We have all reached a special milestone as of Nov. 30th 2019

[Voltor]

This day, Nov 30th 2012 a wave of darkness swept over Paragon City, Rogue Isles and Praetoria.

 

Many stood against the darkness, but it overwhelmed us all.

 

Now the darkness is gone and light has returned.

 

So on this day that marks the 7th year of the shutdown, I want to say Thank You to the mystery person that saved the game all those years ago and a thank you to the admins and staff of Homecoming.

 

LONG LIVE CITY OF HEROES!

[Abraxus]

I could not bring myself to log in on "Last Day".  I was never sure if I was really regretful of that, or not.  I'm just not sure I could have stood by and watch as each server's lights go out, one by one, presumably forever.  I hung around the Titan forums, reading about hopes for a resurrection of some kind, but it became apparent after a while that it wasn't happening.  Hope was all but lost, but the smallest ember refused to be extinguished. 

 

Through the years, there were other conversations about trying to bring the game back, but they never went beyond dangling false hope.  That's when I found out that what Bane told Bruce Wayne in "The Dark Knight Rises", was absolutely true.  True desperation is not the loss, or lack of hope.  Rather, it is to be given hope, only to see it taken away.  That was where I was for the longest time, with regards to CoH.  Then one day, I heard about "Icon".  I was SO excited to be able to recreate my mains, and fly them around the various zones.  But, once the initial excitement had toned down, all that I heard was the deafening silence of those zones.  It was the loneliest nostalgia I had ever experienced.  Then came "Paragon Chat".

 

Finally!  I could not only recreate, and save all of my heroes, and villains, I could finally interact with others who felt the same about CoH as I did!  For years, I got in as often as I could.  Hunted badges, did the modified Halloween event, and did as much as I could within the boundaries that existed there.  But, the population grew sparse as the novelty wore off there too.  Many would show up to special events, and that was a joy to behold.  But, for the most part, it was "Icon", with the possibility of running into someone on occasion.   Then, on a drive back from a weekend trip to the beach in mid-April, my phone was blowing up with talk of the old SCORE server, and the existence of the game code out in the wild!  My heart practically skipped a beat when I realized that we might be just a hairs breadth from seeing an actual game server created!  A few days later, that very thing happened.

 

Like a newborn star, created from the chaos, and the unstoppable forces at play, the first iteration of the live game sprang into existence!  It was hard to believe that it was real, until I downloaded the client, and logged in for the first time in 7 years.  It was a surreal experience.  All this time, all the disappointments over the years.  I just kept thinking "I'm going to wake up any moment now, and this will all have been a cruel dream".  But, it was real alright.  While those early days were pretty rough going, we now have our game back, and I could not be happier, or more grateful for a second chance that is so very uncommon in life. 

So, on this, the 7th anniversary of "Last Day", I still can't believe that I am back in my beloved Paragon City!  The only place I wanted to be, and the only game I really wanted to play these 7 years past.  I am very happy to be back in my city, and so excited to see what the future brings.  It looks like a bright one! 

Edited December 1, 2019 by Abraxus

[DougGraves]

I never thought I would play CoH again.  I am so grateful to all who brought it about.

[Heraclea]

3 hours ago, Abraxus said:

I could not bring myself to log in on "Last Day".  I was never sure if I was really regretful of that, or not.  I'm just not sure I could have stood by and watch as each server's lights go out, one by one, presumably forever.

I did log in.  I took Heraclea to Atlas Park, and said goodbye to all who was assembled and thanked them for playing the game with me.  But I could not bear to stay online until the server went down.  I did not want my last memory of the game to be 'Lost Connection to Mapserver'.  I still get tears in my eyes thinking about that day.

 

I uploaded my bases to Paragon Chat.  I discovered that I could not bear to look at them, with all the tables filled with enhancements I couldn't access for powers I couldn't use. 

 

My health is not what it was seven years ago.  I honestly don't know how much time is left for me.  But I am truly thankful to have had this opportunity to revisit the City that housed the only MMO I ever truly enjoyed.

[Voltor]

3 hours ago, Abraxus said:

I could not bring myself to log in on "Last Day".  I was never sure if I was really regretful of that, or not.  I'm just not sure I could have stood by and watch as each server's lights go out, one by one, presumably forever.

 

I was there on the Last Day.  I was recording for preservation purposes and one day upload to youtube everything I possibly could about the game that we all love so dearly.  Sadly I couldn't record everything before shutdown, but the return has enabled me to correct that.

