TonyV

Hey all, sorry I just now saw this thread.

I did a quick once-over of our sites and I don't see anything obvious wrong. I'll keep digging to see if I missed anything.

Something mentioned above is a good question. Rakeeb, are you absolutely certain that you were on the Titan Network's sites? The Titan Network is completely ad-free, including the Paragon Wiki. The closest thing we have to ads are a couple of links on the main home page, one to HeroStats (which we host) and one to Imaginator Central (Liz "Syrusb", our graphics guru, who hosts her own site), and during the holiday season we put a link to the Real World Hero charity drive on the wiki sidebar. None of those are dynamic or third-party ads, though; they're static links with the images and code behind them hosted locally on our own server.

The Wikia theory actually sounds plausible to me. They do run third-party ads, and I have gotten nailed with malware served by those third parties before. That's why I hate running third-party ads on sites, because you're not in full control of the content you're serving, and it opens up another vector (the third-party ad provider) by which your sites can become infected.

The following is a full list of Titan Network sites. If you're visiting a URL other than these, you're almost certainly not on our site. Note that after the domain name, there should either be nothing (e.g. http://cohtitan.com) or a slash (e.g. http://www.cohtitan.com/forum). If there is anything else, you're not on our site (e.g. http://cohtitan.com.other.stuff/mydata)!

http://[www.]cohtitan.com
http://[www.]cohplanner.com
http://[www.]paragonwiki.com
http://[www.]ouroportal.com
http://wiki.cohtitan.com
http://cit.cohtitan.com
http://faces.cohtitan.com
http://tomax.cohtitan.com
http://avatars.cohtitan.com

There is also a "hidden" domain, webservice.cohtitan.com, that Sentinel talks to, and though we don't directly maintain it, we also host herostats.org.

Anyway, my immediate thought is that we are not infected. If we are, then obviously, I want to know as soon as possible. It might be helpful if you can send me screenshots of exactly what you're seeing. You can reach me by e-mail (tonyv@cohtitan.com) or hit me up on Skype (tonyv.paragonwiki). I am at work today, so I might not be able to respond immediately, but I'll try to respond as soon as I can.

In the meantime, I highly encourage everyone to make sure your computer is protected against malware. This isn't an alarmist "we might be infected!" suggestion, this is just a good idea in general, even if you don't ever visit the Titan Network sites. You need two main things: antivirus and anti-spyware. Make sure they're up-to-date and that you run them periodically. I actually suggest against the 800 pound gorilla in the market, Norton/Symantec anti-virus, because it puts lots of tentacles into your system that make it almost as bad as a virus itself. Besides, there are some decent free solutions, such as AVG Free and Avast!. For anti-spyware, try Ad-Aware or Spybot Search & Destroy.

Also, if you're using Chrome, I would suggest turning off cookies and whitelisting only the ones you need. If you're running Firefox, Adblock Pus is a godsend.

Oh, and as for our site compromise from before, the nutshell version of what happened was that someone used an exploit in an old version of CodeIgniter (the framework that underlies a bunch of our sites) to upload a php file that injected malware links in all of our index.php sites. It affected most of our sites, and we've since taken some pretty good measures to avoid such a thing happening again. The best thing I think we did (other than upgrade all of our software to patch security holes) was we took write permissions away from the web service account to all content directories except ones that it specifically requires for uploaded files. I'd never be so arrogant to say that our server isn't compromisable (which is the sure fire way to see that it does get compromised), but hopefully it minimizes the risk of being hit with these drive-by mass attacks that every server undergoes.

We take security very seriously, and if I find out that it's been compromised, I will shut down the sites if I have to (which I did last time) until I'm confident that we're not posing a security risk to people--even if it means we're offline for days (which we were) or longer (*ahem...* Faces...).

Edit: Oh, there's one more thing folks might want to know. We do use a Content Distribution Network named CloudFlare that is a front-end to several of our sites. For most people, it's completely transparent. However, one of the things that CloudFlare does is set up so-called "honeypots" to detect machines that are infected or that otherwise try to spread malware. Because addresses on the Internet are dynamic, now and then you might get some kind of page asking you to validate you're a person via a captcha. This is another security measure on our part to try to prevent known malware bots from accessing our server by filtering out malware traffic. So if you try to access one of our sites and you get something from CloudFlare, don't panic.

