Icon question!

[alphajaybo]

Now i know CodeWalker said that icon would be nothing more than a way to look at maps and run around the city, essentially run around a ghost town with no interactions nothing. So i've got a question could combat and perhaps solo play be added to icon, if it is possible would it be easy.

[Tacitala]

Unfortunately neither will be possible with Icon, since they both would need a server.

[Arachnion]

Just wait for S.C.o.R.E (Secret Cabal of Reverse Engineers for reference) to go public, which will happen in a few years most likely.

We all miss the game dearly.

I'm just glad we even have Icon, the costume creator and maps + npcs is a godsend for my nerdy tinkering nature.

Not that my nerdy nature ever really produces much other than techy research threads (Costume File Formats) or guides/icon help, still..

[Azrael]

Now i know CodeWalker said that icon would be nothing more than a way to look at maps and run around the city, essentially run around a ghost town with no interactions nothing. So i've got a question could combat and perhaps solo play be added to icon, if it is possible would it be easy.

I understand how you feel.  We all do.  Feel very vociferous about the lack of 'solo' play to Coh when I gave NC Soft the best part of a grand to play.  And yes.  I bought the game itself x3 times!  Regardless of the contracted long silver spoon to sit with the devil nature contract of Morg games...I won't be playing anymore morgs unless there's a safe guard of a solo version should the company or community collapse.  I feel I deserve a solo version at the least for my substantial investment.  It's ridiculous to have nothing to show.  I basically 'rented' my time with Coh.  Bah.

Take a game like Unreal Tournament.  I could play solo.  Local Lan.  Or online.  That's a fair deal.  This move to get people all 'clouded' is nothing more than hostage to fortune.  I don't like it.  I smell it for what it is.

Now, back to Icon.  A great piece of work by Code Warrior allowed life due to the nature in which Coh was designed?  (Solo player with Morg capability built in?  Not sure on that one.)  But we do have the legendary character creator.  We do have maps!  The best (!) part of 8000(?) NPCs.  Movs.  All the power effects appear(?) to be in there too.  And in demo mode...you can see all the 'spawn' points that some server code would generate, procedurally (?) onto outdoor maps and (?) indoor maps?  To me that makes the hard part of any reverse engineering work done.  It's not like they have to redo any map artworks/design or recode the character creator from scratch.  All the art assets and physics seem to be in the game.

However, that doesn't (from what I can tell..) mean that knocking out a server is easy.  I guess mapping out the game client apis is easy.  Just 'look at the code.'

But the server side 'client'?  Well, unless somebody gave a copy of that with all the missions, A.I intelligence of mobs, specific procedural routines...that 'spark of life' code call...to a member of the rebel alliance...to reverse engineer...then.

Well, they're flying in the dark.  You're replicating assumed server protocol to make calls to the assets in the game client.  That's...erm...'guessing.'  And that's trial and error.

I'd like to think the 'S.C.O.R.E' cabal that doesn't exist has at least got a test mob with a test alt firing some 'test' powers.  Who is to say they have got that far.

What we have been told so far...is that a lot of time has been spent re-writing and re-editing of game client code has been under taken to work with 'written from scratch' server capability.  eg.  Coming up with a server is 'easy' in Valience because the author/team are building the game client and server from scratch or from a known element(s) or developer kit.

Coh's code was proprietary and went through several evolutions as bits like the A.E and other big patches were added to it over the years.  Archaic?  Or merely progression.

Either way the game client apis can be looked at...but they'll need to be 'edited' to work from a server emulating the necessary functionality from scratch.  I guess they weren't handed a brown paper envelope from a disgruntled Paragon employee.  Nor would they admit to it.  And even if they had it...would still need the code to be re-edited.  But they don't and coming up with stuff from scratch takes time.

Though Coh wasn't cutting edge...it was a ten year old game with loads of code.  It's not quite the same as emulating those old C64 games I loved so well.  it's a comparative beast of code I should imagine.

Plus I'm guessing this secret cabal is doing this part time.

I'm guessing at an alpha Coh by this coming November.  A loooooong beta period for 2015.  We're looking at another year before we even have the 'spark' of life?

Azrael.

PS.  Look elsewhere in the mega Icon thread for an authoritative post by Code Warrior for what Icon IS and what it ISN'T.  Have a server emulated project is tough but it's just code at the end of the day and clever people (we can only assume... ) are working on this and it's a matter of time.  But it IS a matter of time.  And that means patience.  Year at least to probably two years worth of patience just to get to some beta server I'd vouch.

Paragon had a studio of how many developers working on Coh and it took them time to do things.  Re-writing a server?  I'm not sure it's something even they could just 'knock out.'  And they had the server code.  Icon is great news.  We had nothing.  Well, just our clients.  Now we have icon and can explore the client, create alts.  Explore.  That spark of life is is tricky to get right because it involved guess work and assumed replication to plug into the game client.  Clever coders will probably be able to tackle it in time...if they fancy a challenge.

[The Fifth Horseman]

So i've got a question could combat and perhaps solo play be added to icon, if it is possible would it be easy.

No, because the Cabal's time is better spent on getting combat working in the replacement server. The client does not have functionality to run combat or enemy AI, it depends on the server telling it what happens.

