I respect Paragon Studios for their achievements and creating one of the biggest names in MMOs. City of Heroes will be missed by many, and it's sad to see it go. I think this announcement took everyone by surprise.
Neverwinter is on the horizon, Cryptic Studios is doing fine, great even, and there is nothing to fear on that front.
That's what worries me Rune... COH was doing fine too; and there was another game in production by Paragon (though not nearly as far along as Neverwinter); they got the axe anyway.
Then again Perfect World isn't NCSoft; I don't see a track record of ruthless (and often stupid) culling with PW; so maybe we'll be just fine.
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City of Heroes is a great game and the current Dev team has done a great job (as did the original dev team, of course). It's very sad to see it go. I think my CoH guild will be moving to CO. Here's hoping CO is around for many, many years to come!
That's what worries me Rune... COH was doing fine too; and there was another game in production by Paragon (though not nearly as far along as Neverwinter); they got the axe anyway.
Then again Perfect World isn't NCSoft; I don't see a track record of ruthless (and often stupid) culling with PW; so maybe we'll be just fine.
That's exactly it. CoH may not have been pulling WoW numbers or what have you, but it wasn't losing NCSoft any money. NC is in dire straights because "that game that rhymes with 'ion'" (that's edited? O.o) failed and they dumped more money than they could handle into pushing GW2. So rather than kill off the sick "again, game that rhymes with 'ion'", one of their own, they kill off the mostly healthy CoH (which is someone else's game that they bought). People will say what they want, that the writing was on the wall with Freedom, etc, but with all the content that was coming out and that was due to come out, CoH would've had another 3-5 years in it I think.
Thank you for that heads up. I stopped playing years ago after getting bored with the combat and didn't like their F2P system years later. But, as far as a service, it had always been great, whether it was server up time, new content, or customer support.
Not to take away from its closing, but that really makes me weary of CO's lifespan considering my experience here has been far less "kosher".
That's what worries me Rune... COH was doing fine too; and there was another game in production by Paragon (though not nearly as far along as Neverwinter); they got the axe anyway.
Then again Perfect World isn't NCSoft; I don't see a track record of ruthless (and often stupid) culling with PW; so maybe we'll be just fine.
Yeah, you guys will be fine.
NCSoft has been known to me very bad moves. And if a certain guild at war with a number two in it doesn't do as well as they hoped, then they axed a good dedicated community with a small amount of money flowing it. Not as much but still enough.
That's exactly it. CoH may not have been pulling WoW numbers or what have you, but it wasn't losing NCSoft any money. NC is in dire straights because "that game that rhymes with 'ion'" (that's edited? O.o) failed and they dumped more money than they could handle into pushing GW2. So rather than kill off the sick "again, game that rhymes with 'ion'", one of their own, they kill off the mostly healthy CoH (which is someone else's game that they bought). People will say what they want, that the writing was on the wall with Freedom, etc, but with all the content that was coming out and that was due to come out, CoH would've had another 3-5 years in it I think.
CoH was doing fine. They had a good loyal community of players who were willing to keep giving them money so long as they kept the doors open. This was a move to appease shareholders and keep stock prices high after their abysmal financial report.
I played CoH for 2 years, from around it's launch to when Cryptic left. I had some major gripes the whole time though, like lack of choice in the powers system, slow combat, and repetitive indoor missions on the same four maps. That's why I was so blown away when CO fixed all these problems, making it the perfect game for me.
Not to take away from its closing, but that really makes me weary of CO's lifespan considering my experience here has been far less "kosher".
I've always worried about this too, and until now I would derive hope from the fact that CoH is still going. I guess at the soonest they would close CO after launching Neverwinter, which is currently scheduled for early next year. I'll just hve to get the most out of it that I can between now and then.
Well, it shocked me at first but then I guess the writing was on the wall and Paragon was desperately trying to save their sinking ship. The whole F2P model they used that they later said wasn't F2P, was designed around milking and diming every aspect, aspect that even its two biggest competitors (Champions and DCUO) were not even doing. I've heard a lot of the insides and from I understand CoH is the low hanging fruit victim in this, NCSoft being severely in debt and such. I always did think Champs would go first, but who knows now.
I have great memories of CoH, but what NCSoft was doing to the game I hated that company for. And that is the reason I could never look back on CoH again, that and its atrocious graphics. NCSoft was tearing that game apart from behind the scenes, and I was witness to it personally, despite all the negative press that they tried to spin about competitors and such.
I can only hope that the IP has reverted to Cryptic that hey had a clause for that, maybe we can see Paragon City revived in Champions or at least some of the signature IP characters. I know a lot of people had love for those characters, Ghost Widow will always be in my heart.
