Suddenly it all made perfect sense. The silence. The refusal to discuss or negotiate with the community. The doubletalk about what was or was not done regading the game's future. The sudden reversal on the decision to take Paragon Studios independent.
You want to solve any mystery ever? 3 words - Follow the Money. .
Throughout CoH's history only one company ever tried to kill CoH. Marvel, back in 2004, filed copyright infringement in California. In 2007 (not 2005 as heavily reported) NC and Marvel met behind closed doors and resolved the matter out-of-court.
The terms of the settlement were never released.
Much of Marvel's evidence was inadmissible because Marvel themselves had logged in to CoH and created a Hulk, Wolverine, etc. It was the players who were committing "infringement" not NC, who was acting as just a service provider, and protected under the DMCA.
I believe Marvel was finally ready for Beta and called NC and said "Remember our agreement? You can make all the cash you want until we're ready, building a player base for us in the process? We're ready, kill it now." Or something to that affect.
NC's reaction was as swift and as complete as any legal compliance. A mildly profitable game with a steadily growing playerbase that they are legally forbidden from ever profiting from again. I believe the settlement forbids them from hosting it, selling it, or even disclosing the terms of the settlement itself.
I know there's many who will quote this-and-that and claim I'm wrong because they remember blahblahblah.
Decide for yourself, read what I've read, the actual court documents and exhibits -
https://www.eff.org/cases/marvel-v-ncsoftFYI - in 2004 Marvel owned over 1800 character copyrights, some in current publication, but most not. Chances are your main toon was very similar to some character Marvel owned and could prosecute you for.
Just my 2 cents. Hope the Google thing works out. I'd love nothing more than to be very, very wrong about this.
Edit: Marvel owned 18,000 not 1,800 copyrighted characters. My bad.