#SaveCoH: Why and How
On August 30th, 2012, we City of Heroes players received the worst shock of our heroic lives: City of Heroes was being shut down by its parent company, NCSoft. There had been no warning. There seemed to be no room for argument. CoH, despite being a growing and thriving game, was given three months to live. On November 30th, the game would be shut down permanently.
Despite all our outrage and protests (including the AP33 protest which involved so many players that there had to be 33 SEPARATE INSTANCES of Atlas Park), November 30th came and went, and took Paragon City with it, shutting its gates to us. But that did not mean that the SaveCoH movement stopped. No, in fact, we continued to hold a torch for our beloved game.
Approach #1: Fan-Made Games Like CoH
Two groups, both made up of CoH players, organized in the post-November 30th world, promising fellow fans and mourners that their game could live on:
- City of Titans (made famous by the wildly successful Kickstarter)
- Heroes and Villains
Both these games are still on track to be launched. However, there was a secondary effort as well...
Approach #2: Trying to Buy CoH from NCSoft
In the days leading up to and following the game closure, many folks, like myself, organized into polite protests for NCSoft to sell CoH's intellectual properties, keeping the game lore alive, etc.
I listed the "New efforts!" thread first because it is currently the hot topic. Reason: There is actually a group in talks with NCSoft negotiating a deal to buy CoH's IP. NCSoft has been amenable thus far in working with this unknown group, and hopefully in the next few months we will see the fruits of this labor.
The best thing we can do right now? Send good thoughts/prayers/vibes to this group, whoever they may be, and keep the NCSoft hate down. This is still very much a negotiation, not a done deal, but there IS hope. The torch still burns; perhaps, one day, the gates of Paragon City will open to us again!
Keep Up with the SaveCoH Movement!
Right now, the two best places for CoH news are the CoHTitan forums and the #SaveCoH tag on Twitter. I use this site's Twitter, @skiesoveratlas, to disseminate as much accurate information as I can (as well as keeping morale up). Follow these channels and you'll be sure to hear SaveCoH news first!