NC Soft does something right!

NC Soft has officially granted the Homecoming server/folks a license to host City of Heroes.

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NCSOFT & Homecoming License Announcement

Hello everyone!

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™.

We’ll have much more to share on this in the coming months, however right now we’d like to make a few things clear:

*Your accounts and characters are safe
*Development of new content will continue
*Homecoming will continue to be completely free
*We will continue to be funded entirely through donations

We will be on hand in this thread to answer any questions you may have, so ask away - however, please be aware that we aren’t able to talk about everything just yet, but we will be sure to answer as much as we can as soon as we are able.

Exciting times are ahead!

- Homecoming

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A little background:



For those who weren't around for it, CoX (City of Heroes/Villains) was the first super-hero genre MMO (the game released in 2004). NCSoft shut it down in 2012 to move resources to other games (read: Guild Wars 2). CoX still had a healthy population and was still (reportedly) making money. NCSoft was losing money on other games and putting hopes on upcoming games so they decided to drop CoX in the hopes some/one/any of those upcoming games would more than make up for the profits lost from closing CoX (potential profits vs current profits).

Unbeknownst to The Powers That Be at NCSoft, some of the employees still loved the game so much that they built their own server. It was kept completely secret for years until the code got out in early 2019. Lots of fans started putting up their own servers shortly thereafter, NCSoft eventually gave the nod for servers to continue as long as they weren't making a profit from it (they could request donations to cover operating costs). Currently, Homecoming and Rebirth seem to be the most active servers left (both in terms of player population and ongoing development).

CoX was so solid in gameplay, class/powerset balance, story and customization that the only thing it really needs today is some graphics love.



The team at Homecoming (and Rebirth, I believe) has pumped out a considerable amount of new content (not just missions and/or story arcs, but classes and powersets too) since it first (re)launched. I look forward to seeing what they can do now that they have an official license from NCSoft instead of a begrudging head-nod.