History YMMV / CityOfHeroes

*** Sadly for [=NCSoft=], it's also lead to them becoming a massive HateSink for the fans, as they made it [[ItsPersonal very personal]] for those who loved the game, resulting in [=NCSoft=] taking such a hit to their reputation in America that most of their other games took insane hits to their own playerbases; many of those who were playing them were ''City of Heroes'' players trying a new game out or taking a break from ''[=CoH=]'', and decided to take their business elsewhere when ''COH'' was shut down. The company has never recovered, and they don't really know how to handle the failure, which in turn, somewhat ironically, doesn't help fans of the game, who want it resurrected. As such, it's left [=NCSoft=] with a lot of burnt bridges with American and UK players, and they have no idea what to do to fix it. Assuming they even want to.

** In general, any signature or high-level character is canonically an archvillain/hero or elite boss, making them strictly better than the player's character. This is true no matter the character's significance to the story, how many times you have defeated them in the story, or even their health in the story. This gets truly irritating toward end-game for City of Villains, where players may have to team up to defeat the Vindicators, Franchise/TeenTitans [[{{Expy}} expies]], making it the equivalent of LexLuthor summoning the LegionOfDoom together to defeat Beast Boy.

*** Sadly for [=NCSoft=], it's also lead to them becoming a massive HateSink for the fans, as they made it [[ItsPersonal very personal]] for those who loved the game, resulting in [=NCSoft=] taking such a hit to their reputation in America that most of their other games took insane hits to their own playerbases; many of those who were playing them were ''City of Heroes'' players trying a new game out or taking a break from ''CoH'', and decided to take their business elsewhere when ''COH'' was shut down. The company has never recovered, and they don't really know how to handle the failure, which in turn, somewhat ironically, doesn't help fans of the game, who want it resurrected. As such, it's left [=NCSoft=] with a lot of burnt bridges with American and UK players, and they have no idea what to do to fix it. Assuming they even want to.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** Some of the plot points in arcs are fairly contrived. An example, a warrant is put out for the arrest of [[spoiler: the second Ajax after he revealed in his time capsule letter he killed the original Ajax]] even though at that point the character in question had redeemed himself beyond a shadow of a doubt. Although there is still the fact that he ''murdered a superhero''. Regardless of redemption, [[LawfulNeutral the law still has to figure in.]]
** Unlike the other Patrons who may speak in hushed tones or instruct villains from the mission via radio contact, Black Scorpion will shout at the top of his lungs about his "brilliant" plans to go behind Lord Recluse's back, even with a couple of Arachnos'-payroll scientists right next to him, in the heart of the lair of his boss and with said boss less than ten feet away from him!
** This was the collective player reaction villain-side when [[spoiler: Darrin Wade killed Statesman.]] Have fun dealing with a super pissed-off Lord Recluse, moron.

* HateSink: Darrin Wade. Hero players hate him for actually destroying the very symbol of Paragon City's super-hero community. Villain players hate him for doing the single ''stupidest'' thing any villain could ever possibly do. The Freedom Phalanx hates him for [[spoiler: killing a dear friend]]; And Lord Recluse ''HATES'', ''HATES'', ''HATES'' the man who [[spoiler: killed his Hetrosexual-Life-Nemesis]].
** Nemesis, gets a lot of this too. Heroes tend to hate the guy for killing their buddy in the Rikti War Zone's arc, for the massive web of gangs he set-up in Paragon that make early levels a pain and a half to clear-out, and generally the sort of mad-man who would organize an alien invasion as a decoy play is the sort of nut-job most heroes lives to punch-in-the-face; But in-fact villains tend to hate him too, his schemes needlessly over complicates matters, is prone to BondVillainStupidity, overly-extravagant self-righteous and racist - Basically, everything villains are taught to utterly despise over-the-course of the ultra-pragmatic Rogue Isles quest-lines.
** Tyrant. Heroes hate him for oppressing people, Resistance players hate him because, well they are the ones playing out being oppressed, Villains hate him for being just as bad as any of them but with an air of smug righteousness deluding him into thinking he actually has a moral high-ground. Even Loyalists tend to turn on him for his rampant hypocrisy and willingness to throw any of them under-the-bus if it will serves preservation of his power.
** Neuron is a bit lesser known to the players of primal earth, but Praetorian players tend to hate his guts, Warden players tend to hate him for his disregard for sentient life, Crusader players hate his dehumanizing behavior, Responsibility-Loyalists hate his utter disregard for the society they have been striving to protect and even Power-Loyalists tend to hate him because they are the ones working for him and he is a BadBoss.

