Answering the Call

[Mckittens]

What is a video game really? What is a MMO?  Is it just simply a game? Maybe, but that would imply that the game ends when the servers shut off. But yet this game lives on even after death, tell me what does that mean?

By now you probably already heard this, or wondering who and why I am writing this, well let me introduce myself. My real name is Nate, I just graduated from college with a degree in creative writing, but that's not who you know me as. I went by the global @returnfire, my main was Ultra Assassin, a level 50 Assault Rifle Blaster on the Virtue server. I've been a dedicated role-player and active member of the community for as long as I remember and while its been a while since the game shut down, the impact of that world still lives on in my mind to this day.
Because of City of Heroes, and the adventures I've experienced in that game, I am the person I am today. I remember staying up Christmas Eve not for Santa to come down the chimney, but to see Christmas day arrive in the different time zone of each different player. To see the community that I felt one with be one in spirit at the Ski Lodge. Or role-playing my way out of the warzone with my super group mates.  Those were some of the best nights of my life, both in game and out.

Some of you may have shared in my experiences, some of you enjoyed the game in different ways. But I will tell you what this game meant to me. For me this game was more than just a game, it was a learning experience. I will confess to you all a personal story about when I finally woke up and realized what this game meant to me. It was a few week before graduation and I was sitting in my professor's office. We were both looking over my final portfolio and the conversation of who I was before college came up. When my professor, who is a firm believer in the idea that avid readers make great writers asked me, "what novels inspired you to write?" I told him, "I didn't read that much, I played video games most of my time. In fact, it was because of this one game, City of Heroes, where I role-played as a cybernetic human struggling to understand himself as a person that made me the writer who I am today."

I think that was the first time he smiled.

What I realize now, and at that moment, is that this game was not just a game. It was an escape from reality, a place where we could be who we want, when we what. A place where we could experiment socially and mentally as well as physically.  I've searched endlessly for a game to replace this one, but no game has ever came close to this game.  I can't believe it took me this long to final admit this, but I miss this game very deeply.  Even though this game may be indefinitely gone, it still lives on in my heart.

And that is why I am writing this long rant. Because I want this game back! I want to offer my skills up as a writer/creative thinker to bring this game back in some playable form.  I hope that this community takes my answering of the call seriously, and I hope that I can help bring this game back in anyway shape or form. So please, pm me if you have a need of a writer or just message me on this board. Thank you and lets all be fighters in this war to resurrection!

Sincerely,
Nate AKA Ultra Assassin

[shadeovblack]

City of heroes was just that, a city, and cities have souls. What makes a city isn't just the streets or the businesses, It's the people on the streets, and in the businesses that make a city. You can't just shut off a city. As long as we keep showing up, here or anywhere else, talking together, and playing together, and working together, the city lives. Even if the game never gets turned back on, the city still lives, because we are the city.

[JaguarX]

What is a video game really? What is a MMO?  Is it just simply a game? Maybe, but that would imply that the game ends when the servers shut off. But yet this game lives on even after death, tell me what does that mean?

By now you probably already heard this, or wondering who and why I am writing this, well let me introduce myself. My real name is Nate, I just graduated from college with a degree in creative writing, but that's not who you know me as. I went by the global @returnfire, my main was Ultra Assassin, a level 50 Assault Rifle Blaster on the Virtue server. I've been a dedicated role-player and active member of the community for as long as I remember and while its been a while since the game shut down, the impact of that world still lives on in my mind to this day.
Because of City of Heroes, and the adventures I've experienced in that game, I am the person I am today. I remember staying up Christmas Eve not for Santa to come down the chimney, but to see Christmas day arrive in the different time zone of each different player. To see the community that I felt one with be one in spirit at the Ski Lodge. Or role-playing my way out of the warzone with my super group mates.  Those were some of the best nights of my life, both in game and out.

Some of you may have shared in my experiences, some of you enjoyed the game in different ways. But I will tell you what this game meant to me. For me this game was more than just a game, it was a learning experience. I will confess to you all a personal story about when I finally woke up and realized what this game meant to me. It was a few week before graduation and I was sitting in my professor's office. We were both looking over my final portfolio and the conversation of who I was before college came up. When my professor, who is a firm believer in the idea that avid readers make great writers asked me, "what novels inspired you to write?" I told him, "I didn't read that much, I played video games most of my time. In fact, it was because of this one game, City of Heroes, where I role-played as a cybernetic human struggling to understand himself as a person that made me the writer who I am today."

I think that was the first time he smiled.

What I realize now, and at that moment, is that this game was not just a game. It was an escape from reality, a place where we could be who we want, when we what. A place where we could experiment socially and mentally as well as physically.  I've searched endlessly for a game to replace this one, but no game has ever came close to this game.  I can't believe it took me this long to final admit this, but I miss this game very deeply.  Even though this game may be indefinitely gone, it still lives on in my heart.

