The End of City of Heroes

Well … dammit.

This morning we announced that Paragon Studios will be taking to the skies of City of Heroes for the last time.

In a realignment of company focus and publishing support, NCsoft has made the decision to close Paragon Studios. Effective immediately, all development on City of Heroes will cease and we will begin preparations to sunset the world’s first, and best, Super Hero MMORPG before the end of the year. As part of this, all recurring subscription billing and Paragon Market purchasing will be discontinued effective immediately. We will have more information regarding a detailed timeline for the cessation of services and what you can expect in game in the coming weeks.

That … just … SUCKS.

It’d hard to express in words how much City of Heroes has meant to me.  It was the first MMORPG I ever played.  I met folks there. I ran a supergroup of friends and acquiaintances.  I gave a sub to my wife for Valentines Day, and the two of us have logged weeks worth of  time over the years.

I came in at I3, when things were in a nascent stage.  I remember mad dashes through the Hollows … go-hunt-killing Skulls in Kings Row … endless jogs through Steel Canyon to the missions before hitting that magic Level 14 when you could get a travel power …

The expansion of content, of character types and powers, of Quality of Life features kept it all fresh and new, yet still familiar.

We had a stable of characters on different servers, spanning everything from toons in their teens (level-wise) to retired Level 50s, and in an array of powers and synergies that playing the same missions back to back (e.g., the Signature Story Arcs) never felt like a dull grind, but a series of wargames with differing conditions.

I wrote a novel. Well, half a novel.  That I still plan to get back to.

We tried different games — DC Universe Online, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and (and Margie and Kay still play this, too), Lord oft the Rings Online.  But we always came back to CoH.

It made us feel super. Especially together.

And now … after, what, 8, 9 years? … it’s going away.

The team here at Paragon deserves special praise for all that we have accomplished over the last 5+ years. These developers are some of the most creative and talented people in the gaming industry. By now, we’ve all been given this news internally, but to anyone who may be reading this message after the fact; know that your hard work and dedication has not gone unappreciated or unnoticed. To any potential studios looking to grow your team; hire these people. You won’t regret it.

The Dev community on CoH, including their accessibility through the forums, was always one of the cool aspects of CoH.

To our Community,

Thank you. Thank you for your years of support. You’ve been with us every step of the way, sharing in our challenges, encouraging us to make City of Heroes better, more than everyone else thought it could be. We couldn’t have come this far without you. I implore you all, focus on the good things of CoH and Paragon Studios. Don’t dwell on the “how” or the “why”, but rather join us in celebrating the legacy of an amazing partnership between the players and the development team.

Thank you, and I’ll see you in the skies, one last time.

I don’t blame the Paragon Studios folks. The direction for this is clearly about NCSoft. I’ll be curious as to what news comes out about what’s driving this decision.

Regardless, it’s sad. Depressing. Grief-making. Like finding out the restaurant you liked so much, where you go every few weeks, where you know the staff’s names, where you proposed to your wife … is not only closing, but being torn down for a WalMart.

Ugh.