forfeiting everything, pointless cries, futile dreams

Farewell, from all of us at Paragon Studios

This morning we announced that Paragon Studios will be taking to the skies of City of Heroes for the last time.

In a realignment of company focus and publishing support, NCsoft has made the decision to close Paragon Studios. Effective immediately, all development on City of Heroes will cease and we will begin preparations to sunset the world's first, and best, Super Hero MMORPG before the end of the year. As part of this, all recurring subscription billing and Paragon Market purchasing will be discontinued effective immediately. We will have more information regarding a detailed timeline for the cessation of services and what you can expect in game in the coming weeks.

The team here at Paragon deserves special praise for all that we have accomplished over the last 5+ years. These developers are some of the most creative and talented people in the gaming industry. By now, we've all been given this news internally, but to anyone who may be reading this message after the fact; know that your hard work and dedication has not gone unappreciated or unnoticed. To any potential studios looking to grow your team; hire these people. You won't regret it.

To our Community,

Thank you. Thank you for your years of support. You've been with us every step of the way, sharing in our challenges, encouraging us to make City of Heroes better, more than everyone else thought it could be. We couldn't have come this far without you. I implore you all, focus on the good things of CoH and Paragon Studios. Don't dwell on the "how" or the "why", but rather join us in celebrating the legacy of an amazing partnership between the players and the development team.

Thank you, and I'll see you in the skies, one last time.

Andy Belford

Community Manager

Paragon Studios.

I...have no words for this. I'm absolutely baffled. The game itself was making a profit, and running in the black since going free-to-play. The problem is not City of Heroes--it's Aion. But, since Aion is popular overseas, NCSoft has chosen to sacrifice City of Heroes--a game, I would reiterate, that is making money for them--in order to save Aion, a game that is losing money for the parent company.

I'll post more when I know more. At this point, though, confused, hurt, and frustrated, because in spite of everything that's happened over the past year for me and my household financially, we have put that $45 (US, not Lindens, for the three of us who live here) on the line each and every month. As have hundreds of thousands of other subscribers.

[Update 1: There's a petition, not that I expect it to change anything.]
[Update 2: City of Heroes will apparently be closing November 30th.]
[Update 3: Paragon Studios, the basically in-house City of Heroes development team within NCSoft, will also be closing down. There's been some concern over whether Paragon is closing its doors before or after City of Heroes itself closes. The devs on the team have no clue at this point whether they're even going to have jobs to continue to go to after today.]
[Update 4: Slim mention here discovered on the possibility of a live in-game event to send the game off. If this is true, no one at Paragon Studio's had heard this yet.]