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City of Heroes: Homecoming Releases Beta Patch - MMORPG.com
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City of Heroes: Homecoming Releases Beta Patch - MMORPG.com
City of Heroes released a beta patch containing bug fixes, 64-bit Mac client updates, Powers, and more.
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Funny how this is a thing. It was disturbing to see at first. Now ragdoll physics is one of the selling points of the game.
Now what rights the people who bought the game have - different question.
I self identify as a monkey.
The Homecoming Team are in talks with NCsoft as we speak. The genie is completely out of the bottle regarding City of Heroes/Villains private servers- there is no going back at this point.
So what about the software that many people had purchased?
Some examples:
Wal-mart used to sell music electronically. They closed down the service. Should the people who bought songs have been allowed to carry on listening to them? I could tell you what Wal-mart did but that is a side issue. Steve Jobs himself though raised the question: Who would own his Apple songs after his death?.
Lowe's used to sell smart lights. After several years of selling them they decided last year to give up and shut down there servers - just like NCSoft did. Without the servers the lighting no longer works. I can tell you what Lowe's did but - as above - its a side issue.
There are others. Here is a legal decision though:
It was brought as a result of a coalition of major European companies that used business software: database software, supply logistics s/w, HR, Payroll software etc. Seriously expensive, business critical software. They were concerned about the ToS and EULA stuff and what would happen if the software companies supplying the software "switched off support". Software these companies relied on. If you get paid by a company - wages, a pension, for invoices if you run a business - they all involve business software. So questions they wanted legal answers on:
- Would it be illegal for them to carry on using the software they had paid for?
- Could they support it themselves?
And they got the EU Supreme court to take it up. And (in simply terms) the ruling was that software should be treated as a product; the companies had bought / been sold the product and they could legally carry on using it if the support was switched off.
Its not the only ruling but it was a major one. There are others that concern software that was sold but is no longer supported.
Which contradicts your answer btw.
There is no dispute that NCSoft - clearly - still own the IP. And if Homecoming LLC were making money there would be a clear case. They are not though. Its a non-profit.
You are also - I suggest - failing to consider the wider ramifications. CoH may be an old game but legal precedent outlives the cases that make it. Increasingly a lot of stuff is starting to rely on software. I gave some examples but take cars. Tesla is well known for pushing out software updates but they are not the only company that has been pushing out updates its been happening for years - usually during services.
More and more hardware is starting to have a software side. And over the next few years its going to become more common still. Phones, tablets, smart speakers, .... music, books ... the list grows.
NCSoft stopped supporting CoH. What if some other company stops supporting your using / listening / reading device .... you would stop using it right away would you? And that would be OK?
Now, if Homecoming or one of the others started running for-profit, pretty sure that might breach even the Korean gaming laws, but I do not know them well enough to say that with any absolute belief.
As it stands though, it's a little tenuous, but not actually illegal.
When you buy an MMORPG you do not have any rights. That has always been the risk with an Online only game.
An Online game can be and will be shut down at any time and there is nothing you can do about it!
No matter how you look at it, Homecoming is an illegal entity, infringing the copyrights of NCSoft. Period!
The only reason the Homecoming servers have not been served with a C&D order, is that some disgruntled a-hole dev stole the COH source code and dumped it on the internet.
So NCSoft is basically being blackmailed at the moment, where a C&D order is no longer effective, since anyone can pop up a new server anywhere.
Do you work for, or are invested in a company that publishes MMOs? Why would you care this much about keeping other people from their fun?
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
The server code they are using was illegally obtained... They may have modified/updated it but still not 100% their work it would be a grey area legally if the server side was 100% their own code but its not. The only project going that would be legal is SEGS.
This has nothing to do with keeping people away from their fun!
Piracy is piracy! IP theft is IP theft! Using illegally obtained source code is illegal!
No matter how you try to twist it. Its ridiculous that NCSoft gets painted as the bad guys here, while all they do is trying to protect their IP, which was stolen and thrown out in the open!
We are talking about the server side code that was given to Leo by a Developer just after the official servers closed down that is the code that SCORE is using to run the servers. The code is owned by NCSoft and they illegally obtained that code, technically the client is also legally owned by NCSoft not us what we purchased was access to the game while it was live.
Also there is a ton of custom stuff on the homecoming servers and changes to drop rates etc... go look at the original patch notes Leo published. here is a link https://docs.google.com/document/d/11cLJiSYlfueJheOumRywG8Evip2Mjmu_30Y6ePaetqY/edit
Companies have rights, especially in countries where software has been defined as a product which means they can fall back on a whole body of product law. And for their products they want maximum protection.
But consumers that buy products have rights as well.
And heres the rub:
When a company buys a product from another company they are a consumer. And - guess what - they want maximum protection for their purchase!
Summary: as a product owner companies want maximum protection; when they purchase another companies product they want maximum protection!
I suggest its this point that you forgot about. And if you were to use a card to pay for something, turn up to catch a flight, expect a time critical delivery .... well the list is long and X stops because someone pulls the plug .... ? Which is why companies - as consumers - want maximum protection because it is their brand name that is likely to suffer.
