Well, you wanted the City of Heroes private server code, and you got it.
"It was uploaded onto Discord by someone we don't know," a Discord source told me. "There were 300 people there, and the files have spread like wildfire. It's not the character file. It also doesn't contain the mission files or NPCs, but it's a big piece of the puzzle for reverse engineering the game that no one but Leo had before."
It's all part of the story we've been following all week. Information about a secret City of Heroes server was leaked online and the community demanded that its purveyors disperse the code to all, not just a few. Last night, it became clear that was a real and possible solution to the drama unfolding.
Ahead of the drop of the files, we spoke to the anonymous Discord participants who were apparently given the code to clean up and roll out to the public. Here's what they had to say.
MassivelyOP: Do multiple people have access to all files so that they can be hosted independently by different people? Or is this one of those cases where everyone receives a different file and only the combined power of all can a server be run? Are all of these files accessible to everyone? Or is it going to be passed only to specific person or people vetted to run a community server?
Everyone will have access. This seems to be the most satisfying way. We aren't going to make a server. It's up for the community to use it as they wish. That seems to match Leo's wish.
As for the characters, the person holding the code does not have them. Leo still does. It's just the server code as far as we know. I don't want Leo to speak for me, but I think he wants to give it back to you in a way that ensures that we get our characters and not those belonging to others. At this point, he's not involved in any way. I assume that anything regarding the character info will be dealt with at a later date! The character database is not available to us.
What is being done to ensure that the code remains with community members in some way for the foreseeable future? For example, what happens if everyone who owns a copy is struck by a bus.
Not a lot of information immediately. [The person who received last night's code] was just a random dude.
What happens to the SCORE server itself, the people who work on it, and their characters? Is it over?
How are people protecting themselves from legal action beyond the Great Scrubbening?
He scrubbed the scrubbening. We don't know. It's really terrifying to be honest. Either way, it should be clear: We are operating independently from Leo. Nothing we say should be construed as an official message from Leo in any way. Dude has already dealt with enough hardship.
We'd like to thank our sources for their candor. To be clear, we are not encouraging illegal activity and advise everyone involved to consider their actions carefully.
On characters: "I am getting lots of pushback about releasing [the character database] both in and out of SCORE because players don't want 'their' characters to be available to anybody. So I'm putting that release on hold until the dust settles and the community at large can come to a decision."
On servers: "Piggs will not be there because server runs slower if it has piggs; however, all the data files which WOULD go into Piggs will still be there. [...] All servers I set up will use the same binaries as SCORE, which is internally called Issue 25: Unbroken spirit. This is simply because it will be the fastest to deploy, since it already has tools for account creation, all the microtransaction garbage like the Paragon Rewards tree removed, and many other optimizations. I am sure there will be a lot of complaints about it not being a "pure" release that will want a lot of changes stripped. Have patience. It will take you longer to set up your server if you have to rollback your repositories back to early 2013. Also, I need to find a version which is compatible with the server and doesn't have any gaps in content. I don’t think such a version even exists. This was a massive reverse engineering effort that took many months to produce something usable." [Thanks Sean!] Update, April 18, night Last update from us tonight: Leandro notified us that folks are getting very close to getting a preliminary server online. It's possible that it will happen within the next few minutes. Gonna be honest, I'd love to be there to watch it, but I rather desperately need to sleep before I fall over, so instead, if you're up and want to see some weird history, you can go watch it yourself in the #build-compile-discussion channel on the CoH Discord. Update, April 19, 2019, morning We have updated the article on "unicorn", adding a short summary of our conversation about NCsoft. Serverlist101 (No matter your beliefs, please stop harassing the person.
Reddit and Titan Network forums have information about the ongoing work on various projects. Updated: April 19, 19:00 p.m. We've posted the promised Lawful Neutral column regarding legalities in playing on rogue websites. Once again, we cannot advise doing anything illegal. Updated April 19, afternoon: A Discord player informed us that there was a screengrab from an "article" which superficially appears to be from Massively OP. It purportedly reports that NCsoft is investigating the private servers. The article is a fake, even though we know NCsoft is aware. We did not publish that article, and I'm guessing our regulars can easily spot the formatting and prose errors that mark it out as such.
Public Discord chats indicate that work is ongoing to create an initial server. We can't link directly, but we are confident you will find what you need on Reddit. :) Update, April 20, evening The test server is live! With a highly silly name!
It's not mine and I'm certainly not running the server. They are just playing with us. It was sent to me by a lovely lady. :)
We cannot recommend doing anything illegal again. And yes, this stage is going to get harder and more difficult for us to cover. But it's not because of our inability to do so. Please understand. You can find information about the server on Reddit and Discord.
Are you still a little confused? You're not alone.