On the End of a World...read this article!

I found this article while surfing Bing and Google for news on CoH. It really addresses the "x-factor" of CoH, the community and the reason we fight so hard to keep it around.

If you do read the article, please try to share it with your non-gamer friends that might not get what all the fuss is about--it explains, in a very genuine way, the value of what might otherwise be seen as esoteric popular culture.

And please leave a comment for the blog's author. There's no registration required!

And I'm puuussshing this back to the top. It's important enuff for you to read.


Trust me.

A really good read that says a lot about the game and the community.

Definitely my favorite thus far.

That's an excellent article. Jack, I think your comment also summarizes my thoughts on it perfectly.

Excellent article. I found it interesting that he compared the shutdown of CoH to old movies and TV shows that were not preserved because people at the time had no idea that future generations would actually care about them. What seems disposable today may be seen as a lost treasure in the future. I hadn't thought of CoH in those terms before.

Of course, I'm sure the basic code for the game will be saved somewhere, so it'll never really be gone for good--I'm sure the possiblity of ressurecting it will always exist, same way a lot of old computer games have been re-released over the years. But all the things we as players created--characters, costumes, bases, MA story arcs--all that work and creativity? Who knows. Dust in the wind, most likely. (Or maybe not all, thanks to the Titan Network's character-preserving software. . .)

Wow, that's amazing. I was nodding along to the first part, and then when it got to the lost bits of "popular entertainment" that no one thought were worth preserving, I got the goosebumps.

Thank you for posting this.

This is amazingly, precisely on point. This guy GETS IT.

Great story, everyone should read it.

DEFINITELY worth sharing!

I've added my comment, using the same name as I go by here on the forums.

Good stuff.

I've often remarked that one of the best decisions ever made while designing City was to decouple appearance from skills, so that even two characters with identical power selections may look totally different. Add to that probably the second-best decision; i.e., the enhancement system for improving aspects of a power (or not) according to your personal priorities, and the fact that we all play with different styles, and you'll probably never see two characters that look and behave exactly the same ... ever. This article adds another interesting layer to that argument that I hadn't considered.

It's funny. At this point, Bright and I do (inevitably) have several characters with similar power sets, and yet the way we go about playing them is often quite different. I doubt we could possibly have more disparate techniques of Masterminding, but it works. Even when placing enhancements in similar powers, we have different strategies based on personal priorities. If I felt the urge to try a different combination of forms on a Peacebringer, I'd use a second or third build. She prefers to create different characters instead, because she more closely connects a character's identity with its style. I love crunching numbers and working up set combinations; she's only willing to invest that much time in a few favorite characters, yet the game accommodates us both.

If you go to Atlas and see a group of people assembling a DFB, they're probably already individually distinct in appearance. Go over to the equivalent zone in Aion, and everyone's wearing the same lowbie gear. In fairness, Aion gets better in that respect as you go, and the appearance of an item can be skinned. Some of the later weapons/armor/robes have quite lovely designs. Nevertheless, the impression sticks. City has ruined me in that I really dislike having functional details tied to specific gear. Anyway, at this point I'm rambling. I'll stop.

I've been spreading this on Facebook.

All I can say about this is...

+1

About sums it up, this article is exactly right, IMO. Well ok, mostly, I'm sure, in the long view of things, but for me... it's close enough to exactly to call it that.

Mike

I read this earlier when Golden Girl posted it on facebook. I really loved the article.