[This story has been heavily updated throughout with more at the end.]Â It appears that the City of Heroes rogue server that was up in testing all weekend has already run into trouble with what the community was initially assuming was NCsoft, though it’s since been made clear NCsoft had nothing to do with it.
Consequently, the test server has been wiped by one of its developers, and the Discord is an inferno of rage right about now. Here’s part of the original official statement from one of the Discord mods, Voodoo Girl, plainly made under the initial belief that the server was under legal threat.
“This server, as of right now, has to be shut down indefinitely. We are on a direct course for legal action. As such, steps must be taken in order to protect the people involved in this project, their families, and their futures. As with all of you, we are heartbroken. We wanted to see our City return, but to do so at the destruction of the lives of those involved is too great a risk to take. However, this project is not finished. We will continue to work towards the revival of City of Heroes with all efforts that we can make. We cannot give you all a time frame at this time. We are in discussions to do what we can to revive some form of the server, however we do not wish to commit to a point in the future that we may not be able to reach. You have trusted us to this point. We ask you to extend that trust, and we will in turn do everything within our power to prove to you that we are deserving of it.”
The Discord owner had harsher words, saying the programmers were “heading into legal fuckery.”
“As it stands, we are heading into legal fuckery. My hands are shaking as I type this up, so please bear with me. The entire project is in jeopardy, but the only feasible solution we have is for me to set up an LLC and fight what is happening at this time. I am risking everything for a community I love.
I am doing everything I can to defend those who were involved in this situation. I am going to get fucked sideways over the next few months to years, and things are going to put me into some major legal turmoil. I will have lawyers out the ass, and I will be put into personal jeopardy. This is a project I am going to sink with, and I WILL do everything in my power to get done. I am praying for mercy right now. I am extremely emotional right now and I feel the ten years I once decidated to this game is being ripped out from under me again. I appreciate the support I’ve had from the community. I have to break the one promise I wanted with every fiber of my bewing to uphold, since I’m just a fucking semi truck driver. A fucking. Truck driver. I am going down on this ship. This is my hill to fdie on. I will fight tootyh and nail to get EVERYTHING we fought for back. I know its tough asking anonymous for support, but I’m in for a rough fucking right. I have no way to make a closing statement, so I may as well go as fucking cheesy as I can.”
Worth pointing out here is that it’s seriously not OK to go running around threatening NCsoft right now; this is not really an unexpected potential outcome, and it’s not been confirmed by any public entity on the record either. It’s also worth noting that this particular private server was being run independently – we don’t even know who’s in charge of it [now]. It’s probably not a good use of time and effort to panic and rage right now given how much we don’t know about what’s still going on behind the scenes. We’ll update when we know more.
Update
Discord admin says the project isn’t dead.
Update
Leandro Pardini, the programmer originally behind the SCORE server, whose hand-off of some of his files last week allowed this new server to spring up around Discord, has tweeted in seeming defiance, offering to aid the community in a rebuild:
https://twitter.com/leandrotlz/status/1120428390786506752
https://twitter.com/leandrotlz/status/1120428693636157440
Update
Latest. Appears the people in charge of the Discord do not “physically have” the “server binaries.”
Update
There’s been yet another statement from the head of the Discord, suggesting there never was a DMCA takedown.
“As of now, we are running on the assumption that there is no DMCA. We have a drive that we are currently verifying on if it’s the server binaries. As it stands, it has everything. There has been some fuckups that lead to mass server panic, and an emergency administration and codemod meeting has been called. We may very well be able to salvage this situation before the next sunset. No promises. Do not hold this against me. We have a gameplan. It depends on verifying this code right now. Once it is achieved, we are pushing to get a server back up immediately. The original goal of the server has been to get a stable i24 for distribution and by the Well of the Furies we will get it. This chaos was unprofessional on my part (partly from my inexperience), and triggers were being pulled before we even had the horses at the races. We will also be futureproofing future development to make sure this kind of clusterfuck will never happen again. Also, allow me to be blunt and address this once and for all. FOR FUCKS SAKE, STOP HOPPING LEANDRO’S **** THE MOMENT ANYTHING HAPPENS. MYSELF INCLUDED.”
The current Reddit rumor maintains that a lead engineer on the test server was spooked by some sort of potential threat and pulled down the server. Regardless, it looks as if a new dump of base code has been posted publicly, and multiple versions of servers and codebases are being worked on. Just a reminder: Nothing on MassivelyOP constitutes legal advice. We do not advocate testing the law here. Have some chill.
Update
This evening, we spoke to “Yuvi,” the person who was working as the lead dev on the Discord-centric test server. His account of events was reasonably credible and meshes with the briefer account given on
Reddit that we were previously treating as rumor. He filled us in on the backstory of the team, who paid for the servers, and how much money it was costing them (it was a lot). And he confirmed the public story that rumors of legal action reached his team and spooked him. Yuvi says a Discord user claimed he had information that NCsoft was preparing a cease and desist letter (and worse) against the server and that after discussion with his team, Yuvi “caved under pressure and the spreading of word of mouth,” ultimately deciding to pull the plug and wiping the server clean of all data.
However, Yuvi admits that NCsoft didn’t actually take any kind of legal action against the team, and there was no direct evidence that there was a threat mounting at all, just the claim from a third party. “I just really want to clear NCsoft’s name,” he told us. “They are to me a good company.”
