NCSoft just announced that City of Heroes will be shutting down. It's last day will be November 30th 2012.
If you go WAY back to the first few posts of this blog you will see it started out as a City of Heroes blog before I restyled it into a general expression of my nerdiness.
To be honest, it feels like a friend of mine just died.
I started playing City of Heroes a little over 8 years ago. One weekend I bought Doom III and the next weekend I bought City of Heroes. I played Doom III about a week. I played City of Heroes constantly from the time I bought it until July 2007. After that I played it on and off and was getting back into it shortly before Star Wars: The Old Republic launched. Even at that, I kept CoX fully patched and loaded on my system, just in case. I pre-ordered City of Villains and I bought Going Rogue when it released. I have several level 50 characters there including the "Big Bad Boulder Bitch" Rachael Storm - Stone Armor/Super Strength tank. Despite a couple accusations, no, she is not even remotely based on "Rachael Summers" of Marvel's Days of Future Past (I didn't even know that she'd married Johnny Storm in that timeline).
I made many friends over there. With Rachael, I saved Paragon City and it's virtual world hundreds of times over.
I remember when a friend of mine first showed me City of Heroes with his Fire blaster flying over Galaxy City, laying down hate on Skulls.
I remember Rachael (often) getting lost in Perez Park, only to be smacked down by the Vazhilok Eidelons there or the Lost Lieutenant who had a TV on his head (cuz, yeah, that makes you look tough).
I remember "Where are the Lost in Kings Row?"
I remember the first time I went to Boomtown, just north of Steel Canyon. I was on an eight man team and we were just "hunting mobs" when suddenly Rachael took, what I thought, was a short leap - but instead fell about 2 stories down and got MAULED by a huge group of clockwork.
I remember when the "Shadow Shard" was introduced. I never cared for that zone, but the launch even was fun as the weird extra-dimensional creatures, the Rularuu, who were very poorly balanced even when there were level 5 versions of them, wandered Paragon laying smackdown on lowbies.
I remember when I first got to Talos Island. It was one the prettiest zones in game at the time, second only to Founders Falls. I was part of another street hunting group beating down Freakshow. I was "shocked" (pun intended) when a defeated boss proceeded to stand back up and start mauling us.
I remember taking my gimped specced version of Rachael to Independance Port for the "Respec Trial". We had to fight Sky Raiders trying to destroy the nuclear reactor in Paragon City. The entire party wiped on the last wave of bad guys except for a Broadsword/Invulnerability Scrapper named "Swordie". She managed to solo the last wave for us and get us the respec.
I remember being sad when many of my first few friends in game quit.
I remember taking my Katana/Regeneration Scrapper Kanpo to Brickstown. At that time, the regen powerset (and scrappers in general) were horrifically overpowered. I had fun soloing large groups of +5 Council and only dying when I didn't manage my end and "Instant Healing" toggled off. I looked at the Ziggeraut (supervillain prison) and wonder why we never had to go in and put down a prison break.
I remember the Hollows introduction - in all it's buggy glory.
I remember the glory of Striga Isle. To this day, it is still one of my favorite gaming "experiences". As an aside, most of the stories there were written by Shane Lacey Hensley, the man who brought us the tabletop RPG Savage Worlds.
At that time, "Global Chat" was released, and I joined a HUGE supergroup called "The Conglomerate" which defined much of my time in City of Heroes. It was a guild I actually learned a great deal from, not just about gaming, but a number of things that applied to "Real Life."
I remember the JOY of logging on at 4:30 am and running the Statesman Task Force every day.
I remember getting very silly and creating my tribute to anime magical girls - "Knight Flyer", using the Epic AT - Peacebringer and the "shoulder kitty" costume option.
Good Bye Paragon City. Good Bye Rogue Isles.
Good Bye Rachael Storm, Kanpo, Knight Flyer, Demon Hunter Yurei, Cruft, Mary Sladen,
Good Bye to the "in game friends (and enemies)" (but not their RL counterparts I hope) in no particular order: South Freedom, Cymraes, Maliss, Dr. Opie, Quantum Cat, Tri-Polar, Quantum Plumber, Captain Slap, Zyreos, Red Tomax, Mr. Shivers, GuiltTrip Girl, Lovely LaRose, Bleak Forecast, The Mayhemettes, Bolt Crank, House Call, Rei Kei, Slick Zero, Charisma, Red Vine, Allison, Status Crow, Rasta, and too many more to name.
Good Bye City of Heroes. You were my first MMO and one of my favorite computer games of all time.
P.S. Death Mages, be thankful the game is ending, I *still* hate you and your underground caves in Paragon.