You can read more about CloudFlare's security at their site if you're interested.

/e noooo

Belle doesn't know it yet because she's not here to read the forums, but she wants to do this. Can you please sign her up?

Belle can't make it today, but if you've got room for me, I'd like to bring Taxi V, my tanker. It's been a while since I've done a task force on Infinity.

I took a marketing class for my minor in college. For some reason, my slogan "Buy this or else you're an idiot" just didn't catch on.

I think your English translation is a bit off. Here, let me try to clean it up a little. Feel free to steal it and edit the original post if you want. Hope it helps, and I'll try to make it!

Hello all,

This contest is being held on Vigilance, but we welcome all--American, English, German. It is organized by the players on Vigilance, and you are all cordially invited as our guests.

The hours noted on the invitation is CET (9:30pm). That is 8:30pm British time, 3:30pm Eastern and 12:30pm Pacific.



Dear Heroes and Villains,

We are holding a costume contest on June 9 and would be honored by your presence at 9:30pm Paris time. The contest will start at 10:00pm and will last about 90 minutes.

We have been fighting for eight years to save our way of life, but now, darkness is at the gates of our city.

Before this next fight, let us have fun in the Studio B room of Architect Entertainment in the Rikti War Zone.

There is no set theme. You will display your outfit to one of five judges: Oxia Redemption, Marco Clapano, Miss Eternity, Strangebird, and Ancolie-Love.

The judge will give you a score between one and five based on originality, style, colors, and presentation (gestures, macros, etc.). In case of a tie, we will call to the public to decide.

There will be no losers at this contest, all participants will leave at least one million influence richer! The top prizes depend on the number of participants. If we have more than 20 attend, the top prize will be one billion influence, the second prize will be 500 million influence, and the third prize will be 250 million influence. If less than 20 attend, the top prize will be 500 million influence, the second prize will be 250 million influence, and the third prize will be 125 million influence.

Please tell your friends, enemies, family, and teammates to come and participate in this contest organized by the Vigilance server.

Sincerely,
The event organizer team of the Canal.Francais.tv forum

I have to admit, as far as slaps in the face go, this one wasn't so bad.

So I've posted a couple of silly posts, I'll post a serious one.

Thanks for this, and I think it's a great idea! If you're a free/premium player who is restricted from some of what we VIPs and longer-time premium players kind of take for granted, this will probably aid greatly in your enjoyment of the game.

I hope it goes over well and has good participation rate, as I'd like to see it continue.

If you do want to play, I would suggest going to a coffee shop or somewhere that offers the kind of connecrivity you need to install the game and to upgrade any large patches. (Such as after a major issue release.) Otherwise, as mentioned above, you should be able to play CoH without too much risk of blowing your limit.

Although i would suggest setting up a warning/cutoff limit with your service providsr to make sure. Most will allow you to do that to avoid unexpectedly getting a bill for hundreds of dollars.

People would probably love me and hate me if I were a dev with any actual say-so over the game. Some of my least popular actions would probably include things like:

1) I would make almost all missions timed missions. It boggles my mind that someone is kidnapped, six months later you "rescue" them, and that's considered a success. If I had my druthers, everyone would log off with practically a clear mission board. Or else when you log back in the next day, it would be cleared for you. (With no experience or rewards, of course.)

2) There would be more things you have to figure out. It wouldn't make every mission a chess match, but there would be puzzles, riddles, and other things that keep the game from being just a button mashfest.

3) I would crack down on farming. For one thing, I would immediately reinstate the original AE rules of create a farming arc, not only does your arc get nuked, but you lose that AE slot as well. I would also constantly datamine to find out which missions/task forces/arcs are played the most and evaluate whether they're tilted too much in providing rewards without enough challenge.

4) I would make drop rates vary according to availability and price on the market. If Superior Widget enhancements are selling for a billion influence on the market, they'd start dropping like candy. If Ragweed Spore salvage is selling for 10 influence, they would hardly be dropping at all. The in-game rationale for this is simple economic supply and demand--if Superior Widgets are selling for a billion influence and I'm the company making Superior Widgets, I'm probably going to start making a lot more to sell. Likewise if I'm not making any marginal income on Ragweed Spores, it's time to choke off supply and increase my margins. The out-of-game rationale for it is to make sure the market doesn't get out of hand. Everything doesn't have to be equal, but everything should be obtainable without a massive bankroll.

