Iron_Emerald

I'll crosspost my reply here too, since this thread seems more appropriate.

Very well said. I had similar thoughts and while it seems that a lot of people are getting edgy at the moment I think we still have a lot of reasons to be hopeful. Just two weeks after the game was announced as closing I wouldn't expect to have a definite yes for continuing the game in some fashion, but we certainly could have gotten a definite no that it can't continue. The fact that hasn't happened certainly makes me think that there's at least some hope for the game continuing.

I think we just need to keep positive, keep doing things like the rallies, playing the game, buying the devs dinner and getting the word out. There's still a long way to go, no need to get discouraged yet.

I'm not sure whether I believe that a mass email to these NCSoft executives is a good idea, but I'll probably take the chance to state my case. Provided nobody takes things too far it hopefully at least won't negatively impact any other efforts that are going on.

I urge anybody who writes to be respectful, be polite and focus on what this game means to you and why you think it deserves to stick around. Given the current time it's likely that there will be a large number of emails sent by the time a new work week starts. If these emails are read at all it's most likely that they are going to initially be read by an executive assistant, not the decision makers themselves. If we write well, if we state our case clearly and if some of us can include a touching story or two where appropriate then we have the chance to get our messages read and begin a dialogue. If too many of our messages are simply slamming NCSoft then all that will happen is that the executive assistants will just start deleting everything en masse rather than reading our diatribes.

I'll say that again since that was at the end of a long and rambling paragraph. The more abusive we are the less chance that any of our messages are going to be read. Take your time before you send anything off. Venting is one thing, but we want to send messages that these people will want to read. We want to make it clear that we're a mature community seeking answers, not a lynch mob.

Darn you codes! Several screens worth and the working ones are still hiding from me! *shakes fist*

I do love blasters, my first character was an energy/energy blaster (and occasional blapper). I think one of my biggest regrets about the game ending is that I'm not going to get to play her with the Issue 24 changes on live. Issue 24 was the first thing that ever got me to go on Beta and the fast snipes, longer range tier 3, nova with no crash and extra resistance from IO set changes sure was nice. And that's without even having respecced into picking up Energize again yet!

I certainly would. I'd miss being able to play with friends so it wouldn't be quite the same, but I love solo play in the game too.

Thanks so much for making a tool like this available. I haven't had a chance to use it yet as I'm on a mac and need to get on my PC, but it's great to know that I'll be able to save details of all my characters even if the game turns off completely on November 30th.

Nobody seriously working to try and save the game is going to completely stop and assume it's saved just because Mishii said that NCSoft are looking at other options. She didn't say anything was definite, just added some much appreciated (by me at least) positivity.

Look at it this way, she either is an insider and needs to be cryptic because she really isn't allowed to say any more and is already sticking her neck out. Or she just enjoys making up statements here for whatever reason. If she isn't accurate then her posts aren't hurting any more than several other people making inaccurate assumptions, nobody should stop work because of it and if it makes anyone feel more positive about things I don't think that's so bad.

On the other hand if she really is an insider giving us all the information that she can, then isn't it a Really Bad Idea to alienate a friend 'on the inside' by calling her names?

It might just be unwarranted optimism talking, but I'm hopeful that most any buyer would be pretty good news both for the community as a whole and the team at Paragon.

I can't see any company buying an 8 year old MMORPG with the intent of making massive changes to the way the game plays and runs. They have to know that a large chunk of the existing player base would react badly to such a thing and they're not likely to get a swarm of new players into a near decade old game.

To my mind if an established company is looking at City of Heroes then there are likely to be two possible reasons for that, possibly with quite a bit of interaction between the two. The first is that the company knows the game makes money and is prepared to bet on the idea that the company will keep making money long enough for the investment to be worthwhile. It may or may not come with some element of cost cutting, but is likely to involve keeping the same team as much as possible and making minimal changes.

The second possibility is that the purchaser has more interest in the IP itself. They might be interested in building support for the game and trying to grow it with the release of a City of Heroes 2. Again this is likely to require keeping the old team together at least to some degree, since the value of the IP lies in the goodwill of the fanbase towards the game. Goodwill that could be severely harmed by completely changing the development team.

