First, I feel this rather famous poem is a fitting way to to commemorate the end of City of Heroes.
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
- A.E. Housman "To An Athlete Dying Young"
One joyous truth is, that City of Heroes ended while it was still great. Like a young athlete who dies during the prime of their career, or a TV show that ends before it jumps the shark. City of heroes ended when it was most vibrant. Although the end of the Paragon City was profoundly sad, I take some small comfort in knowing that the game was never less than excellent.
I hadn't really played since August 31st, and my wife hasn't played in two years. None the less, we wanted to be together when the game that brought us together ended. We actually met on City of Heroes, before Issue 1. So, tonight we logged in and took screenshots of many of our characters. We ran out of time before we got them all, we're alt-o-holics, so we spent the last 20 minutes doing a few quick ski runs in Pocket D. After Skiing, we went to the spot where we first met; The little grassy patch in front of the Steel Canyon Tram. We stood there together for the final ten minutes and quietly waited for the world to end.
To all of those friends I leave behind, and all those I will now never get a chance to meet, I want to say thank you. We spend a lot of time on this forum talking about how great the game was, but I think sometimes we miss one key component, without which the game would not have been so incredbil; The players.
I have never belonged to an MMO with such a high percentage of truly awesome, polite, helpful, and downright fun people. Oh sure there were plenty of jerks and unicorns, but by and large you knew that most of the people you met would be good folks. It's a big part of why CoH was so easy to find or form a Pick Up Group on. So again. to all of my fellow heroes and villains - Thank You.
- Moses Jones
(Also: Doctor Mobius, Killer - B, Debt Consolidator, Blessed Fear, Centurion One, Doctor Knox, The Hyneman, Fatman Ate Robin, Colonel Rodina, Little Jamie, Tin Trooper, Endless Retribution, Blighted Fear, Laughing Madder, Aggravated Damage, Loosley Lawful, Osiris Hex, Scorpi-N, Walker Texas Ninja, Clackaching, Love's Labors Lost, Miranda Write, Miz Liz, Chet Awesomelaser, Von Daemon, Dardariel, Piranahconda, Arbiter Olmstead, Mister Lahey, Belilah, Mind Over Manners, X-Lax, Brokeback Clown, Tin Trooper, Dream Believer, Mister Whitekeys, Emperor Xenu, Instock, Aubrey, Ashen Shugar, Pink Freud, Lavernius Tucker, Uncle Fister [Banned], Ripoff, Positron Collider, Fairy Godfather, and Commander Bubbles)