* LoveToHate: Lord Recluse gets a ''LOT'' of this, for heroes ''and villains!'' For heroes having a BigBad with no complications, greater-scope plan, tragic-backstory means they don't even need to remotely feel bad about fighting him unlike many other more nuanced villains, but unlike The Nemesis or Requiem he isn't some deluded narcissist either. For villains it's a bet different, Lord Recluse founded a nation of evil and represents the goal of most super-villains, but apart from making sure no one could unseat him once he reached the top, he actively encourages other villains to try to assassinate him (Due to his SocialDarwinist nature, he sees this as character building for both him and the assassins). Because of this arrangement, Villain players tend to absolutely love having Lord Recluse as TheRival.

* HateSink: Darrin Wade. Hero players hate him for actually destroying the very symbol of Paragon City's super-hero community. Villain players hate him for doing the single ''stupidest'' thing any villain could ever possibly do. The Freedom Phalanx hates him for [[spoilers: killing a dear friend]]; And Lord Recluse ''HATES'', ''HATES'', ''HATES'' the man who [[spoilers: killed his Hetrosexual-Life-Nemesis]].

* HateSink: Darrin Wade. Heroes players hate him for actually destroying the very symbol of Paragon City's super-hero community. Villain players hate him for doing the single ''stupidest'' thing any villain could ever possibly do. The Freedom Phalanx hates him for [[spoilers: killing a dear friend]]; And Lord Recluse ''HATES'', ''HATES'', ''HATES'' the man who [[spoilers: killed his Hetrosexual-Life-Nemesis]].

* AmericansHateTingle: ''City of Heroes'' never took off in South Korea, with the full game release actually being [[NoExportForYou cancelled]] there after the beta failed miserably. Considering that its publisher [=NCSoft=] was ''based'' in South Korea, and are first-and-foremost looking after the Korean market, this is believed to be a major factor in the eventual shutdown of the game.

* NeverLiveItDown: City of Heroes is ''still'' remembered fondly by its playerbase, and NC Soft has never fully recovered from the blow it took to its image as a result of their shutdown of the game.[[note]]And the company's image after the ''VideoGame/TabulaRasa'' shutdown and its attempted fraud with Creator/RichardGarriott wasn't exactly sparkling, either.[[/note]] The fact that their hope in seeing those players migrate to their other games didn't pan out pretty much ''at all'' has lead many to think they will never be forgiven for it by players of [=CoH=]. (That, and fans of a Western MMO with Western comic book tropes were not going to decide to play ''VideoGame/Lineage2'' or other free-to-play Eastern [=MMOs=].) Given the vitriol they still get to this day, that theory may well be correct.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Younger gamers who never played ''City of Heroes/Villians'', and are more familiar with ''VideoGame/DCUniverseOnline'' and ''VideoGame/MarvelHeroes'' may look at ''City of Heroes'' and wonder what the big deal is. But it's hard to understate how big a part of internet culture ''City'' was in the mid to late 2000's. In its heyday, the game enjoyed a popularity (in culture if not an actual headcount) on par with ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''!!

** Superheroes are a distinctly American phenomena, much in the way of UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} and hot dogs. As such, the game was by far the most popular in North America, and as mentioned above, the beta was such a bomb in South Korea that it wasn't even released there. South Korea heavily emphasizes the need to look out for their own, and the fact that ''City of Heroes'' wasn't even a thing in [=NCSoft=]'s home country played a big role in why they didn't think it was worth keeping. The fact that it was popular and profitable overseas meant little. [[HarsherInHindsight Only for Superheroes to suddenly skyrocket in global popularity within the same year City of Heroes shut down]], and become a globally acclaimed genre.

