Fansy Returns!

I have no side.

Were that true, your position would be far more neutral.

In that case, considering all the damage it has caused that could have been avoided with honesty, that's some great PR.

Except why did NCSoft resort to PR-speak? Why no clarity?

And the idea that we need to parse it from PR-speak proves that, for all the claims to the contrary, NCSoft hasn't said why they closed the game and fired everyone with no notice and no indications that changes were necessary, and those who say "we know why they closed it" are saying "well, I've got some speculation about why they closed it and I'm presenting it as fact.

No matter how they said it, players would be upset. Also, it could just be habit.

Maybe they're planning to make a CoH2 with a new engine, and much more likely to be popular in Western and Asian markets (Of course, I'm in the belief CoH wasn't popular in the Asian market due to game mechanics and not because of genre).

Damn not using those terms was brought up at the last "Legion of Doom (TM)" meeting and we tabled the idea, they were just too descriptive.

Brillig accused me of discourse. I cited an example of discourse that has been used by all of you numerous times. Brillig did not deny it. You responded with sarcasm, which is also not denying it.

Legion of Doom (TM) PR fail.

Habit? If there's any company that should have PLENTY experience with how players react to having their game closed, it's NCsoft.

Liar liar, Nemesis on fire!

Repeated again, since you apparently missed it the first time.

Were it true that you have no side, your position would be far more neutral.

Not being on a side doesn't equate to neutrality.

To elaborate - I'm against people making stuff up and calling it truth. I'm against people playing telephone and getting the message wrong. 90% of which is coming from saveCoH. If you've actually been following along, I've called out people who you would consider 'anti-save CoH' when they were wrong too.

There's upset, and there's upset and confused because there's no reason for the upset.

If they were planning to make a CoH2 with a new engine, why (a) refuse the old Dev team the right to create a CoH2 and (b) why fire the people who know the IP best?

I don't think anyone thinks there's any CoH2 in the works. It's pretty well established that Paragon tried to get a CoH2 off the ground several times and NCSoft wasn't interested.

And here we are in complete agreement.

There may be more things coming from SaveCoH overall that cannot be proven. They also cannot be proven false. We have the iron curtain of business to thank for both of those.

On the other side of the coin, the main argument is, "CoH WILL NOT be saved, ever." And the reason given for that seems to be, "SaveCoH is crazy." We can already speculate there is a slight chance of CoH returning, because NCsoft does not seem to want to let go of the IP. That right there already signifies a chance, even if it is only 1%. The most I've been trying to achieve is a stalemate here. I have NOT been trying to convert anyone to believe CoH will be saved. The most I've wanted is for everyone to be open to the possibility. Zealotry towards either side of the scale is equally unreasonable.

But when someone comes to the forums and posts information, the most that can be said about it is, "It may be a lie." Even if every single thing that has been said during SaveCoH was a lie, that still wouldn't mean much. Because we're still left guessing at what is going on in the minds of NCsoft.

And on your final statement about not being with Anti-SaveCoH, fair enough. I apologize.

Though since A_F was kind enough to disclose it, maybe it should henceforth be referred to as the Legion of Doom (TM). 8)

I participated in the Incarnate content. You wouldn't find me, or the other players with Incarnated characters I ran with, in the iTrials though. We hung out in Dark Astroia where we could actually have fun with the Incarnate stuff our way and not the not so fun (for us) iTrial way.

I'm fairly sure that we weren't alone in that either. So, you might want to think about the logic (or lack there of) in that argument and try again.

In English what he is saying is if you were neutral and impartial you would agree with everything the people he identifies with are saying. Since you don't you are the antichrist.

Dark Astoria always had a few people just not very many.

No. Neutral and impartial means not taking a side. In other words, it means not saying "Those who speak words of weal must be prophets, and surely this is the Great Resurgence that was fortold! The game be truly saved!", but also not saying "All those Titan people are, at best, foolish daydreamers, and, at worst, completely insane! Ignore everything they say!"

Both sides are extreme. Neither one is "neutral".

There is only one side. There is no "Legion of Doom" that has supersecret message boards where they gather and plan. There are just random people that are looking at what the Titan people are saying and their reply is "Go on pull the other one"

Well if there is they DIDN'T INVITE MEEEEEEEEEEEEE !!!! WAHHH

That's fine. Thanks for cleaning it up, GG!

