Alannon

How many devs and admins were there? I would have thought they couldn't get onto the servers.

It was fun, especially the GM monster fest at the end.

Here are a few post-event lineup shots. The original images were 3600x1860 but Imgur scaled them down a bit:

http://imgur.com/a/LrQIr#0

I wanted to be a blaster since day 1. I started playing in Dec 2004, and from then until now, I have far more blasters than any other archetype. I played with Corrupters, defenders and the occasional controller or even dominator, but blasters were my favorite.

I had energy/energy before I even knew about knockback. I had all of the debt badges before 50 (and before I became a badge hunter).

I gave reckless a new face, and was the target of many jokes on any team in which I played.

When I/O invention bonuses came out, I tried to find a way to make my guy more durable. I finally hit upon the idea of trying to get him to Super-Reflexes level defenses. It seemed that positional defense was a lot easier than typed defense since I only had 3 positions to defend against (melee, aoe, and ranged).

I took Mid's planner and made a sample SR scrapper, I then slotted highest triple SO enhancers into each of the defense powers (toggles or auto, not the big, short-lived powers), and looked at the Ranged, AoE and Melee defense levels. They came out to about 30%. That was my goal for my I/O'd blaster.

It took weeks of messing around with Mid's to finally get the levels to this. I had to drop some powers I'd previously depended upon, and take some strange ones. In the end, I ended up with a little better-than SR level defenses to positionals.

With the Power Boost, I had slighly over those levels about half the time and slightly under them the other half. When fitness became inherent, I respec'd and got Hasten back and now it is mostly over the levels.

Before Incarnate powers came out, I was able to stand toe-to-toe with even AVs while the rest of the team was dead and they had trouble hitting me. In extreme cases, a single small purple made me nearly untouchable.

I finally had the blaster I'd always wanted: Vast damaging capability, some AoE powers and very hard to kill.

It was an expensive build. I wish I had the Mid's build for it. I may do that soon and post it.

I tried to do the same with other types of blasters but the particular combo of energy/energy made it so simple. Others couldn't come near that, even with billions of inf invested in I/Os.

This was my crowning build achievement. Thank you City of Heroes, and Mid's for making a blaster so much fun!

- Taking those long breaks for a few months each time for the past few years (new issue releases would bring me back)

- Not getting my Warshade to 50, I heard they are awesome later one.

- Not being more serious about getting all the villain-side badges on my main badger (he has Bug Hunter, stopped seriously hunting when Going Rogue opened up... couldn't keep up).

- Not going to Hero Con when I had the chance.

- Not playing melee characters up more. If I had the time, I'd get my lvl 7 dual blader up or maybe that new staff guy that I abandoned around level 14. I'm more of a blaster/controller at heart.

- Not getting a beam rifle guy up. If I hadn't run low on time, I'd have run up a Beam Rifle/ Martial combat blaster on beta.


Right now, I'm trying to run the major recent Arcs before the end. I'm on the last few Night Ward arcs, finished the DA arcs. Still have Belladonna Vertrano and the Beta arcs to finish, as well as whatever that new Kings Row stuff on Beta is.

I'm also flashing back to demorecord Keith Nance and Roy Cooling arcs. I have to run Admiral Sutter TF again, maybe Calvin Scott TF, and probably Katie Hannon TF. Hope to run FrostFire mission again for sentimental value for my gf.

So much left to do, and only 11 days (as of today) to do it!

After all these years, I think I'll join the Tanker Tuesday event tomorrow night if I can before the game shuts down. I have a lvl 35 tanker on Freedom that I haven't played in a while.

If anyone from the PSF SG is reading these boards, I wanted to say Thanks for being the first and best SG I ever ran with.

If you guys are still online, look me up at @Alannon1 and we'll run once more before the end. I should have stuck with you guys instead of leaving to join Stryke Force back in the day. While there were some good people in SF, the drama was, well, I guess we all remember that.

I forgot to add the Calvin Scott TF and I would mind running the Ernesto Hess TF one more time. It was my old favorite.

I will agree that getting up to level 30 on DCUO was more fun than doing the level 30 content.

I haven't played Champions Online enough to comment. Didn't seem anywhere near as addictive as CoH. I also didn't feel that either game has the social aspects that CoH has.