** Finally, after ''City of Heroes'' closed, there were a number of companies, and even celebrities who were fans of the game, that offered [=NCSoft=] big bucks to buy the IP and resurrect the title. Many companies would've taken it, but not [=NCSoft=]. In South Korean business culture, it's frowned upon to sell your failed product to someone else and see it perform better, as the stigma is that it makes the original owner look bad and seem like they were holding it back from greatness (even if this is entirely true), instead of it failing due to general bad luck or outside circumstances. Accordingly [=NCSoft=] view it better to leave the series dead so they can look good in South Korea, an idea that's viewed with widespread bafflement everywhere else.
*** Sadly for NC Soft, it's also lead to them becoming a massive HateSink for the fans, as they made it [[ItsPersonal very personal]] for those who loved the game, resulting in NC Soft taking such a hit to their reputation in America that most of their other games took insane hits to their own player bases; many of those who were playing them were ''City of Heroes'' players, and decided to take their business elsewhere when ''COH'' was shut down. The company has never recovered, and they don't really know how to handle the failure, which in turn, somewhat ironically, doesn't help fans of the game, who want it resurrected. As such, it's left NC Soft with a lot of burnt bridges with American and UK players, and they have no idea what to do to fix it. Assuming they even want to.

* FandomRivalry: ''VideoGame/ChampionsOnline'' is headed up by the ScapegoatCreator of ''[=CoH=]'', and was accused at times of trying to "poach" players from [=CoH=] and "borrowing" certain mechanics while both games were running. The results were not pretty. ''Champions'' then "winning" by default only served to further embitter many former [=CoH=] players.

* GrowingTheBeard: Early in its life, the game was littered with poor design choices, uninteresting quests, and a lack of incentive (there was no economy, for one). But starting at around the release of ''City of Villains'' (a year after the game originally launched, coinciding with the release of Issue 6), the devs eventually proved themselves ready and willing to listen and communicate with the playerbase, and steadily made several quality-of-life enhancements along with adding genuinely interesting new content -- this is a large part of the reason the game survived as long as it did against so much competition. Many players agree that the turning point was when Creator/CrypticStudios, the game's original developers, sold the rights to [=NCSoft=], who created a division called Paragon Studios to exclusively work on the game -- which coincided with the departure of the game's ScapegoatCreator, Jack "Statesman" Emmert. (Though, in the long run, people wonder just how well that ended for [=CoH=] and Paragon...)

* ScapegoatCreator: Jack "Statesman" Emmert, especially after he left the team.

* GrowingTheBeard: Early in its life, the game was littered with poor design choices, uninteresting quests, and a lack of incentive (there was no economy, for one). But starting at around the release of ''City of Villains'' (a year after the game originally launched, coinciding with the release of Issue 6), the devs eventually proved themselves ready and willing to listen and communicate with the playerbase, and steadily made several quality-of-life enhancements along with adding genuinely interesting new content -- this is a large part of the reason the game survived as long as it did against so much competition. Many players agree that the turning point was when Cryptic Studios, the game's original developers, sold the rights to [=NCSoft=], who created a division called Paragon Studios to exclusively work on the game -- which coincided with the departure of the game's ScapegoatCreator, Jack "Statesman" Emmert. (Though, in the long run, people wonder just how well that ended for [=CoH=] and Paragon...)

** Superheroes are a distinctly American phenomena, much in the way of UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} and hot dogs. As such, the game was by far the most popular in North America, and as mentioned above, the beta was such a bomb in South Korea that it wasn't even released there. South Korea heavily emphasizes the need to look out for their own, and the fact that ''City of Heroes'' wasn't even a thing in [=NCSoft=]'s home country played a big role in why they didn't think it was worth keeping. The fact that it was popular and profitable overseas meant little.