Cryptic, now is the time to build up and show support to your game and redouble your efforts.
Unfortunately I expect troubled waters though, with the butthurt and bitter coming out the woodwork, Cryptic and Champions will probably get a lot of finger pointing at them for something they had nothing to do with. Already see it from those who are sore on various sites, like the recent release of the Nighthawk video, now, in wake of this announcement.
CoX has been around for like 8 years - that is a tremendous lifespan in MMO terms. I played it for about 3.5 years - it was really showing its age, and while it may have had a healthy population, I don't think it would have made any kind of turn-around.
I'm surprised that they didn't just put it into maintenance mode and just slow/cease development, (with an accordingly similar drop in sub fees).
Similarly, given that it seemed to be worth keeping around for as long as it was, why not start work on a sequel and transition over to it? They could have used the GW2 engine or something to save some start-up costs...
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CoX has been around for like 8 years - that is a tremendous lifespan in MMO terms. I played it for about 3.5 years - it was really showing its age, and while it may have had a healthy population, I don't think it would have made any kind of turn-around.
I'm surprised that they didn't just put it into maintenance mode and just slow/cease development, (with an accordingly similar drop in sub fees).
Similarly, given that it seemed to be worth keeping around for as long as it was, why not start work on a sequel and transition over to it? They could have used the GW2 engine or something to save some start-up costs...
I've heard, though I can't substantiate, NCSoft was $6 mill in the hole, and have been bought out. CoH is the casualty in this fallout, and the Paragon devs were well aware of this but couldn't talk about it. Again this is all hear say, so I can't corroborate it, but this is what I am being told.
I liked City, even if I didn't play it long. I never loved it the way I love CO but I will miss it.
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
I've heard, though I can't substantiate, NCSoft was $6 mill in the hole, and have been bought out. CoH is the casualty in this fallout, and the Paragon devs were well aware of this but couldn't talk about it. Again this is all hear say, so I can't corroborate it, but this is what I am being told.
Originally Posted by mijjestic: Ultimately, though, MMO players throwing stones at each other in this fashion is basically one nerd pointing and laughing at another nerd whose glasses are thicker.
I've heard, though I can't substantiate, NCSoft was $6 mill in the hole, and have been bought out. CoH is the casualty in this fallout, and the Paragon devs were well aware of this but couldn't talk about it. Again this is all hear say, so I can't corroborate it, but this is what I am being told.
The official announcement wasn't only directed to players, but to employees of Paragon as well, so at the moment, it seems not even the guys at PS knew about this until today. I can't speak for NC being bought out or not, I haven't heard anything about that.
Something of interest though is that the game will shut down 5 years to the month that NC took over from Cryptic. The engine itself is still Cryptic's if I'm not mistaken, so some wonder if this may also be because of some sort of contract issue; that NC and PWE/Cryptic couldn't come to terms or neither one had any interest in renegotiating at all.
The official announcement wasn't only directed to players, but to employees of Paragon as well, so at the moment, it seems not even the guys at PS knew about this until today. I can't speak for NC being bought out or not, I haven't heard anything about that.
Something of interest though is that the game will shut down 5 years to the month that NC took over from Cryptic. The engine itself is still Cryptic's if I'm not mistaken, so some wonder if this may also be because of some sort of contract issue; that NC and PWE/Cryptic couldn't come to terms or neither one had any interest in renegotiating at all.
They DEFINITELY didn't know, not the majority of them. City Of Heroes has a weekly TwitchTV livestream (that kept making it to TwitchTV's front page due to viewership numbers) where the devs get on for an hour and talk with the community and reveal new, upcoming things. The most recent one was just a couple days ago. The devs seemed HAPPY, downright JOYFUL as they talked about ALL THE COOL STUFF they were going to be bringing out soon. There was NO indication from ANY of them that their jobs were in danger.
I can't believe that any of them could have known about it and just seemed so.. alive.
Pretty low NC. Never getting any of my money again. Looks like the hole in my gaming budget will be filled by a full return to CO.
[center][i]♪ I'm going around not in circles but in spirographs. It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪[/i][/center]
It's kinda sad really, I play CoX from about 6 before Issue 8 launched right up until I joined the CO Open Beta. So about 5-6 years, and I loved it every step of the way up until I played CO's more active combat style.
I recall the anticipation up until the Issue 9 launch with the crafting system and IOs, I remember being invited to the late stages of the Architect Closed Beta and marvelling at how I was actually creating missions. I remember first teaming through the Hollows, the feeling of the hover power and watching people fly through the air and thinking, "One day I'll do that", I obsessively read the lore and still know more about it than the CO lore, and I remember the forums, I remember Mothers Love and Floating Fat Man, and most of all, I can recall it being one of the few places that I could be me and not have to hide my love for superheroes, writing and just having fun...
