Author Topic: How are you handling the loss?  (Read 187335 times)

Undercat

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #80 on: December 05, 2012, 11:33:37 AM »
Wow.

Knightslayer

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #81 on: December 05, 2012, 12:28:05 PM »

Atlantea

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #82 on: December 05, 2012, 03:31:08 PM »

Atlantea

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #83 on: December 05, 2012, 03:36:19 PM »
that image reminds me of the sun setting in sharkhead isle behind the hellforge (which if looked at from the right angle would look similar to the cryptic logo)

That's because that was intentional. It was a subtle joke of the map designers. You look at the old Cryptic logo, and then compare it with a particular angle view of the hell forge and it really is the exact same image down to the proportions.

I did a double-take myself when I saw it. Later I had it confirmed. I think a dev mentioned it in passing in a post on the old forums.

Atlantea

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #84 on: December 05, 2012, 03:38:45 PM »
I hope you'll all forgive me, this thread is interesting from a psychological and a spiritual point of view.

The things you're all writing about here are not the tantrum of a child for a lost toy, or the pain of an addict in withdrawal. It seems to me the symbolic loss of characters we've all invested in reminds us all uncomfortably of our own mortality. One poster here called midnight the hour "reserved for executions." We know we all must die... someday. But this experience of "virtual death" has forced us to confront our mortality in a frightfully visceral way.

Moreover, we together experienced "the end of the world." A poster here mentioned "On the Beach," and I think we have together endured something that, at least emotionally, makes us feel very much like what the characters in that story must have experienced. I myself had no desire to remain for the final shutdown; is this so different from those in the book who, pointlessly, committed suicide rather than naturally perish?

What a dreadful trauma we have endured together! The catastrophe is virtual, but the grief is real.

But if I may... suppose we succeed in prying "the world" from the clutches of "the devil?" Suppose one day, the torches re-ignite in the now pitch-black Atlas Park. Will we not, together, have emotionally experienced the "resurrection" of our virtual selves and restoration of the world in something very like the visions and prophesies of the world's faiths? I expect more than one "hallelujah!" would be heard over the broadcast channels.

The eu-catastrophe would be virtual, but the joy would be real. That... oh, that would be something to experience, now wouldn't it?

"It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth...."


Very nicely said. And yes - I want desperately to be able to log in and see Atlas holding up the world again in front of City Hall. Even if I had to do it all over again at level 1, I'd still love it.


Atlantea

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #85 on: December 05, 2012, 04:00:44 PM »
As for myself, it hit me harder initially than I thought it would.

I'd been holding the emotion at bay ever since about 3-4 days after the announcement by the simple fact of buckling down and doing as much of the content as possible. I had slacked off and been away from the game for 3-4 month stretches twice in the last year. And I had been missing out on content. In fact I'd been kind of casual about experiencing everything in terms of the important lore arcs since I always figured "there's time". But now there wasn't.

So I shoved it all aside and with the singular purpose of experiencing as much of the game's lore and content as possible and to get as many badges for my mains as possible, started playing the HELL out of the game. On it several hours per day more than I ever used to do. Taking so many screenshots and demorecords that I swear I must have added nearly 3-4 gigs of filespace just in my screenshots and demorecord folders alone in the 3 months between announcement and shutdown.

I regret that because of that I didn't have as much time to spend on the Beta server as I would've liked. I would've liked to try out more of the new powersets and costume options. But I did the -most- important parts to me. And those important parts were - running the Brickstown/New Praetorian arc with my original Praetorian former Loyalist. And running the final Praetorian Arc of the incarnate series with Cyberman 8.

All told I think I added somewhere around 300+ badges, mainly to C8, but also some to my other mains as well. And I at least successfully completed all the I-Trials and almost maxed out C8's incarnate slots. (And oh my god was he RIDICULOUS at that power level!)

And all of it came to a crashing halt at 2:04AM Central time Dec 1st. And... I've posted how that went over here -

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,6493.0.html

Saturday and Sunday... very bad.

Monday... Well, not -good-. But I felt like I needed to help my SG mates who were mostly over into CO.

