A world died last night, for no reason that anyone can seem to explain.

I spent time there for the entire seven and a half years it existed, and had hoped to be able to disappear there whenever I felt like wandering someplace sunnier and vast or darker and more frightening than my dull office. I literally knew its contours like my hometown. April 2004... for perspective, that's a year before Peter put out the "Houston, we have a problem" call with respect to the Centennial. CoH was an escape I could always count on, an old shoe I could slip on with comfort. Now gone, moreso than any other game I've loved, because as a massive multiplayer it absolutely requires the corporate servers to even visit.

If you have seven minutes or so, here's a glimpse of what's been lost, but without any of the tremendous massive interaction it made possible, or any of the vast complexity of its underlying adaptability. Just a melancholy walk through what was. (And unless I miss my guess, the video artist used a compilation of music from the end-game episodes of Babylon 5, adding a special pain to the mix.)



'Gunner Lives.

I never played the game but my youngest brother was seriously involved. He was very upset when it shut down.