Legacy LD5

So, this was it.
They shut down the servers for City of Heroes this morning, as NCsoft unexpectedly announced 3 months ago.
I just unstickied the Crackton topics here, might unannounce the announcement too some time.
And... I feel sad. And yes, empty.

Now people will say, "But it was just a game!"
Seriously though, I found with MMOs, and especially this one, where you could do so much more than just play to have fun while playing or oogle at your awesome level or newest shiny turd loot, it is horribly more.
And some people on their forum also said, "It's not that bad, it's not the first game or series that is no longer made, it's like no new media being made for your old hardware, or your favorite band disbanding, or bar shutting down, it has happened before, many times." But the more I thought about it (part of it just now), the more I find that this is something new, something that takes things to a higher level that was not there before.

If they stop producing your favorite game, you can still play it from an old copy.

If they stop making add-ons for your favorite game or discontinue your favorite series of games, you can still play the old content.

If they cancel your favorite TV show, you can still watch the existing episodes.

If they stop making your favorite game console, or bringing new titles to it, you can still play what is already there.

If they shut down a bar in downtown, I can still meet with the former patrons.


But shutting down an MMO where you had comminity and places you built and missions you made and chracters you invested into...

You can not play the game anymore, not meet most of the community anymore, not play your character anymore, not play your missions anymore, not even see anything you put so much work into building it anymore. It's all gone.

It's more like they stopped making your favorite game / discontinued the series / cancelled your favorite tv show, then took all copies of the game or tv series or music and the devices they can be played with ever made and destroyed them, closed the bar, tore down the building the bar was in, terminated the public transport leading to where it was, wrecking the road that led to it and replacing it with an impenetrable forcefield, and deleting all entries of people you met there from your contact lists.

so
sad.

Just saying.

That is far more eloquent than my eulogy for Earth Eternal. Your dedication is fully apparent.

However, don't lose all hope. If the community is as strong as you imply, seek and you may find... a private server.

No matter the cause, talent and passion combined can make truly wonderful things.

It does indeed blow chunks. However, I've learned my lesson, that's for sure.

I'm sorry for your loss, guys

Give it a while. No doubt somebody will produce a patch that will let you go on private servers or something like that. It won't have the same kind of population as before, but you'll be able to keep the magic going. Just from scratch, of course.

Oh, I'm all about a private server. I don't care about other people, I just want US to be able to play the damn game.

Awh damn....I was wanting to come back to this game at some point. And...first game I played that had -rendered- footpads on scalies, not just texture :/

Well...assuming you still have all the code, it -should- be possible to make private server, if anyone wants to bother with it.

Not sure why, but I had been dredging through a search on City of Heroes. Maybe it was some hope that someone out there announced plans for making a private server. I did manage to find one thing that may be of interest. If you still have the latest issue 23 game, or the issue 24 beta, someone made a program that will boot the game up into the character creator (the issue 24 beta would have access to the planned costume pieces). May not be much, but could be used to get screenshots if you have any of the costume files saved or recreated the characters look. Wish I had actually gone through and saved all my character costumes before the game shut down.

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=7288.0

Yeah, I think they still seem to be working on a server emulator, too. I might look into it in half a year or so, see if anything comes of it.

I didn't find anything off hand on a server, but certainly would be nice if one was made. Too bad the issue 24 server code couldn't have been leaked out.