Until we meet again!

I met Posi once ingame.

It was March 2004, there was only a single server and you were still able to fly to the highest roofs in Atlas Park. I had managed to get to level 36 with my Storm/Energy Defender and word got out that level bumps were given (ok, I admit that 2 or 3 of these levels were powerleveled: tank taunts/pulls the whole map and nukers nuke them when they're herded into a corner ... plus Freezing Rain debuffed damage resistence into negative numbers when slotted with damage enhancements - nice bug, Stormies were never that popular again ).

Posi was on a charcater named Nortisop (clever name, eh? ). Some other players and I managed to catch him in Brickstown. He made us stand in line at the main entrance to the ziggurat and started to hand out level bumps and prestige (so people could buy enhancements - SOs were expensive those days). Another player and I were told to line up to his left and wait there ... we were in our 30s while all the others were significantly lower and he wanted to do them first. I think level bumping and handing out prestige was harder that most people thought as it took quite a while to get one character done. Then again, maybe it was just because I had to wait. I really wanted that bump because some people decided to try and defeat the Hamidon and asked me to come. But you had to be level 38 to enter The Hive so I needed that bump as there were no time to get those 2 levels another way.

Finally Posi finished the last of those other players. Finally it was our turn ... patience was about about to be rewarded. And Posi left. Completely forgetting those two poor players he told to wait at the side. We tried to beg (the other player sent a tell) but it seemed Posi was out of time and he logged off moments later. I missed the Hamidon that day.

I was disappointed, of course. But I told myself that he probably had more important things to do. He was a Dev after all while I was free to explore the game world and have fun. And not so long after, the Devs started a big event with someone flying a giant Rikti saucer above city zones while spawning massive numbers of bosses. I helped to make a stand in Talos (tons of Hydra bosses) and in Founders Falls (Rikti armies) - still have the screenshots to prove it. That was the best CoH event ever (and I really wonder why they never used that ultra cool saucer again). And since Posi had part in creating the game and running the show I couldn't really be angry with him. I simply had too much fun playing his game ... our game ... my game.


May the road rise to meet you. - May the wind be always at your back. - May the sun shine warm upon your face. - And rains fall soft upon your fields. - And until we meet again, - May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

Positron, is there any chance you might crank up a NWN 1 or 2 RP server, if you have the time or inclination? Or that you may join Neverwinter and create story arcs on it's Forge system? I'd love being able to play in D&D some of the amazingly creative stuff you can do.

Posi,

I said it in a few different ways, but I'll say it again here because you were one of the key people responsible for it: That you for not only making a game where we were really heroes, but a world that was worth saving. I've looked at many other games and played other games, but their setting either makes good out to be stupid and evil fun, or evil way more powerful than good, or in some other way glorifies evil. Or they have no heroes. Like Secret World (nuts who will exterminate a city to kill one evil being, chaos fanatics who cause suffering just because, or the illuminati who just want power for its own sake, those are your only choices) etc. We brought our kids and friends and family into paragon city. We cared about it. I honestly can't see any other product out there with such a background/setting.

Thank you!

Is this a bad time to ask why the female avatar chest size modification only changed bust size? That's always bugged me.

May the Mother of God and all the saints pray for your success in the future and forever. Amen.

Thanks for being awesome, Posi. I wish you the best in your future endeavors, I can't wait to play the next game you work on (or possibly work on the next game you work on if I ever actually get into the field I went to school for).

I said it on Twitter but I should say it here, too.

Thank you. That goes to all the devs, writers, programmers, Community Managers, and everyone at Paragon Studios. I'm not very active in the CoH forums (300 posts in eight years? Heh. I didn't even join the forums until almost a year after I started playing), and I'm not terribly active in the community outside my SG and a handful of global channels. But I love this game with a pretty strong passion. I've played MMOs since 2000. For a long time I'd just play one for a couple of months and get bored, until I played Star Wars Galaxies, which kept me occupied for quite a long time. Some time after SWG came out, I read about some new MMORPG, soon to be released, called City of Heroes. I was never really into comic books, and I read about the game, and thought "An MMORPG about superheroes? How on earth would that work? Can it even be any good?"

The answer to that last question. Yes. It can be. It can be good enough to keep me playing for 8 years. I'd pick up other games to play on the side, but no game, ever, has captured me the way City of Heroes has. It's the only MMO where I can say that I have loved every single update it's received. It was the first MMO that really made me care about the world and the story and the characters, and is, in fact, one of the only ones to do that til this day. To this day, it is my favorite MMO. In fact, it may very well be my favorite game of all time.

What is happening is appalling. I keep hoping that somehow, Paragon City and the Rogue Isles will be saved. I'm not holding my breath, though. So thank you, Paragon Studios. I wish nothing but the best for all of you. I know you guys still have a lot to offer and we haven't heard the last of you as members of the gaming industry.

I'm not much of a photographer, but I snapped this photo yesterday afternoon:



EDITED: "A comic book about superheroes"... durrrr. Mean to write "An MMO about superheroes". Well, that kind of spoils the poignancy, doesn't it?

I remember the first time I met Positron. It was around Issue 2, and this was on the training room. We were all gathered around Ghost Falcon when Positroj appeared. We asked him to prove that he was the real one (versus all of he fake ones running around with every single power, I guess).

He spawned a Kronoss Titan and we were convinced!

I got to ask him one question. I was playing an NRG/EM Blaster, and I felt that EM was kinda weak. He agreed, but said it'd be really good in PVP, because of the endurance drain.

