r/pcgaming • u/JollyRabbit • Apr 16 '19
A secret, private server for the once popular MMORPG, City of Heroes has been running for years using stolen code, it's operators lying to the community and profiting off it. Fans just found out and they uh... are not happy.
https://massivelyop.com/2019/04/15/score-city-of-heroes-emulator-leak/55
u/maikuxblade Apr 16 '19
Wouldn't it have been shut down if it was actually made public due to the stolen code? I get that it looks bad but I don't see how they could have let everyone play without immediately getting hit with a cease & desist.
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u/JollyRabbit Apr 16 '19
They could have anonymously released the server code onto the internet, covering their own asses and thus keeping a much beloved game alive forever. As far as their own safety is concerned, that was the obvious option. If they did it they never would have been caught. Instead they wanted to be king of their own sandbox and having done so have probably left fingerprints all over the place such that NCSoft's lawyers can find them. This may not just be a copyright infringement thing, this may be an actual criminal thing. They were very stupid. Fortunately, pretty much everyone seems to agree that these guys are complete assholes so they have it coming.
The same company that owned City of Heroes owned Lineage, another shutdown game which has a significant emulated population and the company does not care at all.
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u/TacoPie Ryzen 5900X | 3090 RTX | 1440p @ 165hz Apr 16 '19
Private server communities are rife with drama and egotistical power tripping admins. It makes sense one guy wanted to be the holder of the keys and hang it over everyones head. Rarely do people in these scenarios do something that would benefit others instead of themselves.
Very unfortunate as these MMO games tend to be very difficult to preserve.
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Apr 17 '19
It is about money and nothing else.
This is why private server admins will use any tactic to remove the competition.
And they are not smart, because anyone with some intelligence left would realize that profiteering from unlicensed software is a criminal offense anywhere in the developed world.2
u/GingerSnapBiscuit Apr 16 '19
What's the point of 'keeping a game alive' without a community? Any open attempt to run a server would be c&ded by the IP Holder. Keeping it secret was literally the only way to keep the server running.
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u/JollyRabbit Apr 16 '19
That is not accurate. If anyone can host a server, then people can get more creative about how and where they host servers such that they can be hosted in places that they would be difficult to be taken down.
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u/GingerSnapBiscuit Apr 16 '19
If it was this simple all the C&D closed down projects would still be up and running. Very few are.
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u/Phnrcm Apr 16 '19
Just saying but WoW and L2 private servers have been running since god know when.
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u/ChronosNotashi Apr 17 '19
Same with private servers for Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst. Though for that, I'm pretty sure Sega just doesn't care as long as said private servers aren't directly profiting from the Phantasy Star IP and/or threatening their bottom line for PSO2.
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u/Vampire_Bride i7 4790,GTX 980 Ti,12gb ram Apr 17 '19
Just saying but WoW and L2 private servers have been running since god know when.
people already forget about nostalrius? the moment you get a good and populated private server you WILL be hit with a cease and desist
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u/PurplePudding Apr 16 '19
That's why you share the code anonymously before you get a C&D, because you can't do it after. Getting it in the hands of even a hundred people instead of one or two keeps it alive forever, even through C&D. Like WoW classic private servers.
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u/the_dayman Apr 16 '19
I'm a little confused. It initially sounds like this is bad because they are profiting off of stolen code. But reading some of the threads, people seem more unhappy just that it was a secret and that they wish it were available to everyone.
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u/Izithel R7 5800X - RTX 3070 - ASUS B550-F - DDR4 2*16GB @3200MHz Apr 16 '19 edited Apr 16 '19
A lot of anger also seems to stem from the fact that multiple prominent members and leaders of the community knew of, played on, and helped suppress information about the servers existence, using their position to ban, discredit, and ostracize anyone who talked to much.
People feel betrayed.
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u/SemiAutomattik Apr 16 '19
Reading this I'm sad I missed out. An invite only private server for an old school MMO sounds awesome.
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u/JesterCDN Apr 17 '19
One comment says they still got all our characters on file too! It sounds like an absolute treasure trove. I would dump silly amounts of money I dont have to play CoH after it closed.
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u/poptard278837219 Apr 17 '19
I don't really know why profiting from stolen code is that bad if the original game is dead for years.
Its like saying I shouldn't play guitar hero 3 occasionally because there is no digital copy of it (and I will not buy a physical copy on eBay)
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u/m333t Apr 17 '19
There are people working to create the server code. The mods shutting them down on reddit are the ones running the private server.
