Zekiran_Immortal

Melissa, don't know if you remember the Wedding Incident - when the guys were having disconnect problems and we all had to stand around for a lot longer than they intended the wedding process to go on?

You and I wore the same skirt.

Met you at the meet n greet before the official ones started up, such a blast.

You and the other devs really do exemplify what should be aspired to by the rest of the developers of games these days. You have grace, intelligence, wit, and style, and most of all humor and humility. It's a rarity (is she your favorite pony?) these days.

Be sure to drop by the facebook pages and such, tell us where you all wind up. You must contribute to something, and make it better for your presence.

It was amazing, in its.... amazing... ness.

ALL OF THEM.

The costume Hami raids were awesome, and we should do that again somehow.

The Robot Rampages, who could live without seeing 6 Babbages and 8 Pallys just waiting to be taken down?

Discovering the radio stations dedicated to the game, hanging out with djs and dancers alike.

Armorshot. Where is he? I haven't heard from him since the last time he randomly logged on, and I was a bit distressed about what he said his condition was, so... anyone with links or info would be welcome.

Ish. Badge. ... "the goat". yes. Ya hadda bring that up.

Fish jokes.

April Fools gags.

Yeah, pretty much everything.

We'll still have fb and some other places... Steam... And it's not like the game's vanishing overnight.

*hugs*

I wish I had a permanent address. :/

I'll give the one I'm at.

I agree - these things were so important, the ONLY cards I ever either got or gave, really. I have stacks of them, still, they're with my holiday stuff and always will be. They're sanity savers.

For me it'd be Golden Ace's attempts to kill off the Protector Server.

Even when Badge would run our huge Robot Rampages, he STILL couldn't kill us ALL.

I miss Badge. I miss Armorshot, Ish, and all the other folks that made heroing this much fun - but at the same time there are so many others here still that are gonna make the last months great.

... I still have the Lego Cuppajo that I made years back, I never *actually* got around to sending it to her. :/

Nor did I ever *actually* finish making the HamiLego I intended to. Ho well.

*guiltily slinks away*

I think if anyone can 'save' our City, it'd be you guys. Count me in when things roll.

No "Snipe the Snipers" badge.

God I wish.

Seriously there must be some way of getting these things opened up. The beta stuff I don't mind, I won't miss that, but the stuff we have only seasonally would be fun. Everyone really should get all the codes - costume options, auras, and the like.

... It seems terribly unfair that some of us got in on those codes over the last couple days and no one will after us. :/

/jranger

You guys really do deserve more than the slap in the face that was the closing.

But know that we really, REALLY appreciate the work you've done, and it will be SORELY missed on the MMO market.

I find it amazing that the devs twitters, FB posts and the posts made here have been filled with the grace and calm that they have been.

You guys produced an amazing game, doesn't matter if you've been working there a month or 10 years, everyone's done a terrific job.

I guess I'll never get my snipe the sniper badge in the game now, though. :/ I was so happy to hear someone would even bring that up. I was so happy to get a kirbydots code.

If you guys hadn't made such a great game we wouldn't be so sad to see it go.

/e holdtorch

I'd say maybe character files and such, I'd imagine an endless stream of characters would be about the best way to sum it all up. It's about the people, the game gave us that more than anything else.

Though that's kind of bittersweet. Perhaps a big battle, something we win. >_> yeah this day isn't gonna be a good one.

Thank you for making such a wonderful game, it obviously hurts so much to see it go, because if it wasn't terrific, it wouldn't matter.

I have all too many to even count. 4 accounts worth of alts, mainly for sg padding, but at least one of those accounts stayed paid because I didn't want to lose those toons.

I only have a small number of 50s, though. I wanted to play up so many more. I never even got through a small portion of powersets. So unless we all find every character has enough to level to 50 before the end, it looks like most of my characters - beloved ones - will never make it to see the level cap.

I'm on Steam as Zekiran, and FB as Zekiran Immortal, if you're not already in touch with me on those things. And Devianatart as lethe-gray.

I posted this over on the Steam forums, but I think it'll sum up my feelings here too.

***


This is coming on the heels of the abrupt and utterly unexpected closure of Paragon Studios by NCsoft, and the announcement that City of Heroes, the longest-running and most successful Superhero MMO on line is closing by November 30th.

Let me give you a little back story here:

I've been playing City of Heroes for 7+ years, since July of 2004 and with only a couple breaks here and there - mostly due to internet access being cut off. I've watched betas come and go, participated in the 2005 release beta for City of Villains, went through Going Rogue, and all that. I racked up 22 thousand posts on the official COH forums, and gained a lot of real-life friends in the process.

I've been to their meet and greets, even took a driving vacation up to San Jose to their first informal one, before they got more official events going. Went to parties with the devs and other fans during Comic Con. Drank and sang and laughed and played trivia and had costume contests - I even made a costume of my first level-capped character and wore it proudly (if chunkily...).

So the news this morning - posted only hours after the devs themselves had posted new info for the next update Issue - that they're basically shutting the doors NOW and closing the game down before the end of the year... This is a shock to me. I'm in tears, been angry, been sad, worry about the devs and their families...

Because NC is not an American company, they have different values for their decisions. But still - to take the only arguably successful game of its kind off the market *because their other games are putting them financially in the hole* (Aion, GW2 - both feature prominently in their financial decline) seems insane at best, moronic at worst.

City of Heroes, Paragon city, has been my 2nd online home for 7 years. I've watched couples meet, court, and marry - in real life, not just in the game. I've seen friendships grow and fail, I've cyber-sexed for the first and only time there, with someone I'd die to meet in real life. I won't likely get the chance to see many of these people in reality, because we're scattered all around the globe. True, some dozen of them do live within easy distance of my current home. But the bulk of the people I know from this game - from long hours on task forces, teaming and playing mind games with other servers... Those are people I know only through the game, but I know them well.

One's a vet. Another bunch are Veterans. Some are stoners. Others are artists and craft-makers. Some have gone through bad times with their families, some have died. Some have come close to dying. But they've been supported by their network of friends gained through City of Heroes. We all have varied backgrounds and interests, politics and social lives outside of the game, but we have one thing in common, our love for the city which has been our digital retreat all this time.

I'm sure that some folks here are laughing: it's just a game. I hope that you someday grow up and out of that phase, because when you learn that you have friends willing to send you a pillow in the mail to replace one you lost in a house fire, or offer money to someone as they fail to meet their needs... You'll hopefully understand that sometimes it's not "just" a game.

I'm also hoping that there are other similar stories out there - I know that MMOs are often home to some bat-crazy nutters, maybe I'm one of them. But I can't seem to get past the fact that in a couple months, the home that I had lived in, dreamed about, met friends and set a few on ignore, won't even be a desktop icon any more. I don't play other MMOs. I hang here on Steam because when I was unable to get on to COH, Half Life and Portal became my source for digital entertainment. But when I was able to go back, I've felt like I never left. It's a comfortable place.

What's yours? How do you feel if it is going away? What did you do if it already has?

Yeah now I'm crying again.

I had just decided to have some coh characters drawn up by striffle, and had been re-reading Retail Retali8r's origin story. She left one Paragon for another, but now...



Where will she be able to go, that won't die again and again?

Actually given the news, now people can sell their COH related stuff for real money and not get hit by lawyers for it.

I'm on Deviantart under lethe-gray

I'm on Steam as Zekiran

I'm on Facebook as Zekiran Immortal


I really hope to see some folks around, though we all know everyone will get all teary-eyed.