Until we meet again!

Positron - please watch this muppet video - I find it quite relevant to what has happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSkKjywFrCY


I love the (original) Muppets as much as I love CoH.

I'm not sure if you remember, but I suggested a power set called 'clown control' a couple years back, and I was actually serious about it.
Then I found out after my thread that you hate clowns -_-

However this video isn't scary, it's sentimental & the other clips before/after the song also time in perfectly for the recent happenings.

I hope you like it.

----------------
Lyrics:

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air..
Where are the clowns?

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move...
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.

Just when I'd stopped opening doors,
Finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours.
Making my entrance again with my usual flair
Sure of my lines...
No one is there.

Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want...
Sorry, my dear!
And where are the clowns
Send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here.

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late in my career.
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns...
Well, maybe next year.

It’s hard to say goodbye when you don’t really believe its ending

I haven’t necessarily been the most active member of the CoH community or Defiant community (where I call home) but I have always been there lurking in the background reading, watching and playing.

I haven’t posted yet as when I found out the news I was in complete shock and denial and to an extent I still am. I haven’t posted on the forums yet because of that but I really need to let my feelings known as it has hit me so hard.

I have played CoH for almost five years and although I have tried other MMOs (Warhammer Online, Champions, DC Universe) none of them held a candle to it. There are so many different reasons for that.

The first is because of how CoH plays. The character creator, the power selection, the level progression and stories all contribute to how much it has sparked my imagination. Every character I have created has a story attached to them (if not in bios, in my head) and are alive and dynamic. I have tried to create other characters outside of CoH but none of them have the depth my in game ones have. I have vowed, if CoH lives on or not, that I will get some of my stories written down and will endeavour to share them with anyone from CoH who wants to read them. My characters mean so much to me, whether that is Black Karhu the earnest Fire/Fire tanker who carries the death of his best friend with him or Tired Angel the fallen Grav/Storm angel who hides great faith and kindness behind a jovial joking exterior, that I don’t want to say goodbye.

So I want to say thank you to all the Devs, past and present for making all of this possible. Thank you Positron, War Witch, BaBs, Castle, Arbiter, Black Scorpion, Noble Savage, Tunnel Rat, Dr Aeon, TheNet, Black Pebble, Television. Thank you all.

The next reason is the community, like I have said I don’t always post much but I read the forums a lot and always have my home channel Defiant Events EU open to watch the banter back and forth. So thank you to all the players out there that make the game what it is. Thank you for the teams, the task forces, the information, the discussions, the fun.

Thank you to the Tanker Tuesday crew for brief, but exceptionally fun, time I had kicking butt Tanker style.

And thank you to the community team (Zwil, Freitag, Hit Streak, all of you) for helping keep this community together.

And thank you to the team of Mids and Titan Network/Paragon Wiki. I spend just as much time on these as I do in game at times and your work has just added to the experience of bringing the game and community to life.

And foremost thank you to my friends from GGRRR in game. Thank you to Rosie, Night Hornet, Neo, Pixie, Major Control, Fezzik, Hitman Joe, IMPersonator, Tech, Virtue, Clickwork, Salla, HAILST0RM, Shada, Lady Shada and everyone else who has been with GGRRR over the years. You’ve been there for me over the years through thick and thin and we’ve become a family in our own right.

I have been through a lot in recent times. My marriage fell apart and I’ve had to move twice in the last couple of years. But through everything City of Heroes has been there, a place to escape to. Its hard to imagine that this may not be there anymore and it really does saddened me. And its because of all of you that this has been possible. Thank you everyone

Thank you!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger Quote: 16. Has Paragon Studios redefined "player" to require your mouse to subscribe separately from your keyboard? If your mouse has greater processing power than your gfx card, the answer is yes.

I've always had a problem sticking to anything.
I"m kind of spastic. ADD hit me pretty hard and I have TONS of ideas, but can't sit down long enough to actually get them done start to finish.
I have a really hard time writing, drawing, or pursuing any real creative or highly technical venture (Though I have many ideas that can help others out if they're hitting a block) and as such, I don't really stick with one game very long, either.

Before CoH, I was incredibly cautious about pay-to-play gaming. It infringed upon my sensibilities; you pay for a thing, then it's yours to keep. That's how it works. Otherwise, what are you really paying for?
I saw the gaming market going this way, and was distressed that publishers would see it and it would bleed over in other areas (Which it did. Diablo 3, Mass Effect 3, Starcraft 2 to a lesser extent [larger payments less often], etc)
It took a lot of convincing for me to start playing City of Heroes. I had two friends on my **** constantly about it. Now, to put this in perspective, I had heard about CoH's initial development in 2003. I was working at a Pizza Hut fresh out of high school, and my manager, who was big into comics, let me know about it. Little trickles of info here and there, then one of my friends got into the beta.

