Thank You ! Icon.exe is a Joy for Me and the Kids !!!

[Carnage Critter]

While having a nostalgic fit I came across titan network and its great information here.

I grabbed the cohbeta and icon.exe.  Got it all working.  And I must say...

It nearly brought tears to my eyes when I was able to actually enter Atlas Park, move around, see the sights I so vividly remembered...  And just as incredibly to hear the "Atlas Park Music" again !!!  The kids love being able to create costumes again and wander around.  Of course they also love popmenu'ing in all manner of monsters (especially the giant monsters) into the game.

For the last week I find myself firing it up once or twice a day, to look around the world and hear the various musics again.  Just seeing the sights is such a wonder.

Of course it also makes me a bit heart broken as I realize its just a hollow shell of what it was.  No game anymore.  But though heartbroken I am also invigorated by the simple act of seeing the sights again   It's such a mixed emotional experience

So thank you, thank you to those who made it possible.

Now I must ask, I understand from my readings here that there was work progressing on server emulators.  Has anything happened on that front ?  Was there any work being done to at the very least offer a single player version of the game (since so many game assets are available in the client) ?  Any real news at all that could give me hope ?

My small taste with icon.exe has blown open the flood gates of wanting to play this game again so badly !!!

Again thank you.

[Solitaire]

While having a nostalgic fit I came across titan network and its great information here.

I grabbed the cohbeta and icon.exe.  Got it all working.  And I must say...

It nearly brought tears to my eyes when I was able to actually enter Atlas Park, move around, see the sights I so vividly remembered...  And just as incredibly to hear the "Atlas Park Music" again !!!  The kids love being able to create costumes again and wander around.  Of course they also love popmenu'ing in all manner of monsters (especially the giant monsters) into the game.

For the last week I find myself firing it up once or twice a day, to look around the world and hear the various musics again.  Just seeing the sights is such a wonder.

Of course it also makes me a bit heart broken as I realize its just a hollow shell of what it was.  No game anymore.  But though heartbroken I am also invigorated by the simple act of seeing the sights again   It's such a mixed emotional experience

So thank you, thank you to those who made it possible.

Now I must ask, I understand from my readings here that there was work progressing on server emulators.  Has anything happened on that front ?  Was there any work being done to at the very least offer a single player version of the game (since so many game assets are available in the client) ?  Any real news at all that could give me hope ?

My small taste with icon.exe has blown open the flood gates of wanting to play this game again so badly !!!

Again thank you.

When I first came across this and fired it up I had the same feeling, just hearing the Atlas music overwhelmed me, as this was my first MMO that lasted for 7 years until close, I'll always have hope the game will return.

[Super Firebug]

The last that I heard, SCORE (the Secret Cabal of Reverse Engineers) are hard at work on developing a server emulator, but they keep a low profile, in order to avoid attracting hostile attention from corporate lawyers.

There's also the recently-started effort to persuade NCSoft to allow the game to be brought back on a non-profit basis (in much the same way as Earth and Beyond, as I understand it). Look for that under the Task Force Hail Mary section; the thread's title is "New Efforts!" Some of us are so excited about it, that we check it more than once a day (guilty!).

Something that you can do in Icon now is to spawn NPCs, and clothe them with your saved costumes. Since I still have mine from the game, I'm working on doing a group photo of my toons. Northeast of the Atlas WW, just across the east/west street, is a double-sided concrete bench. That'll be perfect for my photo; I can stand some in front of it, some on the seat, and some on the backrest. I may just use the photo as my computer wallpaper!

Icon's also a great opportunity to go sightseeing - at a much-more-leisurely pace - in some of the zones that you may have had to...um, HURRY through... during the game.

I fully understand how Icon makes you feel. I got terribly homesick the first couple of times that I ran it. But now, it's a nice sort-of-fix while I await news from both the New Efforts front, and the spiritual-successor games that three groups are working on. (When they release their next pre-alpha version, take a look at Valiance Online. That zone could easily be an add-on to Atlas Park. It makes me both homesick for the past, and happy/hopeful for the future.)

We still have a few cards to play. Keep the faith, baby; you WILL fly, and fight, again!

[PatrickMagellen]

Ohhhhhhhh Lordy Lordy I hope so with the private server up and going in the future 

[PSI-on]

First off I LOVE that name, I hope if they bring it back they insert that as a major SG into the game and make their old characters NPC's, perhaps telling us about their part in the project and how much this game and community meant to them.

Second, I hope they succeed either way and personally I'd like to see the info for running private servers not kept to a select few but shared openly, if still in secret so that no matter your situation you can still play again, as well as so even if they take one server out there's more that will take it's place. Also interested in at least seeing a single or say, a teamviewer/hamachi sort of way to connect with a few people to play verison pop up if we can't maintain those servers.

