Discussion A thought

Read the clue. Decide yes/no if you want to read_more

  • Yes, continue :)

    Votes: 14 77.8%
  • No thanks :)

    Votes: 4 22.2%

  • Total voters
    18
S

Shamus The Brute

I suffer. I suffer from a thought. I suffer from a thought which has existed for a long time.

Nevermind the thought - my friend. :) (As promised, I won't push the thought further until enough time has surpassed to where I may be proven wrong). What are important to me now are supporting answers; discoveries, really, which may help me rid this thought once and for all -or- provide some validation in support of myself in having it. Answers which:
  • Are well "thought out" by forums members (preferably devs of POTCO's code whom are highly familiar with it)
  • May forever be unknown if people do fail to share what they happen to know
  • Could debunk this whole mess dancing around in my head leading to such a thought (for I do hope 'sincerely' that I am wrong)
*Hence, my sole intention for initiating such topic of discussion (please read the 'clue' provided) and this particular thread.

CLUE: Circumstances surrounding the "how" POTCO was shuttered by Disney (not the reasoning given as to why)

My friend, I do value the importance of your energy and your time. ;) Therefore, I do encourage everyone to participate to the above ^ poll provided. Once I can better gauge interest/disinterest from the poll results alone then I will understand better whether I should proceed or not towards this thread and the acquiring of answers taken from the ex-POTCO/TLOPO community. (I realize this may seem all 'weird' but - like I said earlier - I value everyone's time and energy here including my own).

Thank you.
 
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I remember that there was post about why Old Potco was shut down was because of the high hopes of the "Disney Infinity" (That turned into a failure.) Another thing is that the original Potoc code was supposedly similar code with Disney Infinity... That's what I saw on the post...
 
I remember that there was post about why Old Potco was shut down was because of the high hopes of the "Disney Infinity" (That turned into a failure.) Another thing is that the original Potoc code was supposedly similar code with Disney Infinity... That's what I saw on the post...
I don't believe this is true, unless you could provide sources to them re-using portions of potco's code for disney infinity, though i still believe it to be unlikely.
 
How can one have deep seated fears or worries about someone else shutting off the power to a few servers and canceling any contracts to do with the game? It seems so similar to you deciding to turn your computer off and then going ahead and doing it. Maybe your clue alludes to something, I've no idea what. Is this thread only for remote mind readers?
 
How can one have deep seated fears or worries about someone else shutting off the power to a few servers and canceling any contracts to do with the game? It seems so similar to you deciding to turn your computer off and then going ahead and doing it. Maybe your clue alludes to something, I've no idea what. Is this thread only for remote mind readers?
Giving the thread more of a chance to receive a healthy balance of "ayes" and "nays." Might let it set for a week or two.

No alarm and no worries. ;) It's just me being me and myself trying to understand/trying to predict what Disney did. No fear here but really...a lot of distrust directed at them. :piratemickey:

*My track record on being right is not thee best. No worries!
 
I don't think it's a good plan to try to predict the past... not a lot of value in it. Only the why seems relevant to tlopo, so, is it that you think Disney had/has a secret agenda or direct reason that that they hid from the public that brought on the close of potco?
 
do you proofread the things you post? none of this makes sense
He could have posted: I have a thought about the potco shutdown, would you please vote on whether I should tell you what it is? That would have been more economical and conveys the same information.
 
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My apologies for the shroud of mystery behind this thread along with the delay.
;)
To be fair, I wanted to assure suitable interest on the forums existed with what will be discussed. This is for good reason & intention (not due to any conclusions drawn here but rather possible conclusions drawn later [indirectly] & as result of such writing). As member of this forums I felt it prudent to be responsible in this manner. *It is my hope that you would agree (understanding too my intention to 'help' TLOPO [not to hinder the devs nor the remake's success]).

Avast! Behold the following facts, stats, & relevant details prior to/leading up to POTCO being closed (note: maintenance info. taken directly from threads posted here within the 'Pirates of the Caribbean Online' category & archive of this forums):
  • August 18, 2013: Disney announces the opening of their "Disney Infinity" game. Characters & content of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise constitute a portion of Infinity's initial platform, model, & success
  • August 20, 2013: Disney announces that POTCO, along with all other virtual-world/MMO games of Disney, will be closed on September 19, 2013
  • September 19, 2013: Disney closes POTCO (along with Toontown Online & Pixie Hollows). Club Penguin survives the cut along with CP's player base
Below and relevant to this thread, please review the following info. provided pertaining to POTCO (pre-closure) maintenance dates & details. Each are listed @PST, here within the US.