In fact, not to say I've been -boosting- CO. But I recognized early on that it was the closest thing to COH for many people. And I liked it and had been playing it off and on since it launched. It's not COH. It never will be. But I KNEW it. Knew it well enough to help people acclimate. Understood how to make the process of learning it's quirks go easier.

So on Monday I started resuming helping people around over there. The Cape Radio is there. A lot of friends are there.

It helps. A lot. As I said earlier - a good community can make even a mediocre game a good place to be. And CO is inheriting a good chunk of the COH community.

And I can help.

And in so doing, I find my pain eased a bit. I can help. And in some small way, I can live up to the ideal of the hero in that way.

So... that's how I'm coping. I can't just deal with it on my own. But I can by helping others.

It's not the fate I would have asked for, but it will do.

Samuraiko

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #86 on: December 05, 2012, 04:41:37 PM »
I'm not taking it well at all.

But at least I got 1 (2, sort of) more videos done. :)

Michelle
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The game may be gone, but the videos are still here...
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http://cohtube.blogspot.com

Colette

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #87 on: December 05, 2012, 06:27:55 PM »
"Someone on EGM pointed out that NCSoft has poisoned the well for all MMOs by driving home this point, in the most brutal and public fashion they could imagine, that players of MMOs own nothing and have no rights."

That is important! It means the gaming journalists, and inevitably the providing companies, get it. We will now, inevitably, see modifications to new and even existing MMO contracts. They'll guard their absolute right to make a profit, of course, (and had CoH been running at a loss I'd shut my mouth and let go,) but I think we'll see many fewer arbitrary shutdowns.

Already it may be said some good has come out of this. The Superheroes have taken a bullet for the entire MMO playerbase. That is symbolically so very right, isn't it?

Moving on...

Y'know what I love about this community? Sunday we were all grieving and blue. By tuesday we were celebrating our impressive one-two-three punch of NC's execrably timed Seattle shutdown, the NY Times article, and the Korea Times article. Now morale is high and the stockwatch shows the enemy's reeling. We're all primed to seize the initiative and continue the fight.

God in heaven, we may win this yet!

johnrobey

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #88 on: December 05, 2012, 06:32:29 PM »
I'm feeling encouraged tho I hope not unduly so.
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi         "In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it." -- Boris Pasternak
"Where They Have Burned Books They Will End In Burning Human Beings" -- Heinrich Heine

Perfidus

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #89 on: December 05, 2012, 06:53:35 PM »
I really don't want to get my hopes up, but at times like now it's kind of hard not to. Even if we don't win, it's very clear to me as it should be to all of you, that we didn't lose, either. Our voices were heard. We made a difference.

As for how I'm taking it? Not well. I barely slept last night, and have been wandering through my days aimlessly. I don't -want- to do anything, so I do nothing. There's just this strange emptiness that I've felt since the last minutes - I know it'll wear off. But in the meantime I'm having a very difficult time carrying on. I'm following all this more than I should. The healthy thing to do would be to put all this away for awhile and get my head on straight. But I'm not willing to do that, this game is my family. So, I'll try and balance things. Do things to help myself, while still poking in here to keep up to date.

Colette

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #90 on: December 05, 2012, 06:57:19 PM »
"I don't -want- to do anything, so I do nothing. There's just this strange emptiness."

Anhedonia, an aversion to anything fun. Standard with depression or post-trauma. Been there. Be patient and gentle with yourself.

johnrobey

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #91 on: December 05, 2012, 06:59:27 PM »
I hope you'll all forgive me, this thread is interesting from a psychological and a spiritual point of view.

The things you're all writing about here are not the tantrum of a child for a lost toy, or the pain of an addict in withdrawal. It seems to me the symbolic loss of characters we've all invested in reminds us all uncomfortably of our own mortality. One poster here called midnight the hour "reserved for executions." We know we all must die... someday. But this experience of "virtual death" has forced us to confront our mortality in a frightfully visceral way.

Moreover, we together experienced "the end of the world." A poster here mentioned "On the Beach," and I think we have together endured something that, at least emotionally, makes us feel very much like what the characters in that story must have experienced. I myself had no desire to remain for the final shutdown; is this so different from those in the book who, pointlessly, committed suicide rather than naturally perish?

