What did you do during the Shutdown?

[Ashen Fury]

1. Where were you at the last moments?
Atlas Park City Hall steps, with what seemed like half the servers population, clicking all the toggles and buffs and anything else shiny I could, just like everyone else.
2. Who were you with?
I was in a group with a mix of people I had recently become friends with since the announcement, and people I had known for years. I spent some time before the final hour in the old Paragon Dance Party zone with some old friends who had found a glitch they could use to get into it.
3. What server were you on?
Justice. Always Justice, the land of madness.
4. What's the last thing you remember someone saying?
"Everyone should just fly around, all cool like"
5. What were your thoughts and feelings at the final moment of truth?
Honestly, for the first 2 minutes after the grey box popped up, I was just staring, mouth agape, horrified that this awful thing had actually happened. And then I cried. I cried so hard and so pitifully that it was as if my best friend had died. I left the computer with the grey box up and the last twitch broadcast still running, and woke up my girlfriend, who knew that this was coming.
She comforted me for a while, and then I went back to the computer, watched the devs shut down the twitter, fb page, everything. Listened to them say their goodbyes. At this point, anger kicked in. I didn't want to let that stew, I needed something to keep me busy, right away. I began working on the conversion of the music and sound files that eventually became the compilation on the main page. This kept me busy for almost a week. I still HATE Ncsoft to this day and will never support them again.

[houtex]

1) Atlas Park, on the steps of City Hall, with Brawling Humilator, my greatest 50 achievement, with his torch held high, and me typing away on the chat until the very end, and then a little past.
2) All the people around me there.  Some I knew, some I didn't, but we were still all family.
3) Pinnacle, represent! *hic*
4) "We're still up!!!" or something to that nature.  Pinnacle went offline about 5 minutes or so after midnight.

5) When the disconnected box happened to show up... I stared at it.  A lot.  I then haunted this place, and a couple of others I knew of, for about an hour. 

And then, I went to sleep, mopey, sad.  And NCSoft won't see my money ever again, that I vowed, with the exception of if they ever brought back the game, or let it go.  And even then, the latter might not be enough.

One day...

[Whyaylooh]

The much-shortened version:

1.) In Night Ward, atop the Westerman Building, at the Stargazer marker.

2.) I was by myself.  It was better that way.

3.) Virtue.

4.) In-game, just my Guardian supergroup telling me to get moving if I was going to get onto Virtue in time to be where I wanted to be at the end.  (According to my demorecord at the very end, there was also some chatter on Virtue from Wakinyan and Operative VI on various channels, but I didn't notice them until I perused the file.)

5.) Some relief, as it looked for a few minutes like I wouldn't make it onto Virtue, and also realized that I needed a final backup of my character there!  I made it, though, got the backup done, and got the demorecord going, with five seconds to spare.  Then, with my screen stuck when the server went down, and my character there holding a torch and watching the souls fly by, crushing sadness as The Cape Radio played "Taps" and "Amazing Grace".  Very bittersweet.  It fit the moment perfectly.  Still brings a tear to my eye.  After that, some denial, I suppose, as I heard that the test and beta servers were still up, and I tried to get another computer up and connected, but then had no luck.  From there, trying to still feel a little hope, but mostly just that numb sort of coming to grips with the fact that this was really it -- at least for the near-term -- as I shifted gears to communicating, and supporting friends who weren't taking it so well.

[Floride]

The last thing I remember someone saying was me, cursing. Not at anything ingame, or even at the situation we were facing. Nope. It turns out that I ended my time in the City the same way I had always played it... the crappy little built-in video card overheated and my laptop crashed. >.<

So... Triplash may have actuallv been there when the lights went out, but with an "AFK" over his head?

[Triplash]

So... Triplash may have actuallv been there when the lights went out, but with an "AFK" over his head?

Huh. It's possible, yeah. I'm pretty sure I did that thing where you start an AE mission but don't enter it, so the game would think you were in a task force and not auto-log you. So she very well could have been standing there right to the last. I kinda like that thought actually, thanks!

[Sailboat]

I gave a LOT of thought to where I wanted to "go out."  I seriously considered  making a brand-new character, going through the tutorial, and getting to the point where one chooses HERO or VILLAIN...and letting the game expire with the choice unmade, the possibilities all lying in the future.

As it turned out, nostalgia got the better of me, and I brought out my first 50, who had spent a lot of time in the Hollows in her youth.  The Hollows was the first place in the game that scared me, that challenged me, and she had eventually overcome it.  But in the process the music for Eastgate Park, that green hill covered with Circle of Thorns mages on the far side of the park, came to symbolize danger and being far from home (at the time, there wasn't even a hospital in zone, so any defeat made for a LONG trip back).  So somehow I associated Eastgate with adventure.

And thus she went out sitting in the lotus position on that great hill, gazing out over the Hollows. 

And we're all still in danger, still far from home.

