This, folks, is the most incorrect answer. YOU own the characters. As well as any AE mission you make. What you grant NCSoft in the EULA is exclusive worldwide royalty-free rights to use the characters/mission if they so choose to do so. Say, they wanted Brawling Humiliator to be part of the Freedom Phalanx. I can't say anything contrary, nor expect any payment. I might can expect a dialog about their not changing his looks, powers, or story. But that's about it.
This was gone round and round in the old CoH forums, with me at the head... it's like this:
1) NCSoft owns the game, the engine, the way it works, as well as all the parts and pieces used to do whatever is done on the client end.
2) YOU own whatever you *specifically create* in the game. That includes the character's bio, the *way* the powers are selected and slotted, the *way* the character is put together visually, the bio you create for it, the battle cry too. AE mission *text* is yours, as is the same 'how the character is made' player made custom enemies, What maps are used, where things might be placed, how the missions go along.
You DO NOT own the *pieces* or the *powers* of the characters you make. You ONLY own how the assembly goes together, as well as the description, and that's it.
Think of it as Lego, but with licensing of the actual Lego. You can get any set you like. You can put them together however you like, and even combine Lego sets. But you CANNOT sell the Lego, and Lego could take them back anytime it wishes. It is up to YOU to write down how to put together the "Amazingness Thingy" for your posterity. They have no legal obligation to make the Lego available anymore if they decide to pull all Lego from all people.
In other words... They get everything but your memories, personal notes, about what you built with the Lego. And that's how it is with CoH.
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The legality of whether you can sue for YOUR IP is in a nutshell: NO. You own it already, you can't sue for what you own.
The legality of whether you can sue for CoH to be able to SEE and USE your IP? The right lawyer, expensively paid, might just pull that off, but you'd spend so much doing it... I think I'd just ride a motorcycle. But hey, I'd appreciate it if you'd go on and do that for us all. 
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I read every single word of the latest EULA, and have copies locally, and correctly interpreted and made notes. Legalese is such a headache. But that's the deal. Y'all have fun with it.
exactly what I percieved from the ToS, see they can't have any ownership of our characters, nor are they allowed to for legal resons, bassically if they owned all our characters and costumes they would open themselves up for multimillion dollar lawsuits every time one of us made a costume resembling a copyrighted character or a character named after a copyrighted charcter.
bassically owning our charcters is a topic no game company's legal advisors will touch.
plus, how do they know that we didn't actually copyright our characters before placing them in CoH?
conflicting copyrights are never a good thing. so they wont touch it.
I can read game legal a bit, part of the courses I took in college were about the legal side of videogames.
As to the OP, it's highly unlikely that you could *force* anyone to operate a game or give up the server code based on copyright on the characters. You still own that copyright, and NCSoft shutting down the game doesn't prevent you from exercising your right to use them in a different medium.
thanks for your input Codewalker, I really respect your words.
that actualy points out something I didn't consider. but does start my semi-madscientist plotting again;
you see I know there were characters people created that were intended to 'fit-in' to paragon and the rougue isles and such, I have a few myself: Arbiter Seth for one on the redside.
you see, the character right is owned by me, and the character's implementation was specifically designed for CoH/V, withot CoH/V I would need to ascertain rights from NCSoft to continue using my character in other mediums because the story would definitely revolve around the CoH/V universe..
if I were to sue for anything, I wouldn't sue for money, maybe just enough to cover court expenses/travels ETC. and of coarse the main Suit; for them to release the rights to another company (based on an auction with a final date determined by the court, if it fails then they would need to release it to the player community and it would be up to us to find a buyer/host)
bassically, I'm just fed up with NCSoft sitting on the IP and laughably making claims that they tried to sell it (really? well, if you were really trying wouldn't you succeed?) then to further insult my intelligence they decide to come flat out and say "we have no plans for further development of CoH/V and we have decided not to sell the Rights to another company." (oh really? well then I feel the IP must be pried from your hoarding monopolistic hands then.)
