City of Heroes, Developer Paragon Studios Shutting Down

I was in the beta for COH. I got City of Villains and Going Rogue as soon as they came out. When it went free to play I kept making the monthly payments for the VIP perks. The amount I played over the years fluctuated, but I never quit playing, right up until today.

I love City of Heroes.

Now its going and I'll have to look elsewhere for superhero MMO fun. I took a look at DC Online and was rather underwhelmed. Then again, I think just about every character creator has been spoiled for me by COH now.

Dr. Sanguine RIP level 50 mastermind. You will be missed

The super-powered movement skills will always be this game's greatest achievement in hilarity and mindless entertainment.

Aww quite sad, I played this abit back in the day, all my fav mmos are dieing/dead :/ (swg, coh)

Damn. I fucking loved City of Heroes. I'm really sad to see this happen.

One of the best MMOs ever. Good night, sweet prince.

@DeviTiffany said:

NCsoft owns both Paragon Studios and Arenanet, so I wonder if NCsoft canned they guys at Paragon and their game so NCsoft could focus more on profiting from Guild Wars 2.

Well they will profit either way from GW2, but I have to imagine they were losing money on CoH, no one plays it anymore. But yes, I'm sure they're throwing a little more focus to the new, shiny, MMO. It's smart too, GW2 is going to go far as long as they keep up on it.

I was in the beta for COH. I got City of Villains and Going Rogue as soon as they came out. When it went free to play I kept making the monthly payments for the VIP perks. The amount I played over the years fluctuated, but I never quit playing, right up until today.

I love City of Heroes.

Now its going and I'll have to look elsewhere for superhero MMO fun. I took a look at DC Online and was rather underwhelmed. Then again, I think just about every character creator has been spoiled for me by COH now.

It's really sad to see this game go, as I really enjoyed it for a good long stretch between '04 and '07. From camping Paladin spawns in Kings Row to power-leveling people off the Drek 'mish', CoH will always hold a special place in my heart. It's too bad they were never able to innervate life back into this game; though, the later issues only seemed to make the enhancement system more complicated than fun.

Another week, another studio closure announcement...

Sadface. It was one of my first MMOs. :(

RIP 80's Man, The Corporate Suit, Bluescreen, Kelp Plankton, Optimystical, and Deathgirl. My poor little neglected roster of silly superheroes, flying swiftly off into the sunset. There will never be another game quite like City of Heroes. There's other superhero MMOs out there, and other games with similar mechanics, but nothing will ever be the same as this for me. This game was my life in high school. And even though I don't play it anymore, really... it's sad to lose it for good.

CoH was a ton of fun. I had the most fun with it out of any MMO I've played. It's sad to see it go.

Aww, City of Heroes/Villains had the most laid-back community.

@jakob187 said:

Does this mean that City of Villains will also be seeing a shutdown?

It's sad news to hear, especially because the community that did play it...whether they stayed with it the entire time or not...seemed to love it. People always spoke fondly of the game to me.

Sad to hear, man.

yeah, they merged games a while ago, it's all one thing. villains was essentially a fancy expansion

NCsoft owns both Paragon Studios and Arenanet, so I wonder if NCsoft canned they guys at Paragon and their game so NCsoft could focus more on profiting from Guild Wars 2.

Does this mean that City of Villains will also be seeing a shutdown?

It's sad news to hear, especially because the community that did play it...whether they stayed with it the entire time or not...seemed to love it. People always spoke fondly of the game to me.

Sad to hear, man.

GB better be there when they turn out the lights again. City of Heroes came out in 2004, that's 8 years ago. I think that's a pretty good run for an online game. Sad to see the studio itself closing though. Sad times, indeed.

live footage of the death of city of heros?

An MMO is closing down? Can't wait for another "Not like this..."!!!

The first MMO I actually played a ton and really enjoyed. This actually really sucks. I'll definitely be making a visit to it before this is all over.

This is terrible, this is actually one of the best MMOs i have played and i was hoping to spend some money on it soon.

They need to find some way to keep it going, set up private servers like SWG or something at least.