[Ground Fault]

I was on Triumph under Atlas on my main, Ground Fault. I spent the night with 5 of my old SG friends from The Mission Mercenaries. We ran the save Statesman mish a couple of times and got screenies with States. We also ran a bunch of AV missions and a TF I think. By the end of the night there were 3 of us left. We started a drum circle. I was getting some tells from old friends I hadnt talked to in awhile. It was like a big family reunion on Triumph that night. The last thing I remember reading was a tell asking if maybe they forgot to unplug us as it was 3 minutes past. I replied, no this is the end but was DC'd before my reply went through. I like to think that Ground is still playing his drum under Atlas with all of his old Super friends, having a grand old time.

[Battlechimp]

I know that a lot of people wanted to leave having placed their characters somewhere as they waited for the end. I get that, but for me, I wanted to leave the game the way I came in. Fighting evil while wearing bright neon spandex. :-)  Captain Neat-O was the first character I created in beta, he was the first I recreated during the headstart, so he was going to be the one I was playing when the lights went out. By the end I had about 10 different versions of him across various servers. So I was ending it on the original energy blaster Neat-O version on Virtue.

And I was determined to go out blasting. I teamed up with a couple fellow Paragonian Knights, Spectreblade and Big Daddy Dream and we went hunting AVs. We had gone through several missions so far and the last one we were up in a satellite tracking down Antimatter and Neuron. We had just beaten Antimatter and were fighting our way to Neuron when things finally shut down. The last thing I remember was Neuron's encounter dialogue going off and someone saying "There's Neuron" us turning to see where he was and... You have lost connection to map server.

I tried to relog (Virtue had been kicking people all night) then I noticed the time and realized that was the end. Felt sad, but least I was having fun up to the very end.

And I like to look at that last fight, not as we didn't get to finish the fight, but as the fade to black at the end of a good movie where the heroes charge into one more fight against never ending evil. Think end of Angel or the ending of The Incredible. Its not about what happens in that fight that matters its that the heroes are still there fighting the fight

[Illusionss]

I am a self-sufficient person to a degree that amazes and sometimes annoys those closest to me. I really do not like most people that much, and I need to socialize [probably] less than anyone you have ever heard of. I could survive in solitary confinement for years if need be, so long as the library were good enough.

In the game I was usually alone, unless I was involved in a PUG task force. Or leading one, I did that sometimes too.

At the shutdown I did not want to be alone. The mere IDEA of being alone unnerved me. I considered taking my main to the Storm Palace, but in the end I did not. I logged out all my characters for the final time underneath the Atlas statue, one by one, in the days leading up. My main died surrounded by as many fellow Virtue-ites as possible. I realized that I loved those people, brawling, quarrelsome, catgirls, all of them. Stupid public RPers in Pocket D? they were my brethren. Unslotted main Tanks on the ITF? I forgave them after the fact. [Yes it actually happened.] All of my prickly I-don't-NEED-you-rubes-leave-me-alone melted away.

Because now I know the meaning of REALLY being alone. I don't have the in-game community, even on a chat-channel, and I don't have my main. I will never, ever forgive NCSoft for killing my top five characters whom I spent thousands of hours and hundreds of dollars on, not if I live to be ninety.

The server went to black with my point of view facing the City Hall steps. Just thinking of it makes me want to break stuff.

[LaughingAlex]

The months after the announcement came, before the shutdown, I was transporting toons to CO....

...I regret every moment of that, because none of my toons in CO are to my vision whatsoever, because of the games crap balance.

On the day I tried logging on, I took screenshots of my characters, and of my sg base in the works.  I couldn't complete it in time, the server shut down then.

[johnrobey]

Hello
I was just curious about what everyone did during the shutdown on November 30th 2012
So here are the questions.
1. Where were you at the last moments?
2. Who were you with?
3. What server were you on?
4. What's the last thing you remember someone saying?
5. What were your thoughts and feelings at the final moment of truth?

1.  I was on the steps of city hall in Atlas Park on what was my Justice "main".
2.  A friend and SGmate from Victory quickly made a new toon on Justice to hang out for those final moments--like many people, we'd done a lot of server hopping that day and evening--and we hung out with those who like us were still hanging on, saying our farewells globally, locally, etc.
3.  Justice
4.  I don't remember now what the last thing said was, but I certainly remember the tone of the evening and feeling sad yet happy that the devs logged in to share this world-ending experience with us.
5.  Even though I knew it was coming, I did feel a moment of shock at the grey pop up Disconnection error message.  I had assumed server shutdown would be like getting booted during server maintenance.  I felt really sad, walked away from my computer and let myself shed tears for a couple of minutes, then started a grieving thread on Titan since I knew I for one need to mourn this loss.

/em holdtorch

*modified to fix typos.

[Drauger9]

Because now I know the meaning of REALLY being alone. I don't have the in-game community, even on a chat-channel, and I don't have my main. I will never, ever forgive NCSoft for killing my top five characters whom I spent thousands of hours and hundreds of dollars on, not if I live to be ninety.

I always tell people "I'm a natural loner." I can literally go without talking to another human for weeks, maybe months. Yet I find I enjoy MMOs so much and recently I've realized why, the chat window. Even though I mainly solo, I still feel like I'm not alone. Cause there's constant chatter in the chat window. When I'd farm Council for hours, I never felt isolated cause of the chat window.