[Nebularian]

I have to chime in on this one.   I was playing around with ICON the other night (I love it...use it to create visualizations of my Fan-fiction characters) and was running around Atlas when it occurred to me that we might NOT have to have sever side stuff for everything.  Do we really need it for the powers?  We can see them activated during creation...so probably not.   We can fly in Atlas....

Now if we had to have MISSIONS....yeah...probably.   But what about simple street sweeps?  Couldn't that all be done client side?

[alphajaybo]

I have to chime in on this one.   I was playing around with ICON the other night (I love it...use it to create visualizations of my Fan-fiction characters) and was running around Atlas when it occurred to me that we might NOT have to have sever side stuff for everything.  Do we really need it for the powers?  We can see them activated during creation...so probably not.   We can fly in Atlas....

Now if we had to have MISSIONS....yeah...probably.   But what about simple street sweeps?  Couldn't that all be done client side?

Thats what i was thinking, Not all Mobs and possibly missions. could have just been stored in server files. Atleast some of the mobs, and combat power animations ect had to be client side

[Aggelakis]

Almost all the game data is stored in the client. However, to do anything with the way the client is set up, the client has to talk to a server. Period. Codewalker has already said no, it can't/won't work, so why doubt the person who made it?

[alphajaybo]

Almost all the game data is stored in the client. However, to do anything with the way the client is set up, the client has to talk to a server. Period. Codewalker has already said no, it can't/won't work, so why doubt the person who made it?

Never said i was doubting i just asked if there was a possibility of being able to play a variant of CoH offline using the client....

[Nebularian]

Almost all the game data is stored in the client. However, to do anything with the way the client is set up, the client has to talk to a server. Period. Codewalker has already said no, it can't/won't work, so why doubt the person who made it?

Actually, I do not recall seeing some of the things discussed in this thread brought up (if they were, I missed it).  Naturally we know that there were things that could not be done that required the server.   I do not believe anyone has expressed "doubt" towards Codewalker. 

I don't even think that it has been suggested/demanded that Codewalker do these things. 

What I believe this thread is about is discovering if there are things that CAN be done without the server.   If so....what would it take to do it? 

Nothing wrong at all with asking questions and exploring possibilities.

[Arcana]

What I believe this thread is about is discovering if there are things that CAN be done without the server.   If so....what would it take to do it?

In theory the client can visually show you anything the original game could.  In practice, however, what you need to do that is something that can send the right signals to the game client to make those things happen, which is something on the same level of complexity as a replacement game server.

Think of the game client as a puppet, and the game server as the puppeteer.  When we lost the game servers, we lost the puppeteer and all the puppet strings were cut.  You're asking what the puppet can do without the puppeteer.  In theory, everything it could do before.  In practice, very little.  What Icon did was give us a stick connected to a couple of the strings, so we can now make the puppet stand up and maybe make it lurch forward.  But even getting it to wave is almost impossible with what we have, because we don't even have anything connected to the strings attached to his hands.

And even if Icon 2.0 gives us more strings, what the puppet can do is not just based on how many strings we reattach, but also on the new puppeteer.  If there's no server and all Icon does is give us commands that can do what the server did, we'd still have to actually do it: we'd have to replace the choreography of the original servers.  Just shooting a power at a target and hitting hit *visually* required pulling on a dozen strings in the right order at the right time, and you'd have to know how to do that because the client doesn't.  And separate from that, you'd have to keep track of how much health the target has and whether it should die because once again, the client doesn't know that.  To the client, damage was the server saying "please display some floating numbers here" and "change this green bar's length."  The client had no actual knowledge of the mechanics or the numbers of combat at all.  Not even a little.

If Icon 2.0 gives us back all the strings, Icon 3.0 would have to somehow package complete sequences of events that could be triggered by the player, and Icon 4.0 would have to somehow allow players to track the combat state of entities as a separate module to at least compute the numbers for combat and show them.  And by then, you'd have already written the basics of a replacement server.  That's probably why there will likely be limits on what Icon will eventually allow you to do.  At the point where the total amount of work begins to rival making a new server, I suspect you'll never see that feature implemented in Icon for obvious reasons - the work would be better spent writing a replacement server.

[alphajaybo]

Ahh ok... So CoH  really didn't want making emulators a easy job!

[The Fifth Horseman]

I have to chime in on this one.   I was playing around with ICON the other night (I love it...use it to create visualizations of my Fan-fiction characters) and was running around Atlas when it occurred to me that we might NOT have to have sever side stuff for everything.  Do we really need it for the powers?  We can see them activated during creation...so probably not.   We can fly in Atlas....

Now if we had to have MISSIONS....yeah...probably.   But what about simple street sweeps?  Couldn't that all be done client side?

Power ANIMATIONS are stored in the client, yes. The LOGIC behind their actual effect was implemented strictly server-side. Without the server the client can pretty much run movement code (without that your every single step would have to be synchronized with the server... NOT very practical vs checking once every few seconds) and display power animations (kind of a pre-requisite for demo playback).

Thats what i was thinking, Not all Mobs and possibly missions. could have just been stored in server files. Atleast some of the mobs, and combat power animations ect had to be client side

*sigh* That's content. Not the logic that runs it. There's nothing to actually run the enemies client-side.

Ahh ok... So CoH  really didn't want making emulators a easy job!

Actually, that's just basic principles pretty much every MMO adheres to.

