Atlantea

Spotted Richard, at that.

And hey there. That was me and Dark Seraph. (Cyberman 8 and Purrfect Archer respectively)

Here we are, and here's you flying in and taking up position, when we decided you had the right idea and joined you.





















We thought we were saluting the last of Atlas Park 33.

But as it turned out, we were wrong, it went through the server reset and is still there!

I'd like to think that in some way that might be a good omen in the long run for City of Heroes itself.

46. Same thing.

For the first few days I was in total shock. I wept more during those days than I have in years.

You know what, though? The very first Saturday after the announcement, while I was still in that early stage? I was logged in, but I was commiserating with people, trying not to tear up.

I had - for the first time in a long long time, gone to my "/hide" command and unlocked EVERYTHING. So I was visible to any and all searches. Even just general. Haven't done that in years. I've got a stable corp of friends. And bare minimum I run with "hide from general searches" on. You would not normally see me in a zone search. Though I'm visible to friends, supergroups, global channels I'm a member of etc.

But I'd turned it all off so I'm open to view for the first time in over 2 years.

And I got a random /tell. ( and I am so sorry now that I can't recall who this was, but if anyone who was there, let me know and I'll gladly give credit where it's due)

This guy, the Saturday after Black Friday, was pulling people together for a Rikti Mothership raid.

Well.

Why not?

And it welled up in me through my tears -

Yeah...

Yeah!

YEAH!!!

WHY NOT!?! WHY THE HELL NOT???

He didn't get any of that from me through the tell, actually. To him, I just typed a simple, "Yes. I'm on my way."

And I told my friends who were also feeling down what I was doing, and would they like to come along? And they also came along (and I suspect were having a similar reaction).

This guy was obviously persistent and patient. When I got there we were about 1/3 to 1/2 full. But it took surprisingly less time than I would've thought to fill up. And we got a lot of people who had NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE.

So I found myself in the surprising role of calling out some advice. I wasn't telling people where to go or what pylons to hit, but I was telling "newbies" what to expect, when to expect rezzes and when it would be better to hospital, helping with the call out to position ourselves away from the bombs and then into the bowl, and calling out for people to target Rikti Maguses through me.

I wasn't done with my mourning, but for awhile that night it all fell away and I had a BLAST.

It is, I think, one of the best examples of what this game, and what this community are all about.

A couple of days later I'd pulled myself together enough to make a general call-out to my own supergroup to stop mourning and get bucket lists together and that we were going to help each other achieve those lists as much as possible before the (possible) end.

And I've been PLAYING the game. I still find myself touring almost aimlessly taking screenshots and such. But I've been checking off things I want to get done for my mains. I've been helping SG mates get favorite toons over the top to level 50 at last. I've run task forces.

I'm also trying to help people with my knowledge of Champions Online (and even DCUO), if they want to try those and should the worst truly come to pass, choose another MMO to bring their characters to. I'm still 99% here. But I've been helping organize and commission proportional templates for the CO character creator in order to help COH players make characters as close to their original look as possible and giving other advice on how to use the character creator and other tools in that game. I'm not PUSHING this, by the way. I'm just offering help should they choose it. CO is not a replacement for COH in any way. I just consider it an alternative. But I feel it's better to be pro-active.

My point is... I understand exactly how you feel. But I do implore you - try to get involved. Watch the LFG channel. And if you see anybody asking for group for something you want to do on your bucket list - or even if you think you'd just like to randomly help someone - DO IT.

It WILL make you feel better.

Lastly - to whoever you were, mystery Mothership Raid Organizer - I salute you.

THIS!!!!! THIS!!!! THIS!!!! A THOUSAND TIMES THIS!!!! A MILLION TIMES THIS!!!!!

DING DING DING DING!!!!

That's it! We have a winner! Game over! Everyone else can go home!

You have won not only the thread, but the entire subject. THIS is the truth. When everything is peeled away, THIS - IS - THE - TRUTH.

This.

I know we're supposed to remain mostly positive.

Okay. Fine. Titan and the people in direct negotiations with NCSoft. THEY can remain positive.

But I think a few of the rest of us would be well served to find some back-channels to the gaming media and do a little rumor-mongering here, a little tanking of the meta-scores there. A whisper campaign via twitter over there...

Ok. Sure. Maybe wait a little while longer and let the positive and polite efforts run their course. But when and if it becomes obvious that such efforts are not paying off?

Well then it's time for the heroes to step aside and let the villains take a turn.

Yeah. One more thing to miss if it goes away.

No no. It's okay. I'm in the Dallas area. No big secret.

That would explain a lot, though. It also would explain why COH has ALWAYS run extremely smoothly for me. I never even thought about that.

Really? Because City of Heroes has no problems.

*IDEA*

Wait... The server farms for CoH ARE IN TEXAS...

Where are the servers for CO?

I don't know whether to be disturbed or applaud you for awesomeness.

If this doesn't cheer up any former devs reading this... in fact, if they are not laughing their collective ***** off (like I have been the last few minutes reading this )...

*applause*