5) I would revamp PvP completely in a way that a lot of people who liked the old systems would probably hate, but that would hopefully draw more players in.

Most PvP wouldn't involve your characters at all. Maybe your character models, but not your literal powersets, enhancements, etc. I would have almost all PvP work kind of like gladiator matches do now. You pick predefined and extremely balanced avatars to be your character in a PvP zone or arena match. For example, you could pick Generic Blaster A to be your avatar. Generic Blaster A has a specific powerset and enhancement profile. It could have your costume to wear so it looks like you but isn't literally you. (Well, "literally" in the sense of your in-game character.) Someone else who picks Generic Blaster A would have the exact same build-out as you. If they pick Generic Blaster B, they would have a different build-out, but they didn't get to pick the exact powersets or enhancements that are slotted for it, and it would be guaranteed to be comparable to your build-out so that both players start on an even play field.

I might retain an arena game type and/or a zone without badges or other zone events in which it's "anything goes"--players could come in with their build-outs and have at it with no suppression, diminishing returns, etc. There wouldn't be anything else in the zone, so no PvEers need concern themselves with going in there for any reason; just a big scoreboard that tallies up the defeats.

I would datamine PvP results to detect whether predefined build-outs are too powerful or not powerful enough. I would set up a cron job to run once every week or so to make minor automatic tweaks to the build-out numbers, with the possibility of making manual adjustments as bigger issues arise.

6) The good news: I would combine a lot of the different existing currency types, such as Incarnate Shards, Threads, Merit types, etc. The bad news: I would probably introduce a new currency type every issue or so. The new shinies would use the new currency type until the next issue rolls around, at which time the old currency could be used instead and yet a new currency type would be released for the next new shinies. The idea is that on day one, people would have to go out and earn the new shinies. Eventually, though, if they've built up enough currency from past missions and whatnot, they could propagate it to all of their characters at will without having to do the same thing over and over and over again.

7) Supergroup rankings wouldn't be by prestige earned. I would probably keep the exact mechanics a closely guarded secret, but it would involve some weighted score based on prestige, number of members, total base cost, total cumulative time members have been online, etc. In other words, you couldn't just farm your way up to to top slots, you'd actually have to be doing stuff.

8) I would change the LFG queue system. I don't know how exactly yet, I'd need to put more gray matter to it, but undoubtedly people who like the system as it exists now would be mad. I would put heavier emphasis on automating things to the point of pushing a "Find Me Something To Do" button and also would probably reward PUG groups more than closed groups.

9) I would put some kind of significant reward in for people who have never switch alignments. Way back when the alignment system was introduced, I pitched this heavily, calling such characters "paladins" (though unlike the D&D connotation of the word, there would be "evil paladins" as well). The thing is, right now, there is every incentive for your characters to switch sides even if it would be grossly against that character's morals, and basically no incentive other than losing a minor power for a couple of weeks. Switching alignments, in my opinion, should be very serious business, and should have consequences. I'm sorry, but I just don't think that a "redeemed" hero should be held in the same circles as a hero who has never strayed from the straight and narrow. (Or by the same token, that a "fallen" villain should be as feared and reviled as someone who has never displayed so much as a shred of goodness.)

I would institute some kind of paladin bonus system where people who stay true to their alignment perhaps have a badge or visible indicator tagged to their name or target reticle and are rewarded for it. If you stray, you permanently lose the badge and/or visual indicator as well as taking a ding in the bonus. If you switch again, your "paladin" score permanently takes a hit again. Eventually, you permanently lose any kind of bonus at all, which represents your character basically being bipolar and unable to function completely in either the world of good or evil.

Probably more stuff I haven't thought of yet, I'll post it as I can think of it...

At one point, Dell had a promotional thing going with City of Heroes. Some of their "simulated screens" had City of Villains screenshots on them, and the game was offered as part of a gaming bundle you could get with a new computer. It might be worth trying to chase that down. [Edit: I found this link on Dell's web site. I'm not sure if it's tied into that old promotion and the actual follow-through of getting it doesn't work, but there it is. Another useful (?) link. Another.]

