Tahquitz

Even with the missed FPARN, still best reveal yet on the boards.

This is the story of one City of Heroes player. Don't expect this to be short; this player has been part of the community since 2004, and for many years, my life was City of Heroes.

I started playing City of Heroes in June of 2004. I heard about the game from my friend and (at the time) housemate. Having grown tired of DAoC and the grind entitled the Trials of Atlantis, I was very happy with what I found in Paragon City.

It started with the character creator, and although I couldn't fully take my old RP character and fully translate him onto the screen, I came up with a better facsimile than I could have in any other MMO at the time. Then I got to the instanced missions, a big relief from the spawn camping found in many other MMOs at the time. From beating up jerks, to the Enhancement System, and to the first time I got to Hover (holy hell, I wasn't stuck to the pavement anymore), the game sold me. Within 30 days I subscribed to CoH and sold my DAoC character (which ended up funding my CoH subscription for almost a year).

And that's pretty much how it was for years afterwards. When I wasn't working or going out with my girlfriend (who also turned into a CoH player), I was fighting crime online. We were Triumphants; other servers didn't appeal to us, especially higher-population servers. We made friends on Triumph, and we built our supergroup on Triumph. And even though some friends and/or SG mates left out of boredom or frustration, we still had a tight group of players. You know, everybody knew your name and greeted you on the SG channel (and later the global chat) when you logged in.

It was May of 2006 that my (now) wife and I went to my first game Meet & Greet ever, at Howie's Game Shack in southern Orange County, CA. NCSoft had an event there alongside E3 that year. I met three great people there: DJ Jester from Woot Radio, Matt Miller (Positron), And April Burba (CuppJo, the first CoH Community Rep). Matt took a lot of interest in what we were doing in game, what badges we had, etc. We had a blast and got some swag, and we knew we had to run into these folks again sometime.

The opportunity came up again in 2007 for the Bay Area Meet & Greet. Tahquitz should remember this trip pretty well. Getting to it almost ended in disaster after the first rain of the season for SoCal ground traffic to a halt, and my car got a severe flat, both of which cost us tons of time. But we got there just in time. We got to meet such awesome people as Sexy Jay (of whom I have nothing but the nicest things to say; a true gentleman) and Ex Libris (a great gal who ended up drinking us under the table).

CoH also introduced us to the convention scene: during the 2008 San Diego Comic Con, NCSoft had another Meet & Greet that Friday. My wife and I had never been to a Comic Con, so we got a day pass for Thursday (Friday was already sold out, in the days where all the passes did not sell within 24 hours). We went to the Con on Thursday and had a blast, and camped out at our friends' house on Friday before taking the red line downtown for the M&G. And you should have seen what happened when a bunch of superhero-themed geeks get some drinks in them. I think there's a video online somewhere, to my wife's discredit. But from then on, SDCC was in our veins too, along with CoH.

Also in 2008 was the first HeroCon. Of course we went with some friends, and joined the Live Mission with some people I knew from the forums (like Nuclear Toast) and some new faces. Together, we tackled all of the missions, with help from souses and the Internet, to the artistic creativity of my wife and others in the group on our costumed doll. and in the end, our team, Lucky 13, took first prize.

In the following years we went to all the proceeding Comic Cons (and the NCSoft M&G parties, except for the 2nd HeroCon), but my fervor in CoH was finally starting to wane. I was losing interest in the game after having played it for so many years, and I realized one day that things were passing me by. Suddenly, I had to worry about losing my GI Bill benefits (I left the military in 2001); I had to get into college while I still had something to use. My wife and I wanted to start a family. Things were going to change, and I'd have far less time to play video games, online or otherwise.

In part, I guess I am partially to blame for the game's downturn. As much as I was hoping that Going Rogue would change things (and some of my online peeps twisted my arm to get me to resub during its launch and the F2P transition), I could never really rekindle that spark I used to have with the game. Perhaps that's best for another post altogether. But beyond my issues with the game, I realized that I was spending too much time with the game, and not enough time with life.

But I can say, with certainty, that COH has forever changed my life. I met a lot of cool people online and in Real LIfe between the game and the M&Gs and cons; I still keep tabs on the really close ones via social networks. Without CoH, I wouldn't be the person I am now, with a love/hate relationship with SDCC, with an interest in cons in general, a more knowledgeable gamer, and (thanks to these forums), a more critical thinker and better debater (just not a master debater, pervs!). And although life changes, friends change, and people change, I don't have many regrets for doing all of this, beyond not getting back into college a few years sooner.

I have no illusions about the game being saved. I am happy knowing it had a good run, longer than some of the other MMOs out their that suffered crib deaths before even their first anniversaries. But there comes a time where one has to move on. I think that the probable end of CoH, to me, is just an extension of that.

I wanted to thank you all, my fellow Triumphants, my fellow SG mates and coalition mates, and friends. I want to also thank Tahquitz; he was with us for part of this long, crazy ride, and he's posting this on my behalf, since it's no longer possible for me to get VIP access to post it here myself. PM boxes for all forum accounts should be open, so if you want to stay in touch, drop me a line there, and I can give you contact info if need be.

Thank you all; for the most part, it's been an honor and a pleasure. I'll see you out there, on the web or maybe even in RL.

Kindest Regards,
Erik

Zwillinger said he'll see what he can do on that. Whether a dev can write a script to open it, or Zwil himself can do it (just like in live events, if the Community Team can trigger it on demand, he can make it happen) remains to be seen.

At the least, the end-of-life day should be interesting, after seeing the Capt. Mako event and what a Community rep can do in-game.

I can attest to this: my expiration date was August 31. Now that's IBTL.

Pure stupid luck. I could easily be frozen as a Premium player right now. (Which was my original intent, since I'm back in college this week.)

Exactly. Talk means nothing more than talk. But it reassures us to know the dev team isn't just stuffing boxes and walking away... we appreciate anything you do. Especially now.

But again, talk is just talk. Actions matter.

That this is a game for introverts? I'm beginning to think it is false too.

And I'm beginning to think either I'm on a lot of people's ignore lists, or I'm the worst forum participant in this whole community. (Keep repeating to yourself: Don't feed the troll, don't feed the troll.)

Your suspicions are mostly correct as well reading this conversation. I'm nothing spectacular in real life either. Every bit the loser anyone thinks I am.