Until we meet again!

A huge part of me is really, really, REALLY hoping this is some sort of sick and twisted marketing scheme that Black Pebble has concocted and forced you all to collude in in order to announce on Tuesday "Surprise, COH 2 launching December 1, 2012!" Deep down though, there is a very small voice ever so quietly consoling me that this really is the end. And, while there still is time, so many thank yous are in order. Thank you Posi, for working with this group of amazing designers, artists, writers, marketers, community leaders, and players -- this virtual world and its community is an achievement like no other and I am thankful to have had an opportunity to be part of it for 8 years.

You put up with me hanging out endlessly at the COH booth at comic cons past, I can't thank you enough for that.

When you guys weren't there this year, I probably should have been more worried. But what that did tell me was just how much time I spent there at that booth chatting and watching new players eyes light up as they flipped through the character generation process, and sped away on their first missions - all shown on those gorgeous huge screens the booth had.

You're my GM, man, where you go, where you take us, we'll follow you.

Okay we'll get distracted on the way and totally ruin the plot you had in mind, but we'll GET to it!

Thank you Positron for your passion and your vision with City of Heroes. The reason it kept me and I'm sure many others coming back is precisely because it wasn't "Just Another Cookie Cutter WoW Clone". You did things differently. You did things RIGHT. It's only a shame other developers don't have the same mind set that actually, if you want to take on WoW, the way to do it is not to emulate, but to innovate.

I'm glad I'm following you on Twitter and like others I'll be eagerly waiting to see where you and perhaps even others from your team end up, because I'm pretty sure it'll be a title I'll enjoy regardless of genre. Whilst your thanking of us, your loyal followers, is ingratiating, it should also be pointed out that if it wasn't for your passion, your talent and you just "getting it" in terms of what makes a game FUN, we probably wouldn't be as loyal to CoH in the first place.

There is no other game that allows me to let my imagination go completely nuts without limits and not only create a character, but really BE that character (and I don't even RP!)

Whilst I'm sad that this is the end for CoH, I'm eagerly anticipating the beginning of the next title where you have a senior design role.

Best 2 years spent playing a MMO. Will miss you all. Cannot believe this has happened. A sad day indeed!

POSSSIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! add me on Facebook *sobs*

Awww Posi =( I'm still stunned, taken aback, a bit in denial, sad, happy (that i got to play with so many great people, meet so many great people, have a cool dev/community team for our game). I'll miss ya and of course all the other devs and community members too. *Big hugs for all of you.*

Thanks for letting me play in your world.

As someone said before... You will always be Positron for us.

Thank you for all the time you gave us.

And I'm crying again.

thanks for everything, matt. what you and your team have given me these last five+ years has meant a whole lot to me. i'm glad to have shaken your hand when i had the chance to.

The thing I most love about CoH was that it wasn't me playing in someone else's world to what they wanted us to be, but we made what we wanted in a world that...I felt like ALL of us were creating.

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to do this.

Good luck, all of you will be stalked on teh Twitter, and when I find out where y'all end up, I'm buying a copy of whatever y'all make, or buying points if its F2P or...

You lead a fantastic team! You all were there through the loss of my father, allowing me to escape the pain, if but for a short while. You've given me hope and happiness in my life. I can never thank you all enough! I can truly say I will miss you all ! May you find joy, support and prosperity with all your life's adventures!

Thank you for the answer.

Thank you Positron, YES Positron, legal issues be damned you are Positron Matt "Positron" Miller.

...I can't even read this right now, but I wanted to make sure you saw my thoughts about you and your work, Mr. Miller.
I'm just going to paste my first response directed to you and the team... I need to stop dwelling right now.

Man, it's hard to imagine the feelings and shock among you all right now. We feel it too, but still...
Anyway, you guys have long been the absolute BEST. From your designs to your work to the finished product and your abundant care and enthusiasm for this project and this community... It has never been matched by any other mmorpg. I'm not blowing smoke.

This game is in no shape or form a game that should be ending any time soon. It is insane that they have ended it. Totally insane.

I am most sad about losing the constant connection I've had with so many people. The Meet and Greets with the Paragon Studios... I'm really sad to think that there won't be another chance to attend a Herocon or another East Coast M&G for a chance to talk and hang out with you guys again.

Positron, your enthusiasm and love for this game was simply palpable when I met you in Boston. It was a pleasure talking with you and it has been a pleasure getting to enjoy your work.

