[diddly]

Easter is a time of rebirth, and this year something unexpected happened.  A secret stash of server code from that MMO of long ago, City of Heroes, was leaked onto the internet.  Yeah it didn't compile, and there was no database, but talented coders leapt upon it and started hacking away.

I watched on Discord while they jumped hurdle after hurdle to get this thing, this gift, running.  In about two days, they got it working and a test server live.  People were able to log into City of Heroes and play again!

It's still rather rough, and the repaired source code is not yet available, but it's pretty exciting to see the squeals of joy from people when they rebuild their old heroes and start doing missions.

[Update] The running source code is available now on gitlab

[diddly]

These screenshots were taken by me TODAY, and yes those are other players in the game.

Instructions on how to join are here

[diddly]

Success!  Was able to run my own server, play a random character through the tutorial (Outbreak) and raise up to level 4 (so far) running around killing thugs.  missions seem to work fine.  Everything is pretty much as a I remember (except for small changes that were made since I stopped playing).