I was on a high for a while after that. My SG was so jealous I got to meet THE Positron.

I have created a Twitter account just so I can follow you. That is how much I care about where you go from here, that I've broken down my irrational loathing of social media... for you. I'm now officially your stalker. But in a friendly way, that sends money to your future employers in exchange for your creative endeavors, rather than the traditional way... that sends the police messages cut out of newspaper letters wrapped around unsourced body parts.

Crap dude, it's time to let this train of thought derail.

Keep on rockin'!

Posi I cant say I have been one of your biggest fans, I am sorry but to much bad blood on the ED and GDN and how everything went down. But I do respect very much and I give full credit to your greatness in this games creation and development. Very cool Bro great game. I would like to thank ALL the Dev staff over the years. Like to say SORRY to Geko about the Regen review in I3, that got me kicked out of your wolfie group. If I had know about ED and GDN it would have been much different. I want to give a big hug and THANK YOU for going way beyond the call of duty to the Sales Dept and Reps. If it was not for sales I would not have gotten any tech support or gotten in contact with Ghost Falcon (you great god you ) and been able to get tech support over the years. I must take a couple of words about the great web team and how great of a job they have done over the years. Also Cuppa Joe the greatest Goddess to grace all of us, BOW down and worship your dogs!!! thank you for all you did and we will always miss you. Thank you all so much.

I would like to put out a nice big double middle finger to NCSoft and the upper management of CoH over the years for really having no clue of business and of taking a game that could have beat WoW and taking it right down the drain. And a quick one to the tech support to say it is not always the persons computer. When it happens on 3 total different computers on 3 different internet companies. It might be a bug. Just report it and tell me its been sent to the right people. Don't try and convince its our computer, it is not. Sorry for that rant, I will stop now.

Just a big thank you and hope you all do well in your future endeavors.

This will likely be long and rambly, but that seems to be a trend just now.

First off, I'd like thank the devs, and the staff for doing what they did, as well as they did, for as long as they could. I didn't spend a lot of time on the forums, mainly because I never did work out how to make them tolerable from a user perspective. Also, I knew that if I got too involved in the boards, I'd have less time to play.

How COH changed my life.

Back in 2004, I joined the game at the urging of a friend. He quit a few months later for whatever the big fantasy MMO at the time was. Horizons, I think. It turned out not to matter much, but when it was clear he wouldn't be back, I started cruising for a new SG. I found Safe Harbor on Champion. Some of you may recall the name.

The SG was still new and actively recruiting. One of the things they sponsored was a writing contest for best origin, best comedy, and best general story. I entered two stories and placed first in general and second in origin. My general story won best overall. When I finally finished the comedy, I sent it to the Fanzine. It was "A Day in the Life" in Issue 1 (A bad PUG from the point of view of a hostage).

That got me thinking I might be able to actually write. I wrote a few more stories in the COH and put them up on a Fanfic site for feedback. Then I started on an epic length one. It came in at 138,000 words, and desperately needed an editor, but I learned a lot while writing it.

Since then, I've been rejected several times from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and sold one short story to MuseItUp Publishing. I've got a few novellas from that series nearly ready, and have plans for a series of novels in another. All of which is thanks to this game for getting me off my butt to actually write them.

The other thing that COH taught me was how to make a character. When the game closes, I'll have 98 active characters, and probably 50 or more that didn't make the cut for various reasons. Issue 24 would have added three more. About 85% of them have fleshed out back stories and will live on on a spreadsheet that keeps all that stuff organized.

City of Heroes got me into writing for real. For that, this game will always have a place in my heart.

Thanks.

I am not really a comic book person.

I am really not an MMO person.

Thanks for making a comic book MMO that I played for seven years, and continue to hold out a thread of hope for more.

Posi,

For the last 8 years CoH has been more than a game:

City of Heroes was a hobby, a passion, a muse.
A companion, a therapist, a friend.
A hangout, a comic shop, and a home.

Dearest Rednames,

Thank you so much for City of Heroes. I imagined playing it in 2004, admired the website, but I only joined late, in 2007, when I finally had a non-work computer. The game got me through life's challenges in 2008 and is still strong for me today. City of Heroes ran quite often on my puny old back-up laptop. Sometimes for even an hour between crashes! I played from Malaysia, China, Thailand, Korea, India, Australia, and more. It even worked from the United States! I was a bit too foreign to enter NCSoft-sponsored games, but players hosted games and I joined in those. A quick special thank you to @Bubbawheat and @Cobie, and there were plenty of others who stood tall putting others first. The game also contained all the people that I met more than once. My first online game, the text-based MUD called Angalon, never went away, and I was clueless enough to think this game would just become quieter too. Airhead, indeed.

Thank you so much Positron and ALL of the developers. Actually I should name Fearghas too. I played his AE arcs, many made with slots donated by other heroes inspired to fuel his passion. And I saw his dream come true, and stay true, for so long, landing in the imaginary world he'd loved from afar.

It was the premises of City that made it work. Adventures that encouraged collaboration in a limited time, that made me feel heroic for being there. The vast scope to decide what I looked like and later, create arcs to amuse others. I could even imagine my Mind/Forcefield controller was not hurting people Arresting, to be sure. The gameplay also forgave distractions and poor hardware. I have now had a nice laptop for the last few months, and I am so glad I got to see the full beauty of the game. I will be doing what I can to follow this community and its pilots into the unknown. Super is how the world should be. I will not grow up.

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
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