Until we meet again!

;_____; (hugs Posi)

I'm going to miss this game a lot. You guys put forth 100% and more at times to make CoH/, in my opinion, the best game in the industry. My best to you and all the rest of the Paragon Studios guys/gals. Good luck, and let us know what game you end up working for next so I can subscribe to it!

Mr Miller,

It has been an absolute joy to have been able to play and share in this 'RPG' that you created for us. I have to admit I was worried when Jack left as I thought the game was in trouble but you exceeded every expectation I had and then some.

I was so looking forward to seeing what you had coming up, to see the "coming storm" and to see all the reveals. I was planning to make the next HeroCon because I knew thats where the reveals would be. I have always admired your passion and love for this game. It showed. I will miss this city you built for us immensely and cannot wait for the next adventure built by you.

Godspeed my friend and see you on Twitter!

-TA

I'll really miss this place and all of the devs. I remember being part of the very early forums around 2003 when people just argued about what if's. And I also remember I had just gotten broadband and I was about to go out to buy Star Wars Galaxies when I got an email that said "Congratulations, you are invited to particitate in closed beta testing for City Of heroes..." So instead of heading out to the store, i sat there and downloaded the beta client for CoH... never did get around to joining SWG

I remember the year that this game launched, I went to Gen Con with a bunch of friends, and Cryptic was there. Got to talk to Jack and participate in trivia contests. They were gearing up for a new Issue, we were getting capes! And I remember when I got to talk with Posi (I'm sure he doesn't remember it ) I can't remember what I asked about, but I do remember that when he answered, he throught about it for a moment, then started with "back in my Cyberpunk days...." I knew then that this game was in good hands

I'll certainly miss this game, and the devs. No other game out there had Devs that interacted with the community more, or to the same level. Good luck, Posi, wish you well and I hope if you get onto another MMO out there that you make an announcement, because that'll be something I'd like to check out.

Matt,

It seems inadequate considering all the pleasure you & the folks have given me & the rest of the community over the years, but since I'm not particularly imaginative or talented, this is what I can offer:

I want to thank you, the original crew at Cryptic, the current folks at Paragon Studios and this awesome community we have for the incredible MMO that finally got me to try & like MMO's. This game & this community have been the standard against which I've measured all others & I think it's telling that I keep coming back & think of the other games as temporary diversions.

Thank you and the Paragon Studios crew so very much for the labors of love you have given us & I wish each & every one of you well on your next endeavors which I hope find their ways to you soon!

In honor of that, I'm going to try to pack as much fun & good memories into the time we have left in-game! I'd rather my memories of CoH not be sad ones.

Sincerely,

Red Grenadier/Jim Yonemura

I never thought that I'd get into an MMORPG, I just could never see myself playing the game enough to justify an ongoing fee. I finally decided to give the game a try at the start of 2010, after several years of being recommended it by a friend. Since that time I'm moved across the world twice, changed jobs twice, gone through several health crisis with my family and spent an extensive period out of work earlier this year. But I never let my City of Heroes account lapse.

Even in the times when I barely had a chance to play, I was happy knowing that I was still supporting this game and that Paragon was ready for me when I could steal away a little time to hop online. Heck, for 6 months or so in 2010 the only way I had to play the game was on a netbook. Even though it couldn't cope with teams of more than 3 people, would have me waiting several minutes for load times and ran everything at the lowest settings it was still worth it to get to play City when I could.

That's a pretty roundabout way of getting to my point, but thank you so much to you and the team for creating a game that gave me so much enjoyment.

Thank you, Positron. For leading us on a grand adventure. For giving me wings and letting me fly my imagination into expanding horizons.

(With a side thanks to my siblings. Because of my love for them I joined this game. And because of their love for me they've put up with my unquenchable excitement to talk about City Of Heroes every time I visited over the past eight years.)

Thank you all, Paragon Studios. It takes immense courage to share your stories, memories, and dreams one more time in farewell and hope that they will be received with care and respect.

You have my respect, good sirs and madams. May this somehow be a case where the window has closed but a new door opens. A turning point for making something magnitudes more magnificent then was ever possible before now.

Fair dreams and happy flights, my friends.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

You're killing me Posi.

So glad you got a better TF .

Thank you so much for all your care and hard work. I can't say it any better than that. But pretend I did. Pretend I've got the charisma of Ian McKellan and Robert Jordan wrote me a nice loooooong monologue, then I delivered it unto you with all the force and fury of something forceful and furious.

And then we were forced to eat Robin's minstrels.

I wish you only the best of luck in the job hunt and future projects - I'll be looking out for whatever greatness comes next from the ashes of Paragon.

Here's to the inevitable [Rise of the Phoenix] - although I'd prefer a [Soul Transfer] while you're surrounded by the real villains of this story. Mag 30 stun to the face!

As much as I have been a mix of emotion, even to the point of laughing through tears, I can hope to see the next generation. My now husband of a very awesome 5 years met as best friends online gaming. There is always a promise of a bright future, let us not forget that. You have all become our family and friends walking hand In hand through the next door.

Posi, thank you for making the best game you could, for never stopping working on making the game better, and for finding the best possible people to work with you. The greatness of this game drew the best players to it, creating the best MMO community around. This game is truly greater than the sum of its parts, and when you have parts like these, you become greater than the gods...you become Incarnate. Thank you for giving us tools to reach such heights.

I wish I was better at saying these things. You all (devs, players, everyone who matters) deserve the best possible praise.

*raises glass* Endeavors.

Thank you for making such a family friendly game, my husband and my sons and I have enjoyed playing together and that is a really, really big deal to me!!