CO may be better in some ways, but there's some things that you can't replace, I really hope that Cryptic manages to headhunt some of the Dev team to come onto CO or even STO, and I hope that some or even all of their players can find it within themselves to come back to the people who started it all and try CO if they haven't already or retry it and find a new home.
Fare thee well City of Heroes, here's to the memories.
Beta - seven years in CoX for me sad to see it go. Especially since I think the EQ servers are still running. I may log in with my old account to take one last look around.
They DEFINITELY didn't know, not the majority of them. City Of Heroes has a weekly TwitchTV livestream (that kept making it to TwitchTV's front page due to viewership numbers) where the devs get on for an hour and talk with the community and reveal new, upcoming things. The most recent one was just a couple days ago. The devs seemed HAPPY, downright JOYFUL as they talked about ALL THE COOL STUFF they were going to be bringing out soon. There was NO indication from ANY of them that their jobs were in danger.
I can't believe that any of them could have known about it and just seemed so.. alive.
Pretty low NC. Never getting any of my money again. Looks like the hole in my gaming budget will be filled by a full return to CO.
I haven't a clue either way, NCSoft stopped getting my money long ago. My GF let me play her GW2 account, just to see it, I don't get the hype this game has. It's just another WoW clone. Just because they moved the exclamation points to random events doesn't change that fact. But that's another story.
I had enough dealing with NCSoft in the back rooms over in City of, I knew what they were about. And as much as announcements may sound like blindsides, there have been plenty of times that the devs were well aware of something.
NCSoft had a 5 year license that is coming up, and PW saw an opportunity to squash a competitor. And, since CoH doesn't exactly make mad money (and NCSoft is having financial problems), NCSoft wasn't willing to fight for it.
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Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
I did not like COH for a number of reasons, but the employees of Paragon Studios have my empathy. I wish them all the best in the coming days of uncertainty.
As to how this will impact CO...
When DCU's launch was looming people said that it would be good for CO due to increased market place competition. Cryptic would have to step up their game now that there were 3 superhero MMOs to choose from.
Didn't happen.
When DCU underperformed financially (understatement) people said that it would be great for CO because now all of those unhappy DCU players would come to COH and CO to get their superhero fix.
Didnt happen.
Increase in competition has not driven CO, nor has reduction in competition. I would be very surprised to see that change. I doubt very much that PWE sees CO as a significant money making opportunity. The closure or financial underperformance of EVERY GAME that has ever existed in this market (superhero MMO) is not likely to encourage a publisher to invest heavily in anything associated with the genre.
Imagine someone asking you for money to invest in an area where every singe past investment has resulted in the closure of the company or financial failure. Would you be willing to risk your money on something with a 100% failure rate ?
i started playing coh a long time ago during their closed beta when the game went live i kept playing it for four years and made one of the top super groups on the triumph server.
this is very sad news and i wish all my friends who still play it the best and yes i did log into the coh forums and gave a heart felt goodbye. they will shut coh/cov down on November 30th
so anyone who wants to log in and play a few more times before it goes poof you still can.
dark days for the game that invented the super hero mmo craze.
That is somehow strange, i just thought yesterday about to check CoH out and now it goes offline. It's sad to hear, but maybe it's THE chance to get a bigger playerbase to CO. Especially if they add a villain version like in CoH.
I did not like COH for a number of reasons, but the employees of Paragon Studios have my empathy. I wish them all the best in the coming days of uncertainty.
As to how this will impact CO...
When DCU's launch was looming people said that it would be good for CO due to increased market place competition. Cryptic would have to step up their game now that there were 3 superhero MMOs to choose from.
Didn't happen.
When DCU underperformed financially (understatement) people said that it would be great for CO because now all of those unhappy DCU players would come to COH and CO to get their superhero fix.
Didnt happen.
Increase in competition has not driven CO, nor has reduction in competition. I would be very surprised to see that change. I doubt very much that PWE sees CO as a significant money making opportunity. The closure or financial underperformance of EVERY GAME that has ever existed in this market (superhero MMO) is not likely to encourage a publisher to invest heavily in anything associated with the genre.
