This sums it up for me perfectly:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/10...g-city-of-her/

CoH isn't perfect, but it was a game that, up until August 31, was still evolving, still changing, still improving. Everyone's "pet issue", if not immediately on the table, was still at least being heard by the developers. There was not only new stuff for new characters to do, there were quality of life improvements for all characters, new and old.

I think that's what I'll miss most of all. Even now, I get a pang when I look at my characters on Live and think of what was in store for them in I24 and beyond (especially my poor Blaster, my first-ever character who still isn't 50, but also my Dominator, who I bought sets for specifically in anticipation of the change to set bonuses in I24).

I agree with most all of that article..

It never happened as fast as some players would like, but the game wasn't just adding new content, it was adding new technology constantly: we're not really playing the same game that launched in 2004, and we wouldn't be playing the same game in 2013 that we were playing in 2012. Even things I would have thought were extremely unlikely we now know were happening behind the scenes: improvements to demorecord, for example. Server-side LUA scripting would have *literally* rewritten the book of what's possible in the game.

The shutdown is not just taking away the game I played from 2004 to 2012, its taking away the game I will never get to play, which is almost unimaginably better than the game we're playing today.

I keep coming back to the thought:

"But I still have videos to make."

And it breaks my heart each time.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

That's why I personally am so frustrated over this. It's not that NCsoft made a business decision that City of Heroes isn't in its long term future plans. I mean, I think they're crazy for that, but still, that's their prerogative.

It's because we still have a thriving player base, a developer team that wanted very badly to continue working on the game, together making up an extremely great community. There were options available in which everyone could win, but NCsoft deliberately chose a path that doesn't benefit them (I would argue actually harms their reputation significantly) and that would likely destroy a community in the process.

Can NCsoft do that? I'm not disputing the legalities of it. But is it ethical? My personal opinion is that no, it's not. They should have tried to come to an agreement in which everyone could have won. But now, instead of remembering them as a company willing to save its community, I remember it as a company that didn't care and that laid off 80+ hardworking, dedicated people.