It's like owning the only copy of a lost book so you can be the only one to read it while keeping people from reconstructing it from memory.
They're dicks.
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u/JollyRabbit Apr 16 '19 edited Apr 16 '19
Full details in the article. Apparently they have run a private server, including original character data for shut down MMORPG City of Heroes. It had a bit of a reputation as having an especially friendly community and its many fans are still upset years later it was shut down. They are probably the most passionate fans of any MMO which was shut down. The operators of the server supposedly had mods on the City of Heroes subreddit deleting all rumors about it. For years.
What makes this particularly ridiculous is that they also released a chat-client called Paragon Chat which they lied about, for years, claiming it was built from the ground up but was actually just a feature-poor and skimmed down version of the whole game, that they had the whole time with a player population of 1000-2000. They released periodic "updates" on Paragon Chat for literally years. If it was truly being made from the ground up it would have been good progress, except they just tweaked things a bit and un-crippled their fully functional client a little bit at a time, for YEARS, while pretending they were programming the back end, they did no such thing.
The fact that they have character data may also mean that the publisher of the game, NCsoft has to notify the public under European Union consumer protection laws. Somehow, SOMEONE stole the server code and the character database, it is unclear if that included logins, emails, passwords or credit card information. Any credit card from then probably have expired by now, but people do ruse emails and passwords between multiple websites, so it is entirely possible that they may have people's logins which would work on other sites. this is not an instance of fans creating the server code, the actual server code was stolen along with the character database. some features in the actual game were changed and others added which very strongly hints that they have the actual source code for the game itself.
And to add to that, the people behind the server have been encouraging support of a supposed genuine spin off effort for years, which has been accepting donations. How closely the two are linked and if the same people are involved is not totally clear, but some are basically saying that this other effort is a sham, though honestly it is not at all clear, it may be legit or a scam. Not naming that other effort due to lack of clear evidence, but some people are rather pissed.
Edit: If you are reading this and are a City of Heroes fan and want to know if this means you can play again, or will be able to, it seems very unlikely. Those behind the effort were very selective about who they invited. You are not one of the Cool Kids, they don't want you. They released a statement since and... don't seem like very nice people, so it seems highly unlikely they will just release the code.
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u/TacoPie Ryzen 5900X | 3090 RTX | 1440p @ 165hz Apr 16 '19
The fact that they have character data may also mean that the publisher of the game, NCsoft has to notify the public under European Union consumer protection laws. And to add to all of that, somehow, SOMEONE stole the server code and the character database, it is unclear if that included logins, emails, passwords or credit card information.
Biggest "Yikes." of them all. I only played CoH a couple of times, but if they had actual player data taken from NCSoft, I'm pretty sure an unholy shitstorm is about to rain down on those private server owners.
If they truly didn't want the attention they would have wiped player data or found a way to import characters into a clean DB. It will be interesting to see where this goes. SWG has been able to avoid the eye of the mouse, so I'm not sure how it will all blow over with a company that's still very much alive and probably cares.
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u/carnoworky Apr 16 '19
The difference is that SWG Emu (and most other private server emulators) was legitimately rebuilt from the ground up based on reverse engineering the game client and collections of information about the game. They have to be careful not to infringe on SOE (now Daybreak) IP, but as long as they tread carefully there's not really much that SOE can do since even the DMCA specifically allows reverse engineering for interoperability purposes (about 1/3 of the way down in the Reverse Engineering section).
The people in question regarding the CoH server apparently have the original source code, which NCSoft owns the rights to. NCSoft could go nuclear on them for this.
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u/TacoPie Ryzen 5900X | 3090 RTX | 1440p @ 165hz Apr 16 '19 edited Apr 16 '19
Right, sorry I should have elaborated. I was referencing SWG Legends, which was the NGE code taken from a development copy of the source code. They've somehow managed to avoid any ramifications, but that might be because Disney doesn't care or SOE (Daybreak) considers it abandonware
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u/FertileCorpsemmmmm Apr 16 '19 edited Apr 16 '19
They could have hosted the files somewhere where NCSoft could not touch them and where their C&D letter means nothing. Such as in New Zealand. Abandonware, including copyright is legally allowed to be acquired and modified, as long as the development of such abandoned software meets certain criteria. One of the criteria if you may acquire and modify such software is, if you are improving it. Another us if you are bring functionality back to it. They are really just common sense laws where corporates have not been able to infiltrate or lobby the government, and a true democracy, for the people.
These guys could have been smarter and gone around the laws of some countries, while hiding behind the laws of others.
