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City of Heroes: Difference between revisions
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''City of Heroes'' managed to stay alive for so long despite being only a few months older than the massive ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' juggernaut largely by occupying a niche market and having a die-hard, rabidly-devoted fanbase. However, this was not sufficient to keep owners [[wikipedia:NCSOFT|NCSoft]] from shutting down the game (albeit with several months' notice) in late 2012. The move came as a complete surprise to the staff of Paragon Studios, who were in the process of designing and implementing at least a year's worth of new content at the time, and who were unceremoniously canned simultaneously with the announcement of the game's impending demise. Exactly ''why'' NCSoft killed a popular, groundbreaking game that earned them in excess of US$2 million every month is unknown. The company's few "explanations" were vague and confusing; industry observers and pundits generally agreed that the move made little to no sense. Additionally, NCSoft rebuffed all efforts to buy or license the game from them, apparently preferring to lock it up and throw away the key rather than earn ''any'' kind of money on the property. One of the more interesting speculations about their motivation was that it was a combination of face-saving for the Korean company and a deliberate slap at former NCSoft executive Richard [[Ultima|"Lord British"]] Garriott, who had overseen ''COH'''s creation and had just won US$32 million in damages from NCSoft in a lawsuit over how they'd forced him out of the company. (Another, very detailed, analysis for the death of ''COH'' can be seen [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YahAati0d2c here].)
In April 2019, after many failed attempts to reverse-engineer the server code for the game, it was discovered that a private server (running on leaked binaries) had existed since about a year after the game had been shut down. It was never revealed since the group running this server carefully vetted every member. After a couple days of rage the code for the server was released to the community; the rage was promptly forgotten (mostly) and many independent servers shot up overnight, despite a brief panic caused by a bogus "legal threat" apparently forged by a [[Troll]]. The first and most successful of these, [https://forums.homecomingservers.com/ Homecoming], boasted in excess of 100,000 users by the end of the year, and immediately entered into negotiations with NCSoft
Meanwhile, the established "clean-room" efforts to create or recreate ''City of Heroes'' servers continued, ignoring the existence of the original code. Additionally there is ''[[City of Titans]]'', an entirely new game designed as a [[Spiritual Successor]] and loaded with [[Shout-Out]]s to ''CoH'', which underwent a successful [[Kickstarter]] campaign and as of early 2022 is releasing in-development alphas.
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* [[Anti-Hero]]/[[Anti-Villain]]: The ''Going Rogue'' expansion made these alignments possible in game with [[Noble Demon|Rogues]] and [[Vigilante Man|Vigilantes]].
** A few of the redside contacts are [[Anti-Villain]]s. Most notable is a demon hunter who gives you missions where rescuing the demons' victims is mandatory.
* [[Apotheosis]]:
** Characters who continue on into the endgame Incarnate System after reaching maximum level are by definition (and description) undergoing a slow apotheosis, in which they gather scraps of divine power to themselves and use them to forge new abilities that set them apart even from other superhumans.
** Strictly speaking, given the [[Mass Empowering Event]] in its [[Backstory]], ''all'' supers in the ''City of X'' games are to one degree or another extremely minor divinities whether they realize it or not, with their apotheoses being their personal origin stories.
* [[Arc Words]]: Any arc involving Ghost Widow will usually have the phrase "The Dead can't change."
* [[Art Evolution]]: Take a look at [https://web.archive.org/web/20101229061836/http://www.cityofheroes.com/media_and_downloads/screenshots/screenshot_gallery.html?category=23 these screenshots from issue 1.]
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** Issue 19 also saw an invasion of Primal Earth from Praetoria, giving both sides of the alignment spectrum (and everyone in between) an enemy that could only be fought off by pooling resources.
** All Incarnate content, so far, is alignment-neutral. The Incarnate Trials all currently involve fighting against the Praetorians, and the one Incarnate Zone, Dark Astoria, is a Cooperative Zone dominated by the death god Mot, who [[Evil Versus Oblivion|even villains oppose]].
* [[Enemy Switch-Out]]: The "Teleport Foe" power from the Teleportation power set lets you bring a single enemy to you, allowing large mobs to be slowly picked off one-by-one without aggro, or pull many bosses out of their protective encirclement of minions to where they can be beaten down by the team without alerting their bodyguards.
