City of Heroes Shutting Down, Paragon Studios closing.

[Eldritch Knight]

http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/news_archive/thank_you.php


Farewell, from all of us at Paragon Studios
This morning we announced that Paragon Studios will be taking to the skies of City of Heroes for the last time.

In a realignment of company focus and publishing support, NCsoft has made the decision to close Paragon Studios. Effective immediately, all development on City of Heroes will cease and we will begin preparations to sunset the world's first, and best, Super Hero MMORPG before the end of the year. As part of this, all recurring subscription billing and Paragon Market purchasing will be discontinued effective immediately. We will have more information regarding a detailed timeline for the cessation of services and what you can expect in game in the coming weeks.

The team here at Paragon deserves special praise for all that we have accomplished over the last 5+ years. These developers are some of the most creative and talented people in the gaming industry. By now, we've all been given this news internally, but to anyone who may be reading this message after the fact; know that your hard work and dedication has not gone unappreciated or unnoticed. To any potential studios looking to grow your team; hire these people. You won't regret it.

To our Community,

Thank you. Thank you for your years of support. You've been with us every step of the way, sharing in our challenges, encouraging us to make City of Heroes better, more than everyone else thought it could be. We couldn't have come this far without you. I implore you all, focus on the good things of CoH and Paragon Studios. Don't dwell on the "how" or the "why", but rather join us in celebrating the legacy of an amazing partnership between the players and the development team.

Thank you, and I'll see you in the skies, one last time.

Andy Belford

Community Manager

Paragon Studios.

__________________________________________________ __________



Completely, totally, Utterly Unexpected!

[Lentrax]

Farewell Paragon City. It has been an honor to serve your people from the forces of evil!

[Maxios]

Well that's a shame.

[Fredaintdead]

Wow, I had no idea they were even in trouble at any point. T'is a sad day.

[Eldritch Knight]

Wow, I had no idea they were even in trouble at any point. T'is a sad day.

That's the thing. They weren't! They were at their Height!

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Holy ****. Did not see that coming. Manly tears shall be shed in this fantastic game's memory.

[Fredaintdead]

That's the thing. They weren't! They were at their Height!

Wow. I don't even know then. I mean, if they were having problems, I could understand this, but I can't understand why they'd get shut down if they were doing better than they ever had been.

[The_Jackal]

Well, the issue is that they had gone free to play, which means while they may have had more subscribers than before, without sales of premium content, they actually wind up losing money.

CoH's demise shouldn't be looked at that grimly. It's an OLD game, older than World of Warcraft, actually. It had a great run, and was, in my opinion, far better than its successors, Champions Online and D.C. Universe Online. What it lacked, however, is the same thing that most MMO's lack: An engrossing and well-realized world.

One of the reason the fantasy genre fares better in the MMO space is that its scope is better tailored for the little details that make a world feel alive. Something as simple as a pet shop or a wine merchant still has a place in that world. Paragon City, on the other hand, ceases to exist outside the macroscopic level. It's got buildings and stores and sewers, but few actual residents, just obviously procedurally generated pedestrians acting as mobile scenery.

[Edge of Dreams]

The strange thing is, as far as anyone knew, City of Heroes was still profitable. In fact, they were pumping out new content faster than ever thanks to sales on the Paragon Market.

The most likely explanation of all this is that NCSoft has lost too much money on other games, and City of Heroes wasn't being profitable ENOUGH. Plus, Guild Wars 2 is coming out now, and NCSoft wants to focus all their efforts on what they believe will be their next cash cow.

[Hatu]

I don't think CoH was at it's "height" anymore, but it sure seemed like it was doing well. Well enough to make it through the year, at the very least. Worse, all the signs indicate that the development team was just as blindsided by this as the players were. Not good.

-H

[Pronounceable]

I don't think CoH was at it's "height" anymore, but it sure seemed like it was doing well. Well enough to make it through the year, at the very least. Worse, all the signs indicate that the development team was just as blindsided by this as the players were. Not good.

-H
Just hours before the shutdown announcement post, they were handing out codes for free stuff. It looks like the entire staff of Paragon Studio got laid off suddenly with no warning. Some sort of corporate fishiness going on, even that official post is surreal (especially that little bit that says hire these people that got laid off!).

And this supervillaining business had just started to grow on me...

[Cikomyr]

The strange thing is, as far as anyone knew, City of Heroes was still profitable. In fact, they were pumping out new content faster than ever thanks to sales on the Paragon Market.

The most likely explanation of all this is that NCSoft has lost too much money on other games, and City of Heroes wasn't being profitable ENOUGH. Plus, Guild Wars 2 is coming out now, and NCSoft wants to focus all their efforts on what they believe will be their next cash cow.

That's silly. If something nets you money at the end of the day, you keep it.

