ARCHIVE - OLD INFORMATIONThe following was the news leading up to the event date. It's here for archival purposes.
The Unofficial City of Heroes 12th Anniversary CelebrationThursday, April 28th, 2016 - 12pm - 8pm Pacific, 3pm - 11pm EasternAboutWe're taking advantage of Paragon Chat this year with the 12th Anniversary of City of Heroes. We invite ex-players, friends, family, and the curious to join us to realize "Next Year in Paragon" with the first Anniversary in Atlas Park since 2012.
Of course, Paragon City isn't the same. The city looks like
the langoliers are about to visit soon. We can't do Badge Runs, or Ding Parties like in the past. Architect Entertainment has gone bankrupt, and the superbase portals are all out of order. We can't make a Task Force, iTrial or Hamidon run to break a server record either. And there no inf, items, or prizes to give away, or a red name left to put funny yellow-worded titles over our player names.
But we can pretty much do what we've always done otherwise: hang out, play some games, and see some people you haven't seen in a while. And this is the first anniversary that we have Paragon Chat to help us have fun. So let's do just that.
Join us today for the 12th Anniversary Celebration on Paragon Chat!
Updates
April 28th, 2016: EVENT DAY - Final Event ScheduleHere's the schedule of events:
Pacific | Eastern | GMT | Event |
12:00 p.m. | 3:00 p.m. | 7:00 p.m. | TheCapeRadio (OneHitWonder) at the top of the hour Costume Contest at :05 Golden Age Trivia Contest at :15 |
1:00 pm | 4:00 pm | 8:00 pm | Silver Age Costume Contest at :05 |
2:00 pm | 5:00 pm | 9:00 pm | Bronze Age Costume Contest at :05 Trivia Contest at :15 |
3:00 pm | 6:00 pm | 10:00 pm | Paragon Dawn Event at Champions Online - Millennium City Hall Modern Age Costume Contest at :05 |
4:00 pm | 7:00 pm | 11:00 pm | TheCape Radio continues (DJ Nexus) #SaveCOH Radio (pogoman) Archetype Prototype Costume Contest at :05 Trivia Contest at :15 |
5:00 pm | 8:00 pm | Midnight | Time Travel & Alt. Universe Costume Contest at :05 |
6:00 pm | 9:00 pm | 1:00 am | All American Hero(ine) Costume Contest at :05 |
7:00 pm | 10:00 pm | 2:00 am | ATLAS PARK WEENIE ROAST: Group Photo TheCape Radio continues (DJ Valor's Final Show) Costume Contest Finals Soft Closing (DJ Valor continues until 10 Pac/1a East/5a GMT) |
Event reminders will be sent at the top of the hour in the Request Channel all day in Atlas Park (will show up in purple in your chat window if you haven't changed your defaults.)
Soft Closing: 7:00/10:00/2:00 is the last hour we have events planned, but the Anniversary Celebration isn't over at 8pm. DJ Valor will continue to broadcast her show after 8pm and if people want to /em holdtorch at the steps of Paragon City Hall, or dance in the square we welcome you to do so. The lights go out when you do.
Costume Contest Themes/Finals: Also, this is the list of
Costume Contest Themes and how the finals will work in the Weenie Roast to crown one winner as Mr/Ms Paragon City 2016 at the end of the night.
Champions Online with Paragon DawnFor those of you who can't get into Paragon Chat (or don't like it), you have another option to join with CoX refugees: Paragon Dawn is organizing a meetup in Millennium City Hall at 4:00 pm on Champions Online. Like the Paragon Chat event, this one will also "soft close" as there's no definite end time.
Doesn't this split the audience? For those who can't get in (technical reasons, you no longer have hardware that runs CoH clients, or your brother is doing a WoW raid all night and won't do something else for one night, etc.), they're split from us anyway. For those who don't like Paragon Chat, they're not going to show up so "embrace and extend" is the idea here.
Besides, with Plan Z Projects coming into Beta in the next few years, this sentiment will probably expand (Consider later when people who want to celebrate in City of Titans, Heroes & Villians, Valiance Online, or Atlas Park Revival show up in those titles and do not want to use Paragon Chat or Champions Online.) Telling people the only official venue is Paragon Chat is shortsighted when our future could have so much more in it.
