City of Heroes: Back in the News
By Meticulous Meta, OnRPG’s Unemployed Hero
Hello again heroes! It seems like forever since we last gathered here. Of course I know many of us can be found on the Titan Network. Which TonyV and his crew are awesome enough to run. But it is time for me to come out of my semi retirement to talk about our lost love, City of Heroes. Why? Well it has been getting quite a bit of attention since the now quite famous MMORPG panel at PAX East last month in which Jack Emmert expressed an interest in City of Heroes and several others, including Dave Georgeson from SOE said that City of Heroes didn’t deserve to die.
Since word got out about that panel the Titan Network have started all sorts of plans, which include mailing the MMO media to make sure they know what was said and that the good fight has not ended. Now, sadly in a forum post on the Champions Online’s forums, Community Manager Trailturtle talked about an email conversation with Jack, in which it was said that while Jack does have an emotional attachment to CoH (who doesn’t?) there are no plans for Cryptic or PWE to bring back City of Heroes. Sadface. It isn’t actually all that surprising. And I am as well as many others are so pleased that the Cryptic guys have taken notice of the comments and questions and faced them instead of just ignoring them.
But that isn’t the only reason City of Heroes has been in the news recently. Gamasutra recently posted a quite lengthy look behind the scenes at Paragon Studios which came thanks to Matt “Formerly Known As Positron” Miller and others. In it comes the astonishing news that at one point City of Heroes was just one signature away from being saved and that Issue 24 was just two weeks away from being pushed to the live servers. Matt goes on to talk about the anniversary plans which would be kicking into gear quite soon if City of Heroes were still running. They involved Battalion and eventually, a moonbase.
And that brings us to yesterday evening when Massively posted the article “Stop Digging Up The Grave.” In it Eliot Lefebvre called out the City of Heroes community. Saying that hope was gone, and City of Heroes would never return. Fan reaction has been quite a lot more mellow than I think it would have been just a couple months ago. Many of the comments say that people accept Eliot’s views but they aren’t going to give up so easily. Others see the merit in getting over it and moving on, while a few see the CoH community as a group of fanatical fans who just won’t give up. But that isn’t to say Eliot doesn’t wish the game would come back. Though he admitted just after the closure was announced that he had been taking time off from the game he would love to see it make a return, even offering to buy TonyV confetti if he proves to be wrong.
As we quickly come up to what would be the ninth anniversary, a lot of emotions are going to be stirred up. You may not be able to log into the game anymore but the community is still going strong on Facebook and the Titan Network. And if you’re looking for a reason to get a bit teary have a look at the fan made replica of the City of Heroes website at cityofheroes.ca.
No matter which side you fall on this is a time for reflection for everyone in every MMO. Could yours be next? The City of Heroes community is still struggling with the loss. No matter how good a game may be it can’t fill that Paragon City shaped hole in our hearts. Farewell for now, I’ll see you all again for a special City of Heroes article on April 28th, what would have been the 9th anniversary of City of Heroes.
Keep up the good fight my friends.