Thank you for making such a positive game that is a huge bright light in world of very dark and depressing MMO's and video games.

Thank you for Trick or Treating!! I was lamenting to my husband yesterday about " What other game let's you knock on doors and go trick or treating!!"

Thank you for a fabulous adventure!

Thank you for the fun.

Thank you for your heart.

Thank you for the memories.

Thanks for the great game man, I had a blast for the past 6 plus years. You guys are tits in my book (thats a good thing...).

Now there is a huge hole in the game market for a good super hero game, and you guys seem to have experience in that arena - any chance you guys could throw something together? I think you'd have a lot of interested customers.

Love the background you shared!


Thanks again for the work you've put into this (goes for all devs/people there!)!

This thread set off another wave of Sad for me over the game's closing. I know I'll miss the community, but I'll also miss the game. I've been trying to put my finger on why, what I loved so much about playing that I would create new characters in my head even when I couldn't play, what all the other MMOs didn't have that this one does, why I drifted away from them with a "yeah, it was fun, but...", and I think I just got it.

I think the unique thing that this game brought to the playing field was an entirely different philosophy than all other MMOs I've ever played.

You let us create unique individual avatars that really represent us, or aspects of us. Other games do that, to some extent.

But you then you let those avatars do amazing and awesome things. Whether flying, tearing through a roomful of enemies, or stacking Holds on a boss until all they could do was float helplessly and let us demolish them, we got to watch and control our avatars as they performed incredible feats of superhuman power. Sure, they lost every now and then (and we the players could choose - another important aspect - if we wanted a tougher challenge), but for the most part, they are just plain awesome, regardless of archetype, powersets, or build.

And that makes us feel awesome playing them. And that makes us want to stay.

Most other places I've played (including one of CoH's competitors in the superhero genre) that promise your character will be awesome, with incredible-sounding powers and abilities. But then you actually play them, and it turns out their game design involves characters so restricted and enemies so overpowered that you have to struggle to even reach the levels of Adequate. All your incredible-sounding powers are barely effective in practice, and it's the enemies who get to look awesome as they pound you into the dirt. One-on-one fights with basic equal-level enemies are struggles where you barely come out ahead. (Or, worse, you have to find a large team and perfectly coordinate a perfectly-timed strategy with them in order to reach Barely Adequate. On your own, you're guaranteed to be nothing but a stain on the floor, even at max level with optimal gear)

That, I think, is why I stuck around. In City of Heroes, I could take any concept, bring it to unique, personalized life, and then have my creation (whether Hero or Villain) go out and be utterly awesome. Not in the slangy sense, but in the original sense. Inspiring awe. And they could be awesome without me having to Min-Max the Perfect Build, or scrounging up enough money for Optimal Gear, or crossing my fingers that I'd get that Uber-Rare 0.00001% drop, or (for most content) having to find seven other people who wouldn't mock me for not Min-Maxing, having Optimal Gear, or having Uber-Rare drops.

And, judging by all the posts on this forum since the game's closing was announced, I think it's not just me.

Take that lesson into whatever game you wind up working on next: give the players amazing things to do and see, but also make the players feel awesome as they do them. Let the players who want a challenge increase the game's chalenge, but let those who just want to sign on and tear through a few bosses do so. Let us play the game with you, not against you.

As you can see, let the players feel Awesome, and the players will be Awesome in return.

So thank you (and the rest of the Ex-Paragon-ites) so much for letting me be Awesome for the last two years.

I've been a computer gamer and video gamer for a lot of years, more than perhaps most here have been alive (my Dad was director of the Colorado School of Mines, and he'd sometimes bring him a terminal with a modem and let me log in to their computer and play Star Trek - he was not amused to wake up one morning and find I'd run through a whole roll of paper). I've played a lot of superhero games, and they never really got the feeling right.

One evening I was watching X-Play on TechTV, and they said there was finally a game in beta that got the feel of being a hero right, particularly flying. I went looking for ways to get into beta, and they were right. There was something odd about this idea of playing with others, but I wasn't into that - until one day I accepted an invite, and it was fun.

Since then, I've been superheroes of all stripes. I've soloed, I've teamed, I've leagued, I've raided. I've made friends, close friends in the games. I found a community, one I will miss more than I can say.

Thank you for all of that. Thank you for 8 years of both living out my fantasies and making real connections.

Thank you Matt. I'm glad I got to meet and talk to you at all those past comic cons in San Diego. I wish you and all the DEVS well.

I started playing in early 2005, and although there was much about this game that I loved there was much that made it, for me, unfun. After 6 months I quit altogether. 2 years later memories of the things I liked so much made me try the game again. By this time many things had evolved with you as lead designer. I found everything I had loved either still here or made even better. All the things that ruined the game for me back in '05 were gone.

Since then, it's only gotten better and better. It has been almost like you all were making a game for me, and no other game, especially no other MMO, has even come close. In fact, playing this game has ruined me for any other MMO. You've lead the only game I've ever played for years, and the only game I will miss when it's gone.

I forgot to add: thanks for keeping the updates free, even after going F2P. Most developers never would have done that.

Best of luck to you and the other's at Paragon Studios. I hope all of you land on your feet. Oh and I don't think we should chest bump because it would look like two sumo wrestlers.

Positron, I hope you never saw my character duplicate of yours. Was in jest and that quote about imitation and flattery...

Thank-you for all you, and the entire team did for this game. I left "permenantly" 3x and came back to COX each time because I found it to be one of the most community supporting, and team encouraging MMO's out there.

It was fun, I enjoyed the game and the people. The next step can be great, years later, also.

Farewell.

Another one of those players with alt-itis,

-BurnSucka.
"Melt 'em like butters!"