Author Topic: A horrible nightmare just happened.  (Read 5140 times)

Vasarto

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A horrible nightmare just happened.
« on: December 06, 2012, 04:20:54 AM »
I just had a really horrible nightmare last night and I am kinda afraid that it could be possible.
They have all the computers and all of the servers the game exists on. I well...dreamt in contempt for us and just for laughs they Deleted City of heroes off of every computer, Threw away every data storage and destroyed everything in the world that holds all of the 8 year long data that has ever gone into work for cox and that is why they cannot sell it because there is nothing to sell at all.

Because they made all of it that exists go away forever.

Is that even possible because I REALLY hope not.
I did not sleep well last night and I just wanna sleep tonight so please tell me its not possible.

emu265

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2012, 04:23:26 AM »
Even if they delete all the account information (our master account and characters) AND the game's code, the IP still exists.  And if Titan got the IP, all that reverse engineering could be put into action. 

Anyway, I highly doubt they'd just delete everything...  Wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.

Vasarto

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2012, 04:26:18 AM »
Niether does shutting off a game that made them 180 million dollars or..something like 9.5-10 million a year.
but I guess that makes me feel a bit better....I really hate it when I have bad dreams because when I have em they are REALLY bad!

Colette

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #3 on: December 06, 2012, 04:27:39 AM »
Hey Vasarto!

What a dreadful experience! Go fix yourself some hot cocoa.

I've already raised the possibility that NCSoft would delete the game out of spite as one endgame scenario. I've been reassured that the stockholders would consider this vandalization of company property and the perpetrator would face real jail time for it.

In addition, the greater share of the CoH files are actually on your hard drive, and mine. Someone like Posi could fix up the rest pretty dang quick if needed. And our characters are safe thanks to Titan's Archiver.

I considered the possibility that Kim might tell us the files were gone to make us lose heart and go away, but on balance that's equally improbable.

Rest easy.

Perfidus

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #4 on: December 06, 2012, 04:28:11 AM »
I think it's very possible for all userdata to already be gone. As for the game itself? No. It's there, they have it.

The Fifth Horseman

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #5 on: December 06, 2012, 04:35:36 AM »
Questionable. Some of the account data may be useful for marketing purposes and/or profiling their audience.
We were heroes. We were villains. At the end of the world we all fought as one. It's what we did that defines us.
The end occurred pretty much as we predicted: all servers redlining until midnight... and then no servers to go around.

Somewhere beyond time and space, if you look hard you might find a flash of silver trailing crimson: a lone lost Spartan on his way home.

Perfidus

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #6 on: December 06, 2012, 04:36:43 AM »
Right. If they're smart though, they've kept it all.

Roughtrade

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #7 on: December 06, 2012, 05:07:10 AM »
Would you really care if they lost your account data so long as they got the game running again?

I'd level up from 1-50 on any of the characters I had.

junk@akry.com

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #8 on: December 06, 2012, 05:08:21 AM »
Right. If they're smart though, they've kept it all.

So...ummm...it's probably gone, then.  :(

Perfidus

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #9 on: December 06, 2012, 05:21:50 AM »
To Roughtrade, would I? No. Would most people not as involved as we are? Yes. Yes they would. Especially when you factor in having to rebuy Paragon Market items. Only die-hards like us would ever return to it.

And that's a good point, junk. They've probably already cleared it all away.  :'(

Vasarto

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #10 on: December 06, 2012, 05:23:39 AM »
Sad still really.

I also heard they had just released or planning on releasing Deus Ex HR inspired items too!

I am a huge DX fan and as far as I am concerned. This may be the greatest mmo of all time but Deus Ex was the greatest GAME of all time lol...at least NCSOFT has no power to delete that game lol.

faith.grins

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #11 on: December 06, 2012, 05:31:02 AM »
In addition, the greater share of the CoH files are actually on your hard drive, and mine. Someone like Posi could fix up the rest pretty dang quick if needed. And our characters are safe thanks to Titan's Archiver.
^^ That.  Demorecords run off the client, they aren't straight up video files.  All of the scenery of Paragon City is in the client.  The client has just been trained not to use that information unless a server is telling it how to populate it.

Technically speaking they could delete all of our characters and anyone who hadn't used the Sentinel+ tool would lose their characters forever.  It's also still possible (although not likely) that they've deleted the character data and if/when the servers come back online they can't properly interpret the data in the Sentinel+ backup files, or some other technical error happens.  But the City, in its entirety, is still sitting safely and soundly on my hard drive, and I can even make the client access pretty much any part of it I want.  I just can't do that in an interactive manner without a server to connect to.

Would you really care if they lost your account data so long as they got the game running again?

