From: Our Project Lead
This is the last time we can say ‘One year ago, we were playing a game.’
I started my journey to the City with a hint off a webcomic. I stood shoulder to shoulder as the Rikti invaded to end Beta. I stomped Statesman when he Struck the Isles. I was there in Atlas Park 33. And I stood, shoulder to shoulder, one last time, as the lights went off on the servers.
I did all of those things with a good friend. He’s passed on, now, but we make this game in his name, and in the names of all of our friends we knew.
In the name of the good times we had, and the hard times we had, because it is challenge that makes us stronger.
This is a time to remember what we were thankful for, for the community, for the friendship, and for the fun.
This is a time to remember our teammates, our supergroup members, our coalition allies.
Every Pick Up Group that went right, every time some 50 stopped a newbie and gave them 5,000 inf, every costume contest.
All of these things come down to one thing. People. Community. Friends.
Friends are what we lost when the City shut down. Some of us have managed to stay connected, and with those connections, we have made new friends. And some of us have been working on ways to rebuild what was lost, so that our spirits can fly again.
But for this moment, for this evening, we bow our heads one last time in memory.
There are things we are doing to remember the City. For one, #SaveCoH is running a Costume Contest using Icon. We’re supplying a prize this year, an embroidered sash. Next year, we’re hoping it’ll also be a costume part. They’re actually providing a whole bunch of events, so go ahead and check their gathering thread out.
http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,9337.0.html
Valiance Online, another Superhero-themed MMO is entering their pre-alpha today, too. It’s not a coincidence. They’re sort of the Marvel 2099 to our Earth-2, but they’re friends, and we’re supporting them.
http://valiance.shogn.net/
We’re doing a livestream with one of our artists, too. Joerden Leigh. It’ll be a good show, we’ll pop in and out as we can. It starts at 5 PM PST this Saturday.
https://new.livestream.com/accounts/3128602/events/2584297
As for where we stand? Progress is being made, and you’d be amazed what’s on sale for Black Friday. All kinds of good deals on the software we need. We’re still tooling up, slowly, working on our plans and designs. Nothing to show, no screenshots, nothing more than sketches and spreadsheets. And that’s the way it should be.
We’ll keep you informed, week after week, of our progress. It’s going to be a long and slow road, but we will get there.
But until then, my friends, we will not forget what brought us here today, and we will celebrate it.
Holding a torch, - Warcabbit
Former Online Community Manager & Forum Moderator
[img]http://missingworldsmedia.com/images/favicon.ico[/img]
Only a year... It seems so long ago, and yet when I read the posts below I realized it was still very raw for me. I look at my screen through the blur of watering eys, and I remember...
Walking through Best Buy on May 2, 2004, and seeing this blue box with Super Heroes on the front. "I've never been good at video games, but what the heck, maybe I can just log in and enjoy making characters or something...
Getting it home, installing it, and looking at the manual while brightly colored screens flashed by of Heroes doing heroic things... "WAIT! What's this?? I can CONTROL the WEATHER?? And I can summon a LIGHTNING STORM!!! I can't wait!! HURRY!!!"
And it finsihed loading, and I created Tempest Master, a Storm/Lightning DEFENDER for my first character... a character that it would take 1200+ hours to get to 50...
I remember a time before ragdoll physics when mobs stayed in rigid poses when you knocked them back...
XP debt wasn't reduced in missions (and I was a defender, so I always traveled with a full debt bar)...
meeting another defender and realizing one defender might be a gimp, but TWO defenders were AWESOME...
creating my first villain, Puppy, his sidekick Canicula, and a robot named Charlie Brown (who were later joined by Sherman and Timmy cause, hey, every dog should have a boy or three, right?)... think Pinky and the Brain play with robots....
looking back at my selections for first characters (a Defender and Mastermind) and realizing I truly am a masochist...
seeing the Blue Jello Mold of Death for the first time and thinking "Wow, we are gonna need more spoons...."
hanging out on rooftops of skyscrapers in Steel Canyon with a friend before we had bases for privacy...
meeting the members of Fusion Force and realizing I had a family I had never met...
more puns for names than you could shake a stick at: Widow Red Ridinghood; Arbiter Sanders (dressed in a white suit with string tie) and his nemesis, Chicken Widow; and probably my favorite of all, my stone melee, ice armor tanker blue minotaur Stone Cold Babe...
FINALLY getting that damn Master of the Statesman Task Force badge...
reading those fateful words that in 90 days the world was going to go away...
trying to do everything in that last 30 days, all the things I thought I would always have time to do...
On October 28, trying a Magisterium trial and finding out I was on a Really Hard Way badge attempt... and we made it! Later finding out we were the first (and maybe only) successful attempt on Triumph... and someone posted it to YouTube! (Look for the hurricane around on Black Swan ... that's me)...
November 30, 2012, running around taking pictures, feeling very surreal, doing a last Statesman, then getting everyone together for a last Triumph Hami Raid and beating it at 11:45...
flying over to Williams Square and standing on the edge, looking at the fountain, standing next to my best friend in the world and teammates that were my second family...
Watching as postings announced the fall of server after server... waiting... and when it came to the last, the last server down was Triumph...
You have been disconnected from the server...
making the mistake to stay awake and surf for videos of the last days in Paragon on YouTube...
crying myself to sleep.
Yeah, it's kinda hard seeing the screen right now... it is kinda blurry.
I remember the first time I read the Crisis on the Infinite Earths series. And watching as panel after panel of white wiped out world after world. The emotions of the character as their world were distroyed by something they couldn't understand and were powerless to stop. It affected me greatly, that story, but I didn't know why... I do now. I've been there and seen the end approach and suddenly, it's all gone. Sometimes heroes aren't enough...
And yet today, as I remember and allow myself to mourn just a little at what we have lost, I look forward to that white light on the hoizon, two years distant, maybe a little more. It's a just a glow right now, but it is enough to remind me... There are Heroes, and it is enough. Thank you to the heroes at MWM who have the talent, know how, and drive to bring us a new home. Thank you to the heroes of this amazing community, then, now, and into that bright new future... an future of heroes. And to all the heroes that are no longer with us and we miss more than we can say... may your spirits guide us, for you are always with us.
We are heroes; This is what we do.
"Yes they do Otto, they just don't understand it!"
I am Tempest; Tempest Master in my previous life, and known as Temp to almost everyone that knows me.
A video to remember today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gniu1zjYeVk
Played CoH from early beta to shutdown, with a single 5 month break.
http://www.youtube.com/Energyone - gaming channel with plenty of CoH vids and current games I make vids for.