I got this back in 04 played the living hell out of it too. Im always sad to hear about closures and Servers being shut down but this one hits a bit harder than most of the others.

Yay. More GB content!

Oh my god, so sad if not exactly shocking. Today was already such a shitty day for me in a death-by-papercut way, and now this.

I haven't played regularly in years (so I'm part of the problem~) but it was always so comforting to know I could log back in and revisit my characters. By far my most beloved MMO ever.

I remember following this and Star Wars Galaxies from just being a bunch of text documents- to their actual release. The possibilities were positively amazing. I remember flying to Washington, D.C., just after the events of 9/11- picking up the PC Gamer World of Warcraft cover. That era is coming to a close. I wonder what we will see next?

Thank you to the developers that have created and worked on these dreams.

I'm looking forward to your watching your next future possibilities.

Godspeed.

City of Heroes/Villains remains the only MMO that ever actually entertained me beyond the first couple of hours.

Sad news and feel bad for the developers

@ageofquarrel said:

Man this bums me out, I remember when I got in to the beta how siked I was. Easily the character creator was the best thing ever at the time.

The word you want is "psyched" unless your misspelling was intentional.

I never ever played this game because I was kind of too young for MMO's when it came out but I could always see it was something special. Sorry for all the fans of the game.

3rd stream, woop woop

@artgarcrunkle: It's only good on the PS3 version. I really don't like it on PC.

@Animasta: Oh! I see what you're saying. Although the PS3 version released at the same time as the PC version, it's definitely one of the first F2P MMOs on the PS3 itself (Although I guess Freerealms sort of counts) so it could be attracting people to that.

It was my first MMO and I spent a few years playing it. Made some great friends I still talk to even if we don't game together much. Sad to see it go.

@Terrents: It's really, really not.

Shame, had a great time with CoH, but it had been awhile.

Man this bums me out, I remember when I got in to the beta how siked I was. Easily the character creator was the best thing ever at the time.

No one ever talks about champions online. Its made by the same guys and its way better! I still play it

What will the name of the Giant Bomb super hero/villain be called?

@EndlessLotus said:

Eh. The villains counterpart is better....

it's all the same game

Eh. The villains counterpart is better....

What an absolute shame. I bought City of Heroes from BestBuy, on release day, back in 2004 and immediately fell in love with the character creator. The MMO itself wasn't anything to sneeze at, either... so many good updates over the years... some graphical, some mechanical.

It's one of the few games my wife will go out of her way to play. In fact, she's playing it on her iMac right now. She's pretty bummed about its closing.

@Eujin said:

@Animasta: That is semi impossible, as the PS3 and PC servers are separate (They never used their integration idea). So DCUO's mostly full PC servers seem to disprove your theory.

can't remember where I heard it but I had heard that the PS3 version was populated more. Maybe that never happened! but regardless, it's still newer

Damn that's one of those games I always wanted to try but never got around to playing. Guess those free to play dollars aren't so great.

Loved City of Heroes. Didn't play it as much as other MMOs but sad to see it go. Was an amazing game in all its forms. Good luck to Paragon people in their future ventures.

Oh man. I knew this day would eventually come, but I thought it'd be after a sequel game came out. Not like this. Not like this!!! :(

I remember being in second wave beta back in 2004. I thought City of Heroes was the greatest MMO ever made. The fast paced combat and the departure from fantasy or sci-fi seemed revolutionary at the time. The game had flaws like repetitive maps and little to do besides combat, but I made so many great characters on that title that I didn't care. Soon, I'll never be able to play them again.

Perhaps I should be happy that going free-to-play extended the game's stay of execution for as long as it did. Clearly the boost didn't last long enough, and the economic realities can no longer be ignored. Still, a small part of my heart will always be in Paragon City.

Looking forward to the City of Heroes shut down live stream!

CoH was my first and only MMO, I had some good times with it and it's sad to see it go.

Is it terrible that I am really hoping and looking forward to a live stream of this game dying out?

They should release the server client for the game.

Didn't play a ton of CoH but thought it was rather good & too bad to hear this news that they couldn't just find some other project for them to work on instead.