White Hot Flash

Looking at Neuronia's list, I'm struck with the idea that Champion was a microcosm of the entire CoH community, all wrapped up into one server, and I don't think any other server could claim that. So many different kinds of players, so many personalities, very strong SGs, and great coalitions. Lots of Real Life drama, problems, triumphs define us all, but here we are still.

We've had people join from other servers, whether to visit or to stay, and everyone felt welcome when they wanted to be. I'm proud to have made it my home base for all these years, even with the crazy forum fights, the prestige races, the chat channel feuds, and everything that defines a close knit community that cares about where they play and who they play with.

You all rock.

If the rumor is true, it's not really Cryptic that's doing it. It is their new parent company. Cryptic, like Paragon Studios, doesn't get to make decisions like that for themselves because they don't own the property.

My question is, why would anyone be playing CO in the first place, if they were still playing CoH?

Positron-

Thanking you and your team isn't going to be enough for all the things you've done for all of us through this game.

I think you've proven in your post what I've been thinking these past few days, that this is a game that really shows how much the people that work on it care about their jobs. I would imagine you'd say that each one of them would do their jobs for free just to be a part of the team effort (and really mean it), and to be a part of all of us as we enjoy the fruits of your labors together. There might have been some ideas that didn't go as well as they could have, like any project, but there was always an effort to make it as good and as fun as possible. I can't say that about all of the games I've played.

To have a group of people with that dedication speaks to the leadership and their ability to steer the group through all the trials and tribulations. To create and maintain a game for this long, to survive and thrive being sold from one studio to another, to have both large and small development teams and not skip a beat, that takes someone special.

I hope in your next adventure, you're able to bring along as many of these fine folks as possible to help you tell your stories and share your passions with us again. Thank you for your honesty, not only now, but all through the life of CoH. You've helped create a standard that will be hard to live up to. Many games, including WoW, would kill for the community we all share.

Looking forward to finding out where all the loose threads were going in the lore. Looking forward more to maybe playing them out one day.

Thank you for allowing us to share adventures with you. Thank you for creating a place people could feel at home, no matter where they lived. Thank you for letting us feel a little more super each day.

-White Hot Flash

Z,

This should be stickied at the top of every forum. It will aid your sanity.

Thanks for working hard to the bitter end.

Even though they frustrated me and so many others at the time, I'll never forget all those forumites that tried their hardest to be the only ones that had the opposite opinion of most everyone else, no matter the topic. (We all know who they are, so I'll refrain from naming specific people)

They would post a thread that stated, incoherently most of the time, their opinion that the sky was red, while we all tried our hardest to convince them with sound, logical reasons why they were wrong. Invariably, the conversation would turn into "You're attacking me, so your opinion is invalid" banter before the mod sticks came out. They were truly the Don Quixotes to our windmills.

May they ever insult intelligence and reason wherever they land.

Thank you, Tunnel Rat. You did a lot of fine work in the time you were here.

People liked to say that the Devs didn't know what the players wanted, or weren't paying attention to us, but that was just a bunch of bull.

I've never seen the people that make a game be as active within it, interacting with the players, as much as ours have, for the length of the game. We were spoiled by such riches.

Knowing that they all lost their jobs, or will have to relocate if they wish to stay within the larger company, makes this whole thing worse than if it were just the game shutting down. This is a game, but it's their livelihoods and their passion.

Thanks for all your hard work, Zwillinger, in taking this community into new social media, with the Coffee Talks, the Facebook Friday questions, etc, and most importantly, pouring yourself into your work. Your efforts were worth it. If you chose to continue what you've been doing, the next stop will be lucky to have you aboard, but here's hoping there's bigger and better things waiting for you and the rest of Paragon Studios.

A montage of several of your characters going from creation all the way to Incarnate, hitting the highlights in various zones, missions, TFs, etc. Mix in solo and team play, to highlight various powersets, and vary the enemy groups.

If that's too long, you could do something like telling a City of Heroes story through the perspective of one of the NPCs, maybe get their view of the past several years as the Issues changed the game, and end with an epilogue of what the city will be like without Heroes.