What I believe this thread is about is discovering if there are things that CAN be done without the server.   If so....what would it take to do it? 

Power animations might be doable, if only just. But that's all. Also, if it was done then the peanut gallery would start moaning that their mechanical effects are nonfunctional.

[Arcana]

Ahh ok... So CoH  really didn't want making emulators a easy job!

There's nothing in the design of CoH that makes it particularly difficult or particularly easy.  If anything, its marginally easier to do for CoH in the sense that separate from the literal code implementation, the behavior of CoH on a deep technical level is well understood by many players outside the original dev team.  Probably far better than any other playerbase understands any other MMO.

[Azrael]

In theory the client can visually show you anything the original game could.  In practice, however, what you need to do that is something that can send the right signals to the game client to make those things happen, which is something on the same level of complexity as a replacement game server.

Think of the game client as a puppet, and the game server as the puppeteer.  When we lost the game servers, we lost the puppeteer and all the puppet strings were cut.  You're asking what the puppet can do without the puppeteer.  In theory, everything it could do before.  In practice, very little. 

The client had no actual knowledge of the mechanics or the numbers of combat at all.  Not even a little.

I suspect you'll never see that feature implemented in Icon for obvious reasons - the work would be better spent writing a replacement server.

Arcana.  A great post worthy of the 'great' Coh community. 

I'm not a coder (did a bit of 'basic' on an old Commodore PET and I had no idea what I was doing then!) and it's hard for some to get their head around why a 5 gig game 'client' won't just 'work.'  It's not just one program.  Coh was, as you and others on this thread...have explained...is, rather TWO(!) separate programs to a degree.  Puppet (Client) and Puppet Master (Server.)

Your analogy to a puppet was excellent and well explained.  (I've been trying to get my head around it...and I suspect that's why some still ask questions about how far Icon can go.  But Code Warrior has made that abundantly clear on the 'mega thread.') 

If the game client is the 'looks' the server is the 'brains.'  All the 'data' for the graphics, character creator, interface, maps, npcs, interior missions maps...even the powers are in there...BUT...

...unless the server says 'Load this map.  Load this mission.  Here's the data for that mission.  Here's the mobs for that mission.  If user presses this butting...display this power from client...if said power hits mob...then display this damage...and display health bar/stamina accordingly.'  etc.  UNLESS the server tells the client to do something.  It won't.  It's like a fully articulated 'puppet' awaiting the logic or spark of life from the 'puppet master.'

Or to put it another way?  Icon is like a Body without a Brain.

Body (client) needs a brain (server) to operate it.  (Tell me I'm getting close to the penny dropping.)  It's pretty hard for some of us to get our head around...because we only installed a client and saw it as 'one' program...when it is more like a bicycle wheel...with a hub...spokes going off to the outer wheel.  Or a car without a driver.  Feel free to add the anaologies.

But basically, the A.I or the instructions come from the server and the client (Coh) just acts like a dum terminal even thought it's got all the game 'data' to all that we saw and played.

That said, I guess the game client doesn't have the mission data stored in the client?  That was supplied server side as part of the brains?  Along with combat and A.I of the mobs?  Which means...

...the secret cabal would need to look at Wiki Coh to get the mobs , mission objectives and even retype the text in the contact dialogue boxes?  With 8000 npcs in Coh that's a lot of mission content to recapture? So you'd only end up with approximated guesswork from the available Wiki info..?

So, the missions, AI, mob generation and combat were all server side?  Still, the Coh community understood the combat numbers and how combat worked better than most it has been said on this thread.  Probably true.

Hmm.  That's ALOT of work.

I want to know though.   Does AEON have a private server?  If so, how did it manage it?  And how long did it take?  I didn't think it was as popular a game as Coh?

Azrael.

[Arcana]

That said, I guess the game client doesn't have the mission data stored in the client?  That was supplied server side as part of the brains?  Along with combat and A.I of the mobs?  Which means...

...the secret cabal would need to look at Wiki Coh to get the mobs , mission objectives and even retype the text in the contact dialogue boxes?  With 8000 npcs in Coh that's a lot of mission content to recapture? So you'd only end up with approximated guesswork from the available Wiki info..?

So, the missions, AI, mob generation and combat were all server side?

There's data, and there's data.

For example, all the data for how powers work was embedded in the game client.  Yes, I wasn't that good of a guesser truth be told.  In fact my version of the powers database that I extracted from the game client was often better than the one the devs had to deal with in certain respects.  Some of that data had to be there for the client to be able to do certain things involving displaying things, and the rest was just shoved in there to make Real Numbers work circa I11ish.

But while the client knows that Energy Blast triggers XYZ animation and uses ABC visual FX and does scale 1.64 damage etc etc etc its all Chinese to the game client.  It has the data so it can show the data to the player, and it can use that data if the game servers tell it to, but it doesn't understand that data without server-side commands.  *I* can look at the data and tell you how Power Blast worked.  But its just bits to the client.

Now animations and animation sequeners - that data is in the game client *and* the client knows what to do with it.  Send the right bits to the animation system, and the game client can take over and do the rest, processing those bits into a starting animation, play that animation, determine the next animation in that sequence, play that, and so on.  That's why Icon can play animations more or less without the game servers.  The game client has map data and knows how to display a 3D map environment, so Icon can load maps more or less.  And physics is something the game client has more or less full control over, so things like gravity work in Icon.