In this case:
When people bought CoH from NCSoft they purchased the right to use the IP (and the server code). Purchased. Did not steal. NCSoft sold them the rights.
When people paid a subscription to NCSoft they paid NCSoft for the service "running the servers". NCSoft made 2 different sales. NCSoft sold them a service.
When NCSoft stopped running the service, in some countries at least, that did not invalidate the purchase. (I don't think the issue has been resolved everywhere yet.)
Could NCSoft and other companies put warnings on such products: "time limited" services; possible time extensions but these may or may not happen? Sure. Would that impact sales? Almost certainly? Do companies punt problems down the road? Absolutely. And are still doing so.
One development however is GaaS.
A big attractions is that its absolutely clear that there is no "product" purchase involved just a "service" purchase.
We are not totally bought into this yet. And if developers spend X on making a new game then they may stillseem to expect to bank on getting Y in "box sales". When its all about the service its all about the number of subscribers - different business model. And currently GaaS seems twixt and between. It is an answer though.
Edit: and remember that whilst this thread is about CoH the implications extended to e.g business software purchased by companies from other companies. No surprise selling "services" is popular on the one hand just not when it might curtail sales.
Custom stuff like changing drop rates, etc doesn't change the fact its running NCSofts source code on the bottom and NCSofts art and IP assets in the game!
People seem to think Homecoming is an EMU, like for example the SWGEMU project, etc.
EMU projects like SWG require you to own and install the original game client and then connect to a EMU server, which is entirely made up of own code based on reverse engineering estimates to guess how the server works and trying to emulate it.
As long as the EMU servers don't host actual client downloads, they are not doing anything illegal and hence why they can get away with it.
Especially since pretty much all EMU projects are a buggy, barely functioning mess! SWGEMU is still a hot mess today and I gave up on it.
Homecoming is running stolen source code and practically running a fully functioning game server on NCSoft's codebase!
This is illegal, no matter how people try to spin it here. End of story!
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Lets talk about the ‘illegal’ servers. Are they breaking the law right now? Technically no. Until NCsoft steps in defend their IP, the private server operators can do anything they want.
Copyright law is written to protect the owners of the copyright for as long as they care about their product. It does have a loophole, in that if the IP is not defended there is no law broken, and after 7 years (US; unsure about South Korea) the IP can be claimed by someone else. This 7 years starts from when the use of the IP by anyone other than the owner is known by the public. The time when the servers were working ‘underground’ does not count, since this was not known to the public. Basically the 7 years (US law; as I said I am unsure about Korean law) started this March. The actual IP, if it is not acted on by owner or ‘pirate’, is protected for a very long time, I believe it is 35 years.
If NCsoft chooses to defend their IP, then all of the private servers will instantly be on the wrong side of the law. But this does not happen until the IP owner acts.
I believe that NCsoft wrote off the value of the CoX game for tax purposes while the game was still turning a profit to maximize its value. In the US, a tax writeoff is spread over 14 years. I am unsure how Korean law works in this, but lets assume it is 7 years. Assuming the first write off year was 2013, the seventh year will be this year, 2019. So at the end of this year, the CoH game will be completely written off for tax purposes (again, I don’t know Korean law; this is an assumption). At this point in time, they may be wary of defending the IP because it may affect their writeoff (why are they defending a property that has in effect, no value?). But, once the value is written down, they would still be the owners of the IP and could defend their property without worrying about the writeoff.
They may very well have gotten an over-inflated value of the game in the order of $50,000,000 USD. That would be a SEVEN MILLION DOLLAR per year write off. That is a LOT of money, even to a large corporation like NCsoft. When you look at it that way, it is easy to see why they did not sell to Paragon Studios or the Titan Network. They got a lot more value from the writeoff. My bet is that once NCsoft files their taxes next year, we will find out what is really going on.
So I bet that the first or second week of January, the IP will be sold to another game company or the C&D letters will start flying.
The world is going to the dogs, which is just how I planned it!
They also require people connecting to these to buy and pay for the original game client to be able to connect to it.
Homecoming servers are running on "stolen" source code from NCSoft. THAT is illegal!
Homecoming is not an EMU and not running a reverse engineered emulator!
Their download installer contains the entire game client, so anyone can just download, install it and practically play the original CoH without paying a single dime!
On the other hand, SWGEMU only hosts the emulator and their client launcher requires you to own the SWG game client yourself and have it pre-installed!
This is that "grey" area and why some EMU projects are getting away with it. In SWGEMU's case, SWG was long gone and SOE had lost the SW license... so they could care less at that moment.
Blizzard long closed one eye to some of the Private servers, because they were swimming in an ocean of money for a long time with 10+ mil subs.
But when sub numbers started plummeting, they reversed course and started to more aggressively hunt down private servers.
Or have you already forgotten about the dramatic take down that famous WoW private server a couple years ago?
The whole uproar that it created actually pushed Blizzard to start the idea of WoW Classic servers and why its finally happening end this month.