Not sure you've seen this but Penny Arcade has heard us

[JWBullfrog]

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/10/01

and this was Tycho's commentary...


Looking over the FAQ for the City of Heroes shutdown reminds me of the time I found (and subsequently consumed/obsessed over/used as the template for a grim new religion) the documents which obliterated my parents' marriage. It is an utterly, cruelly, unsentimental, unsparingly frank assessment of the things people never, ever talk about until it's time to close the store.

Before I died so many times in rapid succession that my XP Debt functionally entombed my main, the time I spent in City of Heroes was characterized by wonder and amusement. It was Cosplay: The Videogame in a lot of ways - I've never seen people take their characters so seriously, and invest so much. Regular servers were the equivalent of any other game's dedicated RP shard. The peoplewatching was unparalleled, and you were almost guaranteed a reward for looking at someone's profile. I saw my backstory field as an opportunity to reward such Trick or Treating, and I did my best to treat liberally while keeping tricks to a minimum.
Not everybody played it, or understands "what the deal," and since character creation is locked down they probably never will. It seemed like it couldn't possibly be expensive to maintain it, but I've had it explained to me that it's not about maintenance costs; it's about turning that money, the people behind it, and the equipment sustaining it toward something new. That is no comfort, of course; people rarely think of their loved ones as fungible organic compounds. But, there you have it.


and the snowball keeps rolling.

[Sgt_Liberty]

I find it hard to express how much I appreciate that.