Un Effort Titanesque

One of the two City of Heroes fan driven games has launched it’s Kickstarter in the last 24 hours and at the time of writing this it’s achieved 30% of it’s target goal of $320,000.

Like many others Rachy and I were completely gutted when NCSoft closed a game that held a rather special place in our gaming history and hearts. So these games look to harness the spirit CoH rather than just cloning it.

I guess some of you will have already seen the video or even supported the Kickstarter, but I wanted to mention a few points about the project and Kickstarter that make it more humble in it’s goal.

The team is made up from volunteers who are pouring their own time into this project and while they provide that on top on their normal life commitments, it’s not that practical to expect them to stump up the money for many the software and toolsets they need. That is where Phoenix Project hope Kickstarting will deliver them the tools needed to carry the development of City of Titans forward,

Of course the catch is as soon as the KickStarter is completed, the Unreal Engine that is being used automatically deems Kickstarter funds as Revenue and will take a cut of the pie for licensing. So part of the funds go just to cover that cost.

I wish the folks at Missing Worlds Media all the luck in the world and we will be supporting wherever possible.

Farewell Rogue Isles

On Saturday the 1st of December NCSoft pulled the plug on the City of Heroes franchise. But there wasn’t just one game that disappeared last weekend, it’s sister game City of Villains also took it’s final bow on the MMO stage.

In this household we always favoured the red side (villians) rather than the blue side (heroes) , I always found the story was always grittier, the choices more severe and in some cases downright evil and malicious. For me the main reason is that plenty of MMOs that allow you to play or become a Hero figure, yet there are few that let you be the Villain, plus the game allowed you to make a pretty mean looking villain.

So in a tribute to the Rogue Isles I tasked myself with making a video to capture some of the key locations of the Rogue Isles. I filmed for a good couple of weeks to get the right shots and scenes that I wanted, but had some issues with the format of the recording which only found out after recording quite a bit. I have to admit it was very tough filming with the knowledge that the game was due to close soon.

Finally it came to the hardest part, the music selection. I had a huge short-list but narrowed it down to two tracks, both that I felt captured the feelings and mood of the players impacted by the closure. I struggled to decide which to use and I happened to notice that the tracks were exactly the same length, so rather than make the choice between tracks, I have release both versions.

I hope that you find the time to watch both versions and crank up the video quality too 🙂

1) Version 1 – this is has the track “From my hands” by VNV Nation, the music and vocals are eerily beautiful and the lyrics summed up my feelings on the game going.

2) Version 2 – this is has the track “As it fades” by VNV Nation, this is an instrumental track with a synth-choral layer that makes the track almost angelic sounding.
It seems the song is blocked in Germany, sorry folks.

A big thanks to @samuraiko for her invaluable help getting the videos completed.

Hoping to not get my hopes up

The titan network has been a big part of the City Of Heroes/Villains for 4-5 years now. Hosting a number of unique and feature heavy applications such as the City Info Terminal (tracker) which allows players to log character information and track badges, over the years they also became home to Paragon Wiki, Mids Hero Designer (for those min/max folks) and even a social site with CoH Faces.

The network is now the staging area for the “Save Paragon City!” campaign, the aim is to try and save the game in some form, either with NCSoft or via a 3rd party. The petition that started after the announce now has over 16,000 signatures (at the time writing this) and even has some

Last night Rachy and I took part in a protest that was co-ordinated to happen in-game on the Virtue server, we rolled some new characters and arrived 10 minutes before the start. When we arrived there were at least 29 instances of Atlas Park and it maxed out at 33 instances before the server reached capacity, the video below is a composite of 3000 characters from the instances shown in one clip.

The affection for the game becomes very apparent when you see the community rally together to save the game and I’m enjoyed reading all the blog posts topic on peoples introduction to the game and their favourite moments.

There is no real way of telling if the actions of the community will have any impact on the closure, as Positron says “Whether or not this works you’ll have done one thing: changed forever the way MMOs get sunset.”. I think that’s the thing that everyone takes comfort in the fact that we didn’t go without showing how much it means to us fans.

