This is not how to say goodbye.

A friend, Makai_No_Falco, called me yesterday. He spoke in only the most serious of voices which, as you might imagine if you've seen his posts on these very boards, is unusual for him. "Go to the game site," he intoned.

"The main site?" I asked, wondering what might be going on.

"Yeah. Go to coh.com."

I did, and the article that drove him from his normally jocular self sat there, staring at me from my monitor. City of Heroes was going away. The ride was almost over.

A little bit of history here. I didn't get into the City of Heroes beta until the very end. I never became one of those names people knew - not then, and not really afterward. I never would attain the kind of game celebrity as names like Ascendant or Ms. Independence, and that was okay with me. Instead, I just wanted to play the game. It didn't last long for us, since our second computer didn't run the game well enough to play, and I was only going to play if my wife could play with me, so we left shortly after retail.

We returned a year later with a couple new computers and created all new characters. The big one for me at the time was Mr. Zen, a gravity controller who also, in character, happened to be a reserved billionaire businessman. Between him and my wife's main, Jade Ohm, we set about creating The Zenvious Foundation, which was at one time one of the premiere roleplaying super groups on Virtue. That's something of which I'm proud - and something by which I am humbled. The Foundation gave us the opportunity to interact with so many people, both in the SG and beyond, who were utterly amazing, and while there were some rough patches, it was an astounding run. It's in the Foundation that some strong bonds were formed, and I can say with certainty that some of the people we knew from those days will remain our friends for the rest of our lives. Pax, Tox, Jet, Deus, Arty, Stein, Dusk, and many more are now part of our lives in ways we would never change.

I think the thing that I found most touching during those days was when one of my characters, Mr. Zen, was murdered (in-character, of course) at the hands of a friend's main villain. When we held the funeral, people I never imagined would be there showed up, roleplaying their grief over the loss of one of Paragon City's heroes. It's the only time that I've ever seen Croatoa full, with a second instance opening up, there were so many people there. I think the one that really stuck in my brain most was Luficia. I didn't remember her even having met any of my characters, but she was there because one of her fellow heroes had fallen. It didn't matter if he was unknown or if they had met.

Things wound down with the Foundation after a couple years, and my wife and I took a break. Another year or so passed and we visited Paragon City again. By this time I was playing Hero Prime almost exclusively. We found some of our old friends and, in the process of starting yet another super group - Tangent - we made quite a few new ones, like Vyver and Steampunkette. Tangent lasted a year before its concept fell flat and people mostly moved on to other, more vivid projects. I'll be honest here, I think we came back with the hopes of recreating some of the glory days of the Foundation, but those days... they were long gone, and trying to shoehorn that all together is probably what caused it to fail. But that's okay... we went out with a bang that time.

When we decided it was time to go, my wife and I gathered all our personal resources and had a huge costume contest in the D, giving away more than we initially intended. Fifteen billion INF, three purple sets, a dozen Luck of the Gambler 7.5s, over 200 pieces of orange salvage. We even ran a competition on the boards to give away some great names: Download, Beta, Dusk Blade, Starbright, Arcanist, and more. This was the essence of what we enjoyed about City of Heroes - the chance to give back, to make other people's game fun, just like we found it fun.

If we had been smarter, we would have realized just how much we loved the game - and loved holding these contests - and just stuck around for that. We didn't... we started playing World of Warcraft. It was okay, but it lacked the community City of Heroes gave us. Still, we had already decided, we were gone "for good".

As it says in my signature, apparently "for good" means "See you next year!"

At the beginning of this month, we came back. We didn't do Double XP Weekend as hardcore as we had in the past. We leveled. My wife started up Team Ramen and almost seemed to singlehandedly revive the idea of radio mission groups in Peregrine (which were strangely absent upon our return). We played new powersets, we bought Paragon Points, and we were having a blast.

And then the phone call from Makai_No_Falco. The end, right?

Not really. Not the end.