It's so strange to me cause I never really noticed it until it was gone and I tried playing regular RPGS. I'd always look to the bottom left of my screen to see what everyone was talking about. LOL!

[Floride]

Huh. It's possible, yeah. I'm pretty sure I did that thing where you start an AE mission but don't enter it, so the game would think you were in a task force and not auto-log you. So she very well could have been standing there right to the last. I kinda like that thought actually, thanks!

No prob. And sorry about assuming Triplash was a "he". I blame your Avatar =)
Let the annals of history record... Triplash got deleted with the rest of us!

[Illusionss]

I always tell people "I'm a natural loner." I can literally go without talking to another human for weeks, maybe months. Yet I find I enjoy MMOs so much and recently I've realized why, the chat window. Even though I mainly solo, I still feel like I'm not alone. Cause there's constant chatter in the chat window. When I'd farm Council for hours, I never felt isolated cause of the chat window.

It's so strange to me cause I never really noticed it until it was gone and I tried playing regular RPGS. I'd always look to the bottom left of my screen to see what everyone was talking about. LOL!

Yep, same here. I rarely said things on a public channel, but I usually had at least the Help channel up. It was a good way to monitor what was going on; if someone was forming a team to take down a GM or kill ghosts in Croatoa, I could hop on the team if I needed to. But I never did much actual talking till the last month or so of the game. We had so many trolls spending hours telling everyone why we were all doomed, abandon all hope.... and that really ticked me off. I felt those people were feeding on everyone's grief, trying to whip it up to the highest level. I think they were actually enjoying it. We had a few really bad ones on the official forums, too.

I miss having a community, even if I mostly lurked.

[Illusionss]

The months after the announcement came, before the shutdown, I was transporting toons to CO....

...I regret every moment of that, because none of my toons in CO are to my vision whatsoever, because of the games crap balance.

I have never found a way to replicate even one of my characters in CO. Its one reason I am not there much. Rather than waste time there I am just waiting for CoT.

[Triplash]

No prob. And sorry about assuming Triplash was a "he". I blame your Avatar =)

Heh, no need to apologize, there's no way to tell these things online. And Trip the player is a he, just Trip the character is a she. That one you can blame on Icewind Dale... that was the first game I had played that let you choose a female portrait for your character. Since then I pick female characters in games more often than male ones. I'd like to say I don't know why, but it's probably pretty obvious.

Let the annals of history record... Triplash got deleted with the rest of us!

Deleted? Nahhh. Her CoH avatar might have been disconnected, but Trip ain't gonna let that stop her. In fact if I know Trip, she's still out there somewhere waiting for me to open a door to another game so she can come back home again.  ...And probably munching on a bag of cookies she got at some interdimensional truck stop.

[Kaos Arcanna]

I have never found a way to replicate even one of my characters in CO. Its one reason I am not there much. Rather than waste time there I am just waiting for CoT.

I have not exactly been able to duplicate most of my COH toons in CO, but I was able to make a fire blaster toon there that felt a lot more fun than the ones I had in COH. Power Armor is a fun set too.  Heavy Weapons is a more fun set to me than I found Titan Weapons. That being said, I really miss Controllers and flavored melee (i.e., Electric, Dark,  Spines, etc.)

[Thunder Glove]

Geez, yes.  The only character I felt to be as much fun as some of my CoH characters was my attempt to recreate my Bots/Storm Mastermind, using powers from the Gadgetry and Wind frameworks.  (I miss the CO version of Dr. Bodog almost as much as the CoH version)  But any attempt to recreate any of my Brutes or Tankers led to a character that felt like a squishy ping-pong ball (due to the lack of Mez protection powers), and any attempt to recreate my Dominators led to a character that was basically a Blaster with a pet (not necessarily bad, but not the same at all).

But, eventually, the client just became too slow on its own. I can't run the game anymore in anything but Perpetual Slideshow Mode, so I stopped playing entirely.

I still miss CoH so much.  There was nothing like it.

[Drauger9]

Geez, yes.  The only character I felt to be as much fun as some of my CoH characters was my attempt to recreate my Bots/Storm Mastermind, using powers from the Gadgetry and Wind frameworks.  (I miss the CO version of Dr. Bodog almost as much as the CoH version)  But any attempt to recreate any of my Brutes or Tankers led to a character that felt like a squishy ping-pong ball (due to the lack of Mez protection powers), and any attempt to recreate my Dominators led to a character that was basically a Blaster with a pet (not necessarily bad, but not the same at all).

How close, is close to a bots/storm MM? If I could get decently close, I'd be very interested in trying that.

Are there any other "pettish" classes in CO?

[Kaos Arcanna]

How close, is close to a bots/storm MM? If I could get decently close, I'd be very interested in trying that.

Are there any other "pettish" classes in CO?

Draug, if you invest some money-- either in a sub or just a Freeform slot-- you can have a toon that can have a number of pets from different sets.