*Some* mission data is in the game clients.  Some isn't.  Reverse engineers would have to either recreate it, or somehow find it elsewhere.

And some game behavior existed only in the game code really.  For example, critter AI existed as profile files, but those profile files ultimately tapped code that implemented those behaviors which would obviously have to be programmed.

I want to know though.   Does AEON have a private server?  If so, how did it manage it?  And how long did it take?  I didn't think it was as popular a game as Coh?

I dunno, I have no experience on Aion private servers (I know they exist).  I can speculate, but its probably best I don't.

[Azrael]

Arcana,

'Mega' Thanks again for such an authoritative reply.  (You clearly seem to be on the 'inside' track.  It's great for the Coh/Titan community to have you around here.)  But the information you're providing here is GOLD. 

Why?  I've been through the 'mega' Icon thread and very little of this kind of information is on the titan boards.  Unless I missed it.  I further suggest that Codewarrior and your authoritative posts could be 'pinned' at the head of the Icon threads so people can understand what Icon IS and what it isn't and understand the nature of the relationship of the client vs server Coh and derive enough hints from such info to read between the lines and glean a bit of 'hope' for any potential reverse engineering project.  Enough to hang around and pop in from time to time.

Again you've provided 'concrete' examples of how the game client vs server worked.  This is helpful to other posters who may not understand the situation, who are maybe 'well wishers' for any such reverse engineering project or simply want to enjoy the Titan Coh refugee community and the great 'Icon' keep sake which reminds us...that Coh isn't dead.  "Not.  Yet."

That aside...

So, what you're indicating.  There's enough data in the Coh client 'body' to indicate to clever programmers how the 'brain' should work (i.e server) and what 'calls' to the game client it should(!) make.  i.e. 2 you can almost 'work backwards' to create a mini program that would activate each thread/puppet wire aspect of client api as a server api.

If I'm reading you right, it's not always cut and dried which data IS and ISN'T in the game client.  i.e. 'some' mission data IS in the game client.  Some isn't.  So all isn't lost.  But if enough is in there it could be helpful to programmers to figure out/extrapolate the 'missing' mission data from other sources.  So not ALL the missions are 'lost.'  They may just require 'server' calls to active them with the proviso that all other server functionality is around as well!  Ok.  That sounds intriguing.

Also captivating is the idea that critter A.I existed as 'profile' files.  Hmm.  *thinks.  But again, they ultimately 'tapped' into server 'brain' code.  But the good news here is that the A.I for trolls, council, tsoo etc is in the client?  That's surely great news?  So the 'character' of mobs (and therefore, COH!) is intact and doesn't have to be written from scratch.  But they still need to tap into server side 'brain code' for combat instruction.  eg.  I'm a troll but I'm still waiting for the server to tell me what's going on.  eg2.  Player has pressed button for power...display power....animate power...hit critter...critter A.I has a personality but is told WHAT to do by server?  (I think I'm getting the hang of this now...)

Furthermore, combat numbers were quite prevalent in Coh forum builds.  So the 'maths' of the combat system is basically understood.  It just (I know there's no 'just' about it...) needs a server program to subtract the damage from the e.g. resistance numbers off a tank or critter if it gets hit by e.g. a critter or a blaster respectively and tell the game client what damage numbers/health/stamina to display.  This is surely just RPG combat dice role program at its heart with a data base/log table of values for critters and player (archetypes)?  Not simple in a morg context but nothing other private servers haven't surpassed in terms of obstacles to bringing alive combat in old games?  Like you say.  You can 'see' how the energy blast works in the client.  So a programmer would be able to recreate some approximate server program to get it to 'wake' up in the game client and co-ordinate it's use?

So basically, the game client is most like a train station full of trains.  But it needs the train master/timetable (Server) to tell the trains what trains are going, when and where to go..and all the interactions to and from said station or from station to station.

Sorry if this sounds nuts and bolts ish.  But it's helpful in that Mega Icon thread has had 55000 views.  Clearly there's demand to bring this game 'phoenix' like from the ashes back to the community.  Having somebody from the 'inside track' explain in practical examples of what the game/server client functionality is and what it can and can't do is helpful for 'well wishers' (who may sigh sadly, wishing for more from Icon...) understand and know the 'S.C.O.R.E.'

Top reply.  Many thanks again, Arcana. 

Azrael.

PS.  I hope I don't sound too enthusiastic.  But I'm simply curious 'how it works.'  ...and the nature of what is and isn't required to see it live once more.

[Arcana]

First a disclaimer: I'm not personally involved in any project to recreate game servers.  I'm not an "insider" in that sense.  I'm just extremely familiar with how the game worked given all of the work I did when the game was still around both working with the devs, and on my own, to figure out how the game worked.  In the process, I have accumulated thousands of bits of information from the devs and from my own poking around.

I'm probably the ultimate player-insider that wasn't actually an employee at shutdown.  But I am neither an official or unofficial spokesperson for anyone that might be doing anything having anything to do with bringing the game back.  I am a well-informed color commentator.

Having said that, without getting into addressing thousands of little details, *some* of the data of the game is in the game client.  Virtually everything having to do with how to display things, animate things, create and destroy things, is in there in an essentially useable state (i.e. Icon). 