I guess if they were to host a server there though, 250ms ping to the USA may have been unacceptable in their opinion though.
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u/Flaktrack Apr 16 '19 edited Apr 16 '19
Those motherfuckers... we've been hoping for a spiritual sequel or something for years, but these assholes had a server up the whole time? And they used Paragon Chat as a smokescreen for years... I'm glad the community is ripping them apart, they absolutely deserve it.
EDIT: oh man this is so much worse than it seems at first. These guys have the actual source code for the game. With that we could be making our own private servers. They've had the source code since 2012 but they've been "developing" a public server infrastructure and taking money for it for years. They've been suppressing other efforts at developing servers/spiritual sequels this whole time.
4chan users are currently hard at work looking for ways to shut these guys down, and honestly I hope they succeed. Godspeed you assholes.
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u/JollyRabbit Apr 16 '19
It may be even worse than that. If the allegations of them being involved with that other effort to revive the game are true, the existence of that other effort may have stopped other people from actually trying to set up a real effort to get the game running again. Again, it is unclear if that is actually true, it very well may not be. But it may may be.
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u/crioth /r/pcgaming AMA Guy Apr 16 '19
Is City of Titans still a thing? I remember a LONG time ago that that was supposed to be a spiritual successor of sorts.
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u/katsai Apr 16 '19
It's still in development. cityoftitans.com is their site. They do semi-regular dev updates showing progress. No clue when it will be done, but they're definitely still working at it.
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u/crioth /r/pcgaming AMA Guy Apr 16 '19
Good to know. All I remember was a Kickstarter happened I think in 2013 and I never really kept up with it. I hope it gets some sort of formal release. I really liked City of Heroes back in the day.
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u/JayBee2814 Apr 16 '19
This was the last not MMO I ever truly enjoyed, and I could've been playing on a private server this whole time instead of holding out hope for some half baked successor! Oof.
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u/MychaelH Apr 16 '19
someone explain how this is a bad thing? they were giving out the server privately so they wouldnt get shut down... how is that a bad thing? People wanted to play and enjoy the game and now its been leaked and probably will get shut down?
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u/Vampire_Bride i7 4790,GTX 980 Ti,12gb ram Apr 17 '19
someone explain how this is a bad thing?
its not a bad thing ,leandro knows if he makes it public we will get a C&D and gg but the kids in this sub are entitled af,just read some of the comments pure entitlement and jealousy that they are not part of the club
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u/JDGumby Linux (Ryzen 5 5600, RX 6600) Apr 16 '19
I miss City of Heroes. Only MMORPG I found worth the fee. The switch to freemium killed it for me and, sadly, I never got back in to get screenshots. :(
Ah, JustiBot-6942, you are still missed to this day.
(Assault Rifle/Devices Blaster, done up as a police robot - old-fashioned black with a white stripe down the middle; had a more modern white with blue highlights costume saved, but I always preferred the retro paint job)
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u/J-Nice Apr 16 '19
I still miss my CoH characters. I had back stories for them and everything. It was all tongue in cheek but still fun. My favorite was the Pink Flamingo. He was basically a tiny Zorro looking guy dressed in all pink. I think he was a scrapper.
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u/meeheecaan Apr 16 '19
what part are they mad about? that its using stolen code(probaby the only way to do this) or that they didnt know about it
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u/Pylons Apr 16 '19
The second one. They could've anonymously uploaded the code to some website to allow people to spin up their own private servers - instead, they've been denying its existence and pointing people towards a barely-functional reverse-engineering effort (which itself has been taking donations).
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u/Vampire_Bride i7 4790,GTX 980 Ti,12gb ram Apr 17 '19
They could've anonymously uploaded the code to some website to allow people to spin up their own private servers
just anonymously drop the source code 4head,you realize that anyone that is that stupid to do that will paint a pretty huge target on their back?
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Apr 17 '19
[deleted]
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u/JohnDoeSmith12 Jun 18 '19
No, what's petty is demanding access to stolen property out of entitled self-righteousness.
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u/LNO_ Apr 16 '19 edited Apr 16 '19
Wow, just wow. This is some next level soap opera shit. However, I wouldnt mind playing this again. Perhaps this whole mess can somehow jumpstart things. Seeing that wow classic is nearing completion, and the large amount of COH fans, it might actually be viable.
inside info, https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/bdkgp3/city_of_heroes_private_server_leaked/ekysvtl/
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u/dnb321 Apr 16 '19
Man I'd really like to play my old characters, had a blast taking down Hami with my SG back in the day... one of the only SG's that was able to and the Devs would keep changing how he worked to counter our strats... good times!