 

In the final hour, recording stopped and I was in Atlas on Virtue and got to experience the Atlas 33 effect as I call it thanks to the zone overloading as other servers went dark one by one and everyone started jumping into Virtue.

 

Eventually my connection to Atlas on Virtue literally imploded before shutdown and though Virtue was still up, I logged into Exalted server and spent the final minutes on one of the floating islands in Ouroborus and waited until the final disconnect screen appeared.

 

Then I hopped into the Test Server one last time and it went down a few minutes later.

 

Next day I awoke and out of habit tried to launch the game, only to get the message from the NCSoft launcher that the game was done.

 

My characters were all backed up, all my old guides and notes were saved with them in the hopes we could get our City back.

 

Tried other MMO's, but they didn't have the magic that this one does. The other hero MMO's are all lacking, and while I monitored the "spiritual successors", too much time was passing and my interest was waning.  Then came Icon and Paragon Chat then finally the game itself.

 

Ran into some old gaming pals, most of whom still play, one appears to have vanished. 

 

Alts have been rebuilt, main badge hunter is at max capacity at the moment.

 

Though my life priorities have shifted over the years and I have other things that I need/want to do it is good to back.

 

Also the more we play the more we stick it to NCSoft.  Can't argue with that. 🙂

[Machariel]

It is truly remarkable that we are able to observe the 7th anniversary of the game's shutdown with a vibrant community, supported by an incredible staff, playing a game we all love in a way we never thought would be possible.

 

Perhaps I will keep November 30th as a personal holiday. 

[McCavity]

In 2012, during the final month I  I backed up data from my characters, and demo-recorded our SG / VG bases.  On the last day, I gathered with friends on Virtue and said my goodbyes, and I spent the last moments that night in a mission with my husband, who wanted to 'go out fighting'.   Although I'd known for a month and more that shutdown was coming and was sure I could handle the end, when we finally lost connection and got the mapserved message... I sat at my keyboard and cried.  

 

No game has ever meant as much to us at City of Heroes, and although we searched, no game has ever come close to replacing it.

 

In 2016, Paragon Chat arrived, and each April we celebrated the first release of COH.  And on Nov. 30th in 2016, 2017, and 2018 30th in Paragon Chat, we held a solemn "Shutdown Vigil", a gathering of ex-COH players who stood on the steps of Paragon Chat's Atlas Park, Admin Building, torches held high, and reminisced about the game we loved, and lost.

This year on Nov. 30th, we are playing once again in Paragon City, and my heart is so full !   Our SG is back up and running, with returning old members and new ones, and we're enjoying every minute!  It's a dream come true!!

Thank you, thank you, Homecoming Team, a thousand times Thank You for bringing so many Heroes (and Villains) home again!

[Myrmidon]

On the last day, I said my goodbyes, moved to the statue of M1 in Galaxy City and logged off of my Tanker main for the last time. I’ve watched on Titan Network over the years, but really always expected to be trying some form of successor. I had heard rumors of the game over the years and, to be honest, I don’t know if I would have played that long term without my old friends. Funny enough, when I came here, they found me. And yes, November 2012 was the last time that I logged into Myrmydon the Tanker, because, now it is Myrmidon the Brute.

[Tacheyon]

I started COH back in Closed Beta.  Ever since I first heard of it (heck I think I still have the OG trailer somewhere saved) I wanted to play it.

 

My first character was a FF/Rad Defender Quantum Foam.  She never made 50 on account of the other more 'Shiny' heroes (and later Villains).  But I always kept her as she was the first.  And for 8 years I played this game (maybe a small break here and there), collected that initial run of comics you got being a subscriber.  And I loved it.  Because it was really different from all the other Fantasy MMO's out there.  And yes I played my fair share of Asheron's Call, WoW, Aion and a couple others, but I always came back to CoH.

 

Then the news hit, everything was going to shutdown.  That cored me.  So I did what everyone else did, try and play as much as I could.  Finished many Heroes and Villains to 50, hit the old TF's one last time, kept up hope that a last minute deal would come through and things would work out.  But then NCSoft showed their true colours and basically said "F--- Y-- this is mine and no one else's" and shut it down so they could devote those resources into Guild Wars 2 because they only had enough money to spare for 1 North American game.

 

So on November 30th I logged into Freedom and my lv 50 Earth/Storm Controller Canadian Diamond and waited on the steps of City Hall.  But as fate would have it I got dropped due to immense server lag on Freedom.  Due to this and maybe life being funny I logged onto Pinnacle and watched the sun set with my first hero Quantum Foam.  Took some last screenshots and watch my connection get terminated.

