It's going to be turned into a game world that dimly reminds us of the game world we lost, inaccessible and filled with unresolved story arcs.
The practical situation is that NCsoft owns the intellectual property for City of Heroes. We have diligently tried to get them to transfer it to someone else who would take care of it, and they have yet to give us any indication that they're willing to do so. They've never done so in the past. At this point, it is highly likely that they will retain control over it indefinitely. We haven't given up on the prospect, there's a team specifically dedicated to that purpose and they're working hard to keep pounding away at it, but I want to set reasonable expectations. Things will
never be the same as they were.
You just couldn't convince me that this is a respectful way for the community to honor and resurrect City of Heroes--by carving it out, tossing its heart aside and appropriating its shell.
That depends on what precisely you mean by "City of Heroes". It means different things to different people. To some people, it was a way to spend time with their friends, and some of them have moved on to other games. To them, their experience hasn't degraded that much; they're still spending time with their friends. To some, it's the story, characters, art, etc. Believe it or not, but some of them haven't been affected much, either. They no longer have the world in which to act out their stories, but nothing is stopping someone from writing stories about Positron or drawing their characters, as long as they're not doing it for profit. To some people, the story and lore of the game were largely irrelevant. They found the mechanics of the game to be fun and exciting. It really was about just going out there and beating Nazis up. Some of these people are able to find at least a large part of what made the game fun in other venues.
I'm not sure exactly how you want "the community" (please keep in mind that we're not just one monolithic hive mind) to honor City of Heroes. We have people working hard on
creating new games that capture the essence of what made the game fun for those who enjoyed the mechanics entertaining. We have people working on
reverse engineering the server to provide the
exact experience mechanics-wise of playing the game. I know of at least one project working to go further. We have people still
fighting their butts off to get some other company to buy the IP and relaunch the game. We have people working to
effect change through public relations. We still have people writing fan fiction and creating art based on City of Heroes characters. We have people still
recognizing the heroic spirit of our community. We even have people
committing financial resources purely in the spirit of helping out members of our community. I mean, seriously, what else are we supposed to be doing?
I think that
all of these efforts are honoring the game and its community in their own ways. Who am I, or who is anyone else, to judge which of these efforts is or isn't worthwhile? And I know that sometimes these various efforts will bicker among themselves; that's part of being a community of human beings and not, as I said, a monolithic hive mind. Various efforts will compete against each other for attention, and that's normal, expected, and fine by me. The only place I draw the line is when it comes to things like physical threats or intimidation, and stupid stuff like promoting racism.
I don't know how many times I have to say this, but the City of Heroes community, the Titan Network, and even the Save City of Heroes movements are not one-trick ponies. We're a pretty inclusive bunch of people who have various opinions on how best to honor the game and its community. We're not just about making NCsoft out to be cartoonishly evil, but we have those people and love 'em. We're not just about keeping players together, even if it's in playing other games, but we have those people and love 'em. We're not just about trying to get some other company to buy City of Heroes and relaunch the game, but we have those people and love 'em. We're not just about creating a new game that doesn't include any characters or places from City of Heroes, but we have those people and we love 'em. We're not just about reverse engineering the server within a spectrum of legally gray areas from pristine to a bit more murky, but we have those people and we love 'em.
I just really,
really wish that people would stop trying to pigeonhole this community and the Titan Network and telling us what we should or shouldn't be about.