I think the bigger concern is whether NCSoft are willing to sell or not. But I'd like to think they'd have interest in selling it off either to another MMO company or the fan initiative lead by Titan. It's not really a game that competes with their other properties and I don't think it sounds like they'd be all that interested in making a City of Heroes 2. So if somebody is ready and a deal can be reached then things would hopefully work out for everyone involved.

*crosses fingers*

Thanks for all of your great work on the game! Not to mention thanks for lending your name to my very favourite npc in the game.

I never thought that I'd get into an MMORPG, I just could never see myself playing the game enough to justify an ongoing fee. I finally decided to give the game a try at the start of 2010, after several years of being recommended it by a friend. Since that time I'm moved across the world twice, changed jobs twice, gone through several health crisis with my family and spent an extensive period out of work earlier this year. But I never let my City of Heroes account lapse.

Even in the times when I barely had a chance to play, I was happy knowing that I was still supporting this game and that Paragon was ready for me when I could steal away a little time to hop online. Heck, for 6 months or so in 2010 the only way I had to play the game was on a netbook. Even though it couldn't cope with teams of more than 3 people, would have me waiting several minutes for load times and ran everything at the lowest settings it was still worth it to get to play City when I could.

That's a pretty roundabout way of getting to my point, but thank you so much to you and the team for creating a game that gave me so much enjoyment.

Thanks so much for all the work you and the rest of the developers have put into the game. It really is the most fun that I've had (not to mention the most time that I've spent) with a game ever since I was a young 'un playing with my Amiga 500. I only wish that I'd listened to my friend and joined earlier so I got to enjoy City for longer than the near 3 years I'll manage!

So thanks again. The game would never have been as great as it is without the work and obvious love put into it from everyone at Paragon.

I managed to get on for the event on Guardian and thought it was a lot of fun. Certainly it was pretty chaotic and a little confused compared to the scripted events, but to me that was part of its charm. I think there's plenty of room for both the Rikti/Nemesis/etc style invasions and the somewhat more 'playful' events like this. They were obviously run off their feet trying to keep things going everywhere, but it was nice to have the interaction with the community staff.

The unpredictable nature of things lead to some really fun moments too. I was in Talos Island 2 after we drove off the attack and there was an announcement that the villains needed help. So most people switched over to alts to help at Sharkhead while those of us (like me) who didn't have villains either stayed in Talos or headed over to Pocket D.

But then, just as it seemed like everything was all over, a whole flight of Arachnos Fliers came in to attack the hill while there were just a handful of us around. My DM/Inv Scrapper did her best to hold the hill and at one point was so surrounded that I couldn't move anywhere even if I wanted to. Couldn't even jump! I thought I managed to last pretty well, but had to activate Unstoppable and eventually dropped when that went down, but not before taking out a couple of Fliers.

Those of us who were still around then regrouped at the Hospital and fought off a bunch of Arachnos and Corallax in the streets. Then we joined up with another group of heroes and stormed the hill to retake it before heading to join the celebrations at Pocket D!

I imagine lots of other players had fun little moments like that and it's the kind of thing that doesn't happen nearly so often in more traditional invasions. So I'd love to see more of the same and thanks a lot again to the community team.

Sorry to see the Summer Event go, I think it was a lot of fun even after repeating it a lot of times. It was really well designed for quick and fun teaming and I'd love to see future events along similar lines.

Long time reader, first time poster! just wanted to put down some of my thoughts on the solo incarnate path and this seemed a fitting place.

My first character hit level 50 in March and since then I've run through at least one arc most days, usually following it up with one of the repeatable missions for 10 threads. In that time I've managed to get Alpha, Destiny, Lore and Interface to Tier 3 and Judgement to Tier 2 while I'm trying to build to get some Tier 4's. That seems like a pretty distant dream at the moment though when the last week has seen nothing but common drops and I've only had two rare components drop ever.

I don't mind the idea that the solo path is slower than doing iTrials, but to my mind it seems to take far too long in comparison to what you can achieve in trials. Now I can play trials if I have to (and did so in order to unlock hybrid, which I couldn't get any other way), but I played solo the vast majority of the time all the way to level 50 and wish that my preferred playstyle was better supported in the incarnate system.