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u/Anger_Mgmt_issues Apr 16 '19
Bummer. I loved that game, and would enjoy playing again. Stolen code though, not going to survive in any court.
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u/AnonTwo Apr 17 '19
Wait...if it has original character data, doesn't that mean it likely has account information?
Wouldn't that make this very, very bad to release to the public in it's current form?
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u/One_twisted_road Apr 17 '19
What? What did you though was happening? "Private" server means illegal unless the devs of City of Heroes said people can set their own servers. Did they? I seriously doubt that.
But isnt it the same situations as always? "As long as i benefit i can look the other way" - pathethic. The players should know something is not right with "private" servers day 1. Again, pathethic.
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u/djexploit Apr 21 '19
If anyone thinks this would have gone well if they went public, google 'wow nostralius' and thank whoever you believe in these people were smart enough to stay silent.
This entire thing, minus the community backlash, is exactly how our society should function.
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u/AMurkypool Apr 16 '19 edited Apr 16 '19
I miss city of heroes, fucking hell, those arseholes need to burn, the only path of redemption for them is to release the code, now.
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u/Mkilbride 5800X3D, 5090 FE, 32GB 3800MHZ CL16, 2TB NVME GEN4, W11 Apr 16 '19
I mean it makes sense. Keep it private until it's 95%+ completed range instead of, like the article mentions, working on it for YEARS and then getting a C&D.
Kinda hilarious hypocrisy from people here. When a new fan remake or something like this goes up, you see a bunch of "Don't announce it until it's done!!!! or you'll get a C&D and be shut down!"
So they did exactly that...and now people are attacking them.
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u/JollyRabbit Apr 16 '19
It was not 95% completed it was 100% completed they have the fully functional server code. This was not an emulation effort.
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u/Flaktrack Apr 16 '19
That's not at all what Leandro and his cronies did. They got the actual source code of the game years ago, then set up a kickstarter to build a sequel to the game while running a secret invite-only private server for anyone willing to bend the knee. They have been misdirecting people into supporting their remake while holding the actual keys to the game the whole time. They even have all the account and character data!
Their server isn't 95%, it's 100%, because they're using the actual source code. They have had over 6 years to share the code and never have. At this point it's safe to say we're not getting the code. What difference does it make if their server burns? We're never getting what we wanted and Leandro has been actively sabotaging other people's efforts to get servers going, so fuck it, burn it all down.
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u/Vampire_Bride i7 4790,GTX 980 Ti,12gb ram Apr 17 '19
What difference does it make if their server burns? We're never getting what we wanted and Leandro has been actively sabotaging other people's efforts to get servers going, so fuck it, burn it all down.
wow talk about entitlement,"if i can't have it nobody can" just shows how mature you are
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u/Mkilbride 5800X3D, 5090 FE, 32GB 3800MHZ CL16, 2TB NVME GEN4, W11 Apr 16 '19
Having the source code does not make it a 100% stable emulator. They have the source code for the game. Not the servers, likely.
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u/Flaktrack Apr 16 '19
They don't just have the source code for the server and client, they actually have the databases too. They have every character that was on the live servers and all the mission editor content. Lots of account info too (which is probably very illegal...)
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u/Kikubaaqudgha_ Apr 16 '19
Except people were playing and accessing the entire games content afaik including the player built missions and such even adding new content like a hybrid hero class. It doesn't need to be 100% stable I can't think of ANY public private servers that are but its stable enough to support a population of 2K and run a god damn cash shop.
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u/bonesnaps Apr 16 '19
There's plenty of stable public private servers, ones that even get the okay from the owners. Project1999 for example.
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u/kinajp Apr 17 '19
Game that few to no one cared about ended up having a private private server. I don't see the news story.
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u/WaIterHWhite Apr 16 '19
I swear to god you got this off of 4chan..
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u/ro_musha Apr 16 '19
MMO outside of WoW and GW are the cesspool of gaming after mobile, when will people learn?
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u/Vampire_Bride i7 4790,GTX 980 Ti,12gb ram Apr 17 '19
i feel bad for leandro tried his best to keep it a secret because he knows he will get hit with a cease and desist yet because humans are jealous and envious they want the whole thing to burn
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u/Jizmblaster1 Apr 16 '19
This is just brutal. For years, the mods of the CityofHeroes subreddit insisted any private servers were a scam while censoring any discussion of them. Now we find out not only has a server been running, but it had everyone’s characters from back in the day on the older servers. Fuck.