Amanita

If you could write the final end-of-game event for this game, what would you do and why?

Me, I'd take inspiration from one of my favorite Series Finales on TV- ER. Yes, I used to be a regular ER watcher. Sometimes I would drift away, but I always came back.
In particular, I'm referencing the last couple of minutes of that finale.
The characters are in the ER doing their thing, when a call comes in that several trauma patients are inbound, victims of an explosion if memory serves. The camera cuts outside, to the entrance, where we see the ambulances pulling up, and several ER docs rushing out to meet them, as the camera pulls back, and the screen fades to black for the last time.
So they didn't do something crazy like blow up the hospital, or have everyone get infected with some deadly disease. No scorched earth here. They didn't pull a Quantum Leap like D-move either, with screen text saying "Oh, by the way, these characters never did get what they were looking for".

Rather, they went out on a more positive note- the hospital will keep running, and the characters will go on living their lives, we just won't be there to see it.

I'd have us go out in similar fashion- one last invasion, where the last baddie spawns a good 15 minutes or so before the servers shut down. That way, we go out feeling that we saved the city one last time, put down one final threat before enjoying a few minutes of success, before moving on to whatever future awaits us. Some of us will hang up our capes and resume civilian lives, others will continue on as crimefighters, others will resume their own twisted plotting and scheming, others will return home to whatever lives they left behind when they answered the call to defend Paragon. And yet others will pick up stakes and go elsewhere as wanderers.
So we too would go out on that note- the city will continue to exist, many of our alts will continue on with whatever lives they choose, we just won't be here to see it.

I'd find that a much happier note to go out on than the mutually assured destruction of Tabula Rasa- yeah sure the bad guys are dead, but oh drat, all the good guys got wiped out too! That or the absolute nuke-fest that ended Praetoria as a workable civilization.
I've never been a fan of "Rocks fall (or aliens attack), everybody dies!" scorched earth endings.

Now, I'm hoping that between now and Nov 30th, we'll see something good happen that will make all of this "planning the end" business redundant. But if not, this is how I'd like to go out- on a happier note than some of our predecessors.

Tunnel rat, you did some amazing stuff for us, and I'll miss the heck out of that. Wherever I go from here, I don't think I'll ever find a community as awesome as this one was, with a dev team as dedicated to our playerbase, so responsive and willing to engage with us.

I loved Praetoria too- it looked so amazing that it was like playing a new game. And I was genuinely sad when Emperor Cole nuked it at the end of the Magi trial. Such a shame

I'll be boycotting. NC has nothing else that interests me, and I won't reward a company for pulling such a collossal d*** move as they have done to such an awesome community of devs and players.

I spent a buttload of money on paragon points, even buying the $100 pack to put myself up to T9 VIP when it went live, so I could have that awesome celestial set of armor. And that wasn't the only time I spent money on points either. That's all money that NC won't be seeing any more of, for any of their games.

I feel so sorry for you guys, the best dev team a player like me could ask for. You guys got one heck of a bag over the head and a kick to the pouch potatoes yesterday.

In the other MMOs I've played, I've either not bothered with the forums at all, or barely posted. I felt like just another face in a huge crowd, that nothing I could say would really matter. But here, it's been a whole other ball of wax. The level of interaction that you guys gave us, and the fun you had with it are truly incredible. You couldn't give us everything we asked for, but you tried to give us as much as possible, always something new up your sleeves to keep things interesting and fun.
I've never felt that sense of community anywhere else, and that's a shame. I'll miss the amazing world you've created, where any kind of character we players could conceive of, fit right in perfectly. Where else could the avatar of a Skyscraper fight alongside a defiant Cimeroran Minotaur, a Japanese Schoolgirl, or any number of other fantastic characters?

I feel that NCSoft's done you guys a huge disservice here- but if they're going to treat such hardworking, dedicated, and generally kickass people like you that way, then they don't deserve to have amazing people like you and the rest of the Dev team working for them.