** Finally, after ''City of Heroes'' closed, there were a number of companies, and even celebrities who were fans of the game, that offered [=NCSoft=] big bucks to buy the IP and resurrect the title. Many companies would've taken it, but not [=NCSoft=]. In South Korean business culture, it's frowned upon to sell your failed product to someone else and see it perform better, as the stigma is that it makes the original owner look bad and seem like they were holding it back from greatness (even if it this is entirely true), instead of it failing due to general bad luck or outside circumstances. Accordingly [=NCSoft=] view it better to leave the series dead so they can look good in South Korea, an idea that's viewed with widespread bafflement everywhere else.

** Superheroes are a distinctly American phenomena, much in the way of UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} and hot dogs. As such, the game was by far the most popular in North America, and as mentioned above, the beta was such a bomb in South Korea that it wasn't even released there. South Korea heavily emphasizes the need to look out for their own, and the fact that ''City of Heroes'' wasn't even a thing in [=NCSoft=]'s home country played a big role in why they didn't think it was worth keeping. The fact that it was popular overseas meant little.
** The game was shut down in part because even though the game was profitable and had a devoted fanbase, it didn't rake in the same money as their other products like ''Guild Wars'', ''Aion'' and ''Lineage''. All of them were more profitable in part due to their greater grind which ''City of Heroes'' lacked, on top of its superhero premise not meshing with the fantasy themes of the other titles that gave them far greater appeal in their native Korea and other Asian countries. Its generally believed their idea was that if they shut down ''City of Heroes'', the player base would've migrated to the other games. Not only did this fail, it actually caused many if not most to ''swear off all [=NCSoft=] products forever'', and their name remains akin to a curse word in many western communities and fan successor sites.
** Finally, after ''City of Heroes'' closed, there were a number of companies, and even celebrities who were fans of the game, that offered [=NCSoft=] big bucks to buy the IP and resurrect the title. Many companies would've taken it, but not [=NCSoft=]. In South Korean business culture, it's frowned upon to sell your failed product to someone else and see it perform better, as the stigma was that it made the original owner look bad and seem like they were holding it back from greatness. They view it better to leave the series dead so they can look good in South Korea, an idea that's held with widespread bafflement everywhere else.
*** Sadly for NC Soft, it's also lead to them becoming a massive HateSink for the fans, as they made it [[ItsPersonal very personal]] for those who loved the game, resulting in NC Soft taking such a hit to their reputation in America that most of their other games took insane hits to their player bases as many of those who were playing them were City of Heroes players, and decided to take their business elsewhere when COH was shut down. The company has never recovered, and they don't really know how to handle the failure, which in turn, somewhat ironically, doesn't help fans of the game, who want it resurrected. As such, it's left NC Soft with a lot of burnt bridges with American and UK players, and they have no idea what to do to fix it. Assuming they even want to.

*** Minds of Mayhem trial: An NPC ally will offer to revive any defeated players, at the cost of shortening the time limit to complete the trial by 30 seconds. Virtually every raid leader opens their instructions with "If Desdemonia offers to rez you, refuse".

** [[MirrorBoss Your Doppelganger]] can be a real pain to fight with certain archetype and power combinations. The saving grace is that they don't inherit any bonuses or powers from outside your primary and secondary powersets. They balance that by [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard having access to much stronger powers than you do at the level you fight them at.]]
*** The Arachnos Widow deserves a special mention on this one, as she eventually gains the option to become a Night Widow. Which, in turn, turns her Doppelgangers into more powerful versions of the bog-standard Night Widows already mentioned as examples of ThatOneBoss.