 

After that I bounced around looking for a game that I could create completely original characters and build stories for.  Mass Effect and BioWare games helped a lot.  But I could never find another MMO quite like CoH.

 

Then 7 years later, I hear that someone had saved CoH and made it public for people to use.  My hands shook as I installed Tequila and my eyes watered at the music when the Log -In screen came up.  And a manly tear went down my face as I walked up to Ms Liberty ready to start a new story....

 

Thank you Homecoming Team for all your hard work to not only get this game out, but to try and secure a long future for it.

 

Long live City of Heroes!

[Megajoule]

I was there.

I said, "This game let me fly.  So I'll fly, right up to the end."

And I did.  I was in the air over Atlas Park, on Virtue, at midnight.

The world froze, and a dialogue box popped up, informing me that I'd been disconnected from the server.  There was only one button, labeled "OK".  It wasn't.

 

But now, seven years later... it is.  It is very OK.

My thanks to everyone who made this possible.

[Shred Monkey]

I played a lot of MMO's during the time CoH was gone.  In all of them, I always thought, "this is ok... but it's not CoH."   I honestly thought CoH was probably not as good as I remember, either.  And then it came back!  And, incredibly, it is BETTER then I remember.   There's so much I forgot about this game and really appreciate.  It's still hard to believe it is real.

[srmalloy]

5 hours ago, Megajoule said:

I was there.

I said, "This game let me fly.  So I'll fly, right up to the end."

And I did.  I was in the air over Atlas Park, on Virtue, at midnight.

The world froze, and a dialogue box popped up, informing me that I'd been disconnected from the server.  There was only one button, labeled "OK".  It wasn't.

That day, I went around parking characters in various places -- the Matrix room under the arena in PI, the roof garden in SE Atlas, etc., but for the shutdown itself I needed something more. I logged in with the first character I'd created -- three days after launch -- and joined a league running a MSR, all of us determined to not let NCsoft's actions affect how we played the game, and ran the raid just as if we expected the game to continue. We were all down in the bowl fighting the Rikti when the shutdown happened, heroes to the end.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Tis a strange and wondrous thing that a video game could create a void in my chest that lingered unchanged until a fellow player pinged me on steam to tell me it was back.

 

I also moved to the test server when Pinnacle shut down and sat there, beer in hand, staring at the disconnection screen for I don't know how long, knowing there was no other server on which to connect.

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

Tis a strange and wondrous thing that a video game could create a void in my chest that lingered unchanged until a fellow player pinged me on steam to tell me it was back.

Despite all the work that was put in to make Paragon Chat work, except for specific celebrations that were held there, I could never spend more than a short time using it; running, leaping, or flying around Paragon City, it always felt as if I was watching the zombie reanimation of the game -- it was there, it was moving, but everything that gave it life was gone. It let me go back and remember what we had, but it was also a reminder of what we'd lost.

 

I had a bet with myself, though, that at least one of the developers at Paragon Studios had kept a copy of all the game source, executables, and tools, even if for no other reason than having an offsite backup in case of a major failure. I'm more than gratified to have been proven right.

Edited December 1, 2019 by srmalloy

[MrAxe]

I was there on Defiant's last day. As per usual I was late to the party and there was no room for me on the final Hamidon raid, so I just flew around and helped where I could. As silly as it is I logged off some characters right on the spot they first spawned in Atlas Park. Sort of a poetic full circle of events. Felt empty right from the moment of shutdown. Hated it. I had good and bad experiences but the good outweighed it all and I made serveral friends.

 

I miss the old days of having more friends in the game but ultimately I'm just thankful to have it back. My best mate from the live servers is back and my wife still plays it with me so its great.

[Lost Ninja]

By the time sunset was announced I had given up on the game. And because my sub wasn't active I could only use Freemium characters (4-5 unlocked out of 50+ over three accounts), so when the game finally went down I wasn't online. And like someone above said when ever I was playing another MMO I'd hold it up against this MMO and find it lacking. But I never really missed it. I kept an eye on the various successor projects but never really held much hope for them.

 

I found out about Homecoming through the Save CoH facebook group, in IIRC September (best cake day ever), and it's been a blast so far.

 

Thank you to whoever saved the files to start the servers up. Thank you to the various devs who have worked on said files since then. And thank you to Homecoming Devs, supporters, CMs... etc.

