Starsman

Hmmm... always nice to see more Mac MMOs.

I remember buying LotR Online when it launched, was never too big on it. Felt too slow (at least the solo experience) compared to City of Heroes insane combat.

It also felt a bit low-fantasy and mundane, sort of fitting for the world portrayed in LotR, though. I both, appreciated that women had more practical armor (no bikini plate) and disliked that there was no super cool armor looks (that I noticed.) Say what you want but I sort of love the insanity found in high level WoW armors, specially helms and shoulderpads.

At this point in time, though, I'm rather sick of fantasy. But who knows, maybe once I watch The Hobbit Episode 1/3rd I may get in the mood to give it a try.

I remember the first day I saw the Strong & Pretty thread (not necesarely the first day it was around) I sent a PM to Castle, a joke mostly, asking him "how dare you buff Mace AND Energy Aura so amazingly?? You just make every other build in the game obsolete!!! Now everyone will play solely war mace and energy aura!" I think I made mentions of Mace being insane AoE and ST damage now, and that Energy Aura became unbillable.

I can’t remember his exact reply and can't find the PM, but it was, perhaps, a smiley? Not sure, it was short and silly.

I happened to do this the morning of the same day that the War Mace changes (where the AoE got boosted and Clobber became an insane attack) and Energy Aura changes (where Energy Drain started to heal) made it into the Beta server.

When the buffs hit a few hours later I sent him another PM, telling him "What the... you realize that was only a joke and I had no clue this was happening, right?? What the!?"

At that he replied that yea, he DID get puzzled and had to double check the news feed and make sure it was not out yet. Was a rather funny exchange.

Mace DID become an insane AoE set, with very good single target. All the changes he implemented were changes I recomended in the past, down to the number (radius changes, exchanging target caps between the last two attacks, giving Clobber propper damage scale) but I never intended all changes to be done, my goal was always to do one or the other (buff ST or AoE.) In many ways, for it's time, War Mace ended being a bit OP but darn I loved it! I'm cure Acemace also loved the heck out of the changes.

Sometime later I sent him suggestions on how to fix Fire Aura and he asked me "OK are you somehow getting into my email??" Among other things, i recommended Fire Embrace to somehow give every attack a fire damage proc.

I have to echo some of Codewalker's points. The level of law ignorance here (on every side) is insane.

There is only one thing that can be illegal and it is the redistribution of copyrighted material.

I have software from NCSoft they distributed to me, I acquired it legally and never stole it. I also paid for access to their servers, but that's a separate matter.

For all legal points: I can do anything I want with the software I got EXCEPT redistribute it. Many of the things I do with it CAN violate the contract of service, but the best this can do is give NCSoft a reason to cancel my account (and they are doing this Nov 30 either way.)

Not that the "small" redistribution clause is huge. I can't give anyone else my data files. I can't host them in a website. I can’t install it in a hard drive and then sell the hard drive and claim ignorance.


Now, on the entire Emulator thing that comes on too many threads and too many people that know nothing keep calling "illegal", it all depends what is done.

Reverse engineering of the technical networking of the game is not protected by law. You can do an emulator that contacts the game and acts as a server.

You can't have that server host copyright material, though. That may be a killer for an emulation project because for this game, content is king and all the content needs to also be hosted in the server for it to work properly.

There may be ways to make a server work in a different way, somehow reading data from the clients. Another option would be to give up on the content and just recreate either the Architect or invent new content and a method to patch the clients to get the data needed for the new content to work. You can use the characters that are already in the game since you don't actually upload them nor even name them in the server side (or at least don't have to) you just call them via a handle.

Anyways, I think an emulator that attempts to replicate the game 100% is not possible legally or technically, but it may be possible to make a combat emulator and a new content engine. That's something that can be perfectly legal and technically possible (although I would not expect to see results until a year or two from now, assuming heavy work on the volunteer team.)

Once you get there, though, you are back at the point where only those that already have the data can legally use it. There can’t, legally, be a growing player base. Also to note is that even if the server was to hold copyrighted material, a player connecting to it would not be liable for it and for all cases I seen, would not be committing any crime. The ones hosting the server that holds copyright material, though, may be in trouble.

Despite any legal or non-legal state of any approach that is taken, it’s very likely NCSoft will indeed threaten with legal action. It’s a default action any corporation takes, not because they are right but because they know threat of lawsuits and their cost alone are enough to get away with whatever they want.

At the end of the day I think that effort is better spent creating something entirely new. A lot of feeling may be recaptured by reusing a few age old assets… many assets in the base game (mainly music and sounds) were licensed by Cryptic. You may have heard CoH distinctive music in TV Spots in the past.

PS: This is assuming US laws. Other countries and regions may be very different.