* [[Enemy Without]]: Inverted: Rularuu the Ravager, a god-like being from [[Another Dimension]], has a Hero Without in the form of Faathim the Kind.
* [[Energy Beings]]: Kheldians.
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* [[Good Guy Bar]]: Pocket D is a neutral-zone club for all characters.
* [[Gradual Grinder]]: Controller/Dominator primaries work that way. Debuff-based Defenders when soloing.
* [[Great Wall]]: The War Walls surrounding the neighborhoods of Paragon City are a combination of [[Force Field]] barriers atop massive concrete walls, towering hundreds of feet above the adjacent streets. They were created to protect the city from Rikti forces during the [[Alien Invasion|Rikti War]] in the [[Backstory]] of the game. Smaller than the default Great Wall, they still count because they encompass ''all'' of the playable area of the game.
* [[Grey and Grey Morality]]: [[Utopia Justifies the Means|The Loyalists]] versus [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized|The Resistance]] in [[Mirror Universe|Praetoria]]. To put it another way, would you rather defend a society where free thought is abolished and civil rights barely exist... or would you rather destroy the last remnants of civilized society in the name of "freedom?" Tyranny or Anarchy, take your pick! (And no, you don't get a [[Take a Third Option|third option.]]) A character from either side can become a hero or villain, depending on your specific choices during game play.
** And within each side, there's a [[Black and White Morality]]. Loyalists can take the [[Glory Hound|Power]] or [[I Did What I Had to Do|Responsibility]] paths, and Resistance can take the [[The Revolution Will Not Be Villified|Warden]] or [[Omnicidal Maniac|Crusader]] paths.
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* [[Inn Between the Worlds]]: Pocket D, an interdimensional Night Club.
* [[Instant Death Radius]]: Anything based on fire.
* [[Instant Plastic Surgery]]: Thanks to the good people at Icon (or the somewhat less morally inclined folk employed by the Facemaker), heroes and villains can easily change the size and shape of their bodies, even switch genders. Of course, in a world where there is a black market for magical artifacts and [[Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome|super science is used daily]], this is pretty well [[Justified]]. During the game's original run this was only available to those players who had purchased the Super Science Super Booster, but with the game's resurrection in 2019 has become available to all.
* [[Interface Screw]]:
** The Confusion status effect, which only allows you to target friendlies with your attacks and enemies with your support.
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** Player characters can become one themselves either as a Vigilante or with the Crusader Resistance faction.
* [[Kryptonite Factor]]: Especially bad for the Peacebringers and Warshades, whose presence on a team [[Kryptonite Is Everywhere|causes special enemies to spawn specifically to hose them]].
* [[Land of the Shattered Empire]]: Paragon City seems to be a small-scale example of this trope, what with all the parts of the ancient city of Oranbega that underlie it. And some players suggest that the United States as a whole may well also have been irrevocably shattered in the wake of the Rikti invasion, given how there is absolutely ''no'' federal-level response to the continued presence of the Rikti in the city, not to mention the military forces of at least two different hostile governments (Arachnos and Nemesis), and a blatantly terroristic NGO (Malta). There are certainly enough wrecked bases and labs as well as other ruins left behind after the invasion to qualify on their own.
* [[Large Ham]]: Romulus Augustus' transformation, right down to larger font.
{{quote|I AM <big>NICTUS!</big>}}
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* [[Good Old Fashioned Fisticuffs]]: The Street Justice powerset, mixing this with a healthy dose of [[Combat Pragmatist]] and, with attacks like Shin Breaker and Rib Cracker, a pinch of [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]].
* [[Green Thumb]]: Plant Control.
* [[Groin Attack]]: Appropriately sized characters can pull this off with the Kick power from the Fighting pool, and, rather intimidatingly, [[Super Strength]]'s [[Megaton Punch|Knockout Blow]]. However, a status of special note belongs to [https://web.archive.org/web/20120325080955/http://thrythlind.deviantart.com/art/Stalactites-195559059 Stalactites] from Earth Control.
** Martial Arts has not one, but two groin-punches: The old animation for Cobra Strike, and for MA Stalkers, the alternate animation for their assassin-strike, "Fist of Annihilation."
** At least one War Mace attack does much the same—there's something disturbingly hilarious about a four-foot fairy bashing some hapless [[Super Soldier]] six feet into the air with a hammer larger than her torso... straight to the junk.
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{{The Troper Board on Multiversal Travel}}
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