August 15, 2013; 8 am - 11 am; lasting 3 hours:
114209

  • What followed: EITC Black Guard (NEW) weapon exchange
August 19/20, 2013; 11 pm - 2 am; lasting 3 hours:
114211

  • What followed: Unlimited Access (UA) for every pirate, fireworks occurring regularly, & Double Gold/Plunder for each player
August 20, 2013; 10 am - 1 pm; lasting 3 hours:
114212

  • What followed: unknown/not listed
August 23/24, 2013; 11 pm - 2 am; lasting 3 hours:
114213

  • What followed: Double REP/experience (for that weekend until Monday), redemption of special codes for weapons were released & new peddler outfits offered on Aug. 24th
August 29, 2013; 11 am - 2 pm; lasting 3 hours:
114214

  • What followed: Redemption of special code SPARROW for 20K extra in Gold (giving pirates total of 40K in Gold in conjunction with previous Double Gold offer)
August 30, 2013; 5:15 pm - 8 pm; lasting 2 hours, 45 minutes
114215

  • What followed: Redemption of special codes JACK'S BREW & summon a pet
September 4, 2013; 10:30 am - 1 pm; lasting 2 hours, 30 minutes:
114216

  • What followed: Redemption of special codes for "Barbossa's Fury" (legendary repeater) & "El Patron" (legendary cutlass) offered on Sept. 7th. On Sept. 12th, announcement for ALL day "Curse of the Muertos Moon" event occurring on Friday - Sept. 13th
September 13, 2013; 10 am - 1 pm; lasting 3 hours:
114217

  • What followed: unknown/not listed (likely 'Curse of Muertos Moon' event related)
Possibly relevant (or irrelevant) info. also to take into consideration:
  • September 1, 2013 - In midst of various maintenance "timeouts" granted to POTCO, connection issues were occurring impacting Oceans (or servers) in-game
Questions that need answered/thread conclusion:
If my math is correct, it took Disney 23 hours, 15 minutes in total to do maintenance on POTCO (over a span of time which occurred just prior to the announcement of the closing of POTCO to just before the game itself was closed; August 15th - September 13th, 2013). ***As such, I request answers to the below following questions:
  1. TECH: Is the quantity of both maintenance occurrences & their associated (time) lengths justifiable/not justifiable to what Disney tried to do with POTCO's "weekly surprises" prior to the game's closure? (Could a remake coder/TLOPO dev comment to what other reasons may explain why it took Disney 23 hours, 15 minutes in time to conduct maintenance on POTCO given the game was suited itself to end)?
  2. GENERAL: Has such practice ever been done before to a game which is expected to close (i.e., the generosity of implementing maintenance into a game & reshaping some coding just prior to closure, etc.)? Did Toontown Online, or other Disney games, receive similar maintenance treatment throughout the months of August and September of 2013?
  3. TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY: Was the Sept. 19th (closure) date representative of Disney gesturing to POTCO players & our community given that Disney understood readily beforehand, at that particular time, the demand the player base of POTCO had towards supporting Disney to REVIVE the game prior to/in lieu of the August 20, 2013 (closure) announcement? (Note: Not even TTO was granted such a themed, closure date & it's possible Disney failed to know 'beforehand' of such interest, comparable to the player base of POTCO, of the need to organize with hope of keeping things going).
Conclusion: We need better clarity & understanding of why POTCO assumed levels of maintenance ahead of inevitable closure! To brush aside or to ignore such maintenance, in my opinion, equates to putting one's FULL trust (again) into the hands of the Disney machine to which sometimes hasn't really bode too well for a pirate :piratemickey:within the Caribbean. *While I will remain thankful forever for Disney/past POTCO developers whom had permitted each of us to "live the legend," decision makers in 2013 for Disney ultimately ignored us, minimized OUR worth, & underestimated OUR resolve towards remaining organized, together, &...online.
:flag1:
Yo ho, Yo ho - a pirate's life for ye/for me/for each & every one of us!
 
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Why does any of this bother you? It is clear that Disney was trying to soften the blow of closing the game by delivering a few closing gifts to the players. The time, effort, and cost of that is a bit difficult to gauge without knowing how much of it was in the can before the decision to close and I fail to see the relevance to tlopo. Are you just interested in the history of the game?
 
Why does any of this bother you? It is clear that Disney was trying to soften the blow of closing the game by delivering a few closing gifts to the players. The time, effort, and cost of that is a bit difficult to gauge without knowing how much of it was in the can before the decision to close and I fail to see the relevance to tlopo. Are you just interested in the history of the game?
With this thread, what I am seeking are answers - Eric. *No harm in that, right?

I tried to convey that I am not bothered by the maintenance that was done, if all that was done was maintenance alone & the divvy of surprises given out. I am simply curious that it took Disney as many (maintenance) attempts as they did with the amount of time required to complete each one. Granted, as discussed by some in this thread https://piratesforums.co/threads/maintenance-8-29-13.9013, the server itself had to be brought down each time (& jump started again, to bring the server back up) but does this still justify the amount of time it took versus those "weekly surprises" which were granted? Hence, my purpose to seek out the truth behind such an answer via this thread.

