Gamasutra's postmortem of City of Heroes and Paragon Studios says the MMO's development staff did everything it could to keep the game running—including trying to buy it from publisher NCSoft—and that plans for one final update were shot down right before the game was closed on Dec. 1.

Last night NCsoft shut down City of Heroes, a landmark game that eight years ago brought the thrills of super powers and comic-book crimefighting to an MMO roleplaying world.

More than eight years old, City of Heroes says goodbye tonight. In five hours—at 3 a.m. EST Saturday—NCsoft will pull the plug on both the superhero MMO and its developer, Paragon Studios.

As fans gather in a desperate attempt to save the doomed City of Heroes from its announced closure, DC Universe Online unleashes mystical forces with its latest expansion and Dr. Destroyer's army of Destroid robots rises in Champions Online in celebration of the game's third anniversary.

Last week's vigil in Paragon City was misunderstood (including by me) to be a protest against the announced shutdown of City of Heroes, the eight-year-old superhero MMO. It was intended as a statement of support and tribute, particularly to the Paragon Studios development team that, let's not forget, is seeing the end…

The City of Heroes community has called for a massive demonstration at 5 p.m. EDT in Atlas Park to protest the MMO's shutdown.

Paragon Studios has announced that effective immediately, all work on superhero-themed MMORPG City of Heroes will be ceasing, and the game will be shut down by the end of the year. In a post on the official City of Heroes site, community manager Andy Belford wrote:

With fewer and fewer children donning costumes and hitting the streets every year to celebrate all things sweet and spooky, the Halloween tradition is alive and well in the virtual worlds of today's massively multiplayer online games.

After more than seven years as the most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online superhero role-playing game, Paragon Studios flips the switch on City of Heroes Freedom, potentially the most popular free-to-play superhero MMO.

Superhero MMO City of Heroes is killing its monthly fee with the advent of City of Heroes Freedom as the game transitions from subscription-based model to a new, free to play one.