Over the weekend, the launch of a private City of Heroes server was made public after most of the game's code was released online, in part to the revelations regarding a secret server in operation for nearly seven years.

Today, that server has been shut down.

According to a public post by Voodoo Girl, one of the mods in the City of Heroes Discord chat. Voodoo Girl re-assures players that this decision was in the best interests for those involved, namely members of the group SCORE, to protect them and their families from legal action. It is unclear if the City of Heroes copyright holder, NCSoft, sent an actual cease and desist notice over the rogue server, or if this is a pre-emptive move over the threat of legal action by the publishers.

Regardless, this is only a temporary move, as the project to revive City of Heroes is not dead, and SCORE will continue to work on the game.

"We will continue to work towards the revival of City of Heroes with all efforts that we can make. We cannot give you all a time frame at this time. We are in discussions to do what we can to revive some form of the server, however we do not wish to commit to a point in the future that we may not be able to reach. You have trusted us to this point. We ask you to extend that trust, and we will in turn do everything within our power to prove to you that we are deserving of it. To everyone who has donated time, blood, sweat and tears, and logged in to prove that this game still wishes to live - we thank you, from the bottom of our hearts. This first step could not have been taken without you, and it is you, the most dedicated fanbase in the world, that will keep us moving forward. Just remember we did the impossible this weekend."

Subsequently, the Discord server lived up to its namesake, with even the owner of the server saying that the programmers are "heading into legal fuckery" for their actions. Per sources from the website MassivelyOP , initially it seemed the entire project was at high personal risk for those mods and developers who have been working on the game. "I am doing everything I can to defend those who were involved in this situation," stated one admin on Discord. "I am going to get fucked sideways over the next few months to years, and things are going to put me into some major legal turmoil. I will have lawyers out the ass, and I will be put into personal jeopardy."

However, an updated post by the administrator known as Innocuous, has assuaged some of the tension over the servers shut down, with him stating "Things may not be as nuclearly fucked as I was lead to be presented with. Please hold tight. I am not posting a GFM, it may not be needed."

Leandro Pardini, the de-facto 'face' of the group SCORE after the server was revealed to the public, has also chimed in on Twitter over the shuttering of the server on discord.

Leandro admits that he has been in contact with NCSoft, but has also extended to help those who have the server hardware specs to set up a new hub for City of Heroes.

"I just got home and I am not fully aware of anything that's been going on. While it's true that there has been some form of contact with NCsoft, I am not willing to leave the community without a public facing server for however long they take to resolve this. Anyone who has the server hardware specs racked with the specs I have listed in the past week, and won't buckle under a C&D, contact me and I'll set up another server in under 12 hours just like I did for the one that just closed."

It is currently unknown if NCSoft had anything to do with the sudden shutdown of the private City of Heroes server. Regardless, the server, for one Easter weekend, brought back a long-dormant MMO to the public eye, and with several fan projects still in the works, and SCORE still planning on going forward with their plans to revive the game, City of Heroes continues to live on in a state of legal limbo. Only time will tell if that changes for the better.

What are your thoughts on all of this? Leave your comments below.