It took until Jan 7, 2005 before I finally caved in and bought City of Heroes.

This is important because it happened a good month and a half after nov 24, 2004.
During the huge media frenzy over World of Warcraft, when records were being set, broken, and re-set, THAT is when I bought City.

I've been wealthy, I've been poor, I've been deep in debt. I have not regretted a single dollar I put into CoH.

I do not enjoy grinding. In CoH, I didn't have to.
Sometimes I don't like to team. I had that as an option, not a mandate.
My constant spasms of random creativity had me playing a multitude of alts. The fact that the entire game changed between Scrapper/Controller/Defender kept it fresh. Then Kheldians came out.

It took me a long time to get to 50, but I could see that there was always something different to do.
I have the screenshot of the first time one of my characters got to Fly.

Since then, I've tried a few other MMOs. I tried Conan when it came out, but lost intrest. DDO, same thing. Aion, when it came out, I thought as going to be amazing, but it turned out to be a WoW clone with severely limited freedom and cash sinks *Everywhere*.
Star wars held my interest for three months.

But I can count on one hand the number of times my subscription to CoH has lapsed.
Twice. Once because my credit card had expired and I'd forgotten to update, and the second time because I was maxed out and flat broke for a month.
Luckilly that second time was a week before Freedom, so I only had to go without for about 4 days.

It took me a while. A long while- two years before I got my first 50, and longer than that before I got *Good*, but I DID get good. I had something I was good at, something that other people could look at what I was doing and go "Wow, I wish I could do that". I never had that before.
When PVP came out, my main was still lv 28. I spent a solid 24 hours in Siren's Call. I remember because I was at a net cafe, and that's how long they'd let me stay before they kicked me out. I was outnumbered, frequently alone, and constantly fighting. It was tense, scary, exciting. Overcoming obstacles and fighting intelligent enemies for changing objectives. At the end of that day, Heroes controlled the zone, and it was almost entirely my doing.
I started speed-running task forces for fun. I got into private channels like Speed Club or The Clique on Virtue. I was involved in multi-year roleplay plots. I've raided supergroups, built bases, took on giant monsters by myself. I've soloed every single archvillain and giant monster in the game (Except Caleb. He's ridiculously hard to spawn solo). There was always something to do, something different. When I ran out of things to do, I'd do them in a different way, and it would be new again. It's been one hell of an adventure, and I've met a great number of friends over the years.

I'm kind of rambling and I'm sorry if it's gotten a bit hard to follow, but the point of it is, I'm not very good at sticking to things, which makes me not very good at things in general.
But thanks to you, I got to be somebody.
I got to be a hero.

So thank you. I don't know where I'm going to go from here, but I'll be taking these memories with me.

Positron,
I can't thank you enough for all that you and the other Devs have given us the last 8 years. You have given us new friends and new extended family members and I know I can't possibly begin to thank you enough for that. City of became a second home to me as it did to others and it will be truly missed. 4 days into the announcement and I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around all of this. I still find my eyes welling up with tears when I think about it. The memories from the game and the hero cons will live on as a very important part of my life. One of the biggest regrets is the fact that the game won't be around for me to get my Granddaughter playing. Take care, be well and wherever you end up and whatever game you may end up designing be rest assured I will follow you there. Anything that you work on and design can only be good.

Posi...Been something hasnt it. I have to say despite everything thats happened i have to honestly say,Thank You and everyone from Paragon. I will miss Everything in general about this game and its people. I hope that the paragon studios team winds up in the same place together. If so I want to know the where ,the when . Thats where i will End up, Paragon Studios Team you have my Loyalty(just please dont wind up on a hello kitty kinda game) Ill be there. You guys made an icon in the gaming world and in my opinion The Best of gaming communities here at coh.
Ive seen how many of you are on..from the team of Paragon hard to not notice you guys yer all red lol.
Thanks Posi for all the yrs and let us know where your at when you get there...

Late to the thread (was busy all long weekend on the video/screenshot archive, which will consume my evenings for probably another week or two), but what the heck, it's at the top.

Maybe it's a coincidence Posi, but you summed up my sense of the game beautifully. It always felt to me like you guys created an awesome playground, then invited us all into it. More than that, for the last several years I felt that you were incredibly passionate about creating the game that we wanted to play. It's a hard thing to express, but at least since Inventions, I've watched one thing after another after many others checked off the very long list of great features that people had suggested. I saw beta feedback directly incorporated into the new systems, many times. It created an extraordinary sense of community, even if I've hardly been able to follow the forums for the past year or two.

