A Work in Progress

Yesterday, NCSoft announced that they would be shutting down their City of Heroes MMO. The business reasons, as given, are vague, but whatever those reasons are, they have chosen to close down development and production.

Although I have not been an active player in some time, pretty much since Star Trek Online launched, I have returned to Paragon City from time to time, each time remembering why I had once spent so much time there. I feel a definite sense of loss at its imminent demise.

While I hope that someone, somehow manages to find a way to rescue and sustain it, I suspect that the odds are against such a resurrection. (There are several petitions in motion in an attempt to save the game. Please sign one if you can. You never know—it might make a difference. We’ll never know if we don’t try.)

Much of my creative output over the past six years were inspired by my participation in that game and its other players. The Emerald Flight stories, Heroic Measures (and its proposed sequels), and the planned Winter’s Fury tetralogy all have characters and situations inspired by characters I developed, or interacted with, in that fictional setting. So, in a sense, they will live on in the new venues in which I have placed them.

I met several fantastic people with whom I have become long-standing friends. There have been deep relationships, severe heartbreaks, and glorious triumphs. These will, I suspect, survive past the end of the game. For having the opportunity to meet those people alone, the experience has been worth it.

It is said that all good things must come to an end . . .

I’ve found that rarely makes it all that much easier when that end does come.