Virtually everything having to do with how combat works is either in there, or things players know (I could probably still theoretically write down every aspect of combat and power mechanics), but not in a directly usable state.  You could use it as documentation to rebuild those parts of the game, and to a certain extent you could use it in a hypothetical game engine someone were to build, but the data is inert until someone makes an engine to make it go vroom vroom.

Virtually everything having to do with game *behaviors* of a higher level than "wave hand" such as the patrol routes that enemy patrols walked in missions, to spawn points in maps, to the missions each contact handed out specifically, existed solely on the game servers and cannot be directly reconstructed from the game clients.  I wish I could say that data still exists somewhere, but unfortunately I cannot say that.  Take that for what it is worth.

What it would take to make the game run again in its shutdown I24 form is time, determination, and better code-slinging skills than I'm likely to acquire any time soon.  Beyond that, all I can say is nothing's impossible.

[Codewalker]

Also captivating is the idea that critter A.I existed as 'profile' files.  Hmm.  *thinks.  But again, they ultimately 'tapped' into server 'brain' code.  But the good news here is that the A.I for trolls, council, tsoo etc is in the client?  That's surely great news?

No, the client doesn't have any of the AI. It doesn't even have the full profiles, just the behavior alias list, which has a few mappings that were used for convenience but not the full thing. Here's a couple examples:

Name = DefaultCritter
Behavior = Combat
FileName = AISCRIPT/BEHAVIORALIASES.BAL

Name = FleeToNearestDoor
Behavior = RunIntoDoor
FileName = AISCRIPT/BEHAVIORALIASES.BAL

Name = GoodAndFrozenInPlace
Behavior = Team(Hero),DoNothing(DoNotFaceTarget)
FileName = AISCRIPT/BEHAVIORALIASES.BAL

There's a number of those, but they only cover a small subset of possible AI behaviors. Even if someone somehow had the profiles (which only existed server side), those just have preference values. The AI brain code on the server is what makes it all work and what has to be recreated in a way that's similar enough to the original to be convincingly COH.

Virtually everything having to do with game *behaviors* of a higher level than "wave hand" such as the patrol routes that enemy patrols walked in missions, to spawn points in maps, to the missions each contact handed out specifically, existed solely on the game servers and cannot be directly reconstructed from the game clients.

That's actually a bad example, since spawn points and patrol routes are in the map files on the client. Likely it would have been too much work to strip them out and maintain two separate copies of every map.

What's missing are the "spawndef" files that the maps reference that tell the game what to spawn there, what scripts to run on them, etc. Some of them can be somewhat guessed from the name, others are a mystery as to what their contents would be.

Those are what is visible see-everything mode in Icon, since they have actual geometry associated with them that is normally invisible except when map editing. The models for many of the little markers are in EncounterSpawns.geo under object_library/Omni:

[Ohioknight]

If I'm reading you right, it's not always cut and dried which data IS and ISN'T in the game client.  i.e. 'some' mission data IS in the game client.  Some isn't.  So all isn't lost.  But if enough is in there it could be helpful to programmers to figure out/extrapolate the 'missing' mission data from other sources.  So not ALL the missions are 'lost.'  They may just require 'server' calls to active them with the proviso that all other server functionality is around as well! 

Azrael,

I would point out that the COH recovery effort doesn't really NEED the mission information -- and in some ways would be better without it. 

If a reverse-engineered game had the powers and character AI management... Then imagine what could be done with a tool that let you CHOOSE what gang to spawn on each spawn site.  Imagine a tool that could let you build missions with AE and then attach those missions to mission entry points and contacts -- where you create everything from the contact script down to the mission completion result.  Imagine you can save all that creation into a file you could post online and share with others in the community.

"A lot of work to recreate the game that way" you say?  Yes.  But THE COMMUNITY could rebuild the game -- all the technical work would be done.  Further the community could create THOUSANDS OF VERSIONS of the game -- each playable offline or on private servers.

[Arcana]

That's actually a bad example, since spawn points and patrol routes are in the map files on the client. Likely it would have been too much work to strip them out and maintain two separate copies of every map.

What's missing are the "spawndef" files that the maps reference that tell the game what to spawn there, what scripts to run on them, etc. Some of them can be somewhat guessed from the name, others are a mystery as to what their contents would be.

That's true, I should have been more specific.  The data regarding map locations specifically are in there vis-a-vis editor mode, but I was thinking in terms of recreating how those worked dynamically in the game.

Worth noting as yet another example of how the information can be "sort of there, but not exactly" in a way that unless you know the technical details of implementation it can seem like there's more than there is, or less, relative to what it would take to reconstruct the game.

[Azrael]

Azrael,

I would point out that the COH recovery effort doesn't really NEED the mission information -- and in some ways would be better without it. 

If a reverse-engineered game had the powers and character AI management... Then imagine what could be done with a tool that let you CHOOSE what gang to spawn on each spawn site.  Imagine a tool that could let you build missions with AE and then attach those missions to mission entry points and contacts -- where you create everything from the contact script down to the mission completion result.  Imagine you can save all that creation into a file you could post online and share with others in the community.

"A lot of work to recreate the game that way" you say?  Yes.  But THE COMMUNITY could rebuild the game -- all the technical work would be done.  Further the community could create THOUSANDS OF VERSIONS of the game -- each playable offline or on private servers.

