City of Heroes – Birth, Death, and Resurrection

My Favorite RPG Genre

This post doesn’t have anything to do with tabletop RPGs. However, it does have to do with RPGS — MMORPGs. Specifically, my favorite MMORPG of all time — City of Heroes.

Some of you know that my favorite game of all time is Classic Marvel Superheroes Advanced. I covered in a video (obvious spoiler there).

Part of the reason (and the main one) for that is genre. I love superheroes. Always have. I have over 2700 comics in my collection. My DVD and Blu-Ray collection is full of superhero movies and television shows. I have on of the biggest (if not the biggest) superhero novel collections in my city. Bookstores do not have what I have.

Why this obsession with superheroes? It goes beyond the cape and cowl. It’s more than the cool powers and abilities. It’s this — I like the good guy. The struggle between good and evil. Battling the inner man so as not to succumb to the darkness within us. Cultivating a tenacious spirit to fight the good fight.

I can’t get enough of that stuff.

Superheroes as a genre is really a hodge-podge all of the other genres mixed together. It is about the hero with the specific element of fighting for the betterment of mankind because they have been blessed to have the ability to do so. It’s a focus on righteousness for righteousness sake. This is what City of Heroes embodies.

That never gets old.

My Favorite MMORPG — City of Heroes

Back in 2004, I started playing my favorite MMORPG of all time — City of Heroes. It immersed me in a world where I created my own superhero and took them on great adventures, crossing multiple genres as it is wont to do.

I loved it.

It was a few years later where it spawned the dark side. There was a City of Heroes and now, a City of Villains. I still have the boxes they both came in.

Now again, I love the good guy. So that was (and is) my bent. However, with that release came the Alignment system where you could be a Hero, Vigilante, Rogue, or Villain. Being a Vigilante or Rogue allowed you to cross over into the City of Heroes world, or the City of Villains territory. You could change your alignment by running a series of missions then choosing the alignment after doing so. I was a blue side (hero) player for the most part. I was not one to play redside much (villains). That’s true until this day, though I have plenty of vigilantes.

Later on, they added an alternate universe in the Going Rogue expansion.

This was just too dope. I was living in a comic book. I didn’t need to play another game. This was it.

A Death in the Family

I played for the entire time it was up (Yes. I am a City of Heroes OG. April 2004, baby. Beta and beyond). Then, in 2012, the community was gut-punched. NCSoft, the publishers, pulled the plug on the game. No reason. No explanation. The devs didn’t even know (that is so wrong). Sunset for City of Heroes was November 30th of 2012. That was it. The end of an era.

Or was it?

The Spirit of the Hero

The City of Heroes fanbase never went away. Some tried to develop similar games. City of Titans was one of those as well as Ship of Heroes. They kept the fire alive and the flames stoked of our imaginations. There was also hope that they would be satiated with the new iteration of a City of Heroes Maybe, just maybe, we could be heroes again.

Alas, none of them worked out, though they were promising.

Hero Sightings

However, in 2018, something happened. A small group of fans got a hold of the City of Heroes source code and launched a pirate server…uh…I mean private server (same thing in this case). Thus City of Heroes Homecoming was born, and a rebirth of City of Heroes had happened.

This iteration of City of Heroes had everything unlocked. I mean everything. Base building, archetypes, the City of Villains and Going Rogue expansions, the whole wop. The best thing about it — it was all free.

However, this was not official. Like I said tongue in cheek above, it technically was a pirate server and the guys at Homecoming knew that. We were not allowed to post gaming content because there was no official license. We could still play the game in all its glory, but technically, we were gaming rebels.

The guys at Homecoming contacted NCSoft to work out some kind of license deal, but it was slow going. Crickets at times. However, the community (including myself), played on.

Then, it happened.

A Heroes Resurrection

Out of the ashes, just when you thought the hero would never be seen or heard from again, they have risen from the ashes. It’s that full page reveal in the comics of the superhero you missed and have been wanting to see for a long time.

It’s official. City of Heroes is back. The resurrection is complete.

I am happy about this, though I still don’t trust NCSoft. But at least we are legit, and people will begin to make content about City of Heroes again. I will continue to play my 26 characters off and on when I get a chance (15 of them are at max level). I encourage you to join me, because there is nothing quite like being a hero in the City of Heroes.