people who want to save the spirit of a game they like.  :)

castorcorvus

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #57 on: November 15, 2012, 09:25:44 PM »
Hey everyone. Been away for awhile (long story). At any rate, its cool that we are sticking together so far, but CoH closing is just around the corner. That Pixilated H-Bomb is gonna wipe out Paragon and scatter our ranks. Is there a way we can counteract this? I mean Titan is fine, but is seems the lack the "omph!" and chutzpah of a dev page like CoH had. We need an area that casual players can go and the see ideas being put forth without the time consuming forum scanning.

avelworldcreator

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #58 on: November 15, 2012, 09:31:14 PM »
Hey everyone. Been away for awhile (long story). At any rate, its cool that we are sticking together so far, but CoH closing is just around the corner. That Pixilated H-Bomb is gonna wipe out Paragon and scatter our ranks. Is there a way we can counteract this? I mean Titan is fine, but is seems the lack the "omph!" and chutzpah of a dev page like CoH had. We need an area that casual players can go and the see ideas being put forth without the time consuming forum scanning.

There is! Go to the City Sunset section. There are several active efforts and brainstorming going on right now.
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dwturducken

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Re: Status Update (November 13)
« Reply #59 on: November 15, 2012, 09:32:59 PM »
I believe this is the sort of discussion he's referring to.
I wouldn't use the word "replace," but there's no word for "take over for you and make everything better almost immediately," so we just say "replace."