City of Heroes (second series) #1

[ozaline]

Comments

[matrix_dragon]

Honestly, the early issues of this comic never felt like CoH to me. Too bitter. But seeing it today, as the game returns from beyond like a self-rez? Glorious :)

[cainofdreaming]

Wait... CoH is coming back? Well, Hurrah! if it's so.

[ozaline]

There was a secret private server, that was working on developing stuff in secret. Now it's not secret, and they're doing stress tests leading to them dumping the info. They also have your characters, (not your billing info, don't worry about that, they only have what was stored on the game servers).

Apparently they will have a way for you to claim your character info.

[matrix_dragon]

OKAY! So, story time.

Ever since NCSoft brought the old servers down, there have been stories. Rumors of a secret, hidden server. It's come up a few times, and always been relatively discredited. Turned out to be attempts to reverse engineer the game, or creations like Icon and Paragon Chat, which offered the chance to walk around the world, but lacked the enemies, powers, missions and so on.

Then, earlier this week, someone popped up on Youtube with videos of the secret server in action, with proof it was filmed in 2018. Some of the claims in the video are a bit disturbing, but that's because the leaker strikes me as one of those people that lurk in the dark corners of Youtube... ANYWAYS. Back in 2013, or maybe even before the servers went down, a fellow by the name of Leandro got his hands on the full server code, along with all the character files. He's not saying how, and given that revealing that would target one of the old Paragon Studios crew, I can't exactly blame him. The big thing is, that while trying to reverse engineer the code to the point enough of it was new that NCSoft couldn't do much, he was also running a secret, invite-only server. Some of those previous leaks were legit.

Leo claims it was to keep things secret and safe while he worked on it. Other people claim otherwise. There are harsh words and drama being thrown in all directions. Leo spoke with a number of other people that've been trying to rebuild... and late last night, he put the server files up on the CoH Discord. Not the character data, but the game proper

All hell broke loose as a swarm of rabid geeks swarmed over the code. Earlier today, there was a test server up and running. It goes down a lot, and is more stress testing than anything else... but earlier today, I rerolled Purrfect Archer, my main for so long, and stepped into Outbreak again.

City of Heroes Lives.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cityofheroes/comments/bf462j/a_guide_for_preparing_to_join_the_public_server/

[cainofdreaming]

Okay, I googled that a bit and didn't look like they'd gotten an okay from NCSoft. I'm kinda cautious with getting my hopes up since they've been kinda cease and desist happy in the past.

Found out that a "spiritual successor" to CoH is coming out in the fall while looking into this. Ship of Heroes. Cautiously optimistic about that.

[ozaline]

Ship looks pretty good, and and SEGS is making great strides on reverse engineering the game which would be a lot harder to stop legally. But I think it'll be hard for NCsoft to squash this already, but yeah, we'll see.

[matrix_dragon]

Oh, NCSoft is totally gonna come out swinging over this in the near future. Their past behavior concerning CoH supports that. But at this point, it's out in the world, and they're gonna have a hard time containing it. There are already people looking into what it would take for smaller, private servers.

[lordultimus]

There's also City of Titans.

[dewinged]

There's also City of Titans.

True, but this actually exists.

[arilou_skiff]

Servers are currently about as a stable as a one-legged bulldog, but I did manage to log in an run around Atlas Park a bit. Feels amazing.

[matrix_dragon]

"Chewie, we're home."

[ozaline]

I did the first door mission. It runs pretty well for me until it crashes. But that's okay, it's just a temporary test.

[arilou_skiff]

The server on the 27th will be I25, not I24.

[ozaline]

Since the code is online, even if this one is shit down others will take it's place. However I also think they would have acted by now 8f they were going too.

[arilou_skiff]

Eh, it mostly blew up over the holidays. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to shut it down in a bit.

[ozaline]

Fair enough, I was wrong. I heard something that alleviated that fear, but yep it's down.

[ozaline]

Okay legal action was a hoax there is a new server up, as well as talks for a lixensed community run server.

[ozaline]

I kinda think the fact that his arc is about bringing the heroes back makes it fitting.

[alicemacher]

Is Sister Psyche's mind a merger of two once separate individuals, like Rebis or Firestorm? Or does she have dissassociative identity disorder, like Crazy Jane? Or neither of the above?

[ozaline]

It's mostly the former, but in a way both? Neither? It's a tad complicated. (but it of course doesn't represent actual Dissociation).

https://hero.fandom.com/wiki/Sister_Psyche%27

During the 1970s Sister psyche' was mortally injured in the line of duty. She was taken to the hospital but though the doctors explained they could heal most of the damage they could not stop her from going brain-dead within hours from the damage. Psyche' had a technique she was perfecting called Mind Riding that would actually allow her to leave her body by possessing someone else however since she had not had a chance to perfect it she could not use it for any extended period on normal humans. Fortunately a young girl called Aurora came forward saying she had come to the hospital to see Sister Psyche' whom she considered her idol because she too was born a psychic. Aurora volunteered to let Sister Psyche' possess her while her body healed. Most of the damage to Shalice's body was able to be repaired except for the brain damage, it would be a few decades before medical technology would advance to a point where it could be repaired. Much to everyone's surprise Shalice's body appeared not to age as an odd side effect of her Mind Riding technique. Psyche' spent her time as Aurora fighting lesser crimes so as not to risk Aurora's health, Psyche' also made certain to keep Aurora conscious of what was going on and routinely shifted control back to her so as not to over complicate her social life any more than was necessary from the odd arrangement.

By the 90s surgical techniques had advanced to the point where Shalice's brain could be repaired and upon success of the operation Shalice finally returned to her own body. As thanks to Aurora, Sister Psyche' took her under her wing as her sidekick and taught Aurora all she could about controlling and expanding her powers and soon Aurora took up the mantle Aurora Borealis. There was a side-effect to the years spent in Aurora's brain however, Aurora's mind had imprinted itself on Shalice this left Shalice with a psychic double of Aurora in her head which occasionally seized control of her mind and left Shalice arguing with herself about virtually every decision she made. To prevent herself from going mad Shalice used her powers to create a psychic wall sealing the imprint of Aurora away in an inert corner of her subconscious granting her peace of mind once again. In the coming years Shalice and Aurora became inseparable, each was the maid of honor at the other's wedding and when fighting together Sister Psyche' and Aurora-Borealis were considered the world's most powerful psychic force. Though Sister Psyche's tried to keep Aurora Borealis out of more dangerous missions Aurora often insisted upon coming anyway saying they were more powerful as a combined mental-force than separate psychics.

[alicemacher]

I see. Thank you. So what we have in this story, if I'm understanding this correctly, is Lord Recluse and his group shattering that psychic wall as an effect of his assault on the heroes.

[ozaline]

Right.