I haven't really cried, but I've felt like pretty much nonstop crap. I couldn't even take my nap before work yesterday, I was too upset.

Yeah, pretty much that.

Since the devs were based out of Northern California (close to the Bay area), I'll post this one separately. I have one other level 50 incarnate- Golden Gate Bridge. Some of you on Virtue have probably met him recently, as I've been grinding for e-merits prior to this unfortunate business.
What would happen at the end of things when Golden Gate goes home? Keep reading.

San Francisco-
As twilight fell over the city, a tall figure could be seen walking along the road, high in the Marin Headlands. Long red hair flowed in the wind as he walked, the butt of the long staff he carried striking the ground with each step. Beneath his flowing robes, armor glinted.

Finally he rounded a corner, and the city of San Francisco came into view in all its splendor, lights twinkling as night slowly fell. Framing the cityscape was the mighty span of the Golden Gate Bridge, relatively quiet after the evening rush hour's ebb.

Home at last. The tall redheaded man quickened his pace, going from walk to jog, to full-on run as he neared the city. As he approached the nearest cliff face, he took a long leap and hurled himself over the edge, his staff still gripped firmly in hand, robes fluttering around him like great wings. But gravity did not take hold of him, dragging him down to the rocks below. Instead, he caught himself in mid descent, his propelled levitation taking over. Now he soared toward the great bridge ahead of him, focusing his sights on the top of its southern tower. Gently he touched down, his feet resting firmly on the steel. And then another incredible thing happened. He knelt down, pressing his palms to the metal surface...and slowly he began to merge with the mighty structure itself. For he was no ordinary "meta-human", as at least one organization liked to called Powered individuals. He was none less than the Avatar of the great bridge, a spirit once hidden in the steel, now freely able to manifest as a being of flesh.

This act, the life force flaring up once more in that massive bridge was enough to alert the Steel People of San Francisco. Golden Gate Bridge could sense the hum rippling through their collective consciousness. "He's back..finally..About time.."

A short while later, he felt recharged enough to take his incarnate form again, his bridge-form's connection to earth and sky allowing him to refresh his energy, depleted by the long trip home.
Again, he took a flying leap, this time aiming for the western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

He barely landed before being ambushed by a tall, silver-haired woman, the Avatar of the Bay Bridge herself. Quick on her heels was an adolescent girl of the same species- dusty white hair and reddish eyes. Al Zampa Bridge, who he and Bay Bridge had taken under their wing, almost as a grand-daughter of sorts. Both reached out to embrace him, and the three of them stood wordlessly for a few moments, locked in a three-way bear hug.
"Welcome home! Back for good this time?" Al Zampa Bridge finally said.
"Yes". Golden Gate answered. "Things appear to be winding down in Paragon for now, they don't need the reinforcements any more. So I'm back to stay for good now!"

Al Zampa and Bay Bridge both smiled, at long last releasing Golden Gate. Golden Gate studied them both- Bay Bridge, his lifelong friend and mate, easily his equal in terms of martial skill and strength. And Al Zampa Bridge, young, but a student of great promise. Both had occasionally joined him on missions in Paragon City, but after short forays, they had always returned home to San Francisco in the end, feeling that their talents were needed closer to home. And now he too had returned, the three of them, along with San Francisco's other Steel ones, ready to take on whatever the future might bring- As their city's motto said so eloquently, "Gold in Peace, Iron in War."