Another tidbit from that old webpage... Skyscraper bases!

[Teams of players can pool their wealth and resources to purchase entire mansions and skyscrapers for their base]

Check out this version of the original webpage I found through the internet archive.



http://web.archive.org/web/200110171...yofheroes.com/


Here's the original announcement. The screenshots and lists of villain groups are so archaic looking.



Wednesday, September 26th, 2001


City of Heroes is announced!

Cryptic Studios proudly announces City of Heroes, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game that's home to an entire universe of super powered, comic book style adventure. Here you and thousands of other players can create your own superheroes and discover all the dangers, wonders, and excitement that Paragon City has to offer.

The full press release follows:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cryptic Studios Announces Massively Multiplayer
Online Role-Playing Game, "City of Heroes"

Comic-Book Style Adventure Filled with Superheroes and
Fearsome Villains to Release in Summer of 2002

San Jose, CA - September 26, 2001 - Cryptic Studios proudly announces "City of Heroes," a massively multiplayer online world home to an entire universe of super-powered, comic book style adventure. When the game releases next summer, thousands of players can take on the roles of superheroes, fight villains, and help create the story in a stunning, 3D graphical world, courtesy of the San Jose-based developer.

Super Powered Action and Adventure

City of Heroes is the first superhero themed online RPG and will offer a host of exciting and compelling gameplay features. Players create their own heroes, choosing from hundreds of different powers, skills, abilities, and items and design their own unique costumes. Then they can band together with other players to fight evil, build their own secret headquarters and strive to become the premiere hero group in the city.

Gamers will confront super villains, aliens, madmen, monsters, criminals, and other fearsome foes. They can take on personalized missions and rid the city of dozens of different evil organizations and hundreds of individual enemies. With success players acquire power, wealth, and fame and come to bask in the spotlight and rake in the rewards as their powers and fame grow with each successful mission and every defeated foe.

City of Heroes takes place amongst the skyscrapers, slums, sewers and streets of Paragon City, a sprawling online metropolis that offers unlimited adventure and countless surprises. Players become an integral part of many and varied different ongoing story arcs as the villain groups menace Paragon City and react to player victories and defeats.

"With City of Heroes we're bringing a new and exciting genre to online gaming: the world of superheroes," says lead designer Richard Dakan. "We've designed this game to not only capture the excitement of comic book heroes but to offer a unique gaming experience. With this game you can literally 'become your own hero.' Players can not only design their very own superheroes from the ground up, but they can have a direct impact on what happens to the city they live in."

Cryptic Studios plans to release City of Heroes in the summer of 2002. For a gameplay movie, screenshots, and additional game information check out the City of Heroes Web site at www.CityofHeroes.com.

About Cryptic Studios

The Cryptic Studios staff combines proven talents from the computer and book publishing industries into a single team devoted to creating innovative, top notch games. Based in San Jose, California and fully funded by private investment, Cryptic Studios currently focuses all of its prodigious resources on the company's first product: City of Heroes. For more information about the team and its projects, check out www.crypticstudios.com.


Contacts: Jack Emmert, press@crypticstudios.com

Anyone still doing Hami Raids on either blue or red side?

I'd love to play it one last time before the end.

I'm sure many have their own To-Do list to finish before the end. Here's mine. I wonder if anyone would like to join me when I do these:

- First Ward Hamidon Seed zone event (trying to schedule now, see other thread)
- Cathedral of Pain (same)
- Finish Dark Astoria arcs
- Finish First Ward arcs
- start and finish Night ward arcs
- do the Calvin Scott TF from flashback
- maybe help coordinate one final Hami raid for old time's sake (not sure if this will happen)

After this, along with getting my girlfriend's 3rd level 50, I'll probably spend my last weeks on the Beta server running those new story arcs that never made it to live. I'll probably be leveling up a Beam Rifle/Martial Combat blaster along the way as well.

Copied from the facebook page:

I'd like to schedule a double event one night soon and wondered when would be the best time to get more people involved: 1) First Ward zone event (hamidon seed), followed by Cathedral of Pain (need at least 3 to be team leads in the same SG to access. So, if you are interested in doing these two events one night, which would be best? I'd set it up for start at 9:00PM EST so the west coasters have a chance to join.