I'd level up from 1-50 on any of the characters I had.
I'd be sad that I lost my badges.  I'd be kinda irate if I had to re-purchase Titan Weapons, Dark Control, and Dark Assault.  But I'd still re-roll Ivy in Chains and Kate Wraith.  I can't explain it, but I owe those two characters enough to make them real again, in whatever sense they can be.
Aram:  "Man, just look at all this.  Sometimes it's hard to believe that we get to live surrounded by such wonder."
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Gamal:  "Yes it is, Aram.  Yes it is."

Perfidus

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #12 on: December 06, 2012, 05:37:21 AM »
I also heard they had just released or planning on releasing Deus Ex HR inspired items too!

It's true. It was the Cyberpunk pack. And it was scheduled for release about one week after we got the announcement. If you logged into the servers any time in the last three months, most of the pieces could actually be found, just not buyable or usable. Many of them did seem very much to be Deus Ex inspired.

But it was never officially released. It was only usable on characters, if you went to play on beta.

emu265

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #13 on: December 06, 2012, 05:38:10 AM »
I think it's very possible for all userdata to already be gone. As for the game itself? No. It's there, they have it.
I do not think they've dumped all the userdata just yet.  Any sale of the game would be harshly impacted if they didn't have the userdata of the game's players.  Who would want to pick up the game if they had to launch it with, "start from scratch guys!"  I know many of us wouldn't mind starting from scratch, but a lot of people would.  If they have ANY, no matter how small, desire to sell the game, they've kept the data.  If not, well it doesn't matter much anyway.

Perfidus

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #14 on: December 06, 2012, 06:24:03 AM »
You're talking about NCSoft, emu. Do you think they had any intent to sell the game? They sure didn't originally, and if they end up selling it will be directly caused by what we've done as a community.

But that doesn't stop them from making ignorant actions before then. Like clearing servers to make room for Blade and Soul.

Little Green Frog

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #15 on: December 06, 2012, 06:32:23 AM »
You're talking about NCSoft, emu. Do you think they had any intent to sell the game? They sure didn't originally, and if they end up selling it will be directly caused by what we've done as a community.

We don't know what their intent was and why they favored this choice over possible others. We are completely in the dark on what really happened or why and their latest statement doesn't shed any light on the matter. It's the kind of stuff PR people say, when they actually have nothing to say. Don't read too much into it.

But that doesn't stop them from making ignorant actions before then. Like clearing servers to make room for Blade and Soul.

Uh, that's not how things work in enterprise grade data centers.

Perfidus

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #16 on: December 06, 2012, 06:40:53 AM »
Maybe you'd know better than I would. I'm not interested in telling you that you're wrong, if I have no proof to back that up.

Kaiser Tarantula

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #17 on: December 06, 2012, 06:41:31 AM »
Let's envision the worst-case scenario here.

NCsoft kills everything CoH related in a fit of pique, obliterating any chance that the official server software will ever see the light of day.

Firstly, the bulk of the game already exists in our clients, as has been pointed out in the thread.  Very little actual content is stored serverside.  What is there could probably be reconstructed.

The hardest part would be writing a replacement server to communicate with the client.  The bulk of that has already been done by the reverse-engineering project.  Codewalker or another staff member involved can correct me if I'm wrong here.

The client itself already supports commandline prompts to launch specific projects, and also contains a commandline prompt to point it to a different authentication server than normal.  I doubt it would be very hard at all to redirect the client to whatever server is necessary to run it.

I'd imagine... six months to a year and a half of work to reproduce the server.  Assuming we can run the server legally (that is, getting ownership of the proper rights, or a license to run a CoH server from whoever does own them), that's the timeframe between NCsoft's attempt to delete, and the community's ability to render it null and void.

Rest easy, Vasarto.

emu265

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #18 on: December 06, 2012, 07:07:40 AM »
You're talking about NCSoft, emu. Do you think they had any intent to sell the game? They sure didn't originally, and if they end up selling it will be directly caused by what we've done as a community.

But that doesn't stop them from making ignorant actions before then. Like clearing servers to make room for Blade and Soul.
What I mean is that it's completely nonsensical for them to delete the information if there was any even remote possibility of a sale.  Kind of like how there a was a supposed $80 million price tag for the game during the original negotiations.  Also similar to how the Devs wouldn't zero out the Paragon Market "just in case".

For now, I'd wager the data is safe.  However, it's less likely to remain that way the more time that passes. 

Perfidus

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Re: A horrible nightmare just happened.
« Reply #19 on: December 06, 2012, 07:10:52 AM »
The devs had no say in the Paragon Market, if my information is correct, which it may not be. But what I had heard was that the only reason we didn't get things like the Cyberpunk pack, was because that was all controlled by NCSoft. Paragon had no hand in live, but they did have one in Beta. Which is why beta seemed to get relatively constant tweaks throughout the last three months. I firmly believe that if the Market system was left to the actual devs, or what was left of them, everyone would've been VIP for the final quarter. I think it was even said that it was the reason we didn't get that.