A good many of the characters I've been playing have been Avatars of some of New York City's skyscrapers. I've got 55 Water st, One and Two New York Plaza, One Liberty Plaza One Battery Park Plaza and even the young Freedom Tower representing Lower Manhattan. From Midtown, I've got One Penn Plaza, 30 Rock, and all three of the XYZ Buildings, as well as Solow of w57th street. Oh, and San Remo of Central Park West. Having been called in as reinforcements to protect Paragon- (Paragon City lost of a lot of their own Skyscraper guardians in the Rikti wars and other events) They've been fighting the good fight along with Paragon's Steel People. Now, the threats have been contained to a manageable level, where the Skyscrapers of Paragon feel that they can hold things on their own. So all of NYC's finest-and-tallest who have been recruited for the fight would be preparing to return home. Some of them will be going home with vastly expanded powers (incarnate). They'll be planning to share this knowledge with the others back home. Others have walked some pretty supernatural paths during their time in Paragon (first and night ward), and this has brought them an increased knowledge of at least one more plane of the spirit world. This too, shall be added to the vast body of knowledge contained within their people's collective consciousness.
New York's skyscrapers were not the only ones who joined the fight- Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridge came along for the ride as well. They will return to their regular jobs, playing in traffic, as well as teaching their newly acquired skills to NYC's latest generation of Tall Ones, as good elders do.

Now, what of the Skyscrapers of Paragon? Perhaps the first to manifest and join the fight was one who went by the name Anlek'Toh (In her language, that translates as "Spirit in Steel") With things calming down, she'll be spending more time at her day job, as one of Steel Canyon's office towers. But ever vigilant, she'll keep her eyes open for trouble, a city guardswoman always.

Cole Tower's a praetorian transplant- she has no home to go back to, not after what happened there. However, she did sneak a little something out from Praetoria- a complete set of her blueprints, enough to recreate her steel form pretty much anywhere.

I was in closed beta testing for issue 11, which contained the dual blades powerset. I remember some of the players complaining that the standard run animation needed tweaking, as it resulted in the characters stabbing themselves in the face while running with weapons drawn. So after reading that, I went into Poser and did a quick render of a female figure holding two swords- I did several run poses for her- one was pretty tame, with the blades angled out slightly to avoid poking her. But another was much more dramatic, with her arms out straight, pointed backwards a bit, and both swords held out that way. Well, the retooled DB run animation ended up being pretty tame. But some time later, Ninja Run was released, and it looked amazing, with the arms positioned very similar to my rendering, albeit with a more exaggerated body posture.
So I dunno- was it pure coincidence, or did one of the devs file away my little render during I11 beta, thinking "Hmm, we might use this later?"
Either way, it was pretty cool to see something so close to my little Poser render end up in game.

I signed that petition. I just can't believe this, I'm stunned. Just now I tried to take my usual catnap before work and it just wasn't happening. I'm too upset.
There's no other MMO out there where I can really play the kind of character concepts I love to create- it was hella fun running around in game as a personification of the Golden Gate Bridge, for one thing! Where else could I possibly do that?

And where else is there a dev team so involved, so responsive to the community? I won't find that anywhere else either.

I'll add my two cents- I've tried a lot of MMOs over the years, but City of Heroes is the only one I've really stuck with. I love how open ended the character creator is, how just about any character I could possibly conceive of fits within this universe, and I love getting tells from people who read my bios "Great concept, I love it!" and similar. That's something I've never gotten from any other MMO, where my character has to fit a preset race or species, where mine looks like everybody else's thanks to all of us using the same gear, and so much of our character's story is already written for us.
I've happily sunk money into the game, buying costume packs and other goodies, because I was happy to spend the extra funds to support the game I loved, because more money encouraged more cool stuff to get made.

I was just now hoping to get a friend into the game, and as soon as her work training settled down, she wanted to join. Now there's no point, really. This absolutely sucks, completely. Count me in as another who won't spend another red bloody cent on NCSoft's stuff now.

I honestly wouldn't care one little bit if the wisps aura went up for sale in the Paragon Market. Not one little bit. It's not like I was promised life long, exclusive use when I got it, being assured I'd never have to share with "noobs".

I would be completely chill with it and the Dark Matter aura going up for sale- let those who snag it free enjoy their new exclusive freebie for a little while, then put it up for sale for the rest of us.

I don't even bother with twitter thursdays. I know I'll likely not be fast enough to snag one of the incredibly limited number of codes, so the heck with it. I don't need the stress and button mashing.