[Eldritch Knight]

Just hours before the shutdown announcement post, they were handing out codes for free stuff. It looks like the entire staff of Paragon Studio got laid off suddenly with no warning. Some sort of corporate fishiness going on, even that official post is surreal (especially that little bit that says hire these people that got laid off!).

And this supervillaining business had just started to grow on me...

And you know, that's the part that bugs me the most. Not the fact that one of my favorite games has basically been assassinated, but that there are a lot of good and decent people who are now out of a job, simply because they didn't fit into the corporations plans.

[NeoVid]

Wow, I had no idea they were even in trouble at any point. T'is a sad day.

They weren't having any troubles, in fact, just days ago they were previewing new content for the next 2 major updates, which were supposed to complete the huge storyline they've been building for the past few years.

I've always liked CoH, but I only had the chance to start subscribing 3 months ago, and I've now seen about 5% of the game's content. If I'm lucky, I'll have til November to see it all... and we'll never see what the big conclusion to it all was going to be.

[Eldritch Knight]

I was Mentalshock, on Protector.

Also, Eldritch Knight on Guardian years ago.

[Sharoth]

~sad sigh~ Good bye old friend. You will be missed more than you will ever know. Thank you for the good times and the many wonderful people that I had the chance to meet.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Rumourological trufaxonomics has it that Cryptic still owns the CoH engine, having licensed it to NCSoft-Paragon Studios. Apparently the license expired and negotiations to renew went south rather suddenly and unexpectedly.

The main competing theory is that NCSoft axed Paragon Studios because CoH wasn't profitable enough and they want to funnel the PS talent towards GW2.

*hands around pinches of salt*

[Acanous]

It was a very good run. Frankly, I'm not mad at NC. They're giving us 3 months to get our cheeze in order before the game turns off. That's plenty of time on the player end.
The dev team was on last night, and it WAS as big of a shock to them as to us. No word on if they're being moved to the GW team. They either don't know, or aren't allowed to say.

I'm in the camp that the lisence to renew may have gone south. The game was making money, but Cryptic may have been asking for NC to pony up a large lump sum to continue CoH. That could have done it.
That's just speculation of course, but from everything I've seen, the game has been making MORE money since going free to play.

Most of the players are not F2P players. Most of the players subscribe, because we like our nifty incarnate powers, and there's no way to keep them when F2P. The free point stipend we get each month is also cool, but the Dev team has been working around the clock to produce more content than we can keep up with on that stipend alone, so even the subscribers end up paying for stuff.

The "Negotiations failed" theory lends some merit to NC, as it would be Cryptic superdickery responcible for the end of CoH. If, however, we start seeing some familiar names over in the GW2 camp... Well, there's gonna be a lot of unhappy people boycotting NC over dropping CoH.

[Hatu]

Personally, I doubt Cryptic is responsible for this; they don't make money if license isn't renewed, and IIRC, they don't even own CO anymore. So they probably weren't worried about competition.

I am rather mad at NCSoft, though. Even if they had legitimate reasons to close down Paragon Studios (and we'll probably never know), informing the whole company that they're fired on Friday afternoon before a long weekend is pretty low.

-H

[Starwulf]

Personally, I doubt Cryptic is responsible for this; they don't make money if license isn't renewed, and IIRC, they don't even own CO anymore. So they probably weren't worried about competition.

I am rather mad at NCSoft, though. Even if they had legitimate reasons to close down Paragon Studios (and we'll probably never know), informing the whole company that they're fired on Friday afternoon before a long weekend is pretty low.

-H

I don't know, I think I'd prefer it if I were to be fired on a Friday afternoon. It gives you the entire weekend to get your resume in order, so you can head out on Monday bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to look for another job. If you were to be Axed AFTER the weekend, effectively giving you no time to get your **** in order, you're going to waste the best day of the week for job hunting(that being Monday of course, the day after Sunday Ads have been printed and all the job seekers are responding to said job ads).

[factotum]

They weren't having any troubles, in fact, just days ago they were previewing new content for the next 2 major updates, which were supposed to complete the huge storyline they've been building for the past few years.

I'd heard they'd actually released new content just over a week ago--content you now can't buy because the store has been shut down!

[NeoVid]

I'd heard they'd actually released new content just over a week ago--content you now can't buy because the store has been shut down!

100% true, a new powerset was released on the 21st.

[Eldritch Knight]

100% true, a new powerset was released on the 21st.

Nature Affinity. It's awesome, but.... How can I bring myself to play it?

[Acanous]

Right now, Tony of Titan Network in working on rattling cages in NCsoft, trying to get a price for the IP.
We might be able to save City of heroes, but only if NC is willing to either rethink their decision, or to sell it.

So we need to get the word out to the gaming community at large, and rile up some pressure.