Also, there was a blurb at one point on Apple's web site, if I recall correctly, when they worked with TransGaming to port the game to the Mac. [Edit: Here we go. Those links should maybe help you get started. It's my impression--right or wrong--that PS/NCsoft marketing relies heavily on cross-promotions like this and word-of-mouth marketing, not so much on media advertising.]

Any assignment that has to do with City of Heroes and marketing would probably be very remiss in ignoring that word-of-mouth advertising. For example, when CoH: Freedom was announced, a player posted it to Slashdot, which got attention I'm sure. Although it wasn't officially coordinated by the marketing department, it's free advertising that I'm sure they won't turn down.

Oh, and you also can't ignore Marketing's diligent efforts to get coverage by gaming sites and magazines. For example, the Mecha Armor exclusive preview on Massively. Also, the team still (?) goes to Comic-Con every year, I believe. Also, you need to mention their social media efforts, especially the Twitter feed, Facebook page, and Ustream channel.

If you really want to do a thorough job, you should really PM Zwillinger and ask if he can snag you an interview with Hosun "Black Pebble" Lee or Ross "Giant Monster" Borden. Either one of them would be marketing gold for this kind of assignment and could probably net you a sure-fire A. Zwillinger himself could probably be very informative about the online community relations ("OCR") department's social media efforts, which could probably snag you at least a C.

So yeah, even though City of Heroes doesn't do a lot of "traditional" marketing via direct ad buys, they do do marketing. And honestly, if I were your professor/teacher, tackling a project like this where there is a lot of non-traditional marketing would be much more interesting to me than another ho-hum boring paper about some multinational megacorp that plasters television and movie ads all over. If you have billions of dollars in the bank, marketing is pretty brain-dead easy. It's much more informative to look at smaller companies like Paragon Studios and NCsoft and how they try to increase their visibility and target their demographics without spending a crapton of money. After all, marketing isn't just about plastering ads all over, it's about getting a decent return on your marketing investment dollars.

Another Edit: Also, don't forget promotional efforts with Rooster Teeth (who was also a guest MA author and whose "Captain Dynamic" character is played by Ed Roberston of Barenaked Ladies fame) and with prolific author Mercedes Lackey (who also did a guest arc) and whose Secret World Chronicles books are based on characters in City of Heroes. Lots of good stuff!

Hope that helps!

Okay, 'fess up. WHO GAVE ME THE CRUD!? My throat's been bugging me all day, and now I have a runny nose. Don't mess with me--we have the CDC here in Atlanta, where they keep the SERIOUS crud...

I had a fun time as well. Honestly, I think my favorite part is meeting up with folks and hanging out. I successfully hung out with: Pollyanna Matronic and Figurehead, Hyperstrike, the Wentworths, Texas Justice and the Justice server crew (gotta create a character there), various devs and reps, and a crapton of other people.

On game night, I was a little late. Once I got there, I kind of floated around a little bit and ended up at a table playing Acquire with Andy Maurer, one of the devs, who is a number crunching machine, keeping track of counts of seven properties of five other players to win. Needless to say, I'm glad he's good at numbers.

Hey, does anyone remember that (relative) new guy's name, Rob? (I mean, his last name, of course.) And his position? He was the guy who, when a player asked about the possibility of an Android client to City of Heroes, got up, walked across the room to the microphone, leaned over, and said, "No." Speaking of which, I don't know who that guy who asked the question was, but I felt kind of bad for him. Everyone had a good laugh, but it really wasn't a dumb question. It's just something that's incredibly resource-intensive and time-consuming to do, basically developing another game from scratch. Plus, MMORPGs on mobile devices still don't quite work yet, as no one's really developed a viable interface to something as complex as City of Heroes. If you're a developer, your first thought is that this is the development equivalent of asking to move Mount Everest over a little bit, which is why the question got the reaction it did. Anyway, I talked to Rob for a while outside with Black Pebble, and he seemed like a pretty cool guy. Zwillinger introduced him in the keynote, I think, but they don't have that posted on Ustream (yet... hopefully...).

Mmm... Mai tais... Quick suggestion: If you ever come to a Player Summit, unless you just don't do alcohol, get a room at Dinah's Garden. Even if you live in the area, you're either 1) going to hate yourself for passing up the bar, or 2) NOT going to be in shape to drive anywhere.