I always thought the giant bones in the Eden trial were fossils or some such..I suspect we're very deep in the earth, if the several incredibly deep holes we have to jump down are any indication.

^Indeed. I'm a night shift worker, so there's a real risk of missing out for me.

Those new maps are amazing, especially the arena! And I'm loving all the upcoming costume options. Chainmail and leather are kind of bland, but the tights and cyberpunk look sweet! Even the silhouette of what looks like some sort of space pirate looks pretty cool. I can't wait to see these!

I love scrappers, I love to run right up to an enemy and punch them in the face or unload on them with a melee weapon.

I've got one level 50 brute, who I got to 50 right before VEATs were released, and that's it- the option to change sides or use any archetype on either side of the fence wasn't there when I made her, and if you wanted redside melee, stalker or brute it was.

I tried playing tanks, but couldn't get into them- DPS was pitiful, and I didn't like being responsible for keeping the team alive, or being blamed if anything went wrong, even if it wasn't my fault (Enemies being a high enough level that they would eat lowbies alive, before DFB made it possible to use SO enhancements on characters below level 22, or teammates pulling more than we could handle, or support falling asleep at the switch).

I see a lot of brutes being expected to act as defacto tanks by their teammates, and that's one turnoff to playing the AT now- I don't like to tank, and I don't want to get on a lot of people's $%*!lists by telling them "actually, I built this brute a lot more like a scrapper".

I wish more chest details were available with trenchcoats- currently we can only use neckties, award ribbons, and the painted-on symbols. None of the cool 3d stuff at all. That really limits the usefulness of the trenchcoat, IMHO.

I bought the extra points/tokens to unlock Celestial as soon as it was released. That said, it would be no skin off of my teeth if these costume pieces were released in the market, perhaps one year after their initial release. That way, other players can enjoy them, and we T9's will have a new costume set just for us to replace it.

We get exclusive use of the thing for a year before it gets made available to everyone else, and some new shinies to replace it. That's fine by me, I don't need to have my costume parts be exclusive forever in order to feel special.

I have the alpha and omega costumes already, but I passed the link along to a friend of mine, so she and her partner can upgrade their accounts.

Yeah, I reported a bugged goldside mission the other night- I went through the map and killed every mob there, but the mission objectives were simply not showing up, so I had to call for help on that one. The GM was great, and we got the mission completed.

I think it's the new VIP support we're getting.

That kitty kinda reminds me of one of my own cats, a three legged tabby named Tripaw'd. (pronounced tripod)
The SPCA told us when we adopted him that he was special needs, but they forgot to tell him! That cat can move like nobody's business, running better than he walks!

When I petitioned that guy, a GM showed up shortly after and asked me to confirm the player name I was referring to. I've never had that happen before, so I'm guessing he was looking into it, at least.

yeah, I commented on facebook that I found the chainmail set kind of underwhelming, like it was really meant to be an underlayer for something else, not a standalone set. You know it's rather uninspiring on its own when even the promo pic has to show it mix and matched with parts from other sets, just to make it look good.
I'm really sick of NPCs getting the cool stuff, while we get less than the lowest of minions when it comes to these sets.

I was one person on that raid. Yes, the griefers were annoying, but the league leader didn't help, rage quitting at the drop of a hat, when I'm pretty sure we could have recovered and finished the thing. And ohmigods, the swearing from that guy. Now I've been known to use the occasional cussword when something cheesy or stupid happens, but I don't drop the F-bomb multiple times in one message, screaming at the whole league about how put-upon I am, because oh how awful, I'm running it all on my own. Especially after volunteering to run it on my own.

And yes, I did petition the griefer. Not only was he griefing, he also had a name that was a clear reference to genitalia- just another rope to hang him with. And yes, I heard quite a few others doing the same, which is the proper thing. I didn't argue with the griefer, just petitioned and encouraged others to do likewise.

Bought it, ran a couple of DFB's, love it!