And that is why I am writing this long rant. Because I want this game back! I want to offer my skills up as a writer/creative thinker to bring this game back in some playable form.  I hope that this community takes my answering of the call seriously, and I hope that I can help bring this game back in anyway shape or form. So please, pm me if you have a need of a writer or just message me on this board. Thank you and lets all be fighters in this war to resurrection!

Sincerely,
Nate AKA Ultra Assassin

What is a game?
Depends on the person.


What is a car? To some it's merely a mode of transportation from point A to B and a 1967 Ferrari 330 GTS is just another old car. While to another it's the car worth spending nearly 2 million on. To the person that think cars is a mere transportation they usually cant understand why someone would "waste" that amount of money on an old car. While the other person who think a car is more than a car, usually cant understand why someone wouldnt spend a million or so on it and probably would spend another million if they had to. Cant relate to each other but both have a view of what it means and value of it but neither view is absolute right nor absolute wrong, contrary to popular belief in each other view. It's just different views about the meaning of something that have many meaning that is assigned to it by the person that ios experiencing it and view it.

[LadyVamp]

I usually liken our game to a bar where we all went to hang out.  Think of the bar in the old tv show Cheers.  It's the place we all went to hang out, relax, and throw down with the best of them (especially if you fought hami in the last issue).

I have to tell you guys and gals.  The other night, I had a dream.  It was our beloved game and yet it wasn't.  the graphics were very nice and almost real in the feel.  One of my old mouse toons was there.  It was CoH but not CoH if that makes sense.  It was so incredibly vivid.  Almost like a blend of gw2's graphics and play combined with heroes/villains toons with updated looks and better animations.  I woke too soon to really get into the game but for an instant it felt like CoH.

Vivid dreams like that for me at least seem to become feelings of deja vu a few years later.  And then I find myself reliving the dream but in real life.  Needless to say, I'm hopeful. 

[Golden Girl]

You were probably just dreaming about "Heroes and Villains" ;)

[LadyVamp]

Possible.  I've never seen the specific graphics with the mouse toon before.  In fact, I can't remember ever playing any game with that specific scene.  Dreams are usually rehashes of events of the past week.  The very rare never seen dreams have a way of becoming true usually 2 to 5 years later. 

Does the new game have a coast line with a forest behind it and a glass smooth lake that seems to go on forever in it?  An entrance to somewhere I don't know was there too with plenty of toons present.  The forest dark with a dark green ground covering leading up to the water.  The scene lit by nothing but bright moonlight with the moon turning the lake into a grayish colored body of water.

The memory is a few days old but still strong.  No names above the toons so I couldn't tell you who was there.  The hud was minimal at best unlike what I usually ran in CoH.

[Golden Girl]

Well, Titan City is on the East Coast, and has water in and beside it - as well as forested areas around it - but the HUD isn't really minimal :P

[Mckittens]

I usually liken our game to a bar where we all went to hang out.  Think of the bar in the old tv show Cheers.  It's the place we all went to hang out, relax, and throw down with the best of them (especially if you fought hami in the last issue).

I have to tell you guys and gals.  The other night, I had a dream.  It was our beloved game and yet it wasn't.  the graphics were very nice and almost real in the feel.  One of my old mouse toons was there.  It was CoH but not CoH if that makes sense.  It was so incredibly vivid.  Almost like a blend of gw2's graphics and play combined with heroes/villains toons with updated looks and better animations.  I woke too soon to really get into the game but for an instant it felt like CoH.

Vivid dreams like that for me at least seem to become feelings of deja vu a few years later.  And then I find myself reliving the dream but in real life.  Needless to say, I'm hopeful.

Sounds like an interesting dream..... We should make this dream of city of heroes coming back a reality hmm?

[Golden Girl]

It will be ;)

[Quinch]

City of heroes was just that, a city, and cities have souls. What makes a city isn't just the streets or the businesses, It's the people on the streets, and in the businesses that make a city. You can't just shut off a city. As long as we keep showing up, here or anywhere else, talking together, and playing together, and working together, the city lives. Even if the game never gets turned back on, the city still lives, because we are the city.

Heh. I saw your post and was reminded of this.

[Omega Mark V]

I have to tell you guys and gals.  The other night, I had a dream.  It was our beloved game and yet it wasn't.  the graphics were very nice and almost real in the feel.  One of my old mouse toons was there.  It was CoH but not CoH if that makes sense.  It was so incredibly vivid.  Almost like a blend of gw2's graphics and play combined with heroes/villains toons with updated looks and better animations.  I woke too soon to really get into the game but for an instant it felt like CoH.

Vivid dreams like that for me at least seem to become feelings of deja vu a few years later.  And then I find myself reliving the dream but in real life.  Needless to say, I'm hopeful. 