You are welcome to celebrate with us, no matter where you are or how you choose to join us.
#SaveCOH RadioAlso, pogoman confirmed that he will be on tonight for #SaveCOHRadio
at 5:00 pm Pacific/8:00 Eastern. This is to cover the Anniversary Celebration in both Paragon Chat and Champions Online, and it's just for this week: the show typically records on Friday nights. This show is live at that time; it is also available online as a podcast recording when finished (at the same link above) so you can listen to it anytime you like.
But if you do tune in live, you can call the program and participate as well (the phone number is also at the link above.)
Hey, we made it in the papers!First, we've been put in a newspaper in Charleston, NC:
Examiner.com - 'City of Heroes' fans plan unofficial celebration of game's 12th anniversaryMassivelyOverpowered made a blurb about this event, too! Sweet! (Also, Eliot Lefebvre,
you're my new hero. If I ever meet you in RL, I owe you a drink.)
For those of you coming to this thread from here, there's a few changes to note:
- The "treasure hunt" that we were calling the Player Mission has been cancelled. We didn't get enough volunteers to put this together. Admittedly, this was for a few factors I didn't count on at the start, but the most important thing is that we can try it again next year, so I'm not worried. It's just delayed gratification for me. You can read what it was going to be like over here.
- Any special developer guests from Paragon Studios are not confirmed, unfortunately. If they're coming, I haven't been told about it. So I promise nothing and I hope I'm wrong.
- Minutia: I need to clarify that I am working with Titan Network in spinning a couple of plates, but I don't think Titan Network is sponsoring this as an "official" event. This is why their logo is absent from marketing materials thus far. Mainly because my timing wasn't great in announcing this, and I probably should have began this back in March. A good number of the people who run Titan Network have conflicting real life plans and cannot make it tonight, so I want to temper that expectation now.
Otherwise, let's party!
April 23rd, 2016: It's official, I now hate Photobucket. So long live YouTube!All of the direct image links on this post were broken because I've exceeded the free bandwidth offered to non-paying users. (It's eight pictures under 800px. How?!) Anyway, I've adjusted this post accordingly. (And I've deleted my Photobucket account. Bastards.)
So, if I can't promote with pictures, how about videos instead? Here's two 15 second quick-ads, Adult Swim-style:
Why? Because we miss you, too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykiKsJka60MSee you in Atlas Park.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ5sc-aN7O0Feel free to share where it's welcome to do so.
Fixed - Wrong Times listed on the Costume Contests on Titan NetworkI apologize as my clock math failed me on writing the Pacific/Eastern times for the Costume Contests we're running. The Pacific times are correct (as I live in California, so I know my schedule), the Eastern Times have been corrected as of today.
Thanks for the 5-8 PMs with the corrected times! Message received!
April 21st, 2016: Champions Online - Party in City Hall!This event does have one major weak spot, as #SaveCOH Radio has demonstrated last week:
What about people who don't like Paragon Chat?
What about people who have a computer now that CoH doesn't run well on (it's possible)?
What about people who can't get Paragon Chat to work at all?
Or are you a social butterfly and want to bounce in between Paragon Chat and Champions Online?
No worries, Paragon Dawn has you covered! They're holding a meetup in Champions Online for the City of Heroes Anniversary as well.
You can head to Champions Online and visit the City Hall in Millennium City, then go inside and head to the Globe Statue.
The meetup will start on April 28th at 3pm Pacific, 6pm Eastern Time. For more information about Paragon Dawn, the Champions Online supergroup for City of Heroes Veterans and CO fans alike, visit
ParagonDawn.com.
April 20th, 2016: Official ScheduleClick here for the final schedule.Further Information:Costume Contest Themes - A list of the themes we're going to have for the Costume Contests on April 28th.
Prior Event Information - The planning thread in Paragon Chat Activities.
