City of Heroes: A Hero Cannot Be Defeated / Simply By Making Him Die

[xyzzysqrl]

Insofar as MMO playing goes, the last week or so has been one of the best weeks of my life. I'm hard-pressed to remember a time I was this absolutely glued to a single game at the exclusion of all else. The play mechanics of City of Heroes just agree with me to a degree I can't overstate, and it's been nice to be back in Paragon City making new characters and just... playing the game.

Over the last few days I have:

Run more task forces.

Made several new characters, some of them copyright infringing, like the Wii Fit Trainer or danger-bird Twitter.

Wrote a badge-hunting guide for an new-to-the-server zone that didn't have one before.

Infected two friends and thus went out punching up bad guys with a psychic wolf and the mortal incarnation of Youtube Culture.

Made a snake-powered giant robot.

Discovered the "Martial Combat" powerset, which was on the beta servers at shutdown. The basic attack allows you to punch a dude in the gut and have him fly in a slow-motion straight line backward, as if a special effects team were hauling him away on a wire. It's the Practical Effects powerset and I feel like any sentai/Power Ranger/Kamen Rider character I make should have it.

Started writing a mission in the mission architect. Shh, spoilers, but there's gonna be a whole post dedicated to that when I finish it out.

Collected exploration badges.

Played missions I had never seen before, with a quality of writing that proved to me the best was yet to come.

Rediscovered old favorite missions and contacts.

Watched server usage skyrocket.

Had a great, great time.

...and one negative:

Lived in deep dread that NCSoft is going to step up with big lawyers and bigger money and absolutely destroy this. I know there are private servers out there, the source is out, there's no way to really put this genie back in the bottle. I have the server software downloaded myself, even if I don't know how to run it, because JUST IN CASE okay.

I just don't think I can go back to a world where this game isn't running.

Comments

[tuftears]

I'm being told by a different friend that the people running this server are paying NCSoft and they seem optimistic the thing will actually stay up. The Martial Combat power set sounds like fun! Especially if it sends enemies flying through other packs, causing them to aggro as well. :D

[xyzzysqrl]

I've been keeping very, very in-touch with efforts ongoing and haven't seen anything about them paying NCSoft. It seems like the kind of thing that would be all over both the forums and reddit, and it isn't, plus given NCSoft's previous attitudes it feels astoundingly unlikely. So I can't believe that right now.

If it turns out to actually be happening I will absolutely apologize for doubting you.

[tuftears]

I have no pony in this fight, but I hope for good things rather than 'whoops we were wrong *boom*'

[xyzzysqrl]

Very very much me too.

[tuftears]

Okay, I misheard my friend! They say that the people running the server are collecting donations and they were *speculating* they had some deal with NCSoft, otherwise collecting the money could put them in a bad situation.

https://score.savecoh.com/index.php/topic,1361.0.html

Which is interesting, these people clearly recognize the legal risk and are taking means to contain it. How effective those means are, and whether they will be needed, remains to be seen.

[kjorteo]

Watching you come to life over this game has been an absolute delight since it started happening. Getting to join you (and Sword) in it was even better, and is an experience I will treasure forever.

Look. You are into this in a way that I honestly haven't seen in... like... almost ever. I'm not saying City of Heroes cured your depression, I'm just saying compare this account (in both the word count and the actual tone throughout) to... like... a decent chunk of what you've posted since I've known you. And you're dinking around with the Mission Architect, too. You're writing again, Xyzzy. We all thought that gland was dead, but we also all thought City of Heroes was dead, and now here we are.

I love watching you blossom like this, I really do. And I especially love watching it from inside Paragon City while we're grouped together, standing atop a two-story high mountain of ragdoll'd Hellions. May this game and its apparently unkillable community continue for years to come.