Has any game ever closed down with more servers still up and viable?

[RogerWilco]

I think none of the EU servers got above 1 dot over the shutdown, although granted the only way I was able to get updates was via the twitch TV stream when Hitstreak was swapping servers...

And to be fair, the EU servers were always very quiet in comparison to the US servers, with Union being hte only one that could push the server up to 2 dots.

It was the early hours of the morning here, I was the only one of my 6 member SG to be awake, everyone else had gone to bed 5-10 hours before the shutdown.

A general problem with Paragon City was that it was very American, if you want to attract an international audience, you need to work on that from the start in your lore and looks. I also had the idea that it was never really sold and advertised much in continental Europe. I'm form the Netherlands and I've never seen a single add as far as I can remember.

[Citizen Kane]

It was the early hours of the morning here, I was the only one of my 6 member SG to be awake, everyone else had gone to bed 5-10 hours before the shutdown.

A general problem with Paragon City was that it was very American, if you want to attract an international audience, you need to work on that from the start in your lore and looks. I also had the idea that it was never really sold and advertised much in continental Europe. I'm form the Netherlands and I've never seen a single add as far as I can remember.

I'm in the U.S. and I've never seen a single ad, either.  Problem was they just didn't advertise, period.

[corvus1970]

Your statement is factually incorrect.

Years ago the game WAS advertised in various ways, and that advertising really did not gain them anything in terms of increased subscriptions. As such, it was not cost-effective, and it was discontinued.

There are other posts in other threads here on these very forums that describe this in far more detail, but suffice it to say, at one time the game WAS advertised in the United States.

[KoA]

I'm in the U.S. and I've never seen a single ad, either.  Problem was they just didn't advertise, period.

I never saw a single ad for it, either.  Ever.  And here we were, in 2012, some 8 years later, I was still telling avid gamers about the game, having to explain it because they never heard of it, and then watching them light up and take to the game almost instantaneously after trying it out.  "This is so cool"  "Wow I love flying!!!"   "This character creator is amazing"  "Why had I never heard of this game until now?"  "For an older game, the graphics are actually pretty good!"  "Wow look the lights even start coming on at night in the buildings!"  etc etc etc

[corvus1970]

"Wow look the lights even start coming on at night in the buildings!"  etc etc etc

Not to derail, but to this day I think its funny that lights would come on at night in the subducted buildings in old Faultline and such

[Oliin]

I never saw a single ad for it, either.  Ever.  And here we were, in 2012, some 8 years later, I was still telling avid gamers about the game, having to explain it because they never heard of it, and then watching them light up and take to the game almost instantaneously after trying it out.

For what it's worth, I saw adds for it in comic books in the lead-up to release and there were banner adds on game websites quite a bit when Going Rogue was released and then again when Freedom hit and it went 'F2P'.  There was never quite the saturation of adds I've seen other games go for though.

[tigerbaby]

There was advertising, but I think it completely failed to meet the target, as nearly every loyal CoH player I knew (myself included) came to the game via word-of-mouth (or 'buddy' trial subs, prior to ftp).  The thing about CoH, it's unique target sector, is it was 'the game' for people who don't *play* other games.  It was friendly for the casual and solo player, and rewarded creativity, patience and loyalty.  When colleagues ask why I seem so 'down' these last few days and I (try to) explain about how the game's closure has hit me, the thing I hear over and over: "wow, I'm not that into computer games, but that sounds like it was really fun, how come I never heard of it?"

Maybe i was remiss in my own advocacy, but come on...why *hadn't* they heard about it?  Sure, advertising costs, but how hard is it to wheel out a press release to places *other* than game media once in awhile?

Further to servers seeming 'dead', I think the shift in play orientation from street-sweeps to instances and missions made servers and zones seem more 'dead' than they really were; sometimes it felt like I was the only person left in the whole game who liked to mosey at leisure to the mission door, 'arresting' everything in my path for pure shiz n' giggles.  Why was everyone in such a *rush*?  it's all xp, and knocking snipers off a rooftop for their last hp *never* gets old.

The addition of the plethora of chat channels also reduced the 'liveliness' of the game for me.  While I certainly acknowledge they served a purpose, I missed the 'old days' when the Broadcast in zones was filled with oft-hilarious running commentary on anything and everything, complete with running jokes, word games and a smattering of in-character rp.  There was probably a chat channel that provided the babble-logue I was missing, but I never found it before the lights went out <;x;>~

[Golden Girl]

Doesn't the TORtanic still have over 20 servers?

[eabrace]

Doesn't the TORtanic still have over 20 servers?

They've gone through a few rounds of merging.  It's down to 8 servers:
* 3 PVE
* 2 PVP
* 2 RP
* 1 RP-PVP

[Golden Girl]

They've gone through a few rounds of merging.  It's down to 8 servers:
* 3 PVE
* 2 PVP
* 2 RP
* 1 RP-PVP

I'm assuming that those are mega-servers, otherwise that's a catastrophic collapse, even by their standards

[Turjan]

City of Heroes was not performing poorly, and was not shut down for financial reasons.

This statement reminds me of one of those logic problems in puzzle magazines - you know, the ones where there's a grid and you have to fill in the columns with ticks and crosses based on the clues given?

Like : "The science teacher was born earlier than the teacher from Examtown and his name is not Jim" kinda thing.

Curiously enough, that's also exactly how I felt about NCsoft's motives in this whole sorry affair...except that particular puzzle was full of misprints and missing half the bleedin' clues of course...

[eabrace]

I'm assuming that those are mega-servers, otherwise that's a catastrophic collapse, even by their standards

I'm not certain.  I didn't log in at all between Aug. 30 and Nov. 30, so I missed a merge or two and haven't caught up on the details.

[GuyPerfect]

This statement reminds me of one of those logic problems in puzzle magazines

The powers designer, who was not part of the environment team, is half again as old as one of the story writers.

[Minotaur]

The powers designer, who was not part of the environment team, is half again as old as one of the story writers.

But did off the NCSoft executive with the clipboard in the restroom, oh sorry, wrong game.

[dwturducken]

They've gone through a few rounds of merging.  It's down to 8 servers:
* 3 PVE
* 2 PVP
* 2 RP
* 1 RP-PVP

Positron tweeted that if we're ever playing on his server (Bastion) should look him up. No idea what server I was on before the merger, let alone now.