First of all.  *Nods in sage like understanding to Arcana.  'Colour Commentator.'   I'm a great deal clearer on things thanks to the examples you listed and the thoughtful responses. 

...and to Code Warrior.  I've just been in Icon playing around.  It's great stuff.  A beacon of hope.  (I finally got to try the Celestial Armour!  I was one vet token away from getting it when the game was cruelly shut down. :/  Ironically, I now have a rig to run Coh in ultra mode which I didn't have at Coh's closure either...  Double bah. :/ )

I note both your and Arcana's point that A.I i.e. the brains i.e. the Server are needed to make the puppet 'body' of the gaming client and it's 'resources' come to life.  Basically, crack 'combat' from the server and the game is fundamentally back?

And to Ohioknight.  I enjoyed your response.  Because, basically your saying the community can rebuild Coh into a COh 1.5 or Coh '2'?  We played all the original missions to death?  So maybe we don't need them.  Maybe the community takes Coh back and recreates it in their own image.  Coh was the community.  The interface.  The chat window.  The powers.  The critters.  The maps.  Once we have combat and the chat window - the game is back?  Does it really matter if they're not the original missions?  To me?  Not really.  I can live without the Positron TF.  Or many of the TFs.  Many of which I found over blown.  Be nice to create some new ones?

The mega icon thread has had 50,000+ views.  If there was a tool (in terms of ease of use...similar to the A.E mission creator...and we could save missions and share those files...) that allowed the community to create 'thousands' of versions of the game...

...EACH playable offline (the Holy Grail for me!!!) or local Lan or on private servers.

Many hands make light work.  (The content would explode under such a huge community effort...because the impetus would be to match or replace the original missions in quality...and some people would just do their own thing with it.)

The pivotal thing then is getting Server A.I engine working.  Which controls the character and powers i.e. combat working and a 'mission creator' that can give the community the tools to re-forge the content of Coh then?  Pretty much like the A.E.  You could design the critters and decide where they spawn and what the mission objective etc is.

I can live with that.

Thanks to Arcana, Code Warrior and OhioKnight for stimulating the discussion.

Azrael.

[Ohioknight]

And to Ohioknight.  I enjoyed your response.  Because, basically your saying the community can rebuild Coh into a COh 1.5 or Coh '2'?  We played all the original missions to death?  So maybe we don't need them.  Maybe the community takes Coh back and recreates it in their own image.  Coh was the community.  The interface.  The chat window.  The powers.  The critters.  The maps.  Once we have combat and the chat window - the game is back?  Does it really matter if they're not the original missions?  To me?  Not really.  I can live without the Positron TF.  Or many of the TFs.  Many of which I found over blown.  Be nice to create some new ones?

The mega icon thread has had 50,000+ views.  If there was a tool (in terms of ease of use...similar to the A.E mission creator...and we could save missions and share those files...) that allowed the community to create 'thousands' of versions of the game...

The community would determine which ones became the "standard" missions by simple popularity if agreed-to standard file formats allowed the ability to share files on public forums (as has already started with custom replacement ICON costume skins)

With the additional benefit that... should NCSoft object to Private Server Alpha running the reverse-engineered code... Alpha would be using NONE of NCSoft's Intellectual Property on their server -- and the client assets were handed out publicly for free.

(oh BTW -- remember in that 50,000+ views, I'm at least a couple of hundred of those -- it's not one view per lurker)

[Mouse-Man]

I, for one, should the means arise, plan to completely revamp the radio missions. I always wished they had added more to them as issues came out.
Several of my characters went to 50 JUST on radio missions.

You can only rescue Dr. Frank N. Scott so many times before you want to branch out a bit.

[Arcana]

The mega icon thread has had 50,000+ views.  If there was a tool (in terms of ease of use...similar to the A.E mission creator...and we could save missions and share those files...) that allowed the community to create 'thousands' of versions of the game...

...EACH playable offline (the Holy Grail for me!!!) or local Lan or on private servers.

Before the game shutdown, I laid out a pie-in-the-sky blueprint for an MMO design where the game was nothing but private servers, all playing a single player game on the player's PC.  This would be impossible to shutdown.  Then those private servers were connected into a distributed peer-to-peer network where players could host other players in a sort-of Lan party over the internet style of shared (not-so-M)MO.  Then "super-nodes" of just extremely souped up servers could act as more-so-MMOs that players could connect to and enter a much larger persistent shared environment and play.

Architecturally, I can see how it would work.  Unfortunately, my design skills vastly exceed my current coding skills.

[Azrael]

I like the logic of your design ideas.  If  you have a local copy than can join over a distributed peer-to-peer network.  Everything is a private server, merely connected peer to peer style.

As corporations try to push for an internet 'kill' switch so they can corner and host the internet as gateway to their content and surpress rival content through over zealous  copyright acts....then your design ideas show tremendous potential.  i.e. we go peer to peer to bypass their greed.

it's just a shame that the current morg companies are thinking so short term or in terms of their own interests.  Or NC Soft did. 

I remember playing Unreal Tourney.  There was the local game which I loved with 'bots.'  I played the game over Lan which was nice enough.  I was never fussed about playing it online.

The problem is when somebody pulls the plug (usually a profit driven corporation) politically if it's no longer flavour of the month then you have no more Coh because the intravenous drip has been severed.

