Author Topic: I *still* need a private server or the ability to run my own...  (Read 2738 times)

sindyr

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OK, City has been down the better part of a year.  What's going on with finding a way to keep playing? Is this deader than a doornail?

As I have said before, throughout the shutdown I kept hearing about all the people who had already reverse-engineered the client and the communication protocol, and were going to now put together server software so that we could all run our own private CoX servers and keep playing the game.  Maybe we couldn't keep playing on a world-wide server with thousands of people across the globe, but at least we could keep playing with our friends.

Whatever happened to this effort?  It's great that we have people like Heroes and Villains and the Phoenix Project doing their thing, but whatever happened to the effort of allowing us to keep playing the *old* CoX (latest issue) privately?  After all, I still have the client software on my computers.

Was the private server idea a lot of talk - vaporware, basically? If we can keep playing CoX, even on private servers, then we need not let our time with CoX die.

So, which is it?  Is there a credible effort to let us run private servers, build new characters, and play this game on our own - or is that now (and perhaps always was) a pipe dream that we should let go, admitting that CoX is FULLY gone and dead?

I *really* want it to be the former - and would place a LOT of money and energy towards having the reality of working private CoX servers.  But if this is bulls**t, and it's basically not going to happen, I want to know.  I need to go back to playing CoX - even if it's soloing on software I run myself.

Tony?  Others?  What's the sitch?  I can also be contacted privately via pm, via which I can supply my phone and email.  Does anyone have any *tangible* hope for me with CoX?

I'm not hoping for the moon here - even just something I could run in single player mode would be fine.

Is there any hope left for this?  Or was the prior talk just people going through the stages of grief, and now we have nothing left but the hole left behind by the best Super game to ever exist?

Codewalker

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Re: I *still* need a private server or the ability to run my own...
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2013, 04:59:49 PM »
Yeah, sindyr, why haven't you made one yet? Come on man, it can't be that hard.

TonyV

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Re: I *still* need a private server or the ability to run my own...
« Reply #2 on: August 17, 2013, 10:16:55 PM »
I'm not sure what I can say to make you feel better.  It's being worked on.  It's a moderately complex project, even just to get a basic server up and running, let alone enough of an AI to actually be able to do stuff.  I made it clear from the outset that this is going to take a while, and when I said it, I wasn't kidding.  Yes, it's been almost a year since the shutdown announcement, but a lot of that time was spent concentrating on efforts to keep the game from being shut down to begin with and to familiarize ourselves with the APIs before the game was permanently shut off.  Then a bunch of time was spent picking apart the client, function by function.  That effort led directly to the development of Icon by Codewalker.  It was well into the new year before work on implementing a new server was started in earnest, and the guy who's leading that effort is also involved in another project as well.

So no, the private server idea isn't just a lot of talk, nor is it vaporware.  Yes, there is a credible effort afoot.  No, it's not just a pipe dream.  You can admit that CoX is fully gone and dead if you want, but you'd be wrong.  Right now, we don't need any money; we need time, as there are only 24 hours in each day, and a lot of those are taken up by mundane things such as our day jobs, eating, sleeping, doing unmentionable things with significant others, etc.

If there's someone here who's wealthy enough to hire us full-time to work on this, then that would be one thing.  As it is, we're working on it as fast as we can.  We recently added another experienced C programmer to the mix, so hopefully things will move faster.  But I can't make any promises on any timelines.  Some folks involved "in the know," so to speak, will hopefully be able to vouch for my claim that City of Heroes is far from dead.  Otherwise, you'll just have to trust me that things are moving along.  Or don't.  Either way, you'll eventually find out that I'm right, and I do enjoy the sweet, sweet taste of vindication.  ;)