Meta’s Verse: The City of Tomorrow is Yesterday

By Meticulous Meta, OnRPG Paragon Reporter

 

 

It was 8am for me when the City of Heroes went dark. I’d stayed up all night just so I could see it out. Just like back when I did Extra Life I stayed in CoH for 24 hours. But this time I wouldn’t be logging back in. My home was on Virtue. We worked that poor server. We crashed several times. Including just minutes before the end. And that is why I ended my life in City of Heroes on Exalted, in a train station trying desperately to get to City Hall where my husband and friends were standing. I don’t blame anyone for not being able to finish on Virtue. We were pushing that poor server hard.

 

 

I’ve always admitted to being a complete altwhore. I finished with every slot on Virtue full, and dozens of retired characters moved to other servers. If you just count the characters I had on Virtue at the end they combined logged more than 5,000 hours worth of playtime, that’s almost 200 days. More than half of that time was spent on my main. And she was who I finished on. Well, she was the last thing I saw, even if it wasn’t actually her. It was a rough and panic filled few final hours. But knowing Quincy was the last character I saw made that better just a little.

This morning after it was over I logged into The Secret World to take part in a photo op with other City of Heroes refugees. When I arrived people hadn’t loaded yet. Only about six, I thought to myself, “really? This is it?” And then I turned the camera and they all loaded in. I’m not sure how many of them there were. The steps of the Kingsmouth church were filled. I got a little emotional then. But I still hadn’t cried. Oh no, that was saved until I woke up from my nap. I woke up, mentally celebrated the fact and thought to myself “Lets go play CoH!….oh.” That was the moment. I’d managed to hold back up until then but that…I cried. It wasn’t a big one, but the tears were there.

 

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Friends I hadn’t seen in forever were there for the end. We all said our goodbyes. Sure, we will keep in touch. But it will take some time for our new ways of doing so to become normal. The hardest goodbye though was to all the characters I knew and loved through the years. It won’t be the end for them by any means. My husband and I will continue to write stories to eachother, get art commissioned. They won’t ever make the leap to another game, but that’s my choice.

 

 

I wrote a post similar to what I’m about to do on the City of Heroes forums. Of course it’s gone now and I’d like to do a bit of expanding on it. So I’ve written my post again. Enjoy.

 

Thank you.

 

 

Thank you Paragon Studios for creating the most unique MMO experience I have ever had. No matter where you go you will always be your rednames to us. Thank you Positron, War Witch, Hit Streak, Zwillinger, Black Pebble, Synapse, Arbiter Hawk, Fireman, Noble Savage, Black Scorpion, Second Measure, Dink, Dr. Aeon…needless to say I could go on forever. But thank you, all of you, for giving me a world of tomorrow. Go forth knowing you have changed not only the MMO industry but you have really changed people’s lives.

 

 

Thank you to my readers. I’ve had the pleasure of writing about City of Heroes for OnRPG for 2 wonderful years. In that time I’ve interviewed community members and developers alike. But none of it would have been possible without having readers like you supporting me. Though I will continue writing Meta’s Verse through the end of the year it will never be the same again.

Thank you City of Heroes community. You made City of Heroes what it was. Be secure in the knowledge that you were part of something special. You couldn’t show me another MMO out there with the sort of dedicated fans that City of Heroes had. Though we may be spread throughout the world. We are a close family. Every time you go to a new game, meet a new group in a game remember to say a FREEM or a HOORB. You never know what City of Heroes community member may be watching.

 

 

Our community has been held together not only by Paragon Studios but also by the community members who have gone above and beyond. And so I say thank you to TonyV, Ransim, Samuraiko, Ascendant, Mr and Mrs Wentworth, Everyone at The Cape, and of course everyone who has been involved in their various projects. You have been a wonderful example to us all. Remember that you all played a huge part in making City of Heroes the success that it was.

 

 

Thank you to everyone who attended that first rally. We had 33 Atlas Parks on Virtue alone. Thousands of you flocked to Virtue and it was beautiful. I have never been more proud to be part of a group than I was then.

 

 

Thank you to everyone who helped with the campaign. From the organizers to the people who sent masks, capes, emails, and letters. You were part of the most amazing campaign to save a game ever. The campaign isn’t over yet.

I want to say a huge thank you to Virtue both the physical server and the residents. First, to the physical server; Thank you for giving so many of us a home. For working harder than perhaps any of the other servers. Thank you for only complaining about it on the rarest of occasions and never giving up when we stressed you. To the Virtue residents, Thank you. You were my little branch of the City of Heroes family. And though there were many of you I never met or never talked to I recognized you, you were familiar, you were part of my world. My world got a little bit smaller when I lost you.

 

 

To my global channels and super groups, all of them through the years. Thank you. You, more than anyone made an impact on my day to day life. Thank you Shield of Paragon, Brickhouse, RP Virtue and VirtueUnited. You were always there for me when I wanted nothing more than to play City of Chat. If ever I was lonely I was secure in the knowledge that I could log in and find someone to talk to. Thank you Children of Egypt, Justice Guard, Codex, and Statesman’s Watch. You were my super groups through the years. You brought together people who may have otherwise never met. You were my immediate family.

 

 

Thank you friends. There are so many of you I could go on for days. Thank you Fausty, for being there to offer me a smile (and a fishy) whenever I needed one most. Thank you Isawa Koi, for always helping me fill teams in a timely fashion so we could go on to do awesome. And we were awesome. Thank you Zombie Fryer for making Hami raids memorable and with 100% more nachos and Klondike bars. Thank you Sare, more for what you’ve given us outside the game than in. You’ve been our friend and someone we can always talk to. Thank you to Taffy for attending my wedding. So many of our friends from City of Heroes wanted to be there. You were the only one to make it but I’m grateful for the time we had. To Sephorus and Breyla who invited us to their wedding in Virginia though we’d never met in person, I say…..I love you guys! You were our closest friends through most of our City of Heroes careers and our friendship will remain. We will find the four of us in another game together soon.

 

 

But most of all, I need to thank one person. He is the most important person in my life, my husband. Thank you for introducing me to City of Heroes. Thank you for dating me long distance from Ireland to California for seven years. Thank you for helping make that distance feel a little smaller by being my constant companion in City of Heroes. We’ve taken on street gangs, and saved the world together. Because of you my characters are never alone. We spent our last day in City of Heroes logging out each of our characters side by side. Though we didn’t get to do some of the things we had hoped, our characters will live on.

 

I am @Maressa

I am the coleader of the #SaveCoH campaign

I am Meticulous Meta

I am a roleplayer

I am a Virtue player

I am going to miss my City of Heroes

 

 

My final words in City of Heroes were ones I never intended to be my last. Thanks to the crash it was a fight against the clock just to get logged back in. But the more I think about them the more I’m glad they were my last.

 

 

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