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I know there was someone around here who had tried out CoH other than myself.

I have had an active subscription for 6 and a half years now and suddenly, NCSoft has shut down Paragon Studios and City of Heroes. Paragon studios had only 24 hours notice to cease progress on the game, and that they will be turning it off on November 30th of this year. I've got literally thousands of hours played in the game, and I can honestly say it has been the only MMO to really grab my attention and keep it and has inspired me for a lot of things in my life.

This game was an escape for me and my brother, it wouldn't matter how bad of a day we were having or whatever horrible news we got. It always came down to "Let's play City" and we'd always feel better. Of course, that being said, I do feel bad for those who lost their jobs, fortunately they can get new ones. The community however has lost out on one of the greatest MMOs ever made for PC, the most customizable characters I've ever seen, and the most in depth character development systems that I've ever seen as well.

If you'd like to read the developers posting it can be read here:
http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/news ... nk_you.php

Yeah, I just saw that earlier today and was considering making a post about it as well. I tried CoH and can say it was not really to my liking, but I know it had a lot of very dedicated fans who will miss it.

What happened to City of Villains? Wasn't that kind of a separate game (in the same way each of the Guild Wars I games were, or something like now)?

City of Heroes and Villains were always connected through PvP, but then they released a new 'Issue' where it actually allowed players to bounce back and forth between the two. Hero-> Vigilante -> Villain -> Rogue -> Hero.. the games were essentially one big game for the last couple of years.

I've been doing a lot of digging and I am seriously considering ceasing all my personal project development to help create an emulator. Anyone have experience in this?


**EDIT** There's already progress on one in particular, they have it able to log in but not walk around, but its back to when the game was only a year old. Certainly a lot missing but makes it prove that it's possible.

That's what I thought, since that is roughly how the different Guild War I releases were connected as well. You created a character in a specific, stand-alone campaign, but they could compete in PvP together and eventually completely move back and forth between campaigns.

Emulators are very hard work. And I mean very hard. I tip my hats to the mad geniuses who can actually get that stuff done. It is about 30 stories over my head, since it is all a work of reverse engineering. It must be started while the official servers are up, since that is how you packet sniff out most of the server's structuring and data. Once the server goes down, the chances of an emulator being finished goes way down. You are basically using a client and some 3rd party software to stumble around in the dark that is the server until you bump into enough walls to know the layout of the room.

There could possibly still be hope of someone else buying it and re-releasing it. I know its playerbase has suffered major blows over the last couple of years, but considering that before WoW came out it was the most popular American MMO of all time makes me think there are more than enough players wanting to play it to make it appealing to another company. The only obstacle to that is if NCSoft culled technology from it and used it in other MMOs, since that could mean they don't trust any other company to have it. If that didn't happen, I would actually be surprised if no one buys it. Just because it isn't turning enough cash for NCSoft doesn't mean it couldn't be a cash cow for a start-up.

It strikes me as pretty cynical, given the territory is kind of close to the heart (who doesn't become attached?). But unlike a book (say lord of the rings) where if you buy it and become attached to it, you own it forever (or until you lose it!), here what you care about is under the thumb of a cut throat executive.

I can't personally call it cut-throat, really. Most NCSoft studios are large operations that produce a lot of new content for their games with a large staff. People and content are expensive, and every game has a threshold where it will be canceled if its population drops below it. It is like that with everything. Every soda or pancake mix producer also has a point (typically above the break-even point of course) where it is just not profitable enough.

What could grant CoH new life is if another company buys it and drastically changes the support structure and infrastructure. Fewer developers probably making slightly less polished new content, and probably less of it would save boat loads of money. Buying new, much more powerful hardware today could probably house the same population on 50% of the machines (the machines hosting the game now, statistically speaking, are probably much closer in age to the game itself since mass hardware upgrades are rare in these types of setups and usually only occur once every 10 years or so). EA canceled Meridian 59 well over 10 years ago after Ultima Online gutted their population. It became far too profit starved for EA to mess with it. But a group of the core developers pooled their money to buy the game, they restructured the support and development staff, and now claim they are making a profit running it with a small staff.

No. It's not like soda or pancake cannot be made by others - no one has their claws hooked into it and denies any others the capacity. Further how much new content has Tolkeen produced lately? And what makes it a matter is that I assume such a setting is about dedication and caring about it. Since when did we start handing out our hearts for companies to do with as they please? This isn't to be normalised!

There isn't some special fiscal get out for them that one simply must grant them to be a reasonable person, but no responsibility in return. How incredibly lopsided is that notion?

Eactly what does such a company have to do to not seem reasonable themselves? If it takes seconds to figure an answer (rather than recall an answer already known), the likely answer is they have gained a carte blanque capacity to manipulate a bunch of peoples emotions. And they happily use the blank cheque for their benefit only.

I do call that cut throat.

Jackolantern wrote:Emulators are very hard work. And I mean very hard. I tip my hats to the mad geniuses who can actually get that stuff done. It is about 30 stories over my head, since it is all a work of reverse engineering. It must be started while the official servers are up, since that is how you packet sniff out most of the server's structuring and data. Once the server goes down, the chances of an emulator being finished goes way down. You are basically using a client and some 3rd party software to stumble around in the dark that is the server until you bump into enough walls to know the layout of the room.

Yeah i figured it'd be something like that. They do in fact have awesome progress, and I know it probably sounds crazy but I just don't wanna let the game go, it is something that will stay with me forever, and if it could stay with me as a 7 year old version emulator then it'll have to stay with me like that.

Got 2 months for everyone on it to gather as much data as they can before it goes offline then.