Imagine someone asking you for money to invest in an area where every singe past investment has resulted in the closure of the company or financial failure. Would you be willing to risk your money on something with a 100% failure rate ?
lets not forget how most of teh dev staff has been shipped to neverwinter, i think cryptic should swoop up the devs that are getting laid off from this happening, and make a stronger dev team for CO, the nlets see what happens from there
I haven't played CoV (I've always liked bad guys more. Imagine that!) in over a year, but this still saddens me. I spent three years on that game, and it was my first MMO. I used to write down the more hilarious dialogue down in a little notebook. It's a bit depressing to know that I can never again do that old mission I'd saved on my main character where I get to watch a posh British man in Revolutionary War garb trying to negotiate with an uncivilized gangbanger.
"I assume my good man, Lord Nemesis is most definitely 'down with the street'. Word up, my homie, as it were."
Don't get me wrong. I love CO. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be here! But I'm going to miss all the little moments like that.
Seriously. I'm actually kinda angry now; there's no reason for this - I was *just there* two weeks ago, the game was alive and kicking, new stuff was coming in at a regular rate... the only reason I left again this most recent time is because I've put more hours into COH than any other game I've played, ever.
So many characters soon to be lost too... cripes. I had at least a hundred.
I admit, this is... disheartening.
It's a bit of a sudden shocker. I mean heck, there's other crappier MMO's like Knight Online (and yes, even the now ancient Everquest too) that are still around. Makes you wonder what bad business decision were made that lead to everybody getting fired/laid-off and the game getting officially shut down.
On the bright side you can say Champions Online survived the cut, but with the apparently lack of effort to work on bug fixes and develop new content, who knows? Maybe we're next? Scary thought... and it's that exact fear that had Zone chat in a frenzy when I was online for some trades this afternoon.
I only wish Cryptic would look into picking up some of the Paragon Studios devs to come and make a new zone or AP.
No kidding. We REALLY need to their best & brightest, and I'm sure they'd be more than happy to work hard and continue in the land of superheroes (even if it's not their alma mater)
That was among my first thoughts when I read the news here - "Well, there are now several programmers, with experience working with a superhero MMO, who are probably looking for work..."
lol! Yes, this was my thought as well. I think I need to make a new topic for this though...
I never really got into the combat of CoH, but I loved the setting, and everyone there had such enthusiasm for the game.
The cold-blooded method they're doing this in is also really crappy, there's rednames over there in tears. People are screaming bloody murder, some of them got dinged with TR and now this.
I was one of the people who played Auto Assault, so no love lost between me and NCSoft.
But I have a feeling that the crazy success of GW2 (400,000 simultaneous logins during head start..!?!) may have sealed Paragon's fate. Now that they've birthed a cash cow, why spend the money to run a studio to keep an old game alive for a smaller profit margin? Push everything into the money machine. I have a feeling **** won't be around much longer either.
Its closing because the playerbase left for other MMOS.
They certainly didn't swarm over here.
DC has two F2P mmo's with hero/villian factions and globally recognized IP.
Oddly enough no. They appear to have bringing in about 2.5 million a quarter consistently for the last couple of years. Instead NCSoft appears to have a bad habit of padding their books every couple of years by closing down a game and writing off everything associated with it. They had several other games with issues that cost them 6 million in the 2nd quarter. COH wasn't one of those problems. But they don't appear to think it will every grow much larger in profit though its not likely to lose any and appear to feel the one time write off to the books is the better option.
NCSoft is going to clutch onto the IP like the miserly bastards they are. If you want proof of that, look at Tabula Rasa. **** them, I was planning on giving GW2 a spin for fun, now there's no way I would open up my wallet for them.
Yes I believe that they are aiming to use COH and Paragon Studios as a write off to their books. And getting cash for them wouldn't give them as much as they can make it look like they lost by closing the game.
I'm actually pretty saddened by the news. I have many fond memories of CoX.
I played for a year during '08 to '09 just before CO was launched.
CoX was my second P2P MMO long before it was converted to F2P, and starting out was an experience I don't think I can ever replicate. It was a fresh change from high fantasy and my first taste with a MMO with a modern and superhero setting. For the first time, the high level of costume customization allowed me to make up my own character concept and not be restricted to default armor / clothing textures in other MMOs.
You have to hand it to them though, CoX was launched in 2004. It's been 8 years now. I don't think a lot of people expected it to prosper and last that long. Also, signs of the ship sinking could be found when they started closing down servers. But even so they have been releasing updates and new contents frequently so I never actually expected it to go down and thought it was still being kept sufficiently afloat.
I feel really sorry for the die-hard players there who have been so loyal only to have this happened.
Really can't imagine having my characters deleted after years of effort (especially since CoH is roughly just like champions in terms of character creation, they do lose something not just a cookie-cutter knight/warrior class character for example).
My sympathies to those in CoH (it is indeed a loss), especially the mainstays. Hope they find another game to like just as much. Of course, I do hope that those in Paragon Studios would find a new home as well.
