Never underestimate the importance of this. If we want to successfully develop a successor, this community's togetherness will be absolutely essential. I'd go so far as to say that it should be reaching out and attempting to expand, even now. Get people interested in "what they missed" with CoH, but more importantly, find a few foci to gather around and discuss. The successor projects, obviously, are options, but also comic books and sci fi in general. Gaming in general. MMOs in general. Self-organize groups that get together periodically in real life, and plan activities around things ancillary to what CoH was and what you hope for in a successor.
Talk to your friends, not about how sad you are to have lost CoH, but how awesome super-heroes are. How you look forward to the movies this summer. Plan gatherings or even costume parties with visiting a movie en masse as part of the festivities. With the horrible tragedies in the news these days, organize your friends into efforts to provide help in whatever form you can. (Costumed everyday-heroics optional.)
Find positive things around which to gather and over which to hold excited conversation. Make gathering with this community a positive, rather than mournful, experience. And use the positives, the reasons TO gather rather than the void around which you orbit, to bring others in. Make it fun, rather than depressing, and grow this community. Forget hating NCSoft; get excited about ways to alter the prevailing business model in the industry, and be a positive force.
It's a hard thing to do. But it's how we'll preserve and grow this community. And heroes do the hard things; that's what makes them super.
I love this whole post. Togetherness and positivity are
exactly what we need right now. I bolded the part I find particularly inspiring... nothing says positivity like doing good deeds. Those are tangible things we can all get excited about and take hope from. It doesn't matter if you run solo, if your friends are all online, or if your group gets together RL. Once in a while, do something that's not just for entertainment. You might discover you enjoy playing a hero
outside of games as well.
For example, save up that subcription fee you're not giving anybody else right now, buy a box of groceries with it, and bring it to a local food bank. Go in and donate blood. Spend an evening reading to the blind, or organize a games night at a seniors' centre. Gather up those old comics and board games you're not using anymore and bring them in to the kids ward in the local hospital. Hold a garage sale and use the proceeds to buy equipment for a neighbourhood rec centre. Give a weekend to Habitat for Humanity. Go to a site like Archive.org and get a bunch of old time radio shows like The Shadow, and host a few "listening parties" (costumes not required but highly encouraged!). Hand out flyers for a small shop owner just starting out. Know an artist or a singer who works their craft on the sidewalk for donations? Hang out and be their "crowd", so other people start coming over to see what the fuss is about.
Go out, look for something that everyday people can do, and do it. It's rewarding like you wouldn't believe. And not everything takes money; you can always pitch in with time or effort instead. Often that's what's needed most. Supporting someone who's doing good things is excellent; doing good things with your own hands is even better. And if you take it on as a group it becomes faster, easier, much more fun, and it's a bonding experience like none other. Heck, go ahead and call them Task Forces... I know I would!
When you're done come back here and tell us about it. Not to brag, but to inspire others to do the same. We could make "City of Heroes" synonymous with doing good deeds, kind of like the term "pay it forward." Even if it didn't gain our
cause any sympathy from the general public, at the very least Paragon City would have inspired something bigger than itself, and left a legacy to be proud of.
I doubt we'd even need to think up ways to mention our story, or the new projects that are being worked on. When people saw what we were doing
they'd be asking
us why we were doing it. And that's when we'd tell them the situation, starting with "We're just acting the way City of Heroes taught us to act."
