I just now read this article [http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/news_archive/thank_you.php] on the official site, main point as follows:
The tragedy isn't that it's shutting down, it's that NCSoft didn't reinvent it some time ago. The gameplay, mechanics and content are (for the most part) there. The only issue IMO was the aged engine that the "upgrade" 2 or so years ago did little to help with. It's not an ugly game, but it does show its age and what I think they should've done was rebuilt the entire engine, take the opportunity to "update" and modernise things a little, and migrate the database across. I'm frankly quite surprised as I thought the move to F2P had been a successful and profitable one.
For those who've never played it, City of Heroes/Villains is/was a comic-book/super hero/villain based MMO. While it was massively multiplayer, there wasn't much by way of persistance (being heavily instanced), the ability to affect the world, or even an economy before the auctionhouse was released. You could create almost any character concept you could think of and pick from a variety of the usual archetypes and both usual/unusual abilities and weapons. Teams of varied characters were great fun to play in and "ALT-itis" was par for the course.
It was originally developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCSoft who eventually bought it and moved development in-house to their own Paragon Studios. Cryptic went on to develop the next super-hero MMO "Champions Online" and also Star Trek Online and (I believe) are currently developing "Neverwinter" for the Chinese publisher (whose name I forget) that bought them and their IPs.
For those who have played it, do you have any thoughts, or fond memories to share?
Well, I've been an off and on player of CoX since around Issue 10ish and have had a lot of fun with it over the years. It's a strange game, incredible fun for a time but then all at once becoming quite "samey" (at which point I would take a break until I remember the good bits and have another crack). I have all the veteran badges and some great characters I've thoroughly enjoyed playing over the years and will be sad to see it go, particularly as I just two months ago started re-playing it again.
The tragedy isn't that it's shutting down, it's that NCSoft didn't reinvent it some time ago. The gameplay, mechanics and content are (for the most part) there. The only issue IMO was the aged engine that the "upgrade" 2 or so years ago did little to help with. It's not an ugly game, but it does show its age and what I think they should've done was rebuilt the entire engine, take the opportunity to "update" and modernise things a little, and migrate the database across. I'm frankly quite surprised as I thought the move to F2P had been a successful and profitable one.
For those who've never played it, City of Heroes/Villains is/was a comic-book/super hero/villain based MMO. While it was massively multiplayer, there wasn't much by way of persistance (being heavily instanced), the ability to affect the world, or even an economy before the auctionhouse was released. You could create almost any character concept you could think of and pick from a variety of the usual archetypes and both usual/unusual abilities and weapons. Teams of varied characters were great fun to play in and "ALT-itis" was par for the course.
It was originally developed by Cryptic Studios and published by NCSoft who eventually bought it and moved development in-house to their own Paragon Studios. Cryptic went on to develop the next super-hero MMO "Champions Online" and also Star Trek Online and (I believe) are currently developing "Neverwinter" for the Chinese publisher (whose name I forget) that bought them and their IPs.
For those who have played it, do you have any thoughts, or fond memories to share?
