When it comes down to it, it's about the money. NC feels that they are not making enough money from it, or they wouldn't have decided to shut down Paragon Studios.
The things I listed above are just some of the things that did not help it any, since they ended up losing so many of their long time players. Pretty bad when
I became the leader of all SG/VG's I am in due to the people in them quitting because of the things I listed above; and I would be inactive for a few months at a time. Those SG/VG's I were in were long time players, a lot of them being around longer than me. Really a cool group of folks as they kept me in the SG/VG despite the fact that I can be inactive for such long periods of time.
I think the longest inactive period I went through was almost a year. Truth be told, I was surprised to see that I was in all of the SG/VG's when I became active after that. They were all still kicking around and generally having fun. But as those 4 things listed above started coming about, that's when I started to see less and less of them on. The real hits came with point 2 and 3. We lost about a quarter of our number with point 1. We were steadily losing those due to point 4, but fairly minor. The MASSIVE hit came about with point 2 and 3. A lot of us tried to stick it out with point 2 coming into play, but it was a bit much for most of them. 3 pretty much sealed the deal, and with that, I find myself the leader of every SG/VG I'm in, despite ME being so inactive.
Truth be told, I was inactive because I took CoH/CoV for granted. It was one game I didn't see falling ANYTIME soon and therefor, could pop in and out at will. Get a bug to play my EMP/Dark Defender (which is a classic build)? Hopped into CoH for a spell. Want to work more towards some badges with my BS/Regen Scrapper (My 1st Lv 50)? Take a jog for a week. I did have a goal to have Lv 50 Epic's, my PB being the 1st one of the Epic's I planned to get to 50. In fact, she has ALL of my Inf from ALL my Hero's on her. My intent was to level her to 50 then probably work on my TW/Regen Scrapper (one of the powersets I was really enjoying
). I also intended to work on my Gunslinger a bit while doing this. Didn't want to "burn out" on my PB and TW scrap. I would have probably work on my Solider as well during this time. One of the other things I didn't like was how they redid the attack animations for claw scrappers (which also affected Widow's).
That one bugged me to no end, which actually forced my to change my Night Widow into a Fortunata. Just couldn't wrap my brain around the
UGLINESS of the attack animations.
All in all, I doubt that there will be an ability to launch CoH/CoV servers using a different company as I'm SURE NC won't allow it, using legal BS to keep it down.
They could shut down Champions Online (hell, it went F2P in less than a year if memory is correct) and divert that to CoH. I've messed around with Champions Online a little bit and just did not agree with it. In my opinion, City of Heros is better, PERIOD. Now, it looks like I won't have a choice and will have to look more into Champions Online.