There have been some great posts about being realistic when it comes to the future of the game, Sente sums up a lot of those thoughts with his post NCSoft is not Evil I suggest a read if you haven’t already.

City of disappointment

“Be warned this post is about City of Heroes/Villains and maybe a little fan-boyish in places.”

I’ve spent the last few days catching up on various post around the web and decided that I would link to some of them here.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun – A great post detailing how it was a favourite long before RPS came into being.
Broken Toys – Scott has to bite his tongue a little on responding to the news but is proud to have work with Paragon Studios.
The Wild Boar Inn – A nicely written piece that details how the game was the stepping stone into the MMO scene, always mentions the Captain Dynamic videos.
Kill Ten Rats – Zubon talks about his time has been well spend in the game, after all he is the CoH guy
A Ding World – Sente talks about the key factors of the game not being the setting but the community and developers, his post has linked to a number of the Red name farewell posts and “removing the mask” community post with player posting real life pictures.
Biobreak – Syp the keep of the MMO timeline relates how the closure is the first that he really cares about, with it being their to draw him back for the fun.
KIASA – I saved this one until last. In the non-traditional way you need to read, watch, then read the final quote. It manages to sum up what I could never hope to write.

I’ve enjoyed reading posts by so many people saying that it was their first MMO or the one that they have the fondest memories of. The fact that many hold it in such high regard, despite not having played for many years, speaks volumes about the title.

Final link I promise, I wanted to send you to read this entry that was posted a week before the closure news, but does a great job of highlighting just how much the game managed to bring people together.

What now?

I have been pondering how I can best use the time remaining to capture elements of the game, so far my list is this:

Grab some friends and tackle some missions or tasks forces over the remaining time.
Character database – A index of all my characters powers, bios, badges etc
Capture some in game footage – for a farewell video and for short clips
I may join my wife and plan to get a tattoo of some variety CoX related.

To any one the knows my wife and I, you will be aware that unlike many CoX players we pretty much played Villains 98% of the time this is realised by the Arachnos Cape that hangs on the kitchen door and a Lord Recluse Statue in our living room. One day we’ll pack them away but not just yet.

The pleasure was all mine

There has never been gaming news that has impacted this household as much as NCSofts recent announcement regarding the City of Heroes franchise and the Paragon Development team.

When Rachy and I started playing the game it was a instant hit with us both. We enjoyed everything from the costume customisations to figuring out the best build strategies. We would take part in the seasonal events, badge hunting, Giant Monster take downs, Raids, it was a big part of our gaming life.

I was trying to pick one thing that I found most enjoyable but It’s very difficult to name just one so I’ll go with community/choice/storytelling/lore, I really can’t decide.

Part of the community

In 2008 we had the pleasure of meeting up with hordes of UK players at Omega Sketor in Birmingham, this fantastic event was the hard work of RockJaw and his community team. In addition we got to meet and talk with Melissa “War Witch” Bianco. We UK based players pretty much never meet game designers from the MMOs we play and I will always remember the effort that was made to make us feel like part of the bigger CoH community.

Of course we had no idea that we would be immortalised in the game world and it’s something that I still find quite odd but strangely comforting, with War Witch to thank for this small but fantastic gesture.

Friends

We’ve met some fantastic people via the game, I follow many on twitter, read their blogs, some even get added on Facebook (which is not a usual activity for me), there are some that we have become very close to, so much so that they are godparent to our son.

The the bonds of friendship that are forged in games like this can be as strong as those made in real life. To people looking at this it must seem rather strange and I would agree if I’d not experienced that type of friendship first-hand.

Final Farewells

I see people are planning on how to spend the last few months in the game, Samuraiko is planning on making one last video, some want to say thank you to the development team via twitter and forums, others are signing a petition to try and keep the game going, some are recording footage of the game to remember it by.

I think I shall aim to try and save as much information about my characters as possible so I can look back on all the fun that I had creating, designing and levelling them up.

I leave you a link to this forum post by Melissa “War Witch” Bianco.
EDIT: and one from Matt “Positron” Miller.