dont underestimate my ability to stay obsessed over a single game for years after i first played it
Or for years after it can no longer be played.
Tag Archives: city of heroes
For what would have been the 10th anniversary of City of Heroes, some pictures of one of my very first characters, Jezebella, amusing herself in Paragon City.
That gazebo is so fucked
Are you sure gazebo is the correct word?
Are
you
sure?
And then the Gazebo ended up inside our Task Force, right
,,?
I’ll take the fifteen Iron Mans, please.
I’d like the Mars Exploration Expeditions, the Apollo Space program, and the LHC’s.
Because Science.
Never mind this – I’d buy City of Heroes, the server space to run it for everyone who wants to come back, a HELL of an ad campaign to announce to the world that it’s back, a goddamn ticker tape parade and mega-bash for all the Paragon Studios employees plus the salaries they DESERVE for the next 10 years, and have enough left over to hold the mother of all HeroCons AND help out anyone who needs to get there.
Why?
Because our home has been shut down a hell of a lot longer than 16 days.
And this would be accomplished by buying NCSoft, not just the CoH IP, and laying off all of the executives. Or so would be my hope.
City of Heroes: Last Chance and Final Hours
It has been nearly-to three months since the announce by NCSoft, publisher of the game City of Heroes Freedom, it will shut down servers on the 30th of October. During that period, players from the game have been busy showing their discontent about how indifferent NCSoft has been to the community around the MMORPG. But they also tried anything to continue their adventures in Paragon City.
And today, they had the great idea to send a 31-page long report to Disney and ask them to buy the licence and save the game. They also asked every players and fans to send letters in order to make the demand more important.
Finally, you can watch the clock ticking as the end for City of Heroes servers approach, using this website.
Source: Save City of Heroes
City of Heroes
So I’ve figured out why I woke up this morning feeling like hell. I kind of hate when my under-self doesn’t talk to the aware part of me about what is going on.
See, I play this MMORPG called City of Heroes. I can still say that in present tense right now, but two days from now — I won’t.
I don’t — I’m not sure I can put words around why this is so upsetting for me. The game is eight-and-a-half years old. We had eight years in May. And my relationship, the guy I’m marrying, he introduced me to the game, by loading up the character creator and putting his laptop in my lap. It’s an important part of our lives together, this game. Not MMOs in general, /this/ one.
I lost touch with my best friends after college, and I found one of them again because of City. She plays. I didn’t even know, until after I subscribed, and then I found her in the chatroom. I think I still have a text file recording our reaction. She’s one of my bridesmaids.
There are so many other people that I’ve met, who’ve been — and always will be — an enormous part of my life, because of this game. I’d need extra hands and feet to count them all. They — literally — saved my life. At the panels we have at Dragon*con, I’m known. I’m the Girl Who Needs No Mic.
It /hurts/, knowing that all that is being taken away from me. Not the memories, of course, but there won’t be any new ones. We, as a community, have done so much over the last three months, trying to change this, and two days from now our efforts … won’t mean anything. I’m holding back tears. You really don’t realise how deeply something has entwined itself into your heart until you have to face its absence.
We made — make — that game live. City is the base inspiration for my character here; Summer originated there. Me, if I were truly a superheroine, instead of just merely a human trying-to-be-heroine.
I just … needed to write all this out. To shape it in words and remind myself it’s okay to be upset about this. I don’t think I’ll really be here Friday night, because I’m going to be in Paragon City until they turn off the servers.
This forum post reads:
Brian Clayton (PICTURE in ThorsAssassin’s blog post about the dev dinner) is the studio manager of Formerly-Known-As Paragon. I have generally heard from him on Sunday night. I did not hear from him this Sunday, so I have nothing to tell you.
This, from my husband Larry Dixon however:
Larry Dixon: *shrug* It’s as “real” as anything else NCsoft says or does. That’ll flip if they want it to. What it *is* is an admission that they’ve noticed enough to respond to it “on company letterhead.” Its face value is meaningless.
The REAL takeaway from this is “Hey this is starting to hurt, stop it guys!” If the revival efforts meant nothing, NCsoft would not post what amounts to “Elvis has left the building.” And that is all that is. They want the negative attention to stop. That is an official attempt at deflection. Or, in political terms, an “Un-Answer.”
It appears to be a response but actually accomplishes nothing except silence those who weren’t very into it. Like I say, what it says is irrelevant; the thing to take notice of is that it was put there at all. And that means time to step it up because the other fighter just staggered.
