CITY OF HEROES secret server revealed

"A Secret Server for the Dead MMO 'City of Heroes' Has Players in an Uproar

In 2012, Paragon Studios announced it was shutting down City of Heroes, massively multiplayer online game where a community of players created their own superheroes, went on adventures together, and formed lasting friendships.

The news was crushing to the game's devoted community because they could no longer play and hang out in the virtual space they loved, and today, years after the game's shutdown, the community is in an uproar again. As *********** first reported, a group of City of Heroes players called the Secret Cabal of Reverse Engineers (SCORE) had created their own, private server where they could continue to play the game for the last six years, but kept it relatively secret.

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Click the link for the entire story.

Everybody deals with loss in his or her own way. Everyone grieves when things they love are left behind, and I have sympathy for that.

But comparing the shutdown of a video game to the destruction of the Nortre Dame Cathedral is beyond the pale.

Gamers take their games too seriously.

Film at 11.

I do cut a little bit of slack for MMO players in that regard, because even when you set aside any financial components players tend to invest a lot of time, effort and even themselves in their characters and the game they play. And when you add in how the shutdown of CoX was handled, that's probably going to leave those players' feelings a bit more raw than in most situations.

As for that whole saga, I've been following the story as it's been unfolding on ***********. And going back to player investment in the game/their characters, I think that super secret server was probably one of the worst ways they could have handled the whole thing. I can understand the reasons behind why they did it that way, but they had to know that word would eventually get out and that it would blow up in their faces when it did because of how much those players loved the game. And their attempts at spin after it came to light didn't exactly help matters for them, either.

It's fair of people to call out the person who leaked the info for how they handled it. But the creators of that secret server deservedly need to be called out for how they handled things as well. There's a question of how ignorant they may have been (willfully ignorant or otherwise), but they made the bed they now have to lie in.

Very interested in this. I never got to play CoX, but I hear it is the best superhero mmo ever made.

I first saw this on Reddit and then read the article. Crazy stuff.

when can I play again?

There may cone a day when digital art is considered as important as physical art.

There is a test server available to access; however, it has been difficult getting in because so many people want to play the game again. I have also heard that there is another live server available; I am not sure how true that is, though. You can find out how to access the COH test server on Youtube.

This is an *ON FIRE!* topic in Champions Online, since many former COH players have landed there. It will be interesting to see what happens when more and more people spend time on the COH servers than on CO.

There was a secret server of this game right under my nose all this time?

I feel so cheated!

^^^ Villains Win - Flawless Victory

That's pretty much the reason for most of the uproar. Quite a few people who loved the game and would have loved playing on that server even more didn't know. What didn't help is that there were rumors going around about it for a while, but they kept getting denied, at times by the very people who were running/allowing access to that secret server.

Something kind of like this happened with 'Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning' after it officially shutdown in 2013. A couple of years later, an unofficial EMU of the game was running, apparently with no access to any of its old code or source logic, and recreated from old server packet logs, etc. As a former player of the original game, I found out about it year or two ago. It's a good recreation and I'd recommend it to any other former players - search for Return of Reckoning.

It's an open secret, and their website encourages people to sign back up and build the population up again. AFAIK the Return of Reckoning people aren't breaking the law, or if they are then Games Workshop and Mythic show no sign of wanting to stop them - unlike the original creators of City of Heroes who apparently aren't shy about taking legal action for that sort of thing.

I don't blame the (re)creators of RoR, and I don't blame the recreators of CoX either - especially if the holding company of that game is as trigger-happy with lawsuits as they're reputed to be.

WARRRRRRR, online AoR, that was my first mmo. Learned what a Zerg was. It was fun.
I don't see harm in free to use, dead mmo. Some buddies got me onto DAOC's free server for a few weeks years ago. I felt like tourist and it was educational.... i guess. Stories like this makes me consider momentarily.... why has there not been a WOW 2.0? [fyi, I played WOW for maybe 1 week, long after it launched. ("WAR online, AoR was my first mmo")]

meh, merely the thought of being sued over IP, intending to shutdown of said server, tends to hold significant dread over participating more than a few days on a living-dead/zombie mmo server. I considered trying the zombie WO:AoR server, but remembered the lack of balance, the bugs, and the zergs.... nostalgia is one thing, but memory is something else. .....old polygons and textures.

And, as everyone with a clue's expected, NCSoft noticed, and the test server's down. If you head over to the Discord, you'll see a whole lot of swearing.

Fortunately no. A troll noticed and decided it would be fun to pretend to be from NC, freaking out the server provider and causing them to wipe the server.
This caused more trolls to jump on the Discord and stir the pot more.

There is optimism, not sure why. Just a big ball of rumors. Many are stating the server will be up the 27th, others are saying a CoH 2 is in the works for 2020, while some are doom and gloom threaten the lives of devs.

On a brighter note; it was very refreshing to see a variety of skin options for your superhero in-game. Since the game came out in 2004, you would think every superhero mmo would have done this by now

you would be truly amazed at the breadth depth and complexity of the city games...the ONLY thing this game does better is looks...and only then because DCUO is a newer game graphics wise...if city of 2.0 is ever put out and its as well made as the first they would have a huge hit

So, is it safe to download the game and play it?

I'm not completely sure. There are still articles popping up and apparently the secret server guys (I think it's them) have started to release some of/all the code they have for others to work with. There's also been talk of working out some kind or arrangement with NCSoft but nothing solid that I know of.