I know Rich Burlew is a writer and designer, who'se name is pretty big nowadays. If you're reading this, Rich, a comment in support of the players and developers of CoH would go a long way.

[The Succubus]

NCSoft has a habit of doing stuff like this. I still miss Tabula Rasa. :smallfrown:

[vegetalss4]

That's silly. If something nets you money at the end of the day, you keep it.

Sadly the corporate world doesn't work like that. If they think they can make more money by having their people do something else, then they will do so.


I only played city of heroes a little, but it was fun and it had an amazing character generator I used more than once for roleplaying purposes. so I am quite sad to see it go.

[9mm]

my greatest memory of paragon city was Stateman saying the complainers would look really silly after threatening to leave if a patch went through right before WoW launched. Game was down right deserted after the patch.

[Loki_42]

This is a shame. I used to really love this game, far more than any of the other superhero MMOs. I stopped playing it because for some reason it stopped running on my computer, but I was always looking forward to getting back into the fold when I could fix the problem.

[molten_dragon]

Definitely a sad day. I played that game for years, and it's kind of a shock that it's going away so abruptly.

[Dihan]

Very sad that City of Heroes is being shut down. I have some amazing memories though and I've met some wonderful people. There are no regrets at all.

[Acanous]

The real downer is that Issue 24 was *Just* about to launch when the order came down the pipe laying off the devs.
Like, it's done. It's been beta tested. It's on the public test server and was slated to go live on I think Wednesday?
But nope. Chuck Testa.

[Karoht]

City of Heroes was a game I played briefly. It wasn't my cup of tea, but I respect many of the things it did. It tried. Hard. So. Very. Hard. It won hearts. It won minds, but it won so many hearts. I'm sad to hear that it will be no more.

As for the GW2 connection, I'm going to point out that GW server space isn't doing so great. 400,000 concurrant users gave it some trouble. I've heard rumors that the CoH servers might go towards GW2, but I have yet to find a confirm on that.

But, lets not blame GW for this. Let us instead remember the good.

This news caused me to think a bit of what would happen if I was told WoW was shutting down, and I would then lose my main, Karoht, forever.

And in my humble opinion, you guys should do what I would do in that instance.
Get on the horn. Blow it long and loud. Get on the forums, get on Facebook and Email. Whatever you need to do.
Get as many people together. On one server, on any server, on every server it doesn't matter.
Put together one last event, organized by the fans. Tell the Devs, get their help where possible.
But make that last month, week, day, or hour, the greatest month, week, day, or hour, in memory.

Dance, emote, drink, party, take screenshots. Heck, bind the screenshots button to your mouse. Record this stuff with Fraps, Livestream as much as you can.

If this is to be your end, then make it SUCH an end! Make it one that will ring out for all time. Make a moment in history, make one that developers will see, how much fans can really, truly, love a game.

For love of the game!
For Glory!
For your people!
For the City!
For you!
For memory!
For the Ages!
Forever!


Best of luck chaps.

PS-Consider a Kickstarter fundraiser to Save The City?

@Acanous
Sun rises in the east, moon affects the tides, and Acanous wins.
Make it happen brother. Make it happen.

[Eldritch Knight]

City of Heroes was a game I played briefly. It wasn't my cup of tea, but I respect many of the things it did. It tried. Hard. So. Very. Hard. It won hearts. It won minds, but it won so many hearts. I'm sad to hear that it will be no more.

As for the GW2 connection, I'm going to point out that GW server space isn't doing so great. 400,000 concurrant users gave it some trouble. I've heard rumors that the CoH servers might go towards GW2, but I have yet to find a confirm on that.

But, lets not blame GW for this. Let us instead remember the good.

This news caused me to think a bit of what would happen if I was told WoW was shutting down, and I would then lose my main, Karoht, forever.

And in my humble opinion, you guys should do what I would do in that instance.
Get on the horn. Blow it long and loud. Get on the forums, get on Facebook and Email. Whatever you need to do.
Get as many people together. On one server, on any server, on every server it doesn't matter.
Put together one last event, organized by the fans. Tell the Devs, get their help where possible.
But make that last month, week, day, or hour, the greatest month, week, day, or hour, in memory.

Dance, emote, drink, party, take screenshots. Heck, bind the screenshots button to your mouse. Record this stuff with Fraps, Livestream as much as you can.

If this is to be your end, then make it SUCH an end! Make it one that will ring out for all time. Make a moment in history, make one that developers will see, how much fans can really, truly, love a game.

For love of the game!
For Glory!
For your people!
For the City!
For you!
For memory!
For the Ages!
Forever!


Best of luck chaps.

PS-Consider a Kickstarter fundraiser to Save The City?

@Acanous
Sun rises in the east, moon affects the tides, and Acanous wins.
Make it happen brother. Make it happen.