Finally, for those of you following this, we regretfully apologize for this outcome but
we had to cancel the Player Mission event planned at 4pm due to a lack of volunteers. I hate breaking promises, but it was either choosing to do this now, or campaigning further for volunteers with the same results and coming to the same conclusion 48 hours before the Anniversary, only with more stress attached to it. Let's just move forward.
I did, however,
post the event script for you all to see what it would have been like if it ran, and to inspire others to try for it if they have better luck than we did in the future. Thanks for the interest, and we're still looking forward to having a good time Thursday, April 28th!
April 17th, 2016: Use of Paragon Chat without a Issue 24 Client, Finalizing CommitmentsI've posted a write up here on how to get into Paragon Chat without using the Issue 24-based client. This is helpful for people who are on the move who can't attend the event otherwise, have a dead gaming computer since 2012 and can't sign on anymore, or who can't install Paragon Chat for whatever reason.
The downside to this approach: Local and Broadcast channels are not available, and you won't have an in-game presence either (so costume contests, etc. will not be possible... you're using it "chat-only".)
Also, this Wednesday, I will have a tentative Official Schedule of Events posted. I apologize for taking this long, but there's one last thing to bubble out before we commit.
April 15th, 2016: Costume Contest Theme ResultsComic Book Themes have won at 52% of the vote. We'll roll with Golden, Silver, Bronze and Modern Age themes for the Costume Contests! Thanks for your input!
April 12th, 2016: The Cape Radio will be Live! The live music has been taken care of.
We will have
One Hit Wonder, DJ Nexus and DJ Valor present for the event!
Special programming note: This event will be DJ Valor's last, as she is retiring her mic due to personal advancement. DJ Valor has done plenty of events for us in Paragon Chat's nearly 1 year of infancy. So come out and show her some love before she goes!
April 11th, 2016: Costume Contest Themes & Schedule ChangesWe're holding a poll on what costume contest themes are preferred for the Anniversary Celebration.
Please vote if you haven't already done so, as we've had 22 responses thus far (after +1,000 views of the thread). The poll closes this Thursday, April 14th after midnight Eastern Time.
We are awaiting confirmation for another announcement so stay tuned. It will be a major addition to the schedule, trust me.
April 9th, 2016: Volunteers Wanted!Please check out this post if you are interested in working as event staff for the Anniversary Celebration.We've added
Trivia Contest as a new event.
April 7th, 2016: Unconfirmed Event List (subject to change) --- Player Mission 2016: Hunt through the city and look for clues in a race against time against other players.
- Costume Contest 2016: Multiple categories to run in, multiple categories to win, one overall winner.
- Atlas Park Weenie Roast: Group Photo for the event, Recognition of this year's Grand Marshall, Special Guests, and Live Music.
General InformationFor more information, stay tuned to this thread as updates will be posted here.If you want to help:
- Spread the word. You can use the following shortened urls: http://tinyurl.com/Paragon2016, http://bit.ly/1RHvXsK.
- Help Yourself:
- Install/Update Paragon Chat. Make sure your copy is installed and ready! If you've never used Paragon Chat before, check out this guide to get started. A new release, 1.0, has landed, so if you haven't updated already, just open the Paragon Chat icon on your desktop and choose an option other than "Never Check" or "Automatically install Minor Releases" under Check for New Versions. You'll need to install 1.0 to participate in this event. (If you're having problems, check out Arcana's Troubleshooting Guide.)
- Check your Titan Key. Also, make sure your Titan Key Account (username and password) works in advance of the event. If you can sign on to the Titan Network website front page, you're all set.
- Haven't installed Paragon Chat yet? If you have Issue 24 Beta from before the Shutdown, you can simply install the application. If not, Tequila is here for you. Let it work it's magic. (Heh, double entendre.) It's the only thing you need; by installing Tequila you automatically get Paragon Chat and Icon. It's 5.6GB, so it will take a while.
- Another Way In: I've written a more detailed post on this right here. In short, you can install an XMPP Client on your computer or favorite mobile device (Android and iOS primarily, Xabber, AstraChat and Monal are examples) and connect to Paragon Chat directly, or you can access Paragon Chat on the web. Both methods will not lend you an in-game presence, but you can still follow the chat and attend the Weenie Roast at the end in Atlas Park.