I'll look forward to anything you do, Samuraiko. You'll know what's fitting.

Let's make these last three months of the game as good as we can make them, and show everyone that The Community is the heartbeat of this game.

I hope I get to see some old friends that have been absent for a while come back to visit one last time. They are what made the game worth playing in the beginning. You all are what makes the game worth playing today.

I wish we could do an old-fashioned Hami Raid, the way they were before the latest iteration. I think those were the most fun.

This game has meant a lot to all of us, both in real life and during the countless nights within Paragon City or the Rogue Isles. It deserves a better end than its getting.

I wonder how much we could raise in a Kickstarter fund to keep Paragon Studios (in a different skin of course) working, and allow them to purchase the City Of rights from NCSoft? Perhaps we could draw the attention of another publisher/distributor that could pick up the ball and run with us.

At the very least, Posi et al, fight for the forums to survive till the last days. It would be a token bone thrown to us, but it would be something from NCSoft besides a cold shoulder. The Community was what made this game last as long as it did as much as anything, and still sets us apart from many of our competitors.

We might have accomplished the feat at a later date, but it was the Soviets that gave us the inspiration/determination to race to the Moon. We have no such motivation now, which is why the Space Program is what it is at the moment. If we're going to put someone on Mars, or beyond, we need sufficient motivation to do so.

I don't envy the powers team that would have to try to tackle the rebalance problem if the "cannot target self" mechanic were removed. We'd be seeing a lot of powers get shifted, and probably not all for the better.

I wonder if the PvP mechanic of powers doing different things in or out of PvP could work here, or perhaps incorporate those alternate IO set bonuses somehow.

A downside I can see is that all buffing powers would end up having to look like an aura in order to work solo. Shields and ST buffs all require a target to use, and you get the appropriate animations for that. It would kind of make the powers a lot more generic looking, but I suppose people would live with that if they could use more powers while solo.

Skill in this game means that you're smart enough to realize that players are a poor judge of another player's skill level, and probably rate themselves higher than others would.

It might also be not only knowing what to do in a given situation, but actually doing it when it matters.

Realistic goals and knowing how the game mechanics work would also probably fit in there.

Everything else is just one player's preference on how to play, and no preference is good or bad.

Some people just don't like things to change. Worrying about what they think is an exercise in futility.

Seems like "cult" status for EW means a show that a loyal group of fans is still talking about years after the show went off the air, or continues to try to convince others that it's "the best show ever" if the other person hasn't watched it. Also a show that in some way influenced other shows or pop-culture in some meaningful way. Viewership numbers at the time don't seem to enter into it.

I can see why all of these shows would fall under their definition of cult. I would put a couple of shows higher than they are, and perhaps swap out a show or two with things like Futurama, or V (the original series).

"Do it better."

Don't you mean do it differently?

"Better," in your view, obviously isn't a consensus opinion. Perhaps your wish would, in practice, be ten times worse than what we have now. Saying it's better now is only an exercise in your mind until it's in the game.

Your ideas would be fine for a different game. This game has a certain design philosophy. Your idea doesn't fit the mold. You may not want to hear it, but it's too late in the game to change a core mechanic like how you pick your powers/animations/fx like what you suggest.

What if we took out both Boxing and Kick, threw them in with Brawl, and allowed players to pick one of the three as their inherent attack when at the character creator, and then find a couple of other powers that are more in sync with Tough and Weave (some kind of passive or toggles)? If players want a kicking power for concept, they can take it without sacrificing anything, and pick up something more useful on the way to Tough and Weave.

This pool as is seems to be the frankenstein pool, with a couple of powers that don't seem to go with the others thematically. If the attacks were removed and swapped with different type powers, you could have these powers use the Synergy concept to affect more than just one small attack. They could grant bonuses to all your attack powers, or just your ranged, or just your melee, or whatever.

If we stick with Fighting as the theme of the powers, why not something that represents extra physical or martial training? You could take the idea that masterminds use when they train up their pets and create powers that grant these buffs (or debuffs for enemies), with an appropriate animation. When this (or these, if you need two powers, a buff and a debuff) is active, your main powers gain the additional buffs/debuffs for a short time.