Hmm.  Yes.  I like your super hub of private servers connected via peer to peer distributed.  What else is the internet?  Just a load of computers?  0 and 1s.

I like the idea of offline play and Lan and Peer to Peer and the CHOICE of joining a greater hub of fellow players IF I choose.

Just don't like the perpetual renting idea only to have a company turn around and say, 'That's yer lot.'

I want offline capability in any future morg.  If I don't get it.  They won't get my money.  Simple.

Just out of curiosity, Arcana.  Didn't Paragon ever consider an offline mode for Coh and it's player base?  Was it too difficult?   I guess they, like us, thought that Coh would continue forever...

...now it's a cautionary tale.

Azrael.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Just out of curiosity, Arcana.  Didn't Paragon ever consider an offline mode for Coh and it's player base?  Was it too difficult?

"Do motorcycle manufacturers ever consider a jet ski mode for the vehicles and their owner base?"
No offense, but that's the sort of question you are asking.

[Arcana]

"Do motorcycle manufacturers ever consider a jet ski mode for the vehicles and their owner base?"
No offense, but that's the sort of question you are asking.

Its more of a "did Hostess ever consider printing pamphlets with the recipe for Twinkies and the blueprints for the Twinkie machine before they went out of business?"  Paragon Studios job was to keep City of Heroes running and profitable for as long as possible, not to keep the game alive in some form by any means possible.  I'm pretty sure individual people thought about it, but I am unaware of any serious thought at the corporate level put into making CoH a single player game.  A single player CoH would have been a potential threat to the MMO's existence by sapping away players and subscription revenue, plus fragmenting the community.  And nobody makes such a thing on the off-chance they might need it down the road.  That would be like you going to your boss and asking for permission to spend corporate resources on a project that will benefit you on the off chance he decides to fire you.

[FatherXmas]

You have to remember that the rank and file was working business as usual.  And who designs an MMO with an offline mode?

[Arcana]

And who designs an MMO with an offline mode?

Apparently I do.  But I'm considered a very unconventional systems designer.  I'm also poorly funded from an MMO development perspective.

[FatherXmas]

Well it's a debugging tool at the very least.  Sort of the old Quake days with a command switch to start up a server for lan parties.

[Codewalker]

There are Fundamentally Hard problems that have to be solved for an offline mode to be possible for an MMO.

For starters, people would want to be able to take characters played in offline mode back onto the server. That's a huge, HUGE opportunity for people to cheat. How many times have you played Call of Duty (a peer-to-peer game at its heart, even with Steam matchmaking) and run into somebody who obviously hacked their level to unlock all the perks?

"Well, just don't allow characters played offline to rejoin the server" you say? Hah, good luck with that, especially if your MMO is pay-for. No matter what anyone claims now, I promise you that if it were implemented that way (offline characters couldn't sync progress), it would get rightfully reamed by critics and you'd hear no end of complaining about it.

So how do you prevent people from cheating? Well, you can't, not really. Physical control of the program is the trump card and will always win. That's why Rule #1 of client-server programming is to NEVER trust the client, and store the authoritative copy of important data serverside only. If offline mode is allowed, people will be able to cheat.

You could try to police the cheaters, or just give up and ignore them, but then your game quickly becomes a cesspool (e.g. original Diablo) and you lose the playerbase that you really want.

Or you can try for a technical solution. You can make it harder to get away with. Sooner or later, someone will break it, and you'll spend a lot of time and effort (and money) trying to fight it and coming up with better methods.

Option three is to throw up your hands and give up, leaving it up to the community to police. Smaller player run servers can set their own policies. This is how a lot of first-person-shooter communities traditionally worked. The nature of this beast is that the community is inevitably fragmented, removing the "Massive" part of MMO.

So, just a thought experiment for discussion: You're lead developer of an MMO. What's your play? How does your business manager deal with it and what pressures can you expect from them?

[wyldhunt]

One possibility for an offline play mode for an online MMO:
1. Characters must be made/registered online first for any progress/changes to be recognized. Progress/changes are only recognized via online play.
2. Offline play is possible for social RP, player-generated content, and a subset of official online content, however allows no changes in the online/official character. Characters could even be created offline, however would never progress past start-level until registered online.
3. For supergroups/guilds, any changes in character ranking and such would have to be performed online, however the appropriate SG officers could make these changes in response to offline play.

In this way, primacy/security of the online character version is maintained, however offline play is offered as an alternate experience.

[Kyriani]

My ideal for an offline mode would be one where any offline play is considered its own server. If you connect to an online server your characters are stored there and there is no sharing of data between offline and online play. Nothing you do in offline mode can transfer to online. I'd still allow a local copy to be saved of an online character.

Consider the original Neverwinter Nights persistent worlds for example. Now don't get me wrong there was cheating on some PW's but it wasn't through direct character data alteration and usually a reset of the PW creator/host not building in specific precautions to prevent such cheating. You character was stored on the host's server. You could create a local copy of that character and even make changes to the local copy but there was no way to bring those changes to the online server character unless you had a way to overwrite your server character with the new data and the only way I know of to do that would be to actually hack the server remotely or have physical access to the server machine and the ability to interface with it.

I dont see why a similar offline mode couldn't exist so long as no data transfer occurs from local to server.

