City of Heros MMO is shutting down

[Talon]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...City-of-Heroes

http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/n.../thank_you.php

Damn...

This was the first mmo I ever played. There wasn't much content back in 2004, but I was just starting to get back into it recently. Now this. This sucks.

[RootedPhoenix]

Boo.

I've never played, but I know how much I love my favorite games, and how sad I'd be if they went away.

[Arcus]

This came as a shock to everyone including the people at Paragon Studios. It's sad when something like this happens. You not only think of your own fun time, but a loss of an entire world.

This may not be the end of Paragon City though. Many of the players are not willing to go without a fight. There have been talks about buying the game and keeping the servers going.

[Nurian]

.....damn.

I loved City of Heroes but City of Villains was more fun. I've considered going back to it. This hurts...

[AccountingDrone]

I never played, but it seemed to fill the comic book superhero niche that just isn't filled by WoW or EVE Online, Minecraft, World of Tanks ... I do know that there were a couple private servers out there, maybe if the company won't do anything, word will get around and people will still be able to play.

[RootedPhoenix]

I hope the community keeps it going.

[lordlundar]

I'm just going to copy and paste what I put on the Escapist article.

Not surprising. While the Free to play model was well received initially, they very quickly made decisions that affected the sustainability (aka selling power and putting everything, even articles that can be earned in game in the store and removing in game methods of acquiring them) of the game. They also completely ignored development of non subscriber content, which led to a very short lifespan for people not wanting to pay extra every week.

That, combined with getting rid of key development staff prior to the relaunch (notables include Christopher Bruce aka Back Alley Brawler) and a not terribly well received removal of key in game NPCs at launch caused a lot of old guard players to leave. So while the remaining and the minor influx of new players were paying more, it was only barely able to offset the loss of the number of players. So while the store was bringing a lot more money, the overall income barely was steady.

And yes, I did play. I started with City of Villains when it was separate and have a few characters including an epic. I left the game when I was seeing items that affect the game's balance up on the store and every time I considered going back I read that they did something else that did not sit well for me. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. Prior to the previously noted layoffs, the development team was well liked and were concerned with putting out the best game they could. After the layoffs, they focused on money at all costs, and now we know the costs of it.

[Kristev]

I play it infrequently. Now I'm quite sad.

[El Pollo Guerrera]

I, too, play it rather infrequently. It's the only MMO I've ever played.

I do hope the servers stay up, but how would that work?

[Chanlin]

All it takes is some enterprising folks to run a private server and for Paragon/NC to let it happen or not care enough to try and shut it down.

I used to play CoH back when it first came out. I think I lasted maybe 6 months. I went back to it to give it another shot when CoV was released just to see how much had updated or changed. I can honestly say I never got into it. I just couldn't see past the cookie cutterness of the missions/quests. That isn't to say other MMO's aren't all the same in that regard, some just do it better.

I think I may be the only person who isn't surprised by the news of CoX shutting down. IMO it has been in a steady decline ever since they went F2P.

[Antares]

I stopped playing shortly after the release of City of Villains. It will join Shadowbane as a game that I enjoyed immensely for a time. I shall mourn it's passing.

[Arcus]

Just thought I'd add an update to this. This is turning into a PR nightmare for NCSoft. The players have gone to social media to fight back. They have made so much noise that news stories are starting to show talking about the push to save the game. Players in other NCSoft games are asking if they are next.

In all of this came a request from the management from the now closed Paragon Studios. Keep the pressure up. They are in talks to buy the game and IP and need the players to keep fighting back.

[Arcus]

Well, CoH is no more. It shut down for the last time 45 minutes ago.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Put me in the pile of not surprised at all. I'm sorry, but no company is going to keep up a game that is not making a profit. Just because money is coming in doesn't mean it's making a profit.

I used to play it a while back, unfortunately I was one that got fairly bored of it very quickly, though I could see the appeal to other players. (I went to it coming off FFXI) It's unfortunate for the remaining players that there weren't enough of them to keep it going. Though I have to say that the development team went off the rails when it went F2P.

[Arcus]

It was turning a profit. That's why no one still can understand why they shut it down. Profit projections showed that it should have stayed profitable for a couple more years. All NCSoft said was that it didn't fit in with the future vision of the company. When you look at their other games, they are right. CoH was unlike anything else they had.

As for the f2p. It really wasn't a bad thing for CoH because it wasn't your normal f2p. Anyone that chose to keep their subscription going saw very little change in their game. What they did see was new fluff type things in the store that had no real use other than to be fun. The smart player who started as f2p quickly realized that the best deal to get all the content was to switch to a subscription player. This hybrid model of f2p worked so well that it is now being used in other games. I was one of the people that worried about the change to the f2p, but was happy to admit that I was wrong about it. f2p was not what killed CoH