Such line-of-thinking, in my eyes, is relevant to TLOPO because it could resolve any issues with code to which TLOPO may possibly be dealing with. Again, idk, as I am no tech guy to understand if there is more to Disney's "generosity" (or not). Hence why I am asking...lol. ;)
 
I cannot speak for how POTCO had their systems structured. Nobody can.

In TLOPO, servers do not need to be restarted to create new redeem codes - they are created instantly and take mere seconds to implement. Turning on a holiday is also fairly simple (can be done by modifying a date-range via the holiday code, or simply turned on for each individual server using a command in-game).

Most likely, all of their stuff was done on-the-fly considering the skeleton crew DIMG had during the last 2 years. They were probably also performing backend maintenance to prepare for closure. All of these are guesses of course, but if they had any semblance of automation like TLOPO has (they probably didn't), those maintenance windows wouldn't even be a fraction of the time they were down for.
 
Thank you, @John Foulroberts, for responding and for also differentiating the stark differences with how TLOPO handles things in contrast to what we knew of POTCO (& the 'way' things were dealt & handled back-in-the-day). ;)

For purposes of this thread & my own peace-of-mind, it remains the "backend maintenance" which does concern me (for some reason) & I believe it stems from the fact of DIMG in having that skeleton crew, as you said, but also too with the fact that with whatever crew was available at the time to pull the plug it was likely by people whom did not have any sort of emotional or biased connection with POTCO's player base to the point of them doing GOD knows what to the code itself to cause fits/headaches for any remake to pull off a version of the game successfully. *Sure, this is all speculation coming from myself, but...I am a sincere believer that Disney (at that time):
  1. Realized the strong pull within POTCO's player base for the game to continue on
  2. Realized that POTCO's own code suffered at the hands of hackers/tinkers
  3. Realized the Disney (gaming) push to "convert" POTCO players over to both Disney Infinity & mobile gaming
Prior to POTCO being shuttered, I once was called "a detective" by someone; a POTCO friend of mine. :) If I could just put down this Sherlock Holmes pipe & hat for one moment, the WATSON within me feels that the motive was all there for Disney to realize each of the 3 points I listed above (shrugs).

Thanks, John. ;)
 
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For purposes of this thread & my own peace-of-mind, it remains the "backend maintenance" which does concern me (for some reason) & I believe it stems from the fact of DIMG in having that skeleton crew, as you said, but also too with the fact that with whatever crew was available at the time to pull the plug it was likely by people whom did not have any sort of emotional or biased connection with POTCO's player base to the point of them doing GOD knows what to the code itself to cause fits/headaches for any remake to pull off a version of the game successfully.
I can confidently refute the possibility of such an occurrence.

The only code that anyone wishing to do their own remake can access is within the game's client (i.e. the application that you download and run on your own computer). This has been reverse-engineered by TLOPO and a handful of others. If Disney had somehow "sabotaged" the client, it would not have worked since it still needed to be functional before the time of closure.

Client code was easy to come by. Server code on the other hand - the code that handles player connections, transactions in-game, and other functions to ensure everyone sees what everyone else sees - has always needed to be written from the ground-up. Server code was not shipped with the POTCO client, for security reasons. However, remakes of Toontown were a little more fortunate in that some server-side modules were shipped with the client.
 
I can confidently refute the possibility of such an occurrence.

The only code that anyone wishing to do their own remake can access is within the game's client (i.e. the application that you download and run on your own computer). This has been reverse-engineered by TLOPO and a handful of others. If Disney had somehow "sabotaged" the client, it would not have worked since it still needed to be functional before the time of closure.

Client code was easy to come by. Server code on the other hand - the code that handles player connections, transactions in-game, and other functions to ensure everyone sees what everyone else sees - has always needed to be written from the ground-up. Server code was not shipped with the POTCO client, for security reasons. However, remakes of Toontown were a little more fortunate in that some server-side modules were shipped with the client.
Thanks for sharing and also, for elaborating. :) I do appreciate your explanation.

As far as sabotage goes, could it happen discreetly to where the game would still run between Aug. & Sept. (of 2013) but still imbed a change or no?
 
Thanks for sharing and also, for elaborating. :) I do appreciate your explanation.

As far as sabotage goes, could it happen discreetly to where the game would still run between Aug. & Sept. (of 2013) but still imbed a change or no?
Think you’re looking for something that isn’t there. POTCO closed, they added those little releases as “gifts” for the loyal players sticking around, doubt they’d “sabotage” anything considering that action of good faith. I don’t blame them for closing, their job is to make money and POTCO wasn’t doing it for them, truly doubt there’s much to it besides that.
 
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