Since I'm out of town this weekend, I've asked about the following days:

- Wednesday, Oct 31 (Halloween)
- Thursday, Nov 1
- Some day next week

Anyone interested?

Well, it turned out well for the Magi trial. Cutlass was running the League and we did a few IDF farming runs to open up the Hybrid slot for those that didn't have it. We started with 12 but had 16 when we did the full run. It went surprisingly fast.

About halfway through I was feeling a bit of Deja Vu, and by the end, I realized that I had, in fact, run this trial before but didn't know what it was at the time. That must have been back in the spring when we were running nightly iTrial runs. Boy I miss those days. Anyway, I already had the Hard Way badge from the previous time, but it was still fun to run it again, especially since I was demorecording everything now.

The MoM run afterwards failed at the very last part, but it was still fun to run too.

So, I'm thinking that there is still hope for this server in terms of getting group events together.

In the next few weeks, I hope to organize a few more things before the end.

Thanks all!

Okay, I've posted this to the Champion server Facebook page.

A few have already indicated that they will join. I tried this a few weeks ago, but it collided with the Tanker Tuesday event at that time.

So, tonight, I'm hoping to form up a team of VIPs that can run this one with me. I've never played it so I'm hoping to have some veterans join that can help.

We will meet in Dark Astoria at 9PM EST (6PM PST), so that the west coasters have a chance to join as well.

See you then!

Okay, I ran the Cathedral of Pain back in 2006 when it went live for about a week. From what I recall, you had to access it via a computer in an SG base.

Now that it is active again, does this mean you have to be in that SG or in an aligned SG? I'd love to run it again before it is over.

Thanks!

I would like to try to run the Magisterium trial next week (22nd to 26th, Monday to Friday) at least one of those nights, after 9PM EST, that way, west coasters could join us if they can get home from work in time (6pm their time).

I'm pretty much open every night, with the possible exception of Wednesday.

So, if anyone is still reading this board, which night would you be available to run this?

Every time I log in during the week, I find no one on who is doing any of these. I'll check again this week. I'd love to run one again.

I actually started playing this game in December of 2004, after I was told by a stranger at Gamestop (EB Games actually, I think) that he'd played the beta and it was fun. During that first month, I remember being online when someone on the team started breaking the news of the tsunami that devastated southeast asia just after Christmas.

I remember shelving the game for over a year because I didn't have time for an ultra-addictive video game.

I remember coming back in February of 2006 for the Valentine's day event, playing with villains.

I remember being invited to my first SG a month later.

I remember the multitude of super-teams running on Freedom, Virtue, Justice, etc, getting to level 50 in just a few weeks.

I remember my first Hami-Raid at level 45 and the week of play it took to recover all that XP debt.

I remember meeting my girlfriend on that game. She turned her life upside down and moved halfway across the country to be with me, and it wouldn't have happened if we both hadn't being playing City of Heroes.

I remember trying the server transfer, having duplicate characters on two servers because of it, mentioning it in the forums and getting awarded the Bug Hunter badge for my efforts.

I remember being a badge hunter, running everything I could to get that next badge, sitting in Arena heal teams for months to get all the healing badges on my blaster.

I remember popping in from time to time after life got busy, wondering how much more awesome the game got as time went by.

I remember trying game after game after game and never finding anything as socially satisfying as City of Heroes.

I remember reading the press release about the imminent closure of the game, feeling the rush of hope as the campaign to save it started, only to fall on the deaf ears of NCSoft.

I remember the last few weeks, trying to find teams to run the trials I haven't run yet, and only barely finding enough to fill a single team. It makes me wonder how many will be on for the upcoming events and the final night.

I remember reading about others migrating to new games. I thought that would be after this was shut down, but apparently, it's happening now.

In the future, I'm sure I'll remember back on the funnest game of my life, and wonder if there will ever be anything like it again.

Well, I finally got it to work today but most of the time, when I attempt to log into the forums, I get the "invalid redirect URL".

Anyone else having this issue? Today is the first day in several that I got it to actually log me in.

I've jumped in, several times, looking for teams to run the Shardtober TFs (or anything at all at this point), and get almost no response.

I'm hoping more will show up, else I'm going to have to move my guys to another server to find teams.

I tried setting this up on Tanker Tuesday last week and we didn't have enough to start it. Who's interested in this Thursday?