Third to the OP, I felt the same way, I'm kind of mixed with it. I love icon but for me it's bitter sweet sometimes. Don't get wrong, I am grateful for it. It's wonderful and a mercy, but sometimes it also reminds me of what we've lost and how hard or nearly impossible it will be to get back. I still use it and enjoy being able to get some taste of it, but also reminds and brings to light how gone it really is. That being said it's a powerful piece of software I wouldn't trade for anything else in the world save for the full games return and I only wish there was something I could to to repay those who are working on that server and/or made this little bit of mercy possible for us if only to show how much their bravery, courage, and compassion has meant to me and so many others.

To the OP, thank you so much for sharing your story with all of us and know that we all feel the same as you.

The last that I heard, SCORE (the Secret Cabal of Reverse Engineers) are hard at work on developing a server emulator, but they keep a low profile, in order to avoid attracting hostile attention from corporate lawyers.

There's also the recently-started effort to persuade NCSoft to allow the game to be brought back on a non-profit basis (in much the same way as Earth and Beyond, as I understand it). Look for that under the Task Force Hail Mary section; the thread's title is "New Efforts!" Some of us are so excited about it, that we check it more than once a day (guilty!).

Something that you can do in Icon now is to spawn NPCs, and clothe them with your saved costumes. Since I still have mine from the game, I'm working on doing a group photo of my toons. Northeast of the Atlas WW, just across the east/west street, is a double-sided concrete bench. That'll be perfect for my photo; I can stand some in front of it, some on the seat, and some on the backrest. I may just use the photo as my computer wallpaper!

Icon's also a great opportunity to go sightseeing - at a much-more-leisurely pace - in some of the zones that you may have had to...um, HURRY through... during the game.

I fully understand how Icon makes you feel. I got terribly homesick the first couple of times that I ran it. But now, it's a nice sort-of-fix while I await news from both the New Efforts front, and the spiritual-successor games that three groups are working on. (When they release their next pre-alpha version, take a look at Valiance Online. That zone could easily be an add-on to Atlas Park. It makes me both homesick for the past, and happy/hopeful for the future.)

We still have a few cards to play. Keep the faith, baby; you WILL fly, and fight, again!

[The Fifth Horseman]

Has anything happened on that front ?

Not much news that we know of, but it seems they're still doing it.

Was there any work being done to at the very least offer a single player version of the game (since so many game assets are available in the client) ?

Icon is as close as we'll ever get to that. The problem here is that actual gameplay logic is not - and never was - part of the client.

Let's take this analogy: You know a demo file is a list of events that the client reads in and follows exactly during playback, right?
Well, here's the thing: That's pretty close to how the game worked with the actual server. The client sent your input to the server played back the response it got. There was some code to handle movement if the server response was delayed, but that's pretty much it. Missions, combat, enemy AI and so on do not exist in the client itself.
Your client did not tell the server "I hit the Clockwork with my Apocalyptic Mega Smasher, destroying it.".
Your client told the server "I shoot Apocalyptic Mega Smasher on the Clockwork" and the server responded "You are in range. Your to-hit is 90%. You hit the Clockwork. You damage the Clockwork for 40 HP. You destroy the clockwork. You gain 123 XP. You gain 234 INF."

Essentially, a "single-player" version would be the same exact thing as the multiplayer version, except the game would be hosted on the same machine as it was played on.

[PatrickMagellen]

Even as a single player game it would take care of that ITCH I get most days to play CoH 

[Eoraptor]

Even as a single player game it would take care of that ITCH I get most days to play CoH 

This actually puts a thought in my head... wouldn't it be interesting if there was a mode of CoH (or its successor) that operated a bit the way that Sim City Online does... where a Hero could be in control of their own "local" version of their city, but adjacent cities or neighborhoods could be under control of adjacent heroes. that way you could still play the local game, without losing contact with the greater online community.

eh just an idea.

[Felderburg]

This actually puts a thought in my head... wouldn't it be interesting if there was a mode of CoH (or its successor) that operated a bit the way that Sim City Online does... where a Hero could be in control of their own "local" version of their city, but adjacent cities or neighborhoods could be under control of adjacent heroes. that way you could still play the local game, without losing contact with the greater online community.

eh just an idea.

That... might actually be really cool, depending on how it was done. I mean, most heroes stay in their own turf, and it's a big team up event when, say, Batman goes to Metropolis.

It might be interesting to follow bad guys or trails of clues to other cities. And players could be villains OR heroes, so when you first arrive, you might fight before realizing you're on the same side! And if one hero lets their city get crime ridden, it slops over to other heroes' cities...