City of Heroes, a Little History

I used to play the hell out of City of Heroes (CoH) and City of Villains (CoV). To the point where it probably affected my parenting and my marital status. Sadly for me, the game shut down in November 2012. But I still see people online talking about the game quite a bit, as it was very unlike any other MMORPG out there. Even the similarly-themed Champions Online (CO) and DC Universe Online (DCUO) played so differently that I personally never enjoyed them enough to stick around (although I paid for lifetime subscriptions to both prior to launch in hopes either would replace CoH/CoV for me). My most recent spotting of CoH/CoV talk is this Massively Overpowered article on some of the history of the games, including launch, the Marvel lawsuit, going free-to-play, and issue roll-outs.

One of the perks of this subscription was the delivery of a monthly City of Heroes comic book. That was a neat idea, but gradually this deal changed, with NCsoft charging an additional fee for the comic and then scrapping the physical book entirelly and making them available only on the website. The first issue came out in June 2004 and the 32nd and last arrived in August 2007.

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