To Zwillinger and the OCR team, I like the format of the player input panels, but I don't like ALL of the panels being that format. To me, the panels were a lot like the forums, where we provide input, and the devs say, "Okay, we'll look into that..." with an occasional follow-up (which is also true on the forums). For the players, there was the advantage of having the devs' undivided attention for a minute or two, knowing they're listening, but still, even that is very possible between panels and before and after panels. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any input panels, or even that the majority of panels shouldn't be input panels, but I would like at least one or two panels that are dev-driven instead, where they do most of the presenting.

Oh, and I'd still love the Player Summit to officially be extended. I know it would be harder on you guys, but what I'm thinking is maybe shuffling things around so that the keynote is on Friday night, and possibly starting game night earlier and make it as combo game night/meet-and-greet kind of thing, with devs/reps rotating between playing games and wandering around meeting people. (Give the devs/reps a half day off to show up on time!) Just a thought...

Here, my favorite picture I took. It's Pollyanna Matronic with a stuffed Observer and an invention cube, both (if I'm not mistaken) created by Rei.

1) I was late. Sorry about that, but I had a chance to visit the Googleplex and I absolutely could not turn that down. To my hosts (you know who you are, but I'm deliberately leaving your names out so that people won't bug you about getting on the Googleplex), THANK YOU!!! It might not seem like a big deal, but it means a lot!

2) As a beginner at Acquire, I thought I did okay. If I ever play it again, now I know what to watch for, so be afraid. Be very afraid. :-]

3) It was great to see a lot of people I met last November, and a bunch I didn't. Be sure to introduce yourself tomorrow if you want to say hi and I miss you. I'll be the guy wearing a red t-shirt with the Falcons logo on the front and #2 Ryan on the back.

4) HUGE thanks to the devs and reps for hosting the festivities tonight. Top notch job, and I had a lot of fun. Thanks to Alienware for providing the sweet workstations. Also, they often get overlooked, but huge thanks to the people working the registration desk. I recognized Katie from NCsoft from last November, but not the other two. While everyone else was playing games, they sat there patiently registering people all night and printing badges. If you get a chance tomorrow, try to let them know you appreciate them working so hard. Be sure you let Katie know that you appreciate NCsoft's continued support of City of Heroes.

I can think of only four reasons I would quit:

1) The game got so dead that no one was playing any more and the developers stopped releasing content for it. In spite of people sometimes melodramatically stating that the game is dead, it's never really be even close to that point yet. If they actually shut down the servers, I'd file that in this category.

2) If I got banned for some reason. I've done things on occasion that violate the ToS. Only for benevolent purposes, never to cheat or exploit the game; mostly stuff like pulling out pixel-perfect graphics. Hopefully if I ever do anything they think crosses the line, they'd call or otherwise contact me. If they just unilaterally decided to kill off my access, I'd probably contact them and basically ask, "What the hell?" If we couldn't come to some kind of resolution, I wouldn't bother trying to create another account or anything, I'd just move on.

3) In a similar vein, if the Paragon Studios or NCsoft marketing and/or legal department did anything to try to shut down part or all of the Titan Network, I'd head for warmer waters. It was pointed out to me recently that they changed the ToS sometime around when CoH: Freedom launched. It used to explicitly state: "NC Interactive and its related Game Content Providers grant to Members the right to use the Game Content for noncommercial, personal purposes, including in connection with creating noncommercial fan fiction or fan web sites regarding the same." (section 6b)

This text was expunged from the ToS, and now it only says, "NCsoft hereby grants You a revocable, non-exclusive, license for personal and non-commercial use of Service, Content and Software that is non-transferable except as permitted [in the case of an adult registering for a minor]." (section 2c) I'm assuming that covers fan sites, but I sure felt more comfortable when they were explicitly allowed.

4) If I lost my job or got so financially strapped that I couldn't play any more, I'd have to drop it. I'd probably try to stay a premium player if possible.

----------------------------------------

Here's why I WOULDN'T quit, though: I can't imagine any kind of change in content or mechanics that would provoke me into leaving. I suppose it's possible, but geez, I'm not that hardcore a gamer. I also realize that there will never be a time when 100% of the game will be custom-tailored to appeal to me. They'd have to REALLY screw it up in a monumentally epic kind of way, I mean, to the point where it's unplayable. And no, "I can't/choose not to get that shiny!" is not monumentally epic.