What a dreadful trauma we have endured together! The catastrophe is virtual, but the grief is real.

But if I may... suppose we succeed in prying "the world" from the clutches of "the devil?" Suppose one day, the torches re-ignite in the now pitch-black Atlas Park. Will we not, together, have emotionally experienced the "resurrection" of our virtual selves and restoration of the world in something very like the visions and prophesies of the world's faiths? I expect more than one "hallelujah!" would be heard over the broadcast channels.

The eu-catastrophe would be virtual, but the joy would be real. That... oh, that would be something to experience, now wouldn't it?

"It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth...."

The first 3-4 days after a few minutes past midnight PST 11/30 have felt like a memorial service, at least such were my feelings and those of others.  If CoH is rezzed, how I'd feel is best described by Beethoven's 9th Symphony, 4th movement "Ode to Joy" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paH0V6JLxSI
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi         "In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it." -- Boris Pasternak
"Where They Have Burned Books They Will End In Burning Human Beings" -- Heinrich Heine

Colette

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #92 on: December 05, 2012, 07:00:53 PM »
We'll start up a playlist for CapeRadio.  ;D

srmalloy

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #93 on: December 05, 2012, 09:18:42 PM »
We'll start up a playlist for CapeRadio.  ;D

If you want contributions for the 'rail against NCSoft' period, I would suggest Heather Alexander's "March of Cambreath".

Cryfire

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #94 on: December 05, 2012, 11:18:59 PM »
Yesterday I found myself running demorecord after demorecord (Have 638 saved) while listening to a bunch of City of Heroes music I'd downloaded, *sighs*

Been looking at a lot of games I use to play, Sims 3, Heroclix, Magic the Gathering and really just looking for something to fill my COX time now that it's gone.

samfivedot

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #95 on: December 05, 2012, 11:59:35 PM »
Mostly I've just been spending time playing around with the downloadable character creator. Because, wouldn't you know, the day after it closes I immediately come up with two new characters.

healix

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #96 on: December 06, 2012, 12:00:58 AM »
A few of these still apply as I feel the loss



..my City is unique. Other games just aren't going to quite do it for me




Listen to the 'mustn'ts'. Listen to the 'don'ts'. Listen to the 'shouldn'ts', the 'impossibles', the 'won'ts'. Listen to the 'you'll never haves', then listen close to me... Anything can happen . Anything can be.

Perfidus

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #97 on: December 06, 2012, 12:04:35 AM »
I like that image, but... Lineage 2? That's old too.  They should've made that dog be completely unrealistically shaped and had it say Blade and Soul beneath it.

corvus1970

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #98 on: December 06, 2012, 12:08:14 AM »
Wow, that image sums things up pretty well for me.
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Sarge Morris

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Re: How are you handling the loss?
« Reply #99 on: December 06, 2012, 12:26:14 AM »

..my City is unique. Other games just aren't going to quite do it for me



Aye, I'm with you on this one.  I have zero interest in the other games, NC Scum or not.  Truth be told, and I know its probably heresy to admit this here, I really wasn't all that interested in CoH when I started, either.  But a friend of mine from home, someone who represented normalcy in my life, got me into it. 

He was a power player, rapidly leveling toon after toon so fast it was only his global ID that let me know who he was.  I....Was not.  Preferred to put time into my characters, stick with something familiar yet different enough to take my mind off things. 

Found Virtue's community, called it my home away from my home away from home. 

I'm working on writing out exactly what CoX meant to me, how it stacks up against my mindset and the like...  I'm getting kind of personal with it, and its harder to write than I thought.  Never really explored these issues while sober before, much preferring to tearfully reminisce over entirely too much whiskey, rum or Guinness or lose myself in a fantasy world.  Now that the latter option's gone, and the other option is not one I'd like to take any more, I suppose its time to face myself, get my shit straight.  Maybe, I don't know, sooner or later walk into a real life club or whatever with the same confidence and feeling of safety I had in Pocket D instead of leaving my apartment basically only to go to work. 

But, dammit, I want my City.  Don't give me that bullshit and tell me its just as good.  Fuck you, NC Soft, for what you've done.