If the “Save CoH/We love Paragon” etc. efforts were ineffective, we’d never have seen such a statement. The hidden meaning of that note is that it has dawned on somebody that this is developing into “anti-NCsoft,” not “Save-CoH,” so they issued a mollifying statement with a lot of buttonpushing feel-warm cozy buttons about how special what they just murdered was to them.
Now they reap the mistrust they sowed, they can see the coverage increase, the caution against them and the players taking their money away in droves, and we can look them steely in the eyes and reply “Too bad. It’s just business. Isn’t it.”
The “exhausted all options” is bizspeak for “We didn’t get what we wanted, so we stopped bothering to find solutions.” Businesspeople who truly WANT a result ALWAYS find a way, they never “exhaust all options.” So right there is an admission from NCsoft that they’re very bad businesspeople. Most certainly unimaginative and inflexible.
Shortest form: As a strategist, the hits are being felt by NCsoft, and they’ve barely begun.
Second message: This is the murderer issuing an official statement that they “really tried hard” not kill what they had a choice about murdering, and hoping that “Oh they loved it like I did, they’re really sorry!” should be your takeaway from that and that should make EVERYTHING just fine, right?
I don’t take “We loved it too!” as anything but an insult to our intelligence.
I don’t have much more to add to this, but here’s another example of NCsoft’s practices. If you guys remember Tabula Rasa, it turns out that NCsoft forged his resignation… http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/05/06/richard-garriott-blasts-ncsoft-with-24-million-lawsuit/
Well I’ve been totally demoralized…. Fuck you, NCSoft…
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?p=4407876
I said it on Facebook, I’ll say it again, Golden Girl, hon… Where do you find so much hope? I wish I had it. 🙁 *sighs*
Some replies of interest:
Seriously, you should all be members of the CoHTitan forums by now and part of the cause to not only save the game, but apply more pressure on NCsoft. This statement they issued is completely meaningless. It’s the PR department’s way of trying to mitigate the damage we’ve done to their reputation so far and we’ve barely begun.
SERIOUSLY, STOP LISTENING TO NCSOFT. THE REDNAMES ARE BEING FED THIS CRAP FROM THE PR GUYS.
Go. Go be constructive.
http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php
Just as importantly, READ THIS remark about the statement from Mercedes Lackey (Victoria Victrix) and her husband:
http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index…..html#msg57520
And if you’re sitting here on these forums feeling bummed about this and nothing else, you’re NOT helping the situation. Defeatist attitudes are complete BS!
Cont. :
AND LET’S NOT FORGET, NCsoft is the company that thought NOTHING of forging a letter of resignation for Richard Garriott over Tabula Rasa. Who seemed to think that forgery was a perfectly reasonable business practice????
I agree with these comments, personally. – Tai
Trying to be sincere, here.
As I sit here and ruminate on City of Heroes (which is something I will probably be doing quite a bit over the next several weeks) I cannot help but be awed at the community, and its reactions to the news.
There was the initial shell shock of the announcement, for it was so very sudden. There was despair, and there was anger. There was blame placed and fingers pointed. But in no short order, there was action.
In less than an hour after the announcement went live, the main petition went live. In the days since, the community rallied and promoted the petition, garnering attention from several gaming websites.
Fans gathered on the official forums to offer solace to the developers at Paragon Studios, and to thank them for letting them be part of this living, breathing, online world. They have sent e-mails, as well as physical mails, and made calls to NCSoft. Some to beg and plead for a stay of execution, some to appeal to reason, others simply to inform the publishers about what precisely City of Heroes has meant to them.
I’m fairly certain some of the corresponence has been vulgar and inflammatory. that’s just the nature of people. But the bulk of what I’ve seen is respectful and informative, and so very wrought with emotion that it brings tears to my eyes and I have to stop for a moment to collect myself.
There are the naysayers, of course. The cynics who say “why bother?” or “It won’t make a difference.” Maybe these people are right, maybe they aren’t. But it isn’t going to stop the community from trying.
It may be these next three months truly are City of Heroes’ swansong, but it’s not going to keep people from pulling themselves up out of whatever despairs or sorrows they’re going through. It isn’t going to make them forgo the bonds of friendship and community they have established.
And it certainly isn’t going to keep them from taking to heart the spirit of the game they all have in common; from standing firm in defense of something dear to them against insurmountable odds, no matter how hopeless or pointless it may seem.
It’s not going to keep them from being Heroes.