Hi MiMs. =^o^= I'm honestly in favour of a complete rewrite, too (as you'd know from KiTTYWorld aspirations), but that really has to be a long-term thing. With spiritual successor-scenarios, community fragmentation is guaranteed to result, and we really ought to avoid that at this point.
Ohai KiTTY!
Looking at it from a realistic standpoint (as I have to) though, the fact is the community was already substantially fragmented in-game as is. RP vs. non-RP vs. griefers, Cool Kids Club A vs. Cool Kids Club B, marketeers vs. anti-marketeers, and so on. The only thing connecting it was, no surprise, the game. (Which is kind of why I brought up the whole thing about the community needing to change as well. It really, really does.)
That said, it's already going to fragment. Unfortunately, I just don't see any way it's not going to happen. Best case, worst case, middle case, no matter what there's going to be a gap. And the various sub-communities will move on, move away, and so on and so forth. The natural order of things - people moved on when the game was new, they're going to move on while it's dead if they haven't already. It's also more or less what killed CoX financially - it wasn't drawing in enough new people, and people were just getting bored of it and leaving (or going free.) Deprived of the proverbial 'fresh meat' (AKA new buyers and subs) any MMO will decline.
So, I suppose really what I'm saying here is that the community really needs to just stop trying to preserve the status quo, whether or not they like it or it's uncomfortable. No matter how coordinated and coherent the efforts, unprofitable is unprofitable, not drawing in new subscribers is not drawing in new subs, and so on. What's done is done. If we, as fans, want to save Paragon City our best option is to combine our efforts into creating a
new city. We have an incredibly diverse playerbase - hardcore, casual, lazy Sunday, role players, immersive are all represented. That alone is unique and effectively unheard of.
If we do nothing but sit around moping, crying, and writing angsty letters, then yes. The community will fragment, fall apart, and nothing will happen. (This isn't a new thing with the CoX community as a whole either. Or really any community.) Same result if people just throw up their hands, say "it's over can't do it the end." This is
not a failure - the failure happened
long ago now.
This is an
opportunity. An opportunity to take our beloved city we called home, to combine our efforts, our experiences and our skills, and say "forget making it what it once was. We've ALL said we can do better - and we've just gotten our chance to PROVE IT."