 

And also thank you NCSoft. They get a lot of stick for shutting the game down (rightly), but without them it would never have existed in the first place. And they aren't doing their level best to shut down our technically illegal server... 😉

 

So thanks guys... 😄

 

[Twisted Toon]

I was playing on Infinity with the rest of the group I normally played with.

 

Agent Standin was battling Freakshow in one of the Portal Corp missions when the server went down.

[Sergio]

On 12/1/2019 at 7:05 AM, Myrmidon said:

November 2012 was the last time that I logged into Myrmydon the Tanker, because, now it is Myrmidon the Brute.

Was the original name taken by someone else or is your Tank still there, awaiting forelornly for the last 7 years to fight badies.

[KnightSoul]

My final screenshot, of my final group, on the final server: Test.

That's a pile of DE GMs in RWZ for those that missed the event Leandro et. al. ran.  I missed the gathering at the Vanguard base due to being under such a large pile.  Took 7 years but the refugees finally made it to a new universe.

[Sergio]

1 hour ago, KnightSoul said:

My final screenshot, of my final group, on the final server: Test.

That's a pile of DE GMs in RWZ for those that missed the event Leandro et. al. ran.  I missed the gathering at the Vanguard base due to being under such a large pile.  Took 7 years but the refugees finally made it to a new universe.

Hold on, hold on, hold frikken on. What am I missing here, you were a level 50 but only getting 136 inf for a kill. What were you fighting, Minion's sperm ?

[Myrmidon]

8 hours ago, Sergio said:

Was the original name taken by someone else or is your Tank still there, awaiting forelornly for the last 7 years to fight badies.

Nearly all of the Tankers from Champion lie there, awaiting the Call.

 

 

In this reality, Myrmidon learned how to unlock her magic in a different way. Also, this reality’s champion blurs the lines of what is acceptable in the fight against Darkness.

[Chris24601]

I wasn’t there for the end-end, but I spent the day moving each of my toons from wherever they’d been last to the place I considered their home.

 

For one it was a specific apartment in Faultline, for another it was the far south-east island off Peregrine Island. For my sg leader it was in the main room of the base.

 

Once they were safely home (with a pic or five of each), and I’d said goodbye to my online friends (about an hour before shutdown) I logged out for the last time as content with the end of their stories as I could be in the situation.

 

I still need to update my old Virtueverse page with an update I never thought I’d be able to make... that my old toons emerged from the multiverse after being lost for seven years and now continue their adventures.

[MassGravitas]

I quit playing this game shortly after CoV launched. I spent a great deal of time inside this world. I was young, maybe 12 or 13, and any experience with any MMO was limited to what my Dad played. Fortunately for me, he had great taste. After Star Wars Galaxies began to decline due to NGE my father made the switch to this incredible game. Eventually i was given my own computer and we began to traverse City of Heroes together. We spent alot of time here....Sadly a few years ago I lost him in a tragic situation. As im downloading this right now as I type im filled with nervousness...as well as brimming with excitement. Just to go to Atlas Park again....I plan on remaking his toons and playing through maining his exact main from all those years ago.

 

Long live Amerimech-One. Love you Dad!

 

[Mister Mass]

I was not one of those holding my torch aloft on shutdown day.  I had been playing the game faithfully since the 1st year anniversary (except for an 18 month diversion playing Lord of the Rings Online in closed & open beta & then live) usually playing about 40 hours a week - so City of Heroes was like my 2nd job.  When the news of the shutdown came, I hoped for some reprieve & followed the available news closely, while continuing to play my many characters.  But as the likelihood that the game might somehow survive dimmed, I found I could not bear playing the game knowing that it would soon be gone.  It simply hurt too much. 😞

 

I searched for an alternative, cycling through various versions of Europa Universalis, Baldur's Gate, DC Universe Online, & LotRO, again & again, but nothing could fill the hole for long.  I regretted that I wasn't there at shutdown for the game I had loved & lost, & would never forget.  I had been playing LotRO again, completing the story line from the books, when I felt myself losing interest in the game again as I tracked through the darkness of Mordor.  And then I found a light at the end of the tunnel - an old CoH buddy let me know that the game had been reborn somehow.  I was back in a flash, & I feel like I never really left.  So perhaps it is okay that I wasn't there holding my torch aloft at shutdown, as that end wasn't the final end. 🙂

Edited December 2, 2019 by Mister Mass

[Nafsmar]

On 12/1/2019 at 12:08 AM, DougGraves said:

I never thought I would play CoH again.  I am so grateful to all who brought it about.

Doug says it all so simply but so deep.