[Arcana]

For starters, people would want to be able to take characters played in offline mode back onto the server. That's a huge, HUGE opportunity for people to cheat. How many times have you played Call of Duty (a peer-to-peer game at its heart, even with Steam matchmaking) and run into somebody who obviously hacked their level to unlock all the perks?

"Well, just don't allow characters played offline to rejoin the server" you say? Hah, good luck with that, especially if your MMO is pay-for. No matter what anyone claims now, I promise you that if it were implemented that way (offline characters couldn't sync progress), it would get rightfully reamed by critics and you'd hear no end of complaining about it.

I don't claim to have answers that are guaranteed to work, but I do have answers.  The model to reference are console games that have a single player mode and a multi-player mode.  These are considered completely different experiences and the expectation is set that unlocking things in single player does not necessarily get reflected in multiplayer.  You'd treat the single player mode as a sort of "practice mode" for the multiplayer mode.

But more specifically, in the example I gave above the design wouldn't be separated into "single" and "multiplayer."  Those would be two extreme ends of the spectrum.  Sitting in between "in single player you have ultimately full control" and "when you log into the big server they control everything" there would be the peer-to-peer intermediate level of play.  Here, I envisioned a chain of trust model that is similar to, say, PGP keys.  If I trust you and you trust me, my game would allow you to import your characters into my instances and vice versa.  We'd allow that, because we get to decide what happens on our own instances.  Webs of trust could be formed whereby who gets to import what is arbitrated by trust levels and ACLs.  Maybe I trust all of your character progress, but none of your powerful items.  So when you "transfer" to my server you keep some stuff and (temporarily) lose other stuff.

Its how PnP games have been arbitrated for years.  There was an honor system involved that was enforced by the simple fact that in small gaming circles cheaters were risking being ostracized.  Peer pressure was the way to ensure cheaters didn't abuse the system.

I was actually thinking about this very model, on a smaller scale, with regard to the Arena.  One of the things I suggested to the devs was that rather than make the rules of PvP carved in stone, at least in the Arena allow players to choose their own rules by consensus.  That way the participants on an event by event basis could decide if they wanted to play with movement suppression, PvP diminished returns, heal suppression, etc.  Give players the ability to set "profiles" for PvP and have the game have a system where those are arbitrated among players joining an event.

Multiply that by, oh, a hundred, and you have a distributed peer to peer "house rules" system of what to allow individual players to use in other people's games.  In the big central servers the only things you'd probably be allowed to bring are the literal shirt on your back: you can transfer character appearance, but all items and progress must be earned on the server.  So when I play there, I'm "exemped" to what the server thinks I've earned.  On my home server, I'm back to level 50.  When I play on your server, I get to keep my level 50 because you've set that level of trust, but I cannot bring my full complement of incarnate powers unless I earn them there first, because you trust me, but not that much.

How to make the economics work is a completely separate issue.  Its related to the question of "why play on the big servers at all?"  And the answer is, the operators of those servers have to make it worth people's while through introducing worthwhile content and worthwhile overall player environments.  Not easy, not impossible, but probably a similar nut to crack as how to convince people to keep buying fruit bonuses in Candy Crush.

[Azrael]

[Felderburg]

Along with preventative measures, you could have a server reserved for offline characters, and another for online. That would at least keep all the potential cheating in one place. Players would have to understand, of course, what they were getting into on each server, and not be allowed to switch servers (or at least only go from online only to the offline server).

The Sentinel files had some sort of protection as I understand, that would prevent modified files being used to upload something crazy, so something similar to that might work for a while. Or even multiple something similars, so that if one was broken, others would still be in place.

There's also rate of advance. It's my understanding that an MMO's devs try to regulate time to level, amount of rare vs. common loot, things like that. Set an upper limit for whatever parameters like that you want, and anyone who exceeds that limit when uploading a single play character back to the server is either not allowed, or knocked down to where they were before they downloaded to single play. That might annoy someone who plays for the storyline of an MMO, and has to play through content a second time, but ideally those players would be well within the range of acceptable offline advancement.

I like wyldhunt's idea of just allowing certain pieces of content to be played offline.

Another idea is releasing a straight-up single player version of part of the game. So you could use, say, Apex, War Witch, or Horus (the original comic trio) and play through certain storylines. So you play as WW in the single player game, and go through the Vahz arc, then do a bunch of Council stuff, and end up finishing with Tina Macintyre's missions. If you want more, you can go to the MMO, with the online-only play that entails. Something like this would really only work in CoH, where there was enough mission content that it wouldn't be exhausted in single player for someone who wanted to go to the MMO part.

Edit: I forgot to add:

Its more of a "did Hostess ever consider printing pamphlets with the recipe for Twinkies and the blueprints for the Twinkie machine before they went out of business?"

Why yes, yes they did. They even sold it!
http://www.amazon.com/Hostess-Twinkies-Pastry-Recipe-Booklet/dp/B00A9T943Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1389825350&sr=1-1

Edit: I mean, sort of. It's small scale and for personal use only, but that's all some people are asking for for MMOs or CoH...

[Ice Trix]

Along with preventative measures, you could have a server reserved for offline characters, and another for online. That would at least keep all the potential cheating in one place. Players would have to understand, of course, what they were getting into on each server, and not be allowed to switch servers (or at least only go from online only to the offline server

That's how I've always imagined doing it. One 'server' for offline characters.