I'm actually pretty saddened by the news. I have many fond memories of CoX.
/me wants to give you hug
Here Jenny, even though you're one of the very few people I can hardly stand, I still care about your happiness as a human being... So, I've thoughtfully selected a song for you that might make you and the other CoH feel a bit better, presented with an olive branch:
I feel really sorry for the die-hard players there who have been so loyal only to have this happened.
As do I. This is something I can agree with you on 100%.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, and in other games before, it always REALLY sucks for the players who put all that effort and time into creating something only to have it deleted. (one of the things that hurts about Minecraft sometimes in fact) Hence the song above, so listen to it eh? ^_^
At least pay your fallen brother a nod. You can do this for Star Wars. You can do it for every superhero movie out there. At least, for respect, give a nod to CoX. I'm not saying it has to even be anything new- but at least show them some respect.
CoX was Champions' less attractive brother, and it had a lot of good nuggets and charm.
Adios, Heroes and Villains. You're more than welcome to come to the MC and join forces with us.
I played CoX for over three years or so with my wife and some close friends before CO came out and have many fond memories from my time in the game. Sad to see it finally go...
At least pay your fallen brother a nod. You can do this for Star Wars. You can do it for every superhero movie out there. At least, for respect, give a nod to CoX. I'm not saying it has to even be anything new- but at least show them some respect.
CoX was Champions' less attractive brother, and it had a lot of good nuggets and charm.
Adios, Heroes and Villains. You're more than welcome to come to the MC and join forces with us.
Cryptic is probably as shocked as the rest of us. This is kind of out of the blue how this happened, after all.
At least pay your fallen brother a nod. You can do this for Star Wars. You can do it for every superhero movie out there. At least, for respect, give a nod to CoX. I'm not saying it has to even be anything new- but at least show them some respect.
CoX was Champions' less attractive brother, and it had a lot of good nuggets and charm.
Adios, Heroes and Villains. You're more than welcome to come to the MC and join forces with us.
sorry sir but cox was champs mother is anything.....wiki it or ask some of our vets for the back story
At least pay your fallen brother a nod. You can do this for Star Wars. You can do it for every superhero movie out there. At least, for respect, give a nod to CoX. I'm not saying it has to even be anything new- but at least show them some respect.
CoX was Champions' less attractive brother, and it had a lot of good nuggets and charm.
Adios, Heroes and Villains. You're more than welcome to come to the MC and join forces with us.
Agreed with the nod, COH was CO's Father if you ask me. The first and original.
I have quite a few fond memories of City Of, but I haven't played in quite some time.
Back before f2p, I remember chilling in Atlas Park on Union(EU),
listening to one of the guys doing a CoH webradio...
Met a friend there, lost touch with her again, so is life.
(Fallen Star, should you ever read this: have a big CatScratch hug!)
I hope the people that got laid off will find new places soon, maybe with one of the other superhero MMOs...
As for CO vs CoH, I always felt with the sheer amount of story content of CoX
and the character development and combat system of CO,
there could've been a truly magnificent game.
I'll have to make screenshots of all my heroes before CoH's final shutdown...
So many great concepts.... *sigh*
I was saddened by the news that COH will close. There were a lot of creative people on the dev team over that way, and hopefully everybody over there comes out of that experience at least doing OK.
COH had a lot of players, and I'd be surprised if CO didn't see at least a mild bump from those at COH deciding to see how CO has been evolving.
how so ? unless statesmen turned into defender some how nope. cox has its own lore.
champs may have been a pen and paper rpg before the super hero mmo came to be but city of heroes came 1st and if it was not for the marvel sues city of bs champs would not be around. they only picked up the champs ip for filler to reskin the game with.........
how so ? unless statesmen turned into defender some how nope. cox has its own lore.
champs may have been a pen and paper rpg before the super hero mmo came to be but city of heroes came 1st and if it was not for the marvel sues city of bs champs would not be around. they only picked up the champs ip for filler to reskin the game with.........
From what I remember hearing, the guys that did CoH where Champions players (Champions, the PnP game), and their characters that they made in-game (Statesman and all the other dudes or whatever) were their Champions characters. And they built their game around all that stuff.
Well I've already made a Recluse and Statesman costume for my character who actually is from the CoX universe already, so. That's a double whammy tribute lol.
I'll be spending my time on CoX a bit more now until it finally goes. Already making plans with my SG leader about doing stuff over there.
Comments
We're getting auras soon. The system is in place on PTS. As for the chat features, I'm pretty sure we already have them.
That's what worries me Rune... COH was doing fine too; and there was another game in production by Paragon (though not nearly as far along as Neverwinter); they got the axe anyway.