There's no way you remember, but years ago I reported a bug with some of my Kinetics powers (it turned out the endurance drain resistance from powers like Accelerate Metabolism was also resisting recovery buffs from powers like Transference). You met me in-game in a remote corner of Talos so we could repro the problem. That struck me as so very cool. It was just one of many interactions in the years that followed.

City has ruined me for other MMOs. Mechanically, you guys got so many things so very right, in purposefully creating a game that conveys a sense of powerful characters. I get shivery every. single. time. my Dawn Caste Solar ... er, I mean, my Titan/SR incarnate scrap, flares his searing anima and leads the charge through the gates of darkness, flaming sword in hand, song of battle in his heart. Hell, I almost get emotional describing it now. The Dark Astoria content couldn't possibly have been more perfect. The Sentinel of Mot could not have been a more awesome adversary.

Then I go over to Aion, which is a very pretty game about people with wings and two-handed weapons, and whose developers seem determined to drive people away. Flight timers. Random failure in craft grinding. Random chance of slotted enhancements breaking. Two minions may kill your tank. Griefers rifting into your low-level zones. Imagine if taking the train from Atlas to KR cost money. Imagine if you couldn't use the color red in the costume creator without specifically buying red from the store (per use). Imagine if all XP gain was reduced so they could sell more Tea of Repose (think patrol xp). That's Aion. It's a lovely game, but run by people who don't understand fun.

Where do we go from here? I have no idea. Maybe 2004 to 2012 was my MMO era, just as 1997 to 2001 was my RTS era. Some guardian angel company may swoop in and buy the property and keep it running for a while, but I doubt it. The window on retaining people who understand the code and the community will probably close too rapidly. If you make another game, I may follow. Time will tell.

For now, I can't possibly thank you and the City team enough, Posi. Well done, sir.

Regards,
Michael, aka FlyingCodeMonkey (Liberty)

Matt, if you're like me, you'll keep coming back to read this thread as long any anyone posts here. So, hi.

Thanks.

Thanks for letting me fly.

Letting me be strong!

Allowing me to be beautiful.

Encouraging me to be heroic.

And fly. FLY!!!!!

Me.

Me.


There's not much else I can say. If I wore mascara anymore, it would be running. So, just thanks.


Much love to the Team.

I met you at Gencon 2004, when I was wearing a bright green hat and walking with a cane. My first impression of you was: "What a cool guy. He's the kind of guy I'd sit around and do one of those all-day Champions pen-n-paper sessions with."

In a way, I did. I'm not well known, but I've been here the whole time, ever since it was announced back in the fall of 2000. I waited 4 years for CoH, and was amazed. I've tried several MMOs, but none are like this one, and I suspect that none will ever be like this one, again. I made friends here and forged friendships that have transcended this game and which will continue after the shutdown. I never stopped subbing or playing.

Matt, it was a great honor and a huge ball of fun to sit at your table for the past 8+ years. I hope to one day sit again with you.

Ok. Positron. I can deal with that.

Maybe.

I've been here since you guys started. My original account got banned after an 'incident' during ED where I basically called Jack out, badly. I had it coming.

I wish there was something I could say that would soften the blow of what's been lost. To you, to all of us that have been here since the beginning.

A game like this, one that has gone on for so long, ceases to be a 'game' once it's participants really start discovering each other. Three of the best friends I will ever be blessed enough to know I've met through your work. During every deployment I would find myself thinking 'huh, I wonder how different CoH will be WHEN I get back to it'. Of course it wasn't my only concern, but man, it rated. If you can believe it, I was actually thinking about this game while I was stomping around in 'ghan. A lot of guys were.

I'm not nearly eloquent enough or really intelligent enough to express what I feel now that it's all going away. What you personally and as part of a unit have constructed here was nothing short of miraculous. The tools you had to work with were often subpar, and you created wonders. I have been as much a part of this process as I could through the years, most often as one of your staunchest critics, but always there, and always hopeful. And so very very often you delivered on that promise of 'Always, always finding a way to make it better'. I know it's cliche and tired, and that everyone has said this, but there is so much I've learned from the people on this game that I wouldn't be anything like the person I am if I hadn't met them here. There has got to be a paper in this somewhere, and someone needs to write it, heh.

So if I don't ever get to have another way to say it, and I don't ever get to meet you in person, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for letting me be a part of this. It was something so much more than the sum of its' parts, and the world is honestly, truly a lesser place without it. Thank you for letting be a part of a whole City of Heroes, your work and effort will always mean more to me than you will probably ever know.