Being posted from the UK tomorrow, to both Seattle and Korea:
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Sir,
I am writing to add my voice to the thousands of others begging you not to destroy the City of.. games.
I really have no idea how to write this letter. I don't know whether to appeal to your humanity, or your business sense.
City of.. is a game like no other. Its players know it's not the flashiest, or the best looking game around. We know it's a bit dated. We know we can't rival the population of some of the other MMORPGs out there - but we're still here. We've been paying subscriptions for eight and a half years, we've been supporting the game and the company behind it, because we feel honoured to be a part of it. Because we've spent nearly a decade creating characters that we have come to love, poured time and money into making them as good as they can be, making bases for them to live in, creating and telling their stories, and making friendships that are so close that we have almost become family - despite the fact that a world separates us.
We are a community, and we love our game. We don't want to lose what we have worked for, we don't want to lose a world we love and we don't want to see our community scattered.
I understand you won't have taken this decision lightly. I understand that a company doesn't make 80 people redundant on a whim. But please, I urge you to work with the community, with the players. To give us a chance to keep the characters we have poured our time and money into, the bases we have spent weeks of our lives building, the friendships that have survived for years and the groups that have bought us all together.
Please stick us on a spare server somewhere, and allow the community to try and save itself. Put us up for sale, make us opensource, give us a chance to buy the IP rights and the engine from you. Closing us down is just vandalism.
Please give us the chance to take this game that you no longer want off your hands. Our petition to save the city has already seen over 10,000 people sign up, people who are volunteering their time and effort to try and keep the game running.
I'm not going to threaten never to buy another NC Soft game, but the fact is that currently, you don't have anything on offer I'm interested in playing. This is the same for many players - if anything they'll move to DC Universe, or Champions online, giving money to your competitors. It's got to be better walking away from this with a big wedge of money and a happy fanbase than just wiping out a whole online universe.
I know you've already received a number of letters like this. I'm sorry to send another one, but I can't help it. The heroes of Paragon City want to save their world, and the villains on the Rogue Isles want to take it over.
Please give us the opportunity to do it. We can't help it. We're heroes, and villains. It's in our nature.
Sincerely,
(me.)
@Vandellia, Virtue.