I've met some really awesome people in this game, and I'm not ready to let it go. Oh, I don't believe we'll ever get enough signatures to petiton NCsoft to keep the servers open, and I have only a sliver of hope from the news at COH Titan that they're trying to keep the game alive. Instead, I'm looking for ways to make sure the community stays together, as cohesively as possible. Ransim and Foxy Ferret have both announced they're opening up Virtueverse as a community site from this point forward, and I've offered to help. There's another site going up - citofheroesveterans.com - by The Briggs. People are working to make sure we don't lose each other.

See, that's important, that we don't lose each other. The best thing you can leave this game with is friends.

I'm not going to give a shout-out of names, people who have touched my life through City of Heroes, because the list would be so immense, it would simply make the post impossible to read. Instead, I'm going to ask you folks, everyone on Virtue, to join me. I've just registered the domain "beyondvirtue.com", and I'm in the process of building a forum with a specific focus. I want to create a place where we can dump out our creative juices - stories, art, music, whatever - and keep it all in one place, to share with each other. I'd also like this to be a place where we can come together as a community to talk about the games we've moved on to, to serve as a metan-nexus for players who go on to play Champions Online or The Secret World or even stop playing MMOs altogether. I'm also going to be looking for people to help with this site, provided enough of us decide it's where we want to go.

Beyond Virtue. No matter what, we're moving to that point. We might as well move together. I hope I'll see you there.

As seen in so many threads so far, this picture and the following video show just how I feel.



Please take the time to watch this video. The lyrics are posted below. Funny thing is, I never really liked this song in Ernest Goes To Camp, but suddenly the highlighted lyrics below seemed to make sense to me.

Gee, I'm Glad It's Raining (click title for video)
performed by Jim Varney as Ernest P. Worrell

Gee, I'm glad it's raining; there's always something to be thankful for.
I'm awfully glad it's raining, cause no one sees your teardrops when it pours.

And no one knows the thunder is your heartbreak in disguise,
They think the rainy night's what put that sad look in your eyes.

Sure am glad it's raining; the gentle rhythm soothes the pain inside.
I'm glad the stars aren't shining. A wounded warrior needs a place to hide.

I thought I had found someone I could count on 'til the end.
What they wanted was a hero; all I needed was a friend

Gee, I'm glad it's raining; I hope the morning sun won't come up soon.
As long as it keeps raining no one knows my heart broke right in two.

I thought I had found someone I could count on 'til the end.
What they wanted was a hero; all I needed was a friend

Sure am glad it's raining.

I'm awfully glad it's raining

You had to pick out one of the songs that makes me cry...

I love you Hero Prime and it's been my honor and privilege to not only share your life outside of the game but to be a part of your CoH life as well.

I want to thank you. For the part you played in the world of City of Heroes. For the lives you've touched. For the late nights leveling people. For the life lessons. For conversations over broadcast. For your base building. For your willingness to share and give. For your awesome costume designs. For your name suggestions.

You've been there for a great many of us while we poured our hearts out. All the while you listened, gave advice, held our hands and encouraged us while we got through whatever trouble was at the gate.

Sticking to who and what you are- keeping your ethics and morals close while accepting and embracing your fellow player- is something I've always admired in you.

As we go on I can only imagine there will be more moments, more individuals, more opportunities for your quiet strength to lift us up so that we may shine.

I can only smile as I remember the past and imagine the future.

As your wife and friend I could never thank you enough.

What a great post Hero Prime, I didn't know you in game but from the posts I read on the forums you always seemed like a great guy who was very well liked.

And I often saw Team Ramen running in PI in the LFG channel, never got to join in sadly due to me always being busy in other teams when they were running.

I will definately join the beyondvirtue forum eventhough I might not be very known on Virtue I still would love to keep in touch with this great, no not just great, the best community possible to have in a game.

email sent to ncsoft

I don't think CoH has quite that many subscribers anymore. Cut 100k off that and you'll have a more realistic number of actual VIPs.