Discontinued City of Heroes MMO Private Server Gets Official Status From NCsoft

 

Some gamers, especially fans of superhero comics, will remember the "City of Heroes" MMO. It got attention partially for it's genre, being a superhero game when most MMOs at the time were science-fiction or Medieval fantasy, and partially for being the subject of a lawsuit by Marvel Comics, saying players were creating characters that infringed on it's copyrights. In 2012, it was shut down despite pleas from it's fans that NCSoft keep the game running. 

 

So what were the players to do? Many went to private servers where the game was kept running for those who wanted to keep heroing. Among these was one called Homecoming. One thing that was different about it was instead of trying to avoid attention from the game's corporate owners, from the start it was making an effort to negotiate with them. Finally on January 4, Homecoming made the following announcement in it's forums:

We’d like to thank you all for your patience over the past few years, and we’re incredibly thrilled to announce that it’s paid off: NCSOFT® has officially granted Homecoming a license to host City of Heroes™.

They went on to say that this meant the player and character accounts were now officially safe, there will continue to be more game content, and the game will continue to be free to those who want to play, "We will continue to be funded entirely through donations."

At a time in which corporations are quick to go to their lawyers, this is certainly a welcome development in the gaming world.

Sources: Wikipedia, Homecoming, Massively, Kotaku, Videogames.SI.com   

Bixyl Shuftan