* NeverLiveItDown: City of Heroes is ''still'' remembered fondly by its playerbase, and NC Soft has never fully recovered from the blow it took to its image as a result of their shutdown of the game.[[note]]And the company's image after the ''VideoGame/TabulaRasa'' shutout and its attempted fraud with Creator/RichardGarriott wasn't exactly sparkling, either.[[/note]] The fact that their hope in seeing those players migrate to their other games didn't pan out pretty much ''at all'' has lead many to think they will never be forgiven for it by players of [=CoH=]. (That, and fans of a Western MMO with Western comic book tropes were not going to decide to play ''VideoGame/Lineage2'' or other free-to-play Eastern [=MMOs=].) Given the vitriol they still get to this day, that theory may well be correct.

* NeverLiveItDown: City of Heroes is ''still'' remembered fondly by its playerbase, and NC Soft has never fully recovered from the blow it took to its image as a result of their shutdown of the game. The fact that their hope in seeing those players migrate to their other games didn't pan out pretty much ''at all'' has lead many to think they will never be forgiven for it by players of [=CoH=]. (That, and fans of a Western MMO with Western comic book tropes were not going to decide to play ''VideoGame/Lineage2'' or other free-to-play Eastern [=MMOs=].) Given the vitriol they still get to this day, that theory may well be correct.

* NeverLiveItDown: City of Heroes is ''still'' remembered fondly by its playerbase, and NC Soft has never fully recovered from the blow it took to its image as a result of their shutdown of the game. The fact that their hope in seeing those players migrate to their other games didn't pan out pretty much ''at all'' has lead many to think they will never be forgiven for it by players of [=CoH=]. (That, and fans of a Western MMO with Western comic book tropes were not going to decide to play ''VideoGame/LineageII'' or other free-to-play Eastern [=MMOs=].) Given the vitriol they still get to this day, that theory may well be correct.

* NeverLiveItDown: City of Heroes is ''still'' remembered fondly by its playerbase, and NC Soft has never fully recovered from the blow it took to its image as a result of their shutdown of the game. The fact that their hope in seeing those players migrate to their other games didn't pan out pretty much ''at all'' has lead many to think they will never be forgiven for it by players of [=CoH=]. Given the vitriol they still get to this day, that theory may well be correct.

* HoYay: Statesman and Lord Recluse... just Statesman and Lord Recluse - the act like bitter exes who can’t stop thinking about each-other.
** Sister Psyche’ and Aurora Borealis are close, ‘’really’’ close. How close? The former has been ‘‘inside’’ the latter.
** Positron and Synapses due to their status as ThoseTwoGuys - namely being practically joined at the hip.
** Malaise and Infernal May give off this vibe being on a team of otherwise all women with zero awkward sexual tension. Malaise’s bright magenta and over dramatics does not help counter the vibe.

* WhatAnIdiot: Some of the plot points in arcs are fairly contrived. An example, a warrant is put out for the arrest of [[spoiler: the second Ajax after he revealed in his time capsule letter he killed the original Ajax]] even though at that point the character in question had redeemed himself beyond a shadow of a doubt. Although there is still the fact that he ''murdered a superhero''. Regardless of redemption, [[LawfulNeutral the law still has to figure in.]]

** NC Soft itself kinda counts here. They ''knew'' the game was popular in the US, but decided to close it down solely because the game wasn't successful in their home country. Makes one wonder what they expected from the fans when it happened. Actually, scratch that. We ''do'' know what they expected; they wanted the players to move to the other games they had, most of which were successful in both markets. They completely misread their overseas audience, resulting in a crippled reputation overseas that they've never recovered from, because they had no idea how to handle the backlash they got.

* FridgeHorror: Some might notice that the entangles produced by the [[CombatTentacles Carrion]] [[NightmareFuel Crawlers]] power continue to deal damage to the defeated enemies. Apparently dead bodies are tasty.

** NC Soft itself kinda counts here. They ''knew'' the game was popular in the US, but decided to close it down solely because the game wasn't successful in their home country. Makes one wonder what they expected from the fans when it happened. Actually, we ''do'' know what they expected; they wanted the players to move to the other games they had, most of which were successful in both markets. They completely misread their overseas audience, resulting in a crippled reputation overseas that they've never recovered from, because they had no idea how to handle the backlash they got.