Then again Perfect World isn't NCSoft; I don't see a track record of ruthless (and often stupid) culling with PW; so maybe we'll be just fine.
Check out my Champions Online webcomic in progress!
Annoying people since 2009!
That's exactly it. CoH may not have been pulling WoW numbers or what have you, but it wasn't losing NCSoft any money. NC is in dire straights because "that game that rhymes with 'ion'" (that's edited? O.o) failed and they dumped more money than they could handle into pushing GW2. So rather than kill off the sick "again, game that rhymes with 'ion'", one of their own, they kill off the mostly healthy CoH (which is someone else's game that they bought). People will say what they want, that the writing was on the wall with Freedom, etc, but with all the content that was coming out and that was due to come out, CoH would've had another 3-5 years in it I think.
No relation to "the" Nighthawk.
Refugee from Paragon City.
[SIGPIC]http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z297/MetalRacer78/FacesOfNighthawk-ForumSig.jpg[/SIGPIC]
Not to take away from its closing, but that really makes me weary of CO's lifespan considering my experience here has been far less "kosher".
Yeah, you guys will be fine.
NCSoft has been known to me very bad moves. And if a certain guild at war with a number two in it doesn't do as well as they hoped, then they axed a good dedicated community with a small amount of money flowing it. Not as much but still enough.
Thats my prediction, anyway.
CoH was doing fine. They had a good loyal community of players who were willing to keep giving them money so long as they kept the doors open. This was a move to appease shareholders and keep stock prices high after their abysmal financial report.
I've always worried about this too, and until now I would derive hope from the fact that CoH is still going. I guess at the soonest they would close CO after launching Neverwinter, which is currently scheduled for early next year. I'll just hve to get the most out of it that I can between now and then.
I have great memories of CoH, but what NCSoft was doing to the game I hated that company for. And that is the reason I could never look back on CoH again, that and its atrocious graphics. NCSoft was tearing that game apart from behind the scenes, and I was witness to it personally, despite all the negative press that they tried to spin about competitors and such.
I can only hope that the IP has reverted to Cryptic that hey had a clause for that, maybe we can see Paragon City revived in Champions or at least some of the signature IP characters. I know a lot of people had love for those characters, Ghost Widow will always be in my heart.
Cryptic, now is the time to build up and show support to your game and redouble your efforts.
Unfortunately I expect troubled waters though, with the butthurt and bitter coming out the woodwork, Cryptic and Champions will probably get a lot of finger pointing at them for something they had nothing to do with. Already see it from those who are sore on various sites, like the recent release of the Nighthawk video, now, in wake of this announcement.
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Bad thing for Champions. If they don't get on with more content and more goodys to attract player from CoH/CoV they lose a excellent chance.
I'm surprised that they didn't just put it into maintenance mode and just slow/cease development, (with an accordingly similar drop in sub fees).
Similarly, given that it seemed to be worth keeping around for as long as it was, why not start work on a sequel and transition over to it? They could have used the GW2 engine or something to save some start-up costs...
"Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark
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I've heard, though I can't substantiate, NCSoft was $6 mill in the hole, and have been bought out. CoH is the casualty in this fallout, and the Paragon devs were well aware of this but couldn't talk about it. Again this is all hear say, so I can't corroborate it, but this is what I am being told.
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I liked City, even if I didn't play it long. I never loved it the way I love CO but I will miss it.
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
Here's an article on the 6 mil loss...
http://i.massively.joystiq.com/2012/08/08/ncsoft-weathers-6m-loss-in-q2/
No mention of NCsoft being bought out though...
M-O-O-N, that spells @Rhyatt
Originally Posted by mijjestic: Ultimately, though, MMO players throwing stones at each other in this fashion is basically one nerd pointing and laughing at another nerd whose glasses are thicker.
Laws yes!
The official announcement wasn't only directed to players, but to employees of Paragon as well, so at the moment, it seems not even the guys at PS knew about this until today. I can't speak for NC being bought out or not, I haven't heard anything about that.
Something of interest though is that the game will shut down 5 years to the month that NC took over from Cryptic. The engine itself is still Cryptic's if I'm not mistaken, so some wonder if this may also be because of some sort of contract issue; that NC and PWE/Cryptic couldn't come to terms or neither one had any interest in renegotiating at all.
No relation to "the" Nighthawk.
Refugee from Paragon City.
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They DEFINITELY didn't know, not the majority of them. City Of Heroes has a weekly TwitchTV livestream (that kept making it to TwitchTV's front page due to viewership numbers) where the devs get on for an hour and talk with the community and reveal new, upcoming things. The most recent one was just a couple days ago. The devs seemed HAPPY, downright JOYFUL as they talked about ALL THE COOL STUFF they were going to be bringing out soon. There was NO indication from ANY of them that their jobs were in danger.
