I imagine many of you are still playing City of Heroes. Well, it seems that talk about the shut down is dominating discussions on the Help and LFG channels. At least that's how it's been on Freedom.
Now, Tony touched on this in one of his posts, but it's really important how we are treating other players not as heavily involved in the movement as we are. There are a fair share of trolls and naysayers. While your first instinct may be to grind them into dust (mine sure was), we need to remember not to alienate other players who are watching the conversation. Argument for argument's sake isn't constructive and you'll be viewed as just as much a fool. I would suggest either quietly putting them on your global ignore list or turn their trolldom into an opportunity for advertisement.
I had a nice little encounter with a player who was using the help channel (ironic, right?) to dash any hopes of saving the game. She called anyone working to prevent the shutdown ignorant of the facts among many other things. Obviously, that is extremely rude to everyone working hard to save the game. Even when you can write someone off as a troll, you cannot always forget the things they say. Other players won't either. One thing she said will probably never leave my memory;
"Come Dec 1 all you will see is a 404 error, City of Heroes not found"
Ouch. Like, really. OUCH. That rekindled some of the feelings of fear and loss I experienced when I read the announcement. Troll or not, it was hard to hear. (Though some of you may have thicker skin than me)
However, it was an opportunity of sorts. This statement alone completely scorched any support she had in her arguments/ramblings. In a weird way, it allowed us to rally.
"When that day comes, I'll give up. Until then, I fight"
Pretty good. Other players thought so too.
SO. There is a point to all this. Promise. Turn situations like this into an opportunity. Mention Titan Network, tell people how much is being done. Believe it or not, not everyone knows! That is something we need to fix, and dialogue does a better job than spamming links people are too lazy to copy. I've made a habit of sending tells to people who ask questions about news referring them here. Ask if they want to help out. Everyone I've talked to wants to do anything they can, they just need a push in the right direction. Be that push! Our community needs to be strong.