Tony,

While I respect your experience and the many things you have done and tried to do for the community over the years, you are not entirely correct in this case. The specific example that you gave is false for the majority of programs out there that able to open and edit Word Documents. Wait, let me clarify. LEGAL programs that do so. In order to view and edit Office Documents, you use an API provided by Microsoft. Depending on what your project is, and how it is going to be used, you may or may not have to pay a license fee for said use. That is the legal way to do it, and if you have a commercial project in particular, not doing so is liable to get you in trouble with Microsoft (yes, am am aware that getting in trouble with Microsoft is not the same thing as being illegal). I know this first-hand, and was personally involved in the process. The company that I work for had created an interface that utilized a combination of third party utilities and our own reverse engineering to create something that would work with the files. We were told in no uncertain terms that we would be fined if we continued doing it without the use of the Microsoft API. Now, we didn't have to pay anything extra for it, mainly because of our numerous other contracts with Microsoft, but that doesn't change anything.

Are there programs out there that have reverse engineered things from Microsoft and NOT gotten in trouble? Yes. Is reverse engineering itself completely illegal? no. It is the results of what you use the reverse engineering that gets you in trouble. If you can reverse engineer the files to figure out HOW they work, and then you write something that accomplishes the same task WITHOUT duplicating how they did it, then you are generally safe. If you re-use anything that you learned from the reverse engineering (something that is NOT public domain as an example), then you are liable. It still violates copyright/trademark law. Or rather, it COULD. Since I don't know anything about the code being used on the server or client side of CoH, I have no way of knowing whether they have proprietary functions that could cause a problem.

As I said, it is not inherantly illegal to reverse engineer, and you are correct in that. The problem is, reverse engineering, and basing your work on things you learned from that reverse engineering CAN violate license agreements, and lead to civil repercussions. Large firms in particular are very interested in enforcing their IP. IP doesn't just mean things like the ideas behind characters in a game and things like that. If they found a novel way of accomplishing something within the code, that counts as IP as well.

Specific to Plan Z (or rather the group wanting to reverse engineer the servers), I couldn't say for sure whether they are on shaky ground or not with the reverse engineering. I'm not involved with the project, and don't know how much of their work is derived from proprietary information gained through the reverse engineering process. It could all be completely legal. My two problems with the whole thing are, firstly, I don't believe that the majority of the people involved in the reverse engineering project are honestly not planning on just re-using what they find. Based on how they present themselves and what they are doing, it would definitely put them in a bad light if it DID come to legal proceedings. The second problem I have is that you, as well as some others supposedly involved with the reverse engineering group, coming here and just saying that reverse engineering is not illegal. That is categorically untrue. Yes, there are lots of circumstances that CAN make it legal, but a blanket statement saying that it is legal, is just asking for trouble.

Again, I am not personally involved. I can't say for sure one way or the other. People can believe me or not. All I can say is that I have extensive experience in this particular area, and I am not personally vested in either position in regards to Plan Z or the reverse engineering people.

Just FYI Plan Z isn't about reverse engineering the servers. Plan Z is a group of people attempting to create a spiritual successor to CoH (not a CoH clone, nor a copy with just new names to same faces and places). But a new game which is to attempt to have the same feel for what made CoH fun to play and building from there. It may have a few "head nods" toward CoH which are rather like Easter Eggs for us fans of this game and its lore but that's about it.

I have no idea bout the reverse engineering thing other than whats been posted on the titan forums. It seems the intent is not to create an emulator but as a way of obtaining and providing code. The question is, if the code is put out there, what would come of it?

Now if it's saved and say NCSoft does decide to sell at some point, and for some reason there's a need for additional data - Titan could readily provide it to the purchaser in order to ease restarting the game. At least that would be the "best intentions" part I can think of. Whether or not a purchaser would trust or for fear of legal issues, can accept such information is another matter.

Hence the reason that I specified "or rather the group wanting to reverse engineer the servers". I am aware of what Plan Z is, and that officially it is not directly related to the reverse engineering project. My point didn't need to be specific to Plan Z OR the reverse engineering of the server code. I was making a point about the statements being made regarding the legality of reverse engineering in the first place.

To be honest though, I suppose if someone out there believes that fair use allows them to reverse engineer anything they want, then what I have to say on the subject isn't likely to deter them anyway. I don't truly care one way or the other, as it doesn't directly affect me anyway. Just making an observation and giving my personal experience with the subject.

I tend to think that especially in this particular case, Tony was responding more on an emotional level and may have just used the wrong tone (speaking almost in absolutes rather than acknowledging the alternatives). Easy to do when things are so charged up. I tend to give Tony the benefit of the doubt in most cases. He is probably fully aware of the points I made. He may or may not AGREE with them, but I thought it only fair to bring up an alternate point of view.

umm... mistake them for you?

Right alongside yours?
Oh, sure, I'm in the mud, too. But I'm not CLAIMING any high ground......