I can't believe that any of them could have known about it and just seemed so.. alive.
Pretty low NC. Never getting any of my money again. Looks like the hole in my gaming budget will be filled by a full return to CO.
It's pretty much this hard to keep just one timeline intact. ♪[/i][/center]
I recall the anticipation up until the Issue 9 launch with the crafting system and IOs, I remember being invited to the late stages of the Architect Closed Beta and marvelling at how I was actually creating missions. I remember first teaming through the Hollows, the feeling of the hover power and watching people fly through the air and thinking, "One day I'll do that", I obsessively read the lore and still know more about it than the CO lore, and I remember the forums, I remember Mothers Love and Floating Fat Man, and most of all, I can recall it being one of the few places that I could be me and not have to hide my love for superheroes, writing and just having fun...
CO may be better in some ways, but there's some things that you can't replace, I really hope that Cryptic manages to headhunt some of the Dev team to come onto CO or even STO, and I hope that some or even all of their players can find it within themselves to come back to the people who started it all and try CO if they haven't already or retry it and find a new home.
Fare thee well City of Heroes, here's to the memories.
I haven't a clue either way, NCSoft stopped getting my money long ago. My GF let me play her GW2 account, just to see it, I don't get the hype this game has. It's just another WoW clone. Just because they moved the exclamation points to random events doesn't change that fact. But that's another story.
I had enough dealing with NCSoft in the back rooms over in City of, I knew what they were about. And as much as announcements may sound like blindsides, there have been plenty of times that the devs were well aware of something.
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It all started there.
-Brou, aka MrPlayskool.
NCSoft had a 5 year license that is coming up, and PW saw an opportunity to squash a competitor. And, since CoH doesn't exactly make mad money (and NCSoft is having financial problems), NCSoft wasn't willing to fight for it.
Wicks and Things: NW-DI4FMZRR4 : The Fenwick merchant family has lost a caravan! Can you help?
Beggar's Hollow: NW-DR6YG4J2L : Someone, or something, has stolen away many of the Fenwicks' children! Can you find out what happened to them?
Into the Fen Wood: NW-DL89DRG7B : Enter the heart of the forest. Can you discover the secret of the Fen Wood?
As to how this will impact CO...
When DCU's launch was looming people said that it would be good for CO due to increased market place competition. Cryptic would have to step up their game now that there were 3 superhero MMOs to choose from.
Didn't happen.
When DCU underperformed financially (understatement) people said that it would be great for CO because now all of those unhappy DCU players would come to COH and CO to get their superhero fix.
Didnt happen.
Increase in competition has not driven CO, nor has reduction in competition. I would be very surprised to see that change. I doubt very much that PWE sees CO as a significant money making opportunity. The closure or financial underperformance of EVERY GAME that has ever existed in this market (superhero MMO) is not likely to encourage a publisher to invest heavily in anything associated with the genre.
Imagine someone asking you for money to invest in an area where every singe past investment has resulted in the closure of the company or financial failure. Would you be willing to risk your money on something with a 100% failure rate ?
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
this is very sad news and i wish all my friends who still play it the best and yes i did log into the coh forums and gave a heart felt goodbye. they will shut coh/cov down on November 30th
so anyone who wants to log in and play a few more times before it goes poof you still can.
dark days for the game that invented the super hero mmo craze.
no, no villains
"I assume my good man, Lord Nemesis is most definitely 'down with the street'. Word up, my homie, as it were."
Don't get me wrong. I love CO. If I wasn't, I wouldn't be here! But I'm going to miss all the little moments like that.
It's a bit of a sudden shocker. I mean heck, there's other crappier MMO's like Knight Online (and yes, even the now ancient Everquest too) that are still around. Makes you wonder what bad business decision were made that lead to everybody getting fired/laid-off and the game getting officially shut down.
On the bright side you can say Champions Online survived the cut, but with the apparently lack of effort to work on bug fixes and develop new content, who knows? Maybe we're next? Scary thought... and it's that exact fear that had Zone chat in a frenzy when I was online for some trades this afternoon.
No kidding. We REALLY need to their best & brightest, and I'm sure they'd be more than happy to work hard and continue in the land of superheroes (even if it's not their alma mater)
lol! Yes, this was my thought as well. I think I need to make a new topic for this though...
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
I never really got into the combat of CoH, but I loved the setting, and everyone there had such enthusiasm for the game.
The cold-blooded method they're doing this in is also really crappy, there's rednames over there in tears. People are screaming bloody murder, some of them got dinged with TR and now this.
