Today, I received some news that I found to be devastating, for lack of a better term. The makers of City of Heroes - an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) that I'd been a part of since 2005 - announced that the game was to be shut down. In light of this news, I've decided to give a eulogy of sorts to a game that's been a very important part of my life for more than seven years.
I first came into contact with City of Heroes in the summer of 2004 (I think) when I saw my brother playing it on his computer. I was spending a week there, along with my parents, and I spent quite a bit of that week playing the game. It took me a little while to get used to things; it was my first ever experience in the MMORPG genre. Once I did, I fell in love with it.
In the months after that, I'd been hoping to come across it for sale somewhere in stores, but I never did, not until April of the following year. It was on a trip to Washington D.C., on the other side of the country, where I found it in a game store in a mall.
I took it back home and set about downloading it onto our computer. Back then, we just had dial-up. Needless to say, actually downloading the game took a very long time. Not only was it a 20+ hour download on its own, but I had to stop the download at times, since the dial-up connection tied up the phone line; I was determined to play this game.
I faced more obstacles on my way to actually playing the game. Once I finally got the "Play" button to click, it still wouldn't start. Eventually, I discovered that the firewall on our computer was keeping me from accessing the game.
Finally, I managed to log into the game for the very first time, and I was so excited. It had been almost a year since I'd played it on my brother's computer, but the controls felt as natural to me as they did when I'd stopped the year before. I suffered through my dial-up connection to play this game. I had the worst lag imaginable, but I still played it.
I was so excited when we decided to get better internet; I could finally play this game at a reasonable pace! And, as excited as I was when we got good internet, I was at least that excited when I got my own computer to play it on. I think my parents (especially my dad!) were excited that I had my own system as well. I don't even know how many times I got yelled at to get off the computer. I admit that a lot of times, I milked my time for as long as I could. I remember having the internet completely shut off a few times; it was the only way to evict me sometimes.
It was sometime in 2006, a new kid came to our class in high school. We had sort of an awkward introduction to each other, but I eventually came to discover that he too played City of Heroes. That came as a genuine surprise; someone else from this very small community happened to play this game that didn't exactly have the most subscribers.
I remember my very first character. His name was Carmyna and he used stone. I don't remember a lot of his story, save for the fact that he had named himself after his deceased sister, who was named Carmyn. He didn't last long; my second character I named Nitrogen Frost, and he used ice. Seven years later, I still have this character, though he now goes by the name Nitrogenn and his story has changed a few times, but he remains.
About two years into my stint, I moved most of my characters from the server of Liberty to the server of Virtue. The reasoning was that the latter was the (unofficial) RP (roleplay) server. It took me a little while to get into the swing of things and to get to know people, but it paid off.
I've met a lot of people on that server in my five or so years; some good, some bad. In fact, I met my (now ex-) girlfriend there. Some of my very best friends in this world, I met on Virtue (and by extension, City of Heroes) and, truly, I don't know where I'd be without them.
I had a bout with depression recently, and there was a particular group of people that, no exaggeration, kept me going. No matter how bad I was feeling, I knew I could get onto the game and they would cheer me up.
Through all my years roleplaying, I developed a connection to my characters. I genuinely cared about them - I still do, and I will continue to even after the servers have been shut down. Their loves, their hates, their feelings all became mine. I don't know if I'll get to play these characters again in any other medium after the servers shut down and that saddens me. It feels like the death of an actual person that I was close to.
Even though I have ways to keep in touch with the people I cared about most on the game, it won't ever be the same without City of Heroes to bring us all together. The servers haven't been shut down yet, but the impending doom of the game has left an empty feeling in my chest, again, similar to the feeling after somebody has died.
Ultimately, it was the community and the roleplay that kept me around. For the most part, I'd become less interested in content than before; there was very little of the endgame content that I participated in.
I'm not sure where I go from here. I have options. There are other MMOs out there that I've been interested in, but there are few ones focusing around superheroes, and the ones that do aren't exactly up to the standards that City of Heroes has set.
I want to close by saying thank you. Thank you to everyone who was involved in furthering this game creatively from beginning to end. Thank you to everyone from the game who's been a friend to me.
Thank you, City of Heroes.
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