SO many great people over there and you guys all worked to make a truly GREAT TEAM.

AND THIS COMMUNITY...
Gah... I swear I am telling the truth when I tell the story about how I used to visit these forums before I ever started playing here. I was busy with another game (in a galaxy far far away... before they ruined that one with the NGE) and I used to visit the Dev Digest and enjoy reading through different threads. Both for the interesting insights from developers and because of the great hilarity and wit that the entire community (customer and redname alike) shared.

When my previous game died, I knew I was bound for here. And here I've been ever since.

I wish I'd connected with many of you more than I had... but, more so... I am only realizing now just how much each and every one of you means to me.
Those of you I've disagreed with, those of you who have often been in agreement with... all of you with each of your defining personalities, quirks and oddities... I've loved our time together and I hope we have more.


So sudden... such a shock. I really didn't expect this at all. Completely surprised...

Positron, Matt, whatever we call you... thanks. I started playing almost exactly four years ago, and this game has lasted me through being thrown halfway across the country, living in the middle of nowhere, graduate school, and ever since. City of Heroes has been a part of my life through some very stressful times, when I needed sometimes to just step back and out of myself... and go fight crime.

Or commit them. In grad school, the opportunity to turn a city into your personal playground of destruction really helps blow off some steam.

I doubt you remember me, but we did meet once. It was PAX East 2010, at the NCSoft Meet and Greet. I was the dork with the glasses concerned about mainly if the (then) new Trials would shift attention away from Task Forces and away from smaller teaming, as well as just curious how the new Incarnate stuff would work. Glasses, blue flannel shirt, curly hair. That was me.

What struck me about you and Second Measure was your, well, honesty and sincerity about it. You made the game and the stuff in the game because you liked games and were designing a game you wanted to play in. There wasn't that sense of Marketing Talk off of it, just that you were gamers too. Like a GM. It was really interesting, and I just enjoyed talking to you.

So, the point of this... well, it's been a hell of a ride the last four years. Thanks for being our GM, Matt. Can't wait to see what you dream up next.

... with a moonbase.

You've done a man's work here sir. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I thank you for living little bits of your life with us, and not just being a name on high.

I thank you for not getting burned out from all the abuse heaped on you (unearned) just because you were in the big chair.

I thank you for being a true and total part of this community.

I most of all thank you for all the little things that happened behind the scenes when Lighthouse and Ex_Libris were here and started up projects like the City Scoop and the PERC. You were clearly in our corner, and that mattered more than I can say. The interviews you consented to do, the way you came to us to plant secret messages in the paper during the lead up to Ouroboros. I've never felt more included and you're responsible.

I came to this game with a heavy heart, even though I was joining friends who were already playing. I had been an ardent player of Star Wars Galaxies, until they essentially upended everything I cared about and re-did core aspects of a game I loved.

I was bitter, I was untrusting of developers, I very nearly quit MMOs entirely. I came because I was painfully bored and because my friends told me this game was about as close to the PnP RPG Champions as could realistically be. So I tried it. It took some time but without knowing it you steadily wooed me. It was clear there was a very different vibe here. Content was updated and added and done well. Combat was fun. The enhancement system was simple but detailed. I played by myself and with friends, but avoided the forums. I had been burned and was still raw, so that was the promise I made to myself.

Eventually though I had too many questions and things I needed to learn. I lurked for months, then slowly started answering questions to Pay things forward. In that time I saw more and more of the community and saw that you and the other devs were active (as active as someone working a full time job could be) participants. It was clear you got it, and it was becoming clear this was a place I could be happy. You had me.

I'll be leaving like I came in, with a heavy heart. This time though for completely different reasons. The game I love is still being taken from me, but it's not being done by the people who have convinced me they love this game as much as I do. It's not being done by you guys. There's too much respect and fondness and happy memories for me to feel more than passing bitterness at the Powers that Be.

If it matters at all, you should know you made me happy.
Every game developer should aspire to do their job as well as you and the others have.

Thank you,

Chris Blake aka Lemur Lad

You'll always be Posi to me, no matter what some clown in a suit says!
One thing that's always stuck with me- I remember you and Jack years ago, saying what you had in mind when you created this game- you wanted it to be a good experience for everyone, not just those with hours on end to play, or uber achievement types. You both were parents, so you understood that people didn't always have a lot of time when they logged in. So you wanted to create a game where even if you could only log in for a half hour, you could still do something constructive in that time. You didn't think farming and grinding were fun, and you wanted to give people something else to do, where there was more to the game than hitting the level cap.