But I have a feeling that the crazy success of GW2 (400,000 simultaneous logins during head start..!?!) may have sealed Paragon's fate. Now that they've birthed a cash cow, why spend the money to run a studio to keep an old game alive for a smaller profit margin? Push everything into the money machine. I have a feeling **** won't be around much longer either.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Oddly enough no. They appear to have bringing in about 2.5 million a quarter consistently for the last couple of years. Instead NCSoft appears to have a bad habit of padding their books every couple of years by closing down a game and writing off everything associated with it. They had several other games with issues that cost them 6 million in the 2nd quarter. COH wasn't one of those problems. But they don't appear to think it will every grow much larger in profit though its not likely to lose any and appear to feel the one time write off to the books is the better option.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Yes I believe that they are aiming to use COH and Paragon Studios as a write off to their books. And getting cash for them wouldn't give them as much as they can make it look like they lost by closing the game.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I played for a year during '08 to '09 just before CO was launched.
CoX was my second P2P MMO long before it was converted to F2P, and starting out was an experience I don't think I can ever replicate. It was a fresh change from high fantasy and my first taste with a MMO with a modern and superhero setting. For the first time, the high level of costume customization allowed me to make up my own character concept and not be restricted to default armor / clothing textures in other MMOs.
You have to hand it to them though, CoX was launched in 2004. It's been 8 years now. I don't think a lot of people expected it to prosper and last that long. Also, signs of the ship sinking could be found when they started closing down servers. But even so they have been releasing updates and new contents frequently so I never actually expected it to go down and thought it was still being kept sufficiently afloat.
I feel really sorry for the die-hard players there who have been so loyal only to have this happened.
My sympathies to those in CoH (it is indeed a loss), especially the mainstays. Hope they find another game to like just as much. Of course, I do hope that those in Paragon Studios would find a new home as well.
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Here Jenny, even though you're one of the very few people I can hardly stand, I still care about your happiness as a human being... So, I've thoughtfully selected a song for you that might make you and the other CoH feel a bit better, presented with an olive branch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnQ8N1KacJc
As do I. This is something I can agree with you on 100%.
As I have mentioned elsewhere, and in other games before, it always REALLY sucks for the players who put all that effort and time into creating something only to have it deleted. (one of the things that hurts about Minecraft sometimes in fact) Hence the song above, so listen to it eh? ^_^
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
At least pay your fallen brother a nod. You can do this for Star Wars. You can do it for every superhero movie out there. At least, for respect, give a nod to CoX. I'm not saying it has to even be anything new- but at least show them some respect.
CoX was Champions' less attractive brother, and it had a lot of good nuggets and charm.
Adios, Heroes and Villains. You're more than welcome to come to the MC and join forces with us.
Cryptic is probably as shocked as the rest of us. This is kind of out of the blue how this happened, after all.
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sorry sir but cox was champs mother is anything.....wiki it or ask some of our vets for the back story
Agreed with the nod, COH was CO's Father if you ask me. The first and original.
Back before f2p, I remember chilling in Atlas Park on Union(EU),
listening to one of the guys doing a CoH webradio...
Met a friend there, lost touch with her again, so is life.
(Fallen Star, should you ever read this: have a big CatScratch hug!)
I hope the people that got laid off will find new places soon, maybe with one of the other superhero MMOs...
As for CO vs CoH, I always felt with the sheer amount of story content of CoX
and the character development and combat system of CO,
there could've been a truly magnificent game.
I'll have to make screenshots of all my heroes before CoH's final shutdown...
So many great concepts.... *sigh*
Actually City of was based on the Champions IP.
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COH had a lot of players, and I'd be surprised if CO didn't see at least a mild bump from those at COH deciding to see how CO has been evolving.
Don't know if there is any truth for that...but that would be an interesting turn of events if the rights fall back to Cryptic.
@Lohr
how so ? unless statesmen turned into defender some how nope. cox has its own lore.
champs may have been a pen and paper rpg before the super hero mmo came to be but city of heroes came 1st and if it was not for the marvel sues city of bs champs would not be around. they only picked up the champs ip for filler to reskin the game with.........
From what I remember hearing, the guys that did CoH where Champions players (Champions, the PnP game), and their characters that they made in-game (Statesman and all the other dudes or whatever) were their Champions characters. And they built their game around all that stuff.
Or perhaps Champions was COH's father.
After all COH was designed based on the creator's Champions Pen and Paper campaign.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
MORE TIGHTS!!!
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
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I'll be spending my time on CoX a bit more now until it finally goes. Already making plans with my SG leader about doing stuff over there.
I still can't believe it's going.