Happy birthday Tony, and a happy new year to all.
I don't agree with all of Tony's points but I agree with the most important ones. I think the likelihood of a C&D is actually extremely strong; that is about the extent of my disagreement. But I think there is a buffer here--time itself. NCSoft as a company has changed over the years. By the time a community server leaves its closed alpha environment behind, NCSoft will have changed yet more. We can all hope that the change is advantageous for our cause.
I remember during the early days of the Earth and Beyond alpha, there was some talk within EA of making a sequel to Earth and Beyond (but just for the consoles, those slimy scalawags). During that time there were hits from EA on the community forums that were set up in anticipation of the community server. I remember that being a pretty scary topic. By that time we had adopted a "Say nice things about EA or don't say things about EA at all" policy, in light of individuals who probably would have been willing to flush the entire community server down the toilet if it meant one chance to troll/grief an EA executive. I like to think that policy had SOMETHING to do with never getting a C&D. (And thankfully the sequel never materialized either, but there had been a team for it, and a teaser trailer was even made.)
Earth and Beyond wasn't my first experience with a resurrected MMO, but I like to compare it to City of Heroes for a few reasons. Story arcs and contacts are central to progression, classes and power selections are similar to archetypes, and customization is at the heart of the game. It took the Earth and Beyond player-run server eight years to get to what it now calls its own "Live" stage. If I recall correctly, it took three or four years for the server to get to an open beta stage that was stable for hundreds of concurrent players and which had a lot of missions and other content. If CraZyboy is still reading around here maybe he can correct or verify. I know that the last few years of the beta were extremely feature complete, and I thought it was funny because my beta characters on the community server were six years old by the end of beta, which is longer than the game lasted under EA.
I think a game like City of Heroes is going to take years to rez. Three or four years minimum just to get to bare-bones alpha tests; I'd be more conservative but I know this community had/has some Tony Stark-level geniuses in it. Those alpha tests are going to be closed, mind you, so unless you hang around and stay involved, I think it will be years later before you hear anything solid. But that's not the only reason to keep hanging around. The people working on any kind of server are just people, not machines. I guarantee you they will work on it harder the more they think you care about their efforts.
Several years is a long time to pine for a video game, but that's why I've always said it's better to use these forums as a springboard for organizing gaming groups or teams for projects, talking about movies and comics, posting stupid funnies, not being a stranger. This forum isn't supposed to be a non-stop depressing funeral for City of Heroes. I've always believed this community was something special and that's coming from a guy who played his first MMO in 1997 (and many since). This is one of the best gaming communities that I've ever been a part of, right up there with Earth and Beyond and THQ-Relic's community. You don't throw something like that away just because a game shut down. That is incredibly wasteful. Don't do it.