I'm hopeful that you will share with us what this dream turns out to be when it happens! I'm still hoping my dream of City of Heroes before comes to pass, where I'm back in game as my main under Atlas. :)

[LadyVamp]

I'm hopeful that you will share with us what this dream turns out to be when it happens! I'm still hoping my dream of City of Heroes before comes to pass, where I'm back in game as my main under Atlas. :)

I have a good feeling by the time I realize I'm in the game, we will all already be in the game.  Just how it works for me.  It is quite possible Golden Girl's "Heroes and Villains" is it.

[batqueen]

I admit, I'm really hopeful for Heroes and Villains, love the characters I seen for that so far on their site, Valiance Online, AND a resurrected COH server. I expect to be busy. ;D

[Turjan]

What is a video game really? What is a MMO?  Is it just simply a game? Maybe, but that would imply that the game ends when the servers shut off. But yet this game lives on even after death, tell me what does that mean?

It means that City of Heroes was more than a game - it was a dream.
Our dream.
And every one of us here was a part of that dream.

Every single hero that appeared at the bottom of those steps in Atlas Park...that was not just a digital costume, it was one person's dream of what it meant to be a superhero : what that hero looked like, what powers it had, what story had created those powers - every character was a little piece of someone's imagination made real.

A digital reality perhaps, but reality nonetheless. In terms of concept alone, just because something is made out of pixels doesn't mean it's any less real than that same concept drawn on paper or written in words, or cast as a sculpture in bronze.

Paragon City was a place where those dreams could come to life.

And you know the funny thing about dreams? The thing that makes them different, makes them unique?
A dream cannot die.
The force that gives life to a dream comes from within us. It is our curiosity, our wonder, our drive to create and explore...that is where dreams spring from. The human heart is what powers a dream, and as long as it beats, the dream lives.

When they closed the servers, NCsoft thought that was an end to it. But they didn't understand - couldn't understand, because City of Heroes was never their dream. They thought they were killing a game.
But they were wrong.

What they were trying to do was kill a dream - and you cannot kill a dream.

[Heroette]

It means that City of Heroes was more than a game - it was a dream.
Our dream.
And every one of us here was a part of that dream.

Every single hero that appeared at the bottom of those steps in Atlas Park...that was not just a digital costume, it was one person's dream of what it meant to be a superhero : what that hero looked like, what powers it had, what story had created those powers - every character was a little piece of someone's imagination made real.

A digital reality perhaps, but reality nonetheless. In terms of concept alone, just because something is made out of pixels doesn't mean it's any less real than that same concept drawn on paper or written in words, or cast as a sculpture in bronze.

Paragon City was a place where those dreams could come to life.

And you know the funny thing about dreams? The thing that makes them different, makes them unique?
A dream cannot die.
The force that gives life to a dream comes from within us. It is our curiosity, our wonder, our drive to create and explore...that is where dreams spring from. The human heart is what powers a dream, and as long as it beats, the dream lives.

When they closed the servers, NCsoft thought that was an end to it. But they didn't understand - couldn't understand, because City of Heroes was never their dream. They thought they were killing a game.
But they were wrong.

What they were trying to do was kill a dream - and you cannot kill a dream.

That was very insightful.  I agree 100%.

[johnrobey]

It means that City of Heroes was more than a game - it was a dream.
Our dream.
And every one of us here was a part of that dream.

Every single hero that appeared at the bottom of those steps in Atlas Park...that was not just a digital costume, it was one person's dream of what it meant to be a superhero : what that hero looked like, what powers it had, what story had created those powers - every character was a little piece of someone's imagination made real.

A digital reality perhaps, but reality nonetheless. In terms of concept alone, just because something is made out of pixels doesn't mean it's any less real than that same concept drawn on paper or written in words, or cast as a sculpture in bronze.

Paragon City was a place where those dreams could come to life.

And you know the funny thing about dreams? The thing that makes them different, makes them unique?
A dream cannot die.
The force that gives life to a dream comes from within us. It is our curiosity, our wonder, our drive to create and explore...that is where dreams spring from. The human heart is what powers a dream, and as long as it beats, the dream lives.

When they closed the servers, NCsoft thought that was an end to it. But they didn't understand - couldn't understand, because City of Heroes was never their dream. They thought they were killing a game.
But they were wrong.

What they were trying to do was kill a dream - and you cannot kill a dream.

You are so right about it being impossible to kill a dream! Especially one as fun and positive as this one.  Heck, probably been at least a couple of weeks since I last dreamed about CoH, but it still usually isn't more than 3-4 days (at most) that I don't think about CoH at least once when I am awake and in that state that passes as "conscious" for me.   ;)

[Omega Mark V]

I admit, I'm really hopeful for Heroes and Villains, love the characters I seen for that so far on their site, Valiance Online, AND a resurrected COH server. I expect to be busy. ;D

This is the one thing that I find awesome about our community; even though CoX is gone, it spawned three other games to be in development.

That along a possible CoX resurrection will create an amazing future for Super Hero genre titles, me thinks. :D