Seriously, stop trolling NCsoft people. You’re not helping anybody here. The prevailing message is that folks are back to work on a new server, so no panic is necessary.
Catch up on all of our coverage of the City of Heroes rogue server situation to date:
• Mar 7 2020: City of Heroes’ Homecoming just outlawed video of their rogue servers
• Mar 3 2020: City of Heroes Homecoming players have racked up over 47 million hours
• Jan 2 2020: NCsoft follows up City of Heroes code copyright filing with fresh trademark application
• Dec 13 2019: Massively OP’s 2019 Awards: Biggest MMO Surprise
• Nov 29 2019: City of Heroes: Homecoming kicks off the winter season in its latest patch
• Oct 1 2019: City of Heroes: Homecoming patches in the third part of Issue 26 with new stories and powers
• Sep 27 2019: City of Heroes’ Homecoming announces Issue 26 Page 3, Halloween content, and collab with other rogue servers
• Sep 25 2019: City of Heroes’ Homecoming rogue servers are now blocking copyright-infringing characters
• Sep 19 2019: City of Heroes Homecoming is now banning accounts for… real-money trading
• Sep 11 2019: TonyV leaves City of Heroes NCsoft negotiations, resigns from Titan Network
• Sep 11 2019: City of Heroes: Homecoming plays with Rage crashes, PvP stuns, and Tanker powers on the test server
• Sep 9 2019: City of Heroes Homecoming asks players what they want from a licensed server
• Sep 4 2019: City of Heroes Homecoming players have rolled almost a million toons to date
• Aug 27 2019: City of Heroes Homecoming adjusts snipes and Dominator powers with the latest patch
• Aug 22 2019: Today’s City of Heroes’ Homecoming patch future-proofs the rogue servers for Mac players
• Aug 12 2019: City of Heroes’ Homecoming Team finally posted a new beta patch after months of public quiet
• Aug 8 2019: City of Heroes’ Homecoming rogue servers have joined the Titan Network/NCsoft negotiations
• Jul 8 2019: Catching up with City of Heroes’ Homecoming rogue servers as NCsoft negotiations continue
• Jun 8 2019: One of City of Heroes’ rogue servers, Reborn/Pleiades, was just shut down by its operator
• Jun 3 2019: City of Heroes: Homecoming hit 100K players as another donation round funds
• Jun 1 2019: Perfect Ten: 10 things I’d love to see added to City of Heroes in the rogue server era
• May 30 2019: City of Heroes: Homecoming adds numerical power cooldowns, nerfs Death from Below, adds User Agreement
• May 28 2019: City of Heroes: Community harassment ramps up as Homecoming counts 91,000 players
• May 22 2019: Perfect Ten: Helpful tips for returning to City of Heroes in 2019
• May 21 2019: City of Heroes: All the public servers we know of, plus Reddit’s launch and Homecoming’s name release
• May 20 2019: City of Heroes: Homecoming concurrency, Rebirth and Reddit’s i24 servers, and the future of basebuilding
• May 17 2019: City of Heroes: Homecoming’s new home, EU players, multiboxing, SEGS, and… piglets
• May 15 2019: City of Heroes rogue server teams activate i24 PTS, prep for tomorrow’s Homecoming server moves
• May 13 2019: City of Heroes community forms Round Table as Homecoming rogue servers count over 56,000 players
• May 9 2019: City of Heroes’ Homecoming servers port to Canada this weekend, server status page is live
• May 8 2019: Leaderboard: Would you donate for a City of Heroes rogue server?
• May 7 2019: City of Heroes: New servers, Discord drama, and Homecoming gets $6900 in donations in 20 minutes
• May 6 2019: City of Heroes’ Homecoming rogue servers will offer character transfers after all
• May 4 2019: City of Heroes now has a fifth rogue server live as Homecoming buffs up and work on i24 continues
• May 1 2019: City of Heroes’ rogue servers nerf AE farms, boost XP, but can’t do character transfers
• Apr 29 2019: Two weeks in, City of Heroes has four rogue servers and heartwarmingly massive queues
• Apr 26 2019: Nearly 30K people have rolled City of Heroes rogue server accounts as the game turns 15 years old
• Apr 24 2019: Aaaaand now there’s a new temporary City of Heroes rogue server up
• Apr 23 2019: The Titan Network is negotiating to open a legal community-run City of Heroes server
• Apr 22 2019: City of Heroes’ first new rogue server shut down over a fake legal threat, but admins say it’s coming back
• Apr 22 2019: Leaderboard: Do you plan to play on a City of Heroes rogue server?
• Apr 21 2019: City of Heroes’ rogue servers may abandon character restoration as 14000 gamers register to play
• Apr 19 2019: Lawful Neutral: Is it safe to play on City of Heroes’ inevitable rogue servers?
• Apr 18 2019: The City of Heroes private server team has released its code [Update: The test server is live]
• Apr 18 2019: What’s going on with City of Heroes now: ‘This game is a unicorn’
• Apr 17 2019: Massively OP Podcast Episode 217: City of Heroes after dark
• Apr 17 2019: Into the Super-Verse: The death of the City of Heroes community
• Apr 16 2019: Leaderboard: Where do you stand on the ‘secret’ City of Heroes emulator?
• Apr 15 2019: ‘Secret’ City of Heroes emulator operators address SCORE leak drama, rebut personal info database rumor