That, combined with the amazingly open universe created here, which allows us to be anyone and anything we can imagine has truly won my affections here. I'm not just another elf/human/whatever in the crowd. I don't have to have THE perfect build and skillset, or the right AT to be invited to teams. All the ATs in this game are useful, not just a handful with the rest being fluff or good only for pity-invites. This game is so friendly to just about everyone- there's challenges for the number crunchers, min-maxers, and achievers. There's also lots of fun to be had for the casual players, the soloers, those with lives outside the game.

Here in City of Heroes, I feel much more connected to my characters than I ever have in an MMO. Perhaps because their name, entire backstory, looks, the whole shooting match is my own creation. It's why I've never bonded to an MMO as surely as I have to this one.

I love how you devs have gone out of your way to reach out to the players as often as you have, everything from coffee talks to live appearances. And how you've tried to give us so many things that we players asked for. Here in this community, I feel that my voice matters as a player- it's worth submitting feedback or offering suggestions, that there's a real chance it will be listened to. I don't even bother trying in the other MMOs I've dabbled in.

NcSoft really did you guys a disservice in how they handled this. Not only was it a spit in the face to us players, but it was a real kick in the pants to one of the best and most devoted dev teams they could have asked for. You deserve better!
I'll join the fight to save this game, because I believe that what you and the other devs have created, and let us players have such a hand in shaping is worth fighting for. And if that fails, I'll be on the lookout for the next RPG you want to run for us.

CoH was my first MMO. Before that I'd been like "Pay to play a game I *bought* each month? Screw that!"

Then I started to play it. And loved it.

I've let my subscription lapse a few times, mostly because I was between jobs. I'd tried other MMO's, but I always came back.

You let me fly.

My friends and I build AE stuff to carry on our own RP. I sat down and started converting everything over to Mutants & Masterminds, and then thought about doing it in Champions.

I loved this game. You helped bring Skrunchie into the world.

Thanks, Matt.

You let my imagination soar in a video game.

Fond regards;

Tim Willard

lol you're all gonna regret these goodbyes when we save this game muahaha

Everyone has said so much about the stories and the community and the relationships and... so much more. Those things are all amazing, and they are an important part of the whole which this game has become. Without them, it wouldn't, couldn't be the gaming experience that it is.

However, I want to take a moment to explain what it is about City of Heroes that takes it above and beyond any other game for me. It's the gameplay experience itself. For all the time spent on lore and graphics and storyarcs you guys put out one hell of a game system to tie it all to. Especially the customizability of the control interface (and the character appearance too of course, but that's a different topic).

This customization is really important. Without it, I wouldn't be able to play as much, or as a result, get as involved in the game as I do. I'm just not able to stay hunched over a keyboard, and too much typing really gets the arthritis flaring up. I can't WASD my way out of a wet paper bag in most games. But because of the overall control interface, and especially the robust keybind system, I'm able to recline back in a comfortable chair and do 98% of everything I do in game with an old XBOX controller (not one of those fancy 360 controllers with built in USB either, I got a USB adapter and some awesome custom drivers, mixed with a program called Joy2Mouse2).

My keybinds rewrite themselves with the press (and often also with the release) of every button on the S-pad. Start cycles through navigation windows. Back follows my target. A is my primary attack chain. Bis AOE attacks, C is self buffs and summons, and Y is alternate attacks or ranged attacks on melee toons. White is a self heal of some sort, black toggles my travel power(s). When I jump with the left trigger, my toggles turn on. My left thumbstick moves my character, my right moves the cursor, and acts as a left click.

While some of this is directly attributed to driver and J2M2 settings, none of it would work without the keybind and control interface you guys made. You (and your team) have given me the physical ability to play this game and keep up with other players who are more capable with the "keyboard and mouse" style that most other games force a player to settle for.

Being able to play the game the way I'm comfortable with, rather than having to play the game in a way a developer is comfortable with is one of the biggest reasons that CoH has spoiled me for any other gaming. I have lifetime subs on CO & LOTRO, and gave up on them a long time ago because when I was playing them, I always found myself wishing I was playing CoH instead.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn't as important as the community and the relationships and the lore and the stories... but it's a big deal to me, and probably to some folks who deal with much more severe physical limitations than I do. Thank you so much for making the game you made.