You sure you haven't looked in on the CoH forums? That's very much what is going on there.

[Karoht]

You sure you haven't looked in on the CoH forums? That's very much what is going on there.
Good. So then everyone on this forum who is sad that CoH is going away should go to that forum and see what is up.
Could you post up a link for everyone? Those forums are blocked from where I'm posting from currently.

EDIT: You refering to a kickstarter to save the game, a zero hour event, or both? :smallbiggrin:

[Eldritch Knight]

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/

These are the City of Heroes boards. There are some areas where access is limited to paying customers, but it's kinda moot right now.

[Eldritch Knight]

The rumor that Sony Online Entertainment was interested in buying the IP has been proved false, which while unsurprising, is still quite disappointing.

[factotum]

The rumor that Sony Online Entertainment was interested in buying the IP has been proved false, which while unsurprising, is still quite disappointing.

Really? Given SOE's record, would you have really wanted them to take over COH?

[Eldritch Knight]

Really? Given SOE's record, would you have really wanted them to take over COH?

Given the choice of survival over extinction?

Yes.

[GungHo]

Wow. I don't even know then. I mean, if they were having problems, I could understand this, but I can't understand why they'd get shut down if they were doing better than they ever had been.

Scuttlebutt is that NCSoft is running new profitability metrics and they got redlined.

[The Succubus]

Given the choice of survival over extinction?

Yes.

Three words - Star Wars Galaxies. X_x

[Eldritch Knight]

At this point, the Titan Network is at the forefront of the rescue effort.

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,4877.0.html

[Hiro Protagonest]

Given the choice of survival over extinction?

Yes.

No.

If it becomes worse, then it'll be abandoned. People will move to DCUO and Champions Online.

If it dies, same thing.

The Titan Network thing holds hope, since the people there are very much fans of the game.

[Xylric]

No.

If it becomes worse, then it'll be abandoned. People will move to DCUO and Champions Online.

If it dies, same thing.

The Titan Network thing holds hope, since the people there are very much fans of the game.

Between the choice of the game and the studio, honestly, I think I would place my vote with maintaining the studio.

But yes, I would agree that the best outcome is for the game to remain as it is.

[Acanous]

Paragon Studios was shut down. The whole thing. It's the game AND the studio going out here.

There's rumors of all sorts of people wanting to pick it up, from Marvel to Valve and a floating heresay about Blizzard wanting the IP, but they're likely all false.

Well, maybe marvel. That agreemet we have to click OK to gives rights to all the characters created in CoH to whomever holds the IP, so Marvel *Could* want it just for the few million extra names.

...they ARE owned by Disney, now.

But that wouldn't save the game, so point is moot.

[Hunter Noventa]

Yeah this was a pretty big punch in the gut when I heard it. I hopped on, took some screenshots of my characters and haven't been on since.

There are some rumors floating around about the PS staff trying to see if they can break away and run the game without NC Soft, but we'll see.

[Artevoi]

I was a fan of Tabula Rasa when NC shut it down, and I know for a fact that NC will not save CoH or allow it to be saved. The game's been on life support for years anyway.

Besides, coming from the Dominic Deegan thread, isn't this the same game that's responsible for Snowsong and Supergreg? If so, good riddance.

[Karoht]

The game's been on life support for years anyway.NC might not try and save it, but I think that a solid dedicated move from the fans along with some outside support could shift something. Mind you, I'm equally pessimistic about such actually happening, but I'm still clinging to optimisim. If fans complained over the ending to the point where ME3 had changes, I suppose it's possible that City could be saved.


Besides, coming from the Dominic Deegan thread, isn't this the same game that's responsible for Snowsong and Supergreg?
Blame the player, not the game, amiright?

[Eldritch Knight]

The game's been on life support for years anyway.

Besides, coming from the Dominic Deegan thread, isn't this the same game that's responsible for Snowsong and Supergreg? If so, good riddance.

The game was not on life support at all. The community may have been small, but it was vibrant.

Saying good riddance to this game, assuming you haven't even tried it, is not only non-helpful, but it is also insulting to those of us that are trying to save it.

The vast majority of us are more interested in saving the livelihood of the development studio. The game may not be salvageable, but the studio is the heart of our little community, and so is worth more to us than the game.

Furthermore, a game cannot be held accountable for what comes out of the minds of its players, otherwise, we'd have a real mess on our hands.

[Reverent-One]

The game's been on life support for years anyway.

Not really, the game was making good money since changing to the Free to play model. To my understanding, it's also their most successful game.

[Reverent-One]

Aplogies for double posting, but have some news. There's a Protest Rally going on in game in Atlas Park right now. They started on Virtue server, filled up 32 instances of Atlas Park, then overflowed into Freedom and already have 3 instances there now.

Live feed (http://massively.joystiq.com/livestream) from the Massively website.