Thank you everyone, and thank you Paragon

Congrats on the engagement and have a great wedding/life together!

Thank you for the writing. I can honestly say that I have been a big fan of the lore and the stories since I started playing and lately it had really just gotten way better. I always made a point to play through all the content slowly at least once so I could ready everything, even the NPC chatter.

Thank you.

This took me many days to say but...

Thank you Paragon Studios for giving us a game that we fell in love with. If it wasnt for you many of us would have never met the person we married. Many of us would have never have created a friendship with the people that we have through this game.

With that I say I am thankful. Very thankful indeed.

I have made many friendships because of City of Heroes. I will always hold those friendships dear to my heart, because that is one thing I will cherish. Friendship.

Again. Thank you.

I remember the time I was dorking around on my brother's account. I don't know if you knew it was me or not, but after I set that straight, you asked me anyway if I wanted to participate in a Three Eye Detective Agency case file, back when you still played Dolbian. It was literally my first RP experience in this game, and I was so nervous! But it was a blast and I got my own account and stuck with the game and the RP scene for four more years, probably as a direct result of that.

Then you wrote your AE missions and I told all my friends they HAD to play it, even walked a few of them through it myself. And they -loved- it! "Yeah, that guy who wrote all those AE missions? He also wrote Dean MacArthur/Leonard. He's a dev now!"

"Are you serious, Shey?! These new story arcs are awesome!"

And all of them being roleplayers, they were so excited that the quality in the mission writing was going up a million notches. And we did so many of the new story arcs in-character as a group.

Sean, you made a huge impact, both in the game and in our RP. And I'm gonna miss all that. And now I'm crying again because I'm probably one of your biggest fangirls(!), so I'll wrap this up! Thanks for all the fun we've had over the years! Wherever you find yourself, good luck!

Much, much <3!
--Jess, @Sheyon

I had thought that ae would be a great way to get player made stuff in to the game out side of just running missions in ae, like in an up date adding to the canon of the game.

Thank you for all the wonderful story arcs you've let us be a part of, Dr. Aeon.

Your post shows me just how special Paragon studios is. The game didn't just allow some of us to live the lives of superheroes and villains, it also changed some of our real lives a great deal.

The fact that you were hired because of your input into the game as a player is an amazing thing. Something that would be a fairy tale, life changing experience for a gamer.

Although I was going to say that I am surprised that you got your career in such an amazing way, after thinking about it I've realised that this is just the kind of thing that I would expect of the wonderful people who brought us this fantastic game and wonderful community.

Thanks for sharing, it has lifted my spirits!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Aeon Hey guys, Doctor Aeon here. I was thinking about posting something here for a while that would amount to a farewell letter. Seeing War Witch send hers got my rear in gear to send mine! But this won't be the last you hear from me - I'd like to continue posting fun stories from inside the studio, as well as videos of some of the cool things I enjoyed from the past. I also apologize for any typos in this post, but I'm sure you're all used to that from me by now. Before I came to Paragon Studios, I was working at a position equivalent to customer service in a Pilates studio. I hated it. I had recently graduated from college with a degree in English and was living with my very supportive and loving parents. I wanted to write, and I loved video games. My life, however, was good and positive; I had great friends and a great family, and I knew life was good. One day, my father had a heart attack. My sister and mother needed help taking care of him afterwards, so I decided to quit Pilates and help take care of my dad. I'd stay with him in the hospital during his visits and help take care of him at home. During that time, I needed something to do to keep my writing skills up; I barely wrote anything when I was at Pilates, and I needed to keep my skills polished. That was when Mission Architect went into beta for City of Heroes. I decided that I would set myself up on a schedule - I would write a new story arc every week, publishing them on Sunday nights. I would talk to my friends and family about the stories I wrote, and I was extremely proud of all of them. I read many books during this time, including one from my favorite author/philosopher, Luigi Giussani. Many of these ideas went into the stories I wrote. I would think of what to write while waiting for my father to come out from his appointments with various doctors or while he was sleeping. One day, I received a message from Synapse - send me your resume, we want to look into hiring you. I was so excited, but I couldn't just leave my father. However, as destiny would have it, my father was getting better. This was the exact right time for me to be able to leave - in fact, my parents insisted that they would hate me forever if I didn't take this opportunity. I sent in the resume and after the normal process of interviews etc., I had been accepted to work at Paragon Studios. I would be moving away from the comforts of New York and going to live on my own for the first time in California. I was terrified and excited at the same time (terrixcited). It has been an extremely amazing experience working with everyone at Paragon. It would be impossible to put all the great experiences I've had into words, and this post is already long enough as it is. It's because Paragon was willing to take a chance on some kid from Brooklyn that I have everything that I do today; amazing friends in the Bay Area and in Paragon studios, and a loving fiancee who I met in California and who I will be getting married to at the end of April. I don't know where I'll be going from here, but I will always know that Paragon studios was the method through which so many amazing things came into my life. A lot of us are sad now, but it's like Gandalf (NERD ALERT!) said in Lord of the Rings: "I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." Amazing friendships were developed in Paragon, friendships that will last for the rest of our lives, both with the people we worked with and with the players. It has been an absolute pleasure making stories for you guys, and I've always tried to be better and better at them. If there's one thing I want my stories to show, it's this: life can be positive, even if it looks like everything is negative. That's what I learned through my life and through great books such as Lord of the Rings. The story of Dark Astoria, which I'm most proud of, is the best representation of that belief. We all may be scattered, but our friendships will remain, as well as the beliefs and philosophies we put into making games. Wherever we go, I, and I'm sure everyone that worked at Paragon, will work with those same values to bring people amazing games that can help change their lives. Sean McCann

Hi Dr. Aeon,

Thanks so much for everything you've contributed to the game. Lots of the content I've loved in recent years has turned out to be your doing (like the 5th mission in Dark Astoria). I've been reading your blog, and it's been fantastic. Please keep it up! Maybe one of these days I'll make an account on one of the allowed systems and make some comments on your articles.

I apologize if I've seemed overly harsh in my criticism of the lore/stories in the last few years. I absolutely love this game and the lore, and so I'm pretty passionate about it when I find something disappointing. Please know that I respect you a great deal, and man, do I wish you could have continued on the work you've been showing us and telling us about. There's some great stuff in there.

It was nice meeting you at HeroCon 2009, even if it was an awkward run-in in the bathroom. I wish you the best of luck in the future (the best would be CoH being miraculously saved and you getting your old job back, but if that doesn't happen, then I still wish you the second best, whatever that might be).

Sorry I haven't responded to this until now, I've been busy getting married and playing CoH while I still can.

-Liquid

Sean, thanks. All I can say.















































PS Television is better.

Dev Sighting!

I'm pleased to report that the good Doctor has found a new position with Cryptic, working on STO in some capacity (hopefully involving the Foundry, their version of the Architect, and/or new and desperately needed story arcs for the game itself) under the alias of "Commander Ander".

Though I wish that CoH was going forward and that Paragon Studios was able to stay together, I'm glad whenever I see someone has managed to land on their feet somewhere else in the industry.

(STO forum thread is here.)